Well — we did it! What a roller-coaster season for our program, our team and myself. The 2008 NCAA Division III men’s basketball national champions are the Washington University in St. Louis Bears — now that’s got a nice ring to it.
The weekend in Salem was a very memorable one. It was a little different the second time around (after having been there a year ago) because we were a little more immune to the media, the large arena and the atmosphere. Last year we may have been a little in awe of the entire situation before having even played our games. This year it seemed as if the team had a much more businesslike attitude and was able to turn on the focus when we needed to turn it on.
The people of Salem, the NCAA, and the ODAC really run a great show out there. After arriving Wednesday, each team does some community service on Thursday before practices. We visited a V.A. hospital, which was very neat. Immediately following that we went to a luncheon to honor Troy Ruths for his Jostens Award acceptance. It was SO special for our entire team to be at the presentation. Following that we had a few hours of downtime at the hotel before heading back to the Civic Center for practice. We practiced, and then stayed at the Civic Center for the annual banquet that night with all the teams.
The banquet is an opening ceremonies-esque dinner and reception for all the student-athletes. It features a coach and player speaking representing each team in addition to a pretty neat highlight video about each team’s road to the final four — which definitely gets the players ready to compete. The ODAC commissioner, Brad Bankston, gave my blog a nice mention during his speech — so thanks Brad, and thanks for helping put together such a great experience in Salem.
Friday features a little more relaxation and prep for Friday night’s games. After a morning shoot-around, most of us relaxed around the hotel while watching the Division I games. In the hotel they have a “Student-Athlete Lounge” featuring a couple of big screen TVs, unlimited water, Gatorades and snacks, and PS3’s for all the athletes to use during the day. It’s a very nice touch that all the players greatly appreciate.
After all the hoopla, it was finally time to play some basketball. Hope was a very talented team and we knew that coming into the game. Having played them last year, we had a good feel for their style and it definitely benefited us. The first half was pretty back and forth, but in the second half our team put on one of the better shows I’ve ever seen. Scoring 57 points in a half against a very good defensive team was borderline ridiculous. It was the start to our nearly flawless three halves of basketball. Aaron Thompson took over for a big stretch and following his jabs, Troy had three-point play after three-point play to deliver the knockout punch.
Now had I been playing in the semifinal, bed time would’ve been in the immediate future following the game, however, I was a coach, and lucky for me — I was assigned Amherst on the Monday of the prior week as my team to scout going into the weekend, while one of our other assistant coaches took Ursinus. I had watched three of Amherst’s games on DVD in addition to their semifinal game picking up on their sets and play-calls, offensive and defensive tendencies, all in addition to some individual personnel scouting. So instead of going to sleep, I was up until after 2 a.m. in Coach Whittle’s room with my “scouting cap” on.
It was pretty neat that Amherst was the first scouting report I’ve been the one to actually hand-write the plays. It meant a lot the coaches trusted me to carry that load for the national championship game. I now know how truly frustrating it is for a coach to be calling out a play from the bench during a game while yelling and yelling to a player on the floor that a back-door is coming, but he still gets burned for a layup.
Anyway, Saturday night we played by far our best game of the season. We frustrated them with our defense and we hit shot after shot on offense. People can say maybe we got lucky shooting so well in the National Championship game — but the bottom line is we were taking GREAT shots, and that’s all you can ask for. As the final buzzer went off it was complete chaos and as I ran out to center court to celebrate and jump with my teammates my leg definitely did not feel hurt!
I can’t count how many friends, player’s parents, professors, etc., have come up to me and expressed congratulations but carried on to say how “bittersweet” it had to have been for me watching from the bench as opposed to being on the court.
The championship wasn’t bittersweet. It was really sweet.
This championship was the first for the program here and wasn’t won just by the six guys that played more than 10 minutes in Saturday night’s 22-point win. It was won by each one of the players that have been here during Coach Edwards’ 27 years. It was won by every fan that has ever come out to support the program. It was won by all the coaches that have ever put time in to making the program better. It was won by each player’s parents that have trusted to send their kid to the University. It was won by every sports information director we’ve ever had here, from people like Mike Wolf, the school’s first, that left his job at Northwestern for the weekend to come to Salem, to our current SID Chris Mitchell. It was won by people like Justin Carroll, the Dean of Students, Mark Wrighton, the chancellor here at Washington University, and our athletic director John Schael, for all the support they’ve given the program over the years. It was won by the three fan buses of students that traveled 24 hours on the weekend to get to Salem to get to the games.
