Category Archives: Insider

Insider: Alternate Spring Break ’08

Posted on by

As the season went along we realized that we would have a chance to go far in the NCAA tournament but we decided to have a back up plan just in case. We, as in 7 upperclassmen on the team, thought that Cocoa Beach would be a good vacation spot. We found a huge beautiful house right on the beach. But once the NCAA tournament started we just all knew that our Cocoa Beach getaway was probably not going to happen. Of course going to the final four is way better then the beach. We really wanted to go to Michigan anyways 😉

With the game coming to an end we knew our alternate spring break plans were not needed. Being able to go as far as we can in the NCAA tournament is what we have all dreamed about and have worked our butts off for. To be able to go to the Final Four is such a great chance especially since many people did not think we would make it this far! We feel so fortunate to be one of the four teams that are still in season. Michigan is going to be a great way to spend our Spring Break!

Insider: What I’ve Learned

Posted on by

As I’ve been sitting out I have found that people, friends, or fans have approached me before and after games with two different attitudes. The first is the parent or fan saying “how sorry they feel for me”, “how much they wish I could be out on the court and can’t wait until next year” or asking me about rehab — all of which is very nice and greatly appreciated. Then there is the other fan… this fan, very rare, asks “in sitting out and spending time viewing the game from a different angle — what have you learned?”

Saturday night I learned more than I had all year.

We were miserable in the first half. We underestimated Millsaps’ athleticism and how tough they would make it for us to score.

We trailed 27-18 at halftime shooting 2-11 from 3, 26 percent from the field, while having five assists compared to our 11 turnovers. We were down nine and in a weird way I felt lucky we were only down that much considering how we played.

Wash UWhat does a coach do when his team is on the ropes, his season on the line and his players are starting to lose belief in themselves and each other? This is where I learned the lesson.

At halftime as the coaches met privately before going into meet with the players, Coach Edwards wasn’t frantically scrambling X’s and O’s trying to figure out a way for us to score. He wasn’t cursing out players for underperforming in a game where a trip back to Salem was on the line. Instead, he brought up a game six weeks ago at Skibo Gymnasium in Pittsburgh, Pa., against Carnegie Mellon.

Wait, Coach, that was the beginning of February against the fifth-place team in our conference in front of a generously stated 422 people — what on Earth does that have to do with playing against Millsaps (28-3) in front of a noisy WU Field House to get to the final four?

Well, we played Carnegie Mellon the Sunday morning after an epic overtime loss at Rochester. The game against Rochester was a draining, emotion filled, over-time effort which wore us down. With tired legs and exhausted minds, we sat in the locker room trailing Mellon by 10 at halftime — we shot the ball poorly, turned it over, and looked as sloppy as we did during the first half against Millsaps. After halftime, we let the wear take over our minds and got blown out. Losing 86-55 may have been generous as we were down 37 points in the second half.

Going into the locker room at halftime to talk with 15 players questioning themselves, Coach Edwards laid it out very clearly saying “We’ve been here before.” He reminded them of the Carnegie Mellon game. He said our draining game against Rochester was exactly like our strenuous game with Buena Vista the previous night. During the first half of tonight’s game not only were our legs tired, but our minds were tired. Instead of going out and playing a second half like we did against Carnegie Mellon (getting outscored 48-27), we had the opportunity to learn from the regular season and a chance to play a second-half and conquer the demons taking over our minds. We had 20 minutes to show how we had grown this season and learned from our experiences.

After halftime we were a different team. We had energy on both ends of the floor. We went on a 17-2 run to open the half and gave Millsaps fits with our defense. We took better care of the ball, for the most part, and hit a few timely shots while doing what we do best — getting it into Troy. I don’t know if it was exactly Coach’s comparison at halftime that turned it around, but it sure seemed like it.

Maybe he pointed out one or two small adjustments on a few plays during the locker room talk, but what I learned is that at this part of the season it isn’t about X’s and O’s — that’s what the entire regular season was for. As a coach and as a player I learned March is different. It’s really about mental coaching and both player’s and coaches being mentally strong enough to withstand the doubt that they can’t do it. Sure teams need to be prepared for what they’ll see from opposing teams and individuals, but a team’s mindset is truly what’s most important to its success. If we would have let the tiredness take over our minds I’m sure the Millsaps second half could’ve been similar to the second half at Carnegie Mellon — but Coach helped us realize if we stayed mentally strong, we could survive and advance to the Final Four.

Sean Wallis cutting the nets downObviously I would rather be playing than sitting on the bench this upcoming weekend but I can’t tell you how excited I really am to go back to Salem. As a coach, player, or fan there is no better place to celebrate Division III Men’s Basketball. The people of Salem truly take pride in putting together a great weekend and making all participants feel special. Congratulations to all the teams that have made it this far, I look forward to watching some great basketball in the coming days. Please come introduce yourself in Salem, I look forward to soaking up this weekend and hopefully enjoying our program’s first ever (with a few more to come in the next couple years…?) National Championship.

