By Mark Simon
D3hoops.com

If they have their way, this season won’t end as the last one did for the No. 7 rated UW-Whitewater women’s basketball team, with a lot of frustration after falling in the opening round of the WIAC Tournament to UW-Platteville, on a last-second shot. The Warhawks went 19-7 and made a huge leap in the standings, finishing in second place, but that went for naught when bids to the NCAA Tournament were announced.

“Our girls have a different focus this season than they did in the past,” said UW-Whitewater sixth-year head coach Keri Carollo, formerly an assistant at UW-Stout. “They want to try to make a statement. We still have some things to prove.”

If you looked at the scores from the opening night of games this season, you’d have seen that the proof was in the performance. Ranked No. 18 in the preseason poll, UW-Whitewater trounced No. 13 Millikin, 92-46, and did so in Millikin’s gym. It was an eye-popping result, one that told both the team and its future opponents how good the Warhawks could be. They’ve won their next five, including a win at currently 16th-ranked Chicago team, whom they lost to last season, and have started the WIAC season with wins over UW-Stevens Point and UW-Oshkosh.

UW-Whitewater has a rotation of 12 players who see action in most games, 10 of whom have played in every game. That allows them to press defensively. Similar to the Hope team that won the national title two years ago, they rotate four post players in, and there’s no loss in skill when they go to the bench. It’s a team that plays hard for the full 40 minutes and brings a level of energy that is tough to match. They’re shooting 47 percent from the field, 39 percent from 3-point range, and outrebounding opponents by seven per game. Through six games, they’re tallying 81.5 points per game.

“They have everything,” said Chicago head coach Aaron Roussell, whose team lost at home to the Warhawks, 62-53 on Nov. 28. “They’re a team you have to guard on the perimeter and that really opens up their post game.”

The team’s leading scorer is junior center Tiffany Morton, who is averaging 15.5 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, up significantly from her sophomore season, in which she transferred in from UW-Milwaukee. Sophomore guard Kelsey Hendrickson, who transferred in from Wisconsin (where she practiced, but didn’t play) rates second at 10.0 points, just ahead of senior co-captain Lindsey Buechner’s 9.2 points.

“We have a lot of intensity and a lot of fire,” said Morton, who came up with the apt choice of “breathtaking” when picking a word to describe that season-opening win. “We can still improve, but I think we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.”

The one knock on the Warhawks may be that they don’t have the hardened experience that others do. In Carollo’s five previous seasons, UW-Whitewater has not even gotten out of the first round of the WIAC Tournament. Last year’s loss was a big motivating factor.

“We still have a lot of things to work on,” Morton said. “We were pretty sour with the end of the season. We take every game as if its our last now, realizing that every game could be a possible upset.”

There is a big difference between this team and the ones from the past though. Buechner remembers her first two years, when the goal for the season was just to finish in the league’s top four.

“(The coaches) have brought in players who make things happen,” Buechner said. “It’s exciting to be able to say we’ve come this far.”

UW-Whitewater will play a tougher schedule than most. Besides the grind of the perennially strong WIAC (UW-Whitewater was picked second in the preseason, behind UW-Eau Claire), the non-conference matchups already include the two road wins over ranked schools, and a win vs 2007 SLIAC champ Maryville. At the end of the month, the Warhawks will go to California for two days of games, which will include a matchup with No. 1 Mary Washington.

“That’s one thing I learned from (UW-Stout head coach) Mark Thomas as Stout,” said Carollo, who, by the way, is due to have a baby in January, creating a little more excitement in her life. “I’ve tried to schedule the toughest competition and hopefully it helps us in the long run. It’s a great measuring stick and it will be fun to see how we do. To be the best, you have to play the best.”

That's something that opponents might be saying about the Warhawks come March.

TOP TOMCAT: It’s hard to sit out. That’s what Thiel forward Joe Herrmann found out after missing the first two games of the Tomcats’ season with illness.

So when Hermann finally hit the floor, he scored 14 points and had ten rebounds in 21 minutes in a Thiel win. Though both Herrmann and the Tomcat faithful were excited about his return, it may be difficult to figure out which party was more relieved.

“I was sick,” Herrmann said of his two-game absence. “I hate sitting out. That’s the worst.

“I hate sitting and watching people you work with day-in and day-out,” he added. “Your friends have to play without you. It’s hard and I think that even made me more hungry for my first games back, especially now coming into conference play.”

In addition to the double-double he posted in Thiel’s victory over Penn State-Fayette, Herrmann has been the leading scorer in each of the last two games. On Nov. 28, Herrmann scored 24 points, leading Thiel to a win against Penn State-Beaver.