Maybe I didn’t play minutes in the final game, but I still won that championship — and celebrating that wasn’t bittersweet, it was really sweet.
The after-party was fantastic at the hotel. I enjoyed talking with D3hoops.com posters Walzy31 and Marty Peretz about future business plans. I had a blast talking smack about the green-weenies to Titan Q and talking with Pat Coleman and D-Mac. We got to mingle with a few Ursinus parents and Amherst players and coaches, which added to the experience. But most of all it was just great to sit back with the coaches, my teammates and their families and enjoy what had just happened.
The entire experience was a ton of motivation for next year — to get back there and do it again. My first day freshman year at Wash U we had convocation, a welcoming with everyone in the class of 2009 and their families, in our Fieldhouse. Looking up at the four women’s basketball and eight women’s volleyball national championships, Tyler Nading, who I had known for less than 24 hours, and I made a pact that we’d hang our program’s first banner before we graduated. Well Tyler, we did it… Now let’s make it the first of many.
Take care,
Sean
P.S. Thank you to Pat for giving me the opportunity to blog this season. It has been both therapeutic and enjoyable. As for doing it again next season — a contract extension is still in the works and I’m not allowed to talk about it without my agent’s permission.
Sean — thank YOU, seriously. Glad it’s been therapeutic and it’s definitely been great to read.
I’m sure you meant advisor, though and not agent. 🙂
Thanks Sean and again congratulations to the Bears, I really enjoyed reading your thoughts throughout the season.
Sean,
As one of those who was there before you, congratulations!
In the fall of 1982, I started my freshman year at WashU. One of my friends on my floor freshman year went out for the basketball team and made JV, so I ended up wandering over to the field house for some of his games and some of the varsity games. It was an interesting experience. The field house, pre-reconstruction, was an old barn badly in need of updating. There were a handful of fans, a 6-20 team in its second year of action (with one superstar player, Fred Amos, who provided some spectacular individual plays), a schedule dominated by schools I had never heard of (mostly today’s SLIAC, but also powerhouses Wabash and DePauw), and not much atmosphere at all. It’s hard to imagine a day and age when the volleyball team and both the men’s and women’s basketball teams were sub-.500, but that was 1982-1983.
Sophomore year was interesting, too, as the field house reconstruction began and the basketball team played its home games in the historic Francis Gym, with a seating capacity of about 4 rows of bleachers on one side of the floor. I and several of my fraternity brothers were a good part of the regular crowd for these games. The highlight of the year was the falling-out-of-bounds shot by Anders Onarheim that gave WashU it’s first victory over Maryville in the local rivalry game.
My junior year I signed up as one of the team managers. As construction proceeded on the rebuilt field house, dust was everywhere, and a good part of my job was to wet towels and drag them across the court before practice, eraser-style, to pick up that dust. We then made the transition from the old gym to the new field house. It was an incredible change, both on the basketball court and in the locker rooms, although we still had to pick up the construction dust for the rest of that season.
When I graduated from WashU halfway through my senior year (leaving the team halfway through the year), there were seeds of the development of the program. The UAA was in the talking stage at that point, although another year away. Kevin Suiter, the first All-American in over 20 years, was lighting up the scoreboard from 3-point range; he and his teammates inspired the first incarnation of the “Bomb Squad” that was prominent at Salem this year.
I have the deepest admiration for the work put in by the student-athletes who I knew in school and have met in subsequent years as the Bears have come to Brandeis. Coach Edwards has done a remarkable job, along with his colleagues in the athletic department, to carve out a spot for top-notch students to be top-notch collegiate athletes without compromising on any aspect of the process.
Patrick Abegg
WashU ’86
Patrick — you will be glad to know Coach Edwards has spoken glowingly of you to me on more than one occasion in the past year-plus. Thanks for telling your story.