Omaha Mavericks’ trash (can) turns into treasure with program earning its first March Madness bid

By Canadian Press on March 18, 2025.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Omaha Mavericks knew it was just a matter of time until they broke through to earn their first NCAA Tournament bid.

This was the vision when the school announced 14 years ago that it would move from Division II to Division I, but circumstances seemed less than ideal for the breakthrough to happen this season.

Frankie Fidler, who was on track to become the program’s career scoring leader, had transferred to Michigan State, the Mavs were picked eighth in the nine-team Summit League and they were 4-9 following a 32-point loss at Iowa State.

Then came the turning point. Assistant coach Kyan Brown was walking through the locker room before the next game and didn’t like the players’ body language. He needed to find a way to motivate them.

“So I put this huge trash can in the corner of our locker room,” Brown wrote in a “Meet the Mavs” essay on the school website. “I just hauled off and kicked the crap out of it and started yelling at it. Four guys next to it got scared, and four guys across the room jumped up and started yelling at it, too. It sounds bizarre, but it worked. Something snapped within our guys.”

A meme was born.

The Mavs went out and beat Cal Poly 86-82, and a bash-the-trash can postgame celebration has followed every victory since. Coaches, players, the school mascot and invited guests such as pro wrestlers have taken turns kicking, jumping on and otherwise beating up the trash can.

For one game, fans were invited to bring their own five-gallon-or-smaller trash can and have it filled up with popcorn for $5 at a concession stand. In the celebration following the Mavs’ regular-season title-clinching win, Omaha chancellor Joanne Li, holding a championship belt, popped out of a trash can placed at midcourt.

The Mavs, who took the Summit League Tournament championship the following week, won 18 of their last 21 games to earn the No. 15 seed in the West Region. They’ll play No. 2 St. John’s in Providence, Rhode Island, on Thursday night.

Omaha’s NCAA bid is especially meaningful to 56-year-old Chris Crutchfield, who played football and basketball for the Mavs in the Division II era. He started his basketball coaching career as an Omaha assistant in 1995 and then made nine stops, including Oklahoma and Oregon, before he was hired for his first head coaching job three years ago.

Crutchfield took over a program that had gone a combined 10-45 the previous two seasons.

“It’s real fulfilling because when you come into a job like this, you obviously have a plan, you have a vision for what you think you can do,” he said. “You don’t ever know it’s going to happen, or the time is going to happen.”

The Mavs were 9-23 in Crutchfield’s first season, 15-18 in his second and a combined 28-50 before Brown, Crutchfield’s top assistant, introduced the team to the trash can.

Summit League player of the year Marquel Sutton, JJ White and Tony Osburn are returning players and the top three scorers. North Dakota State transfer Joshua Streit and Lindenwood transfer Isaac Ondekane gave the Mavs much-needed size in the post.

“Even though we lost in nonconference, we felt like we weren’t taking steps back,” White said. “We felt like every day and every game we were getting better. We learned from our mistakes. As conference play went on, we got better, when we got (to the Summit tournament), we felt like we were playing our best basketball.”

___

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

Eric Olson, The Associated Press