BOB QUILLMAN – HOST OF THE Q-CAST – EPISODE 920

Website – www.IWUhoops.com

Twitter: @IWUhoopscom

Email – mailto:bobquill@me.com

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Bob Quillman is the host of The Q-Cast, a show that puts the focus on D3 Basketball.  He is a 1993 graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University.  His father Bob, played basketball at IWU in the 1950’s.  During his junior year, Bob began broadcasting Illinois Wesleyan games as a play-by-play man.  From 2001 through 2008 Bob worked as part of the WJBC broadcast team for IWU basketball with legendary broadcaster Art Kimball.   He has a 20+ year relationship with D3hoops.com and has worked many Division III Final Fours with Pat Coleman and crew, and also been part of Dave McHugh’s Hoopsville program since it started.  Bob runs IWUhoops.com to give Titan fans a hub for all things Illinois Wesleyan Basketball.

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Be sure to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Bob Quillman, Host of the Q-Cast.

What We Discuss with Bob Quillman

• Growing up in Chicago as a fan of DePaul Basketball, Michael Jordan, and the Chicago Bulls
• His Dad’s experience playing basketball at Illinois Wesleyan University
• Falling in love with D3 Basketball while going to college at Illinois Wesleyan
• Broadcasting IWU Basketball Games on the Radio in college and later working with Art Kimble after he graduated
• His connections with team at d3hoops.com and Hoopsville
• Why coaches are friendlier now than they used to be…”Those guys are the only people in the world who know exactly what I’m going through on a daily basis. So why wouldn’t I want to be close to them?”
• “You get an appreciation for your peers when you watch and listen to some of this social media stuff.”
• How the Q-Cast got started during the pandemic when the D3 NCAA Tournament got canceled
• Michael Jordan never let you down…He played hard, he played smart.
• “The toughest part about it is the prep. I really, really pride myself in making sure that I know my guests beforehand, and I know, let’s say the team, the players. I don’t want to just turn the mic on and ask dumb questions.”
• Talking x’s and o’s with D3 coaches
• Learning about Yeshiva’s motion offense
• “I think if you know who you are and have an identity, it makes it a lot easier to find the kids that fit your program.”
• Trying to get a perfect record predicting the at-large teams in the D3 NCAA Tournament
• The differences is selection criteria for D3 vs D1 Tournament bids
• The geographic constraints when it comes to picking host sites for the D3 Tournaments
• “The school part of it, the student part of student athlete is really important.”
• #WhyD3, because it’s good basketball
• “The love for the game in Division 3, and these kids are not on scholarships, they’re good students they have a lot on their plate, and they love the game and are working as hard as their peers in Division 1.”
• The geographic element of D3 basketball awareness

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THANKS, BOB QUILLMAN

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TRANSCRIPT FOR BOB QUILLMAN – HOST OF THE Q-CAST – EPISODE 920

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to be joined by Bob Quillman, host of the Q-Cast. Ooh, easy for me to say. Q-Cast Bob, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:16] Bob Quillman: Really appreciate it, guys. And Qs can be tricky. You know, being a Q my whole life, I’m used to that. People struggle with Qs. They’re not used to seeing it Mike. And really glad to be here, though, guys. I’m a huge, huge fan of what you’re doing. Your stuff is great. And so this is really fun to be here. Thank you.

[00:00:33] Mike Klinzing: We are thrilled to have you on, looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do with the Q-CAST, dive into your knowledge. of Division III basketball. Let’s start by working back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about your experiences with athletics growing up and just kind of how you got to this point from, from when you were younger.

[00:00:57] Bob Quillman: Yeah, I grew up in Chicago. So south side of Chicago and in a sports neighborhood is the best way to say I was a Chicago White Sox fan. I was a huge basketball fan. Actually, the first team I loved was the DePaul Blue Demons. You know, DePaul in the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s. I was a huge DePaul fan.

