buckets,

You should have read past the first few sentences.  It is a good story about D. J Marsh's difficult upbringing, and the help he has gotten from Ted Van Dellen and Ryan Kroeger, among others.  It was nice to read.  Thanks for the link.

The we/me issue in regard to UWO is interesting.  They do seem to always have conspicuously low assist numbers, even going back to their sweet sixteen and elite eight teams from a few years ago.  It seems to me that Van Dellen has a little different philosophy than some other coaches.  He seems to really encourage his players to shoot when they make a move to the basket.  I guess the idea is if the player is fully committed to shooting, he is increasing his chances of scoring, as opposed to being in two minds between pass and shoot.  Personally, I would rather see them look to pass more.  Stevens Point does such a good job passing.  When you can put five players on the floor, like they do, who are all a legitimate threat to shoot a perimeter jumper, drive and shoot, or drive and dish, that is especially difficult to defend.

In order to see if there are numbers to back that up, I calculated Oshkosh's assists/baskets ratio (including 2 and 3 point baskets).

2002 - 44% - sweet 16
2003 - 43% - elite 8
2004 - 46 %
2005 - 47%
2006 - 43%
2007 - 42%
2008 - 35%
2009 - 41%

Expecting to see a big difference, I did the same for Point.

2002 - 49%
2003 - 46%
2004 - 46% - national champions
2005 - 47% - national champions
2006 - 44%
2007 - 43%
2008 - 43%
2009 - 43%

Surprisingly, there isn't that big a difference.  The biggest outlier is last year for Oshkosh.  That probably had to do with having a point guard who might be the best shooter in school history and this year's team is doing a better job of spreading the ball around.  As the statistics show, there is obviously a lot more to basketball than statistics.  I still wish the titans would pass the ball more like the pointers do.

Unfortunately for UWO, high school basketball has been king in the city of Oshkosh for a long time.  Last year I was at the North vs. West game played at Kolf and it was nearly a capacity crowd.  The atmosphere was unbelievable.  There are also huge crowds every year at Kolf for the high school sectional they have there.  As a long time UWO fan, it makes me jealous wishing the titan's games could be like that.  It will take something like contending for a national championship before the locals and students turn out in those kind of numbers though.  The precedent is there.  I was at the D3 final four at Kolf when the Oshkosh women won their national championship, and they had nearly 5,000 both nights.

My theory on why T2K version 2.0 has an ax to grind with TVD is, T2K settled into a good spot on Lake Winnebago a bunch of years ago to do some ice fishing, and some rude usher made him move because that spot was reserved for Ted.

For sake of argument, here are my thoughts on the league's coaches.  In my mind there are two factors in judging D3 coaches: equal parts recruiting and coaching.  Based on their results to this point in their WIAC careers and predicting how they will do in the future, and using Bo Ryan as a benchmark of a perfect 20 + 20 = 40, here are the official mab ratings.

Name                       Recruiting     Coaching      Total

Semling                   18                  17                 35
Miller                        18                  15                 33
Van Dellen               17                  15                 32
Combs                      15                 15                 30
Gibbons                   13                  15                 28
Koelbl                      13                   14                 27
Buchanan                13                  12                  25
Berkhof                    10                  12                 22
Andrist                     11                  10                 21

It looks like my main recruiting source is more an indication of who is considering going to UWO than planning on going there.  WISHOOPS.com is reporting Aris Wurtz from Waupun is going to Ripon instead of UWO.  Now the only high school player I know of who has made a firm commitment is John Flanigan from Oshkosh North.

I haven't seen anything official, but from doing some internet snooping, it looks like at least the following players are going to UWO:

   Aris Wurtz         6-3   G   Waupun
   John Flanigan      6-5   F   Oshkosh North
   Alex Mittelstaedt      6-6   F   Berlin

And Possibly:

   Bryan Johnson      6-2   G   Randolph
   Kyle Jones         6-4   G   East Troy

That is in addition to the transfers:  Dan Tillema, Steven Waudby and John Henney.  From looking at the WIAC handbook, it looks like Henney will be eligible to play next season.  I thought players had to sit out a year if they transfer intraconference, but the handbook says that is only the case if the player has played more than one year at the previous school.

Mr. Downtown, is there any inside scoop on for sure recruits you can give us?

