SIUE's Ray'Sean Taylor broke down in tears after NCAA loss. The chance to play meant that much

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The best assist that Brian Taylor II made on Thursday after SIU Edwardsville had been routed by Houston in the school's first trip to the NCAA Tournament came long after the teams had walked off the floor.

His buddy, Ray'Sean Taylor, was asked about the memories he'd take away from the day, and for him it had been the culmination of a dream. Ray'Sean grew up 20 minutes away from campus in Collinsville, Illinois, and he overcame two torn ACLs to shepherd the unheralded Cougars to an Ohio Valley Conference championship and a No. 16 seed in the March Madness field.

The score of the game — a 78-40 loss that was never really close — hardly mattered to him.

“We won a championship, at the end of the day. I think that's going to cement everything I worked for and everything I went through,” Ray'Sean Taylor said, before his words began to stumble, tears began to flow, and the senior guard broke down in sobs.

His coach, Brian Barone, put his arm around him. Tears were forming in Barone's eyes, too.

That's when Brian Taylor stepped in to help his friend out.

“It's about bouncing back, having the attitude to fight adversity,” he said, while Ray'Sean Taylor tried to compose himself. “This dude right here, he's been through a lot. It's a testament to his character, his work ethic, his community.”

“It's one team,” Brian Taylor said, “and it really is one family.”

It was the kind of raw, endearing moment that underscores exactly what the NCAA Tournament means to those who play in it, and the kind that Houston coach Kelvin Sampson hopes is always a part of it.

As power leagues continue to push for NCAA Tournament expansion, perhaps to 72 or 76 teams in the near future, small schools from low- and mid-major conferences are concerned they might be further marginalized. The extra at-large bids will be handed out to the Big 12, Big Ten, Southeastern and Atlantic Coast conferences, while smaller schools will be relegated to First Four-type games, and perhaps even have the automatic berths that are given to all conference champions eliminated altogether.

“This game is bigger than any individuals,” Sampson said matter-of-factly. “The people who sit in these back rooms and try to make decisions on kids’ experiences, sometimes those people forget where they came from.”

Sampson certainly hasn’t forgotten. He played at Pembroke State, a Division II school in North Carolina, and his first real coaching job came at Montana Tech, an NAIA school, because nobody else was willing to give him a chance.

“Having conference tournaments and having a chance to play for this tournament is great incentives for teams. It keeps teams in it,” he said. “Most of these low- to mid-major conferences are one-bid leagues, and you never know if you can catch lightning in a bottle. Win three games and you’re in. And once you’re in, you never know.

“I hope we never get to a point where we don’t allow everybody a chance to be involved in this and make memories for them.”

Barone had hoped for a better showing Thursday. Everyone from SIUE did, including the thousands of fans who made the drive across Missouri to watch their team. If they didn't outnumber fans from Houston, Georgia or Gonzaga, they certainly were louder, even when their team was trailing by 30 and hope had long been extinguished.

“We won a championship,” said Barone, whose father, Tony Barone, was a longtime college coach. “We earned the right to be seeded where we were seeded. That's how it works. ... That's what we did. That's what we earned.”

While top-seeded Houston was putting the finishing touches on its seventh straight first-round NCAA Tournament win Thursday, the 69-year-old Sampson did something curious: He began to watch SIUE players rather than his own.

“I got tired of looking at us,” he said later, “so I was really focused on their kids, and I was thinking, ‘What a great memory for them.’ They'll have this tape to show to their kids one day. ‘We played in the greatest event in the world, March Madness.’”

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