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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Sunday, November 3, 2024

Men's Basketball | Sabety leads Jumbos with Palleschi's mentorship

Freshman Hunter Sabety was at the free throw line with three seconds to go in his team's NESCAC quarterfinal matchup against Williams. The Jumbos trailed by one. Sabety swished the first. He missed the second. 

The Jumbos went on to lose by 10 points in overtime, ending their season one free throw away from an upset.

"Basketball: it's a game," Sabety said, recalling the moments after the Jumbo's last game of his rookie season. "It's competitive -- you want to win always, but it's a game. [The Williams game] really came down to the last second. I missed a free throw, but got us into OT, and we ended up losing. It happens, but you move on."

Sabety, a 6'8", 240-pound freshman from Long Island, N.Y., was the statistical leader in three categories, averaging 14.8 points per game. He also reeled in 158 rebounds and blocked 67 shots over the course of the year.

"I went and saw him play, and you know, when you see him play, you have to love him," head coach Bob Sheldon said of his initial experience with Sabety. "He's athletic, he can run, he can do everything. We started recruiting him right away. We just stayed on him."

Things turned out well, both for Sabety and Sheldon. The Jumbos returned to the NESCAC playoffs for the fourth-straight season this year - despite several injuries throughout the season, the most shattering of which changed the team dynamic in a way no one was prepared for.

"He knew he was going to come in and play, and play right away," Sheldon said. "I think he wanted to play with Tom [Palleschi], too, and have two big guys, and really try to make a mark."

Sophomore forward Tom Palleschi, the Jumbos' former NESCAC Rookie of the Year, was  the fourth-leading scorer from the 2012-13 season. Unfortunately, the opportunity for the big men to team up was lost early in the season - just a month before  the team's first game - as Palleschi found out that he has a hereditary heart condition, sidelining him indefinitely.

"No one really knew," Sabety said. "We did preseason, me and him playing alongside each other, and we were supposed to be like a four and five combo. It would've been unbelievable. He was a really good passer, [a] really good player overall and really would've helped us out this year. But, I think it was right before the season started, he went for a check-up and they found out he had these issues and couldn't play this season. We were all devastated."

The Boston Herald covered the story first; it was published just two days before Tufts tipped off in New York for the first game of the 2013-14 season. Palleschi could not play due to the risk that his heart rate would rise too much. On the cusp of a breakthrough season, just after the Jumbos had reached the NESCAC semifinals the year before, Sabety was left to assume Palleschi's role.

Sabety had chosen Tufts over numerous - 18, to be exact - other scholarship offers from across all divisions of NCAA basketball. The choice worked for him as a pathway to receive an education he would not have had access to without basketball.

"Academics really comes first and you have to at one point say, 'I'm not [going] to the league. I'm not doing something like that. You have to get an education that you can use later on in life to excel,'" Sabety said. "Basketball [is] fun and all, but I really used it as a stepping stone to get into a school that I wouldn't normally have been able to get into." 

Little did Sabety know that he would be the focal point of the Jumbos' offense and defense - especially at the beginning of the season when the Jumbos' leading scorer from last season, junior Ben Ferris, was sitting out with an injury. Though it was clear that Sabety would play a role in his first year on the team regardless of injuries, the size of his impact was a surprise.

While Sabety was doing the majority of the work at the center spot throughout the year, Palleschi had a definite presence. In fact, his 6'8" frame, similar to Sabety's, could be seen before every game beginning at the end of the handshake line when starting lineups were announced. And then, throughout the game, he was always there, high-fiving when timeouts were called or giving instructions to Sabety when he was on the sideline.

"We told Tommy that we wanted him to be Hunter's mentor," Sheldon said. "I think it really helped Hunter a lot, because we're going to tell him stuff, but this is somebody who literally last year had gone through everything that Hunter is going through right now. Tommy talked to him during practice - you know, 'You should do this, you should do that.' And we had Tommy sit down and watch film with him and point out stuff that he should do. It was just another voice to give Hunter, but a voice from experience."

Palleschi accepted the responsibility with confidence and vigor.

"I felt my role was being the big guys' coach and helping out the bigs as much as possible," Palleschi said. "Growing up, I've always played basketball, and if there's one thing I can understand and speak fully about, it is basketball and the post position that I've done my entire life."

Palleschi was there to instruct and assist Sabety on the way to his stellar first-year season. Sabety is certainly among the top candidates for NESCAC Rookie of the Year, though Williams' Duncan Robinson may make it hard for Tufts to take the honor for the third-straight year, following Palleschi and Ferris in 2011-12. 

In a way, the mentoring may have been as valuable for Palleschi as it was for Sabety. 

"Hunter needed Tommy as much as Tommy needed Hunter," Sheldon said. "Because Tommy needed to stay connected." 

The value of the pairing showed, as Palleschi's spirit didn't waver - even in the face of surgery.

"He is one of those guys who never gives up," Sheldon said. "You know, it's like, 'Yeah, I had heart surgery, but I'm still going go support my team.' He was in the hospital, and I went to visit him the next day after [the Williams game]. He goes, 'Yeah, I watched the game yesterday.' That's crazy to think that, the first thing was, 'Oh, Mom, bring my computer, I [have] to watch this game.'"

After a season of mentoring and watching, it's understandable that Palleschi would be itching to get out on the court again. Now, thanks to a recent heart surgery, what was once thought to be a career-ending injury may have been just a temporary roadblock on the path to a prolific career.

"He wants to play, and he can't do anything for 12 weeks; he can't even drive," Sheldon said. "Twelve weeks doing nothing and then he's going to try and come back. I don't think he'll be wholly back until the second half of next year. He wants to be ready to go Nov. 1. But it's going to be great. I wouldn't want to play us, because I don't know how you [would] stop it."

With a strong mentor-player relationship leading to a breakout season for Sabety this season, one can only wait in anticipation for what a player-player relationship between the two big men would bring the program in the future.

"I looked at it more as a little brother who you try to help out and try to always improve," Palleschi said. "For that, I tried looking at him as the little brother that I never had to help work on his game. And then next year, I'm looking forward to try to play with him - on the same team."