NYU athletics photo

NEW YORK – “They pass the ball so well. We did a good job hedging their ball screens and then they’d make one more pass and then make one more pass and then make one more pass and the ball never hit the floor.

“Being unselfish and playing together – that’s what NYU does.”

Matt Brackett’s Hardin-Simmons squad had played pretty well in the Sweet Sixteen, but they were overwhelmed on both sides of the ball by an NYU squad that works so well together, with weapons at every position, and a deep, experienced bench. The kind of teamwork and cohesion that Brackett alluded to gets teams to the Final Four.

“Our UAA Player of the Year had zero points in the Elite Eight and we won by 10,” says senior captain Zay Freeney, one of the few Violets to have spent four years at NYU. “He could not have been happier. We are all here for one reason: to win a national championship; that’s all we care about.”

Sacrifice is the name of the game at NYU. Gone are the days of putting the ball in National Player of the Year Spencer Freedman’s hands and getting out of the way. Coach Dave Klatsky has assembled a stellar group of individual talents committed to sacrificing personal glory for the good of the team.

“We brought in eight or nine new guys,” notes Freeney, who was unanimously voted captain before the season. “Lots of them were scoring lots of points at their previous schools, but we all bought into what Coach Klatsky had for us. Believe it or not, we’re still learning how to play with each other – it’s really just starting clicking on the court the last few weeks.”

Brock Susko, the SCIAC Player of the Year arrived as a grad transfer, as well as Jack Stone, a First Team All-UAA player at Carnegie Mellon. Both, along with Freeney, would be in the All-American conversation under other circumstances.

But the sense of selfless cameradie starts at the top – that aforementioned UAA Player of the Year, Virginia transfer Tristan How.

“Tristan spent two years at Virginia working hard in practice to make the team better with no chance of seeing the court,” notes Klatsky. “He understands what it means to put the team first.”

How played 27 minutes total for UVA, scoring six points. This year he’s averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds per game, as one of the most dangerous low-post scorers in the country. He scored zero points against Redlands, because one of their keys to the game was keeping the ball out of his hands. Unfortunately for them, NYU has too many weapons to allow shutting down one to be enough.

“Our energy coming into both games this weekend was phenomenal,” adds Klatsky. “They adapted to what Redlands was throwing at us with one day prep. Coming into this year, that was my biggest fear. On paper we had a lot of good individual players who had done more in their career than we needed them to do. From the beginning it was preaching unselfishness, playing for each other. Not until ten games in did I realize they were not just doing it, but doing it exceptionally.”

There’s a confidence and maturity evident in NYU, even from the younger players on the court – sophomore Hampton Sanders looks as much like a veteran as any of the graduate students. It’s atypical of what you often see in college basketball.

“Being in NYC alone helps guys lock in on what’s important,” says Freeney. There are so many distractions here. Our guys spend a lot of time together off the court, but they also love basketball and they’re in the gym all the time.”

Adds Klatsky, “NYU does attract mature individuals, but you also grow up quickly in NYC.”

What I saw on the floor last weekend in Manhattan reminded me a lot of what I saw in Ashland, Virginia, in 2022, not in terms of style necessarily (although NYU’s defense against Hardin-Simmons looked a lot like the way Randolph-Macon kept bigger teams out of the paint on their way to the title), but certainly in terms of execution and discipline.

The other teams in the Final Four are very good, but it’s hard to see how any of them tops NYU if the Violets continue to play in this way, at this level. They’re comfortable in the halfcourt and pushing the pace. They can rotate in multiple ball handlers, shooters, and bigs. The scoring can come from anywhere at any time and there aren’t really any weak spots.

If there are chinks in the armor, though, WashU will find them.

“Of course I’d rather face anyone else in the Final Four,” says Freeney. “I don’t want to play another UAA team! The league is too good.” Still, Freeney notes how cool it is to face a conference opponent, noting that he and WashU senior Hayden Doyle came in together and have faced off eight times before. There’s some real poetry in them going out together this weekend.

NYU had little trouble with WashU during their two regular season matchups, although those games came just a week apart and the second was without WashU’s point guard, Yogi Oliff.

Klatsky says, “I’m trying to approach this as if those regular season games don’t matter. Pat [Juckem] will have a different plan. This is a different team. It’s going to be a battle.”

But this is what Klatsky signed up for – famously abandoning a Wall Street career to learn the coaching craft. “This is not a job,” he says. “This is a passion I get paid for. I get to mentor guys and pass on the investment that was made by those who mentored me.”

He’s continuing to get coaching from the office next door, trying to pick up whatever tips NYU women’s coach and defending national champion, Meg Barber, can provide.

“Pat [Juckem] has been here before; Trinity was here last year. They know what to expect. So does Meg. I’ve been asking her so much – ‘What did you guys do on Monday practice before the Elite Eight? How did you handle travel?’ – the support staff has also gone above and beyond to help us over the last few weeks. But that doesn’t surprise me, at NYU if we’re going to do something, we want to do it with excellence.”

NYU is hoping that translates to the court in Roanoke and Fort Wayne this weekend. They’re attempting to pull off a basketball double only done previously by UConn in Division I, and just missed by WashU in Division III in 2009. It will take every bit of skill, maturity, coaching, and planning that they can possibly muster, but there may be no team better prepared for it than NYU.