There was a local NAIA school about three blocks from us, St. Xavier, south, south side of Chicago. My dad used to take me to games at St. Xavier. And so I, I grew up like big sports guy play. I was a better baseball player than basketball player. But loved both sports and all day, every day in summers, it was either playing baseball or basketball at the, at the playground just pick up basketball, one on one basketball with my buddies and yeah, just sports has always been a huge part of my life.

[00:01:45] Mike Klinzing: So growing up, who was your guy on DePaul?

[00:01:55] Bob Quillman: Yeah, probably Mark Aguirre like his teams, those are the first teams that I really like lived and died with Terry Cummings, that group, a few years later, then getting more to the mid eighties, like Dallas Comegys and those guys. So I was just a huge DePaul fan and they were really good.

And they were always in the mix back then. And I really liked the way they played. So yeah, I would say Mark Aguirre was my guy.

[00:02:28] Mike Klinzing: It’s funny how the college basketball landscape has shifted because you and I are around the same age. And I think back to my childhood and just think about how dialed in I was to everything college basketball.

And over the last 10 or 15 years, as obviously the NBA rules have changed. And You’ve got the one and done and you’ve got the transfer portal now and all these different things that have kind of. Made it more difficult when you think back again to when we were kids it’s interesting that you said the Mark Aguirre teams, the Dallas Comegys teams, right?

Those are guys that are around for, I mean, at a minimum three years. Yeah. And in a lot of cases, guys that are around for four years. So you get to know those teams and now the best players come in and A, maybe they don’t even come in. Maybe they go to the G League or they’re playing overseas or whatever, but even the best guys don’t stick around and they end up being there for a season or two.

And it’s much more difficult to follow. The players, you really have to be a fan of the team, but the team changes every year. So it’s just interesting how bad college basketball, the landscape has shifted. I don’t know what your thoughts are on it.

[00:03:39] Bob Quillman: That’s probably where I started becoming, I still love division one college basketball.

It’s where I became less enamored with division one because guys come and go so quickly, whereas in division three, which is where I spend most of my time those kids are exactly how you described division one, 30, 40 years ago, right? They’re there the whole time. Now there’s some transfer portal impact.

In division three, especially with the COVID year, but in general, your average division three kid is there for four years. And yeah, I think it’s tough to follow a program when guys are there for two years and gone.

[00:04:16] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it makes it a lot more difficult. And so I think the basketball landscape there has shifted.

I know your dad went to Illinois Wesleyan and, and some of the things that I read that you talked about how you became an Illinois Wesleyan basketball fan through. The stories that your dad told you. So just talk a little bit about kind of sitting on your dad’s knee and having him tell you stories and what are some of those things that still stick with you today?

[00:04:41] Bob Quillman: Yeah. And it really goes back to, he grew up, I grew up in Chicago, but he grew up in Southern Illinois, a little town called Pinckneyville, which if you drove from Chicago to Pinckneyville, which we did visiting like my grandparents, that’s a six hour drive. You know, Illinois is a long state. And Pinckneyville is almost exactly like the movie Hoosiers.

It’s that kind of town. It’s a basketball town. It’s a powerhouse. Everyone goes to the game. And he played there for a legendary coach that back in the day, everyone knew Duster Thomas. He went to the state tournament three times in four years. And so like the stories that I sitting on the knee were first about Pinckneyville high school.

And then, yeah, he had a lot of opportunities to play college basketball and he ended up picking Illinois Wesleyan. There was a legendary coach named Jack Hornberger there. And he went and had a great career at IWU. And so I heard a lot about the CCIW I heard a lot about games against Milliken and Augustana and Wheaton.

So I kind of understood the C-C-I-W-I knew that Illinois Wesleyan had strong basketball. I got a chance to meet some of his teammates along the way. You know, as a maybe as like a 20-year-old kid, he reconnected with some of those guys. So, yeah, a lot of good stuff. Going back to my dad being a really good hooper,

[00:06:09] Mike Klinzing: And I’m assuming that your dad’s influence was part of the reason why you ended up attending Illinois Wesleyan and playing some baseball there.

