MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Drake Palmer]

Congratulations UWSP!  Well played!

[Gregory Sager]

That team is seen as the best D-III team ever... and for good reason.

Oh? And who crowned them that?

Don't get me wrong, PS, your Kalsow/Bennett UWSP teams were fantastic. I had the privilege of seeing them play a couple of times, and I was extremely impressed. But "the best D3 team ever"? No. Here's a little history lesson for ya.

Pretty sure he meant this headline:

Nine out of 10 coaches agree

By Pat Coleman
Publisher, D3hoops.com

Quite simply, the 2003-04/2004-05 UW-Stevens Point men are the best Division III basketball team I've ever seen.

http://d3hoops.com/salem/05/wrapup.htm

There's a vast difference between saying that a team is the best you've ever seen, as Pat did, and saying that it is the best of all time. If PS is referring back to that article, he's misrepresenting Pat. In fact, here's the opening of Pat's article, and I've put the money quote in italics:

Quite simply, the 2003-04/2004-05 UW-Stevens Point men are the best Division III basketball team I've ever seen.

Elsewhere on the site we've devoted quite a bit of space to the greatest men's team in Division III basketball history, the 1978-79-80 North Park threepeat champions. And Potsdam State ran off a string of 60 consecutive wins in the mid-1980s. But having seen the greatest teams of the past decade, I feel confident that these Pointers belong on top.

I mean no disrespect whatsoever to the Kalsow/Bennett UWSP teams, or to the various UWP teams of the Bo Ryan era, the controversial Prop 48 Rowan team of 1995-96, or to the great Potsdam State teams of the mid-'80s (whom I also saw; North Park defeated Potsdam State in the 1985 championship game). Legendary teams all. Nothing I say should be interpreted as disrespect towards them. As I said, I saw those great UWSP teams a couple of times and was immensely impressed by them.

But there's only one team in D3 history that won three straight national championships; had four players drafted by the NBA (one of whom went on to play for the Portland Trailblazers, and another of whom was the last player cut in 1981 as a guard trying to make a Philadelphia 76ers team that had Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney, and Lionel Hollins in the backcourt and went on to lose to the Lakers in the NBA finals that year); and -- get this -- beat a D1 team the same season that said D1 team made the D1 tournament. And that team was the North Park Vikings of 1977-78, 1978-79, and 1979-80.

[badgerwarhawk]

Stevens Point was a very good team but the best DIII team of all time doesn't go 1-2 against us and fail to win it's conference championship.  JMO

[John Gleich]

Stevens Point was a very good team but the best DIII team of all time doesn't go 1-2 against us and fail to win it's conference championship.  JMO

I'm not saying this year's team is that team by any stretch of the imagination.  This team was very good, but they had weren't as good as 04-05.  

Point's tournament run echoed that of the '04-05 team. Unbeaten in non-conference games, lost their last conference game, won WIAC tourney as second seed, won NCAA tourney games (rnd 2 in '05, rnd 1-2 in '10)  at home and then the title.

I think the '04-05 team would top this years team in most match-ups. Hoelzel-Maas would be pretty much even; Hurd-J. Krull also even; N. Krull-Kalsow a big Kalsow advantage; Jenkins-Bennett to Bennett and Moses-Relerford/Hicklin to Moses. This years' bench would have the advantage and coaching to Bennett over Semling.

You're thinking of 03-04... we lost the last game of the year to Superior that kept us from the conference championship.  We lost the last game in 04-05 too at Oshkosh but still clinched a share of the title with Platteville (we were a game up going in and had clinched the game before).

That team is seen as the best D-III team ever... and for good reason.

Oh? And who crowned them that?

Don't get me wrong, PS, your Kalsow/Bennett UWSP teams were fantastic. I had the privilege of seeing them play a couple of times, and I was extremely impressed. But "the best D3 team ever"? No. Here's a little history lesson for ya.

Pretty sure he meant this headline:

Nine out of 10 coaches agree

By Pat Coleman
Publisher, D3hoops.com

Quite simply, the 2003-04/2004-05 UW-Stevens Point men are the best Division III basketball team I've ever seen.

http://d3hoops.com/salem/05/wrapup.htm


I guess that pre-D3hoops.com the clear winner is North Park and after that would be UWSP. Somehow, somewhere, however, the '98-99 Platteville program needs to be recognized as well, in fact, they were the team of the decade in the 90's.

