Sigh.

The day I’ve been fearing for months has finally arrived. Independence Air has announced it is ceasing operations effective Thursday night, Jan. 5.

This might not mean much to most of you readers, but Independence’s hub was at Washington Dulles airport (IAD for you travel geeks) and it quickly became a favorite of mine because it offered cheap flights to a good number of places where Division III schools are located. I took six flights on Indepdence in the past 15 months, and sent Keith McMillan places via Independence on a few other occasions for D3football.com.

We’ve enjoyed the convenience, the service and the price, which enabled us to see teams such as Wheaton, Illinois Wesleyan, Aurora and the final Hope/Calvin game in the Holland Civic Center last season, not to mention a half-dozen football games. But we also had to figure that such bargains couldn’t last. We’ll have to work harder for bargains in 2006.

Is it too late to start collecting Wendy’s cups?

I’ve only seen the smallest sliver of Division III women’s basketball history over the last 13 years but I’ve had the opportunity to see some of the best players in the country, after covering the NCAA Tournament in-person for this publication on five separate occasions.

The sport has grown tremendously since I was a college freshman back in 1993 and the players of today have benefited from the play of their predecessors. I don’t know that the players from farther back will get their proper due (I hope there are people out there who remember and appreciate them), but I can speak to the successes of those I’ve seen play the game, and welcome the thoughts of others who wish to comment. If I were to fill out a ballot for the players on this NCAA 25th Anniversary team, I would list…

Allison Coleman (Eastern Connecticut State) Coleman was the driving force behind the unlikeliest, most amazing run through the NCAA Tournament that I’ve seen, leading the Warriors to the runner-up finish in 2003. Coleman was an excellent scorer, rebounder, passer and defender who was at her best when her team needed her most, similar in nature to Connecticut’s Diana Taurasi. In the national semifinals, Coleman, playing with four fouls, rallied her team from a 14-point second-half deficit against a heavily favored No. 1 ranked Wisconsin-Eau Claire to win in overtime, then nearly duplicated the feat the next day in the title game, when Eastern’s comeback from 17 down against Trinity (Texas) came up two points short.

Tasha Rodgers (Washington U of St. Louis) Rodgers had the best performance of any player in the five national championship games I’ve seen, a 36-points, 13 rebounds, six steals effort against Messiah in the 2001 title game. Not bad the finale for a four-time NCAA champ. The game story that day described her as unstoppable, and she was, whether it was in the open floor (creating off a turnover) or in halfcourt, driving to the basket. That’s enough to earn my vote.

Alia Fischer (Washington U of St Louis) When I was sideline reporter for our championship game broadcasts a few years ago, I interviewed both the Rodgers family (sitting in the very last row of the stands in Danbury, out of nervousness), and Alia Fischer’s mom, who delivered one of my favorite one-liners from any event I’ve covered in 13 years as a journalist. When I asked if there was anything I should know about Fischer, a dominant center capable of consistently hitting hook shots with either hand, her mom replied “Can I tell you how she was a klutz?”

Corinne Carson (Marymount) I saw Carson twice during the 1996-97 season, when my alma mater took on Marymount, first in regular-season play and then in the NCAA Tournament. She’s the one player whose skills made me sit back and simply say “Wow!” Carson, who overcame significant health issues, was intimidating on both ends of the floor. On defense, she totally destroyed the confidence of opposing shooters by powerfully blocking shots. Offensively she had such a repertoire of moves, that one basket/foul sequence prompted my broadcast partner at the NCAA game to compare her to NBA legend Earl “The Pearl Monroe.”

Ronda Jo Miller (Gallaudet) I wish I had the chance to see Miller and Carson’s head-to-head matchups, because they must have been amazing (I believe Miller was a freshman when Carson was a senior). From the one game I saw, Miller left quite an impression- 38 points, 11 rebounds and six blocked shots worth- and she made it look so easy that day, in the second round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament against The College of New Jersey. Miller totally owned the floor on both ends, whether it was with Carson-like shot blocking, coast-to-coast steal/basket combinations or moves in the paint. Miller was so perfect that day that one of the beat writers yelled out, to no one in particular “She’s Keith Van Horn!”

