Bridgewater State College men's basketball team is on a roll

March 4, 2010 

By Jim Fenton, Enterprise Staff Writer 

BRIDGEWATER - The script rarely changed every winter when the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament was held.

Salem State College would usually emerge with the conference championship and receive the automatic berth in the NCAA Div. 3 tournament.

From 1990, when the MACAC tourney began, through the 2004-05 season, the Vikings won 13 of the 16 titles. The only times they fell short were the inaugural year when North Adams State prevailed, 1994 when Worcester State College won the crown and 1999 when Bridgewater State College landed the championship.

Salem State owns 15 of the 21 MASCAC tourney titles, but in the past five seasons, another program has been making a name for itself.

BSC has three conference tourney crowns in five years and became the first MASCAC team other than Salem State to win back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010.

"It's definitely an accomplishment that we'll all remember,'' said point guard Matt McLaughlin, the most valuable player of the MASCAC tournament. "It's nice. I'm a senior, and I'm walking out like this with two in a row. That was a huge thing.''

Said junior Judah Jackson, the team's second-leading scorer: "It feels great to do some things that no Bridgewater teams had done.''

For a second year in a row, BSC is representing the MASCAC in the NCAA Div. 3 tourney. The Bears (19-7) host the University of Maine-Farmington (14-11) at the Tinsley Center tonight at 7.

Salem State is followed in the MASCAC tourney championship race by BSC with four titles and Worcester State and North Adams (now the Mass. College of Liberal Arts) with one each.

The Vikings have been a dominant program for the rest of the conference to deal with, having tourney championship winning streaks of six, four and three during the 1990s and 2000s.

BSC was denied on several occasions by Salem State after putting together solid regular seasons.

"There were years we'd go 9-3 and were always chasing Salem, but we broke through,'' said Bears coach Joe Farroba, whose teams are 41-14 the past two years. "You have to break through.

"You think about the years (in the 1980s) when the Celtics put away the Pistons. But the Celtics showed the Pistons how to eventually win it. Salem State did that to me. We played them enough times, and you knock down the door and you're able to get them.''

BSC stopped Salem State in the MASCAC championship game in '09 on the way to its first appearance in the NCAA Sweet 16. This season, the Vikings lost in the semifinal round to Framingham State College and finished 11-16, and the Bears then survived the Rams in overtime for the championship.

"It's awesome,'' said McLaughlin of winning two conference titles in a row. "It doesn't get really much better than that. It's a great feeling to be winning and on top, especially this year.

"Last year, we all knew we had the talent and the team to win it. But I think this year, after having a taste of it and with (four starters) coming back, we knew we had a chance to finish on top again. We all wanted the same thing. We were all on the same page.''

Farroba, a part-time coach now in his 18th season, gives credit to associate head coach Mike Donovan and assistants Jim O'Connell, Brian Ferris and Bryan Rubenskas with helping to get the BSC program where it is.

"It's a lot of hard work,'' said Farroba. "Coach Donovan is now at the college full-time (as the events manager and facility supervisor), and quite honestly, without him being on campus, it would be impossible. I can't say enough about his contributions to the program.

"Someone calls Bridgewater State, they pick up the phone and there's a basketball coach here to talk to all day. There's a reason I call him the associate head coach. He's my right-hand man.''

Playing in the $17.3 million Tinsley Center, which opened in 2003, has given the Bears a boost when they show recruits around campus.

BSC is facing a Maine-Farmington team that is making its NCAA tourney debut. The Beavers have won 10 of their last 11 games and took the North Atlantic Conference championship. This marks the first meeting between the two schools since BSC defeated Maine-Farmington in the final round of the 1999 Babson College tourney.

The Bears are hosting an opening-round tourney game for a second year in a row, and the reputation of the program keeps growing.

"I think a lot of people start to look at you,'' said Farroba. "People like to play for winners, in a winning program. It gives us some good notoriety. No question, it helps.''