Rikki Mulloy made a long trip to Iowa and has helped turn around a program. Cornell athletics photo

The recruitment of the two best players on the Cornell College women's basketball was a vast contrast for coach Brent Brase. To land sophomore guard Rikki Mulloy, he had to travel to Phoenix to try and sell her on the program. Getting center Taylor Dicus was much simpler.

"I could deliver a paper to her in the morning if I wanted to," said Brase, noting Dicus is his next-door neighbor.

In Mulloy's case, he wanted to beat other schools to the punch that were looking to land her.

"I didn’t think we would get her on campus unless we flew out there," Brase said.

The extra miles for one and a few footsteps for the other have paid off handsomely as the two sophomores have been a big part of the Rams’ 12-0 start.

Mulloy is the Rams' leading scorer with 14 points a game, she led the Iowa Conference last season in scoring and Dicus adds 13.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game.

Adding to the 1-2 punch is the school's all-time leading scorer in Camille Marie. Marie chips in 10.7 points per game and 6.6 rebounds.

"Camille is really a neat young lady," Brase said. "She really has an inner competitiveness. She’s accomplished some great things individually. We’re surrounding her with more talent. One of reasons why we’re so dangerous and doing so well, is we have a lot of options scoring wise with her being one of them."

Cornell also has moved from the Iowa Conference last year to the Midwest Conference and is a perfect 7-0 to this point. The new conference alignment was a good fit, as Cornell was in the league before moving to the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in the late '90s. Now, the Rams get to explore a fresh conference competitively as well.

"It's been kind of exciting because you get to meet new kids and meet new coaches," Brase said. "It’s been a good conference and it’s been a good change for us."

Brase said the chemistry of his team has played a huge role in the success of the program.

"We just need to concentrate and do what we’ve done from Day One and focus on the process," Brase said. "We enjoy the process and respect the process in working hard and making sure we focus on being great people on court and being great teammates. If they are great teammates, that’s the real key. We have so much fun on the court and off court. There's no we can't continue to get even stronger as a program."

Presentation going the extra mile

Leaving the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference has left Presentation churning up the miles of highway, trying to find opponents. With everyone locked up in conference schedules, it’s pretty difficult as an independent.

"We're kind of playing a crazy schedule," Presentation men’s basketball coach Jeremy Reigle said.

Long trips have been the norm for the Saints. In the UMAC, the Aberdeen, S.D., school traveled over 450 miles to five schools including an 857-mile trip to Greenville. The Saints are the only Division III school in either of the Dakotas and now are without a conference home.

"Some of it was it geographical," Reigle said. "We didn't have all the sports the other schools had. The conference travel was quite a bit for quite a lot of teams." And the school failed to field a women’s soccer team for two seasons in a row, leaving the UMAC in the lurch late in the summer.

The Saints, who are currently 9-8, have just four Division III games on its schedule, including a home-and-home series with former UMAC rival Minnesota-Morris, the school’s nearest Division III opponent. Reigle said several UMAC schools wanted to offer the Saints an opportunity to travel to their place but not vice-versa.

"Everybody still wanted us to still go to them, a lot of conference teams didn't want to go here," Reigle said.

Reigle didn't say for sure where his team will be next season, but did mention the NAIA as being a possibility.

"We're kind of waiting until the spring to find out what our next move is," he said.  "I can't say for sure."

The Saints do have some long road trips on their schedule with upcoming trips to northeastern Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Kansas and Missouri.

"In order to get games on the weekends in January and February, we had to schedule whomever would play us."

Not only can travel be tricky, but scouting is more difficult as an Independent.

"We had an (UMAC) conference online film agreement," Reigle said. "Not being in a conference it's been a little tough to get a lot of film on schools. We've got to focus more on ourselves. I find us talking more about ourselves and what we need to do better."

For the long trips, the Saints actually found a way to travel a little more economically as they purchased their own bus.

The long trips have helped in one department for sure - chemistry.

"Everything has had a positive spin, our team has been bonding well," Reigle said.

"This has been the closest team I have ever had (in terms of) camaraderie."