Correct.  It makes for interesting discussion, but we'll never really know... it isn't like those NPC teams blew through their schedule for three years undefeated.  They did lose, as did Point.   One thing to note... those NPC teams were prior to the 3-point era so they were really playing a different game.  It isn't really possible to perceive how Point would be without the 3 point line in the same way that you can't really know how NPC would have been with the 3 point line.  They might have been better... but they might not have either.  That might not make sense to everyone, but I've seen teams shoot themselves out of games with striking regularity.  I'm not saying that NPC would necessarily do that... but I also can't say that they wouldn't.



I was kind of trying to avoid comparison of this year's team to teams of the past... because I don't want to take anything away from this team and their accomplishments this year!  It's easy to downplay a team and play up another with legend.  We're pitting a very real team that just finished playing its last game two days ago with a team of legend that had flaws but was able to overcome those... but of course the flaws aren't remembered.  Let's pick this discussion back up in July when we don't have anything else to talk about!

[Greek Tragedy]

Re: Ziemer.  i know I'm late to the party, but I'm sure he looked at the roster and saw that Krull, Hurd and Hoelzel will all be seniors next year, so it was best to take a year off and ''gain'' a year without playing behind those guys.   

[nescac1]

I wasn't around for the North Park teams (seems hard to argue against them), but I think the 1996 Rowan team was the best I've seen since I've been following D-3 hoops (since the mid-90's).  Actually, I'm not sure they were the best team per se (other contenders would be, in my view, the Plattesville teams, the 03-04 era Ephs, the 04-05 era Pointers, or the recent Wash U. juggernaut), but I am confident they had the most individual talent of any team.  I remember they had three players who were just flat-out nasty, two of whom simply couldn't be contained by any D-III level defender.  They beat a REALLY loaded Williams team and an even more loaded IWU team (wasn't that the team that lost something like four starters then still won a title the next year?) just to get to the title game. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

I wasn't around for the North Park teams (seems hard to argue against them), but I think the 1996 Rowan team was the best I've seen since I've been following D-3 hoops (since the mid-90's).  Actually, I'm not sure they were the best team per se (other contenders would be, in my view, the Plattesville teams, the 03-04 era Ephs, the 04-05 era Pointers, or the recent Wash U. juggernaut), but I am confident they had the most individual talent of any team.  I remember they had three players who were just flat-out nasty, two of whom simply couldn't be contained by any D-III level defender.  They beat a REALLY loaded Williams team and an even more loaded IWU team (wasn't that the team that lost something like four starters then still won a title the next year?) just to get to the title game. 

Good memory - I would've thought only a Titan fan would remember that!

Yes, Rowan beat IWU by a tip-in with under five seconds left to reach the final, and yes, IWU had four senior starters.  Coach Dennie Bridges wasn't sure whether to be bemused at callow youth or thrilled by the attitude when the sole remaining starter promised a national title the next year during the trip home!

It's a measure of how much good fortune is involved in tourneys that (IMO) the only title team was not even among the 5 best teams IWU has produced.  (I believe the 1970, 1996, 2006, and at least two of Jack Sikma's teams in the mid-late 70s were probably better - but none won a title.)

[Titan Q]

I wasn't around for the North Park teams (seems hard to argue against them), but I think the 1996 Rowan team was the best I've seen since I've been following D-3 hoops (since the mid-90's).  Actually, I'm not sure they were the best team per se (other contenders would be, in my view, the Plattesville teams, the 03-04 era Ephs, the 04-05 era Pointers, or the recent Wash U. juggernaut), but I am confident they had the most individual talent of any team.  I remember they had three players who were just flat-out nasty, two of whom simply couldn't be contained by any D-III level defender.  They beat a REALLY loaded Williams team and an even more loaded IWU team (wasn't that the team that lost something like four starters then still won a title the next year?) just to get to the title game.  

The 1996 Rowan team was the best Division III team I have ever seen.  (I was not around for the NPC 3-peat teams, but I was in Salem for the UW-SP 2004 & 2005 titles).  I think most view the '96 Rowan team with a huge asterik due to the NCAA loophole that allowed the team to be constructed the way it was.  Rowan not only had D1 transfers...they had kids who were D1 Prop 48, played their 3 allowable years in D1, then somehow got to play a final year in Division III (at Rowan).  Antwan Dasher from Fairleigh Dickinson was not only a good player at FDU...he was their 10th all-time leading scorer I believe (and did that in 3 years).  Demetrius Poles was a 6-10 beast who played 3 years at St. Joseph's.  Roscoe Harris played at freakin' Villanova.  (Can't remember who the 4th was.)  Amazingly, the one "homegrown" player among the stars was probably the best guy on the team - Terrence Stewart was just ridiculously good.

