Meet the Insiders: Aaron Trigg

Posted on by

The third of our Insiders for this year is Aaron Trigg, a senior guard for the Gordon Fighting Scots. If his first post is any indication, he will have a humorous, interesting take on life in “The TCCC.”

I am so excited to write for D3hoops this season. As most Division III basketball players can relate, I have looked at this site more often than NBA refs miss traveling. (See Majerle, Dan). Anyways, it is great to follow some of the successful bloggers of the past like Sean Wallis from Wash U and Mike Dietz of Baruch. Hopefully there is a correlation between deep NCAA tournament runs and D3hoops bloggers.

Before I get too far, I want to give a little introduction to myself and our team. My name is Aaron Trigg and I am one of six seniors and 14 returning players to the Gordon College Fighting Scots. I don’t know what a Fighting Scot is, but if it is anything related to our logo it must be a member of the ferret family. We are a non-denominational Christian college located 30 minutes outside of Boston in Wenham, MA. Gordon is a member of The Commonwealth Coast Conference (TCCC). From the department of redundancy department “the” is part of our acronym. Saying “The TCCC” is actually repetitive and completely unnecessary. I could bore you with more details about our school but there is plenty of time for that later.

Our team is actually much more interesting. Despite possibly being the least diverse team this side of the seven dwarfs, we have quite a few distinct characteristics. So many, actually, we believe ourselves to be “The Only Team in America” with many of these traits. Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

• We are the only team in America who has a player who posted his own You Tube video of Hannah Montana’s Hoedown Throwdown.

• We are the only team in America whose entrance music for home games is the theme from Space Jam.

• We are the only team in America who has debated which team member would look best in a dress.
• We are the only team in America who has been to Chuck-E-Cheese’s five or more times this Fall.
• We are the only team in America who awards the “Selfish Award of the Week” going to whoever has been the most selfish person we know. We even have a board for past winners (or losers, depends how you look at it).
• We are the only team in America that sings a cappella before games.
• We are the only team in America with a life size poster of one of our captains in our living room.
• We are the only team in America whose starting point guard must stretch for 2.5hrs before any physical activity, including biking to class.
• We are the only team in America whose Halloween costumes included a cow, a farmer, Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble, a guy riding a pony, and most randomly… a shark eating a person (It was inflatable, and awesome).

These are just a few of our unique characteristics. If anyone out there would like to challenge our self proclaimed Only Team in America title, I would be glad to know. We would appreciate some company.

Back to what I’m supposed to write about. Our group of seniors has had very high expectations since we stepped onto campus 3 years ago. It has been our goal to transform Gordon into a nationally recognized program and we feel we have an opportunity to do so this year. With a veteran led team and a strong group of underclassmen we seem poised to reach our lofty goals. As everyone in basketball knows, nothing comes easy. We will have to work harder than we ever have and compete on every possession if we want to reach our potential. This will be an exciting season and I am looking forward to giving an inside view of our small college team looking to make a name for ourselves on a larger stage.

Meet the Insiders: Justin Riley

Posted on by

Each year we invite a handful of men’s and women’s basketball players to provide us with insight on their season as it unfolds. This year we have a very interesting mix that covers a wide range of the Division III landscape. Let’s meet the second Insider who is setting his sights on playing games into March 2010

Introducing Justin Riley

Welcome to the 2009-2010 season! I am very excited that I have been selected to blog about our season this year. My name is Justin Riley and I am the starting power forward at Chapman University. I am in my junior season and couldn’t be more excited to enter this season with the group of guys we have.

I decided to come to Chapman and play Division III basketball because I wanted to go to a school that would provide me a great education and give me the opportunity to still play basketball. I had the opportunity to play at lower-tier Division I schools, but decided not to follow through because I didn’t think I wanted to play basketball in college and didn’t want to go to an average academic school just to play basketball. Looking back three years later, I would love to have had the opportunity to play Division I basketball, but nevertheless, I have enjoyed my experience at Chapman University.

For those of you who do not know, Chapman University is not apart of a conference and unfortunately we have been stuck as an Independent. As an Independent, it is very difficult to get a bid into the the post-season tournament. Last season, we went 24-3, but had the third “easiest” strength of schedule. We very well should have won one of the games we lost, and looking back, that could have been the game (UDallas) that cost us the post-season bid.

Anytime you are apart of a team that goes 24-3 and end up in the “other receiving votes category” for several weeks, you feel that you deserve the chance to prove yourself on the big stage, but that didn’t happen. I can go on until I am blue in the face arguing that we should have received a bid, but the season is over and there is nothing that is going to change; for that reason, I will let last year end and move on to this season with the hopes of finally getting the chance to play in the post-season tournament.

For the 2009-2010 season, my biggest goal is to earn a post-season bid. As a competitor, I am not satisfied with ending the season short of the post season. I have always wondered what it would be like to play in the tourney at any level, and now that we are knocking on the door, I will not accept anything less. We return all five starters from last years very successful team and have several talented role players that can come and fill any voids. Out of all the previous seasons at Chapman, this is the one year where it is our season to win or lose. All the guys have that bad feeling of what is was like to be so close, therefore all of us our ready to go out and win every game with pride and passion. Besides making it to the post-season, I am striving to earn All West Region honors. The west region is filled with many talented players and I would love to be able to enter the ranks of the top players in the West.