Feel free to share your thoughts on those players you voted for, and feel free to come up with a write-in candidate or two as well. Perhaps I’ll address my coach selection at another time…

Well, I thought the game I was at tonight was pretty good. Then I got text messages from my brother at the UW-Stout/Augustana game with score updates on a game that went down to the wire as Augustana dropped 10 three-pointers on the Blue Devils in the second half. Then I got a phone call from Gordon Mann as I was driving back from Randolph-Macon and he ran down the rest of the key scores.

Those were good games, too. Let me tell you about Fisk/Randolph-Macon, however. I’m accustomed to seeing Randolph-Macon’s backcourt cause trouble for its opponents with in-your-face defense and by stepping into passing lanes and picking the ball off. But tonight it was Fisk’s speed on defense that got the job done. Chris Adams had five steals to go with his 15 points as Randolph-Macon turned the ball over 23 times, including four consecutive possessions that allowed Fisk to battle back from a five-point deficit, its largest of the night.

“The last 10 minutes of the game we found our way,” Fisk coach Larry Glover said after the game. “In the second half I think we kind of forced the tempo defensively that turned the momentum in our favor. I don’t think they recovered.”

Glover also said one of his team’s goals after watching the video of the second Randolph-Macon/Lincoln game was to shut down either Adam Krovic or Justin Wansley. Wansley got his points (19, plus 11 rebounds) but Krovic was held to one shot, a missed three-pointer.

At any rate, I can see Fisk doing some damage, especially since they won tonight despite shooting 4-for-21 from three-point range. They came in shooting 40.6% from downtown, so they must have their moments. A heads-up to Mississippi College and Maryville, coming up in the next two weeks.

Good win for Baldwin-Wallace, obviously. The Randolph-Macon tournament and Wooster’s tournament were a couple of the ones I had in mind in writing a Daily Dose post in September regarding how to select pairings for your tournament. Both host schools took a chance and picked the second-best team as their first-round opponent, and I’ll be honest, I like the decision. Shows guts. In both cases, it means the hosts got a regional game they might not have gotten otherwise. And if you’re Wooster, you’re going to have to beat Baldwin-Wallace at some point to win the tournament, whether it was tonight or tomorrow.

Some good non-regional games tonight as well, between UW-Platteville and Mary Hardin-Baylor and between Manchester and Trinity (Texas). And don’t overlook Caltech/Rivier — Caltech lost 55-54, as close as it gets for them in attempting to beat a Division III foe for the first time in years. Illinois Wesleyan/Puget Sound comes out about as expected.

Millikin’s women still appear to be struggling, only beating Tufts by four. UW-La Crosse’s win against Chapman is important because even though Chapman is a little down, they are still usually a playoff contender. By the way, apparently we need to take a closer look at Oglethorpe, which appears to be 9-1 (no report on Wednesday night’s game with Chapman but looks like a win) with its only loss to Division I Davidson. This weekend’s games were its first road tests (other than Davidson, which can’t be considered a test if there’s no chance of passing).

Maybe someone can chime in on W&J’s women, who appeared to struggle this weekend with a pair of UMAC teams. Bad sign. They were up by 20 tonight at one point but yesterday had to rally from an eight-point halftime deficit to beat Minnesota-Morris.

Oh my.

What a day for the men’s side of Division III basketball with five battles between Top 25 teams and a couple more between tournament hopefuls. If you cannot get to any of them, here are the webcast links I was able to find.

Please feel free to post corrections or added links.

8:30 PM EST: No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan vs. No. 5 Puget Sound
Broadcast on WJBC (IWU)

7:30 PM: No. 2 Wooster vs. No. 17 Baldwin-Wallace
Broadcast on Quicktime (Wooster)

8 PM: No. 6 Albion vs. No. 16 Elmhurst
Broadcast on Albion Sports

8 PM: No. 7 Hope vs. John Carroll
Broadcast on Yahoo! Sports (Hope)

You’ll notice there is no webcast listed for No. 11 UW-Stout vs. No. 13 Augustana. UW-Stout is not listing a broadcast link for today’s game, though they usually do. Augustana student radio doesn’t list their basketball broadcast schedule. Maryville (Tenn.) also plays Transylvania, but I’m not sure the Scots’ station will travel to Tampa to cover it. So we may have to just get these the “old fashioned” way – waiting by the internet for someone to post the score. In any event there are plenty of other games to keep us busy.