60 teams: That’s progress

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I know that there is some debate as to how many Pool B teams there should really be in this year’s NCAA Tournament and thankfully, we have some time for the NCAA to resolve that, in what seems to be an annual occurrence in every sport we cover.

But I, for one, was glad to see the tournament field expand, even by just a little.

This so-called incremental expansion has been skipped in previous years. Remember the 48 teams the men’s tournament was stuck at for a long time? That was based on one playoff spot for every 7.5 NCAA teams, the old ratio before expansion came a few years back. Except by the time the last 48-team tournament came around, we were actually getting shorted by the NCAA because more teams had joined Division III without new teams getting added to the postseason.

Sadly, one person close to the committee said they couldn’t figure out how to construct a 49-team field, as if it had to be seven brackets of seven teams. Not a high point!

So I was afraid that we would have to wait until we got all the way to 416 Division III men’s teams, a full 64-team field, before they bothered to expand it. We will probably get to 64 eventually, but the field isn’t likely to grow any larger, since ESPN has no interest in broadcasting a D-III play-in game.

Hello from Baruch College

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My name is Mike Dietz and I am a senior at Baruch College located in New York City. This is my second year on the team after playing my first two seasons at SUNY Plattsburgh. I was born and raised in Queens, which was the main reason for me changing schools to come back home.

I loved my experience at Plattsburgh; winning two SUNYAC championships and winning an NCAA tournament game will stay with me forever. I’m still close with all the players and the coaches; I wish them nothing but the best! I still follow the team and will always consider myself a part of the Plattsburgh family.

I’ve had many interesting experiences playing basketball. I played my high school basketball at Archbishop Molloy in Jamaica, Queens. I played for Hall-of-Fame coach Jack Curran and many of our games were against future NCAA & NBA players such as Rudy Gay and Mario Chalmers. It was also nice playing alongside 2008 SEC Tournament MVP Sundiata Gaines (Georgia). We had a very strong team all those years, which was needed because the competition in the CHSAA is unmatched by any high school conference in the country.

I feel I should offer some insight on Baruch College and the CUNYAC (conference) as a whole. The CUNYAC is unlike any other conference in the country in my opinion. Unlike other conferences where road games involve jumping on a bus and traveling for at least an hour (I hated the bus trips at Plattsburgh), the CUNYAC games are closer in proximity. Tomorrow, we play in Brooklyn against Medgar Evers, which will be a 20-minute bus ride for some, while others without classes Tuesday afternoon will hop on the subway. That’s right, we take the subway to our games!

No conference game is further than 30 minutes away, and that’s when we have to go to the College of Staten Island every other year. There will be several instances when our whole team will take the subway to our games. It is very different than your normal D3 team.

Also, Baruch is a commuter school with no dorms, so everyone lives on their own. This forces us to have to deal with many obstacles not seen at your regular D3 programs. Each player has to travel to school everyday for practice, and for me that is 45 minutes on the R train. We have players coming from all five boroughs (Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Staten Island for you people not familiar with the city), including Westchester County and nearby New Jersey.

Our season this year has had its up and downs losing two very heart-breaking games. We are 3-2 after beating Polytechnic, Immaculata, and Stevens Tech this past Sunday. Our two losses are to NYU and Farmingdale (OT Loss), and both were close games right down to the wire.

The Farmingdale game in particular is a heart-breaker because we had a 24 point lead in the first half before finally losing the lead in overtime. It was a crushing blow because we played so well in the first half, and we had the lead the entire game until the last 15 seconds when they finally tied it up. We had nothing left in overtime as we eventually lost by seven. We start our conference play tomorrow (Tuesday) versus Medgar Evers.

The 2008 Baruch Bearcats can be best described as what a team is supposed to be. If you were a coach, you would love coaching this group of guys. It really is a pleasure to play on this team because everyone is involved and everyone truly cares for one another. It is a selfless group, which is rare nowadays.

I’ll keep everyone updated on our team’s progress as we try and build on our big road win at Stevens Tech. Hopefully, I’ll have some good stories from our subway journeys. You can keep track of our team at www.BaruchAthletics.com, where our scores and statistics are always updated on the website before I’m done showering!

Talk to you soon,

Mike Dietz

Hoopsville Podcast: Season Premiere

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The 6th season of Hoopsville tipped off tonight On the Road at the Provident Pride of Maryland Basketball Tournament. The tournament is in its fourth season and this marks the second time that Hoopsville was on the road, broadcasting during the championship game, hosted at Stevenson University (formerly Villa Julie College) this season.

Guests included:
– Buena Vista Coach Brian Van Haaften
– Westfield State Coach Brian Sutter
– Trinity (TX) Coach Pat Cunningham
– St. Mary’s (MD) Coach Chris Harney

Also, regional reports from the Northeast, Atlantic, Midwest, and others.

