From the mountain's worst to a playoff berth: PM East basketball's memorable turnaround

Basketball is a funny sport.

That's what Pocono Mountain East boys' basketball coach Mark Dudley said after a 71-52 win over Pleasant Valley, the Cardinals' fourth of six straight wins to start the regular season. In his nine years leading the program, Dudley has seen a lot, including a 2022-23 season that saw East finish 4-18, by far the worst record among mountain teams.

Even before then, basketball was a funny sport, but it was never a laughing matter for Dudley, who's been on the wrong side of luck for most of his career.

"My first two years were about rebuilding. The third year we had a playoff team, then my best player, Elias Scott, breaks his wrist," Dudley said. "The next year, we got 10-0 in the North Division (which is only mountain teams) and we reach the semifinals. The following year, my other best player, Semir Dervisevic, broke his wrist."

The year Dervisevic broke his wrist was the 2018-19 season, effectively ending East's postseason hopes. After that was the coronavirus pandemic and a couple more underperforming seasons, including a 5-17 season in 2021-22.

Dudley was hopeful for the 2022-23 year, however, because of the promise that guard Taemas Jones, who's now a senior, showed over the summer.

"Everyone says Sebastian Fermin was the best player that year because they didn't see a healthy Taemas," Dudley said. "After watching Taemas that summer, I thought 'Oh yeah, we're going to blow teams out.'"

Unfortunately, Dudley had his worst stroke of bad luck yet leading into the season as Jones missed most of the year with a life-threatening illness, leading to the worst season of Dudley's tenure last year.

Fast forward to this season, and Dudley thought his ninth year would get off to a respectable start, but no one expected East to start the season 6-0. The Cardinals eclipsed last season's win total in just over two weeks, and that included wins over district playoff participants Stroudsburg and Wilson High School.

Still, the East head coach wasn't sold, as he knew from past experience that the season was far from over. But the only thing that topped an improbable winning streak, was a more improbable losing streak.

The Cardinals went on a seven-game losing streak. If you account for the snowstorms causing delays, East did not win a game in over a calendar month (Dec. 19 - Jan. 18).

Jones had fully recovered from his illness last season and became the team's best player this season, but the first loss of the streak, a 14-point defeat against East Stroudsburg South, was a triggering moment.

"It automatically felt like last year," Jones said after their first loss. "Soon we started thinking 'Why does it feel like we have a losing record?' Then we lost another one and started thinking 'What is going on?'

"Before we knew it, things just started spiraling."

More: PM East boys basketball has lost seven straight after a 6-0 start. What happened?

After East lost to South, they lost to Wallenpaupack, Easton and Northampton, all by 10 points or fewer. The fifth loss came at home against Whitehall, a game that Dudley felt like his team could've won.

"We were up by two, Jones had the ball in his hands. I didn't have any timeouts left because I used them to help get us back in the game after being down by 14," Dudley said. "Jones should've just held the ball, but he elected to drive and did not receive a foul call. That allowed Whitehall to call a timeout and set up a play for their shooter.

"I told everyone in the huddle prior to not let their shooter touch the ball, but the defense allowed him to bring it up without pressure and ultimately take a wide open 3-pointer."

Whitehall won 57-53. And after a 17-point loss against Nazareth, the team's record was 6-6. It was hard to see how it could get worse, but the seventh loss was on another level: a 71-24 stomping against Pocono Mountain West.

It was new territory for a lot of the East players - it was their first time playing in the rivalry on the varsity level, it was on the road and the game was broadcasted on television.

"I think the lights were too bright for some of us," sophomore Aiden Pierre said about that game. "As a team, we just came out and laid a stinker."

Jones recalled how his phone was blowing up with people reaching out about the loss, and Dudley remembered how his team played out of character against the Panthers.

"We missed a lot of shots we normally make," Dudley said. "We missed a lot of layups - we had a lot of opportunities where we had the numbers advantage, but came up empty."

As bad as that loss was, it was the turning point for the Cardinals, who never lost hope on accomplishing their goal of reaching the postseason.

"Every time we got in the locker room after a game, coach always said 'We have a chance.' So we took that to heart," Jones said.

That is exactly what Jones did; against East Stroudsburg North, Jones scored a game-high 29 points to win 70-66, breaking the streak.

"I personally told my guys, 'Forget everything that happened. This is the only thing we need right here, and we need this to get to the playoffs,'" Jones said. "After the game I was crying. It was the game where we really believed we could do something."

Pierre was also relieved after the win, saying the streak "felt like chains were getting ripped off of me. The win definitely instilled some confidence in our guys for sure."

It wasn't a picture-perfect ending, but the Cardinals earned enough wins to finished 8-8 in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference, which qualified them for the district playoffs.

"I've been here for four years and we've never won more than six games," Jones said. "So the fact that we're in the playoffs and have a chance to go for districts and playing states is just crazy to me."

East finished with a 10-12 record, and their first opponent is Bangor High School, who they will play this Friday. Dudley is making sure that his team stays focused.

"At the end of the day, it's going to come down to 'Hey, do you guys want to extend our season?'", Dudley said. "Jones needs 37 points to reach 1,000 for his career, so he's probably going to need two games. And I've heard Bangor is preparing for us, so we have to be ready."

Most of the contingent thought that East was reverting back to their old ways during the losing streak, and had they not made the playoffs, few would've been surprised.

But as Dudley said, basketball is a funny sport, and the Cardinals have a chance to get the last laugh.

This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: From mountain's worst to playoff berth: East hoops goes to districts