MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

Really nice job by the short-handed Titans last night.  Wasn't always pretty, but I was really impressed with the overall effort.

IWU's depth is great.  6-8 freshman Nick Roper looked great, and sophomore Grant Taueg and Evan Schneider did nice job too.

[Gregory Sager]

Or start with a positive statement such as, "You have assembled the most racially diverse squad in the history of Wheaton basketball.  Thank you."

Or, be inquisitive, "How many times have you had to counsel Prince Ako against joining the Thunder football team?"

Best laugh I've had in a long time. Thanks, Mark!

[GoPerry]

Mike Schauer gave about as short of a postgame interview as I've ever seen from him. Can't blame him one bit.

Yes - Mike was in no mood for a "what can you take from this loss?" sort of question.  At least he still came over.

To be fair to the Wheaton student broadcasters, that's an extremely tough situation for them to be in. I should know; I've been in their shoes before. You have a preset agreement to interview the coach after the game, the coach shows up to the mic after a very tough home loss to a team he (and everybody else) expected to beat, and you're left trying to think of a non-inflammatory yet still journalistically relevant opening question to ask a man who practically has steam coming out of his ears like a cartoon character.

"What can you take from this loss?" is about as safe a gambit as an interviewer can take in that situation, because it directs the incipient conversation into future mode and it gives the coach both some options in terms of how he wants to reply and, because it means that he's going to have to rummage through his brain to think about how he's going to approach the next few practices and think about how his next opponent is going to prepare, it's an opportunity for him to pause a bit and collect himself. Basically, it's the interviewer offering a gift to the coach. It allows him to sidestep the chance that he might blow his gasket and say something that he regrets.

I've opened with the "What can you take from this loss?" gambit as well, and I've gotten my ears pinned back for asking it. Doesn't matter. Better that the coach make some snide reply to me for asking it than to just give him the interrogative equivalent of an open mic while he's still hot under the collar, and thereby run the risk of his saying something about his team that he can't take back.

You've gotta be able to read the situation and read the coach. I don't know if the Wheaton guys thought it out like that, but if it was me I'd ask the exact same question that they did.

I understand your points and yes, it would not be a situation any post game interviewer would relish.  In some ways, the way other teams do it – take a break and the coach joins roughly 5-10 mins after, gives everyone time to reflect a little more about questions and answers.  On the other hand, having the interview literally 30 secs after the final buzzer can often bring more transparent, genuine and meaningful insights. 

I think you can get away with more GS because you're a veteran and have earned the right to ask whatever.  To answer your question, I'm not so sure the students do give much thought about the post game interview and how they want it to go, the situational awareness you describe.  Some student announcers are better than others.  But the off the cuff half time or post game interview is always tough.  In fact, on TV some of the questions the sideline reporters ask on the field or court can be real head scratchers too.

Brett Marhanka almost always does a video interview with Mike later for the website, but only after wins.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I think the natural instinct is to try and soften the loss by asking a positive question "what can you learn," but I've found that, especially at high quality, high expectation institutions, like Wheaton, just a simple, "What went wrong, coach" gives them an opportunity to say what they're thinking anyway.  Those coaches are doing nothing but going over all the mistakes and weaknesses they saw out there, so it's almost worse for them to try and shift gears to answer a positive question.

That's a difficult thing to learn and probably more than you expect from a student broadcaster.  Some of it just comes from age.  Before I felt like a peer to a lot of these coaches, it was difficult to think I could even ask a question about strategy or execution, simply because it didn't feel like I had the standing.

The other option is choosing something specific, with an either/or answer.  "You shot 34% from the floor tonight, was that bad luck or poor shot selection?"

I mean, I still (at least so far) have completely bungled the first question of the first press conference at the Final Four every single year I've been there.

[iwu70]

Q, yes, I was impressed with Grant Taueg last night, too.  He looks to be a very good defender, perhaps taking some tips from Lambesis.  When he hit a key shot from the corner last night, all the Titan bench erupted in support . . . basically, saying "welcome to the party!"  Roper really has some nice length and also a quick first step, seems to know the offense very well.  He played well, hit some key shots, too. 

Let's hope we can keep more covid protocol disruptions at bay . . .

'70

[Gregory Sager]

I understand your points and yes, it would not be a situation any post game interviewer would relish.  In some ways, the way other teams do it – take a break and the coach joins roughly 5-10 mins after, gives everyone time to reflect a little more about questions and answers.  On the other hand, having the interview literally 30 secs after the final buzzer can often bring more transparent, genuine and meaningful insights.

I think that, by and large, a little space for reflection is generally a good thing. That's why I think Wheaton does it right by having Brett interview the school's head coaches well after the games have been played, in addition to the postgame interview. It doesn't always mean that a coach will cool down by then, though, although that's generally true. Everybody is different; some coaches can switch it on when a game starts and switch it off when a game ends, while other coaches walk around for months living with bad losses like they were kidney stones.

I think you can get away with more GS because you're a veteran and have earned the right to ask whatever.

