The team's amazing journey to the Division II title game stirred up quite a following among students, alumni and Rhode Islanders.

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, April 7, 2005

BY MIKE SZOSTAK
Journal Sports Writer

SMITHFIELD -- The athletics director has received a hundred e-mails from proud alumni. The president has received calls of congratulations and gratitude from his peers. The coach has heard from two dozen players now interested in his program. The players have become campus heroes.

And yesterday they were guests of honor at the State House, where Gov. Carcieri and members of the Senate paid them tribute, and at a rally in the school rotunda where students and staff cheered the best college basketball team in Rhode Island in 2005.

Bryant University's improbable run to the NCAA Division II men's championship game was the stuff of dreams, and 12 days after its 63-58 loss to Virginia Union, euphoria still reigns on the campus.

"Bryant did something no one in this league had ever done," said Dan Gavitt, the director of athletics. The Bulldogs won 18 of their last 21 games and finished with a 25-9 record, the most wins in school history. They defeated Northeast-10 archrival Bentley for the NCAA Northeast Regional title, beat Mount Olive (N.C.) and Tarleton State of Stephenville, Texas, at the Elite Eight in Grand Forks, N.D., and were tied in the championship game with about two minutes to play.

"Even if we had won just one game at the Elite Eight, we would have considered this season a huge success," Gavitt added. "To get to the final game and have a legitimate chance to win was magical."

These Bulldogs won the hearts of the entire university community.

" . . . To see Bryant on national TV!!! Wow!!! Those kids. What guts, what pride," alum Phil Stang wrote in an e-mail from Boca Raton, Fla.

Richard Singer, a 1972 grad, watched his first Bryant game in 33 years and wrote that he "was very proud. . . . Thanks for the thrills."

"The hoop team made us proud!! My college teammate Bob Brown and I were on the phone with each other most of the game!" Gregg Cooper wrote from Syracuse.

Students tuned in on their laptops. The entire campus is wireless so they were able to log on in class. Prof. David Ketcham allowed his finance students to check the score of one game every 10 minutes. Halfway through the second half he said the heck with it, and they listened to the rest of the game together.

When the Bulldogs earned a ticket to the final, president Ron Machtley directed his staff to do whatever necessary to get the cheerleaders and mascot to Grand Forks in time for the championship contest. He also ordered 250 T-shirts printed and distributed to anyone in Grand Forks who would cheer for Bryant.

"With 3.6 million people watching on CBS, you want to come across as looking good," Gavitt said.

Playing for a national championship is what Machtley said he envisioned when he took over as president and decided to make athletics a critical component in the Bryant's evolution to regional power.

"Even a couple of years ago I thought maybe field hockey or lacrosse would get to a national championship. From what we knew of teams that got to the basketball final, they were Division I kids or junior-college transfers, not the kids who play in our league," he said.

But John Williams and Mike Williams and their teammates, led by their crusty old coach, Max Good, proved that kids who must pay attention to finance as well as free throws, can go almost all the way.

Machhtley said "I've had calls from athletics directors and presidents of schools in our conference not just congratulating us but saying, 'Hey, we can play at this level.' "

Where will all this lead? Gavitt noted the national media exposure -- USA Today, NCAASports.com -- and record-smashing hits on bryantbulldogs.com -- 179,312 on March 26, the day of the final -- and hopes for more games on radio and internet next season. He will talk to Cox Communications about getting Bryant basketball on cable.

"We want to take what we have and sell it, within reason. We know what we are. The nice thing now is we have something to sell. We have a story to tell," Gavitt said.

But the biggest dividend from this unforgettable season will be a new attitude toward Bryant in its home state.

"Sometimes it takes a championship to change the mindset of the people of Rhode Island," Machtley said. "That's the biggest intangible, changing the mindset of alums and Rhode Islanders as to who we are. We have changed a lot of things here, but externally who or what we are hasn't."