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Posted Feb. 19, 2004

Hoop in the Heartland
Head out to the southeast corner of Indiana and you’ll get exactly what you expect to see when you check out the Hanover men’s team.

“We’ve got the hoopsters,” said head coach Mike Beitzel. “These are the guys that will be playing Gus Macker Basketball (a recreational basketball tournament, popular in the midwest) when they’re in their 40s. We’re a pretty typical Indiana basketball team.”

Thus they do what any such squad with that type of background would do — they win, over and over. The Panthers have won 50 of their last 53 games (including 14 in a row), are 23-1 this season, have wrapped up their fourth consecutive Heartland Collegiate Athletic regular season title, and are ranked No. 2 in the country. They have played well against a tougher schedule than previous squads faced, with wins over Illinois Wesleyan (they entered Feb. 19 as the only road team to win at the Shirk Center this season) and Baldwin-Wallace, and their only loss was a tightly fought contest at Wooster. They have won their share of close games, including a buzzer-beating triumph at Defiance last Saturday.

“Our front line is 6-foot-5 across, so we’re not physically impressive,” Beitzel said. “We can all shoot and pass. You can’t beat shooting the ball. We’ve got five guys averaging double figures, and everyone has a good assist/turnover ratio. The hardest thing about playing us is that you have to guard every guy.”

There isn’t much difference from one through five in the starting lineup (the difference between leading scorer Brian Chrin and No. 5 scorer Tommy Dennis is 1.3 points per game). Four players have made at least 10 3-pointers and three others that get significant minutes all shoot better than 50% from the field. Three players average at least five rebounds per game and three other rotation regulars that don’t make up for it by tallying at least 20 steals.

Matt Moore, the reigning HCAC Player of the Year (at right), doesn’t boast gaudy stats (11.1 points per game, 3.8 assists), but gets things done efficiently. Barely recruited out of high school, Moore rode the bench at Southern Indiana before transferring to the only Division III program that gave him a close look. He has thrived in a system in which Beitzel says “He’s the type of kid you don’t want to play against.”

“I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily better than last year’s team,” Moore said of the Hanover squad that reached the Sweet 16 before being eliminated by Gustavus Adolphus. “Last year’s team was more of a jump shooting team. This team has an inside game too. We only lost one player from last season, and we found another strength to make up for what we lost. There’s not a lot of pressure on any one of us and there’s a good team bond.”

The Panthers hit a bump recently when Chrin (11.6 points per game) suffered an appendicitis attack last week. Beitzel acknowledged that Chrin’s return, possibly by the HCAC Tournament, is essential to a deep tournament run. The experience from last postseason showed that for this type of squad to prevail against the size of teams that come from the WIAC and MIAC, everyone needs to be at the top of their game

“If we face a team like Gustavus Adolphus, we’ll be heading to the weightroom,” Beitzel said with a laugh.

Added Moore: “Hopefully last year’s experience can get us through. Maybe we’ll be able to use that to our advantage.”

ALSO INDY-NIABLE: If Hanover is the best kept secret in Indiana, the men’s basketball team at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology ranks a reasonable second. Rose-Hulman is locked in a tie for the top spot in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference with Trinity (Texas) and is 17-6, after winning only nine games last season. The Engineers have been winning with defensive effort, having held 11 opponents to fewer than 60 points. Head coach Jim Shaw singled out the work of his guards — junior Jason Ludwig and sophomores Kareem Lee and Raymond “Munchie” Muskeyvalley (so nicknamed because he ate a lot as a baby).

“We just don’t like to let people score,” said Shaw. “We take a lot of pride in our ability to make it difficult for you on the offensive end of the floor. With Kareem, Jason, and Munchie, we cause a lot of problems on the perimeter. Munchie is one of the best point guards in the Midwest.”

