When I took over this site for the 1997-98 season, there was no women’s basketball coverage whatsoever. Division III Basketball Online covered just men’s basketball and had links to men’s teams, but not to women’s teams.
That was one of the first things I changed. Well, that and the background image. Raise your hand if you remember the parquet floor. But since Feb. 4, 1998, the address of the site is about the only thing that hasn’t changed.
We’ve seen some great women’s basketball over the 10 years since, including the Wash U dynasty, the unlikely tournament runs of Wilmington and Trinity (Texas), as well as great individual talent.
That talent is what’s on display with our All-Decade Team. Special thanks to Gordon Mann, who managed the project, as well as Mark Simon and Dave McHugh, who helped write player capsules.
Question, debate, discuss. The floor is open.
I expect some of the biggest debate will be Alia Fischer vs. Ronda Jo Miller in the first-team center slot. We debated this every year they were up for All-American status together, which was for our first three seasons. (They were sophomores when we took over.)
Miller and Fischer were both on our first team in 1998 and in 2000, while in 1999 Miller was first team and Fischer second.
Since then, we’ve all but stopped breaking the mold on All-Americans. It’s our job to make the tough decisions, and pick one player at a position over another. A coach has to make the same decision on his or her starting five — never seen six starters, at least not legally. That was our decision, head-to-head, at that time, and it didn’t seem like we needed to change that call.
On the other hand, many players did not overlap, and we had many debates over where to place specific players. A player didn’t have to have a specific number of All-American selections to qualify, or to appear on a first team at all, let alone multiple times. The entire career was considered.
*Hand Raised* – remember the parquet floor background!
As I said off-hand yesterday, I am just glad Ashley Marble didn’t fall further than 2nd team… strickly because of the knee guards, alone!
It is amazing to think back on these players and what they brought to the game and their teams! I can see why there might be a debate over Fischer and Miller… but the simple fact they are on these teams says enough!
*hand raised* I dimly remember it…:P
I’m just sorry that I didn’t wake up to the great game of D3 women’s basketball until recently. Reading about this All-Decade team just points out how much I’ve missed over the years. Maybe I’ll be able to speak intelligently about the second All-Decade team in 2018!
I have a fondness for Leigh Sulkowski, though, as she was the first great D3 player I saw. Washington & Jefferson came to Wooster to participate in the Nan Nichols Classic at Wooster in 2005, and she racked up 41 points and 18 boards that weekend.
Here’s to ten more great years of women’s hoops! 🙂
I’d have to agree with the initial post by Pat Coleman…. Putting Alia Fischer on the 2nd team for anything relating to D3 women’s basketball just has to be wrong. I never got to see Miller play in person, but Fischer’s record is almost impossible to match– three straight national titles, team leader, could shot equally well with either hand out to several feet, could even shoot the 3 and handle the ball in a pinch. Alia’s team(s) also made a serious run at UCLA’s modern NCAA all-time record of 88 straight wins, until the national media caught hold of it, SI showed up on campus, etc. and the pressure got to be a bit too much. As a long-time fan of Wash U basketball, I saw nearly every home game played by Fischer, Rogers, and before and after. Alia Fischer was Michael Jordan, with Tasha Rogers as Scottie Pippen. They were both great, and I suspect neither care a bit about their placement on the All-Decade teams, but you pretty clearly have them reversed. I still believe Fischer could have played in the WNBA. From my observation, she was roughly on a par with Kristen Folkl, a St. Louis native who played in the WNBA following Stanford.
Of course it’s Tasha “Rodgers” not “Rogers”, guess I know too many people named Roger….
You’re not agreeing with my post, really. I’m defending our choices and having seen both play I am comfortable with the selections we made at the time.
I think testament to Miller’s level of play was the fact that Gallaudet made the Sweet 16 while she was there and hasn’t made the tournament at all without her. She didn’t have a Tasha Rodgers-level teammate to help get that team further, the way Fischer did.
Remember these are individual honors, not team honors.
