Author Archives: Gordon Mann

Insider: March at last

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Holly Harvey, a junior guard for Illinois Wesleyan, checks in as her Titans get set to host Franklin in the first round of the NCAA tournament. She has lots of reasons to enjoy March and is hoping to add another big one on March 20.

I have always looked forward to the month of March. My birthday is on the 10th and what kid wouldn’t anticipate the one day a year when it’s all about them and they get showered with gifts? Now that I am older and a little more mature March holds my anticipation for a number of other reasons. Our spring break always falls the week of St. Patrick’s Day (another reason to be a fan of March) and I find myself counting down the days to it after the final week of February was filled with tests and papers. These days I also owe my love for this month to college basketball.

I log some of my longest hours of watching TV in March because I try and catch as much of the Division I NCAA tournaments as possible. It’s convenient that the opening days of the tournaments fall during spring break so I do not have to worry about whether or not I’d be able to drag myself away from the TV to go to class. Since I have been at Illinois Wesleyan the highlight of my March has been the Division III NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

All three of my years we have gotten the automatic bid from the CCIW. We are excited to begin our journey in the NCAA Tournament at our Shirk Center as we are a host for the first two rounds. We have Franklin College in our first game and if we are successful we will face either Simpson College or the University of Chicago. We are familiar with Chicago as we faced them at their place in December and won by 7. Just as we are starting our NCAA journey at Shirk we are hoping to end it there.

We have known for a while now that we are hosting the Final Four. It has been pretty hard to not look forward to those games and see ourselves playing for a national championship on our home court. When we find ourselves daydreaming about being in the Final Four we snap out of it and realize the games leading up to it will not just be handed to us because we are hosting. Every team we might face made the tournament for a reason and will challenge us to perform at our best.

We’ve been working hard all season for these important challenges that are about to come our way. I am confident that we are ready and have the potential to do some amazing things in the tournament. We are just going to take it one game at a time and not look past any of our opponents. Hopefully everything works out for us and March 2010 will be one of the most memorable months of my life.

Who’s in the men’s tournament?

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These teams have secured automatic bids into the NCAA tournament. Find out who is awarded the at-large bids when the NCAA announces the bracket at 10:00 am ET on Monday.

AMCC: Medaille (No. 1)
ASC: Mary Hardin-Baylor (No. 1-West)
CAC: St. Mary’s (Md.) (No. 1)
CCC: Gordon (No. 1)
Centennial: Franklin & Marshall (No. 1)
CCIW: Carthage (No. 1)
CSAC: Cabrini (No. 1)
CUNYAC: Brooklyn (No. 2)
Empire 8: Nazareth (No. 3)
GNAC: Albertus Magnus (No. 1)
HCAC: Defiance (No. 3)
IIAC: Central (No. 1)
Landmark: Merchant Marine (No. 1)
Little East: Rhode Island College (No. 1)
Liberty League: St. Lawrence (No. 1)
MAC Commonwealth: Albright (No. 2)
MAC Freedom: DeSales (No. 1)
MASCAC: Bridgewater State (No. 1)
MIAA: Hope (No. 2)
MIAC: Carleton (No. 4)
MWC: St. Norbert (No. 1)
NAC: Maine-Farmington (No. 1)
NATHCon: Aurora (No. 2)
NCAC: Wooster (No. 1)
NEAC: SUNYIT (No. 1)
NEWMAC: Clark (No. 5)
NESCAC: Williams (No. 1)
NJAC: William Paterson (No. 1)
NWC: Whitworth (No. 1)
OAC: Wilmington (No. 2)
ODAC: Guilford (No. 2)
PAC: Grove City (No. 1)
SCAC: Centre (No. 1-East)
SCIAC: Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (No. 1)
Skyline: Purchase (No. 3)
SLIAC: Westminster (Mo.) (No. 1)
SUNYAC: Plattsburgh State (No. 1)
UAA: Washington U. (No playoff)
USA South: Christopher Newport (No. 3)
WIAC: UW-Stevens Point (No. 2)

Who’s in the women’s tournament?

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All of the automatic bids have been awarded. Tune into the NCAA selection show on Monday at 12:30 pm ET.

