WBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletics Association

[GoKnights68]

The Hope women's radio announcer is what defines a homer.

[oldknight]

Congratulations to the Lady Dutch on their new banner. Now you do have extras.   

[albinomascot19]

I also would like to congratulate the Hope Flying Dutch on a well played season, topped off by winning the NCAA DIII National Championship.  I knew they would pull through.  They played magnificently all season long.  I applaud the ladies for their efforts.   8)  

   

[Dutchfan]

ongrats to the Women on winning the national championship and Congrats to Bri on the MVP.

[Dark Knight]

Congrats to the Flying Dutch on an outstanding season.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Just getting ready to hit the road for home - I guess I slept last night, but still on cloud nine.  That was an absolutely amazing day! - I just saw the score go by on the ESPN ticker!!! - There is nothing that compares to cheering your team to a national championship.  What a GREAT team.  The Coach of Southern Maine was quoted as saying that this is the best DIII team he has seen in a long time, and one he feels could beat some DI teams.  I agree.

The run this team made is just amazing!  Not only beating numbers 1,2,3,4,10, and 17, but also beating 5 D3hoops all-Americans.  I gotta believe that is the most impressive run ever.

The fans were awesome again.  The students even got us old guys to do the stretching with them in pre-game, we did the "who-cares" and more.  The SMU fans were chanting "we're #1" about 20 minutes before the game, and it was really sweet to be a ble to echo that back to them about 2 hours later.

[tniem]

The Hope women's radio announcer is what defines a homer.

Yeah, he is about unbearable to listen to at times.  He is yelling so much that I cannot even understand if something good or bad happened.  You need rewind.  Usually he has done the women's games and the commentator has done the men's (when the station has run both games in an evening).  It would have been nice to have the usual, more even keel announcer.

[AndersDY]

I definitely think you'd be hard pressed to find a more difficult road any men's or women's D3 team has taken to a national title. In their last 4 games, they beat 1-4 in the last D3hoops poll. That also meant they beat every single team with any first place votes in that poll. They won 0 games at their shiny new home court advantage. One of those top 4 was beaten in their home gym, and the last two were certainly located closer to the arena in Massachusetts than Hope. While in Springfield, someone found an NCAA paper previewing the upcoming tourney which mentioned 5 potential contenders to watch in both the men's and women's brackets: one of those contenders on the women's side is still standing after beating the other 4 in consecutive games. The Flying Dutch must feel like they're ready for anyone else that could possibly be thrown at them, if there were any contenders left.

Scranton and USM brought two extremely tough teams out there. I'm surprised that Marble, Myles, and Mellody were not all first team AAs. Good fans and great games all weekend. What a way to end the season.

For those that didn't get to make it, see how it all ended:
http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=rsaseh

[hope1]

that was cool   


the team lands at tulip city airport at  2.30  today   lets go out and greet them

[sac]

A little tidbit............Hope's largest deficit during the tournament against said teams was 4 points.

Four!

Thats awesome.

[sac]

Cool video Andersdy, thanks.

Chills, definately. 

[mark_reichert]

The Coach of Southern Maine was quoted as saying that this is the best DIII team he has seen in a long time, and one he feels could beat some DI teams. I agree.

The run this team made is just amazing! Not only beating numbers 1,2,3,4,10, and 17, but also beating 5 D3hoops all-Americans. I gotta believe that is the most impressive run ever.

Fifield has a short memory.

http://d3hoops.com/danbury/00/washuwins.html

Washington U. 79, Southern Maine 33
Washington U. 64, Scranton 30
Washington U. 86, Baldwin-Wallace 71
Washington U. 81, UW-Eau Claire 63
Washington U. 67, UW-Oshkosh 46

Granted this was the only time WashU hosted a sectional in the last decade at least, but Eau Claire was #2 and Baldwin-Wallaces was #3.

[mark_reichert]

I definitely think you'd be hard pressed to find a more difficult road any men's or women's D3 team has taken to a national title. 

For those that didn't get to make it, see how it all ended:
http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=rsaseh

Where'd you get the video?  I'd be more interested in the 25th Anniversary team ceremony.

I know it seems like I'm trying to rain on the parade, but I just like intellectual honesty.  Another tough run that might compare:

http://www.d3hoops.com/danbury/wtitle98.htm

I half remembered this bit before I went looking:
Quote:
On the way to the title, the Bears, who finished the season with a school-record 28-2 ledger, twice defeated defending NCAA champion NYU to win the University Athletic Association (UAA) title. Then the Bears had to open the NCAA tournament by knocking off the nation's only unbeaten team (Millikin); defeat the top-ranked team in the country (Wisconsin-Oshkosh) on the way to the semifinals; and then pull off their biggest win of the year by beating Southern Maine on its home floor.

Washington U. became only the second team in the 17-year history of the tournament to defeat the host school on its own floor in the title game.

End Quote

Second and last since the tournament started using a neutral site the following year.

The scores were

Washington U. 77, Southern Maine 69
Washington U. 66, Rowan 51
Washington U. 53, Wisconsin-Oshkosh 45
Washington U. 82, Bridgewater 36
Washington U. 66, Millikin 54

[gordonmann]

Mark:

I don't think Coach Fifield has a short memory.  Here's the full quote as posted in our Hope feature available off the front page.

"We got beat as good a team as I've seen in Division III," said Southern Maine head coach Gary Fifield. "They were every good as bit as those Washington University teams."

Since I only saw one of the Wash U title teams (2001), I won't try to compare Hope with the one you raised.  But I don't think you can undersell how good this Hope team was.

[northb]

Where'd you get the video?  I'd be more interested in the 25th Anniversary team ceremony.

I know it seems like I'm trying to rain on the parade, but I just like intellectual honesty.  Another tough run that might compare:

Then DON"T rain on the parade.  Yeesh!

Intellectual Honesty would require that you transport Wash U through time to play this team.  Otherwise, it is a mute point.