IWU lost to Rowan in the national semifinal on a kind of crazy tip in basket by 6-10 Poles.  Although they did not get a chance to play in the title game, I'd actually stack that 1996 Illinois Wesleyan team right with the 2004/2005 Stevens Point teams.  The Titans featured 6-7 junior small forward Bryan Crabtree (who went on to be the 1997 D3 POY), 6-6 All-American power forward Chris Simich, 6-7 senior post Jon Littwiller (who started for D1 Illinois State before transferring to IWU), and 6-7 sixth man Scott Peterson, a transfer from D1 Northern Illinois.  (IWU's JV team that year featured a group of kids who, along with Crabtree and freshman guard Korey Coon, helped IWU to the 1997 national title.  That 1996 IWU roster was loaded.)

I've always felt like in a perfect world, IWU and Hope would have gotten a chance to play for the national title in 1996.  But the D3 rules were what they were and Rowan won it fair and square.

[Titan Q]

It's a measure of how much good fortune is involved in tourneys that (IMO) the only title team was not even among the 5 best teams IWU has produced.  (I believe the 1970, 1996, 2006, and at least two of Jack Sikma's teams in the mid-late 70s were probably better - but none won a title.)

In the D3 era, most feel that IWU's 1988 team was its best.  That team lost in the Elite 8 @ Ohio Wesleyan.  IWU's point-guard was current head coach Ron Rose.  (I never saw that team play.)  I think most feel the 1996 team was 2nd best, and then the 1997 team (that won it) 3rd.  

Every longtime IWU fan I have talked to says there is no comparison between the Jack Sikma NAIA era teams and IWU's best D3 teams...the Sikma teams were on a totally different level.  In the same breath, those people tell me there is no comparison between North Park's 3-peat teams and, say, IWU's 1996 team...just no contest at all.  NPC was just on another level.  When I hear that it makes me feel confident that the NPC teams were better than the 2004 & 2005 UW-SP teams.

But yes, winning the title in D3 takes a lot more than just good players.  Playing on the road in the Sectionals can be very difficult.  In 1997, IWU got to play 4 home games before Salem, including 2 Sectional games against weak South Region teams (Bridgewater and Methodist I believe)...and won both in huge blowouts.  The last two Sectionals IWU has played in have been @ Lawrence in 2006 (then undefeated and #1-ranked) and then @ Stevens Point this year.  

[Mr. Ypsi]

It's a measure of how much good fortune is involved in tourneys that (IMO) the only title team was not even among the 5 best teams IWU has produced.  (I believe the 1970, 1996, 2006, and at least two of Jack Sikma's teams in the mid-late 70s were probably better - but none won a title.)

In the D3 era, most feel that IWU's 1988 team was its best.  That team lost in the Elite 8 @ Ohio Wesleyan.  IWU's point-guard was current head coach Ron Rose.  (I never saw that team play.)  I think most feel the 1996 team was 2nd best, and then the 1997 team (that won it) 3rd.  

Every longtime IWU fan I have talked to says there is no comparison between the Jack Sikma NAIA era teams and IWU's best D3 teams...the Sikma teams were on a totally different level.  In the same breath, those people tell me there is no comparison between North Park's 3-peat teams and, say, IWU's 1996 team...just no contest at all.  NPC was just on another level.  When I hear that it makes me feel confident that the NPC teams were better than the 2004 & 2005 UW-SP teams.

But yes, winning the title in D3 takes a lot more than just good players.  Playing on the road in the Sectionals can be very difficult.  In 1997, IWU got to play 4 home games before Salem, including 2 Sectional games against weak South Region teams (Bridgewater and Methodist I believe)...and won both in huge blowouts.  The last two Sectionals IWU has played in have been @ Lawrence in 2006 (then undefeated and #1-ranked) and then @ Stevens Point this year.  

Being after my time, but before d3hoops.com, I forgot about that 1988 team (even though Dennie Bridges raves about them in his book).  Being well before my time, I have no opinion on the only undefeated team IWU ever produced - the 1935-36 20-0 team starring captain Jack Horenberger!

[r.w. mcnickels]

I wasn't around for the North Park teams (seems hard to argue against them), but I think the 1996 Rowan team was the best I've seen since I've been following D-3 hoops (since the mid-90's).  Actually, I'm not sure they were the best team per se (other contenders would be, in my view, the Plattesville teams, the 03-04 era Ephs, the 04-05 era Pointers, or the recent Wash U. juggernaut), but I am confident they had the most individual talent of any team.  I remember they had three players who were just flat-out nasty, two of whom simply couldn't be contained by any D-III level defender.  They beat a REALLY loaded Williams team and an even more loaded IWU team (wasn't that the team that lost something like four starters then still won a title the next year?) just to get to the title game. 