AMCC: Medaille (No. 1)
ASC: Louisiana College (No. 1-East)
CAC: Marymount (No. 2)
CCC: University of New England (No. 1)
Centennial: McDaniel (No. 3)
CCIW: Illinois Wesleyan (No. 1)
CSAC: Neumann (No. 1)
CUNYAC: Baruch (No. 1)
Empire 8: Utica (No. 3)
GNAC: Emmanuel (No. 1)
GSAC: No. 1 Maryville (Tenn.) (No. 1)
HCAC: Franklin (No. 1)
IIAC: Simpson (No. 2)
Landmark: Moravian (No. 1)
Liberty League: RPI (No. 3)
Little East: Western Connecticut State (No. 1)
MAC Commonwealth: Messiah (No. 2)
MAC Freedom: DeSales (No. 2)
MASCAC: Massachusetts College (No. 4)
MIAA: Hope (No. 1)
MIAC: St. Thomas (No. 5)
MWC: St. Norbert (No. 1)
NAC: Husson (No. 1)
NATHCon: Lakeland (No. 3)
NCAC: Denison (No. 3)
NEAC: Penn State-Berks (No. 3)
NEWMAC: Babson (No. 1)
NESCAC: Amherst (No. 1)
NJAC: Kean (No. 1)
NWC: George Fox (No. 1)
OAC: Mount Union (No. 2)
ODAC: Washington and Lee (No. 3)
PAC: Thomas More (No. 1)
SCAC: DePauw (1-East)
SCIAC: Redlands (No. 2)
Skyline: Farmingdale State (No. 1)
SLIAC: Fontbonne (No. 1)
SUNYAC: Cortland State (No. 1)
UAA: Washington U.
USA South: Christopher Newport (No. 1)
WIAC: UW-Stevens Point (No. 2)

Madness before March

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Justin Riley, forward for No. 13 Chapman, has been blogging for us throughout the Panthers season. This week he discusses the scheduling difficulties of being an island on an island. The only Division III conference within driving distance is the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) of which Chapman isn’t a member.

Chapman…Chapman…Chapman…

What comes to mind when you hear about this school? Location…academics…enrollment size…women…athletics?

Location…maybe.

Academics…maybe.

Enrollment size…maybe.

Women…strong maybe.

Athletics…of course not.

Why would you think about athletics when thinking of Chapman? Why would ANY athlete choose a school that is not affiliated with a conference? In fact, why do athletes even go to Chapman when they know the chances of making the post-season aren’t very high?

These questions were the exact ones that circled my mind when deciding to attend Chapman, yet I still decided to come here.

Did the location of the school influence my decision? Yes.

Did academics influence my decision? Yes.

Did enrollment size influence my decision? Yes.

Did the women influence my decision? Yes.

Did choosing a school that had a basketball program that never made a post-season appearance influence my decision? Yes.

I decided to come to Chapman on all these accords, but there was nothing more important to me than having the opportunity to be part of a team that had the chance to make school history and earn the first ever post-season bid for the men’s basketball program. Upon my arrival, I quickly learned that earning a post-season bid wasn’t very easy to come by. After a 20-7 campaign my freshman year, we were left sitting on the couch reading who was doing what. Honestly, I didn’t feel that we truly deserved a bid due to key losses against La Verne and Redlands. I accepted it and moved on.

Sophomore year, we wanted to shake off another boring March and improve upon our record. With a starting group of three juniors and two sophomores, we finished the season 24-3, yet we still found ourselves sitting on the couch again. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around why we didn’t get the bid, so I decided to do some research to find out why we weren’t “good” enough to make the post-season. After reading through various board postings, blogs and other articles, I found out how important the strength of schedule is in the selection process. After finding this information out, I looked up our strength of schedule numbers based upon our opponents winning percentage (OWP) and opponents opponents winning percentage (OOWP) and found Chapman had the third easiest schedule in Division III. Frustrated about this statistic, I threw my hands up and accepted that with such an easy schedule and three in-region losses to Whitman, Whitworth, and UDallas, we probably weren’t the most deserving team of a Pool B bid.

But then I started to think: why was our strength of schedule so weak? There wasn’t much difference in the teams we played from the year before to now, so why was there such a disparity?

Answer: It’s simple—Chapman is left with very slim pickings of teams who are willing to play them once conference play starts. Since there are only two other Division III opponents in California that aren’t in the SCIAC, we are forced to play UC Santa Cruz and La Sierra multiple times. Unfortunately, UC Santa Cruz and La Sierra haven’t had the most successful seasons over the past years, which has lead to a decrease in our strength of schedule numbers.

Now we are left with the ultimate question: Why not stop scheduling La Sierra and UC Santa Cruz so much, and play better west region teams?

Answer: WE WANT TO!