Three days later, the Tomcats opened Presidents’ Athletic Conference action at home against the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets. Herrmann tallied 28 points in an 86-59 win. It was the 21st time when Herrmann has totaled 20 or more points in a game.

While he is talented enough to score at will during tough times, Herrmann does not care about the spotlight. He is more than happy to share the attention if the result of the game is positive.

“We’re a lot more talented this year, but I think more than anything, we’re more of a team this year,” said Herrmann.

“We have the most unselfish team with the talent level we have that I’ve seen in a long time. If I don’t get the points that I got last year or the rebounds, it’s not a really big deal to me as long as we’re winning games.

“My goal isn’t to go out and try to score 20 points a game,” he added. “It’s just to go out and play as hard as I can and when the points come, they come. We don’t really run specific plays for me. We have a pretty basic system and whoever gets the shots gets the shots. I think teams try to play around it, but I think it’s hard when you go 12-deep and you have a whole bunch of unselfish players on your team.”

Herrmann is not only a great scorer. He also takes good care of the basketball, turning it over just three times in three games.

“When double teams come, I know that my first option is to swing to a teammate,” he said. “We have a team where I don’t have to think twice to swing it to anybody. You can give it to whoever you want and then, they can score.”

In the preseason media poll, Thiel was selected as the fifth-best team in the PAC. As of Monday, Thiel is 4-1 on the young season. One more victory will equal the team’s 2006-07 win total.

Of the eight players who have already been in the starting lineup for the Tomcats, Herrmann and juniors, Brandon Mirizio and Keebo Dowe, are the only upperclassmen.

“I think it’s going to be a big stepping stone to a good Thiel basketball program, especially with the young guys we have,” Herrmann said of the season. “We have ten freshmen who are real good players who’ll be around for a long time. I think helping teach them what they need to do to be successful is real important to me individually.

“I think us going through some losing seasons helps us kind of explain things to the younger guys what it really takes to win. They’ve made it a lot easier on us too,” he added. “I’d rather score ten points and win 25 games than average 25 points and only win five.”

The youthfulness of the squad is an important piece of the puzzle for Thiel. Another vital part of the turnaround is the experience and expertise of second-year head coach Tim Loomis. The man who helped Florida Atlantic transition from an NCAA Division II team to Division I is now in charge of leading Thiel from the bottom of the PAC to the top.

“Coach Loomis coached against me in high school,” Herrmann said. “I knew he was pretty tough. I knew he was pretty defensive-minded. The first couple months last year when he came was a big adjustment period. Now, we’re good.”

The defensive mindset Loomis has instilled in his team has worked. The Tomcats have held opponents to 38.1 percent shooting, including 18.9 percent from beyond the arc. Teams are averaging only 62 points-per-game against Thiel.

With the schedule the way it is, Thiel does not play any of the four teams picked above them in the PAC until Jan. 5 with a home game against Bethany. However, the Tomcats are not concerned about who the next opponent is. Their only concerns are to execute their assignments and improve with each game.

“We try not to think about the competition as much as us,” said Herrmann, who wants to leave a legacy of leadership after graduating from Thiel. “If we play our game, if we do the things that we do well, keep playing hard and practicing hard, I think W's will come. I don’t think we need to plan for other teams as long as we play our game.”

WORTH WATCHING: nteresting matchups in Division III this weekend.

Friday

Hamilton at Scranton: A rematch of last year’s NCAA matchup, minus former Hamilton coach G.P. Gromacki, now at Amherst. It’s the start of a tough group of (home) games for a Lady Royals team still trying to find its identity now that two All-Americans have graduated. After Hamilton, Scranton hosts Baruch, Mount St. Mary and Kean.
 
UC Santa Cruz at Puget Sound: First D-III game of the season will be against the Banana Slugs for the Loggers (love the nicknames), who are 2-2 through four contests and ranked No. 24, perhaps a little low for a team that went to the Elite 8 last season.

Saturday
Men
No. 1 Amherst at No. 3 Brandeis: Perhaps a little bit of luster lost on this one, but a Brandeis win would make up for Thursday’s loss to Mass-Dartmouth. A couple of keys to this game:

 Health of Amherst point guard Andrew Olson (sprained ankle, didn’t practice all week), who was a bit rusty early on in an upset-avoiding win over MIT on Thursday. Brandeis is guard-loaded and has two sub six-footers that could give the Lord Jeff trouble in Kwame Graves-Fulgham and Andre Roberson. Both are very quick and can cause trouble in Brandeis’ 2-2-1 press.
 Brandeis getting the kind of game from someone that Steve DeLuca had last season, when he had 30 points in a 10-point loss. Perhaps that will come from the top two scorers in DeLuca’s absence, forward Terrell Hollins and guard Joe Coppens, the latter of whom is shooting 48 percent from 3-point range.
 The matchups inside. With DeLuca out or limited due to injury, Amherst should have an edge in the paint with seniors Kevin Hopkins, Brandon Jones, Fletcher Walters and Matt Goldsmith. All four are at least 6-6, matching the height of Brandeis’ tallest starter, Stephen Hill (7.9 PPG).