The 1996 Rowan team was the best Division III team I have ever seen.  (I was not around for the NPC 3-peat teams, but I was in Salem for the UW-SP 2004 & 2005 titles).  I think most view the '96 Rowan team with a huge asterik due to the NCAA loophole that allowed the team to be constructed the way it was.  Rowan not only had D1 transfers...they had kids who were D1 Prop 48, played their 3 allowable years in D1, then somehow got to play a final year in Division III (at Rowan).  Antwan Dasher from Fairleigh Dickinson was not only a good player at FDU...he was their 10th all-time leading scorer I believe (and did that in 3 years).  Demetrius Poles was a 6-10 beast who played 3 years at St. Joseph's.  Roscoe Harris played at freakin' Villanova.  (Can't remember who the 4th was.)  Amazingly, the one "homegrown" player among the stars was probably the best guy on the team - Terrence Stewart was just ridiculously good.

IWU lost to Rowan in the national semifinal on a kind of crazy tip in basket by 6-10 Poles.  Although they did not get a chance to play in the title game, I'd actually stack that 1996 Illinois Wesleyan team right with the 2004/2005 Stevens Point teams.  The Titans featured 6-7 junior small forward Bryan Crabtree (who went on to be the 1997 D3 POY), 6-6 All-American power forward Chris Simich, 6-7 senior post Jon Littwiller (who started for D1 Illinois State before transferring to IWU), and 6-7 sixth man Scott Peterson, a transfer from D1 Northern Illinois.  (IWU's JV team that year featured a group of kids who, along with Crabtree and freshman guard Korey Coon, helped IWU to the 1997 national title.  That 1996 IWU roster was loaded.)

I've always felt like in a perfect world, IWU and Hope would have gotten a chance to play for the national title in 1996.  But the D3 rules were what they were and Rowan won it fair and square.

I saw that incredible Rowan-IWU game in Salem. Always thought the '96 Titans were the best D-III team I've seen (or, at least the best one without D-I Prop 48 players). I didn't see the North Park or Stevens Point title teams, but IWU in 1996 was the best I've seen in person. Very skilled big guys who could score from all over the place, and as you say, a loaded roster.

[badgerwarhawk]

UW-WHITEWATER replaces floor in Kachel gymnasium.

http://www.royalpurplenews.com/basketball-floor-ready-for-facelift-1.1269895

[frodotwo]

I won WIAC Fantasy League, Pointers win Walnut & Bronze and I finish 8th in the D3 pick 'em. Got to hoist the Walnut & Bronze in Salem, OS forgot my FL trophy
Men's rank:
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[Gregory Sager]

That team is seen as the best D-III team ever... and for good reason.

Oh? And who crowned them that?

Don't get me wrong, PS, your Kalsow/Bennett UWSP teams were fantastic. I had the privilege of seeing them play a couple of times, and I was extremely impressed. But "the best D3 team ever"? No. Here's a little history lesson for ya.

Pretty sure he meant this headline:

Nine out of 10 coaches agree

By Pat Coleman
Publisher, D3hoops.com

Quite simply, the 2003-04/2004-05 UW-Stevens Point men are the best Division III basketball team I've ever seen.

http://d3hoops.com/salem/05/wrapup.htm


I guess that pre-D3hoops.com the clear winner is North Park and after that would be UWSP. Somehow, somewhere, however, the '98-99 Platteville program needs to be recognized as well, in fact, they were the team of the decade in the 90's.

Correct.  It makes for interesting discussion, but we'll never really know... it isn't like those NPC teams blew through their schedule for three years undefeated.  They did lose, as did Point.

True, as one would expect from two programs that play in leagues as strong and as competitive as the CCIW and the WIAC. (The CCIW hasn't had a team go undefeated in league play since Augustana went 16-0 in 1972-73.) However, North Park did win the CCIW all three seasons during the national-title threepeat, posting a cumulative CCIW record of 43-5 (.896). The Kalsow/Bennett UWSP repeat teams, by contrast, finished second to UWRF in '04 and tied with UW-Platteville for the league title in '05. Cumulatively, they went 24-8 (.750) in WIAC play, although if you add in their cumulative 6-0 record in the '04 and '05 WIAC tourneys they went 30-8 (.789).

