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An in-depth look at
a piece of Division III

Posted March 3, 2005

Following in some big footsteps
By Mike Ferlazzo

Senior point guard J.D. Byers is the latest in a list of Lebanon Valley greats who have also starred on the Division III national stage.

That list includes All-American point guard Mike Rhoades, who led the program to its lone national championship in 1994; and Andy Panko, the program’s career scoring leader (2,515 points), who went on to the National Basketball Association and star in the Continental Basketball Association after being a three time All-American and two-time Division III Player of the Year.

The 5-10 Byers certainly fits the bill, earning MAC Commonwealth Conference Player of the Year honors the last two years — also being named one of the 10 finalists for this year's Jostens Trophy as Division III Player of the Year, as well as one of 18 finalists for the 2005 Bob Cousy Collegiate Point Guard of the Year Award, presented by the Basketball Hall of Fame. And he is the College Division Academic All-American of the Year as sellected by the College Sports Information Directors of America in the ESPN The Magazine All-Academic team, carrying a 3.84 GPA as a business administration/accounting double major.

All he’s done as a senior is lead the conference in scoring (22.5 points per game ) and come in second in free-throw percentage (170 of 195, 87.2%) — ranking 13th and 15th in Division III respectively. He also leads the Commonwealth Conference in three-pointers (73/2.92 per game), and is tops on the team in assists (4.0 per game). Byers is presently fifth on Lebanon Valley’s all-time scoring list with 1,849 points, and is the school record-holder for career three-point field goals (now with 293), ranking second in assists (460).

But what might make him the happiest is helping Lebanon Valley (19-6) shake off a late January funk of four consecutive losses, and leading it to seven wins in a row and a berth in the NCAA playoffs.

The season may very well have been hanging in the balance at the start of that win streak on Feb. 5 when Byers stepped up to make his — and possibly the team’s — biggest play. Down 60-59 at last-place Susquehanna with 35 seconds left in overtime, Byers saw an opening and decided to take it right into the middle of the Susquehanna defense. While the crowd he drew made him miss the runner, he managed to get two tips against his much taller opponents— scoring the second one with :22 to give his team a 61-60 lead, which wound up being the final score.

“Byers made a great effort play. That’s why he’s an All-American,” said Susquehanna coach Frank Marcinek in The (Sunbury, Pa.) Daily Item.

“He’s (Byers) our primary scorer, and he has to score for us to win,” said Lebanon Valley’s 11th-year head coach Brad McAlester after that win. “He does take some tough shots, but he’s willing to make those. Even at the end of this game, he’s the guy who made two tips at 5-10, but he wanted to get those tips and he won the game on that play.”

Getting physical with Byers was Susquehanna’s game plan that day, and the standard tactic used by opponents trying to defend him. The bumps and bruises have worn on him —both mentally and physically— although you wouldn’t know it by his recent production.

“I get everybody’s best shot. I make people’s day if they find a way to stop me. The thing that’s really been bothering me the most is how much contact’s been on me the whole game. That wears on me, and that’s smart coaching. If I were a coach, I’d do the same thing,” he said. “That’s made it harder on me that I get so much body contact during the entire game, so by the end of the 35 minutes or whatever I play, I’m pretty tired.”

“Every time he comes out of a game, he has a lot of scratches, bumps and bruises. Everybody thinks the best way to stop him is to hold him and bump him — and they’re right, they got to do that. And if the refs let them get away with that, it can be somewhat effective,” said McAlester. “He clearly gets held and bumped, but he fights through it. He realizes that’s part of the game, and he hasn’t lost his head yet this whole year.”

But Byers has felt the burden of scoring nearly a third of his team’s points this year, along with being its principal ball-handler, and a key defender on a team that leads Division III in field goal percentage defense (35.4%) — let alone being considered with some of the school’s all-time greats.

“I don’t need any more pressure. I think I put enough pressure on myself and I think that’s showed over the last couple weeks (during the losing streak) because I haven’t played well, and I think that’s effected the team a lot,” said Byers following the Susquehanna win. “So, I have enough pressure on myself that comes from within, so I try not to think about those names, but it’s definitely a nice honor.”

It’s hard to avoid the comparisons to Rhoades, who is now the head men’s basketball coach at Randolph-Macon. McAlester also coached Rhoades as a senior — the year after he led the Flying Dutchmen to their national championship — and sees some similarities in Byers.

“They both (Rhoades and Byers) compare in terms of competitiveness. They both are fierce competitors on and off the court — whether it’s checkers, or whatever,” he said. “At practice, they want to win. They just really hate losing. And with that, they’ve just gotten so much better. They’re the kind of kids that when they do lose, they come in the gym the next day to work on their shots — but they won’t take a hundred, they’ll make a hundred. They’re very much like that.

“Mike was more of a pure point guard, and J.D.’s more of a scoring point guard who sometimes could also play the two for us. J.D.’s more of a scorer who, as you can see, can shoot from way out.”

Byers shares another common bond with Rhoades — and that’s leading his team into the NCAA Tournament.

“I want to get in the NCAA Tournament — and anything can happen. And I think if we get healthy, we have the right pieces to do a lot of damage,” said Byers. “I think a lot of teams would look at us and think we’re not very good, but I think we have proven in the beginning of the year that we can play with anybody — how tough we played at Virginia Wesleyan, and what we did with F&M when they were healthy and they had everybody. So, I think we can make a lot of noise, and that’s where I want to go. I want to get in the NCAA Tournament because that’s the ultimate goal.”

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