For St. John's fans who haven't heard this already, wissports.net is reporting that Max McHugh from Green Bay(WI) Notre Dame is going to attend St. John's and play basketball.  Here are a couple related links.

http://www.wissports.net/sports/hoopsb/article.asp?nid=14823

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071227/GPG020502/712270479

It looks like Ted Van Dellen doesn't agree with some of the posters here who think UWO's season has been disappointing.  Today's Oshkosh Daily Northwestern says:

Van Dellen said regardless of what happens in the tournament, his team has much to be proud about.  "They've come a long way," Van Dellen said.

OS - I agree 100% on everything you said about Marsh.  Defenses are definitely keying on him more now than they did early in the season, and TVD does seem to be focusing more on posting up DSA.  You'll notice in last night's box score that both those guys had four assists, many of which were to each other cutting in from the weak side when extra defenders went to the strong side.  That's something I would like to see them look for again on Monday, although TVD encourages his players to shoot when they get the ball in the lane.  Here are two other possible reasons for Marsh taking less shots lately.  First, his three point shooting has cooled off as the season has gone on.  When he makes threes, along with his ability to go to the hoop and score, he is much tougher to defend.  Second, I heard TVD say Marsh hurt his back in practice the day before the La Crosse game, I think it was.  It doesn't look like there is anything wrong with him, but that might be a factor.

I also agree that Matt Goodwin should be the player of the year the way he lead Whitewater down the stretch to a hard fought conference title.  A lot of times D1 transfers don't adjust well their first year in D3.  I thought he hurt his team in their game at UWO early in the year by chucking up some ill advised shots, just because of an itchy trigger finger.  It looks like he quickly got over that to do what is best for the team.  Give him and his coaches credit.  I would also vote for Pat Miller for coach of the year.  Dave Buchanan will get a lot of deserved support.  He definitely has something special started at Superior.  Smith and Hill are potential All-Americans with Manor and Culy fine players as well.  If they get a few more players like that Buchanan will get a coach of the year, along with a conference title, in the next few years.

Mr. DT-

My feeling is the problem is your placing unreasonably high expectations on them, and then being critical of them for not meeting your expectations.  For example, expecting them to win at Whitewater, and win the conference tournament.  For Oshkosh to be in a position at this point of the season to get the number one seed with two more wins is reason to believe they have already exceeded expectations.  Oshkosh finished second in the conference last year with a 12-4 record, but have only 45% of their minutes and 44% of their scoring back this year.  For perspective, Stevens Point finished first in the conference last year with a 15-1 record, and have 78% of their minutes and 74% of their scoring back this year.  At this point, anything more the Titans do this season is a bonus.  As a long time Titan fan, I hope they win every game, but I know better than to expect them to win championships in what reasonably should have been a struggle in a rebuilding year.

Does anyone know who the big guy in street clothes at the end of the UWO bench was?  I heard he is another transfer who will be eligible next year in addition to Dan Tillema.

It looks like Dan Tillema may have transferred to UWO from Minnesota-Duluth.  He was third team all state last year at Randolph, and was off to a good start this year at Duluth before leaving.  I believe he would be eligible to play right away for the Titans, but don't know if he will.  If he does play, that could be a big help the rest of this season and the next three.

We did get to see a new era in UWO basketball start last night with the debut of the new titan mascot.  I just hope taxpayers didn't have to pay a few hundred thousand dollars for the costume ... and lightning bolt.  I think that might have been titan2000 inside there. 

Also, I would have to respectfully disagree with Mr.Downtown about last nights game.  Platteville played with more intensity defensively than the titans have faced this year, especially in the first half(the possible exception being Augustana).  Then, for a period in the second half, Skemp turned into a dominating force on both ends of the court, and Oshkosh just doesn't have the horsepower to deal with that.  If Platteville plays with that same intensity on Saturday, I wouldn't be surprised to see them win at Point.  Skemp probably won't score as much as last night, because Point collapses into the paint when the ball goes in there more so than UWO does, but that will open up the perimeter game more, and Platteville has a lot of really good shooters.  That should be a great game, and it could have a big bearing on who finishes first and second at the end of the conference season.

I deleted my post linking to the A-T article because I regretted putting it on this forum.  I thought people would be interested in an ex-WIAC player getting to play professionally, not as an opportunity for them to make a personal attack on someone who is probably very homesick living in a foreign country and having a hard time making the adjustment.  He obviously hasn't learned you have to word your comments to the media very carefully to avoid this kind of attack.  I feel guilty for having caused it, and it was a stupid mistake I will never make here again.  As far as the article disappearing from the A-T website, you will have to talk to someone associated with that publication.  I have nothing to do with them.