Division 3 basketball – Through the Curtain

THP #36: A Little Slice Of Home

November 18, 2022 – Worcester, Massachusetts
WPI vs Tufts
Women’s Basketball

My daughter is coming soon. I need an adult.

But I am the adult. It’s so weird to think that I will soon be the one looked at for advice and guidance and to provide a steady hand in tough times. I’m confident I can handle the challenges as they come. It still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t feel like the adult in the room, and my wife feels the same way.

I still feel like a kid. Every time I get off a work call I do something silly to wash my mouth out of having to be professional. All-hands Zoom meeting at work? No thanks. Babbling at and scratching the dog? Yes, please.

The thing is that I don’t need to sell myself out as a father. I’m still gonna be that guy and I’m going to keep loving being that guy. Will things change as a parent? Yes. Will I change myself fundamentally? No.

Something that’s frustrated me as my wife’s pregnancy has progressed is all the bad attempts at humor/life advice I’ve gotten from older family.

“Oh you think you’re tired now….”

“Just you wait. Once she’s born your life is never your own again.”

“Everything’s going to change and it won’t be like it is now.”

Of course it won’t stay exactly the same. My life is going to be better. I get to live the charmed life I’ve been lucky enough to have so far AND have a kickass daughter to bring into the world too.

All of that shitty advice is all cloaked in this sense of negativity and that hurts to hear. I’m still gonna be here blogging. I’m still going to play Wordle at night with my wife. We’re still going to go apple picking in the fall.

Now I can bring Claire to games with me and show her the New England that I love. And now we can help grow her vocabulary with Wordle. And my wife is going to love helping Claire pick her first apples.

My life is still wholly mine and it will become much richer once my daughter is born. I don’t think parenting is going to be that hard. Try. Show up. Be present. Listen. Don’t lie to your kid. Do those five things and everything else falls into place.

Damn, maybe I am ready to be the adult in the room.

Even with a daughter on the way, there’s always time for a moment with Bella.

The Good Eats

Worcester is an excellent food town. There are so many great places to get a bite and few are better than the Miss Worcester Diner. Located at the intersection of Quinsigamond Ave and Southbridge Street, the diner is an icon of the city and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

The diner shares a lot with an old brick textile mill that opened in the 1870s. Today, the walls of the mill are covered in extensive, beautiful graffiti art.

The vibe of the diner starts with the front door which, like the rest of the place, is covered in stickers.

The stickers are from everything like bands and sports teams and colleges to random brands and trade unions and tourist stickers people have picked up on their travels. Every inch of the interior is covered in stickers including the ceiling.

It’s a tight, cozy place with the grill out in the open for everyone to see. I love places like that.

The wife and I scooted into a booth for breakfast and I went with something completely different: the Polynesian. My wife got an egg combo with french toast because she’s a high-class woman.

The Polynesian was eggs, toast, home fries, but instead of bacon or sausage it was Spam, which I had never had before. Oh, and I added a chocolate chip pancake like I always do, which was big and fluffy and amazing.

But the Polynesian, that was the real stuff.

Spam gets a bad rap. It’s great. It’s a spiced, emulsified ham that has a silky mouth feel and picks up a nice crunch when you sear it on a pan. It perfectly filled in the gaps of my eggs and home fries. The crunchy toast was the cherry on top. If you’re in Worcester, come here.

There’s a reason this is a staple of the city. The food is great and the vibe is even better. Don’t skip Miss Worcester when you come to Central Massachusetts.

…

Another food icon of Worcester is George’s Coney Island.

This hot dog joint is absolutely beloved around town. When we moved to Worcester multiple people kept telling me that we had to go here. As lovers of hot dogs, the missus and I finally made it.

Hot dogs have been served here since 1929 and inside the history oozes out of the walls.

You can see the line of the left of the photo; it’s always busy here.

One of the signatures of Coney Island is the endless amount of scratch graffiti chiseled into the walls and booths of the restuaurant.

They even sell merch at the counter including postcards and even a book documenting its history.

The main event of course was the hot dogs. I got all of their special dogs: the MRO (mustard, relish, onion), The Works (chili sauce, mustard, onion), and The Garden (MRO toppings plus ketchup).

