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Posted Feb. 23, 2005

Title defenses
still alive

It’s funny how it’s starting to look a little like 2004 for the defending national champions. It was around this time last season that the UW-Stevens Point men’s basketball team lost its final regular season game, beat UW-Superior in the WIAC quarterfinals, than faced off against UW-Oshkosh in the semifinals.

“Someone asked me, tongue in cheek, if we lost (the last game) on purpose this season,” UWSP head coach Jack Bennett said with a laugh. So often with young players, you truly gain their attention after a loss. When you win, some stuff goes in one ear and out the other, but this team has always responded positively after a loss. We did again the other night.”

It was around this point last season that the Wilmington women’s squad began playing very well. In fact, the Quakers are playing at a better rate than they did to close 2004, having won 13 of their last 14 games. Things have begun clicking for Jerry Scheve’s team heading into the OAC semifinals, against the same team they played in that round last season — Capital.

“Last year, at this time, our shooters started to make shots,” Scheve said. “A month ago we were last in the league in three-point percentage, but in our last eight or nine games, we’re hitting at about 40% from three. These kids were capable all year. Now they’re making them. We’re playing our best basketball of the season and it’s a good time to be doing that.”

Separating these teams for a moment, the only real similarity between the two are the bits and pieces of a resemblance to last season. The Pointers returned almost their entire team from a season ago. They win with defense (holding opponents to 55.5 points a night) and ball movement (recording assists on 61% of baskets). UWSP has two senior forwards — Jason Kalsow, who hit the game-winning shot in last season’s championship win over Williams and Nick, son of the coach, who was the most outstanding player at the Final Four, who are concluding tremendous careers. As we mentioned last week, Kalsow has a shot to lead the WIAC in scoring, rebounding, and assists, and recently became the team’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder. Bennett is the top 3-point shooter in program history and one of the best in the country, at 42%. He is averaging 17.4 points per game. The key to the success has also been the work of hidden gems like Jon Krull, Tamaris Releford and Eric Maus. Statistically, little things are what leap off the stat sheet, like that almost every player shoots better than 70% on free throws and has more assists than turnovers.

“Jason has to be one of the candidates for national player of the year,” Jack Bennett said. (Indeed, Kalsow was named a Josten's Award finalist the day we talked to him.) “Nick has evolved into an excellent player, and it’s self-made from the time he put into it. But it’s when our role players are playing well that we’re at our best.

Wilmington photo by Randy Sarvis Courtney Balser's only participation in last year's title was as an injured bystander.

Wilmington turned its lineup over this season, replacing four seniors. The team’s top two scorers this season, junior guard Courtney Balser (12.1 points), a transfer from Division II Ashland, and freshman forward Katie Streck (11.4) were not on the team last season. Balser takes the floor this season for Wilmington after missing last year because of two knee operations. Wilmington wins by pushing the ball up the floor, often using rebounds from senior Siobhan Zerilla (11.3 points, 11.0 rebounds), among the top rebounders in NCAA history, to start the fast break.

“We’re going to push the ball and play tough, man-to-man defense,” Scheve said. “Courtney has been one of the players that has really started to make shots. I don’t know if we’ve had a letdown, but since Jan. 1, everyone has been on the same page. We lost to Baldwin-Wallace early in the season by 28, and that was our wake-up call.”

Both teams have learned from last season that winning a national championship was something doable, but say that the past is the past and the present is what’s important. Scheve picked the slogan for the team’s media guide cover of “The Road to Success Is Always Under Construction.” Bennett, who admits to being antsy about whether his team would be an at-large qualifier should it lose in the WIAC Tournament, picked “Let’s Give Destiny A Run For Its Money.”

“Every year is its own year,” Bennett said. “You need a lot of luck, a lot of skill, and three times as much toughness to win at this time of year. We remind our players of that. If you can do that, and catch some breaks along the way, you can get the momentum that’s necessary for the NCAA Tournament.”

