Phil Martelli, Jr. had the weekend to savor his basketball team’s first trip to the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships.
Bryant, seeded 15th in the South Regional, lost to second-seeded Michigan State, 87-62, Friday night. But just getting to March Madness in Cleveland was unforgettable.
“It was a lot of fun,” Martelli, Bryant’s head coach, said of the best season in the program’s Division I history.
Monday morning, Martelli and his staff were back at work in Smithfield, scouring the transfer portal for players who might help them return to the tournament next year.
In Providence, a week after the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships at the Amica Mutual Pavilion, coach Lonnie Morris was still thrilled for his wrestlers. They are national champs. More accurately, co-champs, after tying Wartburg College of Waverly, Iowa.
Personally, Morris found the taste of victory bittersweet. He made “a really bad decision” in the second — or Blood Round — that cost his freshman star Peyton Ellis from Coventry his match, All-America recognition and the potential to become a four-time All-America.
“How does it feel? We tied. Sure, we’re national champions, but if I make the right decision, we win by 20 and celebrate at another level,” Morris told me.
More about the Wildcats in a moment.
Bryant finished as the best of the four men’s Division I teams in Rhode Island and the only team to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs were 23-12, a school record for victories, and the America East regular-season and tournament champion.
Fifth-year Earl Timberlake was the America East Conference Player of the Year, the America East Championship’s Outstanding Player, first-team all-conference and first-team all-defense. Martelli says he is the best player in Bryant’s history. He started his college odyssey at Miami, spent a year at Memphis and played his last three at Bryant.
Senior Rafael Pinzon, a transfer from St. John’s, was first-team all-conference. Junior Barry Evans was the conference Newcomer of the Year after spending two seasons at St. Bonaventure.
Martelli is the America East and NABC Mid-Atlantic coach of the year.
What does all this mean for the Bryant program?
“A standard has been set. This is what we expect to be. This can’t be a one-off,” Martelli told me this week.
Replacing six departing Bulldogs — starting with Timberlake and Pinzon, and including Connor Withers, Kvonn Kramer, Kim Farris and Josh Ozabor — will be the first challenge for Bryant coaches. They will work the transfer portal, which became active on Monday.
Bryant could lose players in the portal, making roster management even more challenging.
“In certain spots, certain situations, guys can make quite a bit,” Martelli said of the income potential from Name, Image and Likeness deals and payments from collectives.
“It’s tough. The way things are now, you can lose it quick, and you can gain it back quick,” he added.
If they return, forwards Barry Evans and Keyshawn Mitchell and guards Khalil Williams, Devean Williams, Aaron Davis, and Jake Robinson will be the core of Martelli’s third team in Smithfield. He’ll be looking for players with character as well as talent, he said.
The visibility gained from winning a league championship and playing a blue-blood like Michigan State in the tournament should help. So would a new 3,400-seat arena announced in 2022 but still, as Martelli put it, “on the back burner.”
Now, back to Johnson & Wales.
Seniors Joziah Fry from Coventry and Hayden Brown from Exeter, N.H., came through in the finals to pull the Wildcats into a tie with Wartburg, each with 89.5 points. The title was the first for JWU, the 16th for Wartburg, an NCAA Division III record.
Brown, a three-time All-America and the top-ranked wrestler in Division III at 149 pounds won five matches, the clincher a 5-0 decision over Angelo Centore of Cortland State that set the stage for Fry.
Undefeated in DIII for three years with a career record of 120-1, a three-time All-America, No. 1 in the nation and the top seed in the tournament at 125, Fry wrestled undefeated and second-seeded Christian Guzman of North Central College in Naperville, Ill., in the final match of the tournament.
“He had to win,” Morris said a week later. “I asked if he wanted to go last. He loves the pressure. He’s a little pit bull.”
The pressure increased when Guzman notched the first takedown, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Not to be denied in front of his family, friends and ‘J-Woo Nation,’ Fry battled back. He did not produce a fall (pin) or a major decision that would have earned JWU the title outright, but his 10-5 decision gave the Wildcats a share of the title.
Senior Dylan Harr from Mohnton, Penn., finished fifth at 197 and junior Adolfo Betancour from Coventry and Bishop Hendricken sixth at 285 — earning them both All-America status, Harr for the third time.
Jake Eckerle from Northport, N.Y., at 141 and Jack Richardson from Danielson, Conn., at 165 picked up points on the first day of the tournament.
Coach Lonnie Morris is convinced his team would have rolled to victory had he managed Ellis better in his match against Hinton, his fourth of the day.
“He was winning 6-1 with 2 minutes left, and I made a decision that cost him All-America,” Morris said. Ellis had defeated Hinton twice this season, each time dominating on his feet. Ellis had just escaped from being on the bottom, and it was Morris’s decision where he should start next: top, bottom or neutral.
“Never give a kid on top a second chance. Peyton was tired. As a coach, I should have known that,” Morris told me. “I should have chosen neutral. Instead, I put him back down. As soon as I made the decision, I asked why.”
Hinton pulled out a 9-6 victory.
“I’ve made the wrong decision three times in my career,” Morris said. “I looked [Peyton] right in the eye and said, ‘I messed up’ When you mess up, you got to own it.”
In the end, J-Woo still celebrated. And why not? Alumni returned from near and far. Parents of wrestlers from 20 years ago showed up.
“It was amazing. All weekend we heard we got a chance to win,” Morris said. “This doesn’t happen if not for all the other kids who paved the way. This brought us all together. ‘J-Woo Nation.’ That meant more to me. Coming together. It was a really special time.”
What does this mean for JWU wrestling going forward? Here’s what Morris said:
“We have finished first, third and fourth twice. All it does is cement the fact that we are one of the top teams in the country, and we’re not going anywhere. We have a good class coming in. I think we are good enough to do it again next year. In Peyton Ellis, Cameron Soda, Adolfo Betancour, Jack Richardson we have four potential All-Americas.”
