Strong Season Earns Men's Basketball an ECAC Tourney Bid
March 20, 2008
The opportunity to participate in a national postseason tournament should prove valuable to an Emmanuel College men's basketball team that will return all but one member of the 2007-08 squad to the court next season.
Accepting the program's second-ever invitation to the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) tournament, the second-seeded men were upset by seventh-seeded Western Connecticut State University at home on March 5th, 91-66. Despite the loss, the Saints came away from the game fueled to make good on their main goal next winter: Claiming their first Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) title.
"We were ecstatic to get a bid to the ECAC tournament," said Head Coach Jamahl Jackson. "It's always good to get in because it recognizes that you have had a good year, and that can get lost sometimes when you don't win a championship. Although the game was in no way indicative of how the team has played this year, hopefully ending on that note will motivate our guys to come back and ensure it doesn't happen again next year."
The Saints' pursuit of the GNAC crown ended in their semifinal contest against Lasell College, a game that Jackson thought was nothing short of an all-around great college basketball match-up. Playing in front of a capacity crowd at Lasell's Laserdome, Emmanuel and the Lasers battled back and forth all night, switching leads eight times on top of eight ties, until Lasell pulled away in the waning minutes to win, 70-61.
"It was a tough way to end it because I felt we had the ability as a team to win this league," said Jackson. "But it's also a tribute to how much this league has improved, especially with the addition of new teams such as Lasell. Since I have been here, this year was the most competitive the GNAC has ever been."
Representing the only departing member of the team due to graduation, Levi Smith '08 hangs up his Emmanuel uniform as the top shot-blocker in GNAC history, finishing with 195 blocks for his career as well as a record 62 during his sophomore campaign. Fourth all-time in scoring among Saints' players (1,194 points), Smith saved one of his finest offensive performances for his final GNAC tournament, leading his team past Rivier College in the opening round with a career-high 27 points.
"It will hurt to lose him," said Jackson of Smith, who was also named to the 2008 All-Conference Sportsmanship team. "He is among a class of young people that do not come along that often. As a coach, you look for someone who can be a role model on and off the court. Levi's an upstanding student-athlete. He defines what a student-athlete should be. We're going to miss him."
With the rest of the team set to return next year, along with a potentially promising freshmen class which could include three strong recruits, two from upstate New York and one from Boston, Jackson expects the positives he saw this winter to further develop in the near future.
One of the biggest strengths of this year's team, which finished with a 17-11 overall record, was the bond between the players, as Jackson witnessed a camaraderie among this year's lineup unlike any in years' past. Hanging out together off the court, enjoying the time they got to spend together on it - even recording a pre-game rap song - showed their coach just how much of a family this group had become by season's end.
"That's something you can't coach or teach," said Jackson. "And that's the thing I am most proud of with this group.
"The strides we made with this young team have set the groundwork for the future," he added. "Overall it was a good year and I felt we grew up a lot. But we still had a goal that we didn't accomplish and next year will be about preparing these guys to come back and get after it next season."