By the way, you mentioned SI showing up on campus — I worked with that writer, John Walters, at NBCSports.com last year and he talked with Nancy Fahey when they went to NYU last year … the morning before they got throttled by the Violets.
That story didn’t survive some changes at NBC, but he did a good job on it. Just jinxed Wash U again. 🙂
The only two I saw were the WashU stars, as I usually attended the WashU at Brandeis games, and then went the the first two of WashU’s Final Fours, at Southern Maine and Western Connecticut. Both were incredibly special players who worked very well within a team framework.
Fischer was a model of consistency. I’d swear that she played exactly the same in every game that I saw her in. In her first two years, she didn’t have to be the team leader, as Amy Schweizer had that role (she graduated as WashU’s all-time leading scorer only to be passed by Fischer 2 years later). but really moved into the leadership role as a junior on the first of the two undefeated teams. Think about it: she didn’t lose a game her junior and senior years.
The first time I saw Rodgers, the midseason WashU-Brandeis game her freshman year, she was a very raw talent who was having a hard time focusing her intense play, picking up fouls left and right. But it was clear that she had a lot of talent. When I saw the Bears again at the Final Four, she’d started to put it together. By here sophomore season (Fischer’s junior year), she was a completely dominant force on the floor.
It’s always a reminder to me that even the all-time great players may not look that great as freshmen and how much of a transition there is from the high school game.
I am glad to see Kendra Anderson from HSU make the second team. In such illustrious company as selected, second team is not too low!
In the second decade, I hope the ASC has put McMurry’s Tarra Richardson and HPU’s Meia Daniels on the team.
Thanks!
One other comment about the 2003 Trinity TX-HSU sectional semifinals game (“Sweet 16”)…
HSU had beaten Trinity in Abilene in November in the second game of the season by a 69-56 count. However, that Trinity team did not have Jenna Smith and Megan Selmon. When those two came aboard for Trinity, the Tigers were a different club. In the rematch, Trinity shut down all of the other Cowgirls, but Kendra could not beat this stronger Trinity team singlehandedly.
http://hsuathletics.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/recaps/031403aaa.html
Curious about why Kelly Halpin from Scranton is not on the list? I believe she was 2nd all time in scoring and 1st in assists when she left Scranton along with being a first team all-american three times and three final fours? Obviously all of these players were great but looking at some of these achievements they do not seem to be as good as Halpins. I was wondering if she was in any discussions for the teams? and if so why was she left off?
One more question… I was wondering why you would not just put the top five players on the first team , second five on the second instead of going by positions f,f,c,g,g? For example, like the NBA all-star game they do not necessarily have a f,f,c,g,g that start or even some college teams play the top guards and do not have a center. Just seems like if you would of done it that way you may have not had to make the choice between fischer and miller.
I’ll start with the easy one: the standard starting lineup is g/g/f/f/c and since the majority of coaches fill out their lineup card that way, so do we.
I don’t think we consider the NBA a worthy role model. And again, we’re not looking to duck the tough decisions.
I hear ya and it makes sense to do it that way . Any thoughts about Halpin? It seems like she belongs on this list of players.
OK, so as for Halpin — she wasn’t a first-team All-American by D3hoops.com three times.
http://www.d3hoops.com/tow/allamericans-all.htm
I guess if the WBCA were doing a list you’d expect her to be on it. But they also have a “first team” of 10 players, so it’s a little easier to make that first team.
Why wasn’t she in the other years? Hard to recreate our 1999 thought process but I know she was not the MAC Freedom MVP that year. Tough year for her — she’s only on the MAC leaderboard in assists (4.7) and didn’t average 16.3 points to make that list of leaders. I know scoring was not her primary skill, though.
But that’s why she’s not on our list — you’re starting from a mistaken premise.
