Seton Hall’s Derrick Gordon is poised to make NCAA Tournament history — in two ways. The 6-foot-3 senior guard from Plainfield, N.J., is the first player ever to compete for three different teams in the NCAA Tournament — Western Kentucky, UMass and now Seton Hall.
Seton Hall’s Derrick Gordon is poised to make NCAA Tournament history — in two ways.
The 6-foot-3 senior guard from Plainfield, N.J., is the first player ever to compete for three different teams in the NCAA Tournament — Western Kentucky, UMass and now Seton Hall.
Gordon is also the first openly gay male player in the Big Dance.
“It’s great, it just goes to show I’m the true definition of an ultimate winner,” Gordon, referencing making the tournament with his third team, told ESPN by phone from Denver, where the No. 6 Pirates will face No. 11 Gonzaga in a first-round Midwest Region game Thursday night.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to win the game, and this team I’m on I honestly feel like we can do something [more] special than my teams I was on in the past, so I’m playing with a very experienced and mature group and I’m just excited to get everything going on Thursday.”
Gordon is averaing 7.9 points and 3.2 rebounds as the Sixth Man for a team that on Saturday night won its first Big East Tournament championship since 1993 with its 69-67 win over top-seeded Villanova.
“Derrick, on the court he sacrifices a lot and he’s an unbelievable defender,” Pirates coach Kevin Willard said that night. “He gets a ton of deflections. He’s always guarding the guy, whether it’s D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera or whoever it is tough to guard. Off the court he’s helped these guys. He’s so mature. He’s been through a lot and he’s matured a lot. He’s really a calming presence for a group that is at times extremely emotional. He has been through it. This is his third NCAA Tournament. It just kind of tells you what type of player, more importantly what type of person he is.”
Added sophomore forward Ismael Sanogo: “He’s like an older brother. He’s there to calm us down in troubling times. When the game is getting out of hand, he comes in and calms us down. Not even on the court, off the court and in the locker room, he has an older-brother presence that seems to calm us down.”
Gordon initially committed to Western Kentucky out of history St. Patrick’s High School, where he played alongside current NBA players Kyrie Irving and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
“At my past schools, UMass and Western Kentucky, I started every game there and then when I came to Seton Hall it was all about me coming off the bench,” Gordon told ESPN. “I’m the type of player that I want to win games and whatever I can do to help win games, that’s all that matters at the end of the day. That’s the mindset, the killer mindset, that I was trying to bring when I first stepped on campus.
Two years ago while at UMass, Gordon came out as the first openly gay male player in D-1 basketball. Last May, he announced his transfer to Seton Hall.
Now he will make history as the first openly gay player in the Big Dance.
“It means a lot for the LGBT community,” he told ESPN. “And right now, honestly this shouldn’t be a story. I just hope that this can help the younger generation or whoever be able to be true to themselves, and knowing that it doesn’t matter. You can play any sport that you love, it really doesn’t matter who you are.”
Despite speculation that others might follow Gordon’s lead, no other players have come out in the college ranks since he did.
“It takes time for everybody,” he said. “Everybody’s different. My calling card was after Jason Collins came out, when he was in the NBA, so it’s different for everybody. I would never rush anybody to come out, you gotta be able to do it on your own and when it’s the right time.
“There are a lot of kids who are still nervous about it [because] it might affect their chances of playing professionally or whatever it might be. I went into it knowing that I want them to be able to look at me as a basketball player [rather] than for my sexuality.”
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