Hello to all from Tyler, Texas! My name is Caitlyn Scelfo & I am a junior at the University of Texas at Tyler. I transferred from Texas A&M Universityafter attending for two years as a regular student. I transferred to UT Tyler with high hopes of playing basketball for their Women’s Basketball Program under head coach Terri Deike. However, due to a recent diagnosis of Osteoarthritis in my left knee, after a 4 year struggle with a knee injury, I have had to make the decision to not play basketball anymore. Though it was a difficult decision to make, I had incredible support from my coaches, teammates, friends, and most importantly my family. And I believe that God has a plan for everyone, and desires to use us in ways that may not be quite “on schedule” with our desires. Coach Deike has given me the awesome opportunity to now be the manager for the UT Tyler women’s basketball team. I am still able to be fully involved with the team as I take on a new role. It is a blessing to still have the opportunity to be a part of this basketball program. All of the coaches and the girls are wonderful, and I want to work hard everyday to make a positive contribution to the program.

We enter the 2008-2009 basketball season picked to finish first in the ASC East conference. Our team enters the season with six great freshman, two awesome seniors, six wonderful sophomores, and 1 fabulous junior. They are all working hard each day on the court in practice and off the court hitting the books as we make our way to the next level of being the 2009 ASC Conference Champions. The girls are becoming more of a team and a family each day as they set aside their differences on and off the court, and put together the talents, outstanding individual qualities, and key roles they each have to offer to the UT Tyler Women’s basketball program. Let me introduce you to our 2008-2009 coaching staff, starting with Head Coach Terri Deike.  Coach Deike started the UT Tyler Women’s basketball program seven years ago and has led them to three ASC East Division Championships and a 77-51 record in that time.  Our assistant coach is Cassi Little, who is in her second year with the program.  She was a year starter at post for the University of Texas at Dallasfrom 2002-2006 where she set five career records and one season record. Last but not least is our graduate assistant, RaTonya Hunter.  She was outstanding point guard for the UT Tyler Patriots from 2003-2007, helping lead them to two ASC East Division Championships. 

We opened our season with a win the other night against Jarvis Christian College. This weekend we play our first two games in front of our home crowd here at UT Tyler as we take on 23^rd-ranked College of St. Benedicton Friday night and Wisconsin-Platteville on Saturday afternoon in the 2008 Fred Jacoby I-20 Tip-off Classic. Next week we take our first major road trip traveling south to Seguin, Texas to take on the Texas Lutheran Bulldogs, then head over to Kerrville, Texas to play Schreiner University. Yep, safe to say the 2008-2009 UT Tyler Women’s Basketball season is under-way, and all roads lead to Hope, Michigan, home of the 2008-2009 Division III Women’s Basketball National Championship.

Looking forward to keeping yall updated on the good times to come this season on & off the court! Until next time, take care, and God Bless!

Caitlyn

Hello my name is Brian Fogleman and I am a senior at Buena Vista University. Buena Vista is located in Storm Lake, Iowa. I am from a small town of Manning, Iowa which is located about an hour straight south of Storm Lake. Manning is one of those towns where if you blink while driving through you will miss it. The guys on the team from bigger cities are always on my case about coming from such a small town. They all believe that since I went to such a small high school that I probably had to take my cousin to the prom. I take it all in stride and just try to throw something back at them.

We have one game under our belt so far this season with two home games this upcoming weekend. We escaped with a win against a very athletic Stout team from Wisconsin. We played Stout last year at home and they are a much better basketball team this year. Senior guard Kyle Stribe played a very solid game. He made a long three with two seconds left to put us up three. We were feeling good about ourselves at that point, up three and the Blue Devils needing to go the length of the floor. The best thing about the game of basketball, is that it isn’t over until there are zeros on the clock. Stout threw the ball in at about our free throw line, took one dribble, and chucked up a sixty foot shot, nothing but the bottom of the net. The gym was going crazy and we were going to overtime. We were able to make some free throws throughout overtime and limit them to taking some tough shots. We escaped with a 68-61 victory.