Both teams got good tests recently, with Amherst struggling against both Western New England and MIT before finding ways to win both games. That makes Lord Jeffs coach David Hixon particularly eager for this matchup.
     
“We’ve gotta be smarter,” Hixon said. “I’m eager to find out what we can really do when we’re excited to be playing someone like Brandeis. If we can’t get ready for Brandeis, we can’t get ready for anybody.”

Rhode Island College at No. 16 Keene State: Early battle for supremacy in the Little East and the first of two meetings for a pair who split four games last season (RIC won the last two -- in the conference final and in the NCAA Tournament). Interesting scheduling gives RIC games against ranked foes on back-to-back days. They’ll travel to No. 21 Trinity on Friday night, than haul to Keene for this matchup the next day.

Women
Hardin-Simmons at No. 10 McMurry: A great rivalry that even extends to Posting Up, where if you link to Page 182, you’ll see a spirited (and civil) debate between folks who work at the two schools over what it takes to win at the national level. Speaking of posting up, good luck to HSU trying to stop McMurry center, Tarra Richardson, who is averaging 21.8 points this season.

FINAL FOUR: Quick thoughts on news and notes from around Division III.

1. If you have a little extra money to spare this holiday season, here’s a good cause worth supporting. UW-Platteville is encouraging its fans to donate money to the Grant County Cancer Coalition in honor of Brianna Klaas, a sophomore who averaged 8.8 points per game this season, but is currently undergoing cancer treatments, while still attending classes. Those interested in helping “Shoot a 3 for Bri” can go to this link to get the pledge form.

2. We have one to add to our assessment of surprise women’s unbeatens last week. Lebanon Valley is a program-best 8-0 after going 7-17 in each of the last two seasons. Granted, the strength of schedule is not overwhelming, but LVC did win by two at McDaniel, which is no easy task. The Flying Dutchwomen are having this success despite a starting lineup featuring four freshmen, with the early spark coming from Lori Lidlow, a 5-5 guard from Toms River, New Jersey, who is averaging 18.0 points per game. Another freshman, Shelly Lobach has good bloodlines. Her older sister is Messiah’s All-American candidate Nikki Lobach. “It’s going to take some time, but we are headed in the right direction.”  said second-year head coach Todd Goclowski, who previously took over a seven-win team at Curry and led them to 12 straight wins to start his second season there. “The team is excited about their start and motivated to keep getting better as the season progresses.  While our freshmen have had a great impact, it is the leadership of our two senior captains – Jenna Gambino and Donna Geiger – that have really positioned the team to achieve this early success.”

3. From the favorite names department, we add two: Kevin Wentworth, which would be no big deal but for that he plays at Wentworth Tech (Pat Coleman reminds me there was once a Baldwin-Wallace player named John Carroll) and, via Brandeis SID Adam Levin, who steered us to Rhode Island College forward Zerimar Ramirez. This might be the longest palindromic name in Division III. Zerimar (Ramirez spelled backwords) also has a brother named Leunam (pronounced “LAY-you-nom”), whose father Manuel reversed his name to give his son a rather unique moniker.

You could say that Zerimar is making a name for himself (pardon the pun) in the low post, with his nice touch around the basket. After transferring from Division II Dominican (N.Y.), Ramirez is averaging 5.8 points and 8.0 rebounds per game.

“Energetic, hardworking,” Ramirez said when asked to invent a definition for his first name. “A lot of people ask me about it, but I’ve only met two who figured it out on their own. It’s an interesting, creative name.”

4. Great note from Muhlenberg SID Mike Falk, who seems to find his way into this column at least once per season:

“Our top player, Lauren Boyle, was named Centennial Conference player of the week after scoring at least 20 points in three consecutive wins against Haverford, DeSales and Franklin & Marshall. But for her next game, Boyle had to leave early to attend her Landmarks of Modern Mathematics class, which meets at 7:15 Tuesday nights. Boyle played nine minutes, recording six points, two steals, a rebound and a block, and helped Muhlenberg to an early lead, then left (with her uniform still on) for class. The Mules held the lead without her in a 74-64 win vs. Swarthmore.

So I guess you could say that just as Dean Smith was the only one who could hold Michael Jordan under 20 points, Professor William Dunham was the only one who could hold Lauren Boyle under 20 points.”