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Win or go home. It’s a clique, but in the Mid-American Conference and many other smaller leagues just like it, this defines their life during the second week of March.
A school like Michigan State will head to the Big Ten tournament with some excitement and hopes for the best, but really there is very little on the line. Their spot in the NCAA Tournament is secure; only a couple of seed lines can be impacted now.
But for the little guy, in this case the Eagles of Eastern Michigan, last night’s MAC Tournament opener was life or death. It’s win, win, and keep winning -- in this case, five times in six nights, or risk being done playing real basketball games for the next eight months.
To the casual Detroit sports fan, last night’s hoops affair between Miami of Ohio and Eastern Michigan in Ypsilanti was a blip on the radar. One of those scores you catch scrolling along the bottom ticker, then forget about just a few seconds later.
But the passion, the drama, the sheer will to extend the season would make this game much more than just a blip. It was the epitome of March Madness.
Visitors In Control
The Miami Redhawks invaded the Convocation Center with the same conference record as the Eagles (8-10). Three fourths of the way through the game, though, they looked to be in a different class.
The explosive guard combo for Eastern, Raven Lee and Mike Talley, were more or less non-factors. Talley passed up open 3s for contested drives resulting in turnovers. Lee settled for long jumpers when attacking served him better.
There were nine minutes to go in Eastern Michigan’s season, and the home team was down a dozen points. And we’re not talking 78-66, or 69-57. The score was 52-40. The Eagles could not score. In fact, they hadn’t at all for almost four minutes.
But nobody ever said a comeback had to be fueled by rapid offense. This one was defined by a defense that decided that for the rest of the game, they were not going to give a single inch.
That’s not hyperbole. It’s the truth. For the final nine minutes of the second half, the Redhawks would not make a single basket.
Still A Struggle
One would think, then, that the 12-point deficit had evaporated quickly and momentum shifted in full to the home team. That wasn’t really how it went.
After a pair of and-1s sliced the lead in half, the teams would combine to play more than five minutes without anyone at all hitting a shot. If you were looking for beauty or offensive rhythm, you were in the wrong place.
Time continued to melt away. Eastern had cut the lead in half again, from six to three, but the clock was not their friend. They had the ball, coming out of a time out, with just 20 seconds left in the season.
Some teams might entertain the possibility of fouling in this spot to prevent a three-point attempt from getting off. Rob Murphy, EMU’s fireball of a coach, thought Miami would do just that.
But they didn’t. They decided to play defense. It would cost them their life.
Raven Lee, a Detroit product and the Eagles go-to man all year long, came racing around a screen. The ball met him at just the right time.
The shot went up, and he brought the house down. Tie game.
Lee was asked after the game if the shot reminded him of the final play in Above the Rim, a classic hoops flick from 1994. Apparently the asker of said question (yours truly) forgot that Lee was a mere one years old when it hit theaters.
“Actually, I haven’t seen that movie, ” Lee said with a smile.
He didn’t need to watch it. He lived it.
Five More Minutes
The game was going to overtime, but for all intents and purposes, it was already over.
When you’re the home team and you just came back from 12 down and the 1,500 in attendance feels more like 15,000, the extra period is going to fall your way. That’s just how sports work.
The Eagles, buoyed by a pair of surprise buckets from Anali Okoloji, crept ahead by one with about 30 seconds left. Miami had what seemed like a million shots around the rim in that final half-minute, but none would go down.
When the last one finally went begging, Eastern Michigan had secured what Murphy would call after the game “as big a win we’ve had since I’ve been here, because of the way that we won.”
The Dream Lives On
Generally speaking, holding your opponent to one field goal over a 14-minute stretch will result in a commanding victory. In this case, the Eagles won by a point. A point that separates living from dying.
The pure joy that emanated from the Eagles’ faces at the final horn served as a reminder of just how magical, how powerful the finality of March basketball can be.
Lee, the night’s hero, and Talley, the team’s relentless senior point guard, weren’t concerned at that moment with the rest of the tournament bracket. They weren’t thinking about the tremendous challenge that still awaits them, the fact that they’ll need to win four more games in four consecutive nights to earn an NCAA berth.
They were just happy to have the opportunity to take the court again. In March, that’s the only thing that matters.
If you have a game tomorrow, you’ve done something right today.
Eastern Michigan didn’t do everything right on Monday, but they did enough to win.
For that, they’ll get to lace ‘em up again on Wednesday. And maybe, just maybe, on Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday...
They know, however, to take it one game at a time.
One crazy, dramatic, impossible March classic at a time.
