D3hoops.com Daily Dose

The fall semester is over, class and finals are done (Thank God), but our season is in full swing.

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote to you. During the last blog, we were 3-2, coming off a heart-breaking loss to Farmingdale State in which we blew a 24-point lead. Well, we have played six games since and guess what; we have won all six highlighted by beating the then 14th-ranked St Mary’s of Maryland Seahawks.

It’s been a great run so far but it all comes back to the Farmingdale loss, which in my opinion has been the most important game we played all season. Now you might think I’m crazy saying a demoralizing loss is the most important game we played but hear me out. That game changed our mentality as a team, after that loss, we had a great week of practice and the focus changed. We knew we were a good team but hey, we were only 2-2, we needed to start showing it.

Practice was brutal the next couple days, we had to get back to the basics (Every player knows when your coach says we need to get back to the basics; practice is not going to be fun). In the game versus Farmingdale, they just wanted it more than us, out working us, getting to all the loose balls, all the hustle plays that are crucial to winning close games.

So at practice that week, Coach Ray Rankis pulled out all the stops, every loose ball drill, every box-out drill, taking charges, you name it, we did it.

Needless to say, everyone had bruises and floor burns covering their legs and arms. As much as practice was a grind, it worked. Since that game, we have won seven in a row, highlighted by wins against Stevens Tech, Rutgers-Newark, York, and St Mary’s (Md.). Because of that game, we take nothing for granted anymore, no matter how much we are up or down, we keep the pedal to the metal and keep our focus.

This couldn’t be more evident then in our win versus Rutgers-Newark. This was the exact opposite of the Farmingdale game, where we were down 17-2 to start the game and things were not looking good to say the least. We came out flat and Rutgers-Newark played extremely hard on defense getting plenty of steals and had a couple of big dunks that had us rattled.

Rutgers got comfortable and took their foot off our throats and we crawled back into the game, and we only trailed by three at the half. The second half was a battle with several lead changes and great plays back-and-forth. Our point guard Lionel Hilaire hit two huge shots to secure the road victory.

So we are now 9-2 and 2-0 in the conference and feeling real good about ourselves. We head to Florida to play Wisconsin Lutheran in the Emory Riddle Tournament. It’s always fun to travel with teammates and play new teams. I’m especially excited because as I write this blog, it is snowing and 25 degrees outside, the forecast for Daytona Beach, Florida is mid-70’s!

In my opinion, this is the best time of year for a college basketball player as class and finals are done, and all we have to worry about is basketball. Practice, lift and play a game…it doesn’t get any better than that. We are like professional basketball players for a month.

Just to tell you something about Baruch that I think a lot of you will enjoy and be envious are that due to our location in Manhattan, when many NBA team come to New York City to play either the Knicks or Nets, they need to practice, so various teams come to Baruch to use our gyms.

About two weeks ago, the Dallas Mavericks practiced at our gym for their game against the Nets. It was really cool watching Dirk and Jason Kidd practice. Dirk not only makes every shot he takes, they rarely hit the rim!

Sorry for the delay on this second post with finals and the holidays I didn’t have much time to write but the posts will be more frequent now that I have a lot more free time.

If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at Michael.Dietz@baruchmail.cuny.edu or visit BaruchAthletics.com. Also, check You Tube for highlight videos where our manager has posted various games (the ones we win!).

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday Season!

- Mike Dietz

2008 is almost over, our season is underway, and Edgewood College is in full gear going into the New Year.  The team has gone through many obstacles and adversities to get here and have finally found ourselves and have been working well together.  We started off with the season with three non-conference games.           

Our first tournament was eye opening for most of the team, since many of them haven’t played basketball at the college level before.  I could tell they were nervous, I was totally nervous before my first college game and expected them to be also.  We played well at the tournament, the team got the first two games under their belts and found out what it was like to play at this level, and we found the things we need to work on to become a better team.  We lost both games, but found out how each other played and looked to using that in our upcoming game.

Our next game was against the No. 1 team in the nation, UW-Whitewater.  I know for the returners we wanted to redeem ourselves from the last time we played them; I do believe they scored a hundred points on us and so we weren’t going to let that happen again.  We knew it was going to be a challenge for us, but we love challenges and we had nothing to lose going in, this game could only make us better.  Whitewater was a tough team and had a well rounded one at that, but at half time we were only down by nine points.  The game went on and we continued to battle with them, but in the end they got the best of us and we lost by 19 points.  As a team we talked about what we could do to beat the number one team in the nation; we needed to shoot better and come up with more stops on defense and we would be right in the game.

