A stomach bug was not enough to keep junior Chris Cruz-Rivas and the men’s basketball team from ending the year with an Eastern College Athletic Conference Championship. In fact, it was the entire team that felt sick after its crushing three-point loss to Nazareth College in the Empire 8 Championships.

“The loss to Naz was heartbreaking,” freshman Sean Rossi said. “The emotions after the game were unreal.”

After closing out the regular season with four straight wins, the team looked primed to make a run in the playoffs. But a 75–72 loss to the Golden Eagles in the first round of the conference championship left the Bombers without an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

Instead, Ithaca received a bid to the ECAC tournament. While it was not where the team hoped to be, it was an opportunity for the Bombers to end the year positively, which was a focal point of the team’s practice in the week leading up to the tournament.

“We didn’t want us not getting into the [NCAA] tournament to affect our preparation for the ECAC,” Cruz-Rivas said. “I told the team that we took the drive up here so we might as well win it.”

While the team may still have been struggling to stomach the previous week’s loss, it was nothing compared to the stomach bug that was plaguing Cruz-Rivas. Cruz-Rivas, who was third on the team in scoring and second in minutes played this season, said the symptoms were so bad that he was unsure whether he would be able to play at all heading into the championship game Sunday.

“I got less than an hour of sleep and was throwing up all night,” he said. “I was dealing with dehydration and couldn’t move as well, but I wanted to play.”

Head Coach Jim Mullins said he was concerned about Cruz-Rivas’ health.

“I wasn’t even going to play him,” Mullins said. “When he missed breakfast and I heard he was dehydrated, I was concerned with his health, but he asked to go through warm-ups and then said he could play through it.”

After scoring 19 points the previous night in a first-round win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Cruz-Rivas scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds to help lead the Bombers to a 78–71 win over SUNY-Brockport in the ECAC final.

“What he did was unbelievable,” Mullins said. “The desire and leadership he showed played a huge, huge role. I can’t say enough about what he did.”

While the Bombers did not make the deep playoff run they had hoped for, the team did win 20 games in back-to-back seasons, which is a feat both Mullins and his players take pride in.

“Winning 20 games and the ECAC Championship is a tremendous accomplishment,” Mullins said. “This wasn’t a good year; it was a great year.”

Ithaca loses only two players, seniors Tom Brown and Will Gaskins, heading into the 2010-11 campaign. Mullins said he would like to see the team work harder in the weight room this off-season and come into camp with a commitment to improving defensively. But one thing the Bombers will be sure to have next season is confidence.

“We are going to be very good the next couple years,” Rossi said. “If we all have good summers and work hard, we have enough talent where no one will be capable of beating us.”