Making another run...
The 2011-12 season was also a tale of two seasons, but for a different reason. We felt like we were solid at every position with good size and depth. We opened the season by going to Hutchinson, Kansas to play in their tip-off tournament. Their arena is the Mecca of junior college basketball and exactly why I wanted MCC to stay in Division 1. That is where the annual national tournament is held for D1 and has been for almost 70 years. The building is practically a museum for junior college basketball and just reeks of the history of basketball. Mike Grothaus and I had breakfast one of the days we were there with a couple of the founders of the national tournament, including the late Sam Butterfield, for whom the court is named. They explained to us that the first two years a national tournament was held, it was in Pasadena, California. The tournaments, like the Fiesta Bowl one in Maricopa County, drew small crowds and got little media attention. These gentlemen asked the NJCAA if they could take a crack at it in their town of Hutchinson. It turns out that they had just completed a new 10,000 seat arena for basketball. The NJCAA said yes and it has been there ever since. It was then, and still is conducted by a local group- not the NJCAA, as is the case with most of their tournaments. The NJCAA is kind of a Mom and Pop outfit really. California wanted to send two teams to the tournament, but the guys in Hutch said no- you only get one, since California was one region on the NJCAA map. California balked and has never participated in the tournament or the NJCAA since. Talk about holding a grudge. A lot of people in California that I have talked to, to this day do not know the story and think the issue is just money.
There is a giant map of the United States in the lobby of the arena, and all the champions through the years are marked from their locations in the various states. Obviously, California is blank, but so is Arizona. Both states together comprise Region 1, but for reasons previously mentioned, California does not choose to participate. In all of those 70 years, Arizona has one runner-up finish by Arizona Western, when Jim Amick was coaching. In 1969, Phoenix College went into the national tournament ranked number 1 at 35-0, but lost in the opening round. They were coached by Leon Blevins and had an All-American player, Dennis “Mo” Layton. Mo would go on to play at USC with another very good guard named Paul Westphal, and then, like Paul, would play for the Phoenix Suns. Mesa had a third place finish in 1987, when just like for Phoenix and Arizona Western, all of the ACCAC teams were in the same division and was sending a representative to Hutch every year. Coach Bennett had six teams make it to Hutch during his tenure alone, but that 1987 team was his seventh, and was co-coached by him and Royce Youree. They lost to the College of Southern Idaho by one point in the semi-finals when a tipped three pointer banked in. Since the breakout of divisions, Arizona has hardly ever had a team make it to Hutch, as the Region 1 winner has to play the Region 18 winner to get in. The difference in funding for us at Mesa and Region 18 teams is like the difference between NAU and Duke. We kept trying, but the map of Arizona is still blank. I think Mesa is about to give up on it.
We lost to Hutchinson College in the tournament final, but beat two good teams earlier to get there, including Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, which was ranked in the top 25. The whole trip was memorable because of the sheer history of the place. One of the things I loved about playing games in the Midwest over the years was the fan bases of the various teams. They were generally very knowledgeable about basketball and its history; they understood the different strategies that a particular game could have; and they were very loyal to their home teams- and I mean very loyal. In Hutch, some locals really liked us the first two games, and were pleasant to talk to before and after each game. Then, we walked in to play Hutch, they wouldn’t even speak to us. We loved it and appreciated that kind of loyalty.
By the end of December we were at the top of the conference going into the Fiesta Bowl tournament. As mentioned earlier, we defeated Three Rivers Community College from Missouri in the championship game. At that moment, I could not imagine that anyone in the country was playing better than us. Three Rivers was nationally ranked, would ultimately win their very tough region and go to Hutch, and had the winningest coach in junior college history, Gene Bess. We jumped on them early and led 44-25 at the half. I think they were in shock. We still had mostly Arizona kids in those days- before the rise of the prep schools and the NAIA’s in the Valley, so the win was really meaningful to us.
Then the one thing that many coaches find troubling happened to the team. The Fiesta Bowl tournament drew a lot of college coaches from NCAA Division 1 schools, and winning it was a really big deal for them. One of our players, Asaad Woods, was named the tournament MVP, which put him in elite company. The interest from the colleges increased greatly for him, which began to cause a certain friction in the locker room. I think Pat Riley refers to this phenomenon as the “Disease of Me”. This is junior college- everyone comes to juco to develop and move on to a four year school. I never had a player sit down and say “this will do it for me. I just wanted to play juco”.
To make a long story short, our team fractured and succumbed to the disease. We needed to win one of our last three games to make the playoffs. We lost the first two- both by one point. We then traveled to Thatcher to play the season finale against Eastern Arizona. We got behind early and were down double digits most of the second half. Although not liking each other very much, the guys were still competitors and made a strong comeback to be down one with 13 seconds left. We got the ball after Eastern missed a shot at the end of the shot clock, and I decided not to call timeout. I wanted to Eastern to have to scramble back. What happened next encapsulated the team’s demise in the second half of the season. Our point guard came down the floor and looked over the floor and you could see that he had no confidence in who to get the ball to. He deferred on a couple of guys and passed it to a freshman wing- who really did not want it. It was time to make a play and he passed it instead with one second left. We ended up with a terrible shot and our season ended. It was the only time we would not make the playoffs in twelve years at MCC. So, after starting out 11-2 and winning the best holiday tournament in the country, we ended up 17-12. The Disease of Me.
Next time: Building...