One ding off the top was the inability order fries, only chips. I love fries with my dogs, but they had Wachusett chips which are local and high quality.

Here’s the thing though: the dogs themselves?

They were flabby steamed dogs that didn’t taste of much. The chili sauce was fine but nothing special. It just made me want to take the drive south to Providence and get some New York System. All the hype I got on this place and for me it was just a really nice neon sign lighting the way to a forgettable meal.

The Game

Worcester Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1865 by tinware manufacturer John Boynton and Ichabod Washburn, owner of the world’s biggest wire mill. Today, The Boynton is a popular watering hole for students just down the road from campus. Washburn also is the namesake of Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Their teams are called the Ichabods.

Today, WPI has an undergraduate enrollment just over 4,000 and is one of the country’s preeminent scientific research institutions. U.S. News and World Report ranks it 66th academically in the country.

Athletically, the Engineers play in the plainly, yet charmingly, named New England Women’s And Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC), and basketball is the school’s marquee sport.

Despite being nicknamed the Engineers, the school’s mascot, as seen in the photo atop the piece, is Gompei the Goat. In 1891 the sophomore class stole a goat to use as a mascot. Gompei Kuwada tended to the goat because he was the only student with G.K. initials (same as goat keeper). The modern mascot was named in his honor.

And the home of WPI basketball is Harrington Auditorium.

It’s a beautiful old barn in the heart of campus. Inside it eschews the bells and whistles for a straight-up experience.

The entryway has a nice trophy case and that’s it. No table for snacks. No table to take tickets. Admission is free at WPI.

And the gym is spectacular. If walls could talk the stories they would tell of all the hardwood classics played in the Auditorium since it opened in 1968.

To get the bathroom and I vending machine I had to go underneath the stands and down a hallway through a door. It opened up into an area that overlooked the swimming pool and had a sign pointing you to a place that could only really happen at a place like WPI.

The Game

It was actually a doubleheader on this Friday night. The men opened against Maine-Farmington. The WPI men might be New England’s best chance of winning a national title this year. Preseason #8 in the country, the Engineers never trailed against the Beavers.

Sophomore forward John Adams was the national newcomer of the year last season and a preseason second-team All-American this year. It’s easy to see why.

What’s better than having an All-American on your team? Having two. John Lowther was preseason fourth-team and is just as in control on the inside.

This play by Adams and WPI was just really cool. The men beat Farmington, which had preseason third-team Terion Moss, 67-46.

The women closed the show against #11 ranked Tufts, and the Jumbos came to town anchored by junior preseason second-team All-American Maggie Russell.

But the Engineers went 19-5 last year and were ready for the Jumbos. And early on, it was a tit-for-tat kind of game.

Tufts got the better of it early and took a three-point lead after the first quarter.

But WPI was ready and battled back in the second quarter. The Engineers kept finding answers for the Jumbos.

Melanie Presseau’s bucket in the final minute gave the Engineers a five-point lead at intermission.

The third quarter started and the upset was clearly in the cards. The Engineers forced the issue and played their game at their pace and there was nothing Tufts could do.

This triple from Alice Kelly put the hosts up 11 points.

And the party kept going with Kelly at the center of it. She and the Engineers could do no wrong as the lead ballooned to 16 midway through the third.

And then the national title contenders showed up. Tufts chipped away at the deficit. Sixteen became a dozen because nine became five.

The Jumbos held WPI to just two points the final 5:46 of the third quarter and held the Engineers without a field goal for a stretch of 8:01.

Sarah Crossett cut the gap down to two early in the fourth.

But I did mention Maggie Russell, and she saved the best for last.

That jumper tied the game at 44.

She was immense for the Jumbos in the fourth quarter. She had a dozen points in the final eight minutes of the game and carried Tufts every step of the way. She wanted the ball, and she made moments every time she got it.

Her points kept the Jumbos apace with the Engineers and helped Tufts pull ahead in the final minute. But WPI still had a chance.

And look who got the key rebound. Russell would hit both of her free throws to open a three-point gap for Tufts. All the Jumbos had to do was defend for six seconds to pick up a signature road win.

