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The Auggie men's basketball and men's hockey teams are in the MIAC postseason playoffs, and if you can't make it to the games (though we really wish you would), you can listen to the live action online.
We will have live audio webcasts of all Augsburg playoff games in men's basketball and men's hockey -- http://www.augsburg.edu/athletics/liveaudio/. Our great play-by-play guy, Tom Witschen, will be on the call tonight for men's basketball at Bethel and tomorrow for men's hockey at Hamline.
For tonight's (WEDNESDAY 2/25) men's basketball playoff game at Bethel at 7:30 p.m., the Royals will have a live video webcast (click here), as well as live stats (click here). Here's a hint for your best Auggie fan enjoyment ... Click on the Bethel live video link to watch, but mute the sound on the QuickTime window. Then click on the Augsburg audio link and make sure that window is active. That way, you can watch the video and still listen to Tom with the Augsburg call!
For tomorrow's (THURSDAY 2/26) men's hockey playoff game at Hamline (Drake Ice Arena in St. Paul) at 7:15 p.m., Tom will be your link to all the action with our live audio webcast.
Wear your favorite pink shirt and support the fight against breast cancer on Valentine's Day this Saturday!
We want Augsburg fans to wear pink at all our home athletic events on Saturday (2/14) -- women's basketball against Bethel at 1 p.m. at Si Melby Hall, men's basketball against Bethel at 3 p.m. at Si Melby Hall, and women's hockey against St. Mary's at 7:05 p.m. at the Augsburg Ice Arena.
The Augsburg Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and Athletic Department is teaming up with the Auggie men's and women's basketball teams and the women's hockey team to help fight the battle against breast cancer, as part of a nationwide "Pink Zone" effort sponsored by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.
Augsburg will be collecting donations, selling Pink Zone t-shirts and providing educational materials at all home athletic events this Saturday. Donations will go to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Minnesota chapter. Come wearing pink and help us support women everywhere.
In addition, at the women's hockey game against St. Mary's, the Auggies will be sporting pink jerseys (first worn by the men's hockey team earlier this season), and will feature a fundraising raffle for the Komen fund. The raffle will feature several hockey souvenirs signed by members of the U.S. Olympic Women's Hockey Team, which is training in Blaine, Minn., for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The team is coached by 1980 U.S. Olympian Mark Johnson, current head coach of the University of Wisconsin women's hockey team and the father of Augsburg men's hockey player Chris Johnson.
It's a Maroon Out night tonight!
Come to tonight's men's basketball game between Augsburg and St. Thomas (Wednesday, 7:30 p.m., Si Melby Hall) and wear your maroon to support the Auggies. Students wearing maroon will receive one free popcorn.
St. Thomas and Augsburg are the top two teams in the MIAC standings, with St. Thomas currently unbeaten and ranked No. 1 nationally in the latest D3hoops.com national poll. This will mark the first time Augsburg has faced a national No. 1-ranked team since 1999, when the Auggies faced top-ranked Wisconsin-Platteville in the second round of the Division III national playoffs.
Augsburg men's basketball update, courtesy of head coach Aaron Griess:
We’re just past the halfway point in the MIAC schedule, and so far, we’ve not failed to disappoint the thrill seekers in the crowd. Five of our 11 conference games have been decided by three points or less. We suffered some heartbreaking losses and we’ve been fortunate enough to come out on the winning side of some real nail-biters. Through it all, we feel as though our team has grown immensely. With so many inexperienced players on our roster to start the year, there were several question marks. We’ve finally found some answers to those questions and we’ve settled into a comfortable rotation.
The work ethic of this group of guys has been tremendous. As a coach, it’s great to have guys who come to practice early and others who stay late in order to get some extra work. That’s where individuals get confidence from -- those extra reps they got when nobody else was there. When it’s their turn to step up in a game, they’ll be able to draw confidence from those moments when they put in the extra work.