[00:06:18] Bob Quillman: It’s funny. At first I didn’t want to go where my dad went and I almost, I was going to go to Illinois. All my friends went to Illinois. And my dad, there was a thing called sleeping bag weekend at Illinois Wesleyan, which is kind of like a big recruiting weekend in January where people kids come from all over the state or wherever, and they stay overnight on a recruiting trip.

And then they go home the next day. And I was not going to go. My dad turned in the RSVP and said I was going. And he also put in there, put, please put Bob in the Sigma Chi house. So my dad was in a fraternity as a Sigma Chi. So. He tells me like, Hey, look, I signed you up for this. I know you’re not going to like that, but just you want to do it, do it.

So I said, okay, dad, I’ll do it. I got on a bus at the Hinsdale Oasis with my, literally with my sleeping bag. And went down there for a basketball weekend. And I think I was verbally committed, even though I wasn’t really an athlete. I think I was verbally committed to attending IW by about midnight that first night, had such a great time with the guys.

And so it’s an interesting story in that I kind of told myself I was going to not go where my dad went. And he kind of outfoxed me. And here we are.

[00:07:38] Mike Klinzing: Crafty move by those dads. Those dads are a lot smarter than they look sometimes. All right. So you get on campus and You become a fan of the basketball program and eventually you get an opportunity to start broadcasting games.

Was that something that you had ever thought about before you actually got a chance to do it or did it just kind of fall into your lap?

[00:08:03] Bob Quillman: Yeah, I just, I would say that I became such a huge fan of the basketball team even though I got to campus and I knew that IW had good basketball because of my dad’s stories and I knew about Jack Sikma.

Still, I didn’t really realize what Division III was. Until like a few games into my freshman year, there was a guy named Jeff Keel, who was a 6’7 absolute stud four guy. And I could not believe this guy was playing Division III. And there was another guy, Mark Edmondson, and there were several other guys.

And I just was like, this is really great basketball. Like, this is amazing. And somewhere, yeah, my sophomore year, I was involved in the campus radio station and I just simply kind of got a gang together and said, let’s broadcast these games. Like, no one does these games on the radio. So we figured out, like, we had a guy help us get equipment and we just kind of learned how to do it.

No, like, no one taught us. We just, I was the play by play guy and I would rotate color guys. And there for the final three years of my college career, I, I did play by play on just about every IW game and yeah, just kind of got into it because I thought it’d be cool.

[00:09:20] Mike Klinzing: What was the learning curve? Like as a broadcaster, yeah, as a broadcaster, like those first, you’d think back or you listen back or you just reminisce about those first few games as you’re trying to do that.

Because. For anybody who has tried to do it, or for that matter, anybody who hasn’t tried to do it, it’s way, way harder than what professional broadcasters make it look and sound like. So just what do you remember about the first time or two trying to get behind the mic?

[00:09:43] Bob Quillman: I remember like how important it was simple things like player pronunciations. You can’t just sit down, put the headset on right as the ball’s getting tipped or thrown up, right? You have to prepare. You want to, you want to pronounce people’s names, right? You want to know something about the other team. You want to be impartial you, you want to be someone that’s being fair to both teams.

And I think I worked hard to try to do those things. I didn’t know it right at first, but like, I would kind of analyze and listen to a cassette tape and be like, oh boy, that was a real homer there. Or I didn’t sound very prepared there, or I pronounced this kid’s name wrong. And so I just remember kind of taking pride in trying to get better.

And I know that when I was a senior, I was a lot better at it than I was as a sophomore.

[00:10:36] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. I mean, I think that’s one of the things that I’m sure same way with the Q cast. And I know we feel that way. Here on the Hoop Heads Pod, we go back and listen to the first few episodes and we’re always cringing, both from a hosting standpoint and how you talk and the different things that you say in between words and all that kind of stuff.

And then you think about the production values of what you’re able to do and the more you experience things, the better you get at it, you end up putting. out a more professional product. And that’s part of the process, right? Just like you, I think back to when Jason and I started this and nobody taught us, we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants trying to figure it out.

