WBB: Northwest Conference

[BruinFan]

George Fox takes care of business and represents the Northwest Conference with another victory.
This makes the 4th time in 7 years that the NWC has a team in the championship game. Here are the conferences by total appearances in the final with the year. (going back to 2009)

NWC (2009, 2012, 2014,2015)
UAA (2009, 2010, 2011)
MIAA (2010)
NESCAC (2011)
CCIW (2012)
NCAC (2013)
MACF (2014)
PAC (2015)

[mkt]

It's interesting that the only conference which comes close to the NWC on that list is the UAA, which consists of schools which are very non-Division 3-ish in nature.  Instead of the small colleges which typify much of Division 3, the UAA consists of research universities, typically with enrollments of around 10,000 students and endowments of billions of dollars.  Although they have to comply with the same rules prohibiting athletic scholarships that the other Div 3 schools do, one would have to think they have resource advantages in terms of hiring coaches, facilities, travel, etc. 

The Bruins' buzzsaw defense was predictably key in the semifinal game.  Almost as predictably their offense was not overwhelming but was good enough.  I was a bit surprised at their rebounding dominance. 

The championship game will for the first time feature two undefeated teams.  I know nothing about Thomas More but they are clearly a strong team.  Good luck to the Bruins and the NWC!

[BruinFan]

It's interesting that the only conference which comes close to the NWC on that list is the UAA, which consists of schools which are very non-Division 3-ish in nature.  Instead of the small colleges which typify much of Division 3, the UAA consists of research universities, typically with enrollments of around 10,000 students and endowments of billions of dollars.  Although they have to comply with the same rules prohibiting athletic scholarships that the other Div 3 schools do, one would have to think they have resource advantages in terms of hiring coaches, facilities, travel, etc. 

The Bruins' buzzsaw defense was predictably key in the semifinal game.  Almost as predictably their offense was not overwhelming but was good enough.  I was a bit surprised at their rebounding dominance. 

The championship game will for the first time feature two undefeated teams.  I know nothing about Thomas More but they are clearly a strong team.  Good luck to the Bruins and the NWC!

Washington University (St.Louis) is the UAA school that made it those three years. There was a run by WashU around 1999/2000 where they won the National Championship four years in a row.

[gordonmann]

Yep, Wash U. was an unstoppable juggernaut back in the day. They won four straight titles from 1998-2000.

http://www.d3hoops.com/archives/index

[D O.C.]

Good job Foxes.
Got to play flawless to beat a #1 team.

[mkt]

Thomas More was certainly a very tough team.  The Bruins defense to some extent did its usual job, pressuring Thomas More into 24 turnovers (which rather interestingly was not a season high; they had 27 turnovers against Cabrini in a close game).  But aside from that Thomas More was able to both get some good shots and more importantly make them at a high rate. 

In contrast George Fox shot rather poorly.  The Bruins' strength all along was more in their defense than in their offense, but the offense seemed to especially desert them this game.  I though Benner and Codling looked tentative offensively, missing shots when pressured and committing turnovers.  Even the Bruins' free throw shooting seemed to be affected.  Nerves?  Perhaps, OTOH Naulai did not look tentative -- yet was also one of the players who missed free throws and committed turnovers. 

And then, rebounding.  Thomas More out-rebounded George Fox by even more than their usual margin; again even though George Fox was not a powerhouse rebounding team I would not have expected them to get beat on the boards so badly.

If I had to make an evaluation, I would guess that this year's George Fox squad was not blessed with huge amounts of high level talent and athleticism.  What they did have was extremely good team play (especially defensively, obviously) plus excellent depth.  That got them to 32-0.  But when they faced a really top team, Thomas More's offense could still deliver (after getting past the turnovers that the Bruins caused) whereas the Bruins faltered.  And roster depth can only help a certain amount in a single tournament game; there can only be five players on the court and 40 minutes in the game.  Conversely a player such as Moss can carry a team for a single game.  (Not that Thomas More was all Moss; Owings in particular looked amazing for a freshman PG, and Santamaria and even Huber shot amazingly.  Kiernan scored 16 points in 16 minutes but I think much of that was due to her teammates drawing the defenders, leaving Kiernan open.)

In short the Bruins could've performed better, but it is clear who the #1 team  is.

[catmac567]

Linfield College is now searching for a new women's basketball coach. Robin Potera-Haskins submitted her resignation as women's basketball coach and physical education professor effective immediately.  Apparently she wants to pursue other opportunities.
It will be interesting to see who they might attract, given the lack of support from the administration (athletic and college) for basketball (both mens & womens) or any sport
that is not football or baseball. I would guess the new coach will have a teaching load as well as coaching. I would not consider this a very desirable position.  Glad to see she is gone, frankly, she should never have been hired after her termination from Montana State.

