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Neumann captures second CSAC title in three years under Rullo

02/25/2017, 5:55pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Neumann University coach Jim Rullo (above) cuts down the nets after the Knights captured the 2017 CSAC Championship. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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ASTON -- Show Jim Rullo a crack in the door, and he’ll kick it wide open.

That’s what he did at Drexel University, when he went from walk-on to starter on the first of three Dragons teams to make the NCAA Tournament as a senior in 1993-94. It’s what he did as a head coach at Malvern Prep, guiding the Friars to back-to-back Inter-Ac championships in 2011 and 2012 after the program hadn’t done so in 40 years.

And he’s done it at Neumann University, taking a team that had largely been middle-of-the-road in its 20-some years as an NCAA Division III program and turning it into one of the area’s small-college powerhouses almost instantly.

The son of Generoso “Jerry” Rullo -- one of the city’s basketball legends who starred at Temple University in the early 1940s and then played four years in the NBA when it was known as the Basketball Association of America -- is quickly carving out his own impressive resume.

This year’s Knights are the same way as their coach: give them an inch, and they’re off to the races.

That was the case in the Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) championship game, which saw the Knights take what had been a close-fought contest with Gwynedd-Mercy and blew it open in the first half, coasting to a 77-53 victory and their second league title in three years.

“We’re relentless, we always want to go for the extra mile,” said senior DeShawn Lowman, the team’s heart-and-soul of the past three seasons. “(Rullo) always pushes us the extra mile. You ask him about the game today, he probably would say we could have done things better, that’s the kind of person he is."

Rullo, recently named CSAC Coach of the Year, wasn’t ready to nitpick just yet, not after his Knights had qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons.

Before he’d arrived on the campus of the Delaware County school, the program had never won a conference championship, never tasted March Madness. It had a single 20-win season, in 2001-02, when it was the runner-up in the CSAC, then known as the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference (PAC).

Now 25-2 on the year, Neumann has surpassed that 20-win barrier in three of the last four years. The Knights are No. 15 in the nation in the latest D3Hoops.com poll.

“I think the success has maybe come a little bit sooner than anticipated,” Rullo admitted.

Not to his players.

“One of my main things coming into Neumann University was being legendary,” Lowman said. “They never won a conference championship, my first goal in 2014-15 was to win that first championship, and then it was they never won a championship on their home court, so I wanted to win a championship on this home court tonight.

“It’s amazing, I feel legendary right now.”

Lowman, who poured in a game-high 25 points in the win, is representative of a group that took a variety of paths to get to southern Delaware County. The Concord (Del.) alum was discovered by Rullo during a workout at a YMCA just a month after Rullo first took the job back in June 2013. Darian Barnes, a 6-9 forward out of Penn Wood, took two years off from basketball after playing his first two years at Harcum (Pa.) junior college.

Both Barnes and Lowman were named to the CSAC All-Conference First Team.

Not a single upperclassman on the Neumann roster besides Lowman began his college career at the school. Lowman was the only Knights starter who was on the team two years ago for the Knights’ first trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Most of the rest of the rotation -- Hudson and Barnes, plus juniors Billy Cassidy and Tony Parker -- arrived at the school last year. Wallace and junior DeAndre Williams were both new additions this season.

You wouldn’t know any of that by watching them play. It’s a selfless group, bought in entirely on the defensive end, with all of them celebrating any and every bucket no matter who scored it.


DeShawn Lowman (above) has been the Knights' leader since his sophomore season in 2014-15. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“That’s why we play so relentless, because we were the people that got the second chance,” Lowman said. “People counted us out, we wanted to come back and win, people counted us out this year, we wanted to win that next championship.”

In the win, Barnes collected his second career triple-double with 11 points, 15 rebounds and 10 blocks, tying his career high in the rejection category. For his effort, he was named the CSAC championship MVP.

“A lot of emotions right now,” Barnes said with a few happy tears on his cheeks. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

“Darian Barnes, he’s a freak of nature down there,” Lowman said. “He had a triple-double with blocks, that’s crazy.”

Carl Wallace and Tony Parker also chipped in 10 points for the Knights, who held the Griffins below 60 points for the first and only time all season.

Neumann was in a dogfight with the defending league champs for the first 13 minutes and change, which saw the Knights take brief six-point lead early on but otherwise had the teams within a couple of points of one another.

Then, the crack appeared.

One stop led to two, to three, to four. Barnes was swatting shots into the third row. Before Gwynedd-Mercy could react, it was a 20-0 run that left Neumann up 22 at the break. The Griffins never got closer than 18 the rest of the way.

“You can see it culminate into a buy-in on defense,” Rullo said. “There’s a sense that if people score on us, it bothers us. And that’s a good thing.

“Once you see it in their eyes and they get a deflection or two,” he added, “It snowballs.”

These Knights have seemed like a team of destiny all year long. Even after one of their best players, senior forward James Butler, left the school after the fall semester, eight games into the season, Neumann never seemed to lose step.

The team’s only two losses this year, to Rutgers-Camden (Jan. 9) and Rosemont College (Feb. 8), were by on the road, by a single point each.

“I just think they’re a grounded group, I think when things are going well they’re not too high and when things kind of hit the fan a little bit they have an innate ability just to dig a little bit deeper and get a couple more stops and get us back on track,” Rullo said. “And that’s what makes them special.

“I think we learned a lot from the Rosemont loss at their place, and any given night you can get knocked off. And it’s a credit to how they regrouped and came to practice the next day, and we were able to kind of get our second wind for that remaining stretch of games.”

Neumann will find out its NCAA Tournament fate on Monday, with a chance at hosting a four-team pod in the first and second rounds next weekend. That would be yet another first in school history.

What’s another milestone for a program that’s already achieved so much in such a short period of time?

“I always looked at it was opportunity and work ethic, when they collide, special things can happen,” Rullo said. “My dad always told me stay loose, play hard, get a couple of deflections and you never know what may happen. We’re going to roll with it -- we’re going to enjoy it, and we’re going to roll with it.”

After all, they’ve already got their foot in the door.

Now anything can happen.


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