WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - For the University of Rochester men's basketball team, it wasn't supposed to end this way. The Yellowjackets enjoyed a stellar 2003-04 campaign in which they had put together a 25-1 record and earned their third straight berth in the Div. III NCAA Championship Tournament. Keene State College (NH) pulled off a huge Sweet Sixteen upset Friday at Chandler Gym at Williams College, beating Rochester in an 82-79 contest in the Northeast Regional. The Owls - who are basking in the glory of their first visit to the coveted tourney - improve to 25-5 and now face the challenge of taking down the No. 1 hometown Ephs (28-1) here on Saturday at 7 p.m.. The winner of that game earns a trip to the Div. III Final Four in Salem, Va.
Despite Rochester's late-game run and desperation three-point shooting, Keene State prevailed in yet another Sweet 16 letdown for Rochester, a repeat of last season's disappointing conclusion. The Owls were able to subdue the favored Rochester squad and gain control of the game's tempo - an advantage highlighted in the first half by a 15-0 Keene State run that left the Yellowjackets desperate for a revised game plan.
"We just got beat," University of Rochester head coach Mike Neer said. "(Keene St.) was aggressive, they were hot. They were big, strong, tough, aggressive. The things they wanted to do, I'd imagine they think they did."
The Owls did establish early on that this game would be played the way they wanted it to be played, something Rochester was not used to seeing. Neer acknowledged that his team has its limitations and that Keene State was successful in exploiting most of them on Friday.
Rochester's Seth Hauben, a junior forward from Newton, Mass., led the Yellowjackets with 21 points. He echoed Neer's sentiments about Keene's control.
"We were playing their game," Hauben said. "We could not get them to play in our character."
Neer added: "They got the lead and they made us adjust. You've got to give them a tremendous amount of credit. We had to compete out of character and I was very, very, very impressed with Keene. They were tough ... I thought they were well-prepared. They got an early lead and made us adapt to them."
With the game tied at 14 with 9:40 remaining in the first half, Keene's Harley Davis drained a three from the top of the key to give the Owls the lead for good. Although it made numerous threats of a comeback, Rochester was unable to muster a rally.
"We talked about attacking and being aggressive," Keene St. head coach Rob Colbert said of his team's strategy as the decisive underdog. "Pace control was key. We controlled the tempo."
The Owls gave up on their half-court defense early in the game and instead used a high-pressure system that took Rochester out of its run-of-the-mill routine.
"You could pretty much choreograph most of our season," Neer admitted. "We're specialists, not really general practitioners, and they made us adapt to them."
"They showed their hand early on in terms of what they were going to do," Colbert said. "That's why we went right into the pressure. That's not what I had planned on. I thought with their depth factor, especially with their big kids, I thought (full pressure) would not be possible. We wanted to sprinkle in some pressure and try to keep them off balance - not allow them to become real methodical and deliberate. I didn't anticipate having to go to the pressure that early to do so, but their game plan obviously was to let that play clock tick down. After the first two possessions, I didn't want any more of that. Our kids had a lot of emotion, a lot of energy at that point - I wanted to let them use it."
The energy Keene St. displayed early on, it turns out, was there to stay. The game never looked like a blowout, but the momentum was all Keene and it came to a head with 6:15 left in the game when Owl senior guard Alphonse Michalski launched a bomb to Matthew Wheeler for a thunderous alley-oop, giving Keene a 68-51 lead and giving the Chandler Gym crowd something to cheer about. Michalski and Wheeler each finished with 15 points.
"Rochester is real good, but they're beatable," Keene's Timson said. "We were relaxed and didn't feel pressured. When you're confident, shots go down."
For the Box Score, please visit:
http://www.williams.edu/athletics/sports/m_basketball/2003/box_scores/NCAA2.HTM
