The rise of IPFW: Part 5

Now former IPFW athletic director, Tommy Bell did not waste any time in naming Dane Fife’s replacement. But this time, the decision wasn’t ludicrous to me. We didn’t need months of build up, months of searching: Tony Jasick was the right man at the right time for IPFW.

Jasick is part of what Dane Fife did so right when he blew up the dark years and brought on the new dawn of the program. Jeff Tungate, Jermaine Kimbrough, Tony Jasick: all terrific hires that Fife made. While time will still tell, Jasick may have been the best. He was young, he was hungry, he had a diverse background already coaching at North Alabama, Newberry College and most recently Middle Tennessee State. Tony Jasick was a diamond in the rough and he took on his role at IPFW at full throttle.

For the program to continue what Dane Fife started, Tony Jasick had to be the guy. The day I found out that Dane Fife was leaving, casually and not for any story, I text a former player of mine, Justin Jordan. Justin, who played locally at North Side High School and then at St. Louis, had transferred to IPFW to play for Fife. Fife and Jasick recruited Justin hard in high school, so getting him as a transfer is something I knew they hung their hat on. Like he had for me, I know Dane Fife had grown on Justin, hence the transfer, but what became apparent in that short conversation with JJ was that for all Fife was, Jasick was absolutely the perfect evolution for the program. I don’t know that I have ever heard Justin as jazzed about anything as he was about playing for Tony Jasick.

The praise from one of his future players was clearly justified. In his first year, Jasick took a step back from where IPFW had been but that was expected. He still won 11 games and competed in a tough Summit League. A year later, he improved to 16-17. Through 19 total games this year, he sits just two wins away from tying that mark. Considering he’s already led the Dons past conference favorite North Dakota State, that doesn’t seem like a very big hill to climb.

As of the time I write this, Jasick has won 41 games at IPFW over his two and a half seasons. That is the fourth most ever for an IPFW men’s basketball coach. If his coaching career ended today, only one coach in the program would have a better IPFW career winning percentage.

It has been years since I have been to an IPFW men’s basketball game. There is a disconnect between me now and what I know about the program on a deep level. Both of those are unfortunate because I used to live on knowledge about IPFW basketball, whether out of want or need. But it makes me smile every time I see them win, because they all did it: Jasick, Jordan, Fife, David Carson, Scott, Bell, Pope, Campbell, Pechota, Simon, Noll, Collins…all of those names and hoards more put IPFW in the position they are today.

It has been fun to watch over the years. I really need to get myself over to the Gates Center and see more.

The rise of IPFW: Part 4

Dane Fife was just 25 years old when he was named the head coach at IPFW.

It was a huge story on campus, a big one in the city of Fort Wayne and even had national appeal due to his high profile playing career and his new claim to being the youngest men’s head coach in Division I. No matter how I felt then, how I feel now; I will always love the fact that we, the IPFW Communicator, broke the story.

Throughout the search, myself, Justin Kenny, Nick West and Tony Maurer were all over it. We asked anyone we could, any time we could. Talked to players to find out who interviewed, called candidates, and followed every last lead. The night before the announcement, we got confirmation: Dane Fife was to be the head coach. At the time, IPFW’s web presence was slight, but we had to break the story. We had to beat Sarah Trotto at the Journal Gazette, we had to beat everyone. Just after midnight, my story, with credit to my Communicator colleagues, went live on CollegeHoops.Net. Now, the site sits as an unupdated shell, but then it was one of the biggest hit-garnering websites for college basketball anywhere. And we broke the story. And I will always love that.

The press conference went off without a hitch and Dane Fife said all of the right things, all out of the script he seemed to have written for himself in his mind. Once and now again colleague Justin Kenny and I wrote contrasting columns in the first issue of the IPFW student paper, The Communicator, just days after the hiring. I think Justin was trying to play devil’s advocate in his. In my column, I was honest. The hiring was insane to me.

Looking back to almost nine years ago when the hire was made, I have now spent a lot of time around Dane Fife. Although it has been years, he was once one of the few people that I saw pretty much every single day. I have a greater respect for Dane as a person and as a coach than I could have imagined.

But in May 2005, I was appalled and pretty well thought that IPFW AD Mark Pope was out of his mind. Why? To sell tickets? So the Memorial Coliseum would echo just a little less? To motivate the players by giving them someone who could relate to them? Didn’t you just have the guy to relate to them? I kept my column tame; I kept a lot of questions hid internally.

