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.

The Transitive Property

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This season is absolutely flying by. We have cruised through the Pre-Party Party Period and moved right on into the Family Reunion. As a matter of fact, this season is becoming history faster than Bill Belichek’s relevance and Tom Cruise’s sanity. At Gordon College this has been a particularly good period for us. We began the Pre-Party Party Period by winning the Union College Sig Makofski Tournament. First let me tell you a little about Mr. Makofski. He was a first-team All-American in basketball and was also named an honorable mention All-American in football at Union before there were NCAA divisions. He then went on to coach Schenectady High School and Mont Pleasant High School in Schenectady to a record of 461-35 in basketball and coached the Mont Pleasant football teams to a 418-3 record. On top of that he held fourteen local golf course records. He just couldn’t settle on being better than everyone at the major sports. He had to beat everyone in retirement too. Are you kidding me? Look at those coaching records. That is a 93% winning percentage in basketball. That that is not even close to his record as a football coach. He won a laughable 99.3% of their games. I can’t even do that on my PlayStation and I quit games before I lose to the computer. You know the phrases that any team can beat anyone “on any given day” or “that’s why you play the games” when an upset occurs? Well, those don’t apply to Sig Makofski.  But here’s the real question. What happened in those three football games? Poor coaching? I’m guessing not. They either must have been playing Notre Dame or they only had 8 players. Even then I wouldn’t count out a Sig Makofski coached team. (Thanks to the Union College website for this information)

Knowing a little about the tournament’s namesake gives a little more meaning to the trophy given out. For the second time in three years we won the Sig Makofski Tournament. In the opener we beat the host Union College 69-47. This shows the quality of the teams in the tournament. The host team normally schedules the team they feel they had the best chance to beat in the first game so they can play in the championship. Obviously that did not work out so well for Union. However, they went on to win the consolation game against Elms who finished last year 26-2 and ranked 12th in the country. We on the other hand advanced to the championship to play Montclair State. To say Montclair and Gordon play differing styles would be just the tip of the iceberg. They have an enrollment over 5x larger than Gordon’s private Christian school enrollment. Their team roster contains more outstanding athletes than we have at our entire school and they play a style that reflects that. It was truly a battle of contrasts that in the end resulted in a 61-53 Gordon victory. We had three players named to the All-Tournament team including the MVP. This tournament has just been the tip of the iceberg. Crap, I already used that cliché? Umm… how about that just got the ball rolling? Let’s go with that one. After starting the season 4-3. We felt we had some real momentum after the tournament but everyone knows conference play is a completely different animal. (See Huskies, Connecticut) we began the family reunion with a 57-49 win against Wentworth Institute of Technology. They start 6’11”, 6’6″, 6’5″ in their front court, a rarity in our conference and it was a matchup between two of the top 10 rebounding teams in the country.  We followed that win up with a hard fought win against a scrappy and much improved Anna Maria team on the road and an 81-58 rivalry win in a “holy war” game against one of the only other Christian Schools in New England, Eastern Nazarene. With that victory we have run our record to 10-3. Those three losses, while still losses, are by a combined 8 points to the #9 team in the country in overtime, MIT,  a quality Westfield State team, and a loss to our biggest rival Endicott College. A couple of different bounces and we could be looking at couple of more wins.

We could play the “what if” game all day and every team in the country has a reason why their record should be better. However, what I want to talk about is the extreme parity I have seen throughout the country this year, especially New England, as evidenced by 4 of the top 5 teams in the country losing last week. No one seems to want to take a stand as the best team in the country. To prove that point, I will use the famed transitive property of basketball to prove who should be dangerous come tournament time.

Bard (1-13) beat Polytechnic (3-9) , who beat Medgar Evers (8-8), who beat Castleton State (7-5), who beat Colby-Sawyer (9-6), who beat Middlebury (14-1 #10 in Top 25). Therefore Bard (1-13) is better than #10 Middlebury (14-1)

Oh that is just the Northeast and it doesn’t work for the rest of the country you say?

MacMurray  (3-10) beat Webster (8-7), who beat Spalding (6-9), who beat Mt. St. Joseph (8-7) , who beat Thomas More (12-4), who beat Transylvania (9-7), who beat Wash U (12-2 #4 in the Top 25). Therefore MacMurray (3-10 ) is better than #4 Wash U (12-2).

Encore? Ok, just this once.

Salve Regina (1-13) beat Connecticut College (6-8), who beat Coast Guard (5-9), who beat Babson (7-8) , who beat Emerson (9-5) , who beat Pomona-Pitzer (6-8) , who beat Whitworth ( 13-2), who beat UW-Whitewater (14-2 #6 in Top 25), who beat UW-Stevens Point (13-1 #1 in Top 25). Therefore Salve Regina (1-13) is better than #1 UW-Stevens Point (13-1)

There are plenty more where these came from. What do they all mean? Absolutely nothing. Except that parity is everywhere in DIII basketball this year.  Everyone knows that the transitive property does not work in sports and the only way to find out if a team is better than anyone else is to play head to head (except in college football where everyone knows computers do a much better job of determining champions.) If a team does not show up ready to play anyone could beat them on any given night. Except maybe if Sig Makofski was coaching.

D-III unveils identity statement

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Boiling down Division III into a few bullet points isn’t easy, and it hasn’t gotten easier as the division has grown. But Division III has been attempting to define itself in a way that can be easily communicated to those on the outside. After a Division II identity statement process ended up with the fairly meaningless “I chose Division II” mantra and D-II wrapped itself in a lot of the things Division III holds dear, it became important to take control of the message.