[80sshorts]

If Linfield is smart they'll find a way to pry away Casey Kushiyama from Whitman College. He's an excellent coach who knows the NWC well and has been part of success at three different schools within the conference. They were crazy enough to let him get away in 2010 after guiding them steadily through a very cloudy year. If they can find a way to bring him back, Linfield will be contending for one of the top 4 seeds in the Northwest Conference much sooner than later.

[Pat Coleman]

Linfield College is now searching for a new women's basketball coach. Robin Potera-Haskins submitted her resignation as women's basketball coach and physical education professor effective immediately.  Apparently she wants to pursue other opportunities.

Lot of entries on that resume.

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Would like to see Linfield find a coach with a proven track record of on-court success either at the high school or college level.  Someone like Mike Meeks who was at Southridge High School prior to taking over at George Fox.  I'm not sure who would be interested in the position but I'd expect a number of applicants given that there are only so many head coaching opportunities available each year.

I'd be interested to hear the scuttlebutt on why she is leaving in such a sudden manner.  In the 25 years that I've been associated with Linfield I don't know if we have ever had a top 3 NWC team on the women's side.  Has it been that the coaches have not been good choices or is there simply no support for the program (meaning that they look to hire coaches who aren't going to rock the status quo...i.e. football and baseball)? Softball has done very well although the head coach for that is also the football DC.

There is no reason that we can't have a very good women's team.  The academic standards aren't as much of a barrier as at other NWC schools.  Nor is the cost of Linfield. The facilities are great.

[gordonmann]

I was curious about the same thing regarding Linfield's program.

According to our conference guidebook, the Wildcats have never won the NWC in women's basketball and made the NCAA tournament once, back in 2000.  They finished 12-4 in conference and tied for third but the NWC put four teams in the NCAA tournament that year. George Fox beat Linfield in the first round and eventually lost to St. Thomas in the Sweet 16.

Since 2000 Linfield has finished over .500 in conference just once, at 9-7 in 2007.

[catmac567]

Very interesting article in the April 13 edition of the Linfield Review about Robin Potera-Haskins resignation as women's basketball coach.  From the tone of the article, it could be interpreted that she was given encouragement to resign. 
"Two years ago the coach was the subject of a NCAA investigation. 'I can see why there was an investigation because that was the year we were practicing the most, but it wasn't even in the heart of the season when there were even more problems. That investigation caused more problems on our team than it was worth, especially because the NCAA never even found anything', a senior and former member of the team said."   

There are several more statements from former team members, with not so positive statements about her coaching style. I find it telling that no names are given in the article.   It appears that Coach Potera-Haskins came very close to going over the line as to what might constitute abuse.   It is sad that the powers that be chose to hire her, even with the reputation she brought after her experience at Montana State. Then again, no one has ever said that the Athletic Administrators at Linfield were another Albert Einstein.

[catmac567]

Linfield College has hired Casey Bunn as women's basketball coach.  She was girls varsity basketball coach at Tualatin High School, and played collegiately at Oregon State University.
She appears to be very qualified, and I hope for the best for women's basketball at Linfield under her leadership.

[cawcdad]

Last night I saw why the George Fox women are ranked #4 in the country as they beat a pretty fair UC Santa Cruz squad 78-60. I am still out of breath as the Bruins play a very up tempo game flying all over the court on offense and have a very smothering full court defense. They will go inside on you and they hit a ton from beyond the arc. They never slow down. I'm interested to see how far this group will go.
Images at http://blog.d3photography.com/2015/11/slideshow-women-s-basketball-uc-santa-cruz-vs-george-fox-november-28-2015/

[mkt]

Thanks, I've been hoping for some pre-season and early-season reports.  Yes, George Fox looks ready to rampage through their schedule again.

In Div 3, so far I've only seen Whitman's visit to Warner Pacific College.  Whitman won fairly easily, but I don't know how good Warner Pacific is; they play NAIA Div II, started this season 0-3 -- but against three NCAA Div I teams -- and have won all of their games since, except for the Whitman game.  Which suggests they're pretty good at least in the NAIA, but currently the NAIA poll has them only 4th in their conference.

Whitman's players all seemed to range from 5'8" to 5'10".  That can be advantageous with their usual hustling athletic defense because they can do a lot of switching without creating mismatches.  But I think a lack of size will hurt them when they face high quality D3 teams.  Hailey Ann Maeda had a strong game scoring-wise, but scored most of her points on drives rather than with post moves.

My early guess is that Whitman's players have developed enough from last year to make up for the loss of Heather Johns (and Lovelace), but not more than that.  So a good team, but not one destined for the NCAA tournament.  But we'll see.