Kent Raymond burst onto the Division III basketball scene as a freshman in 2004-05. The young star led the Wheaton Thunder and was second in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in scoring.

Then, after the season, Raymond stepped away from the game of basketball.

Despite being out of uniform, Raymond was never too far away from the game. In fact, after watching several games during his sophomore year, Raymond decided it was time for a comeback. He rejoined the team and became an immediate playmaker for the Thunder.

“The two years since he asked to be back in, he’s been the conference player of the year. He’s just that talented,” said Bill Harris, 17-year coach at Wheaton. “He’s just a special young basketball player.

“He has a wonderful spirit and a great spirit of humility and acceptance in wanting to come back,” Harris continued.

Raymond left the team after feeling called to do so, but his competitiveness and drive on the basketball court led him back to the gymnasium.

Ben Panner made sure his teammates found out about their NCAA bid in a distinctly late 2000s way.

“Every time I get on the court, I just have a great appreciation for it,” Raymond said of playing basketball. “For a lot of guys even playing at the Division III level, they’ve been playing the game since they’re four or five years old. I smile more on the court and enjoy it.”

The faith Raymond has was reinforced Monday afternoon when the Thunder received an at-large invitation to the NCAA Tournament. Though they had a 19-7 record and were eliminated from the CCIW tournament in the semifinals by Illinois Wesleyan, the Thunder and Raymond were given a second chance to end their season on a strong note.

“We’ve sat home here ranked fifth in the country before and haven’t gone,” Harris said. “Thankfully, some of those games Saturday, those conference games, turned out to have the right winners. This is one of those years that balanced out some of those years when we thought we were definitely going and didn’t.”

“I was actually in class and I got a text message from one of the guys on the team, Ben Panner, because he didn’t have class, so he was looking,” said Raymond. “I was just shocked. I went up and told the professor afterward, I had to apologize because that whole class, I was text-messaging my dad. I was text-messaging my friends, letting everybody know that we got in.

“One of the other kids in my class, Jeremy Berntsen, comes off the bench and plays for us at the guard spot,” added Raymond. “We looked over at each other, we got the texts at the same time and we were just wide-eyed with big, old grins on our faces.”

Raymond is currently leading the conference in scoring, averaging 23.5 points per game. He is also one of the best distributors in the CCIW, trailing only Steve Djurickovic of Carthage in assists with 3.88 per game.

Wheaton travels to UW-Whitewater for Friday’s game against the Lawrence Vikings (22-2, 15-1 Midwest Conference). The winner of that contest will play the UW-Whitewater-Loras winner with a trip to the Sweet 16 on the line.

“Usually, when you’re in the Midwest, your first/second round matchups are every bit as tough as you’re going to face if you get to Salem,” said Harris. “The biggest thing is to get out of the Midwest and then, you’ve got a pretty good chance of going. It’s always tough when you play in the region of the country that is very, very strong in men’s basketball.”

“It’s a question of mental and emotional toughness,” Harris said of advancing in the tournament. “Our school’s going on spring break and our kids are looking and seeing all their friends go off to Florida and they’re heading to the arena for another tough practice. At this point, it becomes a contest of wills. The teams that are most focused, that are most emotionally and mentally tough are the teams that are going to be successful.”

This time of year, the weather may be better in Florida, but it is Destination Wisconsin for Wheaton and those on the team could not be happier with the journey.

SWEET RUN FOR DENISON: The Sara Lee most people in America know is a famous food manufacturer. From breakfasts of French toast sandwiches to the world-renowned desserts, cheesecake and Five Minute Chocolate Cherry Almond Pie, Sara Lee has every meal covered.

While the Sara Lee Company makes its reputation in the kitchen, another is building a team on the basketball court. Denison women’s basketball coach Sara Lee created a program no one wants to see on the opposite side of a playoff bracket.

Lee has been at Denison (18-10, 11-5) in Granville, Ohio, for 19 seasons. The past three years have been the most productive in school history. Following Saturday night’s victory over Wittenberg, the Big Red has won four straight North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament championships.

Sarah Perrine was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAC Tournament after Kristen Sheffield, who graduated last year, had won it the three previous times.

“Coming in this year, we had lost five seniors to graduation and we lost a couple other key players,” Lee said this week. “We really felt like we could surprise some teams with the players that we had coming back. We were excited coming in as the underdogs and really feeling like we had some talent.

“As the season progressed, we got some of that talent injured,” she added. “With every injury, there’s a little bit more disappointment, a little bit more question marks on how we could continue to proceed with what we really felt was still some talent, but really a lack of depth. We worked through it and continued to work hard.”

When the Big Red took the court in the NCAC Tournament, they knew the road to the championship would be difficult. They were away from home at Kenyon but managed to pull the 43-41 upset over the host Ladies in the semifinals behind a 12-point game from Sarah Perrine.

