EASTON, Mass. — After a heartbreaking 75-73 loss to Stonehill Friday night at Merkert Gym, Chicago State sits tied at the bottom of the Northeast Conference, 2-19 overall. But ask the Cougars about their chances for a first NCAA Tournament bid this season in more than four decades of being in Division I?
They are cautiously optimistic. And, with how things are in modern college basketball, they are not wrong.
“For us it’s growth, we had a couple guys out with the flu, I know they did, too,” first-year Chicago State coach Scott Spinelli said. “(Stonehill) beat us pretty good at our place (68-52 on January 12). I thought we showed a lot of character coming back, we were down, with our record it would be easy for them to roll over. But our team—that took some beatings in the non-conference—showed a lot of toughness and we were connected, which I love.”
Perhaps we should do an old-school record scratch and figure out how Chicago State, even though it is 500 miles west of any other NEC school (and it would be more if Mercyhurst weren’t added this year), ended up as a member.
Consider it an old-school shotgun wedding, as it were. The NEC has always been near the bottom of the Division I food chain, and normally has no problem with that, but when the top of the chain saw gobs of money in realigning conferences, the trickle came all the way down, with Bryant, Mount St. Mary’s, St. Francis Brooklyn (RIP), Sacred Heart, and Merrimack all leaving in the last three seasons.
That left only five NCAA Tournament-eligible teams remaining, so panic and survival instincts kicked in (you need six schools eligible to get an automatic bid), someone pointed out Chicago State had been recently dumped by the WAC and had been a Division I team since 1984, so would obviously fit the bill, geography be damned.
Ironically, it’s not the first time a mismatched conference involved Chicago State, consider the 1993-94 East Coast Conference that included Troy, Northeastern Illinois (RIP), Buffalo, Hofstra, and Central Connecticut. However, that league did not have the golden ticket that is the auto bid to the NCAA Tournament. This one does. And Chicago State wants it.
With Mercyhurst deemed ineligible for the conference tournament, Chicago State will have to win three games to get to the NCAA Tournament regardless. And it’s possible it could be less with Stonehill and Le Moyne still ineligible for the NCAAs. (However, eligible for the NEC Tournament for some reason, one scenario we can all root for is a Stonehill-Le Moyne final. In that case, the NEC will play another separate game involving the semifinal losers for the NCAA bid.)
Of course, it’s never a great sign of confidence in what you’re doing when your head coach resigns to become an assistant in the same conference, but that’s what Gerald Gillion did after last season.
Enter Spinelli, a life-long assistant, who comes straight out of central casting for a 1990s basketball movie coach with an Italian twist. Spinelli, who has been coaching since 1990 at too many places and leagues to name here, has been a finalist for Division I head coaching jobs a few times, most notably in 2010 at Wagner where the job went to some guy named Dan Hurley, who I’m sure didn’t amount to much.
But, like Crash Davis, Spinelli got his 30 days in the show in February of 2021, which you might remember as the COVID season. Jim Christian was fired at Boston College, and Spinelli—his longtime assistant—got to be interim coach for four glorious games, including a win over Notre Dame.
Entering his late 50s, most figured that was probably it, but when Gillion resigned, Spinelli was happy to jump at the chance that others passed on. As you might imagine, he inherited a gutted roster along with myriad other questions, but his first phone calls were to his sons, Gabe and Joe. Gabe played 30 games his freshman year at Evansville in 2022-23 before an injury-plagued sophomore year at Monmouth. Why not finish his career with his dad?
“It’s been fun. A lot of adjustments to being the coach’s son,” Gabe Spinelli said. “It’s very important to lead by example. It’s helped me mature, and I try to be the best teammate and leader I can be. We have a great group of guys and playing for my dad, that’s an awesome experience.”
Scott Spinelli grabbed Jalen Forrest when a move to Georgia Tech (he is James Forrest’s son) fell through, got Saxby Sunderland from Longwood, convinced Noble Crawford (currently injured) to stay after coming to LIU, and cobbled together a roster.
Making it a team has taken time and involved some significant growing pains. The Cougars lost all 15 non-conference games, severely outmatched in many (including Illinois hanging 117 on them), which obviously can be damaging to a collective psyche.
“Our whole team was gone, so we have a lot of new faces,” Scott Spinelli said. “We’ve been a work in progress. But we’re in a conference now, so there’s more of a culture and accountability. I think we’re playing our best basketball now, and there’s a lot to play for. I like the trajectory we’re on. We have to play a lot of guarantee games, but we embrace that and try to get better. There’s a belief here that we can get on a roll and do some things later.”
But pinelli certainly knows patience after 30 years as an assistant. And he also knows non-conference records in the NEC mean nothing. On January 3, the Cougars took the long trip to Staten Island and beat defending NEC champion Wagner, 64-52, and they were suddenly on top of the conference standings.
“It’s so much fun. All these years when you just wanted a chance. You work all these years helping other guys win," Scott Spinelli said. "I was close on certain (head coaching) jobs. At the end of the day, I’m just grateful for the opportunity that was given for me and my family. I just want to make the most of it and see where it takes us. It’s super exciting.”
It’s been a little rocky since then, but they showed their potential Friday night even though they lost at the buzzer, particularly Gabe Spinelli, who shook off foul trouble to score a career-high 25 in just 27 minutes, 20 of them coming in the second half. When the Cougars needed a basket down the stretch, Spinelli went to work, tying the game at 73-73 with a tough leaner with five seconds left before Stonehill’s Josh Morgan won it at the buzzer.
The travel is somewhat taxing for a mid-major, but after this weekend (Chicago State is at Central Connecticut Sunday), there is only one more long trip, and the advantage should work the other way for the Cougars inviting east coast teams to their time zone. Plus, the Spinelli sons grew up in suburban Boston and played almost all of their high school and AAU ball in the area.
It’s been a long, strange trip for Chicago State in general. A decade ago, it looked like the school itself might close for good, let alone the basketball program. Now in its 41st season of Division I, the Cougars are a pretty dreadful 306-871 overall, with just one winning record since 1986 (2008-09 as an Independent).
They are 2-19 this season, No. 360 (of 364) in KenPom, so under normal circumstances, reasons for optimism might be limited.
But they are alive. Through the ECC, Mid-Continent, Great West, WAC, the Independent days, and now the NEC, and through budget cuts that threatened the school’s very existence, the Cougars - like their new coach - have found a way to hang around and survive.
Sometimes if you stay long enough, your time may eventually come, no matter the odds and reality seemingly being stacked against you.
“We definitely see the noise, people saying this and that,” Gabe Spinelli said. “Obviously we were 0-15 coming into conference. It was humbling, but we know what we have in our team, and we know our record wasn’t necessarily a reflection of how good we can be, especially in conference and beyond.”
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