And of course we had a lot more resources in terms of online stuff than what you did when you started out. You’re just kind of trying to figure it out. You’re, you’re completely on your own as opposed to, we at least had different sources that we could go to online, which you didn’t have access to back in the day.

But man, you just think about how much you improve. It’s really been something that when we look back on it, we think, Oh man, those first ones were a little rough. And obviously we’ve gotten a lot better as time has gone on. So after you graduate, you continue to follow the team. You continue to be a part of it.

Just talk a little bit about just the experiences that you’ve had continuing on with Illinois Wesleyan basketball since you graduated.

[00:11:56] Bob Quillman: Yeah, after I graduated that the, gosh, like the five years right after were Incredible for the Titans because during that stretch, they, they went to two final fours and won a national championship.

And I mean, the year they didn’t go to the final four in 1995, they lost in the elite eight to Steve Alford’s Manchester team. I mean, they had teams that were unbelievable. And so it was really easy to keep being a fan of the Titans because they were so good. Denny Bridges, legendary coach, he had it rolling.

And I just went to every game. I followed them closely. Those are the years where d3hoops.com came about and you could sign up for a handle and post on a message board. So I’m Titan Q posting hot takes on the game. And you know, Craig Sager was there back in the day.

This goes back to probably 19 like 98 and somewhere in about 2000, I guess, one or two. I got a chance to do the color commentary for the Titans on WJBC radio alongside a legendary guy named Art Kimble, who did all kinds of big time D1 stuff as a broadcaster, and at the very end of his career, he was an unbelievable Division III veteran.

Play by play guy. And I was Art’s color guy for a number of years getting in the car at four o’clock and heading up to Elmhurst, Tuesday night, doing a game, driving back. Some of my favorite memories of basketball would be just the, being in the car with Art. Two guys Art was probably 70 at the time and I was 28, 29, but he was a great friend and that was one of my favorite periods of time in Fallen Titans is kind of doing the color with Art Kimball.  That was very memorable to me.

[00:13:51] Mike Klinzing: Getting an opportunity to work with somebody who obviously was a success. over the whole entire course of his career. And then with that experience and being able to, I’m sure, learn from him and bounce things off of him and just spend time with this guy, somebody who has all the stories, right?

And a guy who has all the stories. I mean, I think that’s, when you think about guests that we’ve had on the podcast, people that have been around for a long time, they have a ton of stories. We were fortunate enough, I guess it was probably, I don’t know, maybe a month ago, we had Jim Herrick on. And Jim came on and he talked about the, the Tyus Edney shot in the NCAA tournament.

And he told a story that at least I had never heard before about how Missouri scored. And there was a timeout and his five guys just were walking toward him. And he’s like, they were, they were just staring at me, staring right through me, saying to me almost in their head, Hey, coach. You know, we need help.

We need your help. We need your help. And then he talked about how he thought about what he was going to do and how they had practiced he knew Ed and he was so fast and he could get down the floor and whatever, four seconds. And he put his arm around Taya Sedney and said, Hey I don’t want you to shoot it.

No matter how much Ed O’Bannon begs you to pass him the ball, I want you to take the shot. We don’t have time to throw a pass. And just this, the stories that guys who have been around the game for that long, it’s just incredible what you learn from just being around them and asking questions.

And listening, you mentioned d3hoops. com. Talk a little bit about your relationship with those guys and kind of what you’ve, what you’ve built with them over the course of time.

[00:15:28] Bob Quillman: Well, I’ve known them forever. I mentioned that I stumbled upon the message boards in 19, I guess, 97, 98 season and signed up for a handle Titan Q.

Pat Coleman is the guy that got it all started and he’s had a strong team around him. Dave McHugh has been kind of his right hand man since somewhere maybe four or five years into it and started the Hoopsville show. Hoopsville was the first show like, like you guys are doing and I’m doing but back then you couldn’t just start a podcast randomly, right?

It took a lot of production to make Hoopsville. And Dave McHugh created a great show that’s still great. I was a guest on that probably just from about the beginning. Cause I knew those guys. We would be in Salem, Virginia at the final four together every year. So we knew each other Gordon Mann, Ryan Scott.

