Notables

By David Collinge
For D3sports.com

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio -- This was supposed to happen a year ago.

Guilford came into the 2007-08 season filled with confidence, buoyed by preseason No. 4 ranking and the presence of the reigning D3hoops.com national Player of the Year, Ben Strong. They had made a deep run in the 2007 NCAA tournament, outlasting Lincoln 128-127 in an epic three-overtime game, then falling to defending champions, conference rival Virginia Wesleyan, in the quarterfinals. They were deep, talented, experienced, and poised to restore the glory not seen since Lloyd "World B." Free and M.L. Carr were pounding the hardwoods in Greensboro.

And then the Quakers went one-and-out.

"Last year, we felt like we had a really good team," Guilford coach Tom Palombo explained. The Quakers coasted to the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) regular season and tournament championships, and entered the NCAA tournament with a sparkling 24-4 record and No. 8 national ranking. They were a great team with playoff experience that was led by a great player. With 16 straight wins, they were peaking at the right time, and they had earned the right to host a regional on their own floor. "I think some guys, and maybe coaches too, were thinking ‘Hey -- this is a team that can get to the Final Four,' " recalled Palombo. "Well, we forgot to play the first round game."

Upstart St. Mary's blindsided the Quakers 89-77 in that game, and with shocking suddenness, Guilford's dream season was but a memory. So was Ben Strong's career in Greensboro, leaving a huge hole for Palombo to try to fill. Strong, a two-time D3Hoops.com All American, accounted for more than 30% of his team's offense in 2006-08, leading Guilford in scoring in 47 of 58 games those two seasons. Palombo did have Clay Henson, the second-leading scorer at 12.9 ppg, returning, along with promising center Tyler Sanborn, who had averaged 6.8 points and 6.9 rebounds backing up Strong. But it seemed that Guilford may have fumbled its best chance for a championship since Free led the 1973 Quakers to the NAIA title.

Picked to finish third in the ODAC and absent from the D3hoops.com Top 25, Guilford started the season without the pressure of high expectations. They started the season with three wins before running into a 64-48 buzzsaw at Texas-Dallas. Guilford regrouped after that Texas trip, winning ten of its next 12 games and re-entering the Top 25 in week 10. The Quakers went on to capture a second straight ODAC championship (shared with preseason favorite Randolph-Macon) and the top seed in the ODAC tournament, held at the Salem Civic Center.

And then it happened again, this time at the hands of lightly regarded Washington and Lee.

When asked whether having played recently at the site of the Final Four provided an advantage for the Quakers, Palombo joked "you know, we were only there for about 15 minutes in our conference tournament. Actually, we went double overtime, so we were there about 25 minutes."

At the end of that second overtime, the Generals were advancing to the semifinals, leaving Guilford to regroup one more time.

Sent on the road to Centre College, Guilford opened the NCAA tournament against nearby Transylvania, the champions of the Heartland Conference. Leading for most of the second half, the Quakers saw a late six-point lead slip away and were forced into an overtime session with the Pioneers, when Rhett Bonner took charge. The junior guard single-handedly outscored Transylvania, pouring in 10 of his 22 points, including hitting eight of nine free throws. In the second round, the Quakers met up with Averett, an upset victor over host Centre. As they had in a November matchup, Guilford came away with a ten-point victory behind by Bonner's 27 points.

The next obstacle on Guilford's road (back) to Salem was a trip to tenth-ranked John Carroll, the Ohio Athletic Conference champions who hadn't lost a game at home in over a calendar year. Once again, Bonner and Sanborn were up to the challenge, with Bonner tossing in 21 points and Sanborn recording a monster 23-point, 19-rebound game. With the Blue Streaks vanquished by a 78-73 count, Guilford found themselves once again facing Texas-Dallas, the same team that had thumped them in November.

Against the Comets, things started poorly for the Quakers and quickly got worse. "We played so bad, we couldn't do anything right, especially in the first half," lamented Palombo. "We didn't play defense the way we're supposed to, [and] we didn't do anything right offensively. Going into halftime, we felt really good only being down six." The Comets soon extended that lead to an even dozen and seemed in firm control of the game. With 5:27 left and UT-Dallas still leading by 12, Guilford finally shook off the cobwebs and went on a 9-0 run keyed by a switch to a full-court trapping defense that forced three quick turnovers. "We're not a real big pressing team, but we do have it," Palombo explained. "We brought it out, and I thought it changed the tempo. It got us a couple turnovers, and I think [Texas-Dallas] got a little tentative against it."

After a three-pointer by UT-D's Brandon Greene restored the margin to six, Clay Henson connected on the first Guilford trey of the night with just 1:01 left. After Greene missed the front end of a one-and-one, Sanborn's putback with 0:11 on the clock cut the lead to just one. Scott Rodgers gave the Comets a three-point edge with two free throws, but Henson followed with an acrobatic off-balance trey from the top of the key with 0:00.8 left to force overtime.

Although Guilford never led the game in regulation, they had all the momentum a game-ending 17-5 run can provide, and when Bonner opened the overtime with a three-pointer, the Quakers never trailed again. Despite playing below his expectations for much of the contest, Palombo is upbeat about his team's chances next week. "The good thing is, it's March and we're going to the Final Four, and we can still get a lot better. We've got a lot to work on in practice."

Tyler Sanborn, named the most outstanding player of the sectional tournament, comes to Salem having recorded double-doubles in each of his last seven games, and is averaging 19.8 points and 15.3 rebounds per tournament game. Rhett Bonner has averaged 21 points in his four tournament outings, and has connected on 25 of 28 free throw attempts.

Both are juniors, as is leading scorer Clay Henson (18.7 points per game for the season, 15 per game in the tournament), leading one to wonder if the team that was supposed to be here last year but got here this year just might come back next year, too.