In true Dan Fouts form…”Wheaton will beat Augustana tonight if the Thunder score more points than the Vikings.”

Thanks Dan.

Now…

I was supposed to be home in Philadelphia all week until a co-worker’s family member got sick and I found out on Monday afternoon that I had to fly to Chicago on Tuesday to pick up a slate of meetings. Oh to my delight when I saw that I had two options…North Park v. North Central or Augustana at Wheaton. Given Wheaton’s tough games with Augie and IWU, I chose to head to King Arena.

Random game thoughts…

1. Augustana emerged from the locker room with 30:00 remaining in warmups and proceeded to have the toughest, most physical, most intense warmup I have ever witnessed in D3. I’ve covered D3 games every winter since 1998 and none of them match what I saw tonight. Running fast, hard passes, dunks (before the officials came out), 5 on 5 physical scrimmage…it was wild.

They shot around randomly after 20:00 of the efforts listed above then spent another minute with the slide-on-the-ground, banging and grunting warmup that is seen now and then.

The Vikings left the court and came back with just 2:30 left in the warmup, took some jumpers, and were ready to play…bizarre compared to the norm.

2. All that being said, Wheaton played footloose and fancy-free while Augie came out wound tighter than any watch in Schaumberg. They played with too much intensity. Playing a tight man-to-man defense, Wheaton was creating shots with screens and picks that exposed the tight defense. Countless times the Thunder got decent looks with motion on the perimeter crossing the semicircle. Augie defenders bounced off of the smaller Thunder players who just stood there. When they regained their senses, two Augie players would be right next to each other with only one man to cover…naturally leaving an open Thunder offensive player.

3. Wheaton took the lead with 17:02 to play in the first half and never relinquished it.

4. Bill Harris made it clear to me in the postgame that the Wheaton gameplan going in was to keep the game in the 60s. He called a timeout at one point and told his club… “do the math guys, if we keep this up were in the 70s and we will lose this game. Slow it down.” I remember seeing Harris and all of his assistants imploring the Thunder to slow it down on multiple occasions in the second half. Helping the cause…how bout 2 periods in the second half where the scoreboard operator could have napped. Neither team scored from 15:27 in the 2nd half until 12:13 remaining, and then again from 11:10 to 8:42. Take 3:14 and 2:28 away from the second half and effectively play a 14:18 second half and Wheaton dramatically increased their chance of winning.

5. Augustana missed multiple foul shots in the final four minutes.

6. For as bonded as they Augie team seemed, almost to a point of militant, they failed to let their own team know of a declining shot clock, on multiple occasions. Even at one point, the Wheaton fans counted down the wrong time on the shot clock (oldest trick in the book) and Augie bought it and rushed a shot.

7. Augustana is a talented team and Wheaton played a great game that will help them grow leaps and bounds…but Augustana needs to slow their physicality and increase their mental awareness if they are to advance through the tourney. All those crisp passes in the warmup…and yet at least twice in the second half some flimsy passes were intercepted by Wheaton.

And now my non-game thoughts…

1. The entire Sports and Rec Complex at Wheaton is spectacular…heck of a job. King Arena is incredibly nice, good sound system, decent crowd for a Wednesday with a 7-13 team.

2. Not one note of pre-recorded music. Absolutely no recorded music played during warmups or at halftime…just the Wheaton pep band at halftime.

3. Wheaton fans, despite a listed attendance of 453, had an impact on the game.

4. Coach Giovanine slammed his sport jacket, into his empty chair on the bench, for the first and only time of the night (in public) with 16:45 to play in the first half. His intensity reminded of former Del Val football coach G.A. Mangus…he of the visor-tossing school.

5. Christopher Walken, SNL, and Blue Oyster Cult fans would be proud…a lone Wheaton fan joined the band to play the cowbell during halftime.

This post is partially to serve to remind schools that the nomination deadline is approaching for the Jostens Trophy. It’s also intended to explain what the award is and is not.

The award is not for the Division III basketball player of the year. The winner of the Jostens Trophy is chosen by a national selection committee (of which I am a member) that consists of college coaches, former athletes, college administrators, and selected members of the media. The members of the national selection committee cast their votes based on three criteria: basketball ability, academic ability, and community service.

It’s great to have an award that exemplifies the spirit of Division III. I just hope that voters remember the basketball portion of the award. There have been 16 winners of the award between men’s and women’s basketball since it was initiated for the 1997-98 season and I would say a half-dozen were very strong player of the year candidates.

To Sports Information Directors who are nominating players: If you’re borderline about your student-athlete’s academic and community service credentials, nominate anyway. Send it in and let the committee decide. The more nominees, the more credible the 10 finalists will be. I’ve seen finalists with GPAs below 3.00 (although that affected where I placed them on the ballot) and I’ve seen finalists whose only “community service” includes working basketball camps.

Those aren’t attractive on a nomination form, but they’re not unprecedented.

If you misplaced or did not receive the initial mailing from the award’s organizers, download it from the Old Dominion Athletic Conference’s Web site.

A nomination is complete upon receipt of:
1) the nomination form signed by the college president, VP, dean or athletics director.
2) a letter of recommendation from the college president, VP, dean or athletics director.
3) a letter of recommendation from the head basketball coach.

And ahem, if you’re not a coach, athletic director or Sports Information Director (I’m talking to you, parents) do NOT nominate your son or daughter. This isn’t high school.

I have candidates in mind, but I can only hope they will be nominated.