March 16, 2012. Jeremy Knowles tees up a three-pointer from the corner with under five seconds left and hits it.
With that shot, the Cabrini Cavaliers were playing for their first national championship and fans wearing blue and white rocked the Salem Civic Center.
March 16, 2013. The Cavaliers complete their victory in enemy territory to return to the site of that shot, exactly one year to the day the Cavs’ 2013 journey truly began.
They are vastly different teams but the goal is common. From the end of the Cavs’ magical run in 2012, the goal was about returning to Salem, Va. and the Final Four.
Their win over The College of Wooster may only put them in the Elite 8 but it does achieve the goal of returning to Salem.
The Cavs have always set the goals at high marks this season. Their early season woes were not just due to a struggle to find the chemistry needed to pursue a national championship. The Cavs were thinking too far ahead.
When the Cavs take the court for the Elite 8, it will be exactly one month since their CSAC Final win that earned them the chance to play for a national championship. The goals haven’t changed, they just have a more defined process: one game at a time.
“I don’t even know if we know our full potential yet,” fifth-year head coach Marcus Kahn said after the Cavs’ CSAC title win. “Last year we all knew what we had. We kind of changed as the year went on which makes our group special.”
The Cavs don’t have an All-American like they did in Cory Lemons. They don’t have a sure-fire outside shooter like they did in John Boyd. Aaron Walton-Moss is no longer the Cavs’ secret weapon but the center of attention. And all the Cavs have done with that is enter the home arenas of three nationally-ranked opponents – No. 16 Hampden-Sydney, No. 21 Ohio Wesleyan and No. 20 Wooster – and defeat all three.
With odds stacked against them in every games they have played in the tournament, the Cavs have pulled through, fought the battles and defied the odds. They are truly the little team that could in the tournament.
Kahn constantly referred to last year’s team as a team of grit. It is quite possible that this year’s team possesses even more grit.
They are tenacious on the court. They fight for every point, battle for boards and create opportunities. And they do it as a team.
Walton-Moss certainly gets the most attention from the opposition. But after that, who gets the focus? In every round and in every game, the Cavs have another player stepping up to play a huge role. It was Jon Miller in the CSAC Final. In the first round, it was Knowles. In the second round, it was Fran Rafferty. In the Sweet 16, it was Tim McDaniel.
There is no way to protect against the depth of this team. Scoring can come from any player on any given night.
Trying to guard one force is manageable because all of the focus can shift to that one player. But try guarding three or four players who regularly post double-figures in points and out-rebound opponents. It’s an incredibly difficult task.
So here are the Cavs, with familiar faces but plenty of new ones too, making a return to the place this whole run got started. The difference this season is after having to constantly prove they belong in the national eye, they returned with the grittiest of games and the toughest of roads. It is the mentality that Kahn talked about even after defeat in the national championship a year ago.
“We have good kids in this program and make this program special and puts us on runs like the one we just had,” Kahn said. “All of the guys in our program would not be there if they were not first good people. And because we surround ourselves with them, it puts us on runs like that. We are going to continue to do what we do and we will continue to make runs like it.”
This little team that could is making noise and chugging along. One year after the campus was rocking with March Madness, the Cavs return to the late rounds of the NCAA Division III Tournament, in position to make history once again.
And once again, we are all along for the ride, however long it may last.
