Division III college basketball: an eye-opener
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by user J Cunningham
I've been a huge college basketball fan for the last six years, ever since I began covering Old Dominion for the campus newspaper and radio station, but until tonight, all of my experience and knowledge came from Division I.
Tonight, my bosses at the Daily Press (Newport News, VA.) assigned me to cover the college basketball game between Christopher Newport University and Virginia Wesleyan College.
I was on my way to my first-ever NCAA Division III game.
How much did I know about the two teams playing? I knew Virginia Wesleyan won the Division III national championship last season, and thanks to Google, I had my hands on both teams' rosters. Aside from that? I was pretty much walking into the dark.
My first impressions were of the obvious differences between Division I and Division III from the media's perspective. In Division I, I'm normally surrounded by newspaper writers, radio personalties and television cameras. When I made my way into the Jane P. Batten Student Center, I noticed the scorers' table was also press row--squeezed between the teams' benches.
No cameras, one lonely radio guy. One, maybe two, newspaper writers.
There are no stat monitors for reporters and analysts to stare at. There is no media room filled with free food or media guides or information pamphlets. In fact, there are no media guides. Or press passes; I got in with a ticket, just like everybody else.
There are no press conferences after each game. Rather, reporters hang around while each coach addresses his team before grabbing coaches and players as they file out of the locker room.
Arenas are replaced with gymnasiums, many of them holding no more than 2,000-3,000 people. No pep bands, no dance teams...a small cheerleading squad, but a loud and faithful fan following.
Despite the initially jarring differences--which took a while for me to get used to, having spent the last four college basketball seasons at the 8,600-seat Ted Constant Convocation Center--I noticed the most important thing once the referee tipped the ball and the game got underway.
It's still college basketball. Pure and true.
If anything, Division III basketball might be more pure. Without the constant attention the "big-time" gets, the players are on the court concentrating on just one thing: playing the game. These players aren't highly recruited, not as talented as the guys who tear up brackets in March or make an early jump to the NBA. These guys do not play on a scholarship, and will probably find futures outside of the game after graduating.
But it's still college basketball. There are still 35 seconds on the shot clock, they still play two 20-minute halves. The three-point line is the same distance from the basket, and the same fundamentals that work in Division I work in Division III.
Virginia Wesleyan beat CNU 72-71 on a last-second lay-up from Stephen Fields, despite shooting just 39 percent from the floor (CNU shot 50 percent and actually led for much of the second half). The Marlins won because they hit their free throws at the end, outrebounded the Captains 38-34 and committed just seven turnovers (CNU committed 17).
Virigina Wesleyan can play a suffocating full-court press, and the team runs the same pick-and-roll play Division I Old Dominion does. CNU finds success because of its big man, 6-foot-8 sophomore Mark Blasingame.
Strip away the fancy graphics of TV or the spoiling amenities afforded to the media, and Division I would probably look much like Division III games. The talent gap is obvious--even without seeing a Division I team play a Division III team--but college basketball is college basketball.
I came away from tonight's CNU-Virginia Wesleyan game with the same sense of satisfaction I leave a competitive Division I game with, and I urge anyone with the opportunity to watch a Division III game at some point.
It may not have the pageantry and the glamour of the sport we dub "March Madness," but NCAA Division III college basketball is the same game, stripped down to the very core.
And what a juicy center it is.
