Long journey takes Stony Brook from worst to first

Five years ago, as he reached the end of his first season at Stony Brook, Steve Pikiell must have wondered what he had gotten himself into. He took over a team with six ineligible kids, and it predictably went 4-24 and finished last in the America East Conference.

"We played UMBC in the 8-9 game in the conference tournament, and they beat us by 20 points,'' Pikiell said. "That's how far away we were from No. 8. I remember having a conversation with Matt Bourque, and he said we were in the conversation for worst team ever to play in the America East.

"I think my first year, there were 330 Division I teams, and we were 328th. We've come so far.''

The evidence of how far the Seawolves have come under Pikiell was in the parking lot last night, where the overflow spilled to the nearby train station. It was in 1,500-seat Pritchard Gymnasium, which was packed to the gills with red-clad students sampling the craziness of college basketball that had been nonexistent on a campus where nearly half the student body commutes to school.

And most importantly, it spilled over onto the floor at Pritchard, where the team assembled by Pikiell clinched the conference title with an 82-78 victory over second-place Vermont. It wasn't without some anxious moments as a 20-point lead dwindled to three with less than a minute to go, but with the shot clock nearing zero, the one Stony Brook starter who had a zero in the scoring column, Tommy Brenton, made what turned out to be the clinching basket with 15.8 seconds to play.

Asked if he was supposed to get the ball underneath, Brenton laughed and said, "Not at all. I happened to be in the right spot at the right time, and Dallis found me.''

Brenton was talking about Dallis Joyner, who had a career-high 20 points and kept Vermont star Marqus Blakely, who had 14 points, in check by limiting his touches. Not only did Joyner come up big, but so did Muhammad El-Amin with 23 points, Bryan Dougher with 18 and Chris Martin with 15.

When it was over, Pikiell talked about how all of those guys could have gone to other schools, but they took a chance on him and Stony Brook. Last season was Pikiell's fourth but was his first with a winning record (16-14) and a respectable 8-8 finish in conference play.

"Last year's group lifted this program out of the mud,'' Pikiell said.

Pikiell did his share, too. Moving so quickly from Division III to Division I and fighting through the problems of probation created obstacles that could have taken an eternity to overcome. But he ranged far and wide in his recruiting and brought in kids who not only could handle the heavy lifting on the court, but in the classroom, graduating 19 of 20 players so far.

"People here had patience,'' Pikiell said. "They understood where we were living through probation. It's been a long journey, and there have been tough times.''

It was all worth it last night when Pikiell accepted the regular-season championship trophy on the floor amid a crowd of excited students and supporters. The Seawolves have earned the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament, the chance to host the title game if they make it that far and a bid to the NIT if they don't win the NCAA bid that goes to the tournament winner.

"We talked about going from worst to first, and today we lived that,'' Pikiell said. "It's an unbelievable story.''

Believe it now.