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Around
the Nation
Updated Jan. 15, 2002

Minnesota's twins
By Mark Simon
D3hoops.com

There's a reason that St. Thomas senior guard Missy Pederson spends a part of every day in the gym, rain, shine, sleet or snow.

"Going into my junior year of high school (at Robbinsdale Armstrong in Plymouth, Minn.) I tore my ACL'' she said. "I got put on the 'C' team (below JV level) with girls who didn't even know what a screen and roll is. I was an inch away from quitting. Coach told me I had two choices — stay and work my way back, or go and don't ever come back. That got me to stay and to be there 365 days a year."

Things came easier to Pederson (PED-er-son), the returning MIAC Player of the Year who could duplicate that on a national level this season, after that. She is averaging 19 points per game, 19.8 in conference play this season, shooting 45% from the field and 89% from the foul line, a statistic in which she led the nation last season. She is also on pace to finish in the top three in team history in career points, steals, and assists.

St. Thomas women's basketball coach Tricia Dornisch has a rule that while her players are allowed to click on the D3hoops.com web site, they are not permitted to take a peek at the national rankings. So while Pederson and teammates might not be aware that their squad, two seasons removed from a Final Four appearance, is ranked No. 13 nationally, they know what the ultimate goal is — a trip to Terre Haute, Ind. in March.

"I think we're a good team, on the way to being a great team,'' Pederson said. "We have only three seniors, so we're a little inexperienced compared to two seasons ago. We definitely have the potential. I think I'm surrounded by some of the best players in the country here."

Pederson has carried the majority of the scoring load, as only forward Alissa Case averages double figures in points. Pederson has scored more than 20 seven times, and has come through when needed most. In a 78-75 win over previously unbeaten archrival St. Benedict on Dec. 8, she scored seven of her 19 points in the final minute, capping an 11-1 game-ending run.

A lot of Pederson's points come as a product of defensive work, where Pederson also leads by example. She had 41 steals through the first 13 games.

"We look at our defense not just for stopping the other team, but as our second offense'' said Pederson. "If we can press and get points, it adds a whole other dimension to our game."

The way Pederson talks, it sounds like basketball is in her future as well.

"I know I sound like a coach,'' she said. "I've heard that the last four years. I just love playing the game."

The Top 25 Tommies men are led by a stellar point guard as well. When St. Thomas senior point guard Mark Buri was growing up, his father John, the basketball coach at Trinity High in St. Paul, constructed a basketball hoop with three levels of nets. One each for older brothers Joe and Nick and the level below them was for Mark, until they were big enough to use a 10-foot basket.

It was there that the Buri's developed the shooting touch they inherited from their father, a former point guard at Loras, who even once played against current Tommies coach Steve Fritz.

Mark Buri has turned out to be the deadliest shooter of the bunch. He is averaging 19 points per game for St. Thomas, which is ranked 10th nationally and has won eight consecutive games. The three Buri brothers who have played collegiately (a fourth is a sophomore in high school) have made their mark with the 3-point shot, combining for 401 career trifectas through Sunday.

With 145, including 31 this season, Mark is 11 behind Joe, an 1,100-point scorer for the Tommies, but 45 ahead of Nick, who played at Loras.

"You could say that shooting runs in the family,'' said Mark Buri. "We always grew up around basketball. Dad wanted to teach us good shooting form right from the beginning."

This doesn't mean that the Buri's didn't master other skills. Dad must have taught them defense too when he coached them in high school because it is an integral part of Mark's game. He is the all-time career steals leader in St. Thomas history and paces this season's team with 51.

The Tommies' defense is a big part of the team's success, holding opponents to 37% shooting from the field and 26 percent from 3-point range. Both numbers are significantly better than those posted last season. St. Thomas has mastered the defense taught by Fritz, which packs as many four players within a 15-foot arc around the paint to prevent inside scoring.

Offensively three of Buri's teammates- Brendan Finn, Kevin Fitzgerald and Jimmy Sioris, are all averaging better than nine points per game to aid the effort, with Buri feeding them the ball to the tune of nearly five assists per game.

