SPRINGFIELD — The leaders on the Springfield boys basketball team understood the deal once they had traversed the first 13 mostly unlucky games.
The Cougars, 4-9 to that point, began the season slowly while their core of football players got into form. They had gone winless in six games decided by seven points or fewer, and had been handed a daunting schedule to start the new year, resulting in a five-game skid. So right about the second week of January, the Cougars came to grasp the dire consequences each additional loss would have for their postseason hopes.
The team’s response has been stellar. The results, as yet, remain unclear.
Springfield is the fifth seed in the Central League playoffs, traveling to Garnet Valley Thursday for an opening-round game. It may be the last game of the season, depending on what the District 1 Class 6A spreadsheets say. As of Wednesday afternoon, Springfield is the precarious occupant of the 24th and final districts spot. But that could change before the seeds become official Sunday.
“For the past two weeks, pretty much every game for us has been a playoff game,” senior guard Mike O’Donnell said. “Our games in the Central League have pretty much all been playoff games. … Pretty much, if we lost, our chances of making playoffs would go down and down.”
This week cleaves cleanly for the Cougars, into aspects they can control and those they can’t.
On the court, the trajectory is tidy: Springfield has gone 7-2 to climb to .500. The Cougars’ only losses were to Del Val champ Chichester and unbeaten Radnor. In each of the coinflip games they desperately needed, they’ve found ways. They went 4-0 against the other “small division” teams in the Central, all but front-running Radnor. They tipped fellow Class 6A opponents Conestoga and Haverford. They finished 10-6 in the league, in the playoffs with a spot to spare.
More than anything, they identified a weakness and patched it, getting closer to the version of themselves they’ve aspired to.
“I think our group being as resilient as we have been all year, we’ve just been knocking on the door,” O’Donnell said. “These past few weeks, we’ve been able to win those close games, which is going to be a big help going into the playoffs.”
That resilience exerts no sway on districts, though. Springfield entered the final day of the season in 25th place, one spot out of the field. It remained there late Tuesday night, but a recalculation Wednesday morning had them jump Conestoga into 24th.
Games remain for strength-of-schedule bonus points. Three teams behind – 26th-place Cheltenham, Council Rock North in 27th and Chester in 28th – still have a 22nd game to play through Saturday, the final play day. League playoff games do not count for playoff seeding.
Springfield fell just outside the field last year, going 11-11 but losing its final three games to slip below the line.
O’Donnell, a senior who leads the Cougars at 14.3 points per game, is trying to put all that uncertainty aside. The meeting with Garnet Valley might be his final high school basketball game, but whether or not it is (or if he’ll even know by tipoff) won’t affect the approach.
“You try not to think about it,” he said. “Obviously you don’t want it to be your last game, but knowing that it could be is also going to push some of our guys, making us stay together that much more. I think everyone on the team started coming together after those tough couple of losses.”
There is also a matter of perspective. Springfield is one of the smaller Class 6A teams. The program endured a ground-up remodel, going winless in 2018-19 and winning once in 2019-20. O’Donnell, part of the program during those dark days, understands the distance the Cougars have traveled. And whether luck breaks their way or not, it doesn’t reverse the progress made in hauling the program back from dire depths.
“Obviously the past couple of years at Springfield haven’t been the best,” he said. “ … So this year, being able to get in and being able to make a run, it will leave a legacy and turn the page for these upcoming guys.”