Problem: Once conference play starts, we are left with those two teams and other meaningless, in terms of a post-season bid, games against NAIA and NCCAA opponents. Of course we would like to play all the SCIAC schools twice a year, but the reality is, they don’t want to play us. Can you blame them? If I were a coach, why would I play a non-conference game during the midst of conference play to help out another team? What if a player gets injured? What if we lose? Will our team morale be affected? Yes, playing us will increase their strength of schedule and give them another west region game, but at the same time, focusing a team’s energy on a non-conference opponent during conference play might not be the best idea. Some may agree with this statement while others will disagree, but the reality is come conference time, teams do not want to play us, PERIOD.

So what is the solution? I wish I had the magic potion to sprinkle on the heads of the SCIAC to let us in or to at least schedule us during conference play, but the truth is, I don’t. Knowing these statistics, should we fill up our November and December schedule with tougher opponents? Maybe. Should we try and compete in tournaments that feature these opponents? Maybe. Should we stop complaining when year after year we find ourselves not playing in March? Maybe. There are many questions that are left unanswered, but one thing I am confident about is that Chapman is a strong force in not only the West, but in all of Division III. Our schedule may not match up with other top teams in America, but once again, I am confident that we have the talent to compete with any team. I only have one more year of eligibility after this season, but I promise I will not be satisfied until we get the opportunity to shine in March.

To everyone who mocks our schedule, doubts our abilities, or just downright doesn’t like us…thank you!

The more you doubt, the more motivated we become!

Healthy Superstitions

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Holly Harvey, a guard for the No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan Titans, has been blogging for D3hoops throughout the season. Here is her latest entry.

At a typical pre-game practice you can find our head coach, Mia Smith, wearing our next opponent’s school colors. At every game you can find our assistant coach / former player Tasha Gaston-Bell also wearing the opponent’s school colors. Some who notice may call this weird but we just call it a little bit of healthy superstition. The IWU Women’s Basketball Team is one of the most superstitious teams I have been a part of, but it is very fitting because I am probably the top contender for most superstitious player on the team. As I mentioned earlier, our superstitious ways begin at pre-game practices. Prior to practice we watch film and everyone sits in the same seat each time. Every pre-game practice I have to wear a green Nike headband the says “unstoppable”, I’ve heard a number of jokes about it but deep down I think everyone has grown quite fond of unstoppable as it’s called. We start practice with the same focus lay-up and shooting drill and end it with a walk through prep of the next opponent and team free throws. Our huddle before we leave always ends with the same cheer.

Game days produce a whole other set of superstitions. Although I own a number of IWU Women’s Basketball hoodies, I wear the same gray one every game day along with my travel green suit, the same pair of sneakers ,and of course unstoppable. I own even more Wesleyan t-shirts however there are only a select few that make the game day rotation. I also have a green and white scarf that teammate Nikki Preston’s mom made that I wear to every game. I love Orange G2 Gatorade and have to drink one before every game. When it is time for our pre-game prayer, some people will jump across the locker room to get to the person they always hold hands with. After prayer we can’t leave the locker room until we hear Coach Smith’s famous, enthusiastic “Game On, Here we go girlies, Have a day” cheer. For warm-ups we line up in the same order every game. One of our freshmen firmly believes that we play better when she misses her first left hand lay-up in warm-ups, so she has begun to intentionally miss every game. Towards the end of warm-ups our 2 seniors make a prediction about something crazy that could happen in the game, they both shoot a 3 pointer on it and if both make it they believe the prediction will come true. We stand in the same ordered line for the Star Spangled Banner (the claws really come out if someone tries to mess up that order, we take that one seriously).

What if our coaches were to forget to wear the other teams’ colors or if unstoppable were to go missing for a day? Do we think we are destined to perform poorly? The answer is no. Although we don’t stray from our superstitions we know they are nothing but routines. They put us in our comfort zone and get us game ready. They help us associate with the focus and intensity that we have brought to every game before.

It seems that our little routines have served us well this year. We are almost half way through our conference season and stand at 17-0 and hold the #1 ranking. As Coach Smith would say “It’s too late to lose now”. We had an exciting game at Elmhurst College last week. We did not shoot the 3 like we usually do and weren’t making the smartest decisions. We found ourselves down by 1 with about 8 minutes left in the second half, but we persevered and outscored them 20-9 to close the game and win by 10. I think our conference success can be attributed to our deep bench. We continually bring in fresh legs and I have noticed that we really wear our opponents down. We are committed to using our depth the rest of the way and not letting up, which I hope will make us unstoppable.