This season has the makings to be a great one and I am excited to see what will happen. I hope everyone will pay attention to us and realize that the Chapman team has the ability to make some noise.

Good luck to all Division III teams this season!

Meet the Insiders: Holly Harvey

Posted on by

Each year we invite a handful of men’s and women’s basketball players to provide us with insight on their season as it unfolds. This year we have a very interesting mix that covers a wide range of the Division III landscape. Let’s meet the first Insider who would like to finish her season right where it’s starting.

Kicking Off Titan Basketball Season

Hello fans, I am Holly Harvey and I am a junior guard on the Illinois Wesleyan Women’s Basketball Team. Wesleyan is located in Bloomington, IL just down the road from Illinois State University. There are many things about IWU that drew me to the school as a high school senior, such as its great academic reputation, nice campus, strong athletics, and overall positive atmosphere. The women’s basketball program made my college choice easy. The team dynamic was awesome, everyone got along well and I saw myself fitting right in. I stayed to play pick-up with the team and quickly learned that every player had passion for the game, a desire to win, and team mentality. I also found it easy to communicate with Coach Smith and was impressed with some of her coaching strategies that she shared.

I believe that the team characteristics I first noticed on my visit are major reasons for IWU Women’s Basketball’s recent success. Last year we finished with the impressive record of 30-1, however we didn’t reach our ultimate goals of the Final Four and a National Championship. This year is special because Illinois Wesleyan is the host of the Women’s Basketball Final Four. Nothing compares to playing at the Shirk Center in front of the home crowd. Everyone on the team is dreaming of playing in the national championship on our home court and we are working hard to fulfill that goal. However, before we look ahead to the NCAA Tournament, there are other goals that will need to be met before that.

We will be hosting The Tip Off Tournament which includes Washington University, DePauw University, and Central College. We won the tournament last year and are looking for a repeat this year. Following the tournament, we have a more challenging pre-conference schedule than previous years. We are hoping that the tougher competition will prepare us for conference play and the post season. Our goal is to repeat as the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin champions.

We have been working hard this pre-season to reach our season goals. Our practices have been competitive and we have been improving along the way. We had a scrimmage against Illinois Central College early in the pre-season. We saw a lot of good things at the scrimmage. Our defense looked very solid, especially our 2-3 zone. Offensively we pushed the ball up and got some good looks in transition. We also saw a number of good things from our freshman class.

We just had an exhibition game with Division I 17th ranked DePaul University. Though the outcome did not go as well as planned, as we lost 93-49, I believe it was a tremendous learning experience for the team. We watched film the very next morning and pin pointed some of our weaknesses in the game such as getting open on the wing, defensive rotations, and the transition game. We hit the floor after film and worked on those weaknesses and had a very productive practice. We all agreed that we never wanted to lose by 40 again and put the game behind us. We are now looking forward to starting the season with our first game at home against Blackburn College on November 17th at 7 P.M.

Don’t D-III teams want to win?

Posted on by

Some misguided sports psychologist studied a soccer team and a tennis team and came to the following conclusion:

Division I athletes wanted to win, but those playing in Division III wanted to make friends.

I think all of us here know that’s not true. Thankfully, Division III has a sports psychologist of its own: St. Thomas men’s basketball assistant coach John Tauer. He wrote a response to this blog:

The majority of Division III athletes I have coached or coached against are highly motivated by many factors, not just making friends. one of those factors is competition — individuals and teams in Division III work incredibly hard. Division III athletes are not on athletic scholarships. As a result, they may actually have higher levels of intrinsic motivation than their Division I and II counterparts.

While this is certainly preaching to the choir, I still think it’s worth passing along. I think it’s important to highlight and debunk every misconception about Division III athletics, every time possible.

All-Star Game a welcome change

Posted on by

The Division III third-place game is an anachronism and its time has passed. So it’s good to see it go.

Although indeed, sometimes the third-place game is a spirited, wide-open entertaining affair, it cannot be ignored that the game often features one, if not two teams that truly don’t want to be there. Someone has had their heart ripped out the night before, must come back for a walk-through the next morning (though often a coach will pass on the team’s allotted time) and play a game which doesn’t do much except allow one team to go home with an extra win.

Of course, someone goes home with two losses at the end of a season that should be celebrated.

So, for the NABC to step in and do something immensely positive for Division III men’s basketball is a great step forward for our game. We hope the WBCA will consider doing something for women’s basketball as well.

This will give an additional 16 or so players who never would have gotten the Salem experience a chance to perform in front of Division III fans and be recognized. Fans who drove to southwestern Virginia to see their team play will have reason to stick around and see their best senior player or players in action the next day. And they’ll get to see a bunch of All-Americans on the floor as well, giving some context to fans who don’t get to watch D-III games on television.

It’s a win-win. And I hope it stays a part of the Salem experience for many years to come, like the NABC has done for Division I and Division II.