Take care,
Sean

P.S. Congratulations to my buddy Troy on the Jostens Trophy. It is very well deserved and I couldn’t be happier for him. I couldn’t think of anyone that represents our program better on and off the court.

Insider: Survive and Advance

Posted on by

What a big weekend for the Washington University Bears! After losing an extremely emotional game at the University of Chicago just a week ago, it seemed as if there were a ton of reasons for us to question ourselves as a team. All of this before we saw our draw from hell released Monday afternoon by the NCAA. This isn’t me saying we didn’t deserve such a difficult path, as we were a Pool C team just thankful to get into the tournament, but rather how many tough teams there are in Division III in the Midwest.

The Weekend: Our opening game against No. 17 Wooster, a re-match of last years third place game, was a typical battle with each team throwing punches and making runs. We opened up extremely hot and ended up holding on to the lead for the entire game. In the second half, James Cooper showed why he’s an All-American and scored 12 of Wooster’s 14 points over a two-minute span to cut our lead from 10 to two. Aaron Thompson (A.T.) held him scoreless in the first half and did a tremendous job on him for the remainder of the game. Troy Ruths was too tough down the stretch (I feel like I’ve written that sentence multiple times in my blogs this year) and we ended up holding on for a five-point win.

Our second game was against No. 6 Augustana– a team that was very familiar to us. We played them earlier in the season, the first game after I got hurt, and they handled us pretty easily on a neutral court. Saturday night’s Augustana team was missing a key piece they had earlier in the season when they beat us, however, as they were without senior Jordan Delp, who went down earlier in the season with an Achilles injury. It was a pleasure getting to commiserate with Jordan about our respective injuries, rehab time-tables, and future plans as student-athletes.

While most basketball games feature teams making runs, Saturday night’s game was different in that respect. We almost never trailed the entire second half (with the exception of 21 seconds) but at the same time never held a lead of more than five points. Up two points with less than a second left, Tyler Nading got called for his fifth-foul and Chandlor Collins nailed two free-throws for them to send the game to overtime. Talk about ice-water in someone’s veins—those were some big time free throws. Without Tyler we still pulled together and played well in overtime. We got a huge lift from our bench throughout the game, add that to A.T.’s unbelievable effort running the show and Cameron Smith’s clutch shooting… oh yea, and Troy’s 21 points and seven rebounds, and what do you get? A three-point victory and a birth in the sweet 16.

Neither game was a dominant performance, but as the ESPN analysts and my high school coach say, that’s not what the tournament play is about… it’s about SURVIVING AND ADVANCING. Every team’s record is 0-0, and all that matters is that after the game one team is still playing and one team is going home. One team survived the game and is advancing to the next round and the other team is looking towards next season. Buena Vista (who we play Friday) doesn’t care that we beat two tremendously talented teams this past weekend, so we’re going to need to play our basketball and play it well to beat them.

UAA Unity: Congratulations to all of the UAA teams on their tourney success so far. I couldn’t be happier for each team that has advanced and I think that it has quieted any rumblings or complaints of people saying we didn’t deserve the three pool C bids we were granted—considering all three of the teams are still standing. I know each team has to win a game before it happens, but the potential Amherst vs. Brandeis match-up on a neutral court to get to Salem makes me giddy to think about. I haven’t seen the Lord Jeffs play this year, but the constant pressure ‘Deis puts on opposing guards by Kwame Graves-Fulgham and Andre Roberson makes it tough for anyone bringing the ball up, so it’ll be interesting to see how All-everything Andrew Olson does against that pressure the second time around.

NCAA Tourney Thoughts: I had an interesting conversation at Augustana with the NCAA representative this past weekend. Mike Zapolski, the athletic director at Anderson College, is the head of the Midwest Region and is a member of the national selection committee. While I can’t go through and repeat all of the conversation because it could potentially bore many, his enthusiasm about the regional ranking/selection process made me feel like the process is DEFINITELY in the hands of the right people. Obviously the committee is under very heavy scrutiny by the NCAA’s geographical/travel rules but it sure seems like he and the committee understand the tournament isn’t perfect at this point and there are definitely places to tweak things for next year.

Rehab: My rehab is continuing to go extremely well and I’m realistically only 3-4 weeks away from playing basketball in live, contact situations. I’ve been running, squatting, leg pressing and lunging. While I’m enjoying my role as a “coach”– helping putting together scouting reports late into the night with Coach Whittle, pointing things out on the bench, and listening to my teammates suggestions to tell the coaches, etc…—I can assure everyone that it is MUCH more fun to play!

