|
| Keenan Reiss's last-second shot provided drama, but not a win. It was the last home game for Cabrini basketball, as the men's team is the last seed in the Atlantic East Conference tournament and the school was not able to field a women's basketball team after it was reveal in June 2023 that the school was closing. Cabrini athletics file photo |
By Riley Zayas
For D3sports.com
RADNOR, Pa. – There was a different feeling inside Nerney Field House on Friday night as the clock ticked down from 60 minutes to tip-off and the inevitable approached.
For a men’s basketball program as storied as Cabrini has been over the past few decades, highlighted by its run to the 2012 national title game in Salem and the likes of Cory Lemons and Aaron Walton-Moss within that span, this was the final chapter.
Granted, there is more left to be written on what will be the Cavaliers’ final season in existence, with the AEC’s conference tournament tipping off Monday. But for the last time ever, in a somewhat under-the-radar regular season finale against Marywood, Cabrini took its home court. On the surface, the game was a battle of two conference foes, played in front of a small crowd of 175 that became increasingly vocal as the back-and-forth duel unfolded.
The signs of its historic significance, however, were very much present, though in subtle ways. They were seen as television crews interviewed head coach Ryan Van Zelst and junior Donoven Mack courtside during pregame, a rare sight at a D-III game, especially during the regular season. They were evident when Van Zelst, in his first (and only) year at the helm of the Cabrini program, was presented with a commemorative ball before the pregame Senior Day ceremony.
It was certainly something Marywood head coach Jon Showers had thought about all the way back on June 24, when the announcement of Cabrini’s closure got the ball rolling towards this final game inside Nerney Field House on a mid-February evening.
“I kind of saw this in June, when they announced Cabrini was closing,” Showers said. “I knew the schedule, and knew that we were playing at Cabrini on a Friday night. I knew what the environment was going to be like.”
What Marywood got was a Cabrini squad that refused to back down for 40 minutes. Faced with one of the most challenging situations of any team in D-III men’s basketball this season, the Cavaliers’ identity has been found in a cohesive roster as the punches have kept on coming.
The latest? A shoulder injury for Mack, one of the team’s unquestioned leaders and a 24-game starter this season. After scoring 19 points against Immaculata on Wednesday, his right arm sat in a sling on Friday night, but his leadership was still evident from the bench. And in the void Mack left on the court, the rest of the rotation stepped up, pushing Marywood — who beat Cabrini 78-63 on Jan. 13 in Scranton — to the brink.
A few hours before the 7 p.m. tipoff, Van Zelst stood inside the mostly empty gym and was asked about his team’s mentality and approach to such a pivotal matchup. How do you prepare a team to take the court for the final time in program history while still keeping the task at hand in focus?
“I’m wrestling with that in my mind a little bit,” Van Zelst, who was hired in April as Cabrini’s seventh head coach in program history, said. “You want to win the game. We’re competitive. But at the same time, they need to understand how important this place is to so many people, and so many families.”
He said this surrounded by banners of past championship teams, including the one proudly displaying “NCAA Final Four” against a navy blue canvas from 2011-12. Perhaps more than anything, that is what made Friday’s game so notable. Many D-III institutions have ceased operations within the last decade, but from a basketball standpoint, none have boasted a similar precedent of success.
“You always have to acknowledge the past, especially at a place like Cabrini University,” Van Zelst added. “Coach [John] Dzik, coach [Marcus] Kahn; those guys are legends in Division III basketball. This place is part of the reason why I took the job. I wanted to be on the wall and try to break all their records and build a legacy.”
The legacy that Van Zelst leaves behind at the picturesque campus in suburban Philadelphia will not necessarily be marked by the record alone. At first glance, a 7-18 regular season record has little shine to it, but something impressive has taken place during this winter. In the face of an impending closure, a group of 14 players committed to Cabrini, committed to a coach they had never played for, and committed to each other despite obvious adversity.
“Coming into this season, I was figuring out who was coming back,” Mack said. “I remember talking to Isaac [Brady] and Jayden Blakey and saying, ‘Let’s go back and do this. We’ve got one more year. We could go out and make history.’”
The situation is not a new one for Brady, a senior team captain who began his career at Wesley before its closure in 2021. But it is a different role for the senior, whose eight-point, 12-rebound performance against Marywood came after he was honored on Senior Day, closing his college career with a full-circle moment.
|
| Isaac Brady was at Wesley when it closed as well earlier this decade. Cabrini athletics file photo |
“I started with a school getting bought out, and then why I’m getting ready to graduate, [Cabrini] gets bought out,” Brady explained. “I’ve already been through this once, but it’s a little bit different being on the ending side of it, rather than the starting side. So I think about our freshmen, and how they’re going through the same thing I went through when I was a freshman. I totally know how it feels for them.”
