Men's basketball ends season 12-13

With Saturday's 64-63 heartbreaking semifinal loss to the Williams College Ephs, the eventual winner of the NESCAC championship, the men's basketball team's season came to a close. The Jumbos, in a season marked by many highs and lows, finished with a 12-13 overall record, and a 6-5 conference mark.

"I'm definitely happy with the way the season went," senior co-captain Jim Wilson said. "We didn't get the record we wanted or the number of wins, but we had an extremely tough schedule, and we had lots of close games going down to the wire. We have a good base for next year, the program is in very good shape."

Despite starting the season 2-5, the Jumbos battled to the bitter end with nationally ranked teams such as Babson (79-76 L) and Wabash (87-81 2ot L), losing both games in the final minutes. The team then went on a road swing for two and a half weeks, playing seven straight away games. The team went 4-3 on the road trip, losing its final game to Brandeis (72-70 L) in a heartbreaker that came down to the final seconds.

"The loss against Brandeis was definitely one of the downpoints of the season," sophomore center Craig Coupe said. "We fought hard for the whole game, and we felt we should have come away with the win."

The Jumbos, seemingly unfettered by the loss to Brandeis, came back three days later to face the Amherst Lord Jeffs, then the-first ranked team in New England and third ranked team in the country. It was Tufts' first home game in almost three weeks, and the Jumbos fed off their capacity crowd en route to an 83-66 thrashing of the Lord Jeffs.

"They came in undefeated, first in the NESCAC and in New England and third in the country," Wilson said. "To beat them at home was huge, it was definitely one of the high points of the season."

The Jumbos went into the last two weeks of the season in fifth place in the league, fighting for a shot to host a first round playoff game in the NESCAC tournament. On the second to last weekend of the regular season, Tufts defeated Bowdoin and Colby in its final two home games of the regular season. Those two wins put the Jumbos in third place in the conference going into the final weekend before the playoffs. The Jumbos dropped their final two games on the road to Williams and Middlebury, but in a weird twist of fate, held on to the third place spot and hosted Middlebury in the first round of the playoffs.

In that playoff game, the Jumbos took sweet revenge on the Panthers, avenging the prior week's loss with a convincing 89-81 victory in their first NESCAC playoff victory ever.

"The Middlebury game was another high point of our season," Wilson said. "Tufts basketball had never won a NESCAC playoff game before, and it was extra special for me to do it at home in front of our fans."

The team traveled to Amherst College to try and avenge that weekend's other loss to the Williams College Ephs (76-56 L), ranked third in the nation, first in New England, and second in the NESCAC with a 24-1 overall record. The Jumbos stayed with the Ephs for the entire game, and had their shot to win in the waning seconds. Senior guard Mike McGlynn, arguably the best shooter in the conference, blew by his defender at the top of the key with just six seconds to play and the Jumbos trailing by one. Three Ephs defenders converged on McGlynn, who sent up a shot that rimmed out, ending the Jumbos season.

"We had the ball in McGlynn's hands down by one and he had a good look at the hoop. It was pretty much all we could ask for," Wilson said. "We were extremely happy with the way we played."

In addition to the team's success, individual Jumbos accomplished impressive feats of their own. Senior co-captain Brian Shapiro became the second active Jumbo to score 1000 points in his career, eclipsing the 1000 point mark against Wheaton College on January 21.

McGlynn scored the 1500th point of his career in the Jumbos 83-66 win over Amherst just ten days later. Just two weeks later against Middlebury, McGlynn notched his 303rd three pointer of his career, putting him on the top 20 all time list for division three. McGlynn finished his career with 308 total three pointers.

Just two days ago, McGlynn, who led the Jumbos with 17 PPG, was named to the All-NESCAC first team, while Coupe was named to the All-NESCAC second team. Coupe was second on the team in scoring with 13.7 PPG and first on the team and eighth in the country with 11.4 RPG.

The Jumbos are confident that they will have the same success next year despite losing five seniors (McGlynn, Shapiro, Wilson, Colin Wetherill, and Bisi Ezeolu) to graduation.

"We have a lot of returning guys for next year," Wilson said. "We'll have one of the best front courts in New England with Coupe, [sophomore] Reggie Stovell, Blaine [Lay], Dan Martin, and Scott Armstrong. [Junior] Deyvehn East will step up to the two spot, and Eric Mack, who is probably the best pure point guard on the team, will run the show. We're set up really well, and I'm confident that the team will succeed."

"It's hard for me to conceive that I played my last organized basketball game because I have been playing since I was in third grade," Wilson said. "But I came to college, played with a great group of guys and have had some great memories. It's going to be sad to go, but I've had some great memories with this team, which makes it a lot easier."