If you hear the sound of a garbage can being pummeled late Thursday night at Amica Mutual Pavilion, don’t worry, it has nothing to do with the Astros stealing signs.
It would, however, mean second-seeded St. John’s NCAA Tournament opener went very poorly.
The Red Storm’s opponent, No. 15 Omaha, has a tradition of smacking around a trash can after wins. It will playfully hit it with chairs, dive on top of it, take a belt to it.
“It’s just our thing,” junior guard Tony Osburn told WOWT6News.
The odd form of celebration began on Dec. 21. The Mavericks were struggling, sitting at 4-9 overall. Associate head coach Kyan Brown saw a dead locker room that needed a wakeup call. He kicked a nearby garbage can and let out a few choice words.
The players loved it. Brown then yelled at it.
“If you’re still in here after the game, I’m gonna whip your ass again,” he said, according to ESPN.
Omaha won the game. Afterwards, the players reminded Brown that it was still in the locker room, so he went after the trash bin again. Since that day, Omaha has won 18 of 21 games, reaching the dance for the first time in program history.
After every victory, a wastebasket takes a beating.
“I wanted to kind of quit after about the third or fourth one,” Brown said. “And my boss [head coach] Chris Crutchfield is awesome. He’s like ‘We’re not superstitious, but we’re a little stitious. … We gotta keep it going.’”
Fans loved it.
The school had a “Bring Your Own Can” promotion for a Feb. 1 game against Denver, encouraging everyone in attendance to bring their own five-gallon or smaller trash cans into Baxter Arena.
They were used to hold popcorn during the game. The crowd of 3,356 was Omaha’s largest of the season.
The gimmick has taken the Summit League school pretty far, all the way to March Madness, where it will meet Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino and the Big East regular season and postseason champion Johnnies Thursday night in Providence.
The Post breaks down the four March Madness regions with sleeper picks and predictions.
The program is in its 14th season since moving up to the Division I ranks.
The Mavericks went 22-12 this season, their first winning campaign since 2018-19.
Their strength, beyond the post-win celebration, is from the 3-point, where they shoot 36.7 percent. Starting guards JJ White and Osburn are both marksmen, shooting 43.9 and 40.4 percent from distance, respectively.
Senior forward Marquel Sutton, the team’s leading scorer (19.1) and rebounder (18.0), provides a strong inside presence.
The senior was the Summit League Player of the Year. Crutchfield, in his third season with his alma mater, was the Coach of the Year in the league.
Riding a six-game winning streak, Omaha has seen a team of St. John’s stature before.
It visited Iowa State, the third seed in the South Region, during non-conference play. It was overwhelmed by 31 points.
It also went 0-7 in Quad 1 and 2 games.
Most of those contests were before Brown and the Mavericks began beating up garbage cans. They have been a different team since then.