To us here at D3sports.com, Division III is the highest form of purely amateur athletics in the U.S. It’s where students — note, not “student-athletes” — play for love of the game. Division III competitors get no special treatment, no scholarships, no special privileges, no separate dining halls, no dorms to themselves. They don’t get preferred treatment from their professors; in fact, it’s far more likely they get treated more harshly from teachers who believe they don’t belong in the school.

But distilling that opinion, plus the opinions of hundreds of other Division III true believers, down into a form that can be easily shared and understood, isn’t easy. Here’s how Division III is positioning itself:

“Follow your passions and discover your potential.

“The college experience is a time of learning and growth – a chance to follow passions and develop potential. For student-athletes in Division III, all of this happens most importantly in the classroom and through earning an academic degree. The Division III experience provides for passionate participation in a competitive athletic environment, where student-athletes push themselves to excellence and build upon their academic success with new challenges and life skills. And student-athletes are encouraged to pursue the full spectrum of opportunities available during their time in college. In this way, Division III provides an integrated environment for student-athletes to take responsibility for their own paths, follow their passions and find their potential through a comprehensive learning experience.”

What’s your take?

For more, here’s the NCAA News article on the unveiling.

Highs and lows at St. Mary’s (Md.)

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After now No. 17 St. Mary’s (Md.) defeated Wesley last Saturday, we caught up with Seahawks head coach Chris Harney to ask him how they are doing at this point in the season. “Basketball is all about highs and lows and it’s a long season,” said Harney. His program knows that well. In March 2008 the Seahawks were flying high as the surprise winners of CAC title and two NCAA tournament games. Then last February the Seahawks went from No. 1 in the final published Mid Atlantic regional rankings to missing the tournament entirely when the 2009 NCAA tournament bracket was announced.

Having guards like Alex Franz and Camontae Griffin certainly helps Harney steady the ship. Franz joins Coach Harney in this interview to talk about his dynamic back court mate, the CAC race and another sport that’s close to the junior guards’ heart.

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Chapman’s Resolution

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Justin Riley of the Chapman Panthers has been blogging for us this season. This episode takes us to Hawaii, which sure sounds good given the deep freeze much of the country is experiencing.

The new year is upon us and with that, people formulate resolutions in hopes to better themselves. With resolutions such as going to the gym, eating healthier, seeking new opportunities, cleaning up their vocabulary, or just simply maturing, the beginning of the year is the perfect time to start on the right foot. But I ask, why start now? Why couldn’t this change start in October, November or even December?

For Chapman, our new year’s resolution came at the start of the season when we decided to fully commit ourselves to making it a success. This would be the season that we wouldn’t let escape us. Sure, we could have waited until 2010 to “change”, but would that have been too late? I may never know. What I do know is that through hard work, determination and motivation to silence all of our doubters, we are sitting in the 17th position in the top-25 poll with a 12-2 record.

In my previous entry, we were 7-0 heading into a critical part of our schedule that concluded 2009 with four games against the SCIAC. In the days of preparation for those games, we were confidently walking around thinking we had arrived and were finally a team to be reckoned with. The competition was there, but it wasn’t the same. Practice was practice, yet there was something missing. And almost like clockwork, we ended up losing to Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 57-56. The loss left a bitter taste in our mouths, but the casualness and confidence still carried on to our next game against La Verne. Fortunately for us, we were able to escape with a 64-63 victory. With eight days rest between our following two games, we were able to get back on track and defeat Redlands and Whittier.

We now sat at 10-1.

Our next stop was Hawaii, for a nine day bout to face NCAA Division II opponents Hawaii Pacific and the 18th ranked BYU-Hawaii. I was especially excited for this trip because I had never been to the islands, but at the same time, I was still focused on leaving there with two wins. Our first matchup was against a very talented and athletic Hawaii Pacific team. From the tip, they took advantage of matchup disparities and we found ourselves down by 19 at halftime. The second half fared better for us, but the deficit was just too large to overcome and we suffered our second loss of the season. Even though we were in paradise, experiencing a loss like that motivated us to have a better showing against BYU-Hawaii.

We knew this game was going to be a really tough test, especially since BYU-Hawaii returned their All-American and NCAA Division II Player of the Year, Lucas Alves. Yet, we rose to the challenge and defeated the Seasiders in OT on their home floor 76-70. We opened the game strong building a quick ten point lead that was erased just before halftime as we entered the break trailing 30-29. The second half was controlled by BYU-Hawaii for the majority as we saw a one point deficit turn into a 13 point lead. With three minutes left to play, we were down 10 points, but we never doubted we could win. Our starting shooting guard, Griffin Ramme, put the team on his shoulders and scored 9 quick points on a trio of 3 pointers in the final minutes to force overtime. In the extra period, we held BYU-Hawaii to only three points, all from the free throw line, and closed the game out scoring 7 of the last 8 points. When the buzzer sounded, we were proud of our effort and never-quit mentality.

Even out of all the places we visited, this win was easily the most memorable part of the trip and put a stamp on our season, showing that we have the capability of becoming a top tier Division III team.

As most teams in America start conference play, we continue our independent non-conference battle against other Division III independents, NAIA, and NCCAA opponents. I couldn’t wish more than to be in a conference and to experience that atmosphere, but that’s not the case. We must continue playing Chapman basketball and live up to our resolution by earning a Pool B bid.

Good luck!