What a big weekend for the Washington University Bears! After losing an extremely emotional game at the University of Chicago just a week ago, it seemed as if there were a ton of reasons for us to question ourselves as a team. All of this before we saw our draw from hell released Monday afternoon by the NCAA. This isn’t me saying we didn’t deserve such a difficult path, as we were a Pool C team just thankful to get into the tournament, but rather how many tough teams there are in Division III in the Midwest.

The Weekend: Our opening game against No. 17 Wooster, a re-match of last years third place game, was a typical battle with each team throwing punches and making runs. We opened up extremely hot and ended up holding on to the lead for the entire game. In the second half, James Cooper showed why he’s an All-American and scored 12 of Wooster’s 14 points over a two-minute span to cut our lead from 10 to two. Aaron Thompson (A.T.) held him scoreless in the first half and did a tremendous job on him for the remainder of the game. Troy Ruths was too tough down the stretch (I feel like I’ve written that sentence multiple times in my blogs this year) and we ended up holding on for a five-point win.

Our second game was against No. 6 Augustana– a team that was very familiar to us. We played them earlier in the season, the first game after I got hurt, and they handled us pretty easily on a neutral court. Saturday night’s Augustana team was missing a key piece they had earlier in the season when they beat us, however, as they were without senior Jordan Delp, who went down earlier in the season with an Achilles injury. It was a pleasure getting to commiserate with Jordan about our respective injuries, rehab time-tables, and future plans as student-athletes.

While most basketball games feature teams making runs, Saturday night’s game was different in that respect. We almost never trailed the entire second half (with the exception of 21 seconds) but at the same time never held a lead of more than five points. Up two points with less than a second left, Tyler Nading got called for his fifth-foul and Chandlor Collins nailed two free-throws for them to send the game to overtime. Talk about ice-water in someone’s veins—those were some big time free throws. Without Tyler we still pulled together and played well in overtime. We got a huge lift from our bench throughout the game, add that to A.T.’s unbelievable effort running the show and Cameron Smith’s clutch shooting… oh yea, and Troy’s 21 points and seven rebounds, and what do you get? A three-point victory and a birth in the sweet 16.

Neither game was a dominant performance, but as the ESPN analysts and my high school coach say, that’s not what the tournament play is about… it’s about SURVIVING AND ADVANCING. Every team’s record is 0-0, and all that matters is that after the game one team is still playing and one team is going home. One team survived the game and is advancing to the next round and the other team is looking towards next season. Buena Vista (who we play Friday) doesn’t care that we beat two tremendously talented teams this past weekend, so we’re going to need to play our basketball and play it well to beat them.

UAA Unity: Congratulations to all of the UAA teams on their tourney success so far. I couldn’t be happier for each team that has advanced and I think that it has quieted any rumblings or complaints of people saying we didn’t deserve the three pool C bids we were granted—considering all three of the teams are still standing. I know each team has to win a game before it happens, but the potential Amherst vs. Brandeis match-up on a neutral court to get to Salem makes me giddy to think about. I haven’t seen the Lord Jeffs play this year, but the constant pressure ‘Deis puts on opposing guards by Kwame Graves-Fulgham and Andre Roberson makes it tough for anyone bringing the ball up, so it’ll be interesting to see how All-everything Andrew Olson does against that pressure the second time around.

NCAA Tourney Thoughts: I had an interesting conversation at Augustana with the NCAA representative this past weekend. Mike Zapolski, the athletic director at Anderson College, is the head of the Midwest Region and is a member of the national selection committee. While I can’t go through and repeat all of the conversation because it could potentially bore many, his enthusiasm about the regional ranking/selection process made me feel like the process is DEFINITELY in the hands of the right people. Obviously the committee is under very heavy scrutiny by the NCAA’s geographical/travel rules but it sure seems like he and the committee understand the tournament isn’t perfect at this point and there are definitely places to tweak things for next year.

Rehab: My rehab is continuing to go extremely well and I’m realistically only 3-4 weeks away from playing basketball in live, contact situations. I’ve been running, squatting, leg pressing and lunging. While I’m enjoying my role as a “coach”– helping putting together scouting reports late into the night with Coach Whittle, pointing things out on the bench, and listening to my teammates suggestions to tell the coaches, etc…—I can assure everyone that it is MUCH more fun to play!

Take Care,

Sean

p.s. Congrats to our S.I.D. Chris Mitchell on his recent engagement to University of Missouri-St. Louis S.I.D. Mary Ann Tierney! Talk about future kids with scary potential to become the best press release writers, media guide creators and web site updaters of the future S.I.D. generation.