I think it's probably more a matter of intimidation. I can only imagine how freaked out I would've been as a 20-year-old to stick a microphone in Dan McCarrell's face after a North Park basketball game to ask him why he sat his All-American forward Justyne Monegain for so long in the second half, or how he was going to game-plan to stop Stunning Wayne Dunning when Millikin came to the crackerbox that upcoming Saturday. I mean, to us NPC students Dan McCarrell was a cross between an Old Testament prophet and General George S. Patton. Some questions that the WTSN broadcasters ask Mike Schauer in postgame interviews -- not all of them, of course, but some of them -- are pretty vacuous, and I chalk that up to nervousness rather than unpreparedness or a low basketball IQ. Mike's a pretty low-key guy when he's not in coach mode, but when he is in coach mode his special brand of intensity must be frightening to a callow post-adolescent conducting a live interview.

To answer your question, I'm not so sure the students do give much thought about the post game interview and how they want it to go, the situational awareness you describe.  Some student announcers are better than others.  But the off the cuff half time or post game interview is always tough.  In fact, on TV some of the questions the sideline reporters ask on the field or court can be real head scratchers too.

I've gotten the sense that when we talk about student broadcasters on d3boards.com I can come off as being too hard on them. I want to dispel that impression. Yeah, I don't like it when they goof off on the air or don't do their homework or get distracted when they should be focused upon the action, but at the same time announcing a game and/or giving a live interview after a game ain't child's play. I respect the fact that they're putting themselves out there in public and giving forth the effort, and I want to cut them some slack when they're called upon to stick a mic in the face of an angry coach who is furious that his team just lost a game that it wasn't supposed to lose.

I think the natural instinct is to try and soften the loss by asking a positive question "what can you learn," but I've found that, especially at high quality, high expectation institutions, like Wheaton, just a simple, "What went wrong, coach" gives them an opportunity to say what they're thinking anyway.  Those coaches are doing nothing but going over all the mistakes and weaknesses they saw out there, so it's almost worse for them to try and shift gears to answer a positive question.

I don't really think it has anything to do with the program itself. I think it's more a matter of the coach's demeanor. Mike Schauer is a blunt and preternaturally honest person, and you have to tailor your questions around the fact that you might get an unexpected or uncomfortable response to a question that you might've thought was a softball. Fortunately, Mike knows himself well enough so that he'll walk away from the interview if he knows he's liable to say something he'll regret, which I'm pretty sure is what happened last night when he abruptly walked away from the student interviewer after uttering only a couple of sentences in response to, "What can you take from this loss?" It looked rude, but Mike was actually doing the interviewer a courtesy ... as well as protecting his job security.

That's a difficult thing to learn and probably more than you expect from a student broadcaster.  Some of it just comes from age.  Before I felt like a peer to a lot of these coaches, it was difficult to think I could even ask a question about strategy or execution, simply because it didn't feel like I had the standing.

Yep, exactly. Another aspect of it is knowing the coach. Most student broadcasters, I would imagine, don't have much exposure to the head coach and probably don't know him 1/100th as well as his players do. When you're a permanent presence behind the mic you can not only feel more secure about your job, but you also get to know the coaches and develop a rapport with them. To which:

The other option is choosing something specific, with an either/or answer.  "You shot 34% from the floor tonight, was that bad luck or poor shot selection?"

... can very much be dependent upon that rapport. If a coach just took a bad loss and is itching to get into the locker room where he can safely go into a screaming rage at his team behind closed doors, and you're just some kid in a school-radio-station polo who is getting in his way before he can go do that, he may give you the kind of terse two- or three-word answer that an either/or question allows him to offer. But if you've known the coach for a long time and he's more of an adult peer than an authority figure, he'll be more likely to realize that you're just doing your job and he'll give you a good answer. To me, the best example of that is John Weiser at Carthage. Now, I know that he has aggravated Wheaton fans because he has continually botched the pronunciation of Nyameye Adom's name, but John is quite fearless in asking difficult questions of Firebirds head coaches after tough losses, and I respect him for that. Part of it is the sympathetic, commiserating tone in his voice when he asks those questions, because the coaches know full well that he's a diehard Firebirds fan as well as their broadcaster. But he also knows the game and is adept at observing what's going on as the game unfolds, so his questions are on-point and they respond in kind. He also establishes a good rapport with each of them so that they feel comfortable responding to him in those unpleasant situations -- well, at least as comfortable as a coach can be under the circumstances.

When John interviews a brilliant coach such as Carthage women's volleyball coach Leanne Ulmer, or Bosko when he was running the men's basketball program, it's like one of those master classes that they're always advertising on YouTube.

I mean, I still (at least so far) have completely bungled the first question of the first press conference at the Final Four every single year I've been there.

The best interview gig in D3 is Pat's at the D3hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas every winter. Not only does he not have to rope a head coach into an interview fresh off of the court after a game and thus have to think up stuff to ask them on the fly, but: a) he has the luxury of interviewing them in Vegas, a town where everybody has fun and all of the D3 personnel are generally in a good mood; and b) he's the mover and shaker among the people who put on the tournament in the first place, so naturally the coaches are going to approach him with a sense of gratitude. If any coach in Vegas has ever given Pat some stick about his questions, I've never seen the clip.

