The bottom is a dirty and ugly place to be. It’s full of tears and heartache. It’s a place that nobody wants to be. I’ve been to the bottom. The Dakota State Women’s basketball team has been to the bottom. My freshman year, the 2018-2019 season, we won four games. When you’re at the bottom you can do lots of things. You can quit, give up, and walk away, or you can grow. You can use the foundation that rock bottom provides to cultivate something. Fostering success is not the easy route. Like a garden, you must give it time to grow, to blossom. That’s the route we chose and this year you could finally start to see that success bloom. It was not always easy. We weathered our storms, but through each one we only grew stronger. It was a season unlike any for both its’ ups and downs.
Starting my sophomore year, we knew we had a chance to be successful. We had worked hard throughout the summer and we were ready to start fresh. We did not forget about the 4-25 record we had in the season prior, but rather we used it to motivate us and it worked. We didn’t start the way we wanted, but by the end of the year we were a team that people feared. A big change for a team that had a winning percentage of 0.138 the year before. We had our first winning season in over ten years thanks to a ten-game win streak to close the year. However, we fell short in the end. We lost in the second round of playoffs to a tough Mayville team. We tasted success. We were starting to build something, but in the end we didn’t get it done.
Every year the goal is the Tyson Center. Since freshman year Head Coach David Moe has preached Tyson Center mentality. That’s where the NAIA National Championships are held. The goal is to win conference and make it to the national tournament. We were nowhere near that goal my freshman year, but my sophomore year it was different. We could envision ourselves playing there. We started to believe that it could be a reality, but then a pandemic hit.
We went home for spring break and never came back to campus. The weight room was closed, the gym was closed, even the park hoops had yellow tape wrapped around them. We didn’t know if we were going to have a season the coming year and if we did, what that season would look like. It didn’t matter. We had to train like we were going to be competing for a conference championship and another chance to make it to the national tournament.
When we were able to come back to campus things weren’t easy. Like every program around the country, we had to deal with temperature checks, symptom checks, and masks, but we were willing to do all those things as long as it gave us an opportunity to have a season. That’s part of what made this season so special. When all the basketballs are taken away and the courts are locked you realize how much the game means to you. We didn’t take any open gyms, practices, or games for granted. We learned the hard way that it could all be taken away from you at any moment.
In fact, that’s life. It can all be taken away from you at any moment. This last season was amazing. We were ranked nationally. We went undefeated in conference play and headed into the conference championships sitting at the number one seed. We defeated Presentation in the first round and were ready to take on Mayville in the semifinal game on Thursday, February 25th when the unthinkable happened.
Earlier in the week Dave and Julie Branco, the parents of our assistant coach, Jamal Branco, flew in from Florida to watch us play. Even though they lived across the country they were important pieces to our team’s success. Since freshman year, Dave has been one of our biggest and loudest supporters. Even when we were 4-25 he believed in us. I remember one time he came to practice that year and he was the loudest one in the gym. If you would have walked into practice that day you would have thought he was our head coach. That’s how passionate and full of energy he was.
It’s tradition on our team to pray in the locker room before every game. Some time during my sophomore year Head Coach David Moe and Assistant Coach Jamal Branco turned it into a competition. They wanted to see which coach had the most “winning prayers”. At the end of the year neither was the winner- it was Dave who came away with that title. After a few tough losses, Dave took over the role of praying in the locker room before each game. It was around this same time that our 10-game win streak began. My junior year there was no question as to who should lead the team in prayer. That job was for Dave. Every single game we called him on the phone, and he prayed for us. That’s why we were excited for them to fly in from Florida. Dave didn’t have to pray over the phone, but he could actually be in the locker room with us.
I think it’s important to mention that his prayers weren’t normal. He had a way of praying that made you want to walk on water, climb mountains, or run into battle. He was all about uplifting us, giving us strength, energy, and passion. Each prayer he gave us “supernatural strength” and a “ferocious mindset”, the exact words he would use. That’s what he did in person against Presentation in the first-round playoff game and that’s what he was planning on doing in our next game against Mayville.
