ALL-KNIGHTER
FDU’s coach an inspiration as team preps for first tourney win
Considering Greg Herenda’s frightening NCAA Tournament ordeal one year ago, the wait until the final bracket was announced on Sunday to find out the details of Fairleigh Dickinson’s second Big Dance appearance in four years was worth it.
Barely 11 months after he was hospitalized for 15 days in San Antonio with two signif icant blood clots — while attending the Final Four with his wife and son — Herenda and the Knights learned they will face Prairie View A&M on Tuesday in a playin game in Dayton for the right to face No. 1 seed Gonzaga in the West Region.
“I told my wife, I didn’t want to die in Texas. There was a reason to live,” said Herenda, the 57-yearold Bergen County native in his sixth season at the Hackensack school. “In the hospital, I had two major blood clots, and a very high fever, I was intensive care for eight days, but I just thought of my team. Every time I talk to them about getting back, and working hard, and just chipping away, well, that’s how I got out of there.
“I was in a bed, I was in a wheelchair, then a walker, a cane, and now we’re dancing. It’s amazing. It’s not real. It’s like it couldn’t happen. It would be a fantasy, fiction, if someone were to write it. But I lived it and I’m cherishing this moment. ... This team has rallied around me, but it’s not about me or my illness. They’re kids and they want to play basketball and win games.”
FDU ( 2 0 -1 3 ) captured the Northeast Conference tournament title last week with a victory over St. Francis (Pa.), earning the sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in school history. The Knights are led on the court by two seniors — guard and leading scorer Darnell Edge (16.4 points per game) and forward Mike Holloway Jr. — the only two holdovers from the squad that lost a play-in game in Dayton to Florida Gulf Coast when they were freshmen.
“Three years ago, it was a lot of nerves, but going back this year, we know what to expect,” said Edge, who ranks fourth in the country in three-point percentage (.469) and ninth in free-throw percentage (.893). “I’m just trying to continue to lead the younger guys. This play-in game is perfect for us, it gives us a chance to get our feet wet and compete and win a game and make some history for our school.”
I ndeed, a win over Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament champion Prairie View (2212) would mark the first tourney victory in school history. It also would set up a dream date with No. 1 Gonzaga in Salt Lake City on Thursday, one year after Maryl a nd- Bal t i more County upended No. 1 seed Virginia last March to become the first No. 16 seed in history to do so.
“I’ve always had that dream, too, but [UMBC coach] Lane Odom beat me to it,” Herenda joked. “I feel like the gap has really closed from the top teams down. But we can’t and won’t look at anything other than Prairie View. Anything is possible, but we have to take care of business first.” Anything is truly possible, even a chance to dance in the NCAA tournament 11 months after a lifethreatening situation for Herenda, whose team has won its last eight games since Feb. 14. “Even though everybody know she’ s crazy on the sidelines, coach pushes us so hard and I love that guy to death. [ Hi s illness] honestly motivated me as a player,” Holloway said. “Coach always says i t’s just us, this is a special family, and we really appreciate that ,” added forward Kaleb Bishop, a junior out of St. Anthony’s high school in Jersey City. “Just seeing him go through that, seeing pictures of him in the hospital, to be in this position now, we dedicate that to him.”