City of Basketball Love

Matt Allibone (@bad2theallibone) 

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With his team down three in the final minute of the MAC Freedom Championship game, Delaware Valley head coach Muhamadou Kaba had a message for his players. 

The same message he had when the Aggies trailed by nine at halftime. 

The same message he had throughout every moment of adversity since last offseason. 

“Don’t flinch.” 

“That’s been our motto for a while,” Kaba said. “We’ve had lineup changes because guys left the program unexpectedly. We were in fifth place midway through conference play. We’ve had buzzer-beater losses. And now down with no momentum at all. 

“But we were in that position because we’ve continued to believe.” 

Delaware Valley’s resilience paid off. The Aggies beat Stevens Institute of Technology, 64-63, on the road Saturday for the program’s fourth MAC Freedom title but first since 2016. It came in stunning fashion with star guard Antonio Redding hitting the winning shot in the final 30 seconds to cap a 29-point performance. 

It also marked a remarkable turnaround for a program that went 8-17 and 2-12 in conference play a year ago. The Aggies needed to win its last two regular season games to clinch a spot in the conference playoffs this year. 

They will now try to win the first NCAA playoff game in program history. The selection show for the NCAA National Playoffs is Monday at noon. 

“The beauty of college basketball is anyone can accomplish anything at the start of the year,” said Kaba, who is in his fourth season as Delaware Valley’s head coach. “It’s really gratifying. We all want to be successful but when there are challenges in the beginning it’s natural for doubt to set in. We didn’t handle adversity well last year but we adapted a mindset last year that our returnees and seniors really bought into.”

Saturday’s championship game was the second time in two weeks Delaware Valley played Stevens in a game with huge stakes. The Aggies beat Stevens, 78-72,  on Feb. 19 with a berth in the conference playoffs firmly on the line. 

Redding led the way in that matchup with an incredible 47-point performance that included eight 3-pointers. He followed that up by scoring 26 points against Desales in the regular season finale and 21 against Misericordia in the conference semifinals. 

So it wasn’t a surprise when he turned in another dominant performance Saturday. He shot 11-for-21 from the field and 3-for-6 from behind the arc. 

He gave Delaware Valley its first lead of the game midway through the first half and opened the second with a 3-pointer that cut the Aggies deficit to six. 

Redding is now averaging 18.1 points per game this season after averaging 31 the past four games. 

“I’ve never seen performances like that back to back to back to back,” Kaba said of the 6-foot junior. “We’ve relied on him so much the last two weeks where every game has been a playoff game. He’s incredibly selfless, but we had a conversation with him and he knew he had to be more aggressive. If we were to go down, we have to go down swinging. He’s been aggressive because the team needs him to be. Just an incredible person.”

Delaware Valley 6-foot-6 junior Zoelin Pair added 10 points, nine rebounds and four blocks. 6-foot-4 junior Jeremiah Alexander had just four points and three rebounds in 19 minutes but provided perhaps the most crucial stretch of play when he came up with a steal, dunk and blocked shot with the Aggies down three in the final minute. 

Those plays along with a crucial offensive rebound from Aggies senior guard Jake McGinty set up Redding’s winning jumper. Stevens’ Mike Goodall got off a final 3-point attempt at the buzzer that fell short. 

McGinty finished with 10 points and five rebounds and joined Redding as the only Aggies to play the entire game. 

“He started as a role player but he’s become the heart and soul of our team,” Kaba said of McGinty. “He does so much on both ends. He’s really underappreciated but we value what he brings to the table.” 

Delaware Valley (15-12) will enter the NCAA National Playoffs having won seven of its past eight games. The Aggies started that run after losing four straight, punctuated by a double overtime loss to DeSales. 

Now the Aggies will continue to try to continue to make program history in this turnaround season. 

“This feels really special,” Kaba said. “We know we’re going to fight no matter what adversity we hit.”