The Mount St. Mary’s men’s basketball season is officially over. Two weeks ago, the Mount sat in 5th place in the Northeast Conference at 12 wins and 14 losses with 2 regular season games to play, both against conference opponents. They only needed one more win in order to clinch homecourt advantage in the first round of the NEC Championship Tournament. In the Mount’s second to last regular season game, they lost by 12 to Sacred Heart. However, in their last game of the season, they blew out Central Connecticut on the road, winning by 19 and clinching homecourt advantage for the first round of the playoffs.
Although the players and coaches of the team were definitely happy to play their first game of the conference playoffs at Knott Arena, the students at Mount St. Mary’s were definitely happier. In March of 2019, the college basketball season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so there were no conference tournaments or March Madness that year. Last year, during the 2020-21 season, the Mount made the NEC tournament (which they eventually won) as the number four seed, which meant they had no homecourt advantage in the two-round tournament. Whether the Mount had homecourt advantage or not, fans still wouldn’t have been able to attend the game, due to COVID-19 restrictions not allowing fans in the arena.
After these two seasons, Mount students were ecstatic to finally attend a home playoff game, as the Mount hasn’t hosted a playoff game in all of my four years here. The reason why students love going to the games so much is because of the high-level intensity the players and the fans exude. Attending Mount basketball games is something most Mount students do, as it is a great way to socialize and have fun in a great atmosphere. Many of the Mount students, like myself, have a huge passion for basketball.
Although the Mount did clinch homecourt advantage for the first round of the NEC tournament against St. Francis Brooklyn, almost all students at the school were not on campus due to spring break. A lot of these students, including myself and my roommates, were so excited to finally see a Mount men’s playoff game, but what we didn’t realize is that we wouldn’t be on campus for the game, which was held on March 2nd. While it wasn’t ideal that we weren’t on campus for the game, and it would’ve been an amazing experience, the Mount did end up winning that game by 30 points, which is all that really matters. In the next round, the Mount lost in a nail biter to eventual NEC champions, Bryant, losing by one point in the last few seconds.