Two weeks ago, I recapped a 17th season — 15th for this particular outlet — in the college basketball media that was one part love of the game, one part somewhat defiant last stand in that I covered 110 games in what will likely be the last grueling travel I put myself through over a five-month period, and one part sweet vindication after getting to cover the Final Four and national championship for the first time.
But immediately after I wrapped up the introspective and detailed look back at 2023-24, writing a record 12,647 words while doing so, I noticed there were some things that were left on the cutting room floor, some pieces within my travels that I wanted to profile a little deeper. Two more happenings also occurred after that behemoth went to press, so I wanted to take the time to address both here. This won’t be anywhere near as comprehensive or all-encompassing as what I presented to you on April 17, but still remains something that needed to be said, a story that needed to be told and shared.
Why wait two weeks, you might say? Well, for starters, I usually go off the grid for prolonged periods immediately after the offseason and whatever flurry of activity ensues after One Shining Moment. Whether it’s the portal, coaching changes, or other miscellany, I don’t normally get to enjoy myself again until late April or early May. This year, I wanted to take a break after filing my annual retrospective and start enjoying my life again, a little at a time. I don’t have many regrets over the duration of my existence — I wish I didn’t have any, but I’m not perfect — and I’d like to keep it that way, but one thing I’ve learned from doing this as long as I have as hard as I have is that you need to take some time for yourself. I mentioned burnout two weeks ago, and there was once a time when that — coupled with depression and toxic work environments in the day job — sent me into a dark place. I’m far removed from that now and my mental health is much stronger than it was a few years ago, but I always try to activate the safeguards I set up in my lower points to make sure shit like that (and I’m leaving the expletive unedited, because I want to be real with everyone) never happens again. So here is my addendum to what I left out of the look back, albeit on May 1.
Consider this an epilogue to the epilogue, if you will.
I’ll start the postscript in January, with UConn’s visit to UBS Arena to take on St. John’s in what traditionally is the largest crowd of the year for the Johnnies on the women’s side, usually due to the thousand or so Husky fans who find a way to conquer the Merritt and the Thruway to get down here. Geno Auriemma’s ladies dominated, as they usually do most afternoons and nights, but what I forgot to mention in my January blurb was that it was the first time I got to cover the legend more commonly known as Paige Bueckers.
Paige Bueckers, woman of the people. (Photo by Jaden Daly/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
For whatever reason, be it injuries or the COVID year that relegated me to the home office all season, I had never had the chance to cover Paige in her UConn career until this past January. And after not having the chance to see Diana Taurasi or Breanna Stewart in person, plus only getting one firsthand look at Maya Moore, I made it my business to cover the next Husky legend. And in a season where I had two chances to see Caitlin Clark and didn’t take advantage of either one (I didn’t realize Iowa was at Rutgers until it was too late, and she ended up recording a triple-double; while the NCAA Tournament game against LSU would have been impossible to fit into my schedule between work, sleeping and packing for the Final Four), getting to see Bueckers live and in living color was certainly a highlight. Her 22 points may have been standard practice in a 43-point victory, but what really struck me was her willingness to acknowledge the crowd after the game, posing for selfies, signing autographs, and using her platform to further expand a game that needs more love than it already gets.
I also outlined Marquette’s return to the Big East tournament championship game against eventual national champion UConn, but what I didn’t mention was the pavement on the road it took to get there. VCU’s introduction to the Atlantic 10 afforded me the chance many years ago to see how Shaka Smart built his program, a formula with which I’m still enamored today. And whenever Marquette is in the area, I always find the Golden Eagles’ arrival to be a story that needs capturing. I spoke briefly last year about how Marquette Twitter somehow embraced me and my work, and I try to return the favor with some kind of MU-related content whenever they get Seton Hall or St. John’s, or in this case, a championship matchup with UConn. This advance from the middle of the night before the title game, on how Smart’s culture-centric build has brought Marquette to previously unreached heights with a second straight tournament championship appearance, was the latest attempt that I forgot to link.
When I went to press on April 17, Mount St. Mary’s was still in need of a head coach after Dan Engelstad had left The Mount for a well-deserved raise and high-major gig as an assistant at Syracuse. Therefore, I needed to eventually get to his successor in a future byline on this outlet whenever one was named. Engelstad’s replacement turned out to be someone with whom the site is very familiar, and someone long overdue for the blessing of running his own shop, so to speak.
