Steve-Goldberg-Column
14/03/2014
Steve Goldberg's Wheel World
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A double major in collegiate titles for Wisconsin

CHARLOTTE (Steve Goldberg's Wheel World) - March Madness on wheels it was. The NWBA Intercollegiate championship finals were held last weekend, hosted well by the University of Texas-Arlington (UTA), just a couple of yippee-yi-yo-ki-yays from where the NCAA Men's Final Four will take place in early April.

According to UTA men's coach Doug Garner, the school’s pep band and cheerleaders were there, their games were broadcast by the student radio station, and the university president Dr. Vistasp Karbhari changed his schedule to make the championship final with his wife.

"It was a rockin' house," said Garner.

The men and women ran together, which gave the two University of Wisconsin-Whitewater teams the chance to celebrate each other's hoisting of the national title trophies. You could say they double-majored.

For the UWW men, it came in dramatic fashion, with a basket by Derrick Bisnett in the waning seconds - 2.7 to be exact - to give them a one point 55-54 win over the home town Movin' Mavs for their 11th national title and 8th since 2003. The purple people eaters are now just one behind the University of Illinois's dozen, which keeps the Illini the UCLA of men's wheelchair ball for the time being. UTA has seven national trophies, the last coming in 2006.

The final games were held at the university's main arena, the College Park Center, where some two thousand fans came to root for the home team in the men's final.

And they almost left happy.

UTA was the top-seeded team coming in and they had beaten the Warhawks by ten two weeks prior to the tournament. They were down by two at the half and came back from an early second half run by UWW to take the lead on high percentage shooting (53.5 percent to 42.4). With less than half a minute to go, Jorge Sanchez gave the Movin' Mavs the lead by one. But this wasn't Whitewater's first rodeo and Bisnett hit to quiet the crowd. A last-gasp attempt by the Mavs' Jan "Goose" Gans fell short and - I promise this will be my last cowboy lingo - the Warhawks won the shootout at the UTA Corral.

"It was one of the best college wheelchair basketball games I've ever seen," said Stephanie Wheeler, head coach of the University of Illinois women's team.

There were strong and balanced personal performances on both sides. Bisnett finished with 17 points on 8 of 9 shooting and averaged 18.3 points and 6.3 assists for the tournament. His teammate Jake Williams, who averaged 21.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 7.3 assists for the tournament, led all scorers with 24 points, along with 8 boards and 9 dimes in the final.

For UTA, Sanchez had 19 points in the final with 7 rebounds and 4 assists. Andy Kraft added 17, 4 and 6. Gans scored 13 and pulled in 16 boards with 6 assists.

"There was great defense on both sides," said Garner.

"With both teams, it was pick your poison; who are you going to shut down?"

The season isn't entirely over for the Movin' Mavs. They've been asked to play an exhibition game on the main court at AT&T Stadium prior to the NCAA Final Four. Perhaps one season soon, the collegiate wheelchair teams might have their finals incorporated with the church of basketball that is the NCAA Final Four. The NCAA has given heightened attention to inclusion and diversity beyond race and the idea of staging the men's and women's wheelchair tournaments as part of the respective men's and women's NCAA finals has been initiated.

Personally, I don't think it could happen soon enough. But back to the action from Arlington. Hello ladies.

For the Whitewater women, it played out as expected with a 69-54 win over the University of Alabama. It was the third straight title for UWW equaling the three year run of Alabama from 2009 to 2011. That would be all of them. The women's championship began in 2009 and these are the only two teams to win it.

It was also a sneak preview of the talent that will be on display at the IWBF Women's World Championships which will be contested this summer in Toronto.

When I look at the Whitewater roster, the first thing that comes to mind is the Miami Heat and the idea that this can't possibly be fair. Hey LeBron; how do you say "I'm taking my talents to Whitewater" in German or Dutch.

Coach Dan Price must be living right. The UWW starting lineup reads like my all-star team at the 2012 London Paralympic Games. Becca Murray and Desiree Miller from the USA National Team; Mareike Adermann of Germany and Mariska Beijer of The Netherlands. Murray is "The Baby-faced Assassin", a consistent scoring threat from outside who can drive as well while Adermann, Beijer and Miller are three of the best bigs in the women's game.

Wheeler admired the work and effort put in by Alabama but wasn’t surprised by the result.

"They have so many weapons that if you focus on taking away the bigs, then Becca's going to kill you outside. If you focus on Becca, then they are going to kill you inside."

But don't cry for me Alabama. The team who puts the roll into the "Roll Tide" chant has its own Paralympic level United Nations with Canadian National Teamers Cindy Ouillet, Maude Jaques and Erica Gavel, Australia's Cobi Crispin, and Great Britain's Laurie Williams. Caitlyn McDermott was on the 2010 USA gold medal winning World Championship team and Mackenzie Soldan represented the USA on the tennis courts in London. Add to that the skills of Karolina Lingyte who played for Lithuania in FIBA's U16 European Championship in 2005.

It was a wonderful opportunity for Wheeler to observe many of the players she'll see on the other side of the court in her new position of USA National Team coach. Seven were in the women's final. Another GB player is on her Illini squad.

As the coach of Illinois, Wheeler admitted to the disappointment of not having her girls in the final but added, "It gives you an extra opportunity to scout those player's individual tendencies and have a little bit of an edge going into Toronto. Now we can focus on their team systems."

Spoken like a true coach, Steph.

Thanks to the UTA Shorthorn online newspaper for information used in this column. You can read their reports here

Steve Goldberg

FIBA

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Steve Goldberg

Steve Goldberg

Eight years after first getting a glimpse of wheelchair basketball at the 1988 Paralympics in Seoul when covering the Olympics for UPI, Steve Goldberg got the chance to really understand the game as Chief Press Officer for the 1996 Paralympic Games in Atlanta. He's been a follower of the sport ever since. Over the years, the North Carolina-born and bred Tar Heel fan - but University of Georgia grad - has written on business, the economy, sports, and people for media including Time, USA Today, New York magazine, Reuters, Universal Sports, TNT, ESPN, New York Daily News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Olympian. Steve Goldberg's Wheel World will look at the past, present and future of wheelchair basketball.