The final against Wittenberg was an emotional game for both teams. Denison wanted to keep its conference tournament winning streak alive, while the Tigers were playing for more than a victory. Wittenberg was playing in the finals less than a year after losing their coach, Pam Evans-Smith, to a prolonged illness.

“I was very proud of their performance,” Lee said of Denison’s run in the tournament. “We went in and really stressed to them that we were the underdogs. The first round game against Allegheny was the game we played like we had a lot of pressure on our shoulders.

“Nobody expected us to win,” added Lee. “(We told them] to just go out there, have fun, play hard and do what you’ve done all year long in terms of practicing and the teaching that’s gone on. Everything’s the same and (we have to) go out there and use their crowd to our advantage as well. We just did it at Kenyon College. They had a great crowd. Most people in the gym wanted Kenyon to win and we went out there and used that to our advantage.”

The Big Red earned a 66-55 win over Wittenberg and earned another shot at the national title. As in previous years, Denison will face a challenge right from the beginning of the tournament.

The Big Red will play the defending national champions in DePauw. The trip to Greencastle, Ind., is nearly 259 miles long and the time on the bus may serve as an opportunity to focus on nothing but the game.

“It lessens the pressure that they feel,” Lee said of the road games. “This group could potentially feel pressure a little bit more than last year’s group. By taking away that pressure that some of them might feel as freshmen or as first-time players in an NCAA event, I think that helps.

“I’m the type of person that, ‘Hey, I’ll play anybody that they ask us to play,’ and (we’re) going to go in there and give it our best shot,” she added. “Looking at it from a positive perspective, we’ve been to DePauw twice last year. We know the facility. We know personnel, so it’s not going to be an unknown to us, which I think can help.”

In the NCAA Tournament, Denison has been matched up with some of the toughest opponents in Division III. During the 2007 Tournament, they met Hope in the first round. Denison handed the defending national champions an 82-66 loss.

“We know that it is possible to do that, so it gives us some hope and knowledge that it can be done,” said Lee. “We’re happy to be going to DePauw. We know that they’re a very good team and we know we have a lot of work cut out for us.

“At this point, it’s a little bit more about us than anybody else,” she added. “We are the underdog again going in and we believe in what we’re capable of doing. It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks or where we’re playing.”

Caitlin Feeney Colleen Feeney

By Mark Simon
D3hoops.com

DOUBLE TROUBLE ... FOR OPPONENTS: It was over Chinese food last fall that Brian Feeney nonchalantly suggested to his daughter Colleen that she transfer from Rhode Island College and join her sister, Caitlin at Bridgewater State.

The two sisters, who grew up in Providence, and had a dominant basketball run in high school, had talked quite a bit about how much they missed being around each other, though they had never discussed attending the same school. But now that the idea was broached, it seemed like the ideal way for things to go.

Colleen and Caitlin decided it was time for their families to get to see them play together again, after two years of splitting off so one parent could attend one sister’s game, but miss the other. A year and a half later, the decision to make the move has proven to be a good one for all concerned. Bridgewater State coach Bridgett Casey may have thought Caitlin was kidding when she called with the news that Colleen was looking to transfer in, but now she’s sure glad she wasn’t.

The Feeneys are two of the primary reasons that Bridgewater State’s women’s team won a MASCAC title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1986. The Bears will host the first two rounds, taking on Bowdoin on Friday night, with NESCAC champ Amherst potentially looming Saturday if both can win. Senior 5-foot-10 center Colleen is averaging 20.5 points, 12.9 rebounds and 2.9 blocked shots per game. Caitlin, a senior guard (15 months younger than Colleen) is averaging 14.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 2.6 steals per game. In fact, a Feeney led the Bears in scoring in all but one game this season.

Colleen is a finalist for the Jostens Award, given to players of outstanding basketball ability who put service over self (Colleen does volunteer work at a local school and with the CYO, and is majoring in social work). Most who are familiar with her figure that she has been the star player for a long, long time, but her sister knows better.

“She was really bad,” Caitlin said with a laugh, and it’s noteworthy that Casey didn’t even recruit Colleen out of high school. “People who haven’t known her for a long time are amazed at how dominant she is, but she didn’t grow into her body for a long period of time.”

Feeney is basically a guaranteed double-double every game. She earned MASCAC Player of the Year honors, which made sense, since she was league player of the week seven times during the season.

“She’s not the biggest player in the league, but she’s one of smartest post players I’ve ever coached,” Casey said.  “She makes up for her size in her willingness to do extra things to make sure we got through the MASCAC.”

Though Colleen is not the captain, both Casey and Caitlin say she has made her presence felt.