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT? Their roster has just four upperclassmen, the starting lineup has post players as big as some opposing guards, and the bench could be thought of as an infirmary for all the players who have been sick or injured. So surely, the women’s coaches in the Northwest Conference had Whitman pegged right when they pegged the team to finish at the bottom of the nine-team league. Not so fast.

Whitman photo by Matt Zimmerman Laura Vertatschitsch has played, and started, in 19 of 21 games.

With four games remaining, Whitman (16-5, 10-2), amazingly enough, is in the hunt for the league championship, tied for first place with Pacific Lutheran, whom it just beat last weekend for its ninth consecutive win.

“It’s hard to explain,” said Missionaries head coach Michelle Ferenz. “Our goal was just to be in the middle of the pack. We came together sooner than anyone expected.”

Whitman learned quickly, on the fly, developing what their coach called an unexpected maturity. After getting drubbed in its first league road swing, it responded on its next trip with narrow wins over Whitworth and George Fox, even without point guard Megan Higgins, who has missed time with a shoulder injury. The team’s top scorer, sophomore guard Laura Vertatschitsch (12.3 points per game), has played through a foot injury and several other players have missed time with illnesses. Freshmen Sarah Laird (11.3 points per game) and Katie Patneaude (11.6 points per game) have picked up their play, as has senior Denise Kirstein (4.6 points, 4.5 rebounds) off the bench. The Missionaries handle the basketball well and that has translated into much success.

“There’s no pressure on us,” said Ferenz, whose team won a total of 17 games in her first two seasons on the job after a successful stint in Washington as a high school coach.

Well, now there is a little pressure, since these last two weekends will decide who wins the league, since the conference tournament was elminated, and goes to NCAA Tournament. If both Whitman and PLU win out, the tiebreaker situation is so tight, that the championship may come down to a coin flip.

“That would be a nice problem to have,” Ferenz said. “It’s nice to be able to talk about the possibilities.”

LIONS ROAR: It’s a jungle out there in the Atlantic and Mid-Atlantic regions for men’s basketball and there’s nothing better then to be a Lion that’s roaring at the right time.

There are two in fact — Albright and New Jersey.

We’ve spoken already of stories of turnaround seasons, and Albright’s is another worth telling.

These Lions (15-8, 9-4) won a total of four games last season but matched that total in the first nine days of this campaign. That run has carried them into a tie for first in the MAC Commonwealth. Head coach Rick Ferry added four impact freshmen and transfer forward Ben Gallagher (Juniata, Ferry’s former school) to the eight returnees on the roster. The team’s leading scorer is 6-foot-5 freshman forward Trevor Deeter (18.4 points, 7.9 rebounds), whom Ferry called “a Karl Malone-type. He doesn’t finish pretty, but he beats people up and down the floor.” Ferry also spoke highly of junior point guard Elu Lawrence, who ran track at Penn State before deciding to switch to Division III basketball. He has been a key on both ends of the court

Albright, which has won six in a row heading into the weekend, has played an extraordinary number of close games, with all eight of their losses decided by 10 points or less. An up-tempo style has allowed them to stay in every game no matter what the deficit.

The Lions have rallied from 11 points down with four minutes remaining to beat Juniata, 18 points down to edge Messiah, and 12 points behind to top Elizabethtown. Twice in losses they have been behind by 20 or more, and just missed pulling off the comeback.

“We’ve had a lot of games with early deficits and we’ve come back every single time,” said Ferry. “Once it happens, you expect it to happen again. It’s doubly surprising because of where we were. We’re very humble about this. We know what it’s like to be on the other side.”

About 90 minutes down the road in Ewing, N.J., TCNJ’s squad has emerged as the one no one wants to face down the stretch. The Lions are 15-8, 6-6 in the New Jersey Athletic Conference and also head into the weekend on a six-game tear.

The return to form of Scott Findlay, the NJAC’s top rookie two seasons ago, who missed almost all of last season with a broken hand, then had off-season ankle surgery, helped jumpstart TCNJ. Findlay is averaging 15 points, 12 rebounds, and two blocks in a five-game NJAC run that lifted the Lions into second place and clinched them a playoff spot in the league’s Blue Division.

