Short on story ideas with Spring Break just days away, but also curious to find out about the Washington University basketball team’s Sweet 16 opponent, I set out to learn a little bit about the satellite Wisconsin state school that the Bears will face on Friday evening.
The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point harbors something slightly resembling mythic status within the small world of Division III hoops. The Pointers have taken two of the last three national championships, and this year’s squad currently holds the top spot in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll. They’re noted for getting especially strong fan support as well.
The Pointers have also been the subject of criticism in some D3 basketball circles, with Jim Hayford, the coach of Wash. U.’s second round opponent, Whitworth College, recently all but declaring that the central Wisconsin school and the league in which it competes should not belong to the D3 level.
Before coming to any conclusions, I figured it’d be best if I consulted with the experts. So, I set out to see what the town and the school was all about. After unsuccessfully trying to reach seemingly everyone at the University’s athletic complex, I eventually got a hold of the chair of the UWSP History department, Susan Brewer. A sweet lady, she unfortunately had a class to teach and said she probably wasn’t the best person to consult with respect to athletic-related inquiries, even historical ones. Finally, I tracked down a veteran sports reporter from the Stevens Point Journal.
Scott Williams was the writer’s name, and he proved to be quite the resource. A laid-back native of the Badger state, Williams thoroughly answered all of my queries and was sure to debunk some of the romanticized lore that surrounds the Pointers program. Excerpts of our conversation appear below.
Andrei Berman: Tell us a little about Stevens Point, the school and the town. Where is it located and how might fans get there?
Scott Williams: It’s a very strong natural resources school. The outdoors are very big up here. The town is located right smack-dab in the middle of the state. The population is about 50,000 total, including [nearby] Polver. It’s pretty laidback. It’s a good place to raise kids. It’s got a good school system. Milwaukee and Green Bay are about two hours away. Madison is about an hour and a half.
A.B.: How big a role does that 8,000-student University play with respect to the culture of the town? Does the school call the shots?
S.W.: No, the school doesn’t have that big of an impact on the community. There’s a big insurance company and several other big businesses. Farming is also really big. Potato farming is the biggest. There’s a Del Monte vegetable plant in town. We also have our own brewery – Point Brewery.
A.B.: What’s a pointer?
S.W.: It’s technically an English pointer, as in the dog. That’s the mascot. Actually there are two mascots – Stephanie and Stevie Pointer. They’ve been around for a while.
A.B.: Why are Division III athletics so big in Wisconsin?
S.W.: It’s one of the cheaper ways of going to college and a lot of the good athletes in the state who don’t get Division I or Division II rides wind up going to the schools because it’s cheap compared to a private school.
A.B.: People talk about some of the athletes in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) as if they could compete at any level. Are the players sometimes overlooked by higher divisions due to geography or are they just not as good as people make them sound?
S.W.: Division I schools don’t feel they’re worthy. They’re good players but not great players. They’re very well coached at the high school level. The high school level is bigger in the southeast part of the state. That’s where basketball is king.
A.B.: How big of a deal is UWSP basketball?
S.W.: It’s huge. They draw huge crowds, some of the top-drawing crowds in the country for Division III. They have season ticket holders, a booster club, back court club. And not just for the men; the women also get support.
A.B.: How much interest has this game generated? Are they expecting big crowds?
S.W.: They sold out the tickets today in about four hours. The gym holds about 2,500-2,700 depending on what they do about the fire code.
A.B.: What do you know about Wash. U. as a school or team?
S.W.: I had heard of the school because the [Stevens Point] women’s team played them on the way to the national championship once at our place and once at their place. All I knew was that it was in Missouri, but I didn’t know where.
A.B.: It’s in St. Louis. How do you respond to criticism that the Wisconsin league shouldn’t be in D3?
S.W.: These kids all pay their own ways to the schools. I guess people would be pretty confused around here for why people would think that.
A.B.: How removed from UW-Madison are the WIAC schools? Do fans still root for the Badgers?
S.W.: Oh, yeah. The Badgers are huge up here, way more than Marquette, or UW-Milwaukee, or UW-Green Bay or any of the other Division I schools. This is definitely Badger country.
A.B.: How does this Stevens Point team compare to the championship teams of 2004 and 2005?
S.W.: It’s a different team. It’s not as big a team and it’s a little more balanced. Any five guys can score at any time. From number one through eight or nine, all can score. All can shoot the ‘3.’ Several of them can post people up. They’re quite different teams. They only have one senior that plays a lot and one junior that plays a lot and the rest of the team is sophomores and freshman.
A.B.: Are they any restaurants you’d recommend Bears fans travel to if they want to grab a drink or a bite to eat before the game?
S.W.: Final Score or Grafittis would be the places to go. Those are the main sports bars.