Courtesy of Dylan Richter

Dylan Richter (left) and Alex Toth (right) celebrate the 2009 NCAA Divsion III national championship in Salem, Virginia.

They have lived together all four years and are students in the John M. Olin School of Business. They both attended high school in the Chicago suburbs and met as summer camp counselors at Camp Horseshoe in Rhinelander, Wis. Back then, Toth was known by Richter as “God’s Nightmare.” Toth earned the nickname playing a basketball game that involved trampolines.

“Whenever you saw Toth with the ball, you knew something bad was happening,” Richter said.

“I don’t know what Dylan’s nickname was,” Toth said. “I just remember you’d hear about him at [Adlai E. Stevenson High School] being a really great basketball star, and coming to camp, he was just so goofy. I was immediately enamored—I knew I wanted him to be my roommate.”

When the pair arrived at Wash. U. in 2008, they joined a team coming off a 25-6 season and a national championship. Richter, a guard, and Toth, a center, broke into head coach Mark Edwards’ rotation at the beginning, and they averaged almost 11 combined points-per-game. The Bears finished 29-2 and defended their national title.

Three years later, they are getting ready to play what could be their final home games at Wash. U. The Bears face Case Western Reserve University on Friday, Feb. 10, and Carnegie Mellon University on Sunday, Feb. 12, which is Senior Day. Toth, Richter and guard Jake Seymour are the three seniors and captains on the team.

After the back-to-back national titles, the Bears endured disappointment during Toth and Richter’s sophomore and junior seasons. The team stormed to a 24-3 record in 2009-10, but it fell at home to Illinois Wesleyan University in the NCAA tournament. The next year the Bears plummeted to 13-12 and missed the playoffs altogether.

This year, the Bears are unranked after a short-lived stay at No. 25, but they are tied with New York University for first place in the University Athletic Association. The Red and Green has notched some momentous wins over ranked opponents.

“Particularly [with] Augustana—this year when they were ranked No. 1, beating them and kind of proving to ourselves after a little bit of a down year that we could get back to where we’ve been before,” Toth said. “And right now, we’re making a run for it, and you can really see the team coming together.”

Richter is averaging a team-leading 17.0 points-per-game and has made nearly half of the team’s three-point baskets. Toth is the top rebounder with 5.2 per-game, and he has added 8.3 points-per-game.

Both players said their best memory as Wash. U. basketball players was the title game victory from the 2008-09 season, even though Richter was on crutches because of a broken foot.

Off the court, Richter and Toth shared some interesting times on the Koenig 2 floor as freshmen. One memory involves a good friend who shared their living space.

“We had a fish freshman year named Rupert, and he went through a lot,” Richter said. “A lot of people came into our room and wanted to include him in the party, so they would put things in his tank that weren’t supposed to be there. But he survived until sophomore year.”

At the time of Rupert’s death, Richter and Toth were living in House No. 1 with several teammates and friends. They named the house “Phi Slamma Jamma” after the famous 1980s University of Houston basketball teams that featured future NBA stars Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.

The Phi Slamma Jamma members donned black suits and held a funeral service to mourn the loss of Rupert.

“He’s buried out there to this day,” Richter said.

Toth and Richter also recalled each other’s more embarrassing basketball-related moments during freshman year. For Richter, it was a missed dunk at Illinois Wesleyan.

“He was on a really nice breakaway and just took off way too far from the hoop and didn’t get anywhere, kind of just shoved the ball off the bottom of the rim underhanded, something that I would normally do,” Toth said, laughing.

Toth was the victim of an early-season prank during a conditioning drill in which players were supposed to mimic each other’s movements.

“You’re supposed to hit the ground, slide left, slide right, defensive stance,” Richter said. “And the coaches sent [Toth] down to the training room or something like that and told all the rest of the team, about 30 of us, that when he goes up, don’t do anything…So a bunch of captains, a bunch of older guys go up—I think I went up at some point—and then [Edwards] calls up Toth, and no one moves. He’s hitting the ground, he’s screaming and sliding left and right, and no one’s doing anything, and he has no idea what’s wrong.”

The pair still has its lighthearted moments on the court. On the same weekend Richter scored the 1000th point of his career, he rejoiced with Toth over what the center claims was the fourth left-handed layup he has made.

“It’s something that needs more [publicity],” Richter said.

Richter and Toth believe their friendship has helped them click in basketball and that the rest of the team shares the same cohesion.

“Personally, I think there were teams with better players than us freshman year, but beating us was damn-near impossible because everyone knew the next step someone else was going to take and the next cut he was going to make,” Richter said. “So that off-court chemistry translates to on-court chemistry.”