It's Friday, and I'm supposed to be getting ready for a Sweet 16 game. Instead... "as the darkness takes me, I am nothing."
Late Saturday night into early Sunday, we got confirmation that North Central was slated to host Washington University Friday night in the third round of the NCAA Tournament. It gave me one final game for the year; one last chance to see this senior class on a quest for a national title. But with all the coronavirus talk, things were in flux.
We saw it even last weekend, as Johns Hopkins and Amherst hosted pods in men's and women's basketball, respectively, closed to fans, with only essential personnel and media allowed entrance to the respective gyms. The ban did not apply to North Central thankfully, so over a thousand people were able to see
the comeback on Saturday.
Wednesday, the NCAA made an announcement recommending that games take place with limited crowds. At that point I began furiously refreshing my email, waiting for word from North Central. I wasn't sure necessarily if my presence would be needed at the table on Friday night. Ultimately, word came down on Thursday morning that North Central would abide by those guidelines and only play in front of immediate family. But this decision came in the wake of the Patient Zero heard around the world in Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert testing positive for the virus. In the wake of that, professional sports leagues the world over began suspending operations. And ultimately, Thursday afternoon, word came back from the NCAA that all remaining championships this season have been cancelled, which meant that Friday's game against WashU would no longer take place.
The Bears were inside Gregory Arena practicing for the upcoming game when the announcement came down, and North Central players found out pretty quickly after this. And so, North Central's season comes to an end, with a 23-5 record and a Sweet Sixteen berth to show for their efforts.
So how did we get here? Let's look back on a memorable campaign.
The Cardinals came into the 2019-20 season as the favorite to win the CCIW, ahead of Augustana and some other highly touted squads thanks to bringing back basically their entire 2019 team. But the Cardinals had a tough test to open the campaign as
they welcomed in the defending national champions, got off to a slow start, and couldn't catch up.
They got back on track in a big way against a System team in Greenville, with Connor Raridon recording the first ever triple-double for North Central and Matt Cappelletti threatening Alex Sorenson's scoring record before Todd Raridon called off the dogs. The non-conference marathon continued the following week as
the Cardinals knocked off a physical Rose-Hulman team, but the following night went cold on what was dubbed Save Lucas' Voice Night as
Benedictine took back the Bill Warden-Tony LaScala Trophy.
The Cardinals spent the next month on the road, but questions were starting to mount; the team was ranked in the top three coming into the season, and the question was asked: "Is North Central really that good?" Wins over Olivet and Kalamazoo right after Thanksgiving didn't really boost their resume all that much, and losing the CCIW opener to Carthage up in Kenosha didn't do many favors either. But going to Chicago to dismantle North Park helped right the ship, as did a blowout win at Aurora. Then came a stern test at Elmhurst, where the Cardinals overcame a 12 point deficit to steal a tough road win. A two week layoff followed, then the Cardinals took a pair of games down in Texas. This carried the Cardinals into the new year with a 9-3 record, and they were in the thick of the CCIW race coming home.
Conference started back up in earnest as Wheaton came into the house, and gave the Cardinals all they could handle...
but the Cardinals pulled it out in overtime. They continued their hot streak that Wednesday,
knocking off Illinois Wesleyan and in the process claiming The Belt
TM for the first time in program history.
They just held on against Carroll in their first defense that following Saturday, and I found the opportunity to write up
a brief history of The BeltTM. Meanwhile, the Cardinals went down to Decatur and took care of business against Millikin before coming back home to close out the first half of conference play,
just barely hanging on to beat Augustana to finish that first half at 7-1 in conference.
The hot streak continued into the weekend as
the Cardinals blew out an overmatched Millikin team to get to 8-1. Then came another bump in the road as the Cardinals dropped one in Bloomington for the first time in five years, giving the Titans The Belt
TM for the third time this season. But it was a temporary bump, as
North Park came to Naperville to get blown out the following Saturday. Then after a bye came the de facto regular season title game as Elmhurst came to Naperville.
The Blue Jays proceeded over the next two hours to get the clamps put down on them as the Cardinals completed the regular season sweep and put themselves in the driver's seat for the conference title. Things seemed all but set on that following Wednesday when the Cardinals travelled to Rock Island and put a whupping on Augustana to complete that season sweep as well as regain possession of The Belt
TM. A win up in Waukesha over Carroll that Saturday gave the Cardinals at least a share of the conference title, and they
clinched it outright thanks to The Miracle on Brainard Street in the regular season home finale over Carthage. Then the Cardinals closed the regular season with a tough win at Wheaton, finishing that part of the campaign at 21-4, 14-2 in the CCIW.
That brought the CCIW Tournament to Naperville for the first time since 2012. Unfortunately,
the Blue Jays got revenge and knocked the Cardinals out, seemingly ending any chances of hosting the following weekend. They followed that up by beating the other team to pull a Friday upset in Illinois Wesleyan, giving Elmhurst the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Fortunately,
based on the regional rankings, the Cardinals weren't really in a ton of trouble in terms of the bubble. But they had to wait until the very end of the selection show to find out that
they were in fact hosting the first weekend for the second straight year, but once again having a tough second round draw.
That didn't stop the Cardinals from
taking care of business in round one against MIAA champ Adrian. But the second round game and rematch with Oshkosh was an instant classic,
seeing the Cardinals come back from down big early to pull out an all time win. And with the other results on Saturday, it gave the Cardinals the right to host a third round game against Washington University in St. Louis... or at least, that was the plan.
Instead here we sit a week later, the rest of the postseason cancelled.
I'm not going to decry the NCAA or its membership for making the decisions they did. We need to get a handle on this public health crisis. I just wish it didn't have to come at the cost of the end of Aiden, Connor, Cap, and Aaron's careers. I felt for four years like this team had left a little bit on the table by not being able to get out of the first weekend, then they finally do (knocking the defending champ out in the process)... only for it to get ripped out from under them. I'm bummed for me, but I'm more heartbroken for those four guys, Aiden and Connor in particular. Those two were fifth-year seniors, and Aiden bounced back from a catastrophic injury last season to come back for this run. It sucks.
What sucks more is that... this is it for that senior class. Their final game will go down in North Central lore, but there's so much left on the table; so many what-ifs that we will never get to answer. And next year's team, while they bring back a lot of talent, and guys like Blaise Meredith, Will Clausel, and Mike Pollack have stepped up so much and will be the leaders next year... how do you replace a once-in-a-generation talent in Connor Raridon? How do you replicate the toughness and leadership of Aiden Chang? How do you replace what Matt Cappelletti has been able to do, rising from a random end of the bench guy at the beginning of his freshman year to a back-to-back All CCIW First Team guy? How do you replace Aaron Jones' skillset?
There seems to be a lot of faith in the pipeline, and we saw some good things from guys like Matt Helwig, who cracked the rotation in the middle of the year and did some good things for the Cardinals. Hopefully he and some of the freshman class put in the work during this offseason and come back for a revenge tour next season. But for now, I'm going to binge that Oshkosh second round game as much as I can and pine for the good old days.
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