The 2011-12 season was also a tale of two seasons, but for a different reason. We felt like we were solid at every position with good size and depth. We opened the season by going to Hutchinson, Kansas to play in their tip-off tournament. Their arena is the Mecca of junior college basketball and exactly why I wanted MCC to stay in Division 1. That is where the annual national tournament is held for D1 and has been for almost 70 years. The building is practically a museum for junior college basketball and just reeks of the history of basketball. Mike Grothaus and I had breakfast one of the days we were there with a couple of the founders of the national tournament, including the late Sam Butterfield, for whom the court is named. They explained to us that the first two years a national tournament was held, it was in Pasadena, California. The tournaments, like the Fiesta Bowl one in Maricopa County, drew small crowds and got little media attention. These gentlemen asked the NJCAA if they could take a crack at it in their town of Hutchinson. It turns out that they had just completed a new 10,000 seat arena for basketball. The NJCAA said yes and it has been there ever since. It was then, and still is conducted by a local group- not the NJCAA, as is the case with most of their tournaments. The NJCAA is kind of a Mom and Pop outfit really. California wanted to send two teams to the tournament, but the guys in Hutch said no- you only get one, since California was one region on the NJCAA map. California balked and has never participated in the tournament or the NJCAA since. Talk about holding a grudge. A lot of people in California that I have talked to, to this day do not know the story and think the issue is just money.
There is a giant map of the United States in the lobby of the arena, and all the champions through the years are marked from their locations in the various states. Obviously, California is blank, but so is Arizona. Both states together comprise Region 1, but for reasons previously mentioned, California does not choose to participate. In all of those 70 years, Arizona has one runner-up finish by Arizona Western, when Jim Amick was coaching. In 1969, Phoenix College went into the national tournament ranked number 1 at 35-0, but lost in the opening round. They were coached by Leon Blevins and had an All-American player, Dennis “Mo” Layton. Mo would go on to play at USC with another very good guard named Paul Westphal, and then, like Paul, would play for the Phoenix Suns. Mesa had a third place finish in 1987, when just like for Phoenix and Arizona Western, all of the ACCAC teams were in the same division and was sending a representative to Hutch every year. Coach Bennett had six teams make it to Hutch during his tenure alone, but that 1987 team was his seventh, and was co-coached by him and Royce Youree. They lost to the College of Southern Idaho by one point in the semi-finals when a tipped three pointer banked in. Since the breakout of divisions, Arizona has hardly ever had a team make it to Hutch, as the Region 1 winner has to play the Region 18 winner to get in. The difference in funding for us at Mesa and Region 18 teams is like the difference between NAU and Duke. We kept trying, but the map of Arizona is still blank. I think Mesa is about to give up on it.
We lost to Hutchinson College in the tournament final, but beat two good teams earlier to get there, including Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, which was ranked in the top 25. The whole trip was memorable because of the sheer history of the place. One of the things I loved about playing games in the Midwest over the years was the fan bases of the various teams. They were generally very knowledgeable about basketball and its history; they understood the different strategies that a particular game could have; and they were very loyal to their home teams- and I mean very loyal. In Hutch, some locals really liked us the first two games, and were pleasant to talk to before and after each game. Then, we walked in to play Hutch, they wouldn’t even speak to us. We loved it and appreciated that kind of loyalty.
By the end of December we were at the top of the conference going into the Fiesta Bowl tournament. As mentioned earlier, we defeated Three Rivers Community College from Missouri in the championship game. At that moment, I could not imagine that anyone in the country was playing better than us. Three Rivers was nationally ranked, would ultimately win their very tough region and go to Hutch, and had the winningest coach in junior college history, Gene Bess. We jumped on them early and led 44-25 at the half. I think they were in shock. We still had mostly Arizona kids in those days- before the rise of the prep schools and the NAIA’s in the Valley, so the win was really meaningful to us.
Then the one thing that many coaches find troubling happened to the team. The Fiesta Bowl tournament drew a lot of college coaches from NCAA Division 1 schools, and winning it was a really big deal for them. One of our players, Asaad Woods, was named the tournament MVP, which put him in elite company. The interest from the colleges increased greatly for him, which began to cause a certain friction in the locker room. I think Pat Riley refers to this phenomenon as the “Disease of Me”. This is junior college- everyone comes to juco to develop and move on to a four year school. I never had a player sit down and say “this will do it for me. I just wanted to play juco”.
To make a long story short, our team fractured and succumbed to the disease. We needed to win one of our last three games to make the playoffs. We lost the first two- both by one point. We then traveled to Thatcher to play the season finale against Eastern Arizona. We got behind early and were down double digits most of the second half. Although not liking each other very much, the guys were still competitors and made a strong comeback to be down one with 13 seconds left. We got the ball after Eastern missed a shot at the end of the shot clock, and I decided not to call timeout. I wanted to Eastern to have to scramble back. What happened next encapsulated the team’s demise in the second half of the season. Our point guard came down the floor and looked over the floor and you could see that he had no confidence in who to get the ball to. He deferred on a couple of guys and passed it to a freshman wing- who really did not want it. It was time to make a play and he passed it instead with one second left. We ended up with a terrible shot and our season ended. It was the only time we would not make the playoffs in twelve years at MCC. So, after starting out 11-2 and winning the best holiday tournament in the country, we ended up 17-12. The Disease of Me.
Next time: Building...