Take Care,

Sean

p.s. Congrats to our S.I.D. Chris Mitchell on his recent engagement to University of Missouri-St. Louis S.I.D. Mary Ann Tierney! Talk about future kids with scary potential to become the best press release writers, media guide creators and web site updaters of the future S.I.D. generation.

Insider: Road Trip to Ky!

Posted on by

Road trips are something that all student-athletes will experience, esp. athletes in the SCAC conference! We’ll take you through our most recent road trip to Crestview Hills, Ky:

Day 1:

We started out on Thursday morning at 830 am. By now our Thursday professors are used to the basketball team not being in class. The ride to Kentucky is pretty easy compared to our 10 hour drive up to
Conway, Arkansas for the SCAC tournament the weekend before. Everyone usually sleeps for the first few hours waking up to eat lunch. This trip has more excitement though because it is the NCAA tournament and we are playing a team that we had recently beaten by 19. To finally win a game in the big dance would be really exciting. To pass the time we watch a million movies. Since the boys do not travel with us they are mostly chick flicks. Now, I know what you’re thinking poor Coach Sattele he must be bored out of his mind but he should be used to that since he had 3 daughters! Movies don’t ever get old on road trips since we never have time to go see movies during the season. We also start preparing for
Piedmont, watch film etc… We arrive and the weather is fairly nice, little to our knowledge that was about to change. We practice at Thomas More then go back to the hotel, eat dinner, and sleep!

Day 2:

We wake up a little before 10 to get breakfast and get ready for shoot around. We look outside and what do we see? SNOW!! Snow in March?! Not just snow flurries, it is really snowing! There is few inches of snow on the ground! We go to shoot around. Afterwards we decide to bombard coach with snow balls. What were we thinking? Trying to win a snowball fight with Santa, that is pretty much impossible! Coach has really good aim and is a lot quicker than you think. So of course the freshmen are targeted. Our 6’ 2” center Reggie got a couple snow balls to the face and then fell into the snow! While the upper classmen know to throw a snowball or two and run onto the bus to get out of Santa’s range! We eat pregame and get ready to play.

We win!! We finally won a NCAA tournament game it is great!! We stay to watch the Thomas More(TM)-Greensboro game. Then we went to eat. Since we won winning we get to take an ice bath. Thomas More doesn’t have whirlpools so we have to put ice in the bath tubs at the hotel. We all pretty much dread doing this but the difference it makes in our legs is just amazing. We look over Thomas More then sleep.

Day 3:

There is 13 inches of snow on the ground and it is still snowing!!! The shot around is pushed back a few hours and the game was pushed back 30 minutes. Luckily it wasn’t pushed back until tomorrow, we don’t know if we could stand waiting another day to play. The day is filled with excitement. To make it to the sweet sixteen would be great! It is a great opportunity to play an undefeated #3 Thomas More. This should be a good game.

We win!! We beat the #3 team in the nation. This should show people that OU is not going anywhere. Both teams played great, I just do not think TM is used to playing our up tempo game. The atmosphere was amazing. That gym gets really loud and there were a lot of people there. Our parents and fans are just great! We go to Barley’s Corn for dinner. Most of the parents came with us to eat and we got our own room. Let me tell you it is not quiet for one second. All we could talk about was the game and that we are now in the sweet sixteen! We get back to the hotel and try to sleep.

Day: 4

We go to team breakfast at 8:30 am at Cracker Barrel. We are all pretty much just as excited as last night. Still wondering who we are going to play, the game got pushed back until 12 today so we won’t know who we’re playing for a while. The ride home is much easier if you win. During the ride home the game is always what is talked about and thought about. If you lose then the ride home is like torture, you just want to get home. If you win then the game is talked about excitedly in this case there is just a buzz on the bus. Most people sleep for the first hours but homework has to get done. Luckily the team is pretty diverse academically so if someone is having trouble in classes there is usually someone that can help. There is snow on the ground for the first few hours of trip, this is a long cry from our spring break plans of sand, water, and sun! We are about an hour and half away from OU. Most people were sleeping or watching the movie when all of the sudden our front tire blows out! We wake up to the bus heading towards the railing on the side of the road. Luckily we had a great driver who controlled the bus and no one got hurt. He steered the bus towards the closest exit and parked it in a gas station. After an hour the guy arrived and fixed the flat. It was pretty cool to watch the flat get fixed! We finally made it back to OU where fans and family had decorated the gym and made us cupcakes. It was great! We have really awesome fans! Now we have to get ready for William Smith and more cold weather!!!!

We are lucky to have our great fans! Our trainers came and really helped with our bumps and bruises. Hopefully we can have the same fan base in New Jersey.

Good Luck to all the teams! Until next time, try not to miss us too much!!