“He’s not all the way back yet,” said TCNJ head coach John Castaldo. “He had to polish a lot of the residue off his game. The strides he has made have been very good.”

Findlay’s return, the arrival of transfer junior guard Mike Snyder (13.3 points, 6.5 rebounds) from Division I Maryland-Baltimore County, and the emergence of junior Derick Grant (20.0 points per game) as one of the top guards in the NJAC, have made for a very smooth run the last few weeks. The Lions lost several heartbreakers early, but emerged resilient and were helped by a schedule that included plenty of second-half home games.

“Right now we’re playing our best since we won the league (in 1998),” said Castaldo. “In the early part of the season, we were waiting for someone to get us over the hump. Now it’s more of a collective thing.”

GAME OF THE YEAR? A couple of weeks ago, Illinois College’s halfcourt shooting specialist Dylan Dudley told us he could make 40 to 50% of his attempts from the timeline.

Jodi VanWassenhnova lets the game-winning shot fly.

“What?” she said. “I think that maybe I could make one out of 50.”

That one, though, turned out to be something special — a 50-foot fling at the buzzer that lifted Adrian to a stunning 70-69 win against Kalamazoo on Saturday. Adrian (9-13, 4-8 MIAA) trailed 69-65 with 16 seconds left, but cut the lead to two after a pair of free throws. Then, the Bulldogs caught a break when Kalamazoo missed a pair from the line with three seconds remaining. After a timeout, the 5-2 VanWassenhnova, who had only played in five other games upon being promoted from the junior varsity, took the inbounds pass, raced toward the frontcourt, looked at the clock, and let the shot fly before the buzzer. It dropped right through the net. VanWassenhnova stared into space, still in disbelief as her teammates charged at her.

“Earlier in the week, I had practiced (halfcourt shots), just joking around,” VanWassenhnova said. “I came close, but I didn’t make any.”

The win was the third in a row for Adrian, and Van Wassenhnova, who scored 13 points in that game, has had a significant impact.

“She’s been a bright spot for us,” said head coach Kathy Morris. “She has stepped up and that has made a difference.”

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Forgive us for coming back to Grinnell again, but with the dramatic closing of Darby Gym last week (Grinnell won its final game there on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by senior captain Steve Wood), we decided to track down one of the Pioneers’ record-setting alumni.

On Feb. 18, 1998, Jeff Clement set the Division III record by scoring 77 points in a 149-144 win against Illinois College. Grinnell’s strategy that night was such that Clement never crossed halfcourt while on defense. He shot 26-for-68, including 19-for-52 from 3-point range.

Clement, who is working as an analyst for a real estate firm in Boston and pursuing his MBA at Boston University. “It’s always a good memory. I remember the enthusiasm of the team that night. The other players on the team sacrificed a lot that night. Coach (Dave) Arsenault built a program that allowed people like me to thrive, within a team concept.”

The one thing that’s difficult for Grinnell alums across the nation is watching the traditional way of playing.

Clement went to one of Amherst’s games recently and got impatient watching the Lord Jeffs pass the ball around and work the shot clock.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to watching normal basketball again,” said Clement, who lives with his wife, Angela “It drives me nuts sometimes. I see a game like Iowa-Wisconsin and a 58-54 final. I’ll say gee whiz, we could get that in a half.”

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.

2008-09 columns
Feb. 20: York (Pa.), no cliche
Feb. 13: St. Thomas writing history
Feb. 6: George Fox on hunt
Jan. 30: Brother, brother
Jan. 23: Growing a program
Jan. 16: Dudek's rare feat
Jan. 9: Ravin' about Anderson
Dec. 18: Chicago marooned at 0-9
Dec. 12: De Luca back on track
Dec. 4: Ithaca surprises
Nov. 21: Augie gets some delp
Nov. 13: Is repeat possible?

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