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For Ruben Britt and the Bloomsburg Huskies, Wednesday night at Mansfield was a do-or-die scenario. A win would leave the Huskies just one win away from that elusive golden ticket that could be punched with a road win Saturday at Kutztown. A loss against the Mountaineers, and the Huskies would be faced with the end of their season, the end of a fantastic turnaround, that saw the Huskies go from the laughing stock of the PSAC-East in 2008 to a major contender night-in and night-out in the 2009-10 season.
But following 40 minutes of hard-fought, hard -nosed basketball, including a herculean effort from senior Ruben Britt, playing to extend his collegiate basketball career-it wasn’t enough as the Huskies fell the Mansfield 68-64. The Huskies trailed at half by just two at 30-28, but in the end the Huskies one fatal flaw that has plagued them all year came out at all the wrong times Wednesday night.
The problem, team defense.
The Huskies allowed Mountaineer Ryan Callaghan to put on a scoring exhibition of epic proportions, torching the Huskies for 29 points. His running mate, senior center Yuseff Carr, the 284 pounder from New York City, had a game eerily similar to the one earlier in the year against the Huskies, having his way against every Husky defender in range finishing with 22 points and 7 rebounds.
Bloomsburg was also unable to give Britt any help on the offensive end, as the senior finished with 22 points on 6-17 shooting. The next closest Huskies in the scoring column were Larry Webster and Gregory Elliot, both of who finished with nine points apiece.
For all their woes defensively, the Huskies still had their opportunities in the second half all the way into the last two minutes. But once again, like many times this year, it was the key defensive stops at the end of games that the Huskies were unable to come up with.
And lastnight, more than any other night, it hurt the Huskies. It was their fatal flaw that ultimately put the nail in the coffin, nailing shut any last hope that Bloomsburg had of making its way to a surprise playoff birth that looked nearly impossible of achieving at the beginning of the season.
For a team that was picked to finish last in the PSAC-East, these Huskies will go down as a team that surprised many but not all. These Huskies believed in themselves, that on any given night on any given floor they together as one team, could play with anybody in the land. And many nights they did, bringing the Bloomsburg faithful to their feet at the newly-renovated Nelson Fieldhouse cheering on their Huskies as they willed their way all the way down to the final week of the season battling for a playoff birth.
At the beginning of the season, not many people would have picked the Huskies to do what they did. Not many people believed.
All in all, this Huskies squad made people believe again. Believe that Bloomsburg Huskies men’s basketball on any given night can play with anyone. And at the end of the day, and in this case the end of a great winter of Huskies basketball, when all is said and done, that’s all we can ask for: a reason to believe.
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