Insider: On the road again

Posted on by

Unfortunately I was unable to make the UAA trip this past weekend. The good news is my roommate Tyler Nading did and is making a guest entry for my blog this week. Congrats to Ty who became the 17th member of the 1,000 point club at Wash U in yesterday’s game at Emory.

Greetings from the Atlanta airport!

On the back end of a long four-day road trip, the Washington University men’s and women’s teams just want to get home! But the weather has another plan and our delay here should keep us out of St. Louis until well after midnight, which will make it really tough to wake up for 11:00 class tomorrow morning.

Sure, traveling is great, and it’s fun (and sometimes a relief) to get away from campus life for a weekend, but road weekends in the UAA can take a toll on a team. My weekend started out Thursday night taking a test in coach’s room in Cleveland (Case Western Reserve) with two other guys after trying to study all day on the plane and bus. We missed a full two days of class to travel, and at WU it isn’t easy to be MIA so often and still make the grades. Our guys usually spend a considerable amount of time studying on the road and can be seen weighed down with class books walking through the airport. It really isn’t just all basketball in the UAA, although the success of the conference may lead you to believe otherwise.

But don’t get me wrong, we still do have our fair share of fun running through the streets of New York (NYU), Boston (Brandeis), and Chicago (U of C). When we travel to these schools, we stay right in the heart of the cities and are able to walk around downtown, find a place to eat, and putz around for a while before curfew. For a lot of our guys it is their first time visiting these cities so flying over the skyline of New York can get pretty exciting.

This weekend was a good weekend for WU as we stole three out of four games between our two teams (two for the men and a tough loss for our girls today at Emory keeping us away from a clean sweep). I say “stole” because it really is tough to go onto another team’s court and walk away with a victory. On Friday night, we faced a fired up Case Western Reserve team in the first game of their annual “throwback weekend,” where they donned their old maroon Western jerseys and we played in the retired field house gym.

Case was in control for most all of the game, including a nine-point halftime lead behind strong guard play and outside shooting from Steve Young and Colin Mullholland. We stayed within striking distance though and got some miraculous play down the stretch from Troy Ruths (if you didn’t already know his last name you should spend more time on D3hoops), including 4-4 FT and a crucial steal with the game on the line, in order to escape with the win.

7:30 a.m. wake-up call to join our girls on the bus to Akron and 10:00 flight to Atlanta was tough on Saturday morning as most of us were still sore from the previous night. Coach Tim Whittle and freshman Spencer Gay didn’t mind though as it gave them a chance to show us around their hometown and spend time with family after 4:00 practice. Later, a bunch of us gathered in the hotel lobby to watch the slam dunk contest and other all-star weekend festivities. There is always some down time for us, so it’s no wonder how close our team gets by the end of the season. Lights were out by 11:30 to try to get some rest before our Sunday morning showdown with Emory. (I feel like I need to mention here how amazing the beds at the Marriott are. In all seriousness, sleeping becomes something to look forward to, especially after so much travel and basketball.)

Sunday morning proved to be just as tough as we thought it would be as the lead seemed to change several times in the first half. It’s always difficult to wake up and get energized for these Sunday games as they are so early and there are usually few, if any, fans in the crowd. This was the case today until a bunch of rowdy, shirtless Emory students stormed in midway through the first half with WASHUSUCKS! scribbled across their chests, which proved to be pretty entertaining. They proceeded to heckle us with information that they had found out about us from Facebook; “Ser-en-dip-ity” while I was shooting FTs, “Ross likes Fergie” while our PG Ross Kelley was bringing the ball up, and “Han-nah In-gram”, Cam Smith’s girlfriend’s name, while he had the ball. Both teams fed off this intensity and fought hard through regulation and into overtime. When all was said and done, we had pulled away after a key three-pointer by Aaron Thompson and some FTs down the stretch. After the game, I think we all just wanted to collapse in the locker room. Two games in 40 hours with a lot of travel in the middle had taken just about everything out of us. After a quick 15-minute dip in the cold ice bath, we hustled out to root our girls on in the second game of the double-header.

One thing that I wanted to make sure and talk about is the relationship that we develop with our women’s team. On all of these trips we share planes and buses, stay in the same hotels, eat at the same places, and are the other team’s only form of support in some gyms. It’s a nice opportunity to get to know these girls and share our experiences on the road in the UAA.

So next time you’re wondering how or why something wacky happens in the UAA, especially on Sunday afternoons, just remember that it is a long weekend for both teams and games can often come down to a simple test of mental toughness. Congrats to all of the teams in the UAA thus far and good luck. We’re rooting for you!

Take care,
Tyler

Thanks, Tyler. And I can’t tell you all how pumped I am to have first-row seats for Friday night’s heavy-weight fight for the D3 Championship BeltTM. –Sean Wallis