Tufts 60, WPI 57. Final
Player Of The Game: Maggie Russell (Tufts) – 25 points, 8 rebounds
Time of Game – 1:34:59

The basketball was excellent at Harrington. However, the beating heart, the soul, of WPI basketball is the pep band.

I’ve seen a ton of pep bands over the years. Most are fine. Few are exceptional. The WPI band is either the best or second-best pep band I’ve seen in New England. The only other one that would even be in the conversation would be at Northeastern.

They provide fun color throughout the game and bring the energy and support for the home team, but when the horns go up their star shines the brightest.

A good hockey or basketball game is made infinitely better by a good band, and pep bands are basically non-existent at the D3 level. So to have one of the best here in Worcester is a real treat.

…

Thanks for reading. I know the pep band brought it in a big way, but I’ll still send you out with one for the road.

THP #31: As Good As It Gets

February 26,2022 – Dartmouth, Massachusetts
UMass-Dartmouth vs Keene State
Little East Conference Championship Game
Men’s Basketball

There’s a chasm separating a good game from a great game.

A good game can happen any day of the week. It can be the season opener. It can be a random non-conference game in the middle of December. It can be a late January matinee. A good game is competitive and entertaining to watch.

A great game is different. Great games don’t happen every day. Great games need something special: stakes or a story.

Stakes instantly imbue a game with an added intensity and energy that a regular January matchup simply doesn’t have. Stakes come this time of the year thanks to conference tournaments and the Big Dance.

A game with story is harder to pin down. It can be a perfect set of circumstances coming together, like Chris Beard’s first game back in Lubbock after taking the Texas job. It can be an annual attraction like Duke-Carolina or the rock fight that is the Big East with long history and many famous characters playing big roles along the way.

And then you get a game like my friend Alex and I were at last Saturday. A game with stakes and story played at the highest level in front of a massive crowd that built to a crescendo so phenomenal that the final flourish truly was the beautiful embodiment of March and the chaos this game brings.

But first, I have a whale to show you.

The City

Dartmouth is a suburb in every sense. With a town motto that translates from Latin to “Useful and Agreeable”, and a population just under 34,000, Dartmouth sits along the South Coast and Buzzards Bay.

The third-largest town in Massachusetts by area, Dartmouth has a long agricultural history and a long history with the sea.

However, bordering Dartmouth to the east is the city of New Bedford. America’s most lucrative fishing port for decades, New Bedford is one of the most underrated cities in New England.

With a population of 102,000, it’s the largest city on the South Coast. Long a hub for fishing and whaling, New Bedford showcases its long history with the sea. The New Bedford Whaling Museum sits right on the waterfront and features galleries of art and exhibits about the history of whaling and its connection to New Bedford.

There’s also a huge whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling right when you walk in.

A few years ago I was invited to a wedding at the museum. The ceremony was held in the amphitheater (more weddings need stadium seating) and cocktail hour happened in a room with The Lagoda, a half-sized model of a whaling ship which is also the world’s largest. It was a fun time.

The Folk Festival in the summer is a favorite of my wife and I. The whole downtown area shuts down and becomes pedestrian-only with live music, food trucks, and vendors hawking their wares. It really is one of a kind.

I can’t wait to get back their with the wife and the dog. Speaking of that, here’s a moment with Bella.

The Good Eats

New Bedford, and the South Coast in general, is home to the largest Luso-American (or people of Portuguese descent) population in the country. Nearby Fall River has the most Luso-Americans in the country and New Bedford is second. New York City is third with less than half the number of Portuguese as New Bedford.

With that comes culture and food. The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament every summer is the largest Portuguese cultural festival in the world. And for me, on this day, it meant my first encounter with linguica.

Located on Purchase Street, the Whaling City Diner is a quintessential American diner. Serving breakfast and lunch, it had everything you’d want to fill your stomach the day after a big snowstorm.

I went with the eggs, home fries, and linguica with a pancake. Linguica is a Portuguese sausage. Smoke cured, it’s traditionally seasoned with garlic and paprika. And it was damn good.

Rather than the herbacious, almost floral, notes of a traditional breakfast sausage, the smokiness came through along with the deeper flavor of paprika. Honestly, I’d rather every diner switch to linguica for their sausage option. 10/10, will come back.

