Back-to-Back Champs!

Since my last post the Beavers have been crowned the IIAC champs for the second year in a row. We clinched sole possession with a victory of the University of Dubuque on Wednesday night and a loss by Loras. We heard after the game in the locker room that Loras had lost to Cornell. We just celebrated a little bit, and Coach made sure he told us how proud he was of us and that it was an accomplishment. However, this team has set higher goals. In order to reach those higher goals we needed to win the regular season conference championship. To keep reaching those goals we need to win the tournament championship and get into the National Tournament. Before the conference tournament we have one regular season game left against a rising opponent. Friday night we are heading to Decorah, Iowa. We play Saturday at 4 against the Luther Norse. Luther has been battling week in and week out for a final spot in the conference tournament. They beat a good Central team last Saturday and they need to win out to get the 6th and final spot. There defense is the best in the league and it will be a very good game.

I am going to talk about two more seniors today. The first is one of our guards Travis Person. Travis is a monster. He benches the most on the team, as he stands at 6,7” 230 lbs and is sold as a rock. He was a 4 man for us a couple seasons ago, but his ability to guard quicker opponents has improved and his ability to stroke it from downtown has been great consistently. My favorite story about Travis is a recent one. We were trailing to Wartburg in the second half a couple of weeks ago. Wartburg had beaten us at their place, and pretty much beat us in the first half at our place. In the second half we really moved the ball well on offense and worked for that good look against their zone. However, the ball never seemed to go any further than Travis Person. Travis was on fire, he had nine three pointers in the game. He pulled one from the IIAC symbol on our court which is about six feet behind the three point line. It was one of those nights where every time he touched it, without thinking it was going up, and it was going in. He finished the game 9 for 11 from the three point line, and had 27 points. With that game he earned Iowa Conference player of the week. Travis plans to do landscaping work for a cousin who owns a business in Des Moines. I guess he is going to continue to be a brut the rest of his life.

The other senior has been a teammate as well as a very good friend of mine for a long time. Kyle Stribe was a member of the Manning High School basketball team with me. We have been close for many years and it has been fun to watch him develop as a basketball player as well as a person. Off the court Kyle has come to be one of the funniest people of the team. At first you would think he was quiet and chill about everything, but once you get to know him he is a very funny person. He usually just sits on the back of the bus on road trips and throws his two cents in to the group of guys’ playing cards in front of him. His one line comments are some of the best. The best quality of Kyle on the court is that he doesn’t waste possessions. We always talk as a team on how important it is to not waste possessions. Kyle doesn’t turn the ball over. On top of that he doesn’t take bad shots. His three point percentage is amongst the highest in the league. He has improved his ball handling as well as passing over the years. My favorite basketball story about Kyle took place last season in a game against Benedictine College. Kyle scored 20 points including hitting 6 three pointers in the first 8 minutes of the game. It was truly one of the most amazing shooting displays I have ever witnessed. Kyle is currently student teaching at a school near Storm Lake. There is no doubt in my mind that he will be an outstanding teacher someday.

We are on the road Saturday at Luther and then home for the first round of the conference tournament next Thursday. We are focused on Luther right now as we know they are going to give us everything they have. They are well coached and very physical on both sides of the ball.

Insider: Halfway to Another Title

The Beavers are over half way through the conference schedule. We are currently 10-1 in conference play. Last Monday we ran across a very hot Wartburg team. Since I have been a part of this program, Buena Vista and Wartburg have had some battles on the basketball court. Unfortunately, we were unable to get things going offensively and had troubles stopping the Knights defensively. We suffered our first loss in the conference and it was really a gut-check time for our program. Like I expected, we took the loss from Wartburg and used it to focus on what we needed to do to be a great basketball team. We called a team meeting and set some goals that we thought would be important in winning our next four games. We focused on rebounding and how we really want to dominate teams on the glass. We also focused on limiting our empty possessions. By empty possessions, and I am talking about not just turning the ball over, but running our plays correctly and taking good shots as well. The final thing we talked about was basically finding our identity as a program. We wanted to point out things we do well and make sure we continue to do those things well. We came back two days after the loss and beat a Luther team that is much better than their record shows. We then continued our streak and beat Simpson on Saturday and COE College on Wednesday.

I am going to take this time to talk about our senior class a little bit. I will talk about Matt Cleveland and Andre Wagner today, and talk about the other seniors later. I am starting off with Matt Cleveland. I have lived with Matt the last two years and I feel like it has made our relationship stronger on the court. Matt is one of a kind. He stands at 6’8”, but can shoot the ball from the outside as good as anyone I have witnessed. Matt also has a great ability of rebounding the basketball. Matt has been named IIAC player of the week this year as well as tournament MVP in California. I feel fortunate that I have been able to play along side of him the last couple of years.

Andre Wagner is our starting point guard. Andre is an outstanding player as well as person. He is involved in many on-campus activities and he dedicates a lot of his time to helping others. He recently spent a month helping children in the area with disciplinary problems, which falls somewhere in his field. He plans to do something in the field of social work and there is no doubt that he will be great at it. He is just as good of a person on the court. When Andre came to Buena Vista he was a scorer. He came from a school where he was the offense. Now he is the leading scorer as well as assists man in the IIAC. He does whatever it takes to make the team better. His dedication to making himself a better player as well as his teammates is greatly appreciated. There is no doubt about that he makes me a better player.

We play at Central this weekend. Since I have been at Buena Vista I have never won a game there. They always seem to play their best against us and we expect nothing else. Next week we have two home games and I plan to keep you updated.

Insider: BVU takes streak to Dubuque

It has been a while since my last blog. A lot has happened with the Buena Vista basketball program since that time. The conference season is in full swing and we are coming off a very intense, one point, overtime, victory over the Central Dutch last night. No matter how skilled the teams are, when Buena Vista and Central play, it is always a battle. The Dutch did a great job and it was one of those games that could have gone either way.

Our program, now 12-1 (4-0 IIAC) took a trip to California over Christmas break. We all had about nine days off from basketball before Christmas. On Christmas night we all came back to Storm Lake, had practice and we were off to Omaha bright and early the next morning. We visited Hollywood Blvd., Universal Studios, and even had a chance to catch a Clippers game in the first two days we were there. I couldn’t tell who was even playing, because we were about 10 rows away from the very last row, but it was a great time. Later on in the week I experienced my first ocean. I had never been to the ocean before so the team took a trip one morning to a beach by Malibu. It doesn’t take much to excite me, but I really enjoyed it.

We went 2-0 in our two games in California. We found ourselves down 7 with about 45 seconds to go in the first game and somehow managed to get the game tied and won it in overtime. Senior Matt Cleveland had the best game of his career as he had 29 points and 12 rebounds. The second game was a battle all the way through. We managed to take a lead late and make free throws to hold on to a 3 point “W.” Andre Wagner was awarded all tournament team. His ability to create his own shot off of the dribble is amazing. I sometimes catch myself just standing there watching him. Matt Cleveland was named MVP of the tournament which was well deserved. He was hands down the best player on the court in both games. His ability to shoot outside as well as down low makes him very hard to guard.

As proven last night every game in the Iowa Conference is going to be a battle. We all know that every team is going to come out and play their best against us. We head to Dubuque on Wednesday to play a very solid Dubuque team. They are having one of their best seasons since I have been around and it is going to be a lot of fun!

Hello from Buena Vista …

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