Dear readers:We’ve asked some Division III players to join our blog and give us an inside look into life in Division III basketball. Please welcome Wash U guard Sean Wallis.

First off, I want to thank Pat Coleman for all of his work on D3hoops.com and for giving me the opportunity to write this weekly (or bi-weekly as the season and traveling schedule gets more hectic) blog.

After we lost to Virginia Wesleyan by a basket in the NCAA semifinals last year the wait until the beginning of this season seemed like seven years, not seven months. Losing a heartbreaker to end the season is never fun, but it did provide my teammates and me with a taste of how special a national championship would be. Watching the happiness of the Amherst players and coaches as they celebrated was pretty neat and seeing it gave us something to work towards.

At Wash U. it’s tough because our team is from all over the country so we don’t get to play together in leagues during the summer. That being said, it’s difficult to keep each other accountable during the summer making sure the time is being put in to get better. So, it was pretty great to get back to school in the fall and clearly see that most of the team had spent their summers playing a lot of basketball, as our pick-up games were much more competitive than they had ever been.

Before I knew it fall pick-up was joined by 7 A.M. lifting and afternoon conditioning sessions. Practice started in the middle of October and then we had scrimmages with Rose-Hulman and Greenville College leading up to the season opener this past weekend in Grand Rapids, Mich.

During the weekend our team learned a lot and made me excited for the rest of the season. As the D3hoops.com pre-season #1 team in the country, we knew that we had a big target on our back. It was a nice honor and made us feel good that people respected what we accomplished last year, and that we could be just as good, if not better, this season. With that target we know (especially after Friday and Saturday) that we’re going to get our opponent’s best night-in and night-out. While this could get some teams nervous, I think we understand that it will ultimately make us better when conference play and (hopefully) post-season play comes around.

Coach [Mark] Edwards thought the tip-off tournament at Calvin was one of the most talented tournaments (not including the NCAA) he had been a part of in all of his time at Wash U. Our first game of the season was against Ohio Northern on Friday night—man, did they get after it on defense. We ended up winning by 16 points but the final score may have made it seem like an easier win than it actually was. ONU is a talented team that I can see making a real push to win their conference if they play with that intensity the entire year. Troy [Ruths] took over down the stretch and our experience played a big factor in being able to close out the game even with their tough on-the-ball defense.

After a physically demanding Friday night game we had a quick turn-around for a Saturday afternoon match-up against Calvin in their gym. As most know, we got beat by five in what was a good basketball game. Every time we made a run to cut into their lead they seemed to hit big shot after big shot. We fought and didn’t throw the towel in, even with Troy and Tyler [Nading] fouling out and it showed a lot of heart from our squad. Calvin is a great team that definitely has the makings of a group that could make a run in March. I think that it also shouldn’t go unmentioned that while being talented on the court they also seemed like good guys. Caleb Veldhouse and Derek Griffin (who forgot how to miss in our game) are both extremely talented and have good heads on their shoulders so I look forward to tracking their scores throughout the year.

Not much time to hang our head from the tough loss though as we take on local Maryville (Mo.) on Tuesday night, #5 Augustana on Saturday and always-tough UW-Platteville (2-0) on Sunday of this week. Coach Edwards sure wasn’t joking when he said we were going to be challenged in our non-conference schedule!

I’ll check back in a week… Take care,

Sean

P.S. Feel free to comment or ask any questions (basketball, sports, school, life or even my love life if you’re a single/female/d3hooper) and I’ll do my best to respond in the next post!