Maybe I was think of the WBCA. And yes they do have ten players on the first team but they only have one team where as d3 hoops has 5 teams plus HM so d3hoops has 30 players that make all american and wbca has only ten. I did not realize that you would not take other awards into account (not that that would of put her on the team). I know she was MVP of the league as a sophomore though (1997 i think), maybe not in 1999 but she was all league first team three times and second team her freshman year. I guess I was just shocked not to see her on the team, she played on arguably one of the best teams in your decade, went to three final fours in which she was on the all tournament team, leads the entire program in assists and number three in scoring
True, though when you count the WBCA honorable mentions that’s 40 players they name and we only actually name 25, not 30.
Pat,
I do not want to get in an argument about the d3 all american team vs the wbca team. I was just curious as to why Halpin was not on the teams. I realize that I made a mistake about her all-american honors and that I confused d3 vs wbca, she was three time wbca and one time d3. However I still look at her statistics her league, and overall all honors, her teams success. (3 final fours, 4 ncaa appearances) And I was just wondering why she did not make at least fourth team, there are a couple people on that team who seem to have less individual, and team honors and are on that team. I am not trying to annoy you ( you said you wanted to deabte) I was just curious as to why she did not make the list, I have tried to ask before but you have not really answered , you just gave her stats for one season and explained why she was not a d3hoop all-american that year (even though she was wbca) and I guess if you just base your decade team on amount of time someone was all american I would understand but there are people on the list who were only d3hoops all american only once as well. Just curious….
Understood. Just clarifying the facts out there so people have the right numbers to work from.
I completly understand and agree with you. But you still have not addressed the issues why she was not left off…
We felt that Suzy Venet, with two quadruple doubles, multiple triple-doubles and a Final Four trip during our decade, needed to be recognized on that final guard team. Amy Campion scored 1,918 career points, had 984 rebounds and 476 assists — rare numbers in a point guard — and she didn’t play 31-33 games every year, etc.
So you are saying that because her team was so successful and went deep in the tourny every year and she played 31-32 games every year she is being penalized. As far as personal stats, she had 1865 pts, 504 assists and 279 steals . It just seems that Halpin had both personal numbers and team accomplishments.
JMFish:
To put it differently, there were at least three premises we used in making our selections. They weren’t carved in stone (or even Word documents) but they may help explain the picks.
1) Focus on D3hoops.com All-Americans since this is our All-Decade team. That’s not to denigrate the WBCA awards in any way, but the All-Decade team is tied to our website’s anniversary.
2) Each team has two guards, two forwards and one center for reasons explained above.
3) If Player A finished in front of Player B in a given past year, we didn’t reverse that decision now.
Also, while we used a player’s individual stats and their school rankings to tell their story in the player capsule, we didn’t get too caught up in those criteria in making our selections.
As Pat was pointing out, those kinds of rankings and stats depend on several variables including how many games a person plays. All else being equal, an outstanding player at Misericordia is going to have less numbers than an outstanding player at Scranton since the later plays more games. That doesn’t make either player “less great” but it does affect those comparisons.
And while we weren’t going to penalize Halpin for falling behind Nish on some Scranton Lists, we weren’t going to go crazy about her finishing first on others. There aren’t enough slots to honor all the great players who finished at the top of statistical categories for highly successful programs.
As for Halpin…
She was an All-American for D3hoops.com once in 1999. She may’ve been recognized by other groups, like the WBCA, but we were focused on our All-American selections (premise #1).
The only other guard on the All-Decade list with just one D3hoops.com All-American selection is Suzy Venet. The rest of the players had multiple selections or didn’t play the same position as Halpin and aren’t in competition with her for a spot (premise #2).
Though Venet’s career didn’t fall neatly within our time frame, her resume compares favorably with Halpin’s.
Venet, 1994-1998
Two conference MVPs.
Three tournament appearances
Two All-tournament teams
Jostens Award Finalist
Halpin, 1996 – 2000
One conference MVP
Four tournament appearances
One All-tournament team
If you want to argue against Venet’s candidacy because several of her accomplishments fell outside our decade, I understand that. We made an exception for her because of her overwhelming resume.
And Halpin was certainly a great player – I don’t want to downplay her accomplishments. But given our criteria, I think we made the right choice here.