Author Archives: Pat Coleman

This week’s recruiting update

Posted on by

Blue Ridge High School (Ill.) center Brent Ruch has committed to attend Elmhurst and play basketball for the Bluejays.

“Brent has an unbelievable combination of size and basketball skill that you just don’t see everywhere,” Elmhurst coach Mark Scherer told the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph. “Because of the injuries he has sustained, I believe his best basketball is still ahead of him.”

Hustisford (Wis.) HS guard Tony Thrasher, the Southern Trailways Conference boys’ basketball player of the year as a senior, will play at Hamline. Thrasher, 6-3, also played quarterback for Hustisford.

Derek King, Southside (Ind.), heads to DePauw. King averaged 16.8 points a game for Southside and had a GPA of 3.47 on a 4.0 scale.

“(Immediate playing time) was the biggest thing,” King told the (Muncie, Ind.) Star Press. “Wherever I went, I wanted to play right away. I went down and spent the night and played with the guys. We really clicked. Everything just really clicked. It was just a blessing to find a school like that.”

Fitch (Conn.) HS guard Todd Doyle will go to Wentworth Tech.

Manning (Iowa) HS post Brian Fogleman heads to Buena Vista.

Women’s recruits
St. Benedict’s incoming freshman class, according to the St. Cloud Times: Edina forward Ariel Tauer, Minneota guard Brittany Buysse, Edina point guard Nikki Carter, North St. Paul post Nicole Hjelmgren, Centennial post Alyssa Mohr and Rocori post Kari Schroeder.

Jackie Distler and Kelsey McCarty, from Sacred Heart HS in Louisville, will attend and play basketball at Transylvania. “Jackie and Kelsey have been an important part of a tremendously successful high school program,” coach Mark Turner said in a release. “Both will fit in well to our program and we’re excited they are coming to school at Transylvania.”

Fennimore girls basketball player Whitney Lenz, a 5-10 guard, will play at Clarke.

Nikita Eddy, Provincetown (Mass.) HS, to Mitchell.

Riverview High (Sarasota, Fla.) forward Stephanie Zarse to Illinois College.

Cor Jesu Academy (St. Louis) guard Jill Brandt and Punahou (Honolulu) School’s Shanna-Lei Dacanay to attend and play basketball at Washington U.

And Maddie Sikes signed one of those non-existent letters of intent at Wesleyan (Ga.). She went to Christian Heritage School (Ga.).

Tournament to feature Maryland’s best…

Posted on by

… or all of Maryland, actually. We learned at the end of the season that the nine Maryland Division III men’s basketball programs have agreed to create an annual tipoff tournament. Each year eight of the nine teams in the state will participate: Frostburg State, Goucher, Hood, Johns Hopkins, McDaniel, Salisbury, St. Mary’s, Villa Julie and Washington College.

The tournament was inspired by the Chase Tournament, which features seven Division III teams and an NAIA team.

That makes us think — there are a few more theme tournaments we could put together at the Division III level.

Consider …

Pages: 1 2

Letter of bad intentions

Posted on by

If you read “coverage” of Division III sports this time of year, you probably see this phrase, or one like it, pretty frequently.

So-and-so “signed a letter of intent to play basketball at Division III” Such-and-such College.

This is a lie. Or if it’s true, then it’s an NCAA violation. There is no such thing as a letter of intent in Division III.

From the Division III manual, bylaw 13.10.1:

An institution shall not utilize any form of a letter of intent or similar form of commitment in the recruitment of a prospect. However, it shall be permissible for the institution to utilize in the recruitment of a prospect its pre-enrollment forms executed by prospective students in general at that institution. Violations of this bylaw shall be considered institutional violations per Constitution 2.8.1; however, such violations shall not affect the prospective student-athlete’s eligibility.

I’m not going to name names here — shoot, you can do some Google searches and see the references for yourself. We just don’t know if the schools are misleading the papers or the papers just don’t know what they’re writing about.

Fact is, nothing binds a student-athlete to attend a particular school in Division III, or to play basketball once there. They can abandon their application fee and enrollment deposit and re-enroll anywhere.

This is why ranking recruiting classes in Division III is a fruitless exercise.

Hey, I can see where the schools are coming from. It’s hard to get people unfamiliar with Division III to truly understand how things work here. But we need to educate the rest of the media, educate the public, that Division III is different, and better. Student-athletes aren’t treated any differently, aren’t given any special treatment, and they enter the school the same way everyone else does.

Ignorance is no excuse. Intentionally misleading people is worse.

Basketball Withdrawal

Posted on by

It’s been a little over a month since the Final 4 and I’ve still got the symptoms of basketball withdrawal. The NBA playoffs are here and that cures some of your blues, but that’s a different kind of game than what we see in Division III

Thankfully, the Daily Dose is here to alleviate some of the blues and blahs, which we’ll do throughout the summer with a little news, a little analysis, and a little bit of humor…For example

The Top 10 Signs You’re Going Through D3 Basketball Withdrawal
From the home offices in Danville, CT

10- You sing “One Shining Moment” and “This Time of Year” in the shower

9- You actually sort of have an interest in the latest recruiting rumors

8- You watch the end of Mavericks-Rockets Game 2 and think “Wow, that guy was almost as clutch as Jason Kalsow”

NEW!7- You click on every entry marked “New” in Posting Up, and then when you’re done, you click on the message boards that haven’t gotten a post in 6 months, just in case…

6- You start taking wild guesses at the identity of the NBA coach referenced in a previous entry by Pat Coleman and shudder at the thought that Isiah Thomas might someday want to coach Division III

5- You look at the high school prospects lists and are tantalized by the possibility that the 276th best player in Texas may end up in the ASC. You then google the names of the recruits that have given “verbal commitments.”

Albion's Mike Thomas4- You start analyzing the needs of your alma mater and think “We’re not that far off…” and then you visualize a Mike Thomas-type shot that wins them an NCAA Tournament game

3- You go to team websites and click on the schedule pages, and are shocked when you still see ’04-’05 games listed

2- You make a hotel reservation for next year’s Final 4, but to protect your identity, you book it as “Lamont Strothers”

and the #1 sign that you’re going thru Division III basketball withdrawal

1- You start wondering “Where in the world is Allen Karon???”