This upcoming weekend will be the ninth Division III Final Four I’ve covered and while the years definitely run together in my head, there are a few highlights that stand out.

First of all, I have to point out as a disclaimer off the bat that my alma mater won the national championship in 2001. Nothing can top that in my mind and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But I’m not going to dwell on it either.

Other moments that stand out in my frazzled mind (it’s a busy week) include the 1998 Hope/Wilkes game, when David Muelenberg hit two free throws. Sidelined by a broken foot late in the season, Muelenberg was subbed into the game, replacing injured Chris Formsma. He hit two free throws, then limped back to the bench to a standing ovation. I didn’t understand the significance at the time, though — someone had to explain it to me. Like I said, it was 1998. We didn’t even have a message board on the site yet.

The 1999 title game remains the best Division III championship game nobody saw. OK, not literally nobody, since 4,461 people were there, but it was not widely televised. Apparently Fox Sports South wasn’t particularly interested that year. Their loss. Just a double-overtime win in front of the largest crowd in the D-III title game’s history. Last hurrah for Bo Ryan in Division III, and, as it turned out, still the last hurrah for UW-Platteville.

Bryan Foltice’s shot remains the defining moment of the 2000 Final Four for me. (Audio clip: Rick Seidel on the play-by-play and me on the screaming, our first audio Final Four) It was also the first time I saw a team fold up like a tent in the consolation game. F&M was one shot away from making the finals and perhaps winning it all, then laid an egg against Salem State on Saturday. This is why I never take the third-place game into account: It’s like the ECAC tournament, you never know who’s there to play and who’s going through the motions. But this was also the Sherm Carstensen show. Carstensen was voted the most outstanding player of the Final Four and he deserved it. He scored 70 points for UW-Eau Claire for the weekend.

My favorite 2002 moment is standing next to Otterbein’s Jeff Gibbs, who was a monster rebounding and scoring the entire season and especially in the tournament. He was listed at 6-3. I’m 6-0. Gibbs was 6-1 at best. Incredible performances for a 6-1 player.

Williams coach Dave Paulsen says it all about 2003: “We probably led for eight seconds the entire weekend. We shot 37% and we let them shoot 55%. We are the national champs? You figure it out.” Kudos to Gustavus Adolphus fans for three years of not much griping over the touch foul called with four seconds left that set the final sequence into motion for Williams in a 67-65 win.

In 2004 I covered the women’s Final Four and saw four great games. The overarching memory of that weekend isn’t necessarily one particular moment, but the way Wilmington came back time after time the entire postseason, including a 16-4 run to end the game and beat Bowdoin 59-53.

And last year, shoot, the games weren’t that competitive in Salem aside from the Calvin/Rochester semifinal. What stands out is watching Jack Bennett hint at his retirement in the postgame news conference. Sure enough, that became reality shortly thereafter.

Looking forward to collecting more great memories to cram in somewhere. I know there are people who have been to a lot more than nine Final Fours, and some before 1998. What are your favorites?

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This weekend, D3hoops.com had unprecedented coverage of the NCAA Sectionals, sending broadcast crews to 7 of the 8 sites. We were happy to be able to bring you the call of 21 out of 24 games and we hope you enjoyed our broadcast.

On that note, we’re looking for feedback from anyone that tuned in to any of our sectional broadcasts. Thoughts on anything related to broadcast are welcomed, ranging from audio quality to technical issues, to the actual content on the broadcast. Basically, we’re looking for ways to improve our coverage and our best resource for that is to get the thoughts of our listenership.

If you have any comments on our broadcasts, e-mail them to info@d3hoops.com. We greatly appreciate the interest and look forward to bringing you very comprehensive coverage of this weekends events from both Springfield and Salem.

Figured I would start a new post…didn’t get to post on the Sweet 16, so I’ll summarize my thoughts on the Southern Maine women’s sectional here.

Southern Maine coach Gary Fifield, when asked on our postgame coverage of the sectional semis what he thought the biggest key would be to the next day’s game. His reply: The game would come down to one or two breaks that could go either way.

Saturday’s Southern Maine-Bowdoin game was fantastic. I drove home four-and-a-half hours, listened to the broadcast again, and was on pins and needles in the final five minutes, even though I already new the outcome. It was another great chapter in a rivalry that is as good as I’ve seen in my limited Division III travels. The gym was filled to capacity 45 minutes before tip-off, and the response from the two communities of Gorham and Brunswick (the majority of the early arrivals appeared to be in the age 50+ demographic) was outstanding.