GETTING THE POINT: When we last saw Amherst, it had lost to The College of New Jersey in early January, and we referenced in “Attention Grabbers” that much of their success would hinge on the play of freshman point guard Andrew Olson, the replacement for senior Ray Corrigan, who tore his ACL earlier this season.

Amherst freshman guard Andrew Olson has 101 assists and 39 turnovers.

“In the beginning of the year, some of our players weren’t sure what plays he was calling,” said Amherst head coach David Hixon. “Now, they think he’s like a junior now. He’s speaking in our huddles. He’s got confidence now. We had a game recently where he pulled them into the huddle and said ‘Look, they’re overplaying me to one side. Let’s go backdoor’ and it worked. He’s started to lead on the court and that has been exceptional.”

It took a 22-point second-half thumping by TCNJ to get Amherst going in the right direction again. Amherst was 7-0 entering that game, but knew it was better than how it played. It showed that by winning on the road at Williams, Wesleyan, and Trinity in its next three games.

“I don’t know if it would have the same effect on us if we had lost by seven, instead of 22,” Hixon said. “We became a tougher team that night.”

The Lord Jeffs made adjustments, getting senior All-America candidate Andrew Schiel, a forward, more quality looks in the post. He averaged 16.7 points per game (17.4 in league play), which in turn made things easier for the four other players on the floor, all of whom can shoot the 3-pointer well. Amherst can whip the ball around the perimeter with the best of them, and gets itself many quality shots.

“We keep our players spread out well,” Hixon said. “If you double someone like Schiel, we have someone like (power forward John) Casnocha who can step out and beat you with a three. Our starting five can all shoot the three and that makes us hard to guard.”

It’s still to be determined if this team ranks up with the last four at Amherst, two of which won the NESCAC and the last two of whom both lost to Williams in both the NESCAC championship and NCAA Tournament (including once at the Final Four), but it has already surpassed expectations.

“After the last game, each of the last two years, people have said to me that we’re not going to be as good the next year,” Hixon said. “We’ve lost 10 seniors off the last three year’s of teams. We’ve made up for losing our seniors, and done a little bit more.”

SELF-RELIANT: So we’re broadcasting the Bowdoin-Wesleyan women’s game a couple weeks ago, and it’s halftime, and the clock is winding down as a few Wesleyan players have gone into the stands to hand out carnations to their parents. The second half is a minute from beginning, except that the visiting team is nowhere to be found.

As the clock reaches 30 seconds, the Bowdoin players finally make their way back to the floor. No one shot a warm-up shot. But everyone was ready to go. The Polar Bears proceeded to play as dominant a defensive half as you’ll ever see. Every Wesleyan option is completely shut down. The result was one of Bowdoin’s 22 victories on the way back to the NESCAC semifinals this Saturday at home against Amherst

Bowdoin’s modus operandi this season has been to win with incredibly impressive second half performances, especially defensively. So what magic words does head coach Stefanie Pemper say to her team in the locker room during the 15-minute-or-so break. Actually, she usually lets the team figure things out for themselves.

“I want it to be their experience,” said Pemper, who is known for engaging her teams in lengthy postgame discussions, which on one occasion a few years ago resulted in them leaving the locker room and finding that all the waiting parents and friends had left for the night. “I might be here for 20 years, but they’re only going to be here for four. We value the idea of the team kind of running itself. I feel the kids win the games on the court. So I’ll say to them ‘You’re playing. What do you feel confident doing?’ ”

What Bowdoin (winners of 52 straight at home) has felt confident this season is with its 1-3-1 zone defense, with 2004 All-American junior forward Justine Pouravelis swarming ballhandlers on the perimeter, and senior Alison Smith manning the baseline from end to end. Last season Bowdoin won with its 2-2-1 trap. This season, adjustments were made to shift the emphasis of the defense, but the results are the same. The Polar Bears can play four 6-footers on the floor at a time, a luxury few if any teams in Division III have. Even those that aren’t that height hustle, and have long arms, making ball movement very difficult. They are in a zone when they play a zone, as it were.

“I felt that Justine and Allison are so well suited for it,” Pemper said. “We’ve put a lot of time into it. Last year, we had the personnel to play 2-2-1…Who knows what we’ll do next year?”