"When we play smart, we have the ability to beat most teams,'' Buri said. "Our focus will determine how good we are going to be."

That too runs in Buri's family, as his father is now a professor of psychology a St. Thomas. The team doesn't have to worry about how good Buri is going to be.

"He's one of the top two or three players that I've had in 22 years of coaching,'' said Fritz. "He's a great shooter, a team leader, and gives you everything you would want from the point guard position. His dad was a very good player. Mark is even better."

HOT WINTER NIGHTS: There's nothing like the atmosphere of a rivalry game, and whether Hampden-Sydney and Randolph-Macon go at it in football or basketball, it's always an event. After all, two years ago one school found the tires on one of its vans slashed after a heated battle at the other school's gym. And ask which school has goalposts at the bottom of a pond after a particularly historic football win.

Last week was no different as the first-half crowd filled to the rafters in RMC's Crenshaw Gymnasium, with the maximum 1,872 patrons the school felt it could admit without incurring the wrath of the fire marshall. (Never mind the people lining the stairs to the press box, above, or the fact that the crowd in the second half swelled to over 2,200 by most estimates.)

The result — an atmosphere that would make any Division III school proud. "The people in this gym today are right on the court, not up in Section 42," said Randolph-Macon head coach Mike Rhoades, who played in front of some heated crowds himself at Lebanon Valley. "They'll talk about this for a long time. It's two teams that represent their schools."

"They got more pumped than we did," said junior forward Ryan Mills, which says a lot, since Randolph-Macon came out so pumped (and tight) that Hampden-Sydney was able to sprint out to a 22-10 lead before the Yellow Jackets settled down.

And while the teams are looking ahead to their next opponents, don't think for a second that the fans aren't looking ahead to the rematch at Hampden-Sydney on Feb. 9.

BIG SURPRISES: Basketball has become a happening recently at Muhlenberg where the women are the most unlikely of the remaining unbeatens in the nation (the Mules didn't receive any votes in the D3hoops.com preseason poll). The men are in the midst of a seven-game win streak, the first six triumphs coming by single digits. The last time Muhlenberg even won five straight by single digits was during the 1938-39 season, when the average final score of those contests was 37-32.

EARLY MILESTONE: One upcoming milestone this week is that Salisbury State 6-foot, junior point guard Amy Campion needs only 26 points to reach 1,000. She would be only the third of the Sea Gulls' 14 1,000 point scorers to reach that mark in her junior season.

ON WISCONSIN: Some of the other teams in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference might be having better seasons, but among individual players, this season's biggest surprise comes from UW-Platteville, where Crystal Stietz leads the conference with a 20.5 ppg. scoring average. Stietz didn't play as a freshman or sophomore, concentrating instead on track where she was a two-time WIAC champ in hurdle events. Last season she averaged 9.5 points per game in her first season. Additionally Stietz is a student teacher and has won the Governor's Award for Fitness, an honor given to only one Wisconsin undergraduate student per year. Meanwhile the Platteville men won their 59th consecutive non-conference home game Monday with a triumph over Edgewood.

PLAYING THE BIG TIME: While there have been about 50 men's games between Division III and Division I teams so far this season, it's not every day a D-III team faces a school from one of the top conferences. But then again, today is not just another day.

Oregon will host Willamette today, Jan. 15., to celebrate the 75th anniversary of McArthur Court in Eugene. The first game in McArthur Court was played between the Ducks and Bearcats on Jan. 14, 1927. The Ducks, en route to a 24-4 season, defeated WU 38-10. The two teams played again the next night in Eugene, with UO winning 43-13. Oregon played Willamette three weeks later in Salem, winning 32-26.

Willamette and Oregon have met 55 times over the years, with the Ducks owning a 43-12 advantage. The teams last played on Dec. 1, 1948 in Salem, with Willamette coming out on top 55-43. But if an upset is possible, keep in mind that Willamette's conference rival Whitworth nearly beat Division I Utah a scant two weeks ago.

Notes for Around the Nation are compiled with the help of sports information directors across the country. If you have suggestions or information for this column, please send it to mark@d3hoops.com.

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