Mark Pope opened the press conference with a phrase. I opened my news story for the front page of The Communicator quoting the same phrase: “Dane Fife is the right man at the right time for IPFW.”

I didn’t believe a word of it.

And before we could even see who was right and who was wrong, that darkness that began a year or so earlier engulfed the program. In one full swoop, walk-on Andrew Bourne and returning leading scorers Pete Campbell and Beau Bauer were gone, decisions made what we thought to be independently at the time. The next fall, in an interview I did with Campbell about the mass exodus over two years of athletes from the school, he was pretty clear that he left in part because the writing was on the wall. What writing? Within months of Fife’s hire, he cleaned house. While the squad lost Simon to graduation and the three others before school was out, Fife’s summer cleaning list was long: Byron Malone, Jason Malone, Charles Campbell, Quintin Butler. And all of the sudden, there stood the transfers, Scott and Pompey, with returners Justin Hawkins, Quintin Carouthers and Zeljko Egeric and it looked like an atomic bomb had been dropped on the program.

When 'Soup' left,
things looked fishy.

If I questioned the hiring before, I was mortified now. So, we don’t need any starters back? Seven players are just gone? The entire backcourt?

And then Dane grew on me. His personality, his friendship, his work ethic. He didn’t always do things the way that was expected. He, like Doug Noll, drew criticism. But he pressed on. Dane Fife did things Dane Fife’s way for his entire tenure. And it wasn’t just the right way, it was the only way. He let Scott shine, becoming then one of IPFW’s all-time great scorers. He brought it strong recruits like NJCAA All-American Jaraun Burrows and Kansas State transfer Deilvez Yearby. He recruited locally hard and while not landing a big local talent for years, he was persistent.

Furthermore, IPFW had never had a winning record in its D1 tenure, but Fife took them to 10 wins in his first season. The next it was 12 wins and the following season he was where some thought we needed Dement to get us: a conference.

Dane Fife’s win total always grew. 13 wins in the first season in the new Summit League (formerly the Mid-Continent Conference), 13 more in the second year, then 16. Then in 2010-2011, Dane Fife took the Mastodons of IPFW to 18-12, 11-7 in the conference. It was the first winning record in the program since Andy Piazza took them to their best record ever, 23-6 in the 1992-1993 season. Dane Fife was 13.

When looking at the grand landscape of the program, Dane Fife was the lynchpin. Not only was Dane the “right man at the right time for IPFW,” I now believe he was the only man for the job. That’s not to say that lighting a candle wouldn’t have ended the dark years, but Dane had the testicular fortitude to drop a bomb on the dark years and say, “it’s over, let’s move on.”

Losing Dane Fife to Michigan State in 2011 looked like it was going to be the biggest loss in the history of IPFW athletics.

The Rise of IPFW: Part 1

I haven’t been to an IPFW men’s basketball game in years. And that is sad.

These games, at my college, were once a staple of life, as a fan or as a writer. I saw them all, I witnessed some crazy moments at the Memorial Coliseum, in the cozy confines of the Gates Center and on the road with rabid home crowds at Oakland, Purdue and Notre Dame.

And as we sit today, IPFW is atop of the Summit League. That, in itself, is somewhat shocking when you have see all of what I have seen.

The struggles, where a win would be great, let alone a sniff at a sub-winning record.

The coaching swaps, when a mid-season replacement yields happiness but a following off-season swap leaves those in the know skeptical.

The exiles, whose careers at the school ended prematurely, be it at the hands of the old coach, their own doing or one of those aforementioned coaching swaps.

The injuries, which cut down big pieces of the puzzle. As great as it would be to add Justin Jordan to this year’s team, imagine the transition phase with a healthy David Simon. Even more, imagine if he hadn’t been hurt in 2004 and ended up being the first IPFW player to go in the NBA Draft. Sadly, the letters A, C and L stop us from seeing any of those realities.

A healthy David Simon could have gone to the NBA.
And even more, helped IPFW to be better way faster.

Yet here they sit. One year after just missing out on the 12^th winning season in school history, they are kings of their own domain. Humble, fierce, coming into a 2013-2014 season after graduating arguably the best player to ever wear a Mastodon basketball jersey; they lead the Summit League in mid-January.

