From the era when file photos are smaller, it's our All-Gap team.

By Ryan Scott and
Gordon Mann

When D3hoops.com did its first All-Decade Team in 2007, it was a celebration of the site’s first decade – quite an accomplishment for what began with Pat Coleman cold-calling random Division III schools on game nights looking for scores. Now, in 2020, the site has readjusted the All-Decade team to reflect the calendar decades, a way of looking forward to a long, bright future!

• 2010's men's basketball All-Decade team
• 2010's women's basketball All-Decade team
• First All-Decade team (1997-2007): Men | Women
• All-time All-America selections: Men | Women 

That being said, we did not want to ignore the great contributions to Division III basketball made by players who fell in between our decades. These are some of the very best to ever suit up and they deserve their due as well, starting with one of the best big men we’ve ever seen:

Ben Strong is 6-foot-11. You don’t see too many Division III athletes that tall. If you do, they’re often lacking in one or more key areas: speed, footwork, strength, etc. Strong was the total package, the answer to that age-old speculation: “What if a really solid Division I player decided to commit to Division III?”

That’s not quite Strong’s story. He was once that typical, slightly over-matched if physically intimidating center, but he was able to develop every aspect of his game during four years at Guilford to such a degree that we really did get an answer to the question: a solid Division I big man in Division III would look an awful lot like Ben Strong.

Strong, currently a player development coach for the Phoenix Suns after an eight year professional career, scored 2241 career points, and was a D3hoops.com All-American First Team selection as a senior, following up a D3hoops.com Player of Year campaign as a junior in 2007. That season was special, not only because Guilford advanced to the fourth round of the NCAA Tournament, but because of how they did it.

Triple overtime against Lincoln, final score 129-128. Ben Strong hit the free throw to put Guilford up and blocked a game winning attempt by Lincoln. Oh, and he also played 49 minutes, shot 20-for-27 from the floor, 19-for-22 from the FT line, pulled down 17 rebounds and scored 59 points!

Until Aston Francis’ recent exploits, it was unquestionably the greatest individual, single-game performance in Division III tournament history. It may still be the greatest; it’s just not unquestionable anymore.

Keeping with the NBA connection, current Cleveland Cavaliers shooting coach, Andrew Olson, may still be the best basketball player Amherst ever produced (which is saying something, given Aaron Toomey’s place on the All-Decade team). Olson’s 758 career assists was sixth in Division III history when he graduated and remains 13th all-time. He was named Most Outstanding Player when Amherst won its first national championship in 2007.

Olson was not flashy and, outside of those assists, did not particularly fill the stat sheet. He did provide unquestioned leadership on and off the court, managing an Amherst squad that included five future professional basketball players. He was twice NESCAC Player of the Year (only losing two conference games his entire career) and, like Strong, twice a D3hoops.com First Team All-American.

He was a true point guard, perfectly capable of scoring in many different ways, but content to create opportunities for teammates. One of the beneficiaries was Kevin Hopkins, now head coach at Muhlenberg. “Andrew always knew what was going to happen before it happened,” says Hopkins. “He knew who needed the ball, when they needed it, and what play to run to get it to them. There were times I ran down the court [for outlet passes] before we even had the ball, because Andrew said, ‘go.’ At the end of the game, when we needed to score, everyone knew to get the ball into his hands.”

Olson made a second NCAA All-Tournament team his senior season, as Amherst returned to Salem to defend their title. They were upset (steamrolled?) by one the all-time great squads in Wash U, who went on to win back-to-back championships.

That the Bears won a second, without Troy Ruths, is a testament to their depth. The difference in how they won those titles is a testament to Ruths’ greatness. The second title was a pretty close affair with a tough, but relatively untested Richard Stockton squad. That first one, though: taking out the defending champs by 22, on the back of Ruths’ second straight 30 point performance was beyond impressive.

Ruths played one way: tough. He got the ball in the paint, made defenses work, and scored. Of course, he could always do a bit more when he needed to. “Coming into the [2008 championship] game,” says former Amherst coach, Dave Hixon, “We didn’t have a lot of time to scout, but we’d been told he couldn’t really hit jump shots, so we played off him a bit, and of course, he hits a few jumpers to start and Kevin Hopkins is just looking at the bench with his arms up.”