It’s almost serendipitous that I get to this section after referencing VCU and Shaka’s culture, because Donny Lind — who was hired to replace Engelstad at Mount St. Mary’s — is a living embodiment of that. Donny also spent time in Emmitsburg with Jamion Christian, who brought him from Richmond when he got the job in 2012, so he definitely knows the lay of his new land. Moreover, his ability to get the best out of everyone he comes into contact with and get them to believe in themselves is second to none. It’s a quality that will thrive in a league like the MAAC, which has always been friendly to young coaches looking to make a name for themselves, and when I spoke to Donny shortly after his introductory press conference, he praised Smart for his knack of building relationships and how it helped rear him as a coach in his own right. Once he gets more acclimated and intimately acquainted with what he takes over, I’ll have a much more detailed look at the future on The Mount. I just had to mention him properly with the space he deserves. Mike Jones’ loss is certainly the MAAC’s gain.
The same weekend Donny Lind was hired, as we celebrated the good fortune of someone who we’ve considered our own for quite some time, we also had to bid farewell to one of our own.
Almost everyone in the business knew Howie Schwab in some capacity. If you were blessed to have worked alongside him at ESPN, you definitely knew him and loved him. If you, like me and many other children of our generation, watched him on Stump the Schwab in the mid-2000s, you learned a lot from his encyclopedic memory of all things sports. If you were like me, you probably could have taken him if given the opportunity, too. And if you were involved with St. John’s in any way, you certainly saw him at a game or on campus when he still lived on Long Island, before he eventually moved to Florida to live out what would be the final years of his life.
Howie passed away on April 20, and a part of our youth succumbed along with him. For me, personally, he represented more than most people realize. Howie Schwab, once upon a time way back when, was my first live on-air interview back in 2008, when he emceed St. John’s annual basketball tipoff event the year I was crazy enough to co-host a remote broadcast of it on WSJU. His liner that he closed that interview with that day can probably still be heard on my former station if the file is still on the computer in the studio. But where I really got to know and love Howie and his gregarious nature was through the Red Storm’s oft-overlooked, but uber-successful women’s basketball program.
He would come to every game when Kim Barnes Arico, and later, Joe Tartamella, patrolled the sidelines. And being in the early years of my own career, still doing women’s basketball play-by-play, I saw him all the time and really got to appreciate just how awesome a dude he truly was. It sucks that he’s not with us anymore, but it gives me great closure and makes me smile to realize that he and the late great Marcus Henry, who covered those St. John’s women’s teams for Newsday, are reunited and having an endless conversation about not just the ladies on the court, but sports and life. Rest in power, good sir.
Finally, Seton Hall won the NIT, and even though I wrote an impromptu column from my hotel in Arizona the night the Pirates scored the last nine points against Indiana State, I still feel like that story remained incomplete in a sense. The difference now with the time that has elapsed since is that the NIT run now becomes an epitaph for a team whose starting five has now entirely departed. Al-Amir Dawes and Jaden Bediako, two fifth-year seniors who were the heart and soul of what Shaheen Holloway ran on the floor and preached in practice, graduate later this month. Kadary Richmond, Dre Davis and Dylan Addae-Wusu have all entered the transfer portal, as have Elijah Hutchins-Everett, Jaquan Sanders, Malachi Brown, Arda Ozdogan and Sada Nganga.
While college basketball’s new landscape has made continuity almost improbable, a lesson was still learned with how Sha steered Seton Hall ahead of expectations into a team that should have made the NCAA Tournament and then made the best of its hand when it did not. Holloway’s message of playing to a new audience seemed to resonate with a group of veterans who did not want the ball taken out of their hands without having something to say about it first. It was almost as if Seton Hall was reinvigorated by the perceived snub, playing some of its best basketball in a tournament that mattered to the players on the floor even if the NIT isn’t as valued by the casual fan. Some of the high-majors that passed on the nation’s oldest postseason tournament (looking at you, Oklahoma and Pittsburgh) can learn that the ending you want can still be written on an alternate stage.
In a way, that’s also kind of how my own career has gone. I’ve been fortunate to finish on my own terms every season even if the end goal hadn’t been reached until last month. Maybe that’s why I took more of an interest in covering Seton Hall through that run, and followed as closely as possible from a distance. Sometimes we gain a greater appreciation of what we see when we’re the ones going through, or having gone through, something similar. I hope you can find the time to do that in life, and appreciate the blessings you all have in front of you before someone tries to rip them away from you. Life is a gift, and it’s meant to be enjoyed before it gets wasted.
Until next season, my friends.
Jaden Daly
Founder and Managing Editor
