EVANSTON, Ill. _ After playing all 44 minutes of a draining triple-overtime thriller, Patrick Baldwin Jr. had one thing left to do: bare his soul.
Baldwin had scored a game-high 25 points for Sussex (Wis.) Hamilton despite Evanston spotlighting him with its box-and-one defense. He made key shots, missed key shots, grabbed 17 rebounds, drew two offensive fouls for extending his left arm, blew a kiss after a pull-up jumper and surrendered the ball under his team's basket in a devastating sequence.
And after all of those emotional swings at Welsh-Ryan Arena, his second home, Baldwin did something extraordinary.
He broke the quiet of a losing locker room by standing before his teammates and uttering: "This game meant the world to me, and I want to say thank you for the way you competed. I just want to say thank you."
Forward Nolan Rieder, seated on a stool in the back, jumped in.
"Thank you," he said. "There are a lot of other places you could be. But you chose us."
Coach Andy Cerroni looked at Baldwin and said: "We love you, man. We love you more than anything."
Baldwin wiped sweat from his eyes.
Or were those tears?
