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What would you think of a college basketball coach who was recruiting hurt? Not only did Koelbl find out Sunday night that UW-La Crosse didn’t earn an at-large bid into the NCAA Division III Tournament, he also severely injured his right ring finger while trying to unplug his snowblower.
If I’m a potential recruit, I’m listening to Koelbl and assistant coach Aaron Bonnet, who have been traveling from border to border in an attempt to fill some big holes in the Eagles roster. And I forgive Koelbl for not being able to shake my hand because his is heavily bandaged.
The Division III Tournament will start Friday without UW-L. The Eagles’ 19-8 record should have been good enough to get them into the
59-team field, but the NCAA selection committee didn’t see it that way.
So Koelbl’s game plan, other than prepping himself for surgery Friday, is to find new talent and make sure UW-L doesn’t get booted out of its new home in the upper half of the WIAC. That won’t be an easy thing to do in
one of the toughest Division III conferences in the nation. Did you hear that selection committee? One of the toughest conferences in the nation. A conference that deserved two tournament teams, not just one.
The Eagles have spoiled us the last two years with their 39-16 record. But now they have to move on without seniors Joe Werner and Chris Ask, who accounted for
46 percent of UW-L’s scoring this season. Putting a percentage on their overall contributions to the Eagles’ rise during their four years at UW-L would require taking an advanced math class.
It’s possible UW-L might win only 15 or 16 games next season. I chuckled as I typed the word “only.” There was a time a season of double-digit victories would have triggered dancing at
UW-L not seen since “American Bandstand” went off the air.
But maybe there won’t be a letdown. The Eagles’ success has made
UW-L a more attractive place to play basketball. And Koelbl already has found a potential standout player in Tony Mane.
I have a feeling you’ll get to know him quite well next season. Mane, a 6-foot-1 guard, averaged 30.5 points a game his senior year at Milwaukee Thomas More. He started this season at Division I Chicago State University, but didn’t like it there. He called Koelbl, told him he was transferring to UW-L and asked if there would be room for him on the roster next year. Needless to say, Koelbl said yes.
It was just three, four years ago that Koelbl wouldn’t have been able to land a player of Mane’s caliber. And Koelbl often had to resort to recruiting a high school team’s third- or fourth-best player. Now, a quality prep player is very much in Koelbl’s reach.
UW-L still doesn’t quite have the pull of perennial WIAC power UW-Stevens Point, where Koelbl served as an assistant for eight seasons. But at least one of his fellow coaches in the WIAC believes the Eagles are getting there.
“Kenny has brought that program farther than it’s ever been,” Stevens Point coach Bob Semling said after the Pointers beat UW-L 83-68 in the WIAC Tournament championship last Saturday. “But sometimes you’ve got to knock on the door a couple of times before you break it down.”
The day when the Eagles break that door into toothpicks will come. And no sacrifice is too great to Koelbl to make that a reality.
“We need to keep moving forward and doing what we need to do to make us a strong, competitive basketball team in the future,” Koelbl said.
Kirk Bey can be reached at (608) 791-8414, or at kbey@lacrossetribune.