At the end of November we finally played our first home game and our first conference game.  The team was looking forward to this and to playing Concordia Wisconsin.  They are one of our rivals and we didn’t lose to them by more than three points last year and did finally beat them for the first time in my career last year. Concordia beat us and it definitely wasn’t how we wanted to start off conference play.  This was a tough time for our team, we were 0-4, had two players out with knee injuries for the rest of the season, and now only have nine players active on our roster.  This wasn’t exactly how we wanted to start off our season and it was really hard to stay positive and keep everyone going.  But we made a commitment with each other that we would do this together and we can just keep working hard and it will get better.

I didn’t really want to talk about this, but Dave, our sports information director said I had to.  I’m on pace to break Edgewood College’s all-time scoring record.  I haven’t really thought much about it, because I just want to make sure the team keeps playing better, but I suppose it will be really cool if it happens. As long as we keep winning games, that’s all I’m concerned about. [SID note: Megan has 1,700 career points and needs 155 more to break the record.]

That Concordia game was our wake up call on how to work and play together as a team.  We knew we had to come together and get things done as a team.  That’s exactly what happened; we are on a three-game winning streak and know that we can work together and win as a team.  To me the first win is the hardest, but after we got that under our belts we continued on that path and have continued to win.  Our next game is on Monday against Lakeland.  We can’t wait to get back on the court and continue our winning streak on our home court.

It’s been a while since my last entry so here’s a run through of our recent games.

Last time I checked-in we were 2-0 and heading to Augustana for a #1 vs. #2 showdown. The game was a blast—playing in front of 2,000+ fans, most of which were yelling obscene things at me (side note: what does it mean to be called a dirty Serbian? I’m not even Serbian and I don’t think womens tennis pro Ana Ivanovic, who is Serbian, is dirty), brought me back to my days in high school.

Augie is a great team and they play incredible defense. Over the past three years we’ve developed a really great rivalry with them and had four games decided by just a few points. As much as I love seeing my AAU teammate Alex Washington and a few of the other guys from Augie, I’d have to say I wouldn’t mind if I don’t see them again this year on the court. We won a great game in overtime which made getting back from Rock Island, Illinois at 4 AM all worth it!

The next weekend we traveled to Anderson, Indiana, for our thanksgiving tournament. Cameron Smith is from Noblesville, which isn’t too far from there, so we ate thanksgiving dinner with his family. We took on Aurora in our opener and pulled away in overtime. They had some fantastic individual performances and didn’t play like a winless team. While they struggled at the beginning of this season, they’re going to compete for their conference championship and I’d expect them to get better as the season goes on.

In the championship game we played Anderson, a veteran team that had only lost to UW-Platteville by a few points a couple days earlier. We got into some serious foul trouble but were able to fight through the adversity to get a W.

This past weekend we were at home (FINALLY!!!) as we hosted the 25th annual Lopata Classic. Friday night we took on an undefeated Hamilton team in front of a pretty hostile crowd at the WU Field House. We played extremely well and I believe they’re a much better team than the final score indicated.

The next afternoon we took on a young, but talented Illinois Wesleyan team. The hardest part wasn’t physically being able to turn around and play a game the next day (because we were relatively rested from the night before) but having to prepare for them in such short period of time. They ran a ton of ball screen motion, which we were extremely unsure how to play against the entire first half. We’re a team that uses preparation and our coach’s scouting report really well. Normally we’ll use defensive drills in practice to prepare for what a team likes to do—but we weren’t able to simulate or really get a feel for their motion. At halftime we made some great adjustments and were able to contain what they did a little better. We were just able to get a few more stops in the second half, which was the only difference in the game.

I’d have to say because of sitting on the sidelines and my injury last year, I really have been looking at things in a different way this year. If a few years ago I had a game where I had eight turnovers (like @ Augustana) or didn’t make a field goal (like against Aurora), I would beat myself up over it. I would think about it a lot, it would get me down and I’d even have it in my head the following game. But this year is different for me—I can honestly say it isn’t about stats, getting double-digit assists or being the leading scorer on my team—I just want my team to keep winning. I want to contribute and be a key part of one of the best teams in the country—and through seven games I think I’ve been able to do that, even coming off a pretty brutal injury. If that means I need to be getting AT shots or put Ty in positions to score– then that’s great by me as long as that’s what will be great for our team.

We play against undefeated Fontbonne on Saturday which is always a good test. Then we head up to the Chicago area for a tournament at Elmhurst. If we can win our first game against Eureka, we will most likely take on Elmhurst in a battle of top-five teams. Sure hasn’t been an easy schedule—but I know we wouldn’t want it any other way!

I’ll check back before the holidays. Shoot me an e-mail at walliss@wustl.edu if there’s anything you want me to touch on in my next entry. Good luck on finals to all.

Take care,
Sean

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

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 23^rd-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