So yeah, I’ve been pretty closely connected with what the d3hoops. com guys do, and I’ve never officially been like part of that team. But I think what I do kind of compliments what they do and vice versa. So we’ve always been pretty closely connected.

[00:16:42] Mike Klinzing: It’s kind of a small world, right? Especially now where you can, people who are in that niche and who are connected.

It’s been really interesting because like I told you before, when we talked, I started out and I guess I don’t feel like we had a tremendous connection to division three when we started the podcast. And as time has gone on, we’ve had more and more and more division three coaches, and we just have had an opportunity to talk to people at all different levels of the game.

And one of the things that I’ve come to learn, and not that I didn’t know this before, but I think it’s just crystallized in my mind after having done the podcast for whatever, six years or so now, and talked to so many coaches at all these different levels that the level of basketball knowledge and smarts that’s out there.

And I don’t care if it’s division three, division one, the NBA, high school, there’s just so many people out there that have such a wealth of knowledge that do such a tremendous job with their programs and trying to grow the game. And I’m sure, Bob, that one of the things that we felt, and I’m sure you feel it too, is that, and I don’t know if I was, again, surprised by this or not, but the willingness of coaches to share information and knowledge about it.

How to have a better program, how to build your team, how to have a great culture, all these different things, even the X’s and O’s side of it. Coaches are so willing to share and talk about what they do to try to grow the game because just like I’m sure you and I and Jason and the way we feel about the game of basketball and all the things that it’s done for us in our lives, there’s so many coaches that feel that same thing.

So as you look back over your time doing this, have you seen that willingness to talk, that openness? Really come to fruition with the guys that you get a chance to talk to.

[00:18:38] Bob Quillman: You said it very well. Yes. I mean, it, sometimes does surprise me, but I think those guys are in that coaching fraternity together.

And I had Chicago’s coach, University of Chicago’s coach, Mike McGrath on the Q cast this season. And I remember he said something that stuck with me and he said back 30 years ago. You know, when his coach at DePauw and our coach at Illinois, Wesley and Denny Bridges, when they played, it was like an adversarial thing.

You weren’t supposed to like the other guy. Right. And what Mike said is, what he learned is that from Pat Cunningham, who was a guy he worked for at Chicago, and the later Pat went on to Trinity of Texas. You know, Pat told him Mike said, Pat, why do you get along with these other coaches in the league?

Aren’t you supposed to hate them? And Pat said, those guys are the only people in the world who know exactly what I’m going through on a daily basis. So why wouldn’t I want to be close to them? And I think that what you’re saying gets to that a little bit. Like there is this, you’d think that people would not want to talk about how they play their zone or how they run offense.

Those guys love talking about that. If you get them, just you ask questions and they just run with it. So I think there’s a cool nature that you’re picking up on and I agree with you a hundred percent.

[00:20:02] Mike Klinzing: I think the other thing too is if you go back 30 years ago, the ability to find film of what other teams were running was certainly way more of a challenge.

I don’t know if you’ve heard all the stories, but I’ve certainly heard the stories of guys who started as graduate assistants and they were driving and through the snow to go and drop this VHS tape off in the mailbox and pick it up from here. And you just think about how difficult it was. And so, because it was difficult to get film, you could sort of delude yourself into thinking that I can keep what I do And people can’t see it now.

There’s nobody that’s doing anything that you can’t hide your film. Your film is out there, whether you want it to be out there or not. So to your point, I think that the coaching fraternity, which that was always, I think a term, but I think there is certainly much more of a coaching fraternity today than there was in the past, where it was kind of like each coach, each program in a lot of ways was just Their own little island in the stream.

And now you just have, everybody is willing to, to share and talk. And, and I think the other part of it and. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like AAU basketball has probably had a big impact too on coaches. They’re all in the same places, right? So they’re going to go and evaluate players. They’re at all these same big AAU tournaments.

