Huskies use loss as fuel
Enter season as faves
In the locker room after the game, the emotion was raw. Tears were shed, heads were hung, and players were apologizing for what they did or didn’t do, putting blame on themselves.
“That was probably the hardest loss of my career,” guard Vasa Pusica said.
Northeastern was trying to come to grips with how its dream slipped away. The Huskies led by 17 points in the second half of the Colonial Athletic Association championship game in March, well on their way to an NCAA tournament bid, when everything went terribly wrong.
Little by little, Charleston cut into the deficit, and Northeastern wasn’t able to stop the bleeding. In the final 20 seconds, the Huskies led by two when Pusica was whistled for a questionable travel. Joe Chealey’s ensuing layup tied the game and sent it to overtime, where Charleston pulled away and cut down the nets.
After the game, Northeastern coach Bill Coen said he couldn’t imagine a tougher loss.
“It was pretty devastating,” guard Shawn Occeus said.
The pain didn’t dissipate quickly.
When the Huskies returned to campus, they were constantly reminded of their collapse. Occeus said people approached him to say the team should have won. It made him want to get back in the gym.
Pusica watched the NCAA tournament, but it took him months to look at clips of the CAA championship loss. And even then, he had to skip the ending. It was too difficult to watch.
Eventually, the emotions subsided, but the memory didn’t. Back home in Serbia this summer, Pusica put the loss in perspective, and he used it as motivation during his own workouts.
“Time heals it, and just realizing that you can’t be down on yourself,” Pusica said. “If you don’t learn anything from it, then what was the point? I feel like you have to get something good out of it and really just focus and get better and not let it happen again.”
This season, the Huskies are driven to not experience that pain again. They return all but one player from last year’s squad, and as they carry high expectations into tonight’s opener against Boston University, Coen hopes the abrupt ending in March will be used as fuel.
“From an emotional standpoint, it’s well behind us, but hopefully from a motivational standpoint, it’s always front and center,” Coen said.
“I think guys want to earn it back, and they want to put themselves back in that position, and there’s a lot of hard work that’s required of that. Having gone through it last year, I think they realize that.”
Occeus has been through this too many times. The junior guard compared the Charleston loss to a defeat he suffered his junior year at Grandview Prep in Florida, where he and his heavily favored team lost in the state semifinals.
“It was kind of the same feeling in the locker room,” Occeus said.
The next year, Grandview Prep went undefeated and won the state title.
Northeastern isn’t looking to go undefeated this season, but Occeus said he’s drawn on that experience to get past the loss.
“It helped me become smarter and physically and mentally stronger for the next year,” Occeus said. “It lets me know what things I need to focus on, and what things are more important and what things I just need to leave alone, so that was a big key.”
The Huskies basically have the same team, but the expectations are different. Last season, they were picked to finish sixth in the league, and they used it as motivation to take a share of the regular season title and advance to the CAA championship game.
But this season, Northeastern isn’t sneaking up on anyone. It was picked as a nearly unanimous favorite to win the CAA. Pusica, a transfer from San Diego mostly unknown before last season, is on everyone’s radar. The same goes for the rest of a roster that showed how good it can be.
“The energy level we’re going to face night in and night out because we’re preseason favorites is going to be a little different,” Coen said. “We’re going to be a big game on everybody’s schedule because without really knowing who’s the best, people are going to say we’re going to measure ourselves against Northeastern, so we’re going to get everyone’s best shot.”
But like last season, the Huskies have motivation to drive them. They know better than to call this season NCAA tournament or bust, but it’s clearly the No. 1 goal. The Charleston loss is in the past, and it has galvanized the team for another run this year.
“It was tough,” Occeus said. “But at the same time, it just lets you know that it’s something that’s going to fuel the fire to this team and this school to help us move forward.”