That game we ran into the locker room with about twenty minutes left on the clock. We had our usual pregame talk and with about fifteen minutes left, Dave began leading us in prayer. We were all holding hands as he stood in the middle of us. He looked at each of us as he prayed. We could feel his energy and his strength as he prayed to the Lord, but it was while he was doing the Lord’s work that God called him home. As he fell to the ground we were in shock and disbelief. We didn’t understand what was happening, but we knew we had a game to play. As we stood outside the locker room unsure of what was happening inside we all looked at each other with wide eyes. We weren’t sure what to do next, so we did what we always did before each game- we held hands and prayed. We took a moment to take a deep breath and when we ran into the gym there was less than ten minutes until game time. Nobody in the gym knew what had just happened, but somewhere and somehow we had to find it within ourselves to play that game.
I’m not sure how we got through that game, but we did. As time ran down and Coach Branco never returned we knew something was wrong. Somehow we won, but in that moment basketball seemed so small. After the game we sat in the locker room. Coach Branco returned with his mom Julie to let us know that his father didn’t make it. The emotions in that room were something I’ve never felt before. The next day we felt numb. We were playing in the conference championship, but basketball was the last thing on our mind. We went through practice that day without Coach Branco. Except for the day his Dad came to practice, Coach Branco is always the loudest and most energetic person in the gym. We didn’t know if he would be at the game, but despite everything that had happened, we knew we needed to finish what we started. We still had the same goals, to win a conference championship and make it to the national tournament.
Going into the championship game against Bellevue it felt like we had to win. We had to win for Coach Branco and his family. It felt like the only way the story could end, but for much of that game it didn’t seem like we would. We had beaten Bellevue twice in the season, but that day they came to play. Dave was not there to pray for us, but his son was. Not our assistant coach, but his older brother Jarrod. He had flown in from Florida to be with his family and took the time to come do what his Dad had done in praying with us before the game. We were feeling a ton of emotions that day and felt ready to play, but late in the third quarter we found ourselves down by 16 points and heading into the fourth quarter we were still down by 12.
Going into that final quarter it all felt wrong. This wasn’t Bellevue’s game to win, it was ours. We had gone undefeated in the conference throughout the year. We were the number one seed. The fans surrounding us were ours. Coach Branco’s father had passed away only a day before and yet here he was sitting on the bench coaching us. His brother and mother were cheering on the sideline. We had to win for us, them, and most importantly for our friend Dave. We had to find a way to win that game and somehow we did. We outscored Bellevue thirty to ten in that final quarter. I don’t want to call it a miracle, but in many respects, it was. We finally did what we set out to do. We were conference champions and we were headed to the national tournament despite everything that we had gone through. We weathered the storm and we came out victorious.
Our season wasn’t done there either. We won our opening round game in the national tournament against the University of Providence. We were finally headed to the Tyson Center. What was unimaginable my freshman year became a reality. We were seeded ninth going into the Sweet Sixteen and faced Sterling College, the eight seed. It didn’t matter that they had a record of 30-0 heading into the game. They were the higher seed, but we felt like the team to beat. We beat them handily 91-77 advancing ourselves to the Elite Eight, something that had only been done once in program history. However, our Cinderella story fell a little short. Our season came to a close against number one ranked Thomas More in the next game.
Despite everything we accomplished this year, we felt like we could have done more. My freshman year we did not belong anywhere near the Tyson Center, but this year we truly belonged there. We saw some of the best teams in the country play and we left knowing that’s where we belong. Through my last three years at Dakota State we have cultivated a team that doesn’t just hope for success, but a team that now expects it.
Like I said, rock bottom is the perfect foundation from which to grow on. It might be dirty and ugly, but it is also firm. We’ve grown from the bottom. We’ve harvested something we can be proud of, something the whole town can root for. But what’s great about gardens is once you have them started they are easier to regrow. We aren’t starting from the bottom anymore. We have the roots in place and the seeds to replant. This offseason we will work to get back to the National Championship. We know what it takes to get there and we’re ready to put in the work again. We have weathered some of the toughest storms this year, but that has only made us stronger. In everything we do we will never forget Dave Branco. He will always be apart of this team. A team you have only just seen the beginning of.