For Binghamton fans who spent part of their St. Patrick’s Day watching the America East champion Albany Great Danes give the UConn Huskies a run for their money in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, there may have been a bit of resentment.
Some of the Bearcat faithful have been making the argument that with a healthy Sebastian Hermenier, it would have been Binghamton dancing last Friday, with the Great Danes watching from home.
While the loss was hard to take and Hermenier will never again suit up for the Bearcats, many people still do not know exactly why the senior forward was forced to sit out the conference tournament.
Throughout his time playing basketball, the “warrior” label has followed Hermenier everywhere. As head coach Al Walker put it, “Nobody ever worked harder than Sebastian on the basketball court.”
As it turns out, being the warrior that he was may have ultimately cost him.
Hermenier had been playing for several weeks before the tournament with a broken foot, sustained in the Bearcats’ win over Stony Brook on Feb. 11. While he had some discomfort after that, Hermenier was fine and playing his usual minutes until the regular season finale at Vermont, when the discomfort in his foot turned into tremendous pain.
That is when, according to Walker, “it was obvious that the young man couldn’t move at the expectations and the levels that he wanted to.”
After the team came back from Vermont, tests were performed and it was determined two days before the tournament that the damage in the navicular bone, an important bone in the structural formation of the foot, had worsened. The state of the fracture would not allow Hermenier to run the floor, and his season was over.
Despite the severity, Hermenier was officially listed as questionable and was cleared to play if needed, particularly in a situation where his free-throw shooting ability would be helpful. Walker said at the time that he “may pull a Willis Reed for him.”
Asked after the tournament loss to Vermont how much the Bearcats missed Hermenier on the floor, senior teammate Andre Heard could only state the obvious.
“Greatly, of course,” Heard said. “That’s 11 points and six, seven rebounds right there. We can’t replace that. He would have made a big difference out there. We did the best we could without him.”
Walker may have summed it up best.
“You don’t replace a Sebastian Hermenier,” he said. “I mean he’s got so much experience and so much toughness and so much intelligence. Everybody recognized that all of us had to rally around him and the opportunity that was presented. We felt like there could be guys who could step in and fulfill some of the numbers, but no one can replace his leadership and his toughness.”
Bearcat fans are now left with a sense of ‘what if,’ believing Binghamton should have been featured on brackets in office pools across America, getting the national attention they had their eyes set on all year long.
Unfortunately, the Bearcats will have to wait another year to make their dream a reality. And they will have to do it without their warrior.