The Campus

UMass-Dartmouth has a long, winding history. The university was created on the back of combining the Bradford Durfee College of Technology and the New Bedford Institute of Textiles and Technology in 1964.

In 1969 the school became known as Southeastern Massachusetts University before getting its current name in 1991 when it was incorporated into the UMass system.

The history of the school can be seen inside the athletic center where every school seal is on display.

The campus is laid out perfectly. A ring road encircles the majority of the campus and makes getting around incredibly easy. However, in terms of looks, the campus looked barren and desolate.

This was due in no small part to the majority of buildings being concrete brutalist structures built more than half a century ago.

Combined with a fresh snow, the concrete gave an eerie feel to the campus. No one was out and walking around. All the architecture felt harsh. It was an incredibly strange vibe.

It was made even stranger when we got to the library and saw this outdoor amphitheater which looked like it could have been a set from Hunger Games.

The Game

After a long walk through campus, we found our way to the home of Corsairs athletics, the Tripp Athletic Center. A corsair is a synonym for a pirate or a privateer.

The Tripp sits in a complex with the other UMD athletic fields. Upon entering there’s a small lobby with a large hall of fame/trophy case.

The gym was quite large by Division III standards. A crowd of 3,217 would be in attendance for the game. Banners to past success and a wonderful old scoreboard highlighted the far wall as two large sets of wooden bleachers filled the room.

The conference title and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament were up for grabs, but it was more than that for Keene State. If the Owls lost their season was over. For UMass-Dartmouth, a 24-3 season meant that by all accounts a loss here would still have them in a strong position for an at-large bid.

And early on it was a back and forth affair with neither team getting more than a handful of points ahead.

Let’s meet the first of our protagonists: James Anozie. The 6’6 senior form Poughkeepsie, NY was the engine on the inside for the Owls. Against a fast, dynamic Corsairs team, he would be needed to play large on the inside on both ends of the court. And excellent he was throughout his 26 minutes of play.

As the first half progressed it was clear that neither team was going to dominate. The lead flipped six times in the opening 20 minutes, and neither team led by more than six points.

Every rebound. Every loose ball. It was a battle on both ends. A byproduct of being not just the conference final, but also the third meeting between the teams this season. Both were won by the Corsairs.

Marcus Azor. I don’t gamble much, but I’d wager that the senior from Brockton will make it onto one of the national All-America lists this year. He’s been spectacular all season and would be today.

His stat line for the game would read like a cheat code (16 pts, 10 rbd, 10 ast, 5 stl, 2 blk).

The Owls would go into halftime leading 37-31. It was a fine first half, but after the intermission the energy in the building found a different level. The game rose to a different level to meet it.

Keene opened the lead up to 12 points early in the second half before the Corsairs answered. That three by Sean Leahy cut the gap to seven with 16 minutes to play.

Then Jake Ashworth stepped out from the wing.

Owls by five.

Two minutes later Azor pulled up from the elbow. Owls by three.

And so it went with the Corsairs hitting big shots and the Owls just finding ways to stay ahead. Having James Anozie certainly helped.

Anozie was paired on the inside with Jeff Hunter. Both would finish with double-doubles and 19 points each. The Owls would need every one thanks in no small part to Adam Seablom.

The senior from Lakeville, Mass recorded his 1000th career point earlier in the season and played with a chip on his shoulder all game. This backside finish to end a crazy play tied the game at 54 with six minutes to go.

Seablom would have 15 of his game-high 24 points after halftime.

And so it went down the stretch. Neither team able to break free by more than two points. Everything on a knife’s edge.

With 35 seconds left, and the game tied at 58, Keene State had an inbound in front of their bench with three seconds left on the shot clock.

60-58 Keene. But of course, there was still ample time for Corsairs to figure something out.

I turned to Alex, who by that point was on the edge of his seat as his Owls were moments from a tournament bid, and said “if I’m Dartmouth I’m running Seablom on a cut backdoor.” Well…

Tied at 60. And the Owls would get three cracks at the win. The first two were well defended and led to inbounds plays under the basket. The third came with 1.7 seconds left from the corner in front of the Keene bench.