The game was ugly from start to finish. We turned the ball over too many times and it seemed as if we were a little too fast with everything. By being too fast I mean we didn’t take our time to set up the offense, we didn’t recognize who we had on defense every trip, and we just didn’t do a very good job with the little things. It was our first game and we had about six players see their first varsity minutes in their careers. It is easy to sit here and think about all the things we didn’t do right, however it is important to remember that we got out of there with a “W” and it is exciting to see how much better we can get.

Buena Vista has had a very rich tradition in basketball. Our program is ranked amongst one of the highest in the nation as far as attendance for each game. We only have roughly a thousand students enrolled in this university, but we still manage to pack the gym every home game. Our students section is hands down the best student section in the IIAC. Mainly filled with other athletes, they understand the importance of creating a great atmosphere and with that we take full advantage of playing on our home floor.

St. Olaf and Dordt College are coming to town this weekend. There is nothing better than Friday, Saturday home games. It will be very exciting to see how much we have improved with a week of practice under our belts after last week’s game. I appreciate the opportunity to write for D3hoops.com and since I have not done something like this before I hope to improve as the year goes on.

Go Beavers!

Brian Fogleman

Another year of hoops is here! I have to say, after sitting on the bench watching all of last season I’m pretty excited about this one! It is good to be back in a lot of different ways. After my injury last year it has made me appreciate different things that come from not just being around the game, but with playing the game.

It’s great to feel some pressure while being at the free-throw line by myself. It’s great to hit a few shots in a row. It’s great to have total confidence that the next shot is going in. It’s great to call a play in a huddle and have it executed just like I picture it in my head and have A.T. (Aaron Thompson) drain a three. It’s great being in the locker room with my teammates making fun of each other’s girlfriends or pulling pranks.

This past weekend was a fun one for the Washington U. basketball family. Tyler Nading and Tom Blount are both from Colorado and we had our opening tournament in Colorado Springs at Colorado College. It gave them the opportunity to show off our team and play in front of a lot of their friends, family, high school coaches and teammates that have never gotten the chance to see them play in college. It’s awesome that Coach Edwards is able to schedule tournaments like this, our tournament over Thanksgiving at Anderson University (close to Cam Smith’s home) and over winter break at Elmhurst College (we have a handful of people from the Chicago area) to allow friends and family the opportunity to see us play.

We won the tournament championship this past weekend after victories against North Park and Colorado College. When you walk in the gym at CC there is a big painting on the wall saying “Altitude 6,212 feet… Breathe Deeply!” and man they weren’t kidding. After the first game I was ready for the oxygen tank. My good buddy and conference rival in high school, Nick Williams plays for North Park and he even needed IV after the game—I’m not sure if it was just the altitude but it was definitely noticed by quite a few of our players too. Our exhibition game against Division II Missouri-St. Louis prepared us really well for the North Park game because of NPU’s athleticism and the different defenses they threw at us. I know they were shorthanded for a number of reasons but I’m sure they’ll turn some heads and knock off a few teams in the CCIW this year.

The next day we took on an emotionally charged CC team. CC was winless last year and they were coming off their first win in quite some time before taking us on in the championship game. I can promise this—that team is going to win more than one game this year if they play with that energy and intensity. That program is definitely going in the right direction and they have a nice group of guys. We got off to a good start but we were never really able to put them away. They hung around and hung around until tournament MVP AT buried a few threes at the end of the game to seal the deal.

I couldn’t be much more excited for our game this Saturday! Augustana is now 2-0 and we’re 2-0 and it should be a pretty fun battle between #1 and #2. Obviously it isn’t do or die at this point (like it was last March) but it will be a great measuring stick early in the season for both teams.

Until next time,
Sean

P.S. I want to thank Pat for giving me the opportunity to exercise my player-option on the second year of my blogging deal. I needed a gig in these tough economic times!