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Around
the Nation

Posted Dec. 11, 2003

Fisk tries
to build on
second upset
Larry Glover initially came back to Fisk University eight years ago to teach, but when asked by members of the athletic department to fill in as head men’s basketball coach at his alma mater until someone else could be found for the job, he was willing.

“I guess they’re still looking,” Glover said with a laugh. “Division III is the kind of basketball you want to coach. You’re developing the total person, seeing them graduate and go on to become doctors and lawyers and teachers.”

There aren’t many black colleges at the Division III level (most compete in Division II), so Fisk (2-5) is unique in that regard. The Bulldogs are also unique in that they knocked off a Division I opponent, Nashville neighbor Tennessee State, two years in a row, including a 65-63 win the same night Williams garnered the nation’s attention by upsetting Holy Cross.

“I think I could have enjoyed this year’s game if I wasn’t coaching in it,” Glover said. “There were 7,000 people in the stands. It’s kind of like an Alabama-Auburn type thing. It has turned into a heated rivalry.

They were bigger but our guys are quicker. They were up 14 with eight minutes left, but we thought we could still make a move because we were getting good shots. Then we found (a groove). We have nine new players this season- seven freshmen and two transfers. For them to play that well is amazing.”

Last season, Fisk also beat Tennessee State, winning 69-65. The Bulldogs won the Great South Athletic Conference postseason tournament, but the league didn’t get an automatic postseason bid because it has just five members. Fisk’s 14-14 record (11-9 against Division III teams) paled to that of regular season champ Maryville.

Glover made it a point this year to schedule more South Region teams, to give his squad a better shot at a Pool B bid. In addition to competing in one of Christopher Newport's tournaments, Fisk will face University of Dallas twice, and Millsaps and Hendrix once each. They already lost an early-season matchup with Mississippi College. To fill scheduling holes, Glover also scheduled a second Division I opponent, Lipscomb, which beat the Bulldogs by 11 just prior to the game with Tennessee State, and some NAIA teams.

Fisk, with a student population of less than 800, attracts a geographically diverse group and that holds true on the basketball roster. The starting five comes from four different states- Tennessee (forwards Jeff Anderson and Frank Dotson), Mississippi (point guard Dewayne Russell), Texas (forward Jeremy Johnson) and New York (shooting guard Devon Wilson. Dotson is averaging a team-high 15 points per game and is the squad’s most interesting story as well.

The 27-year old Dotson, who sat out last season to work as a janitor to earn the money to pay for his senior year, had previously missed time due to gunshot wounds suffered in a family dispute and has gone through extended schooling because his grades from time in junior college didn’t transfer to Fisk. Dotson graduates in a few weeks with a degree in psychology and education.

“I had said when I left last year that I would be back,” said Dotson, who is old enough to have played with and against former Division I stars Galen Young and Lorenzen Wright while growing up in Memphis. “I’ve had to overcome a lot. I believe that I have a great influence on this team because of my work ethic. I’m not going to give up on anything.”

A 2-5 start won’t deter Dotson from thinking that this is going to be a very good team. It’s fair to wonder how a Division III team can beat a Division I squad, yet struggle with its halfcourt motion offense and pressure defense against everyone else. Glover thinks he has a handle on the situation. Most of the players live off campus and have jobs, meaning that meeting time beyond practice is limited.

“A game like (Tennessee State) does two things,” said Glover. “It gets other schools you play to approach you differently. Second, there’s so much excitement from winning that game that it’s all you hear about. With our new players, it’s their first time through all this. Some games you come out unfocused. We have to learn to play like (they did in the last eight minutes against Tennessee State) every night.”

CROSSED UP BY DAVIDSON: Holy Cross, the favorites to win the Patriot League, may never play another Division III opponent again after losing to Williams 78-71 last week. This isn’t the first time that the Ephs have scared off a Division I foe. In 1996-97, Davidson was in the midst of a 25-5 season when Williams came in and nearly beat them (the Ephs blew a five-point lead in the final minute and lost in overtime). Davidson, as mentioned in previous columns, has been much more careful about scheduling such teams since.

Thank you, Davidson.

Actually, things ended up coming full circle. The Williams-Holy Cross matchup (the first since 1938 and the first at Holy Cross since 1902) was actually made possible by Davidson, which backed out of a game with Holy Cross at the last minute, leaving them with a vacancy to fill quickly. Williams, which had previously shown interest in a game, got the first call and accepted. The payoff is coming now in the national attention the program has garnered from showing its system works at the Division I level. The feeling among some on campus is that the win may do as much, if not more recruiting-wise for the Ephs as winning last season’s national championship.

The Ephs have the nation’s longest winning streak in any division at 25 games. Oh and by the way, they are now 5-2 all time against Holy Cross.

SISTERHOOD: The Seven Sisters Championship, held annually since 1980, has a rich tradition in Division III women’s basketball. It also can serve as a valuable springboard to success.

Last season, Mount Holyoke won the Seven Sisters for the first time since 1983 en route to an 18-8 record, the team’s first winning mark since the 1985-86 season. This season, the Lyons went out and won it again, behind a 29-point, 10-rebound effort in the final from junior point guard Sara Belding.

