D3hoops.com Daily Dose

There are too many great stories from the 2008 – 2009 women’s Division III basketball season to summarize them all in one post. Doubtless there are many we never uncovered the past four months, despite our efforts. But the one that will define the year from a national perspective is George Fox’s incredible, undefeated run to the national championship.

By now, you’ve heard the story several times already. The Bruins graduated all five starters and added 10 first year players to a trio of juniors and senior Kristen Shielee whose play before this season was pretty non-descript. George Fox rumbled through the regular season but, in a year in which NWC observers said the conference was a little down, it was tough for some of us east coasters to determine exactly how good the Bruins were until the NCAA tournament began. Then they cruised by Chapman, rolled past Oglethorpe, handled Hope, took care of The College of New Jersey and withstood Washington U. in a run that touched most of Division III’s regions. And so George Fox becomes just the fifth program to win a Division III women’s national championship without a loss.

Given the make-up of the George Fox roster and their preseason placement (fifth in the NWC poll), the Bruins’ run was certainly unexpected. It’s even more unlikely if you consider where Kristen Shielee was entering the off season at this point last year. The quiet giant who anchored the stingy 2-3 zone defense and scored the biggest baskets of the year late in Saturday’s championship wasn’t even a lock to return for her senior season, as we learned in the retrospective posted below.

Other than returners Elise Kuenzi, BB Gardner and Lindsay Keener, the other contributors to the title team were also hidden in unknown places at this point last year. Sage Indendi, D3hoops.com Rookie of the Year, was playing high school ball in Livingston, Mont. and looking for a college home. She told us about her journey to Oregon and what she wants to do for an encore in the podcast below.

 

 Sage Indendi - Championship Postgame [9:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Is it too early to look ahead to next season since this one only ended a couple hours ago? If we do, we see a George Fox team that returns four starters, another exceptionally deep Hope team, and an Amherst squad with most of the big contributors back. And maybe somewhere out there, there’s a couple role players who are ready to take a much larger role, a couple high school seniors who haven’t even picked a college yet and a team that will have us scratching our heads with a smile on our face at this point next season.

More championship coverage:

Game story (Greg Chandler, MIAA)
D3hoops.com: Magicial run was not foretold
Holland (MI) Sentinel (Dan D’Addona): From cubs to champs - Young George Fox wins Division III national championship (with photo gallery)
Holland (MI) Sentinel (Alan Babbitt): Long, unlikely road for tournament MVP
The Oregonian (Lindsay Schnell): George Fox women win title, go undefeated
Photo gallery (The Oregonian)
St. Louis Post Dispatch (Alan Babbitt): Bears come up short in final
Holland (MI) Sentinel (Alan Babbitt): Hope defeated by best…again

More George Fox coverage:

D3hoops podcast: Rejector, Rookies, Rueck
Around the Nation: George Fox hunting again
Holland Sentinel (Alan Babbitt): Alaska family reels in some hoops

Welcome to our continuing coverage of the 2009 Women’s Division III Basketball Championship tournament. Throughout the next couple days, we’ll use the Daily Dose as command central for all sorts of coverage from Holland, Mich. where Hope College hosts the final four teams in the tournament.

Check back for game previews and reviews, interviews, podcasts and links galore. Our broadcast coverage begins with pregame coverage at 3:00 pm EDT on Friday. But if you can’t wait until then, let’s take a look ahead to tomorrow’s games.

National Semifinal Game 1 – 4 PM EDT
No. 6 Washington U. Bears (25-4, 13-1 UAA) vs. No. 11 Amherst Lord Jeffs (29-2, 8-1 NESCAC)

Video broadcast
Audio broadcast
Live Stats

Bears’ road to Hope: UAA champion (automatic bid); tournament wins over Capital (77-72), Transylvania (83-57), St. Benedict (56-43) and No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan (58-53)

Lord Jeffs’ road to Hope: At-large bid; tournament wins over Babson (77-54), Emmanuel (76-37), No. 14 NYU (74-51) and No. 25 Brandeis (68-54)

Washington U, the most experienced team in the semifinal field, meets one of three national semifinal newbies.

Amherst is in just its second NCAA Tournament appearance ever after advancing to the sectional round in 2008 when the Lord Jeffs fell to DePauw. Wash U is in its 20th straight tournament, but failed to reach the sectionals a year ago. The Bears will be the Lord Jeffs’ third straight opponent from the UAA. Last weekend Amherst handled NYU and three-time UAA Player of the Year Jessica McEntee, who was limited to just six points in the defeat. Amherst won the sectional for the first time in school history by topping Brandeis. Amherst Head Coach G.P. Gromacki takes his second different school to the Final Four after reaching the championship game with St. Lawrence in 2002. The Lord Jeffs only allow 48.7 points per game and outrebound opponents by more than eight per contest.