A school that has just 11 winning seasons, had only won 20-plus games four times and has never hauled in more that 18 wins since becoming a Division 1 program, is currently sitting at 14 wins and sure took shots at Dayton and Illinois, schools who escaped the Mastodons by the skin of their teeth.

And that is magnificent.

College Basketball Preview: Fringe Conferences Part Two

MID-AMERICAN

This is one of those rare and odd Midwest conferences where the best schools usually aren't draped with the best players. Shayne Whittington has the chance to be dominant inside for Western Michigan in a league without much knowledgeable size. They may be the dark horse with 3 guys who red shirted last year as true freshmen. How those three do against Toledo will determine the West Division and possibly conference winner.

MISSOURI VALLEY

Wichita State is by far the class of this conference and should run away with it behind Cleanthony Early, a potential future NBA prospect. The Shockers lost 4 players from a 30-win team, but could repeat that number again. Indiana State will be a distant, but interesting second place team behind Jake Odum and newcomer Brenton Scott.

Cleanthony Early is going to be one of the best
mid-majorplayers in the nation.

NORTHEAST

Bryant may be an interesting choice because of newcomer Daniel Garvin, who has a lot of talent for this level, but Julian Boyd at Long Island may change all of that. Boyd, if healthy, is a 18-25 point per night guy which is the kind of scoring you need to be a breakout team in a league this small.

OHIO VALLEY

In the Ohio Valley, Murray State is always a frontrunner because of their history and consistency. They have some intriguing kids coming into the program, but with that said, they are quite young. I look for Belmont to top Eastern Kentucky, easier than some might thing, in the East with Southeast Missouri State leading the West. Overall, SEMS has more talent with Tyler Stone, but Belmont just has more experience and will win the Ohio Valley.

PATRIOT

Bucknell is intriguing as a repeat champion, but I just don't know if Cameron Ayers is enough fire power when it comes to topping Boston, who has a lot of depth. D.J. Irving, Dom Morris and Maurice Watson Jr. is a hell of a triple threat.

SOUTHERN

There may no longer be a Curry in town, but it is about time that Davidson rises back to power in this conference and as a legit March Cinderella threat. De'mon Brooks is going to be the Player of the Year and Andrew McAuliffe may be the best freshman at 6'8'', 225 pounds.

SOUTHLAND

The Southland is a mess. I can name 5-6 teams who shouldn't even be Division I. I mean, who is Incarnate Word? Are we taking everyone now? Eventually, this league will be like the Summit League was (Mid-Con before that) with Oral Roberts dominating year after year. But they are still feeling things out, so I'll give McNeese State the benefit of the doubt this season behind Desharick Guidry.

SUMMIT LEAGUE

I am a homer of sorts and would love to see IPFW make a run, but that is going to be hard after losing all-time leading scorer Frank Gaines, now in the NBDL. IPFW's season could be impacted by the debut of redshirt Stetson transfer Steve Forbes, Taylor Braun leads a versatile North Dakota State lineup, South Dakota State has depth with Jordan Dykstra leading the way, and Denver has the overall best player in Chris Udofia. This conference should be a sprint between these four schools, I am going to guess Denver rises to the top in the end.

Steve Forbes could be a beast at IPFW.

SUN BELT

Somehow, and for some reason, Georgia State has become an athletic darling of the low grade conferences. They are attracting decent athletes for no discernible reason. In their first year in the Sun Belt, a sophomore in R.J. Hunter is going to dominate. Behind him, Manny Atkins is strong. Louisiana-Lafayette will also be a contender, but just aren't as athletically deep as the Panthers and Coach Ron Hunter.

The fact that RJ Hunter is only a sophomore is just insane.
He is a NBA prospect with a lot more time to
make Georgia State relevant.

SWAC

The lowest of the low on the totem pole is the Southwestern Athletic Conference, who wouldn't come close to field a tournament team unless they were required to do so. If it wasn't for the explosive Demarquelle Tabb, this conference would be lost. Because of Tabb, who at 6'5'', almost averaged a double-double in points and rebounds last season, Alabama A&M will plow through the conference.

WESTERN ATHLETIC

In this geographically irresponsible conference, familiarity is king. New Mexico State is always the class of this field and they have a great coach back that probably should have left for greener pastures in the off season. Travel lag may become an issue, especially for the Chicago States and UMKCs of the world.