'Little guys' worthy, but their fun is likely done--The Daily Southtown
SUU fires Hillock as women's coach--deseretnews.com
NCAA appearance should benefit OU--The Detroit Free Press
Grizzlies look back, look ahead--The Oakland Press
By DUSTIN FRUCCI Special to The Oakland Press
ROCHESTER — Ending a season in the NCAA tournament is the goal of every Division I program in the country, and it’s happened twice in the last five years for the Oakland University women’s basketball team.
OU lost to top seed Ohio State, 68-45, in the first round of the NCAA tournament Sunday, but just being there was more than what was expected from a team that finished the regular season 8-8 in the Mid-Continent Conference.
“We turned things around at the end of the season,” junior forward Nicole Piggott said. “Winning the (Mid-Con) tournament was our goal after that. You send your seniors out the right way, you accomplish your goals and you build momentum for next season.”
It was important for OU to build momentum for next season, because the Golden Grizzlies will be without two of the best players in program history.
Graduating senior guards Jayme Wilson and Anne Hafeli were huge reasons why OU ended its season where it did.
“They’ve been great players here,” head coach Beckie Francis said. “They led us with their actions, and they’re always lifting up the players around them. This team is going to miss them.”
Wilson finished her career at OU as the school’s sixthleading scorer with 1,785 points. She is also the school’s second player to garner all-Mid-Con honors in each of her four seasons.
Hafeli has 1,467 career points, eighth on the school’s all-time list. Her performance in the Mid-Con tournament — 20 points and seven rebounds a game — earned her MVP honors.
With the two four-year starters on their way to “bigger and better things,” Francis will look to a group of young players to lead her team.
“We’re going to need some of our younger girls to develop quickly,” Francis said. “Fortunately, I think we have some of those girls in place.”
Three freshmen expected to make contributions are guards Riikka Terava, April Kidd and Jessica Pike. Terava played well at point guard early in the season, and Kidd started all three Mid-Con tournament games, averaging six points a game. Pike is the best outside shooter of the trio and will be looked to for more scoring.
OU also will welcome 5-foot-9 guard Melissa Jeltema out of Grand Rapids Christian. Jeltema played on three City League championship teams and earned honorable-mention all-state accolades in Class A.
Jeltema is the only recruit OU has coming in next year, but Francis thinks she has the ability to contribute right away.
Though OU will be inexperienced on the perimeter, juniors Piggott and Bonnie Baker will return to control the middle. Piggott is a likely preseason all-Mid-Con selection, and Baker is considered OU’s best defender.
According to Francis, how deep OU is in the middle will depend on the development of freshmen Jessica Knurick and Kelly Lyons and sophomore Bethany Jury. All three are at least 6-1 and would bring a much-needed presence to the paint.
For now, OU is going to sit back and let everything that’s happened in the last three weeks sink in.
“We’re going to enjoy what we’ve accomplished this year,” Francis said. “I’m so proud of this team and how they handled everything this year. It’s been really exciting.”
Western adds weekly podcast to lineup--The Macomb Journal
MIKE HUTTON COLUMN: Palm reading doesn’t line up with this year’s NCAA brackets--The Post-Tribune
March 21, 2006
Here is the conspiracy theory that Jerry Palm fears most about the NCAA Selection Committee.
That the pool of people who make the picks are unduly influencing the process instead of abiding by a strict standard of accomplishment.
In general, Palm, who has run collegerpi.com out of his Schererville home for 13 years, has been an advocate for the way the NCAA has made selections. The committee members are thorough, they are fair and they are unbending in their principals. Sometimes, they make mistakes. But not very often.
This is the way it has to be when the future of some coaches could hinge on whether their team makes the field of 65.
But Palm believes that the selection committee lost its head this year in ways that are unprecedented. And it doesn’t have anything to do with four teams from the Missouri Valley Conference getting a bid.
Typically, Palm can pick the field of 65 to the number. Occasionally, he’ll have a bubble team or two that he misses on.
In 13 years, he said there have only been two complete whiffs: New Mexico in 1999, which is the lowest RPI team (74) without an automatic bid to make the tournament; and last year, when UAB was selected because the committee deemed that they were a difficult team for which to prepare.
This year, however, Air Force, Utah State and George Mason were handed the kind of gifts that only come along once a decade or so.
They were given at-large bids at the expense of teams such as Missouri State, Cincinnati and Creighton.
The Falcons’ lucky tourney entry came about even though they only beat one NCAA Tournament team, San Diego State.
It certainly didn’t happen because they lost twice to Wyoming, the seventh-place team in the Western Athletic Conference.
“There really isn’t anything good to say about Air Force,” Palm said. “But once they let them in, any team is part of the discussion.”
In Utah State’s case, the committee watched it take Nevada, a No. 5 seed, to overtime in the Western Athletic Conference finals and was impressed enough to give it a No. 12 seed in the Washington D.C. Regional.
Both teams were defeated easily in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by Illinois and Washington, respectively.
Palm’s beef with George Mason came because starting point guard Tony Skinn was suspended for the first game of the tournament after elbowing a Hofstra player in the Patriot League championship game.
Cincinnati, meanwhile, had its bubble burst, according to the committee, partially because starting point guard Armein Kirkland was out with an injury.
Even with the injury, the Bearcats finished 8-8 in the Big East and beat Syracuse down the stretch.
Palm doesn’t know why the lapses happened this year but he does know that all three teams had someone either directly or indirectly connected with those schools on the selection committee.
He wants to believe that this year was just a blip. That the selection committee had a bad day.
Because believing the alternative really isn’t an option.
Contact Mike Hutton at 648-3139 or mhutton@post-trib.com
Hillock let go at SUU--The Spectrum
HILLOCK RELIEVED OF DUTIES AS HEAD COACH--SOUTHERN UTAH THUNDERBIRDS
Western Sports Network Adds Podcasts to Broadcasting Lineup--Western Illinois Athletics
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