The men’s basketball team ended its season with an Empire 8 semifinal loss to Nazareth College, but unlike last year, the team will not be granted an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships.

The Bombers’ young lineup proved it could fight with top competition, though, finishing with an 18–8 overall record. But for the second year in a row, the team couldn’t get past Nazareth in the semifinals of the conference tournament.

“It was definitely disappointing,” senior Will Gaskins said. “In the heat of the moment, everyone was real upset, but in the locker room we were all just sitting there. We left everything out there.”

Despite missing out on an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, the Bombers will continue their season Saturday in the Eastern College Athletic Conference Upstate New York Championship tournament against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Brockport, N.Y.

“It’s going to give our seniors an opportunity to keep playing a little bit, have three more games and give our freshmen [and] our lowerclassmen an opportunity to play a lot more games,” junior Chris Cruz-Rivas said.

Despite a somewhat disappointing finish, the Bombers earned many individual accolades. Four members of the team’s starting five were named to the all-conference team. Junior Phil Barera was named to the first team. He flew under the radar for the Bombers while leading the conference and ranking fifth in the nation in field goal percentage, shooting .649 on the year. He also averaged a double-double on the year with 16.4 points and 10.3 rebounds per game.

Head Coach Jim Mullins said Barera has a legitimate chance at being named the Empire 8 Player of the Year.

“We list him at [6 feet 6 inches], but he’s really closer to [6 feet 4 inches], and he just does it on sheer hustle,” Mullins said. “One of our assistant coaches, Mike Burton, after the game the other night goes to the kids, ‘You guys, before you go to bed every night, if you say your prayers, you better thank God that we have Phil Barera.’”

Sophomore Jordan Marcus received second-team honors and Cruz-Rivas and freshman Sean Rossi received honorable mention.

After graduating seven players heading into this season, the Bombers counted on their youth to come through. Rossi, the team’s point guard, had big shoes to fill with the loss of Sean Burton ’09, who holds the school assists record. But the youngster came up big as he recorded 209 assists, just three away from tying Burton’s record 212 assists to be named the Empire 8 Rookie of the Year.

“Guys like Rossi and [freshman Eli Maravich], they were thrust into a situation where they had to grow up real fast, especially since they’re the guys who were our primary ball handlers,” Gaskins said. “In the beginning of the year I was kind of skeptical. I was like, ‘You know what, we’ve got a freshman point guard. We’ll see what happens.’ It’s kind of a tough system to learn, especially to learn as you play, but [Rossi] did great.”

With only two seniors on the roster this season, the Bombers will look to grow and make another run at the NCAA tournament next season.

“Those young guys know they have the experience under their belt, and hopefully we can carry this on to this offseason and next year and go from there,” Cruz-Rivas said.