As such, they are all in the same boat this season; Van Zelst and his assistants, Kevin Murray and Bill Wiley, included. While the senior day ceremony prior to the contest against Marywood recognized the three true seniors on the roster, they were not the only ones playing at home for the final time. On this particular night, even the six freshmen on the roster were in the role of “senior,” stepping on the court inside Nerney Pavilion for the last time.
Against the league’s third-place team, Cabrini made sure its final home performance was one to remember. The Cavaliers led for the better part of the first half, though Marywood’s Mason Mendygral put the visitors in front, 26-25, heading into halftime with a late 3-pointer.
Then came the second half, and the intensity only heightened. Cabrini’s 14-1 scoring spurt in the early minutes put the hosts in front, 41-28, as they appeared to be well en route to a storybook finish.
But things went in the opposite direction.
Marywood countered with a vengeance, and by the time the clock ticked down to 7:24, Austin Bausman scored on a layup, giving the Pacers a 46-45 lead. Cabrini’s lead had slipped away, the byproduct of ill-timed turnovers and a handful of missed 3-point shots.
The Cavaliers, however, remained within striking distance. From the physicality, to the scoring runs, to the intensity from both head coaches within the flow of the game, there was no question that emotion was riding high as the final minutes unfolded. Marywood went up 54-50 with 2:57 left, but incredibly, was held scoreless by a number of timely Cabrini defensive stands down the stretch.
“We’re the last group to ever touch these jerseys and put them on and go through a full game.”– Isaac Brady, senior at Cabrini |
The issue for the hosts was that the Pacers did the same on the defensive end, holding Cabrini without a made field goal for over six minutes, before Eric Neal scored on a key layup at the 30-second mark, cutting the deficit to 54-53. The Cavaliers wouldn’t walk away without a fight.
As it turned out, a steal from Cabrini’s Bryan Warren with nine seconds left gave them a chance at victory, as he made the play and raced upcourt, amidst the Cabrini crowd’s loudest cheer of the evening. Marywood raced hard in pursuit. Warren’s contested layup was partially blocked, but he grabbed an offensive rebound, and kept the possession alive.
Time unfolded slowly over the final five seconds, as Cabrini’s Keenan Reiss caught a pass from Warren on the right wing, then moved to his left and drove to the rim. The final play of Cabrini’s home court history would fittingly produce a memorable outcome, either way the ball bounced.
When the final buzzer sounded, it was Marywood’s players who pumped their fists in excitement. Reiss’ attempted layup ended up slightly off the mark, hitting the backboard before tapping the left side of the rim and falling towards the hardwood, simultaneous with the bleep of the buzzer.
The scoreboard sitting between the banners of Cabrini men’s and women’s basketball’s 1,000 point scorers read the final totals clearly: Marywood 54, Cabrini 53.
But a glance at the scoreboard was unnecessary. A look at the faces of the players and coaches donning the blue and white on the Cabrini bench said it all. The sting of defeat after having a win within your grasp is difficult. But even more than that, this was a win the Cavaliers wanted badly for obvious reasons. And it had been within reach the entire way. Cabrini fans wanted a shooting foul called on the final shot, but the whistle never came.
As the crowd filed out of the gym and into the February night, there was an understanding of this game’s importance within the history of D-III basketball. On the same court in which Cabrini reached its second straight Sweet 16 appearance in 2012 and inside the same gym that saw the Cavaliers win a fifth straight CSAC championship in 2014, Marywood and Cabrini logged one final game into the ledgers.
The admiration of Nerney Field House and the Cabrini program was not limited only to those in the Cavaliers’ locker room or their supporters. Showers, too, shared his memories of a gym he spent many games in as an opposing assistant in years past, through his time at DeSales, Marywood, and York (Pa.).
“Cabrini has such a historical program,” Showers said after the game. “I was an assistant [at Marywood] 10 years ago, so I lived through some of those really good teams. It’s a really historical venue too. I hope Villanova doesn’t tear this thing down and that they keep up all the banners. For Division III hoops, they’ve had some Division III legends come through here.”
This year’s team at Cabrini will forever hold a place in history as the final group of Cavaliers to take the court and battle inside Nerney Field House. Several conversations following Friday’s narrow loss surrounded the upcoming rematch with Marywood in the league tournament. But at the same time, for the program’s upperclassmen especially, the significance of what they put on the floor Friday night and throughout this 2023-24 season is understood.
Perhaps Brady summed it up best.
“In years to come, we’ll be able to look back on this and know that we were part of a legacy that’s never going to be forgotten,” he said. “We’re the last group to ever touch these jerseys and put them on and go through a full game.”