It was a game very reminiscent of one that took place two years ago between the two schools, one that turned into a game of “Can you top this?” in the final five minutes. Bowdoin won that one by a hair. Southern Maine won this won by a hair fragment. Senior leadership from both teams was terrific. Two-time All-America selection Justine Pouravelis made two huge baskets down the stretch for Bowdoin and that effort was matched and bettered by Southern Maine’s Ashley Marble (game-winning hoop) and Megan Myles (steal and two free throws) in the final minute and change.

The Bowdoin followers are probably going to be upset for the next eight months regarding a non-call on Marble’s basket (Bowdoin’s Katie Cummings got knocked down by Marble, who was going up for the shot). Was it a foul? Depends who you ask. (My job as reporter is to be neutral). The most important thing is that the folks in stripes, who swallowed their whistle and let the players decide the outcome in the last few minutes, decided it was not. Bowdoin’s fans will argue that was was the break that Fifield was talking about, one that allowed the Huskies to become sectional champs. To win a championship requires overcoming perceived wrongs along the way and in this case, Bowdoin got three chances to go ahead or tie after that play and was unsuccessful.

I attended six games over the last two weeks and in each of those contests, the refs let the players play through a lot of contact (yes, I know Mary Washington boosters are going to gripe and say it wasn’t so for their team…I read the message board). I get tired of hearing about complaints about officiating. In the end, that stuff all tends to even out. Some plays get magnified by timing, but if you watch a basketball game, you’ll probably see 20 50-50 calls. Some go the way you want. Some don’t. It’s part of the game and if you want to be a part of the sport, you have to live with it.

Anyway, enough about that…a couple of other thoughts.

On Southern Maine… Marble has gotten to the point where she’s unstoppable if she catches the ball in the low block. That’s going to be a tough matchup defending her for any of the three teams in Springfield. The Huskies played very well in both games. Their performance in the win over Bridgewater in Friday sectional semi reminded me of watching the great Washington University teams (including one that beat Southern Maine in Danbury) a few years ago. USM has two great players in Marble and Myles and a lot of very good complementary players, and bring the experience and bitterness of last year’s national semifinal loss to Springfield.

On Bowdoin…Bowdoin’s senior class finishes up with a record of 109-10 and went to the Elite 8 all four years. I can’t imagine how Bowdoin is even going to try to replace Pouravelis, the best defensive player I’ve seen in covering Division III basketball since 1993. The Polar Bears have been a fun watch in the handful of times I’ve seen them in this four-year span and this time was no exception. Eileen Flaherty had a phenomenal two games and now is not only one of the top players in New England, but legitimately among the best in the country as well.

On Mary Washington…One of the things I was told this week was that the Eagles tend to play best when they’re pissed off. Well, it’s clear that this is an angry group heading into the offseason (I got a pretty good taste of that from my seat on Friday). It’s also a group that returns all but one player from what is a very sound basketball team. Head coach Deena Applebury has a very good base of 10 players returning, including All-American candidate Debbie Bruen. If the anger is channeled properly, UMW should have a chance to go beyond the Sweet 16 next season.

On Bridgewater…Bridgewater played with a lot of heart and guts in all three games I saw (two at the regionals, one at the sectionals) and I give that squad a lot of credit for that, particularly sparkplug point guard Katy Herr (the team’s best rebounder at 5-foot-4!). Kudos and good luck to Marsha Kinder, whose story is an inspirational one and who sets a fine example for combining skill and perseverance on the basketball floor.

On to Springfield…

It’s an exciting weekend for us at D3hoops.com, as we’ll be staffing seven of the eight sectionals. (Unofficially, the best we can remember doing in previous years is five.) We’re getting it done in a very NCAA-like manner, paying for two flights and driving people to the rest.

For the second season, D3hoops.com is broadcasting NCAA Tournament games under contract with NCAAsports.com. You can find links there or on our Audio page.

Here’s who’s where for D3hoops.com:

At Amherst: Seth Cantor and Paul Schreel
At Lawrence: Pat Cummings. Hoopsville’s Bob Quillman will join on non-Illinois Wesleyan games.
At Virginia Wesleyan: Pat Coleman and Dave McHugh
At Wittenberg: Chris Condit and Jared Rosenbaum
At DePauw: Gordon Mann. He’ll be joined by WGRE’s Wes Anderson on non-DePauw games.
At Scranton: John McGraw.
At Southern Maine: Mark Simon.

Sorry, Pacific Lutheran sectional fans. Washington is too far from any of us at this point and we’re out of people! Maybe in the future we’ll be able to hit all eight.

Stop by and say hi, though we hope you’ll understand if we’re too busy to chat.