Sweet 16 in St. Louis

This has been a very exciting year for the Beavers.  That certainly is an understatement.  We had an outstanding trip to St. Paul, and win or lose, we had a lot of fun being together.  But we won, and it is even sweeter.

The St. Thomas game was just an unbelievable atmosphere.  Could not hear a thing in that gym, and Coach Fritz had to go up to the student section and get rid of the artificial noise makers.  Could not hear a thing in that gym.  On top of that, St. Thomas starts off with a dunk, some 3’s coming off of offensive rebounds, and we got down by 10 early.  But to our guys credit, we never got rattled, in fact, had one of our better stretches of the year for the next 12 minutes, as we went on a 25-3 run.  We really played well defensively, and kept St. Thomas out of the lane.  We got ourselves up by 10 with 3 to go, and the wheels fell off.  All of a sudden a minute and a half later the game is tied.  Once again, we hung in there, and showed great composure, and got a couple of stops down the stretch, and Rahn made 4 FT’s in a row to get up by 4 with 9 seconds remaining.  After a bucket and a fould with 2.6 seconds left, we were up 72-70 with Rahn at the line.  He missed both, then BJ Viau dribbled to half court and shot it up, and from where I was, it was in, and instead it bounced off the back rim.  Andre Wagner and I looked at each other, and sighed a big relief.  What a game, what an atmosphere, and a real well played game.  I know St. Thomas feels they did not shoot well, but I think we got St. Thomas to shoot the shots we wanted them to shoot.  We dictated the game.  However, the Tommies had outstanding full court pressure that gave us a lot trouble once in awhile.  I am very happy for Rahn Franklin who made those FT’s.  He felt like he was the one who lost the game for us against Loras last week.  Although that is not true, because this is a team game, it was nice to see Rahn get a little redemption and come up big for us at the foul line.

Last night was a completely different game.  The crowd was small, not necessarily by our following, because our fans were great, but when you are playing at a neutral site, the environment changes.  We did not play well in this game.  I thought we had some real poor offensive possessions in the 1^st half, especially early, and we played a little tight.  But our inside game eventually wore them down, and we started to get the shots we wanted by time we got to the 2^nd half.  Our defense was outstanding.  Once again, the Pointers probably feel they missed a lot of shots, but we got them to miss the shots we wanted them to take.  The night before, we felt they really drove Chicago to death, and got some easy looks on the arc.  We wanted to stop the dribble drive and keep them from going deep in the lane to the opposite side for easy looks on the arc.  Now usually we want to pressure more, but we felt that Stevens Point, had better offense against that type of defense.  I am really proud of our guys, as they really took it upon themselves to stop the guy in front of them, and make a stand for who they were.  As we got up by 6, El-Amin, the Pointers fine pt. guard hit a long ‘3’, then got another look on the arc with one minute left.  We thought it was a ‘3’ and called timeout, thinking we were tied.  But the officials called it a two, as his toe was on the line.  By the way, the call was correct.  You can see on tape, that he was on the line, so the officials were on it.  That changed our stategy down the stretch, and the last few seconds were excruciating.  There was about 9 seconds between the shot clock and the game clock, therefore, we needed to get a shot up.  We got a decent look with 12 seconds left, but Travis Person came up with a great offensive rebound.  Point tried to foul, knocked the ball out of bounds  twice and finally fouled with 2 seconds remaining.  Another one and one for Rahn.  He missed, and Point called a timeout with 1.8 seconds left.  After Point set up, I have to be honest with you, I called a timeout, just for myself.  I needed to make sure we had our responsibilities down on their long pass down the floor.  I also wanted the guys to know that we were going to do this correctly, and be positive about the situation.  We put Steve Gute on the ball, as the 7 footer jumped up and down, and the throw was pretty good, but Fog got his hand on the ball, the ball bounced away, and Travis threw it in the air, and we are going to the Sweet 16.  This is sweet accomplishment for our program.  We are excited about going to St. Louis and playing the Preseason #1 Team in the country.  What a great privilege. 

I want to thank the following people for all of their help this past week.  Jan Travis and Jennifer Thompson made the week work smooth for us.  They made all of the little things work slick and made my job easy this week.  I have to thank my wife and kids for their commitment.  My wife was sick all weekend, and had to sit down during the games, as they were almost too much to take.  My kids gave up their athletic tournaments this weekend to be there with us and that means a lot.  My parents never miss, and Barb’s parents were troopers also.  5 years ago, our team played at Rockford College, and we beat them to go to the Sweet 16.  On that night, Eric Wiebers turned 20 years old, and he played a great game.  5 years later Eric Wiebers turns 25, and coaches a great game, and makes sure we are ready to guard Stevens Point properly.  Could not do this without him.  He is a great assistant.  Also, Randy Bissen does a great job with our posts.  Take a look at Matt Cleveland.  He has come so far, and he was why we won last night, and you have to give Randy all the credit.  It truly is unbelievable that Matt only gets Honorable Mention All Conference, as he has some real good skills, and is very versatile.  Alison Mosel is our trainer, and her and our student trainers do a great job, to take care of each player, as at this time of year, all the guys are a little banged up.  Also, want to thank all of our fans.  They matched the Tommies on Friday night, and they were great last night also.  Want to thank Chris Boeckman also.  He is the best voice to broadcast games.  He is having a lot of fun, getting to know our team.  Nobody does a game better than Chris.  He gave up the opportunity to receive an award at the Iowa State Tournament, to go on the trip with us to Minneapolis.  What a great friend.  Steve Phelps and his staff do a great job with Sports Information.  They are right on top of everything, and appreciate all he does.  And finally, I am always inspired by my good friend Nick Huber.  Our former SID, who makes the trip with his wife Ann.  It was great having him right by our bench for both games.  His battle with ALS, inspires each and every one of our team members.  Our guys love him, and he is sacrificing a lot to come up and see us play.  
 

Let’s keep playing.

Go Beavers!!

Coach VH