[Gregory Sager]

By the way, Ryan, great column. Always gratifying to see Harps get his due. And the amount of research that you undoubtedly had to put into that column is impressive.

[iwu70]

Ryan, I also enjoyed the piece. Thank you.

I understand why you omitted Sikma, but he's really the most important NBA player to come out of the D3 world.  Yes, I know IWU wasn't D3 at that point . . . We used to load up cars of student fans and head for Kansas City in those years for the tournament . . . my years at IWU even before Sikma came 'round. . .  mine the era of Tommy Gramkow, Fred Evans and Sheldon Thompson, when we made it to KC several times.  Some great times . . .  15 to a motel room and all that!  LOL

Again, thanks for the column.

All best for 2022 . . .and the Year of the TIGER soon upon us all!

'70

[markerickson]

Titan victory mentioned in this troubling article about an alleged rape by a member of Yeshiva MBB.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/yeshiva-university-pledges-change-amid-uproar-over-alleged-sexual-assault/

[Pat Coleman]

The best interview gig in D3 is Pat's at the D3hoops.com Classic in Las Vegas every winter. Not only does he not have to rope a head coach into an interview fresh off of the court after a game and thus have to think up stuff to ask them on the fly, but: a) he has the luxury of interviewing them in Vegas, a town where everybody has fun and all of the D3 personnel are generally in a good mood; and b) he's the mover and shaker among the people who put on the tournament in the first place, so naturally the coaches are going to approach him with a sense of gratitude. If any coach in Vegas has ever given Pat some stick about his questions, I've never seen the clip.

Thanks for mentioning that -- it's a fun gig for a lot of the reasons you mention and this year, for reasons, I ended up doing most of them. I don't always have to think up things on the fly, thankfully! When Gordon is there, especially, he often has a list of questions he would ask and I can pick a couple from there.

The only hassle is indeed wrangling the coaches/players! Sometimes there's a strategy, like, interview Mike McGrath on an off day in between games because his team lost on day 1, or, man, this team won unexpectedly today so let's get them right now! The worst are the teams that go 0-2 and we have to get them afterward.

[Titan Q]

Titan victory mentioned in this troubling article about an alleged rape by a member of Yeshiva MBB.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/yeshiva-university-pledges-change-amid-uproar-over-alleged-sexual-assault/

Just to be clear...

The Yeshiva student accused here was removed from the MBB team before this season started.

[Gregory Sager]

I understand why you omitted Sikma, but he's really the most important NBA player to come out of the D3 world.

... except that he didn't, which is the whole point.

[kiko]

Ryan, I also enjoyed the piece. Thank you.

I understand why you omitted Sikma, but he's really the most important NBA player to come out of the D3 world.  Yes, I know IWU wasn't D3 at that point . . . We used to load up cars of student fans and head for Kansas City in those years for the tournament . . . my years at IWU even before Sikma came 'round. . .  mine the era of Tommy Gramkow, Fred Evans and Sheldon Thompson, when we made it to KC several times.  Some great times . . .  15 to a motel room and all that!  LOL

Again, thanks for the column.

All best for 2022 . . .and the Year of the TIGER soon upon us all!

'70

If you were going to Kansas City, that... wasn't Division III.  Those are great NAIA memories, I'm sure.

[iwu70]

OK, OK, I get it . . .  I only said the "D3 realm" -- give me a break guys.  And, yes, they were great memories from our trips to Kansas City, back in the day.  Gramkow, Evans and Thompson, quite a trio for the Titans in those days.  Of course, we ran into Kentucky State . . .

IWU hosting Augie on Saturday.  Lambesis, Hardy, Heaton and Coach Rose all back . . . Titans almost back to full strength.  Lots of depth there, in any case. 

'70

[Mr. Ypsi]

OK, OK, I get it . . .  I only said the "D3 realm" -- give me a break guys.  And, yes, they were great memories from our trips to Kansas City, back in the day.  Gramkow, Evans and Thompson, quite a trio for the Titans in those days.  Of course, we ran into Kentucky State . . .

IWU hosting Augie on Saturday.  Lambesis, Hardy, Heaton and Coach Rose all back . . . Titans almost back to full strength.  Lots of depth there, in any case. 

'70

In the first round.   They EASILY won the national title, but we gave them their toughest game!

Mark, don't even try to pull the Sikma/D3 link in these parts.  IIRC, IWU WAS a member of D3 in those days, but always opted for the NAIA post-season (in deference to Jack Horenberger, who was one of the founders of the NAIA).  I tried the same arguments a number of years ago to the point of getting threatened with banishment by Pat; unless my memory is totally off, we followed all D3 rules (INCLUDING the games limit rules), but nonetheless to even call Sikma 'D3-adjacent' will get you in hot water!