Bryce Harris leaned against the back wall at the Howard Bison’s watch party. The day before, he hadn’t allowed the elation from his team’s second consecutive Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament championship to wash over him. He was that exhausted.

Exhausted from playing as the rare Bison who clocked in every game of this turbulent season, in which Howard often couldn’t run a full five-on-five in practice because of a rash of injuries. And exhausted from settling down the turbulence and helping Howard put together its best stretch of the season at the right time. Howard started play Thursday in the MEAC tournament as the fourth seed, but over the course of three days, the team ended as repeat champion.

The stitches above his right eye and the slope in his body told the story of the season — Harris and the Bison had taken some lumps. But after Harris heard that Howard (18-16) would start the NCAA tournament as a First Four participant in Dayton, Ohio, on Tuesday night, exhaustion made room for another emotion.

“Definitely gratifying,” said Harris, a junior guard who plays bigger and tougher than his 6-foot-4 listed size would indicate. “Going through the ebbs and flows of the season, you have injuries, guys in different rotations and things of that nature … and you have to adjust. It’s the mental part that you have to make sure you stay the course. Mentally it can be discouraging, but right now gratifying is the word I can use, 100 percent.”

Harris, who said he barely slept after the championship, wasn’t the only one at Howard’s night of celebration who looked as if he could have used a nap. Coach Kenny Blakeney was going off the fumes. The coaches who make it this far in March understand the joyous whirlwind that has consumed Blakeney’s waking hours since Saturday. He has been returning every congratulatory message that has flooded his phone (“I don’t want anybody to think I’m an a--hole,” Blakeney explained), doing interviews and trying to predict and scout potential first-round opponents. On Selection Sunday, when Wagner and Howard were revealed as the opening matchup in the tournament, it meant the Bison would have to go from their catered dinner to their chartered flight the next morning. In less than 48 hours, they would have to play again.

All things considered, Howard might consider this just another Tuesday in a season full of challenges.

“This was hard,” Blakeney said while tugging at the bill of his khaki 2024 MEAC champions hat. “This was probably my hardest year.”

Under Blakeney, Howard basketball doesn’t do normal. The Bison’s second-leading scorer is 26 years old and playing in his seventh year of eligibility. Their starting point guard at the beginning of the season was also juggling his first year in law school. Their current starter — and the newly minted MEAC tournament MVP — began 2024 by averaging five minutes a game off the bench. And around that same time, their latest addition to the coaching staff was a sports journalist who had previously been writing about Sam Howell. (Full disclosure: Bison assistant coach Tramel Raggs is a friend and former colleague at The Washington Post, and it’s still a trip seeing him on Howard’s sideline, holding a clipboard, during games.)

Blakeney’s team remains a case study in creativity. Over the past five seasons, he has implemented his vision for a reshaped Bison program through the pandemic, the disappointment of watching its first five-star recruit (Makur Maker) play in only two games during the 2020-21 season and finally the breakthrough of advancing to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1992. However, Blakeney labels this season the hardest because it felt like another rebuild.

“We had more guys that were homegrown guys,” Blakeney said about last year’s history-making team, which featured players who had spent years with him. “[They] understood what it was like to build this thing from nothing and to have success and then to have more success. [Then] some of them graduated and some of them chose to go the route of the transfer portal. But with this group, we had graduate students and transfers come in.”

Upon meeting the new guys on the Howard roster, you will receive a handshake or a hug and often a smile. Same goes for the stalwarts such as Harris and Marcus Dockery, the only two Bison to play all 34 games this year. Same for conference tournament MVP Jordan Hairston, who didn’t factor much in the rotation early but finished strong. Believe Hairston when he calls this season a “roller coaster.”

The players, new and old, they’re gentlemen, which works great for the Howard brand. They’re also mild-mannered, as Blakeney put it, which isn’t so wonderful for the Howard style of play. With its read-and-react urgency, the Bison can’t skip communicating on the floor and communicating directly. So early on, the adjustment in turning quiet guys into vocal leaders impacted the team.

“We need people to give sugar, and we need people to give hot sauce. And we typically like to give sugar before hot sauce,” Blakeney said.

At times, there weren’t even enough players on the floor to give any condiment. According to Blakeney, Howard lost 82 man games this year because of injuries. And this past weekend, as several players waited to clear the concussion protocol, Blakeney said he didn’t know who he would have available before the MEAC championship game against Delaware State.

“So just not knowing from day to day who you have, how you need to practice. Do we have 10 to practice? Do we need to go four-on-four? Does Coach Ty [Thornton] and Coach Steve [Ongley] need to jump out there to make 10? It’s been an adjustment every day. … We’ve had several guys who got cleared on the day of a game, and I’m throwing them into the game when they haven’t practiced. Not having that continuity made it very challenging.”

A season like this? Exhausting. There was no clichéd turning point. Just finally enough buy-in and good health when the season reached its most critical point. Finally, Harris could relax, as he did in the back of Howard’s gathering Sunday night.

“After we won the MEAC, I couldn’t even celebrate the way I wanted because I was just so tired,” Harris said. “I was just like, ‘Sheesh!’ ”

Players cheered and held up their phones when their school name was announced during the selection show. Most still remained in their seats, however. It was a subdued celebration for a team that had spent the season on a roller coaster but was now riding into March Madness.