The work hasn’t all been in the gym for this group. As a team, we set a goal to earn a 3.0 grade-point average in first semester classes. When grades came out in January, we saw another positive outcome of our work ethic -- a 3.3 team GPA! Needless to say, I’m really proud of this group. They’re displaying the character and work ethic that makes people succeed and makes teams win.
As we enter the home-stretch of the 2008-09 season, we’re looking for continued improvement. We all feel as though we can play better, coach better, and work harder. Our seniors -- Nate Alm, Brian Jungwirth and David Olson -- have put a great deal of time and energy into making this program better. I’d like to make this season special so that those three seniors can finish their college careers with some incredible memories of a program that they helped to reinvent.
A couple of big events this week for Auggie athletics ...
The Augsburg men's basketball team will have a huge home game against St. Thomas on Wednesday (1/28) at 7:30 p.m. at Si Melby Hall. The Auggies are on a serious roll, having won their last three straight games and six of their last seven to move into second place in the MIAC standings. Meanwhile, St. Thomas is 17-0 (the lone unbeaten men's team in Division III) and will likely move into the No. 1 spot in the D3hoops.com Division III national poll on Tuesday. It should be a great game!
Meanwhile, the Augsburg wrestling team, ranked No. 1 in the Division III national poll, will have its annual "Battle of the Burgs" on Friday night, when No. 2-ranked Wartburg (Iowa) visits Si Melby Hall at 7:30 p.m. Augsburg valuted to the top spot in the national rankings after edging defending national champion Wartburg 21-20 in the finals of the NWCA Division III National Duals on Jan. 11 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Wartburg has nine individuals ranked nationally, while Augsburg has eight nationally-ranked wrestlers.
Before Friday's dual meet, there will be a battle of two highly-ranked high school squads, as Albert Lea faces Coon Rapids at 6 p.m. We're expecting a big crowd for the wrestling event on Friday, so get to Augsburg early!
Welcome back to the second half of the Augsburg athletics year! Now that we're deep into the winter sports season and the holidays are behind us, we promise to be more vigilant with posts to the ol' AugBlog.
Some observations on the first portion of the winter sports season:
n The Augsburg wrestling team is heading into the upcoming Division III National Duals with renewed optimism, given the results from the team's last two tournaments. At the Sunshine Wrestling Classic at the end of December, Augsburg won seven individual titles and had 19 top-eight placewinners in a tournament that featured five schools rated in the top 25 in the Division III national poll. And this past Saturday, the Auggies shined against some solid NAIA and Division II competition at the Dickinson State (N.D.) Blue Hawk Classic, with six champs/co-champs and 18 placewinners.
The Auggies dropped to the No. 7 spot in the national polls after a dual-meet loss to in-state rival St. John's on Nov. 25, but hopefully should move back into the top four when the new poll comes out on Tuesday. Heading into the National Duals this coming weekend in Cedar Falls, Iowa, it should make for some interesting action.
n The Augsburg men's hockey team represented themselves very well over the weekend at the Pathfinder Bank/Oswego (N.Y.) Hockey Classic, taking second place with a 6-2 win over Babson (Mass.) in the opening game and a 5-2 loss to No. 11-ranked Oswego State (N.Y.) in the finals.
And a solid weekend for Chris Johnson. The junior forward scored two goals and had three assists to earn a spot on the All-Tournament Team. Also, another solid weekend for goalie Andrew Kent. Playing every minute in goal for the Auggies thus far this season, he has produced a solid 3.84 GAA and .888 save percentage, and he came up with 60 saves on the weekend.
n The Auggie women's hockey team has a lot of traveling this weekend ... five games in a seven-day span! Two games at Lake Forest (Ill.), then a day to travel north to Hancock, Mich., for two games against Finlandia (Mich.), and a day of traveling back to Minneapolis for a home game against Plymouth State (N.H.) on Saturday afternoon. A total of 1,110 miles on the bus during the week.
The Auggies are still in search of their first win of the season, but are coming off a close 2-1 loss to Lake Forest yesterday afternoon. Hopefully, the first win comes this week!
n The Auggie men's basketball team has also been a victim of some close results, with three two-point games in a row -- a 52-50 win over Gustavus on Dec. 10, a 76-74 loss to Northwestern-Roseville on Dec. 13 and a 57-55 loss to St. Olaf on Saturday.
