CLEVELAND — Kent State's Jimmy Hall leaned into the guardrail before sinking into his mother's arms, and it didn't take long for the tears to follow. At that point, Noreen Hall couldn’t hold back.
"Hallelujah! Hallelujah, thank you Jesus!" she belted out repeatedly as Hall's sisters joined into a family hug.
The 6-8, 235-pound forward just led the Golden Flashes to a 70-65 victory against Akron in the Mid-American Conference championship game at Quicken Loans Arena on Saturday night, and of course one of those indelible scenes that typifies the highs of championship weekend followed.
It's another chapter in a forever-chippy Northeast Ohio backyard rivalry that rarely makes outside headlines unless a NCAA tournament berth is at stake. Only this particular tournament path has a few more miles than the average cookie-cutter path. It’s more than a No. 6 seed beating the No. 1 seed in the title game. It's a family moment.
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"All my emotions just went when I went to see my mom," Hall said. "Just how much she cares for me, how much she comes to out to every game and gives me pep talks from the scouting reports, her little scouting reports that she'll be sending me. Everything just came out …"
"She sends them to me, too," Kent State coach Rob Senderoff confirmed.
That's a fitting exchange given the mile markers coach and player traveled to get the NCAA tournament. Hall, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., started his career at Hofstra before transferring to Kent State, where he's one of revered the elder statesmen of the MAC. He scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to earn that first trip to the Big Dance.
Senderoff made that trip before as a Kent State assistant from 2002-06. He's also more appreciative than most coaches to be in this spot with good reason. Senderoff was implicated in a phone-call scandal at Indiana under Kelvin Sampson, which led to his resignation in 2007-08 and NCAA penalties. Yet then-Kent State athletic director Laing Kennedy still brought Senderoff back as an assistant under Geno Ford.
"I would trust Rob with my life," Kennedy told Sporting News at the time.
The next athletic director — Joel Nielsen — subscribed to the same philosophy. He hired Senderoff to replace Ford. It’s taken six years to get here, and Senderoff didn't hold back when asked about how that felt.
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"I had some baggage that not everybody would have given me an opportunity to coach here," Senderoff said. "When Geno left, our current AD Joel Nielsen entrusted me with this program. I'm more thankful and grateful for the opportunity those people gave me and happy that I was able to lead the group to get back to the NCAA tournament because I know how important it is to our school."
Senderoff tapped into that past this season. It marks the 15th anniversary of the magical Elite Eight run in 2001-02, a team that featured Trevor Huffman and Antonio Gates and whose run coincidentally ended against Indiana, and Demetric Shaw, one of the leaders from that team, spoke to this year’s team throughout the season.
Kent State to go through two in-state rivals in No. 2 Ohio and No. 1 Akron the last two nights, and they almost didn't get that chance after digging a 15-point hole against No. 11 Central Michigan in the first round. That's where you need another hero, and Jaylin Walker — a Detroit native — filled that role. He scored 29 against Central Michigan. He hit the game-winning shot in the final seconds of a 68-66 victory against Ohio. He dumped 30 on Akron on Saturday night to earn tournament MVP honors. Senderoff called that Walker’s "star-is-born" moment.
Walker and Hall helped close out the Zips with 14 of the Golden Flashes' last 17 points, and that allowed this particular team to take the next step. Kent State is back in the tournament for the first time since 2008, and it's clear everybody on board is going to savor this moment.
Senderoff didn't hold back from the emotion of that moment either. He gave all the credit to the players, but there's a personal side for him. Senderoff has two daughters. It’s not easy missing those family moments on the recruiting trips. He can't wait to give them another hug, too.
The next scouting report from Noreen Hall will have to wait a few minutes, but the Golden Flashes should be ready for that return to the Big Dance. They've been waiting a while.
"We're going into and thinking that whoever we play it's our story that we're telling," Senderoff said. "There might be another chapter in our story. That's our plan. Whoever we play they are going to get our best effort."