Washington U. doesn’t have a single player averaging more than 8.9 points but is in the national semifinals for an eighth time to tie the University of Scranton for most appearances ever. The Bears won four straight titles under current Head Coach Nancy Fahey from 1998-2001, and Fahey’s squad brings a 14-game win streak to Holland. The Bears lost to DePauw in the 2007 National Championship Game during their last visit to the Final Four. Nine players currently on the roster were a part of that defeat and will look to make their second visit much more memorable. The Bears, who stumbled to a 4-3 start, also outrebound their opponents by over eight per game and won at #1 Illinois Wesleyan to advance to Holland and avenge an earlier defeat.

(Game preview by Tim Calderwood, D3hoops.com)

More Washington U. coverage:
Team page (D3hoops)
Team page (Wash. U)
D3hoops.com feature: Off the floor, Bears all friends
Game notes (Wash. U)

More Amherst coverage:
Team page (D3hoops)
Team page (Amherst)
D3hoops.com feature: Nope, no pressure
Player blogs (Amherst)
Game notes (Amherst)

National Semifinal Game 2 – 6 PM EDT
No. 3 George Fox Bruins (30-0, 16-0 NWC) vs. The College of New Jersey Lions (27-4, 11-2 NJAC)

Video broadcast
Audio broadcast
Live Stats

Bruins’ road to Hope: NWC champion (Automatic bid); first round bye, defeated Chapman (83-40), defeated No. 5 Oglethorpe (71-56), defeated No. 2 Hope (58-46)

Lions’ road to Hope: NJAC champion (Automatic bid); defeated No. 19 DeSales (64-51), defeated No. 16 Tufts (57-55), defeated No. 8 Rochester (70-58), defeated No. 20 Scranton (54-48)

Defense will be the name of the second game when two zone defenses battle for a chance to win a national championship. Both schools are making their first ever visit to the national semifinals.

After losing to Hope in last year’s sectional semifinal, George Fox graduated its entire starting five, yet still finds itself as the last remaining unbeaten in Division III. The Bruins, who won their third straight Northwest Conference title, avenged their loss to Hope by denying the Flying Dutch the chance to play for the title on their home floor with a 58-46 decision at Thomas More in the sectional final last Saturday. West Region Player of the Year Kristen Shielee blocked nine shots in the win over Hope, including five in the final eight minutes. The Bruins have 10 first year players, including All Region selection Sage Indendi and fellow back court starter Keisha Gordon.

The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) has been the surprise of the tournament, becoming the first team to reach the national semifinals after entering the tournament unranked since Wilmington did it in 2004. After starting the season 3-3, the Lions switched from man-to-man to a 2-3 zone defense. TCNJ has won 13 in a row since a loss to confernece foe Kean on January 29. Led by Atlantic Region Player of the Year Hillary Klimowicz, who is the tournament’s leading scorer at 21.4 points and 10.8 rebounds per game, the Lions denied Scranton another Final Four appearance by beating the Lady Royals in Rochester last Saturday. Klimowicz is a strong National Player of the Year candidate, but don’t sleep on Alexandra Gregorek who anchors the zone defense and came up big last weekend. TCNJ outrebounds opponents by over 10 a night, ninth best nationally.

(Game preview written by Tim Calderwood with contributions from John McGraw, D3hoops.com)

More George Fox coverage:
Team page (D3hoops)
Team page (George Fox)
D3hoops podcast: Rejector, Rookies, Rueck
Game notes (George Fox)

More TCNJ coverage:
Team page (D3hoops)
Team page (TCNJ)
D3hoops feature: Hillary K, TCNJ in the Final Four

While the rest of the world is preoccupied with some big-money games tipping off momentarily, I’m one of three people sitting courtside at the moment at the Salem Civic Center, watching Guilford practice in preparation for tomorrow night’s semifinals.

Lots of things going on here today — I have to run out and get an important piece of (forgotten, of course) equipment, then get back here for the Jostens Trophy ceremony, where Jimmy Bartolotta and Melanie Auguste will each get their hardware.

Wash U practices next, at 1:30 ET.

I won’t get to see too much of Guilford’s practice, but Dave McHugh and Rick Seidel from our broadcast team have both seen them multiple times, so we’re in good hands.

When George Fox’s lone senior Kristen Shielee is asked what she thought upon first meeting her team’s 10 first year players, she doesn’t hesitate: “They’re loud,” she says with a smile. By contrast Shielee seems quiet, though her play speaks volume. The recently named West Region Player of the Year is the 6-foot-4 anchor for the Bruins’ stingy zone defense and her 10 blocks thwarted Hope in the sectional finals. And, along with youthful exuberance, the freshmen bring a ton of talent that has fueled this unexpected, undefeated run to the national semifinals. We caught up Shielee, Coach Scott Rueck and first year guard Keisha Gordon after the Bruins’ sectional final victory.