Hoopsville, Nov. 30, 2008

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Hello From The Lone Star State

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Hello to all from Tyler, Texas! My name is Caitlyn Scelfo & I am a junior at the University of Texas at Tyler. I transferred from Texas A&M Universityafter attending for two years as a regular student. I transferred to UT Tyler with high hopes of playing basketball for their Women’s Basketball Program under head coach Terri Deike. However, due to a recent diagnosis of Osteoarthritis in my left knee, after a 4 year struggle with a knee injury, I have had to make the decision to not play basketball anymore. Though it was a difficult decision to make, I had incredible support from my coaches, teammates, friends, and most importantly my family. And I believe that God has a plan for everyone, and desires to use us in ways that may not be quite “on schedule” with our desires. Coach Deike has given me the awesome opportunity to now be the manager for the UT Tyler women’s basketball team. I am still able to be fully involved with the team as I take on a new role. It is a blessing to still have the opportunity to be a part of this basketball program. All of the coaches and the girls are wonderful, and I want to work hard everyday to make a positive contribution to the program.

 

We enter the 2008-2009 basketball season picked to finish first in the ASC East conference. Our team enters the season with six great freshman, two awesome seniors, six wonderful sophomores, and 1 fabulous junior. They are all working hard each day on the court in practice and off the court hitting the books as we make our way to the next level of being the 2009 ASC Conference Champions. The girls are becoming more of a team and a family each day as they set aside their differences on and off the court, and put together the talents, outstanding individual qualities, and key roles they each have to offer to the UT Tyler Women’s basketball program. Let me introduce you to our 2008-2009 coaching staff, starting with Head Coach Terri Deike.  Coach Deike started the UT Tyler Women’s basketball program seven years ago and has led them to three ASC East Division Championships and a 77-51 record in that time.  Our assistant coach is Cassi Little, who is in her second year with the program.  She was a year starter at post for the University of Texas at Dallasfrom 2002-2006 where she set five career records and one season record. Last but not least is our graduate assistant, RaTonya Hunter.  She was outstanding point guard for the UT Tyler Patriots from 2003-2007, helping lead them to two ASC East Division Championships. 

 

We opened our season with a win the other night against Jarvis Christian College. This weekend we play our first two games in front of our home crowd here at UT Tyler as we take on 23rd-ranked College of St. Benedicton Friday night and Wisconsin-Platteville on Saturday afternoon in the 2008 Fred Jacoby I-20 Tip-off Classic. Next week we take our first major road trip traveling south to Seguin, Texas to take on the Texas Lutheran Bulldogs, then head over to Kerrville, Texas to play Schreiner University. Yep, safe to say the 2008-2009 UT Tyler Women’s Basketball season is under-way, and all roads lead to Hope, Michigan, home of the 2008-2009 Division III Women’s Basketball National Championship.

 

Looking forward to keeping yall updated on the good times to come this season on & off the court! Until next time, take care, and God Bless!

 

Caitlyn

Courtside at Provident Pride Tournament

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For the second year in a row, I am sitting courtside on Thanksgiving Weekend at the Provident Pride of Maryland Tournament. Nothing like seeing eight games of basketball in two day! It is a heck of a way to get the basketball motor running.

Now, the first round games were played on Tuesday with Salisbury beating Goucher, St. Mary’s beating McDaniel, Johns Hopkins beating Frostburg, and Washington beat Stevenson. So, here are the four games for today:

Goucher vs. Frostburg
McDaniel vs. Stevenson
Johns Hopkins vs. Salisbury
Washington vs. St. Mary’s

Here are a few observations from the first two games so far today:
Frostburg beats Goucher 64-56:
I have been around the Goucher program since I entered college and in the last few years have never seen the team shoot free-throws as badly as they are. Now, that wasn’t their biggest problem today. They shot .610 from the charity line for the game, but they shot .268 from the field and only lost by eight!!! But a few things that could have helped: Goucher was at the line 41 times, hitting 25 of those attempts. Just ten more would have made a major difference and the team would have shot above .700. And of the 56 shots they took for the game, they only hit 15! 15!!! This team has a lot of players putting up bad shots and making questionable decisions. They need to come together as a unit and stop playing street-style basketball on both ends of the court and they could be a tough team.

Frostburg looks liek they could be tough and they certainly game Hopkins a good game on Tuesday, but I wondered how much Goucher made Frostburg look good versus the Bobcats actually playing well. They take on McDaniel on Sunday, that could be a good barameter.

McDaniel beat Stevenson 75-66:
Stevenson is a streaky team. They made runs in the game on Tuesday against Washington and had the lead several times in the first half. However, they found them selves down 20+ in the second half and despite a run late in the game, were just too far down to make a serious challenge. If they can play consistent basketball for an entire 40 minutes, or even 35, they will finally find that first win of the season and maybe play a serious spoiler in the CAC.

McDaniel is not the same team as last year. They miss Brett Foelber and while they have good players, it doesn’t look like they are on the same page, just yet. They are certainly athletic and play very tough defense, but they make some simple mistakes on offense sometimes and seem to get flat. They will have to be on their toes against another athletic team in Frostburg tomorrow.

Johns Hopkins vs. Salisbury is about to tip off… I will recap my thoughts after their game.