PITTSBURGH — The air in the locker room was one of obvious disappointment. Just outside the locker room down a tunnel was the court in Pittsburgh’s Mellon Arena, the place where, for some teams, NCAA dreams die.
The players on the Boston University men’s basketball team, which had just fallen hard to No. 1-seeded University of Cincinnati, 90-52, rushed to get out of the locker room, out of the stadium and bid farewell to Pittsburgh. For the 16th-seeded Terriers, the notion of upsetting a national powerhouse disappeared minutes after the opening whistle.
The BU players dressed hurriedly, pushing up the knots in their ties quickly and not caring that the ties were sometimes crooked. Their hair was still dripping from their postgame showers, which likely set world records for the fastest ever.
As members of the media hopscotched from one player to the next, trying to catch each before he exited the locker room, it wasn’t hard to tell that a blowout had just transpired, not to mention an end to BU’s season. Solemn, straight faces. Glazed eyes.
Many players reiterated that this was a learning experience and that they would now be better prepared for a run at next year’s Big Dance.
“It was the first time playing for us and it was a great learning experience,” said freshman guard Chaz Carr. “We know now what we can do to get better.”
“We’ll start working soon to get back,” said junior forward Billy Collins, who finished Friday night with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
But there were a few Terriers, three to be exact, that couldn’t say, “Wait ’til next year.”
For guard Mark Michalek, forward Nacho Rodriguez and forward Stijn Dhondt, Pittsburgh marked the end of the road. They were seniors, unable to make their final season last just a little bit longer. Everything they did Friday night, from suiting up to watching from the bench to changing from their uniforms to street clothes after the game, would be the last time.
Michalek, a role player and a team favorite, was his usual reserved self. Grossly undersized against Cincinnati, Michalek logged four minutes in the waning moments of the game and recorded a steal and an assist. It was his first and last four minutes of play in the NCAA Tournament all rolled into one.
“You always want the best for your team, and it’s really tough when things aren’t going well,” said Michalek, alluding to BU missing its first 13 shots. “Everyone plays hard and tries to make some plays, and sometimes it doesn’t go as planned.”
He may have wanted to stay in that locker room forever. Michalek’s fellow seniors, Rodriguez and Dhondt, had already left minutes before. Even though a reporter had interrupted his preparations to leave the arena, Michalek looked as if he were lingering deliberately, soaking up everything he could around him — the roar of thousands of fans in the stadium, the hordes of media, the NCAA emblem plastered as far as the eye could see. But maybe most importantly, Michalek was enjoying his last dance with his team.
“I’m definitely going to miss all these guys. Beyond basketball, these guys are all my friends, my best friends,” Michalek said. “This as is good as it gets. I’ve been surrounded by good people here, and it’s been fun.”
Michalek looked up and straight ahead and then said quietly, “In the years to come, hopefully they’ll get better and I can turn into a fan instead of a player.”
It wasn’t all disappointment for Michalek and the Terriers. There was a definite sense of achievement among them throughout the tournament. After all, BU’s season ended in Pittsburgh on center stage, not at The Roof against Maine in the America East championship game and not even in the conference tournament. None of the Terriers had ever made it this far, and though it took three of them their entire four-year careers to do it, it seemed as though the sign at the end of this road said, “Well done.”
“It’s going to be difficult for us to lose these seniors,” said BU coach Dennis Wolff. “These guys went from being 7-22 [in 1999-2000] to the NCAA Tournament in four years. Mark is a fabulous kid, the type befitting success in the future. He, Stijn and Nacho carried themselves in a way that everyone at BU should be proud of.”
In the locker room it almost felt wrong that things were so rushed. It was as if the weight of the loss might bring the whole stadium down on top of them, and they weren’t about to find out if it would. Sometimes in the life of sports, and in the sport of life, time for reflection is time well spent. If the seniors on the Terriers let them go, they may have found that the tears that flowed were ones of joy, not sorrow.
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