A Jersey Guy: UMass-Lowell Is What March Madness Is All About
Another bus trip which could have been muted, but was instead filled with joy and yes, anticipation, of a game or games yet to be played.
Only this time it gets as real as it gets in the world of one-bid conference teams in the annual dance known as the NCAA tournament.
"It's house money now,'' said Pat Duquette via a phone call on Sunday morning, where he was still absorbing the ramifications of UMass-Lowell's 79-77 win over the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
In the grand world of college basketball, which is now a week away from Selection Sunday, this would be just another America East conference game.
And it was—and then some.
It was an AMeast tournament semifinal game and UMBC was the top-seeded team in the tournament.
UMass-Lowell was the No. 6 seed, had dealt with injuries COVID-19 all season and was continuing to struggle to reach the .500 mark.
The River Hawks surprised everyone in last weekend's opening round when they won a pair of games against Stony Brook and New Hampshire, which put them within a game (10-11) of that goal.
The script said it should have ended on Saturday in the AMeast semifinals, with top-seeded UMBC and No. 2 seed Vermont moving into next Saturday's conference championship game.
Neither did, which created an improbable finale of UMass-Lowell at Hartford.
"We split during the regular season,'' said Duquette to began his head coaching career as the school's first Division 1 coach in the 2013-14 season. "It's been a fun couple of weeks.''
Duquette's pedigree was solid before taking his head first coaching job.
After a playing career at Williams College, Duquette jumped into the assistant coaching protocol, with stops at Centenary College of New Jersey, St. Lawrence, St. Michaels, and then for 13 seasons as an assitant at Boston College on Al Skinner's staff.
Duquette then joined Billy Coen's staff at Northeastern for three years before he arrived at Lowell in 2013.
Duquette comes from a baseball, rather than basketball background. His younger brother Jim is the former general manager of the Mets and Orioles, while a cousin Dan was a former GM of the Red Sox and is the current VP of Baseball Operations for the Orioles.
Duquette's stint at UMass-Lowell has been a work in progress as the program has had to be constructed at the Division I level. The River Hawks have not been horrible, but they have not been very good, floating just below the .500 mark every season.
This season has been filled with challenges, including the loss of their best player Obadiah Noel for almost a month with a leg injury.
Noel's return was felt on Saturday when he scored 22 points in the come from behind victory in which the River Hawks trailed by 16 points with 15:36 remaining, but fought back in the final seconds to pull off another upset.
"They kept trying to put us away and we kept coming back,'' said Duquette, who is hoping to be part of history again on Saturday if UMass-Lowell can earn its first-ever NCAA Division 1 tournament bid.
The River Hawks bus did not arrive back in Lowell until almost midnight on Saturday, but there were no complaints.
"We've had to struggle all season to get this far,'' said Duquette, who now must prepare for a shorter bus ride to Hartford for Saturday's games. "But this is fun. It's all positive now.''
A win against Hartford will guarantee at least one thing—that the River Hawks will finish no worse than .500 for the season, which will be another milestone.