Just like that, it’s over.
The Colby College men’s basketball team enjoyed their best season in more than 20 years, winning 24 games and reaching the New England Small College Athletic Conference championship game for the first time. The Mules earned an invitation to the NCAA Division III tournament for the first time since 1997.
Nobody can call the season anything but a success. Yet with Friday’s 74-64 loss to Christopher Newport University in the first round of the NCAA tournament, in a unfamiliar gym in Hoboken, New Jersey, it ended abruptly. Unless you’re the team raising the trophy after the final game, the season always ends abruptly. There’s always a thud. You know it’s going to end, but it still manages to sneak up on you.
It happened last week for the University of Maine at Farmington men’s basketball team with a 72-71 loss to SUNY-Canton in the North Atlantic Conference championship game. It happened last week to dozens of high school teams across the state. It could happen to the University of Maine women’s basketball team Sunday afternoon when it hosts UMass-Lowell in the America East Conference semifinals.
For Colby, the shooting prowess that carried the Mules to wins in their first 18 games of the season and to the conference championship game was lost in the first half to a strong defensive Christopher Newport team. Colby made just 6 of 31 field goals in the first half as it fell behind by 15 points at the half. One of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country, Colby was 2 of 13 from behind the arc in the first half. The Mules even struggled at the line, where the Captains couldn’t contest the shot, making only 3 of 7 free throws in the first half.
The Mules rallied to cut their deficit to four points in the second half, shooting 52.6 percent from the floor over the final 20 minutes (20 of 38), but it was too much to overcome, and the season ended as most do. It stopped short.
Nobody, even the biggest of underdogs and longest of long shots, goes into a tournament expecting to lose. What’s the point of that? Even so, every team enters knowing that’s the most likely outcome. Getting there is an achievement and should be celebrated, even when you’re thinking of the shots that could have found net rather than iron and how those would have changed the outcome. Right now the Mules aren’t thinking about how they snapped a tournament drought older than every member of the team. They’re competitive. They’re thinking of missed chances and how they’re going to work to make those shots when they come back next season.
Colby graduates a strong senior class, led by all-NESCAC guard Sam Jefferson and guard Alex Dorion, two of the top shooters in the nation. The Mules return Will King, the NESCAC Rookie of the Year this season, and Noah Tyson, the NESCAC Rookie of the Year last season. Matt Hanna, a strong shooter in his own right, will be back, as will Wallace Tucker, who came off the bench to score a team-high 13 points Friday for the Mules.
You know the season is going to end, and you know it’s likely it will end quickly and in disappointment. You work hard to hold off that disappointment, to stall it and keep it at arm’s length. The longer you can do that, maybe the abruptness hurts a little less.
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