North Park did not lose to a non-CCIW D3 team during the threepeat era. All of NPC's losses out of the circuit were at the hands of scholarship teams; Vikings head coach Dan McCarrell deliberately scheduled more games against D1 and D2 teams during that era than was the norm for the Park. The cumulative record of the Vikings during the threepeat was 83-10 (.892). The cumulative record of the repeat UWSP teams was 58-8 (.879).

One thing to note... those NPC teams were prior to the 3-point era so they were really playing a different game.  It isn't really possible to perceive how Point would be without the 3 point line in the same way that you can't really know how NPC would have been with the 3 point line.  They might have been better... but they might not have either.  That might not make sense to everyone, but I've seen teams shoot themselves out of games with striking regularity.  I'm not saying that NPC would necessarily do that... but I also can't say that they wouldn't.

Ah, but I can know how the threepeat Vikings would've been with the three-point line. The Vikings had three players who could and did hit twenty-foot jumpers: All-American guards Michael Thomas and Modzel Greer, and sharpshooting small forward Grant Grastorf. With the three-point line in effect, opponents would have been put between a rock and a hard place to either spread out the defense and attack those three shooters, or to collapse upon the man widely regarded as the best D3 player in the country, 6'10 center Michael Harper, and take their chances against the trey. As tough as they were under then-current rules, the Vikings would've been unstoppable if the three-point line had been in effect.

I realize that as a North Park alumnus my credibility is likely as suspect where my alma mater is concerned as PS's is regarding UWSP or as the Wesleyan alums are regarding IWU. But I was a North Park student during the threepeat era, and I can say without a moment's hesitation that the Harper/Greer/Thomas NPC teams were better than the Kalsow/Bennett UWSP teams, hands-down, with or without the three-point line.

It's a measure of how much good fortune is involved in tourneys that (IMO) the only title team was not even among the 5 best teams IWU has produced.  (I believe the 1970, 1996, 2006, and at least two of Jack Sikma's teams in the mid-late 70s were probably better - but none won a title.)

In the D3 era, most feel that IWU's 1988 team was its best.  That team lost in the Elite 8 @ Ohio Wesleyan.  IWU's point-guard was current head coach Ron Rose.  (I never saw that team play.)  I think most feel the 1996 team was 2nd best, and then the 1997 team (that won it) 3rd.

Having seen all three IWU teams in question, I would concur with that.

Every longtime IWU fan I have talked to says there is no comparison between the Jack Sikma NAIA era teams and IWU's best D3 teams...the Sikma teams were on a totally different level.  In the same breath, those people tell me there is no comparison between North Park's 3-peat teams and, say, IWU's 1996 team...just no contest at all.  NPC was just on another level.  When I hear that it makes me feel confident that the NPC teams were better than the 2004 & 2005 UW-SP teams.

But yes, winning the title in D3 takes a lot more than just good players.  Playing on the road in the Sectionals can be very difficult.  In 1997, IWU got to play 4 home games before Salem, including 2 Sectional games against weak South Region teams (Bridgewater and Methodist I believe)...and won both in huge blowouts.  The last two Sectionals IWU has played in have been @ Lawrence in 2006 (then undefeated and #1-ranked) and then @ Stevens Point this year.  

True, and it's notable as well that almost every national championship team has at least one very close game en route to cutting down the nets and hoisting the Big Doorstop, as UWSP had this year against Carleton in the first round. Sometimes a little luck is involved as well -- although usually not enough to make anyone question the proven supremacy of the champion. The '94 Lebanon Valley team might be an exception, as NYU fans are still howling over what they viewed as a bad call in their overtime loss to the Flying Dutchmen in the national championship game. Come to think of it, IWU fans are still griping about the reffing in the Titans' 106-103 loss in the Elite Eight game to eventual national champs Ohio Wesleyan in '88, and I can remember a couple of Longwood students who paraded around Augustana's Carver Center before the '80 national championship game with a sign that said that the refs from the previous night's semifinal contest between the Lancers and North Park had presided over "the rape of Longwood" (NPC's backup center Keith French blocked a would-be game-tying shot by the Lancers at the buzzer that the refs called clean).

I've respected Hampden-Sydney fans ever since the title game in '99, because I don't remember any of them making excuses about bad calls or no-calls following their team's heartbreaking one-point loss in double overtime to UW-Platteville. If any situation had ever been ripe for excuse-making, it was that one -- and yet the HSC fans all took the high road here in the d3hoops.com chat rooms. (At least, that's how I remember it.)

[Pat Coleman]

FWIW, Greg, I think it's fair to call it officially a bad call. Did you see the video?