Laverty, Widener keep rolling in MAC with win
CHESTER >> It’s been a while since the Widener University men won the MAC Commonwealth basketball title.
It only seems like that happened before the school transitioned from the Pioneers to the Pride.
In the 2007-08 season, the year after the switch to the Pride, Widener earned an MAC banner and the automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament. They won a game in the NCAA’s as well.
The way the Pride is rolling this season, they have a chance to do at least that although coach Chris Carideo cautioned that it’s much too early to celebrate anything more than the next game.
But after a 92-71 victory Saturday over Stevenson, which the Pride struggled to beat on the road this season, Carideo couldn’t hide his optimism over his squad’s attention to detail. Part of it stems from being overwhelmed by Acadia in the MAC championship game last season.
“I just think the guys have a different feel because they’re playing with a little more confidence,” Carideo said. “Being in that (title) game last year gave them a lot of experience and I think they came into the season knowing that their goal was to get back there because they wanted to give a better showing.
I don’t know if we’ll get there but they’re playing that way. We were out of that game the second the ball went up.”
Except for a few moments in the first half, the Pride (17-3, 10-1) was in command Saturday. Jared Peters scored a game-high 22 points, Connor Laverty 17 to go with a dozen rebounds. Kenny Lewis, Pat Holden and Kolbey Woodard tallied 11 points each.
In the first game against the Mustangs, the Pride trailed, 30-9, before mounting a comeback. In the Schwartz Center rematch, the Pride led by 36 points in the second half.
“We got off to a great start this season,” said Laverty, the 6-5 senior out of Ocean City High. “We started 10-0. We’re leading the conference by three games. Right now, our goal is to be the No. 1 seed by the time the conference tournament starts. That will give us homecourt advantage for the conference tournament. I’ve been here four years. We’ve been in the conference tournament all four and we’ve been talented enough to win it all four years. But this year really does feel different. We’re talented all the way through the last guy on the bench and we all get along. We’re best friends on and off the court. That’s the best way to describe it.”
The Pride earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament in the 2008-09 season yet bowed out in the first round, losing by two points.
This team is similar in at least one respect to the Pioneer teams Carideo played for under the late C. Alan Rowe, who won a school-record 536 games ending in 1998: its defense fuels the offense. Just not the same scheme of defense.
“We played a 1-3-1 half-court defense with Coach Rowe,” said Carideo, who scored over 2,000 points for Widener in a career ending in 1994-95. “We were strictly halfcourt defense. I ran off like 1,000 screens to shoot threes. It wasn’t high-paced like this. We played games in the 60s.”
The Pride has three games this season in the 90s, spreading the ball around almost effortlessly.
“We like to get up and down the floor, push the tempo and play defense,” Laverty said. “The defense fuels the offense. We’re so balanced that if you try to take one guy out of the game two or three other guys can step up and score. We can be really dangerous in that aspect because you can’t really just focus on one person.”
Right now, all eyes are on Swarthmore College in Division
III basketball. The Garnet is undefeated and ranked first in the country. The schools are 2.9 miles away. Maybe less if Widener opened the Bullens Lane gate to the Schwartz Center. One of these days it would be entertaining to see the Garnet and the Pride resume their 320 Challenge in men’s hoops. The women basketball teams still play each other.
“When that challenge ended, I think Landry (Kosmalski) and I played one more year and then we just stopped playing,” Carideo said referencing the Garnet’s 7668 win over the Pride in November of 2015. “We just really haven’t connected. They’re a different good than we are. We have a good record. They’re unbeaten and ranked No.
1. But yeah, I would like to see that. And I know our kids would.”
First things first, of course. And for the Pride, that means earning their way back to the dance.