Ruths won the Jostens Trophy and is the second all-time scorer at Wash U. Like many Division III stars, he also excelled in the classroom, going on to earn a Ph.D. in computer science. Ruths currently runs an oil & gas analytics firm where he serves as founder, CEO, and chief data scientist.

MIT has been playing basketball since 1900. They never had a 20 win season until Jimmy Bartolotta showed up, now it’s a pretty regular occurrence. At 6-4 with long arms, Bartolotta had more size than most Division III guards at the time. He was a stellar free throw shooter and great at getting to the line. He was also a volume 3-point shooter, back when that meant hitting three per game. With modern analytics, he probably would’ve averaged 35 points, instead of the 27 he put up as a senior. He had a very modern game that opponents didn’t really know how to stop.

“He was the kind of offensive player that a defensive scheme had to be planned for in the preseason,” says Springfield coach, Charlie Brock. “If preparation to control him was made in the two practice days prior to the game, success was unlikely.” Bartolotta won the 2008 Jostens Trophy and Brock adds: “The highlight video at the Jostens banquet included many clips of plays he made against Springfield. Clearly the scheme I put together wasn’t good enough, or he was just simply that good a player.”

We’ll assume the latter.

Bartolotta scored 2279 career points and appears in the MIT record book 13 times. He currently lives in Colorado with his wife Abby (formerly Waner, a McDonald’s All-American, Duke grad, and WNBA draftee) and two young daughters, who may not play basketball someday, but will undoubtedly be pretty good if they decide to do so.

Like Bartolotta, Kent Raymond was a silent assassin. He went about his business with great skill and little fanfare. Obviously at the center of Wheaton’s offensive plans and the focus of opposing defenses, Raymond moved as if there was nothing in his way. The game seemed to slow down for him and he could do just about anything he wanted with the basketball.

Augustana’s Grey Giovanine says: “Kent was more like the guards we went against during [my time] at the Division I level than most of the guys we saw at Augustana. He wasn’t a guy you could speed up and you were constantly helping whoever was defending him. He was a fine competitor and always comported himself in a first-class manner.”

The polite superstar might be a cliché for a conservative, Christian school such as Wheaton, but Raymond always took life outside of basketball seriously. After an incredible freshman campaign, where he shot 51% from the floor, 47% from three, and 90% from the free throw line and was named all-conference second team, he took a year away from basketball to make sure his priorities were right, before coming back to finish out his career. He worked hard, but always played with a confidence that there were more important things in life than basketball. Raymond was a three time CCIW Most Outstanding Player and scored 2,308 career points.

In a league such as the UAA, winning the conference MVP three times means more than just a good basketball player; it means a rare talent. That was the case for NYU’s Jessica McEntee who won the award in 2007, 2008, and 2009 and was a three-time All-American.

McEntee chose Division III and NYU over Division I opportunities in the Ivy League, Patriot League and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The Flushing, New York, native was drawn to the Big Apple, despite not spending much time there growing up, by Violets head coach Janice Quinn and the opportunity for an excellent education in a unique environment.

McEntee developed into a versatile scorer with outsized rebounding abilities, finishing second all-time in that category at NYU despite being under six feet tall. Most of all, McEntee was a headache to defend.

Rochester head coach Jim Scheible says: “I remember gearing our whole defensive game plan around her. She was just incredibly efficient at scoring the basketball at all three levels, while also having an uncanny knock at getting to the free throw line.” McEntee shot over 80 percent from there during her career.

She finished her career averaging a double-double (16 points, 10 rebounds), was a reliable three-point shooter and filled the stat sheet with assists and steals as well. Most importantly, she led the Violets to three NCAA Tournaments, including their Final Four run in 2007. After graduating, McEntee spent a year on the Violets’ coaching staff and is now a Vice-President at Merrill Lynch.

She led the Violets to three NCAA Tournaments, including the Final Four in 2007. She was a three-time D3hoops.com All-American, twice on the first team.

Meia Daniels-Netter had as good a season in 2008 as one could imagine. She was the consensus national Player of the Year, the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player and the leader of Howard Payne’s undefeated national championship team.

