As the last books are closed and the last lecture halls abandoned before college students everywhere skip town for spring break today, you can bet your bottom dollar there's not a soul in LeFrak Gym thinking about Cancun.
Last Saturday, the Amherst men's basketball team opened its run at a potential third consecutive trip to the Div. III Final Four. Tonight, that run continues - and by tomorrow evening, the Lord Jeffs just might be booking their flights for a vacation in sunny southwestern Virginia.
They've been there before. After falling short in the national semifinal two years ago, the Lord Jeffs broke through last March, finally winning the program's first-ever national championship. This year, after a first-round bye and a 96-74 second-round win over John Jay, the Jeffs are in the Sweet Sixteen prepared to defend that title. Tonight they travel to Plattsburgh, N.Y. to take on New Jersey Athletic Conference champion Richard Stockton, and the thought is fresh in their minds - a return to Salem, Va. is just two wins away.
"I'm not going to lie," said junior Brian Baskauskas, the team's second-leading scorer. "Definitely, all year long, our goal has been to win that national championship. That hasn't gone away at all. We still have that clear goal ... But the only way to do that is to beat Richard Stockton first. So obviously, we're focused on them."
The Ospreys, 22-6 and riding a seven-game winning streak, bring a different style of play from the NJAC than the Lord Jeffs are accustomed to in New England. Amherst coach David Hixon, who has been diligently reviewing film to prepare for this weekend, is impressed with what he sees.
"I think Stockton's better than anyone we've seen," Hixon said. "You look at them on paper and they're a little bit small - I think six-five's their big man, and then they're six-three, six-two. But you've got to add a couple inches just on reach. They're all athletic, long, really physical and really aggressive ... I was shocked when I saw how good they were."
Hixon's Jeffs are no slouches themselves. They're led by senior captain Andrew Olson, a three-time All-NESCAC point guard who unanimously won his second Player of the Year honor last week. Olson's classmates include Fletcher Walters, the team's leading scorer and rebounder averaging 14.1 and 7.2, and a trio of supporting big men - Kevin Hopkins, Brandon Jones and Matt Goldsmith - who join forces to give Amherst a dominating presence down low.
The four big men, however, had an uncharacteristic breakdown in their NESCAC semifinal matchup with Bowdoin two weekends ago. They shot a combined 10-for-30 and were handily out-rebounded by the smaller Polar Bears, a bad sign for a team one week away from the Big Dance. Despite a team-high 16 points from their shooting guard Baskauskas, the Lord Jeffs fell 65-64 for their third loss of the season.
"In the Bowdoin game, I think we were ready to play," Hixon said. "Our guys wanted to win it. But Bowdoin needed to win it. And when guys feel like they need to win, that intensity needs to be matched by the other team ... We have a lot of respect for Bowdoin, but the difference between want and need put an early mark on that game."
The Jeffs have been in this place before, and they've found a way to win. Last year's team followed a similar storyline, losing 70-69 to Williams in the NESCAC final. For a team that's been so dominant for so long - Amherst is 34-2 in the conference since Olson and company showed up on campus four years ago - a playoff loss can be a blessing in disguise.
"Obviously both of those losses [to Williams and Bowdoin] hurt a lot," Baskauskas said. "They stung. But I think last year, and hopefully this year too, we can use a loss as a springboard to get us ready for a tournament run. We use the loss as a learning tool rather than something to dwell on ... In both situations, those losses forced us into a situation where we're one and done. We're not going to have any chances to fail."
One factor the Lord Jeffs definitely have on their side is experience. The program has piled up nine consecutive NCAA appearances, seven straight trips to sectionals and three Final Four visits in the past four seasons. Of the nation's other 15 survivors only one, Rochester, has found its way to the Salem Civic Center in this decade.
"We have a core group of guys now who have to been to Salem twice," Baskauskas said. "This would be our third year in a row. Having been there, done that, having seen all the excitement and the stuff that surrounds the games, that gives us an advantage. Now we can focus on basketball."
Stockton will be the first test, and should the Jeffs survive that, they'll await the winner of a competitive Brandeis-Plattsburgh matchup. But if last year's team won it all, is it too much to expect that this year's team can make a run at a repeat performance? One could even make the case that this year's team is the best Amherst squad yet.
"We're tall, we're tougher to defend and in many ways offensively, this is a tougher group," Hixon said. "When this team starts scoring, we're pretty darn good. The only question is whether our defenders can do well enough that our points end up more than their points. And that's what we're trying to do here, right?"
Last year's seniors - quad-captains Tim McLaughlin, Dan O'Shea, Mike Salerno and Dan Wheeler - graduated with 111 wins in four years, the most by any class in program history. The class of '08 draws closer to that mark every weekend. At 108 and counting, four wins appears to be the magic number - obviously, in more ways than one.
"We've got a little work to do," Baskauskas said. "But I think time will tell. I think talent-wise, we're just as good, if not better, than we were last year. The next couple weeks will determine a lot about how this team will be remembered."