Road trips are something that all student-athletes will experience, esp. athletes in the SCAC conference! We’ll take you through our most recent road trip to Crestview Hills, Ky:

Day 1:

We started out on Thursday morning at 830 am. By now our Thursday professors are used to the basketball team not being in class. The ride to Kentucky is pretty easy compared to our 10 hour drive up to
Conway, Arkansas for the SCAC tournament the weekend before. Everyone usually sleeps for the first few hours waking up to eat lunch. This trip has more excitement though because it is the NCAA tournament and we are playing a team that we had recently beaten by 19. To finally win a game in the big dance would be really exciting. To pass the time we watch a million movies. Since the boys do not travel with us they are mostly chick flicks. Now, I know what you’re thinking poor Coach Sattele he must be bored out of his mind but he should be used to that since he had 3 daughters! Movies don’t ever get old on road trips since we never have time to go see movies during the season. We also start preparing for
Piedmont, watch film etc… We arrive and the weather is fairly nice, little to our knowledge that was about to change. We practice at Thomas More then go back to the hotel, eat dinner, and sleep!

Day 2:

We wake up a little before 10 to get breakfast and get ready for shoot around. We look outside and what do we see? SNOW!! Snow in March?! Not just snow flurries, it is really snowing! There is few inches of snow on the ground! We go to shoot around. Afterwards we decide to bombard coach with snow balls. What were we thinking? Trying to win a snowball fight with Santa, that is pretty much impossible! Coach has really good aim and is a lot quicker than you think. So of course the freshmen are targeted. Our 6’ 2” center Reggie got a couple snow balls to the face and then fell into the snow! While the upper classmen know to throw a snowball or two and run onto the bus to get out of Santa’s range! We eat pregame and get ready to play.

We win!! We finally won a NCAA tournament game it is great!! We stay to watch the Thomas More(TM)-Greensboro game. Then we went to eat. Since we won winning we get to take an ice bath. Thomas More doesn’t have whirlpools so we have to put ice in the bath tubs at the hotel. We all pretty much dread doing this but the difference it makes in our legs is just amazing. We look over Thomas More then sleep.

Day 3:

There is 13 inches of snow on the ground and it is still snowing!!! The shot around is pushed back a few hours and the game was pushed back 30 minutes. Luckily it wasn’t pushed back until tomorrow, we don’t know if we could stand waiting another day to play. The day is filled with excitement. To make it to the sweet sixteen would be great! It is a great opportunity to play an undefeated #3 Thomas More. This should be a good game.

We win!! We beat the #3 team in the nation. This should show people that OU is not going anywhere. Both teams played great, I just do not think TM is used to playing our up tempo game. The atmosphere was amazing. That gym gets really loud and there were a lot of people there. Our parents and fans are just great! We go to Barley’s Corn for dinner. Most of the parents came with us to eat and we got our own room. Let me tell you it is not quiet for one second. All we could talk about was the game and that we are now in the sweet sixteen! We get back to the hotel and try to sleep.

Day: 4

We go to team breakfast at 8:30 am at Cracker Barrel. We are all pretty much just as excited as last night. Still wondering who we are going to play, the game got pushed back until 12 today so we won’t know who we’re playing for a while. The ride home is much easier if you win. During the ride home the game is always what is talked about and thought about. If you lose then the ride home is like torture, you just want to get home. If you win then the game is talked about excitedly in this case there is just a buzz on the bus. Most people sleep for the first hours but homework has to get done. Luckily the team is pretty diverse academically so if someone is having trouble in classes there is usually someone that can help. There is snow on the ground for the first few hours of trip, this is a long cry from our spring break plans of sand, water, and sun! We are about an hour and half away from OU. Most people were sleeping or watching the movie when all of the sudden our front tire blows out! We wake up to the bus heading towards the railing on the side of the road. Luckily we had a great driver who controlled the bus and no one got hurt. He steered the bus towards the closest exit and parked it in a gas station. After an hour the guy arrived and fixed the flat. It was pretty cool to watch the flat get fixed! We finally made it back to OU where fans and family had decorated the gym and made us cupcakes. It was great! We have really awesome fans! Now we have to get ready for William Smith and more cold weather!!!!

We are lucky to have our great fans! Our trainers came and really helped with our bumps and bruises. Hopefully we can have the same fan base in New Jersey.

Good Luck to all the teams! Until next time, try not to miss us too much!!