Sara Belding had 49 points and 16 rebounds in the three games for Mount Holyoke.

“To win a tournament like that takes a total team effort,” said Megan Henry, whose squad capped off a three-wins-in-three-days stretch by beating Swarthmore in the title game, 54-49 last weekend. “I know that our players really get up for it every year. It’s a confidence-builder for us and it was very exciting for our players to win.”

For those unfamiliar, the Seven Sisters is a competition across all sports amongst predominantly women’s colleges. Its participants include Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Haverford, Swarthmore and St. Joseph’s (Conn.). Barnard and Radcliffe were initially members but no longer compete in Division III. Haverford and Swarthmore were invited in as “cousins” after the departure of those two.

“I’ve never experienced a tournament with this tradition,” said Henry, a relative newcomer in her fourth season at Mount Holyoke. “A friend of mine was at Barnard when they won it in 1986 and she still says it was one of the greatest experiences of her career.”

SEEING IS BELIEVING: When Trinity (Conn.) point guard Jesse Farrell brought a couple of his teammates to the local gym he plays at in Minneapolis, they weren’t going to play in just any ordinary pickup game.

That was evident when none other than Minneosta Timberwolves star Kevin Garnett approached Farrell and said “You’re my point guard today.”

Farrell, a former Timberwolves ballboy who played at the same Benilde-St. Margaret's High School as current Los Angeles Laker (and ex-Augsburg star) Devean George, has held his own in those games going up against the likes of ex-University of Connecticut star and fellow Minneapolis native Khalid El-Amin. He’s done more than that for the Bantams this season, posting an eye-popping 53 assists to only five turnovers in their first six games. Skeptics might point out that it’s easy to inflate assists, but we saw Farrell and the No. 23 ranked squad play and can attest to the legitimacy of the numbers.

“It is ridiculous,” said 23rd year Trinity coach Stan Ogrodnik. “I’ve never seen anything like it. He is an exceptional ball-handler, so it’s almost impossible to take the ball away from him, and his decision making this year has been excellent.”

Trinity’s system is such that it leads to lots of easy shots. The team fast-breaks a lot off misses and runs lots of backdoor cuts in halfcourt sets. The end result is lots and lots of layups and open looks (Trinity’s top two scorers in a 91-54 win against Coast Guard earlier this season shot a combined 19-for-20 from the field).

Farrell might not have any Kevin Garnett-types on this team, but sophomore forward Tyler Rhoten makes for a reasonable facsimile. Rhoten, who passed up a football scholarship to Syracuse and the opportunity to play on Trinity’s unbeaten gridiron squad to commit full-time to basketball, is averaging 23.5 points per game.

“I’m not sure if you’ll find a kid in Division III who is effective at what he does as he is,” said Ogrodnik, who could probably say the same thing about Farrell.

BEYOND THE BOX SCORE: You probably already read about the record setting 35-for-35 free throw shooting performance from the Moravian women’s basketball team against Susquehanna on Dec. 7. What was missing though was a quote from the coach. The reason for that was simple. Mary Beth Spirk had lost her voice.

“We had missed a lot of layups,” said a laughing Spirk, who still sounded a little hoarse a couple of days afterwards from a game in which her team shot only 23% from the field. “I guess it’s kind of funny that I was yelling about our layups on a day we break the free throw shooting record.”

No one realized that a record was being set, but when Jen Behagg went to the line for her first free throws of the night with just one second left, teammate Tracie Shipman said from the bench “I hope she doesn’t mess this up.”

Particularly impressive in the performance was the 5-for-5 for Kelly Applegate, who is shooting under 50% from the stripe this season, and the 11-for-11 of Katie Rizman, who other than that game is 11-for-22.

“We had nine different people who were perfect,” Spirk said. “That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.”

The team is making a dub of all 35 makes. We paid a visit to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., a month ago and found it lacking in Division III representation. That videotape would make for a nice display piece.

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: While by all accounts Redlands benefited from Villanova’s California stopover on its way to the Maui Invitational a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t appreciate Division III opponents being used to eat up suspensions for misdeeds related to last season’s mini-scandal related to phone card usage there. Our sources told us that more than one Division III school turned down games with Villanova.

While we respectfully disagree with Redlands' decision to play Villanova (it’s not in the best interests of Division III as a whole), we are more annoyed at Villanova.

Perhaps the NCAA could step in, and rather than punish Villanova, instead make them pay a visit again next season.

Notes for Around the Nation are compiled with the help of sports information directors across the country. If you have suggestions or information for this column, please send it to mark@d3hoops.com.

Previous columns
2007-08 columns
March 6: Faith restored
Feb. 27: John Jay, Cinderella
Feb. 21: No safety net
Feb. 14: Ursinus better enough
Feb. 8: Hope-TMC on collision course
Jan. 31: Plattsburgh's big shot
Jan. 24: UMD answers call
Jan. 18: Like Bosko, like son
Jan. 11: Keystone stakes
Dec. 13: Unstoppable
Dec. 7: UWW aiming deeper
Nov. 30: Coach's shadow lingers
Nov. 15: Strong duo
2006-07 columns
2005-06 columns
2004-05 columns
2003-04 columns
2002-03 columns
2001-02 columns

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