Junior point guard Jon Cassens has had another solid start to the season, averaging a team-best 14.7 points-per-game while also contributing 41 assists. David Olson has also been solid at the guard spot, averaging 10.3 ppg, and center Nate Alm has been outstanding, averaging 11.3 points and 6.7 rebounds per-game. And the Auggies may have found another scoring threat in newcomer Anthony Humphrey, a transfer from Bemidji State who joined the team at the semester break. In his first Auggie game on Saturday against the Oles, he connected on four clutch 3-pointers and had 14 points.
n The Auggie women's basketball team has had a tough start to MIAC play, with five straight losses, including a 76-63 setback to St. Olaf this past Saturday, with the Auggies missing center Christa Sudebeck due to injury. However, coach Jennifer Britz's squad hung tough all game, despite being at a height disadvantage. Here's hoping that Suedbeck and her 10.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per-game come back to the Auggie lineup soon!
Meanwhile, guards Shannon Renne and Serenae Levine have put together solid seasons, averaging 10.4 and 10.5 points per-game, respectively. Levine has the potential to be one of the top first-year players in the conference, and her 23-point, five-assist, two-steal effort against St. Olaf was incredible. Another player who is having the best year of her career is senior swing-player Michelle Richter, who has contributed a solid 10.3 points and 6.0 rebounds per-game thus far.
It's official. Augsburg alum Devean George '99 will remain a member of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. Read the release here. He's going to enter his 10th season in the NBA this fall -- amazing considering that only SEVEN players who played Division III basketball have ever played in the NBA, much less lasted for a decade.
Please allow your SID host a little personal indulgence here ... I remember Devean when he was a player here at Augsburg (I started my work at Augsburg just before Devean's junior year), and how he developed into one of the best players the MIAC has ever seen. In his final two years, he dominated the conference, and Augsburg went on a magical ride to consecutive conference championships and berths in the NCAA national playoffs.
But even after dominating the MIAC and Division III (he averaged 27.5 points and 11.3 rebounds per game his senior year), and earning the attention of some pro scouts, there was still a "small-college" stigma attached to him as he attempted to take his game to the next level. Our coaches lobbied hard for Devean to be invited to the first pro tryout camp, the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational, but the organizers declined. "We already have a D-III player," was the quote one organizer gave to our coaches, since another Division III player was already invited to the camp.
But just before the Portsmouth tournament began, a player pulled out, leaving the 64th and final roster spot available. Somehow, Devean was invited, and he shined, making the all-tournament team and earning some serious attention. He tried out for several teams, and eventually, the Los Angeles Lakers made him their first-round draft choice (trivia ... Devean was Phil Jackson's first draft selection as coach of the Lakers!). Yes, he was a role player, but he was also a part of three consecutive NBA title teams with Lakers.
He's developed into a reliable swingman off the bench throughout his career, and his defensive skills have drawn accolades. He's also become an experienced veteran, a commodity that's sometimes hard to find in the NBA.
I have worked on the freelance statistics staff for the Minnesota Timberwolves for the past nine years, so I usually get to see Devean the two times his teams play at Target Center each year. Granted, the postgame meetings are short, as he's always meeting with family (including his wonderful mother Carol) and friends for a few minutes before he has to leave with the team, but my impression of him has always been the same -- a grounded, down-to-earth guy who works hard and enjoys his life.
As I was writing my news release on Devean yesterday, I went back to look at some of the stuff I wrote on him in past years ... from everything I see, Devean is the same guy now has he was a decade ago, when he was just an Auggie player trying to make it at the next level. I'm so glad to see that he continues to succeed in pro basketball, and represent Augsburg College so well.
-- Don Stoner
The Auggie men's basketball and men's hockey teams are in the MIAC postseason playoffs, and if you can't make it to the games (though we really wish you would), you can listen to the live action online.
