Each year, the talking heads of all of the major sports networks discuss the growing parity in college football. Over the past few years, we have seen many schools outside of the Bowl Championship Series cartel make BCS bowls and defeat teams many experts thought would run away with the games.
But what about college basketball?
For years, mid-major schools have been upsetting traditional college basketball powerhouses. Gonzaga, a member of the West Coast Conference, is an annual bracket-buster and has produced some legitimate college stars, such as Charlotte Bobcats small forward Adam Morrison.
We have known there has been parity among Division I college basketball teams in recent years, but what about teams below the Division I level? In football, we have seen a FCS team beat a FBS team, but how often does this happen in basketball?
Well, it has just recently in a preseason game between Bradley and University of Wisconsin-Platteville Sunday. The Pioneers of Platteville were able to upset the Braves 84-79. On Tuesday night, another D-III school, the Mississippi College Choctaws defeated the Alcorn State Braves 85-81 in another preseason game.
Although the Pioneers and Braves did not exactly beat North Carolina or UCLA, they did defeat schools that have scholarship players and actively recruit for some of the best talent in the local area. We have seen it is possible for some of the lower division schools to take down a school like Bradley, a Missouri Valley Conference team that has had NCAA Tournament appearances in recent years.
The toughness and resiliency UW-Platteville and Mississippi College showed should not be surprising, however. The Pioneers are ranked seventh on D3hoops.com’s Division III Top 25 and annually competes for the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title. The Choctaws are picked to win the American Southwest Conference’s east division for the second year in a row.
Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan knows how tough the teams and players from the WIAC are. Before coming to the University of Wisconsin, Ryan was the head coach at UW-Platteville from 1984-1999. During that time, he coached the Pioneers to four D-III National Championships.
“I like watching those guys,” Ryan said after the Badgers’ victory over University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Tuesday. “All the guys that played for me didn’t have any scholarships. They worked their butts off. They did it for the love of the game, and they weren’t pampered.”
Seeing these scores, it is not surprising Whitewater played the Badgers a lot closer than the 64-47 final score appears. Going into the locker room, the Badgers were only leading the Warhawks by a 3-point margin: 28-25. At one point during the second half, the Badgers only led by two, 44-42, before pulling away by denying UW-Whitewater a field goal in the last eight minutes of the game.
Needless to say, the Warhawks ignored the fact they were playing a D-I powerhouse like Wisconsin. Instead, they took it as another opponent in the WIAC.
“I think our guys have a pretty high confidence level,” UW-Whitewater head coach Pat Miller said. “I think they fully came in here expecting to compete and try to win the basketball game. I was disappointed in the Bradley-Platteville game. I think it was more of a wakeup call for Wisconsin than it was a confidence builder for us.”
While there might be a drop-off in talent between players at D-I schools and D-III schools, many local schools recruit out of the same talent pool. UW-Whitewater’s Matt Goodwin used to match up against Wisconsin’s Marcus Landry in high school. UW-Platteville’s Curt Hanson played against Duke’s Jon Scheyer when they were in high school.
The experience D-III players have in high school and playing against D-I schools gives them a toughness that can’t be found anywhere else. It puts them on a level playing field with anyone in the game, whether they go to Wisconsin or UW-Whitewater.
While Division I and Division III teams have the same experience, when a smaller school plays a team with a winning tradition, it is the heart that comes into play when facing an outmatched opponent. The smaller schools play against the bigger schools as if it is a playoff game while the bigger schools are still trying to figure lineups out and getting their offense into motion.
While the exhibition season may be over in 2008, we can expect Division I teams to be on notice in 2009 and not take seemingly overmatched Division III opponents lightheartedly.
Ben is a senior majoring in journalism and history. If you would like to discuss WIAC powerhouses, contact him at [email protected].