But Daniels-Netter was much more than a one-year wonder. She scored over 2,000 points in her career and finished in the top 10 in program history for points (second), rebounds (sixth), assists (sixth) and steals (first). Daniels-Netter led the Yellow Jackets to the ASC title three times and to the NCAA Tournament all four seasons.

Still, that 2008 season is what Howard Payne fans will remember most, especially a showdown in the Elite 8 against fellow unbeaten Hope. The Flying Dutch were ranked No. 1 in the nation and traveled to No. 2 Howard Payne for a rare NCAA Tournament matchup of the top two teams in the country. Daniels-Netter scored 37 points in Howard Payne’s 53-49 victory and the Yellow Jackets advanced to the Final Four, which was coincidentally hosted by Hope.

When asked about Daniels-Netter, Hope head coach Brian Morehouse said, “Meia was a fearless competitor who was always a play ahead on the floor. The moment never got too big for her and Coach [Chris] Kielsmeier always put her in great positions to be successful.”

She graduated from Howard Payne that year and followed Kielsmeier to Division II Wayne State (Neb.) where they won a conference title. Daniels-Netter returned to Howard Payne as the Yellow Jackets head coach for five seasons, winning the ASC West Division II twice.

McMurry basketball has not had a national profile since it briefly left Division III to try scholarship athletics as a Division II program, but the War Hawks once had one of the best women’s basketball players in the country.

Tarra Richardson (Kersh) was a six-foot-one center who came to Abilene, Texas from Fort Worth and dominated the ASC. She became the all-time leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker in program history and, with 2,164 points, she also holds the ASC women’s basketball scoring record.

Some of Richardson’s best games came against crosstown rival Hardin-Simmons. As a freshman in 2005, she just missed a triple-double, posting 24 points, 19 rebounds and seven blocks in McMurry’s victory over the Cowgirls in the ASC semifinal. The next season Richardson had 23 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks in McMurry’s win over HSU in the ASC title game.

If it weren’t for Howard Payne, we might be talking about how McMurry took the 2008 national championship trophy back to Texas. In Richardson’s senior year, McMurry went 25-5 with four losses to the Yellow Jackets, the last one coming in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Richardson was a three-time All-American and a first-team All-American in 2008 when she also won the Jostens Trophy. After graduating with a business administration, Richardson entered the accounting field in Texas’ oil and gas industry, where she still works today.

The storybook ending for a senior athlete has her hoisting the national championship trophy while being celebrated for her individual excellence. That’s a great way to start a career, too. Lindsay Ippel (Douglass) finished her freshman season at Millikin by winning a national championship and being named to the 2005 All-Tournament team.

Coach Lori Kerans moved Ippel into the starting lineup when fellow forward Karin Olson was lost to injury late in the season. Ippel, who had been averaging close to 10 points per game, took over in the NCAA Tournament where she averaged an eye-popping 19.8 points, 10.2 rebounds and 1 block per contest. She scored a team-high 25 points in the championship win over Randolph-Macon.

Ippel proved to be much more than a one-season wonder. She followed up her remarkable freshman campaign by making first team All-Central Region as a sophomore. Then she was named CCIW Most Outstanding Player, Regional Player of the Year and first team All-American in her junior and senior seasons. She was the CCIW’s leading scorer in her final three years and is Millkin’s all-time leading scorer with 2,017 points.

As good as Ippel was on the court, her work today is even more impressive. She lives in the Decatur, Illinois area where she works as an emergency room nurse. When Decatur Memorial Hospital opened a COVID-19 unit, she volunteered. You can read more about the support Lindsay has received from her family, former coach and current neighbor Kerans and their community here.

Fred Richter’s program at DeSales University has been quietly and consistently excellent. Except for the Marc Mitchell era at FDU-Florham, the Bulldogs have long been the top dogs in the Middle Atlantic Freedom Conference. Last season DeSales made the NCAA Tournament for the 12th time in Richter’s tenure.

