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| Katie McDaniels has had a fantastic regular season. Last March the Thunder followed a strong regular season with a quick exit, however. Wheaton (Ill.) athletics photo |
By Josh Smith
When the Wheaton (Ill.) women’s basketball team won the CCIW regular season championship and conference tournament a year ago, the Thunder were disappointed that their NCAA Tournament experience only lasted one game.
But that first round exit motivated the players. Now, after securing a share of the CCIW crown and rolling through the league tourney, Wheaton is focused on earning its first NCAA Tournament victory since 2007.
They will get that chance Friday when they play host UW-River Falls in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“Like any team, they always want to take it a step further,” Wheaton head coach Kent Madsen said. “They have a desire, to not only just get to the NCAA Tournament, but to hopefully be able to advance.”
Madsen said teams can have a letdown in the NCAA Tournament after fighting through a conference tourney just to qualify. But now that his seniors are making their third appearance in the NCAAs and most of the roster experienced last year’s run, he hopes his team learned from previous experiences.
“You’ve got to be ready to play,” the coach said. “You have to play at a high level because the teams just keep getting better and better and better as you move along.”
“I think that we just learned that you can’t take any game for granted and that every single possession of the game matters – no matter if it’s at the beginning of the game, in the middle or at the end,” added junior Katie McDaniels, who averages a team-high 17.0 points per game.
Although the 2014-15 season didn’t end the way Wheaton wanted, the loss propelled the players to work hard this offseason, and Madsen said his team was in much better shape coming into this season.
“Basketball is a long season. That conditioning plays a big role just because of the perseverance that you need to get through a season, especially in a tough conference like the CCIW,” the coach said.
“We spent the first couple months of the school year doing workouts in the offseason, Monday through Friday,” McDaniels explained. “We had gym workouts, we had track workouts, we had weightlifting – all those kinds of things. And the captains definitely talked to us early on in the year about goals that we had and standards that we were setting for the season.
“They set the tone really early on.”
Wheaton went 11-3 in CCIW play, sharing the league title with Illinois Wesleyan. Then the Thunder rolled through the league tournament, winning their semifinal game by 32 points before topping Illinois Wesleyan by 22 points in the tournament championship.
“I felt like in the conference tournament, they had more of a ‘we expected to be there’ type of thing,” Madsen said. “You gain a little bit more confidence with each time you achieve something. I think the confidence component is big right now.”
Additionally, Wheaton is playing well on the defensive side of the ball. That’s an area the coach really stresses, and he is pleased with the improvements his team has made this season on the defensive end of the floor.
“The beauty of defense is it really takes five people working together,” Madsen said. “It really magnifies the importance of working together as a team.”
Madsen also credited his four senior captains – Hannah Considine, Ellie Zeller, Sarah Drury and NatalieRose Brogan.
“If you look at those four seniors and you kind of glance at their stats and stuff, you see they serve in all different roles within our team. But they all have great leadership ability,” Madsen said.
In addition to the seniors, the team relies on McDaniels. The CCIW player of the year is the team’s leading scorer, recently setting a program record for made free throws in a season, and she is an excellent facilitator with a team-high 134 assists.
“Her assist-to-turnover ratio is outstanding,” Madsen said. “She takes care of the ball, puts it through the hoop really well and also dishes it off to her teammates to help make them even more successful. That’s a pretty special player when you have somebody that can do those things.”
The Thunder, who have won seven games in a row and 11 of their last 12 games, hope the experience they gained and the work they put in this offseason pay dividends this weekend. Wheaton will continue to rely on the defensive identity it has built over the course of the season.
“We definitely won’t change our mentality on that,” Madsen said. “You can always keep yourself in the game and you can always give yourself a chance to win if you’re playing great defense.”
“I definitely feel like we’re peaking at the right time. We’re playing our best basketball right now, which is really exciting,” McDaniels added.
“I think we can compete with anybody, so we’ll see what happens.”
Who’s in
In addition to Wheaton (Ill.), eight other women’s basketball teams from the Central Region made the NCAA tournament field.
St. Norbert (Midwest Conference), Wisconsin Lutheran (NACC), Greenville (SLIAC), UW-Oshkosh (WIAC) and Washington U. (UAA) all earned their respective conference’s automatic bids. WashU and UW-Oshkosh will serve as hosts for first and second round games.
Additionally, UW-River Falls, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Whitewater were selected as at-large participants. Both Stevens Point and River Falls will host first- and second-round contests.
On the men’s side, Benedictine claimed the NACC’s automatic qualifier and received a first round bye in the NCAA tournament.
Augustana (CCIW), St. Norbert (Midwest), Westminster (Mo.) (SLIAC) and UW-Oshkosh (WIAC) also secured automatic qualifications by winning their conference tournaments. Augustana and St. Norbert will both serve as hosts for first and second round play.
North Central (Ill.) and Elmhurst received at-large bids into the tournament field as well.
Where they rank
Augustana and Benedictine remained ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in the men’s Top 25 poll. The Vikings collected 17 first place votes while the Eagles received the other eight. St. Norbert moved up one spot this week to No. 7.
North Central and Elmhurst are ranked Nos. 17 and 18, respectively. The Cardinals dropped six places while the Bluejays rose one spot.
Carroll (9) received votes in this week’s men’s poll.
In the women’s Top 25, Washington U. fell one spot to No. 10.
UW-Oshkosh climbed four positions while UW-River Falls tumbled two places to No. 13. Wheaton (Ill.) was ranked No. 17 again this week. UW-Stevens Point slid three spots to No. 20.
UW-Whitewater fell out of the Top 25. The Warhawks (14) and St. Norbert (9) received votes in this week’s poll.
Around the Central Region was written by Josh Smith during the 2015-16 season. Josh covers high school and Division III athletics for the Daily Jefferson County Union in Fort Atkinson, Wis. He has won multiple awards for reporting and photography and contributes to multiple publications in addition to his duties at the Daily Union, including D3sports.com beginning in 2012. He graduated from UW-Whitewater with a degree in print journalism.