“She’s very positive and reassuring,” Caitlin said. “She makes all the girls feel confident in everything they can do. She also will tell you if you’re being lazy or not giving your all. She a positive and strong figure on the team”

As good as Colleen is, she thinks that Caitlin is the one who is on the bigger roll right now. Caitlin has stepped into the point guard spot since starter Melissa Murphy went down with a torn ACL and not missed a beat.

“I haven’t seen a person who’s able to defend (Caitlin),” said Colleen, of whom many could say the same as well. “She’s been scoring 20 a game over the last eight games. She’s one of those people who stays in the gym after practice and shoots forever. Since our point guard went down, she’s stepped up in a way that I’ve never seen before. I think she’s going to do special things in this tournament.”

It was Colleen who did special things in the 63-61 win over Salem State in the MASCAC Tournament title game (the teams 14th straight home win), though a 21-point, 11-rebound, five-block effort is actually nothing new. But it was something new for the Bears at this time of the season. Caitlin has been familiar with much heartbreak during her basketball career, but not this season.

“Bridgewater has had a reputation of having the season crumble in the last week,” Colleen said. “This year we won those games. It’s been nothing less than magical.”

Friday night will mark Caitlin’s 106th game with the Bears, breaking the school record for most career games played. She’ll share space on those lists with Colleen, who has shattered all sorts of scoring, rebounding and shot blocking marks this season.

But this isn’t so much about them as it is about the team, and taking this thing as far as, pardon the pun, they can bear to.

 “We want to gain respect,” Caitlin said. “We want to express that this isn’t a fluke. We want to show our potential and why we’ve been successful.”

CLARKSON'S NET GAINS: They’re so not used to celebrating at the end of the basketball season at Clarkson, and that was evidenced by the fact that when the teams players lined up to cut down the nets after winning the Liberty League title, the strings fell to the floor before everyone had finished slicing off a piece.

The Golden Knights are among the unlikeliest of NCAA Tournament dancers, having advanced to the field of 59 with an 11-16 mark. Clarkson is among the nation’s worst teams statistically in both shooting and scoring, and yet they’re here and matched up with King’s on Thursday night.

Leap Year comes around every four years and the kind of performance that Clarkson’s men’s basketball team put forth to win is equally rare.

So how in the world did a team that started its season 2-9 advance to the dance? Clarkson won as the No. 4 seed (earning that on a tiebreaker) in the two-day league tournament. The Golden Knights shot 50 percent in the second half of their win over top-seeded St. Lawrence and 58 percent in the second half of the championship game victory against Hamilton. They held both opponents to season lows in scoring, allowing only a combined 101 points.

“Those may have been the only two halves all year that we shot 50 percent,” said fourth-year coach Adam Stockwell, whose team shot 38 percent for the year, in averaging 59.1 points. “Our guys made just enough shots, got just enough rebounds, and made just enough free throws. We win by outworking teams. We take a lot of pride in how we defend. We caught both of those teams on a good night for us. Both of them are used to scoring more, but the speed of the game was more our style. We’re a team that plays physical basketball, but that’s what’s good in the postseason, right?”

It was in this case, as the Golden Knights got back to what worked for them in the early part of their league schedule, when they went 5-2. They sputtered at the finish, going 2-5 in the second round of league play, but Stockwell said three of the losses were of the could’ve gone either way category. Clarkson beat every Liberty League team except St. Lawrence during the regular season, and one of the two losses to them came on a last-second shot, so this may not have been as improbable a turn of events as it seems on paper.

The rest of the campus may have been a little surprised. Clarkson is better known for its Division I hockey program. The basketball team was 7-18 in 2004-05, Stockwell’s first year as head coach, then 5-20 the next season. The big leap forward came in 2006-07 when the Golden Knights were 14-12, 5-9 in league play. That was with a senior-heavy team. This year’s squad isn’t as aged, but has turned out to be even better.

“I don’t think our guys were shocked,” Stockwell said. “They believed they could do it.”

It helped that Clarkson got 6-7 junior forward Elson Pickering back after he missed two weeks with a shoulder injury. Pickering had 24 points in the semis and another 17 in the title game. He’s averaging 13.7 points and 7.0 rebounds for the season. Sophomore guard Keith Murray is the team’s other double digit scorer at 10.0 points. He made the critical shot in the semifinal win, a 3-pointer from the corner that bounced high into the air off the rim and through the net. “A leap-day bounce,” Stockwell called it.  Murray was also among several players who missed time due to injury but came back at just the right time.

“We didn’t get as many wins as we’d hoped,” Stockwell said. “But the two that we got were pretty special.”

King’s presents a formidable challenge in that it’s a contrast in scoring ability. The Golden Knights are used to having to hold teams down as much as possible. This may be a little tougher than usual.

“It’s a great achievement just to be here,” Stockwell said. “I’m sure a lot of our guys were getting patted on the back on Monday, but King’s isn’t going to be patting us on the back. We’re going to play hard and see where that puts us after 40 minutes.”