March 25, 2008
A March to remember
(Photo by Jeff Watts)
(Photos above and below are courtesy of Larry French/Athletics Communication)
The greatest week in 82 years of American University men’s basketball had just ended with a loss, but as the players walked off the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex court, not a single one of their heads or shoulders slumped toward the floor. Instead, all eyes were focused up toward the stands, where AU fans, students, and generations of alumni—all of whom had waited for this game their entire lives—showered them with applause. As the players exited the national stage, their home-away-from-home for a magical seven days none will ever forget, they answered the cheering with an ovation of their own. It was a moment of true mutual appreciation—March Madness at its finest.
AU came up on the short end of a 72-57 decision March 21 in its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, falling to a bigger, faster, and more experienced Tennessee team no one expected it to beat. But for 35 minutes the 15th-seeded Eagles gave the mighty second-seeded Volunteers all they could handle and more, before fading down the stretch in what had to be the closest 15-point game in the history of the sport.
“We’re disappointed with the outcome but I certainly couldn’t be any more proud of the team,” Coach Jeff Jones said. “As they have all year long, they battled. It wasn’t pretty, but we scrapped and pushed Tennessee pretty hard there for the most part of the game. Tennessee proved why they’re such an outstanding team. Ultimately they wore us down. It was a great challenge for our team, I thought our guys stepped up to the challenge, but unfortunately we weren’t quite up to it.”
Seven days earlier
AU punched its ticket to national prominence seven days earlier in Bender Arena, where they defeated Colgate in the Patriot League Tournament final to earn an automatic berth to the Big Dance. The national media took notice and shined its bright light on the school. At a rally March 16 held at Mary Graydon Center during the NCAA Tournament selection show, reporters from CBS, the New York Times, and Washington Post mingled with the players, faculty, staff, fans, and students who showed up just to be a part of it all. AU, it seemed, was America’s team. Three whirlwind days later, when the team boarded the bus that started its journey to Birmingham, hundreds of cheering fans and a host of media showed up to see them off. A chartered jet delivered the team to Alabama, where two days of tournament excitement awaited.
At practices and a news conference the day before the game, AU made it clear that it wasn’t simply satisfied just to be invited dancing.
“This is a great opportunity to put American on the map,” junior guard Garrison Carr said. “People still ask, ‘American University, where is that?’ I have to tell them it’s in Washington, D.C. Hopefully tomorrow people all over the nation will watch us play and we can start to help build the program.”
After trotting through some drills at a practice open to the public at the BJCC, the Eagles ran for real during a closed session at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“I had to cut some of our segments short because the guys were getting after each other so much,” Jones said later that evening. “I didn’t want to wear them out.”
Both AU’s determination, and fatigue, as it turned out, would be a factor. From the outset, AU was the more aggressive and poised team. The Eagles handled the vaunted Tennessee press relatively smoothly in the first half, and trailed by just seven at the break.
Second half
On press row, writer Kyle Whelliston of Basketball Times (a publication, incidentally, that picked AU dead last in its preseason Patriot League preview) remarked that the first five minutes of the second half would be critically important for the Eagles. Once again, AU came out of the locker room the more confident and efficient team, and with 15 minutes remaining, had sliced the UT lead to three.
When Carr, who scored a game-high 26 points and held Tennessee star Chris Lofton to just five, nailed back-to-back threes from the same spot to tie the game with 11:22 to go, not a man, woman, or child wearing orange or red, white, and blue didn’t believe that AU had a legitimate shot to shock the world.
The game remained tight until just five minutes were left on the clock, when, as both coaches would opine in their separate postgame press conferences, Tennessee’s depth began to take hold.
“I think, maybe in the last ten minutes or so, American might have gotten a little tired,” said Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl, who was effusive in his praise of the Eagles. “We played a lot more guys than they did. Congratulations to American University, they represented themselves and the Patriot League extremely well. They made shots, particularly Carr, [who] was just spectacular. They played with great energy.”
As UT pulled away, Jones emptied his bench, which included junior forward Bryce Simon, a key contributor during the year who was injured during AU’s Patriot League semifinal win over Army. When the final buzzer sounded, the adoration began.
“I think it’s been a great time,” Jones said of the season, his eighth as head coach. “As I reflect back, it’s not just the last couple weeks. I think that’s when folks started noticing, and we started reaping some of the rewards from the fruits of the players’ labor. As I told them in the locker room after the game, I’m disappointed that we lost the game, but I’m more disappointed that the journey for this particular team is over. They’ve been a joy to coach, and to see them as well as the entire American University community get their moment in the sun has really been a great time and a special time.”
One more ovation was in store. When the team bus pulled up in front of Bender Arena Saturday around 2 p.m., a small but enthusiastic group of fans were there to meet it, and the disembarking players, with a final round of applause. An appropriate way to usher out the 2007–08 season, the pinnacle —thus far—of AU men’s basketball.