Watch that clip a handful of times. There’s so much to see. The coach in the red jacket ready to pop off. The student section seeing the season flash in front of them. The Owl bench losing it and having to regroup. You can hear Alex next to me “It was halfway down!” It was. I don’t know how it didn’t fall.

Either way, five more minutes were put on the clock.

Leahy from Azor put the Corsairs up a bucket with 3:45 to play.

But yet again, when the Owls needed a key bucket, Anozie was there to tie the game.

As the game hit its final minute it did what all great games do to go supernova: it got weird. As the pressure builds, the players make decisions that cascade into myth.

It makes for the most entertaining version of sports on earth, and it took all of us in the crowd along for the ride.

With 20 seconds left Anozie took a hard foul under the bucket to send him to the line for a one-and-one. The crowd was delighted. Anozie was a 58 percent free throw shooter and had missed all six of shots from the line in the game. Get a rebound off the miss and the Corsairs could win it.

But on a night when he would score a season high, Anozie made his last point count to put the Owls up by two.

A great game can be ruined by a shit finish. A contest with a great rhythm and flow can turn ugly late due to fouls. A bad call by a ref could send people home sour. A poor coaching decision could be the main talking point even after a classic.

This game ended as it should have: with chaos in its bones, a freaky final bucket, and a hell of a memory for everyone who was there.

Nate Siow. Jeff Hunter. Dunk for the win.

Keene State 71, UMass-Dartmouth 69. Final (OT).
Player of the game: James Anozie – 19 points, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks
Time of game: 1:46:44

This was a special day. As we walked back to the car I said to Alex “This is my drug.” That type of energy. That type of moment. That type of theater. That’s what I chase. There’s no greater thrill for me than that moment I mentally turn everything off and am just one with that instant.

Any game you go to is a bet. Sometimes it’s a 25-point thumping and you’re waiting for the clock to run out. Other times it’s something like this, and games like this are so rare that when I come upon them it truly feels like magic. What a game.

Thanks for reading. Now, here’s one of the great athletic feats of our time…

THP #20: A Warm Embrace

February 10, 2021 – Keene, New Hampshire
Keene State vs Eastern Connecticut State
Men’s Basketball

Division III basketball is my happiest place. It feels like it’s wholly, and totally mine. Sure, there’s more than 400 D3 programs across the country but nearly a fifth are in New England alone.

The last game I was at before the pandemic was March 7. It was the second round of the D3 men’s tournament, Tufts vs RPI. A great game won by Tufts in front of a packed house. Five days later the country shut down.

There were a lot of tears last March for what was lost. It wasn’t because I had lost money from assignments getting cancelled. It was losing the anchor points in my life. Every March for as long as I can remember has verged on being a religious experience.

It was memories of being in the building to watch a four OT game in the D2 tournament years ago only for it to immediately be followed by a one OT affair.

It was going to the men’s D1 Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight as a high school graduation present and seeing Scottie Reynolds make that dash to beat Pitt at the horn.

So much of my life is marked by college basketball and by March. I enjoy sports, but college basketball is king because it feels like it’s mine. I know that millions enjoy the game, but I feel something in a way that nothing else moves me in the sports world.

And D3 is the small brook down the hidden path in the forest of all sports. It’s only seen if you go looking for it, and once you do you never forget it. This season looked like it would be the first that I hadn’t watched a D3 game since 1997. It hurt.

But then I was welcomed here, to Keene, a city in the southwest corner of New Hampshire surrounded by trees and full of life. And I was grateful to be here because I know many in this time of pandemic don’t get the opportunity.

The City of Keene

This place is a gem. With a population of around 23,000, Keene is the largest city for quite a ways, and the heartbeat of the city is Central Square.

Full of shops, eateries, and everything else a college town needs, Central Square is perfectly New England from the coffee shops to the old mainline Protestant Church as its focal point.

Known simply as The White Church, it rises above the square.

Much of the movie Jumanji with Robin Williams was shot in and around Keene. A short walk from the church is the mural for Parrish’s Shoes, still as vibrant as ever, on the bricks of one of the shops.