Washington Adventist
- Feb 15, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 18, 2022
Washington Adventist Shock (17-7) vs. Berkeley Knights (10-4)
Sunday, February 13, 2022 @ 12:00 PM
Takoma Park, MD
The Pitt
THE SCHOOL
Washington Adventist University is a private Seventh-day Adventist university in Takoma Park, Maryland. Known as Columbia Union College until 2009, WAU currently enrolls a touch under 1,000 students. This is the second straight team I've seen named "Washington" that isn't actually in Washington, DC.
The Washington Adventist Shock compete in the the Continental Athletic Conference (CAC) in the NAIA. The CAC isn't actually a conference, per se; it's a collection of independent institutions that stage a postseason tournament, but they aren't required to play all the other CAC teams. The "conference" includes schools from all over the United States, including the University of the Virgin Islands.
Back in Nebraska, nearly half of the teams I saw competed in the NAIA instead of the NCAA. Here in Maryland, WAU is the only NAIA school anywhere nearby.
Berkeley College is a private for-profit college with four campuses in New York City and New Jersey. In 2018, the New York Department of Consumer Affairs filed a lawsuit against Berkeley College for "violations of the NYC Consumer Protection Law and local debt collection rules." Those violations included "misleading students about financial aid," "tricking students into taking loans directly from Berkeley," and claiming a 96 percent graduation rate when their actual rate was just 29 percent. Yikes!
Anyway, the Berkeley Knights compete in the Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (HVIAC) in Division II of the USCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Accociation), an athletics association for small colleges. Berkeley is currently ranked #15 in the USCAA DII rankings, though there are just 46 DII teams.
Fun fact: Berkeley College does not play a home game this season. Because they're a for-profit college spread across four small campuses, they don't have an on-campus gym. In past seasons, they've played "home" games at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, but for some reason are not this year, so they're just a traveling team. They've just been traveling all over the northeast playing a game or two a week. As you can likely tell, I'm fascinated by Berkeley.
THE TOWN
The Maryland/DC area of my map is clustering and it's getting hard to tell where things are, so I may restructure my map in the future. Takoma Park is about a twenty minute drive from my apartment, in neighboring Montgomery County.
Takoma Park is about as close as you can get to DC without being in Washington. As such, many folks who live there work in Washington, and Takoma Park is virtually indistinguishable from the neighboring DC neighborhood (confusingly named "Takoma").
Washington Adventist is right in the middle of a residential area. If you're just driving by, I'm not sure you'd realize there's a university there. WAU's campus is rather small, taking up the equivalent of just a couple blocks. Its western side is bordered by a small hospital, also owned by Seventh-day Adventists.
Officially known as "Gymnasium" but colloquially known as "The Pitt," WAU's gym is a classic. One of my favorite things about this project is seeing interesting places that I never would have seen otherwise. The Pitt certainly fits that.
Built in 1955, The Pitt has not seen many major renovations since its opening. To get in, you go through a (slightly hidden) door on the side of the building, take some stairs to your left, and push open a rickety door to get to the court. The far sideline has about five rows of bleachers, while the opposite sideline only seats the PA guy and operations people. The far baseline hosts a large window above some street-level doors, and the other baseline has a stage with some temporary bleachers up top. This is where I sat.
There aren't a lot of old-school gyms like this remaining in college basketball. And really - you can see why: The Pitt is hard to access, the lighting is bad, only about 125 people can fit in there, and the women's restroom is directly next to the away locker room, so a person's fiancee could theoretically overhear a good portion of the opposing coach's halftime speech while in there.
Still, there's something special about spots like this one. It's a historic relic that still maintains its original purpose. It's a place that's never known a TV camera or professional broadcaster, but still has had basketball every year for nearly seventy years. If Washington Adventist were a richer institution, they might have torn this place down long ago, but I'm personally glad it still stands.
THE GAME
You know when I said Washington College's gym was so tight it felt like the audience was in on the action? I didn't know nothing yet. WAU's gym is small. At the opening tip, I counted nearly seventy people there, but it can't hold many more. It's so small I have two anecdotes showing how small it is.
1) A referee fell into the stands.
As Berkeley went on a fast break, the referee tried to run backwards to keep up with the play. Unfortunately for him, there was a maximum of three feet between the out-of-bounds line and the feet of the people on the first row. Our ref tripped and wound up on top of everyone in the first few rows. Play continued and he had a good laugh about it.
2) I heard a player burp.
Washington Adventist was shooting free throws and a Berkeley player had to burp. It wasn't a particularly loud burp, and he didn't make a big deal of it, but I think most of those in this intimate environment could hear this guy burp. This may not sound like a big deal, but have you heard a basketball player burp before? While they were playing a game? I didn't think so. Don't worry, he did say "excuse me."
~~
This was a scrappy game.
The first three minutes saw a combined five fouls and Berkeley's Dontel Henry got an early technical. This chippiness seemed to work in Berkeley's favor, as they controlled the pace and led for most of the first half. When the Knights' Kenny Pitt stole the ball from WAU to pave the way for a Joshua Bynum breakaway dunk and eight-point lead, it appeared to be Berkeley's game to lose.
However, Washington Adventist scraped back. Adventist's senior point guard Mastadi Pitt scored consecutive three-pointers to cut the lead and Dwayne Garner tipped in a miss to tie the game at the under-four timeout. With 2:50 remaining, Adventist took their first lead (32-31) and went on a small run right before the half to take a 40-34 lead into the break.
(At halftime, Washington Adventist did not go into the locker room. Instead, everyone stayed on the floor to honor their three seniors on Senior Day. Pitt, Garner, and Ethan Murphy received a satisfactory sendoff from their families, teammates and fans. This is what's great about college athletics.)
Berkeley wasn't the same team in the second half. Adventist's Pitt hit another three-pointer to start the half and the Knights couldn't answer. Devon Flowers, the Shock's transfer from James Madison University, made an and-one to give WAU a double-digit lead with 17:38 left. The Shock kept expanding that lead as Mastadi Pitt kept hitting shots; Pitt ended his day with 27 points and 6 made threes. Berkeley mentally gave up with about 12 minutes left and it got ugly. A hard-fought first half descended into a disappointing second half.
Final: Washington Adventist 96, Berkeley 62
During one of the more boring parts of the second half, I looked up the remainder of Berkeley College's schedule. On Sunday, February 20, their schedule says "at Culinary."
Did you know the Culinary Institute of America has a basketball team?
Per this blog post from First We Feast, the Culinary Institute has a full-fledged walk-on athletic program. They seem to mostly play against other small colleges in New York and they lose to just about all of them. The linked post makes the point that if a basketball player has a restaurant shift at the same time as a game, they are required to miss the game and go to the restaurant.
Google Maps seems to think the Culinary Institute is a five-and-a-half hour drive from my apartment, so it's unlikely that I can make a day trip there, but a boy can dream.
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