Over that period, the Bulldogs have been led by smart guards who are savvy scorers, dangerous shooters and tenacious defenders. That’s a good description of LeighAnn Burke-McGovern who started almost every game from the moment she arrived in the Lehigh Valley. She really hit her stride in her junior season when she was Mid-Atlantic Player of the Year, an All-American and a Jostens Trophy finalist. She repeated those accolades as a senior.

In both seasons DeSales had the misfortune of meeting the national Player of the Year in the NCAA Tournament. The Bulldogs were eliminated by Meia Daniels and Howard Payne in Texas in 2008 and Hillary Klimowicz and TCNJ in a neutral court game in 2009. Burke-McGovern was the leading scorer in both finales.

The Bulldogs are particularly tough at home in Billera Hall and Burke-McGovern finished her career there with a masterful performance against Manhattanville in the 2009 MAC Freedom final. Burke-McGovern scored 29 points, including a perfect 8-for-8 from the foul line, and added seven assists and three steals in DeSales’ 70-60 win.

Burke-McGovern is second all-time in scoring, seventh in assists and fourth in steals at DeSales. She is now a high school math teacher in Pennsylvania.

Sometimes you have to go beyond the numbers to appreciate a player’s excellence. When Mary Washington women’s basketball is at its best, the Eagles ground opponents with stodgy defense and win low-scoring affairs. That does not lend itself to big offensive numbers for UMW players.

Mary Washington was at its best when Liz Hickey was patrolling the post. The three-time All-American center helped head coach Deanna Applebury transform the Eagles into perennial NCAA Tournament participants and reach the No. 1 ranking in the country in 2008. UMW went 101-15 during Hickey’s four years and reached at least the Sweet 16 in three of the four.

That included the Eagles’ run to the 2007 Final Four when Mary Washington ended Scranton’s 63-game home winning streak in the Sweet 16 and then beat No. 1 Bowdoin in the Elite 8. Hickey had 16 points and five blocks and outplayed Eileen Flaherty, who made our first All-Decade team, in the Eagles’ 64-59 win over the Polar Bears.

The defensive nature of Mary Washington basketball kept Hickey’s points and rebound numbers off the national leaderboards, but she was among the team leaders in both categories throughout her career. And that defensive posture led to mind-blowing numbers of blocks (nearly four per game). Hickey’s 510 career blocks ranked first all-time when she graduated and remains third.

Her presence in the middle of the floor challenged defenses relentlessly and made space for her teammates to shine. Opposing game plans rarely involved stopping Hickey, but focused on her teammates with prayers she wouldn’t find ways to beat them herself.

Hickey (now Liz Hudy) finished with 1370 points and 938 rebounds for her career. She is currently the women’s basketball coach at Virginia Wesleyan.

Julia Hirssig is the perfect fit for our All-Gap team because she truly does bridge the gap between our first All-Decade team and our second. In her first season at UW-Stout, Hirssig played alongside Kelsey Duoss who made our first All-Decade team. Hirssig just missed playing against UW-Stevens Point’s Sam Barber (who started her career at Division II Winona State) and Barber made our second All-Decade team.

Hirssig is also the perfect fit because she was an excellent player. She was a two-time All-American, won every WIAC award possible and finished as the Blue Devils’ career scoring leader with 1,738 points. She also led the school in free throws made and field goal percentage (and led the entire country in the second category as a sophomore) and finished second to Duoss in career rebounds. She also won the Jostens Trophy in 2010.

Playing with Duoss probably limited Hirssig’s touches in her first year enough that she missed scoring 2,000 points but it also enabled her to play in the NCAA Tournament (where she scored 11 points, with 14 rebounds and four steals off the bench) and helped launch an outstanding career.

Perhaps her most important contribution, though, was work ethic. Stout was not a perennial power in a very tough league full of talented players where the difference between winning and losing often comes down to effort. Hirssig played with incredible consistency, despite being the focus of opposing defenses. She outworked everyone, inspiring and raising the standard for her teammates at the same time.

After graduating with a degree in hotel, restaurant and tourism management, Hirssig has worked as event director at the Jack Nicklaus designed golf course The Bull at Pinehurst Farms. She also coached basketball at the high school and collegiate level.

Now that we have filled in this gap, we are on track for a fully logical rollout of All-Decade teams in the future, and you can expect another one from us sometime in late 2030.