ATTENTION GRABBERS
For the second consecutive season, a surprise team has emerged to be in position to win the Northwest Conference title, but this time, the race shouldn’t come down to a coin flip. George Fox has been an intriguing story on the women’s side. The Bruins (19-5) have won six in a row and need only to beat 5-17 Lewis & Clark at home to clinch the championship and a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Scott Rueck’s team was picked to finish fifth in the preseason poll, but has surprised doubters much like Whitman did last season when it came from nowhere to share the league championship with Puget Sound (Puget won the NCAA’s automatic bid on a toss of pocket change)

“The story of this team is its youth,” said Rueck, whose 15-player roster includes 10 freshmen. “We kind of started over this season, with a more guard-oriented style. We get up and down the floor more. This team hasn’t been ourselves the last few seasons (George Fox was briefly ranked No. 1 nationally in 2001), but everything has come together and it has been an amazing season.

Rueck had a feeling early this season that his team could do special things, after it barely lost to Central Washington (Division II, 14-9), hung in with nationally ranked Seattle Pacific, then won at Whitman in the league opener. Most recently, junior wing player Kim Leith (18.2 points per game) has emerged as a scoring machine in an offense that is among the best nationally in 3-point shooting (the Bruins make nearly nine per game), fed by a defense that on an average night gets 15 steals. In the Bruins’ most significant win this season, a rally from a 17-point second-half deficit at Pacific Lutheran, Leith scored 20 points in the last 13 minutes, including a spurt of 14 in a row for the team in a three-minute stretch, and a game-winning three-point play with less than a minute remaining.

“She has been on a tear unlike anything I’ve seen,” Rueck said. “She can hit the three-pointer, post up, or hang in the air for a jump shot. She has great athleticism and leaping ability. She can get a high-percentage shot anytime she wants. I told her a year ago that she could be the best player in the conference and she really took it to heart.”

Utica men’s coach Andrew Goodemote has seen St. John Fisher enough the last two seasons to know what he likes about them. “They are the most in sync with what it takes to win,” said Goodemote, whose squad dropped a one-point heartbreaker to SJF in the Cardinals regular-season finale last Saturdayet them again in the Empire 8 Championship if it can get by Rochester Tech on Saturday. “They have an understanding. They pass up shots to get better shots. They stay within themselves and their system. Their help defense is tremendous. As a coach, I worry about getting my team to do the things that Fisher does.”

When Utica (13-12) does those things, it can hang in with any team, having played in 12 games decided by six points or less. Junior guard Justin Cichon leads the team in scoring, but four seniors play a key role, most notably 29-year old 6-6, 250 pound power forward Tim Troy, a transfer from Division I Albany who worked briefly as a student-assistant for the team after returning to school for his degree, then decided to suit up last season. He ranks among the nation’s rebounding leaders at 12 per game, matching his average scoring output.

“His knees and ankles aren’t in the best shape right now, but he’s gutted it out,” Goodemote said.

The recent team improvement showed in the week prior to the games against St. John Fisher, and more importantly Alfred, which Utica beat out to get into the playoffs). The Pioneers have won three out of the last four games, but the one they lost got away in the final two minutes, in which Utica clung to a slim lead but couldn’t hold on.

“I know that was an opportunity missed,” Goodemote said. “We had a really good week of practice leading up to those games. You could sense our sharpness. There wasn’t any messing around. I don’t know that we’ll get that opportunity again, but I like where we are as a team right now.”

In case you missed it, Albertus Magnus senior guard Tim Russell poured in the NCAA’s third-highest single-game scoring total with 64 points in a win over first-year member Mitchell. That’s the most points scored by any player in a game not involving Grinnell. In a dismal, 2-23 season for the Falcons (which included having to forfeit victories for using an ineligible player), Russell shone on the stat sheet, averaging 32.8 points per game, the highest total by a non-Grinnell player since 1983.

In all, seven players have scored 50 or more points in a game this season, with Russell just missing the mark on two other occasions with 48 points.

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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