 

 George Fox - Final Four [12:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

WOW, WHAT A WEEKEND! I don’t know where to begin, but I do know that it’s Monday and it is great to still be ALIVE in the “bracket of death”! While most college kids will spend SB09 in Panama City, on a cruise, at home, or at a friend’s grandparent’s house in Naples — we on the Wash U hoops team are glad to be spending the majority of our spring break in the Northwest ‘burbs of Chicago. There’s nothing like playing in the NCAA Tourney, even if it comes at the price of my teammates getting tan (I’ve got nice bronze skin anyway, so who needs a vacation—right???).

When the pairings first came out Monday, I’m not going to lie, I was a little upset with the way the NCAA handled the Midwest and West regions. This is with no disrespect to any of the programs from the East or Northeast, etc. but it was extremely hard trying to explain to friends and family how and why the top seven ranked teams in the country only one could possibly make it to the final four. They’d say, wait so it’d be like if Pitt, UNC, UCONN, Duke and Louisville all were in the same regional—and still not believe me when I said “YES!!!”

After a good hour of pouting about not being able to play at home (since our women hosted) and being sent to the site of one of our two losses all year, we all flipped a switch and stopped feeling sorry for ourselves. I think we realized that when it was game time on Friday against Lawrence, they weren’t going to feel sorry for us so it wouldn’t do us any good to feel sorry for ourselves.

Preparing for Lawrence was really tough because of how well they play together as a team. I think they’re a lot like us. While we felt like our scout team did a good job preparing us, at the beginning of the game it was quickly realized how impossible it was for a scout team to really imitate ‘their stuff’ since they run their motion so well. They read the defense, took advantage of any mistakes we made defensively and made us pay when we didn’t get back in transition. While almost no one our team could hit a shot, luckily we had A.T. on our side.

I don’t know if I can really describe what AT has been able to do for us this season. If you’ve never seen him play–he plays the game the way it’s supposed to be played—at both ends of the court. He’s always been automatic as a spot up shooter—but now he’s a flat out scorer… he leads our team in blocks and even yanked down 10 boards on Saturday. He’s got the longest, gangliest (is that a word?) arms—which is why we say “Go, Go Gadget Arms!” when he gets his hands on balls he has no business getting. Bottom line is that he can hoop!

Anyway, we overcame some miserable shooting from myself and Tyler to somehow sneak away with a win on Friday. As I wrote about last year, the tournament is about surviving and advancing—and that is what we did on Friday. It was one of those games that I really felt like we got out played for 35 minutes or so overall, but thanks to a few good runs, a big time three from A.T., and some timely misses, we marched on to Saturday.

Watching the Elmhurst vs. UW-Whitewater game following ours was unbelievable. I’ve been to Salem the past two years, and that game featured two teams that could have taken down at least half the talent I’ve seen in the Final Four. It’s truly a shame (among a lot of other word selections I could’ve used instead of a shame) that those two played in the first round. It was an awesome atmosphere, it’s just too bad for Elmhurst’s seniors that it had to end like that—because they are a team that deserved to play more than one game in the NCAA Tourney.

With a turnaround of less than 24-hours we had to prepare for our most talented opponent of the year. UW-Whitewater featured some big time athletes inside and on the wings and our coaches did a great job getting a game plan together to help neutralize their athleticism. We jumped out to an early 11-0 lead and played some great basketball. We really frustrated them by doing a few different things defensively and even pushed our lead to 18 in the second half.

As all good teams do, UWW made a big time run midway through the second half. Somehow we held them off and only gave up the lead for 17 seconds on our way to another W. Again, we may have been the better team most of the night, but UWW had chances to win the game. We hit some timely shots, made free-throws and got a little lucky—which is sometimes better than being good this time of year. UWW was the most talented group of individuals, position by position, I’ve seen play at this level in the past four years—without a doubt. Survive and advance.

Looking forward to next week—it should be an incredible game Friday night. Wheaton obviously is a tremendous team and I’m looking forward to playing in a really fun atmosphere. We got to see them earlier in the season when they played at Webster in St. Louis and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t watched two or three of their games on web cast. Between their threats inside and out—it’ll be a challenge, but one I know we’re up for!

Four more.

Take care,
Sean

P.S. Shout out to my boys Dylan Richter and Tom Blount—two people that have been major contributors on our team that are now out for the year. Dylan broke his foot in the first round game against Lawrence (and then proceeded to NAIL a three-ball before coming out) and Tom is having shoulder surgery this week. It’s no fun sitting on the bench from injury (I’d know from experience) but I know both of these guys are still pulling for us big time. GETCHUUUUUUUUUU SUM.