The stage was set. After losing only one game to an Empire 8 opponent the entire season, all the men’s basketball team had to do was win two more conference games at home, where it was undefeated, and cruise into the NCAA tournament. The Nazareth College Golden Flyers, however, had other plans.

Having lost to the Bombers twice prior to Saturday’s meeting in Ben Light Gymnasium by a combined score of 235–176, Nazareth decided to change up its game plan a little bit.

Instead of trying to match Ithaca’s speed on both sides of the court, the Golden Flyers slowed down their offense and held onto the ball until the shot clock wound nearly all the way down. After waiting until the last second, Nazareth would let a shot fly, and 63.6 percent of the time it fell through.

Senior guard Sean Burton said he thought the Blue and Gold put forth a strong effort but couldn’t keep up with the resurgent Golden Flyers.

“They executed really well and got the shots they wanted,” he said. “They hit everything in the first half. They couldn’t miss so we couldn’t do much about that. They were hitting contested jump shots that we wanted them to take.”

While Nazareth had one of its best shooting games of the season, the typically sharp-shooting South Hill squad had one of its worst. The Bombers shot 41.3 percent from the floor and made a dismal five of 31 three-pointers for a 16.1 percentage.

“Not many of us were feeling it today,” sophomore guard Chris Cruz said. “Myself, [freshman guard Jordan Marcus] and a couple other guys couldn’t really hit shots. We figured we could drive to the basket and get an and one play and get to the free throw line.”

However, a loss in the conference semifinals was not enough to end Ithaca’s magical season. On Monday, the Bombers received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament complete with a first-round bye and home-court advantage in the second round. Though the team expected to receive an at-large bid and home-court advantage, the bye came as a bit of a surprise.

“We thought we were still going to get a home game,” Assistant Coach Nevada Smith said. “We didn’t know if we would get a bye. We thought losing on Saturday might have decided that for us.”

The Blue and Gold will take on the winner of today’s game between the Freedom Conference champion DeSales University, which finished with a 22–5 record, and the 24–3 Skyline Conference champion St. Joseph’s College: Suffolk Campus. Ithaca is unfamiliar with both of these teams, having seen neither in the regular season. The two squads have different playing styles, and until the Blue and Gold receive results of the game, they will not know what type of attack they will be up against.

“St. Joseph’s plays an up-tempo game like us,” senior guard Brendan Rogers said. “DeSales slows it down a little bit more, but I really don’t know much about either team.”

Within minutes of finding out the two potential matchups, Smith said the South Hill squad began looking at what both DeSales and St. Joseph’s accomplished in the regular season. Both teams have faced a few common opponents: DeSales defeated Ithaca’s Empire 8 rival St. John Fisher College, and St. Joseph’s defeated Empire 8 champion Rochester Institute of Technology in its first game of the season and SUNY-Potsdam later in its schedule.

But, the Bombers have a great deal of preparation to take care of before tip-off on Saturday. Rogers said the team understands it did not perform well against Nazareth and cannot afford to lose any more games in the single-elimination tournament.

“We’ll be ready for this weekend and should have a better performance than we did on Saturday,” he said.