After a tremendously successful season last year, in which the men's basketball team won a school-record 23 games and advanced to the Sweet 16 of the Div. III NCAA Tournament, the Jumbos expected big things this season.
Losing only one senior, tri-captain Dan Martin, to graduation last year, coach Bob Sheldon's squad was ready to follow up their breakthrough season, and perhaps even challenge Amherst for NESCAC supremacy.
"Coming into the season we had three goals," senior tri-captain Dave Shepherd said. "Host a home playoff game, win the NESCAC tournament, and reach the NCAAs."
But sometimes the best laid plans can go awry.
The team struggled to find a rhythm. At several points during the season, it appeared Tufts had turned a corner, but that appearance was more of an illusion than a reality.
"I think that we had this talent and some games we showed up and expected to walk on the court and win, and it's not that easy," senior tri-captain Brian Fitzgerald said. "We just didn't have that chip on our shoulder that we had last season."
Opening their season with a string of non-conference games, the Jumbos mustered a 3-2 record heading into MIT on Dec. 2 for what proved to be a memorable game for the Jumbos, who played in the longest game in the 106-year history of MIT's basketball program, escaping with a thrilling, 88-81 triple-overtime victory.
The squad followed-up that match-up with a second triple overtime win over visiting Keene State four days later, handing the Owls a 118-109 loss - the first of their season. It was the first time in 96 years that the team had played in consecutive triple-OT contests, and the 118 points tied for the second-most in school history.
"They were good wins for us, but the fact of the matter is that we never should have been in a triple-overtime game against a team like MIT," Fitzgerald said. "We put ourselves in positions where we had these crazy ends to games, instead of playing hard for 40 minutes and having a 10-point lead at that point."
Though the team entered January with a 7-2 record, the Jumbos hit a bumpy road when they traveled to New Jersey for a pair of non-conference games against William Paterson and Stevens Institute of Technology. The men lost both games by 20-plus points - not the tune-up the team was looking for with the formidable duo of Amherst and Trinity up next on the schedule.
"Part of that was injuries," Shepherd said. "[Junior] Jeremy [Black] and I both missed a couple of games, [senior tri-captain Brian] Kumf badly sprained his ankle, and [junior Ryan] O'Keefe needed shoulder surgery. We were rolling before break and then injuries and the three weeks off stymied that."
The Jumbos fell 96-92 to the Lord Jeffs, but played well, taking the defending NESCAC champs to overtime for the third-consecutive meeting. After their solid play versus Amherst, the Jumbos followed with a 102-85 walloping of Trinity, which finished the regular season this year at 20-3 and 7-2 in league play. The 17-point thrashing at the hands of Tufts was by far the Bantam's biggest loss of the season.
"I think we played well at certain points in the season," Kumf said. "Especially against Amherst and in the second half against Trinity. But we didn't come out to play every game."
The team subsequently encountered a severe hangover effect from the Amherst-Trinity weekend, barely eking out an 82-79 victory over a middling UMass-Dartmouth team, before getting hammered 72-44 by Bates on Jan. 20. The loss to the Bobcats was the worst non-Amherst loss to a league opponent since the 1999-00 season.
"I just think we weren't ready to be targets this year," Fitzgerald said. "Nobody is going to come into a game against us and say, 'I hope we're not playing Tufts, they were good last year.' That's just not how it works."
Hitting the final stretch of its schedule, the squad hoped to emulate last year's success in the at the end of the regular season, in which it won eight of nine. The men struggled to find the same groove this year, taking only five out of nine of their last games.
Throughout the season, it seemed there was never a lead that the Jumbos couldn't overcome. On the flip side, however, Tufts had trouble hanging on to its leads. In their conference season finale - an 89-84 home loss to Colby on Feb. 10 - the Jumbos surged back from a 10-point second half deficit only to surrender a 78-71 lead with six minutes to play. The Mules outscored Tufts 18-6 down the stretch, and upset the Jumbos on Senior Day.
The loss to Colby proved to be the biggest blow to the team's postseason hopes, as a win would have secured a home playoff game. Instead, the Jumbos were forced to go on the road where they had to face a hungry Williams team that was looking to avenge a loss to the Jumbos from earlier this season.
Ultimately, despite boasting a talented and deep roster, the Jumbos could not overcome the inconsistency that dogged them this season, falling 84-72 in the first round of the NESCAC tournament to Williams.
"There's no single place to put the blame. It wasn't just the big men or the guards or the coaching staff," Kumf said. "As a team, to a man, we underachieved."
