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.