A club team just 3 years ago, Staunton's Mary Baldwin is now the top seed in the USA South

STAUNTON — When Matt Griggs was hired four years ago, in December, 2019, he didn't set any kind of timeline for measuring success, although he was optimistic that his brand new program at Mary Baldwin University would be competitive in the conference by year three.

He had a few roadblocks placed in his way, the most significant being a pandemic that completely shut down the athletics department less than three months after he arrived in Staunton from Roanoke College.

Griggs was hired to launch the men's basketball program at a school that had, until recently, been an all-women's college. The first season the team was playing a club schedule before transitioning to a varsity sport in 2021-22. On top of that, Griggs' new team had a lack of games and lack of fans that first season as athletic departments were still figuring out life with COVID.

The team persevered, taking the step to a varsity sport as a member of the USA South in the NCAA Division III program's second year. They won eight games, seven in the conference, but missed the tournament. Last season, the Fighting Squirrels improved to 14 wins, nine in the conference, and played in the USA South tournament, losing in the first round.

And now this year, the third season as a varsity team, timeline or not, Griggs has Mary Baldwin not only playing competitive ball, but winning the USA South regular season title. The team is 15-10 and finished 11-3 in the conference, good enough for the top seed and a first-round bye in the USA South tournament.

"I was fortunate that in those first couple of recruiting classes and even continuing since then that we were able to get guys in here who believe the same thing and also saw that vision and understood it," Griggs said.

Mary Baldwin will play William Peace at the PAC on the Staunton campus Thursday at 7 p.m. in the conference semifinals. The game is free to attend. It's a milestone for a school that just announced it would have a program in August of 2019.

The team took its lumps early this season, ending its non-conference schedule 4-8. Griggs admits he was a little ambitious with his scheduling, bringing in defending national champion Christopher Newport, ODAC power Washington & Lee, and a pair of schools, Wilson and Marymount, that both won their conferences and advanced to the NCAA Tournament a year ago. They lost all those games, but three of them by just single digits and only fell to CNU by three.

He thought that schedule prepared his team for the USA South schedule. He also understood that the overall record really wasn't going to matter when it came to the NCAA Tournament. For the most part, the USA South is a one-bid conference, meaning the team that wins the conference's postseason tournament will get an invite to the NCAA Tournament and everyone else will call it a season. Griggs wanted his team playing well at this time of year.

There are still five players — Vernon Fraley, Luke Ogle, Jaden Ignacio, Quintin Hart and Diego Lemus — on this year's team that came in year one when Mary Baldwin was a club program.

"That's been probably the biggest key to our success is being able to keep that core group together each year and then continue to build up," Griggs said. "We've been able to do that."

Griggs wants to bring in good basketball players — maybe not all stars, but unselfish players — and he's been able to do that. He has five players averaging over nine points a game this season and none averaging more than 11, so it's a balanced squad. Eight players average 19 or more minutes a game.

The coach also wanted to bring in high character guys who would fit well into both the Mary Baldwin and Staunton community. He's done that also.

"You need guys that are going to do well in the classroom," he said. "They all do phenomenally well in the classroom, like you're talking 3.5 and better GPAs. They do a lot of work in the community as well. We have a really cool partnership going on with Bessie Weller (Elementary School) right now where in the offseason, so in the fall and in the spring, we're over there multiple days a week just doing stuff with the kids."

If Mary Baldwin wins Thursday, it will host the USA South championship at the PAC Saturday.

Griggs knows there's a little pressure to win the postseason tournament, especially as the top seed, but he has told his team that they've already done the hard stuff this year, winning the most games in program history, winning the program's first conference regular-season title. Now, it's just continue the process that got them to this point.

"Find ways to get better in practice every single day and the results are going to take care of themselves," Griggs said. "You know, hopefully it's a result that's in our favor, but if not, as a program, we'll learn from it, try to get better and see how we can improve on that moving forward."

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— Patrick Hite is The News Leader's education reporter. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Mary Baldwin men's basketball hosting USA South semifinals in Staunton