They’re walking around, they’re seeing people, they’re sitting down and watching games. And in a lot of cases, if you’re in the same league, you’re probably looking at a lot of the same players. So you’re sitting at their court, watching their game. And I think that that just, again, that constant bumping into people, I think just breeds those friendships that you’re talking about.

[00:21:45] Bob Quillman: I agree. And I think social media also plays some role even the coaches that tell you they don’t pay attention to social media, they do. And so they’re on here watching your shows and they’re watching the Q cast and the D3 data cast and hoopsville.

And you get an appreciation for your peers when you watch and listen to some of this stuff. So I think that plays a little bit of a role too. And the fact that the world is smaller now and it is different.

[00:22:13] Mike Klinzing: It definitely is. And I think Jason and I are both teachers during the day for our real jobs.

And one of the things that we talk about, and I know that I talk about with teachers at my school, is a lot of times when you are teaching and you’re in your classroom and your door is closed, You kind of feel like you’re the only person going through whatever challenges or difficulties that you may be going through on that particular day.

And then you open your door and you walk down the hallway and you talk to this teacher or that teacher and you realize, Oh, everybody’s kind of experiencing that same thing. But so often it can be, it can be very isolating. And I think coaching is the same way where you can kind of get trapped inside.

Your own team, your own program, your own school and think, man, this is not happening to anybody else. I’m the only person dealing with these issues. And then it’s like, boom, all of a sudden you talk to somebody else and you’re like, oh yeah, there’s lots of other people that have gone through that. And so I think that really speaks to what you were talking about, which is.

Again, somebody who knows, Hey, I can relate to what this person is going through because I’m going through that exact same thing, especially when you start talking about the leagues and that kind of thing. So it’s, it’s interesting when you start looking at coaching and teaching and how similar they are in, in a lot of ways, not just the one we just described, but there are a lot They’re certainly similar.

We know there’s a lot of coaches out there that consider themselves teachers of the game, which is what the best coaches do. Absolutely. All right. Talk to me a little bit about Q-CAST, where the idea came from, how you got it started, how long was the idea in your mind before you got it started? And just kind of give me the genesis of Where it came from and what that process was like getting it started.

[00:23:53] Bob Quillman: Yeah, it really, it came during the pandemic. The this is the fourth season. And so the first season was like, I guess it was like that March 2021. And if we go back to that, that was like that season where teams played 10 games or 11 games, some teams played zero games and the division three tournament was canceled.

And so think of that being in March, like the, the period we’re in right now. And there’s no tournament. And that’s when I just started thinking like, I have to do something here. Like we have to get some, we have to talk about hoops. We have to get some things together. So I just started it and I said, Hey, let’s interview some coaches and see where this thing goes.

And I just kept, I like doing it. I kept running with it. This is the fourth season probably 115 shows or so somewhere in there. And I think this season I’ve done somewhere in the, what, 44, 45. And it came out of the pandemic and just we were all watching, we were all desperate for stuff to occupy our minds in the pandemic.

You know, think of us watching the last dance think of how big a deal that was when that thing came out. It was like a savior. And so for me, the Q cast is just…

[00:25:11] Mike Klinzing: How bad, okay, as a, as a Chicago guy, how bad did you want there to be more episodes when it ended?

[00:25:15] Bob Quillman: I mean, real bad, because if you think about this guys, I mean, I was, I was a 12 year old kid living in Chicago in June of 1984 when Michael Jordan got drafted.

So I mean, I always tell people that, I mean, how lucky was I, I saw the whole thing. I saw the thing from his first game to being a an adult in 1998 when he made that shot against Utah and held the finish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I saw the whole thing. There weren’t many games that I missed.

And so, the Last Dance for me was almost like a religious experience because I’m such a Michael Jordan guy and I always tell people, like, he didn’t win every game and he didn’t make every game winning shot, but that guy never let you down. He never let you down. He played hard, he played smart, he played hard.

And even when if you turn the ball over, he missed a shot, he never let you down. So I wanted more episodes for sure. Yeah.

[00:26:16] Mike Klinzing: It was crazy. Like when I watched it. I just, I mean, anybody who’s listened to the podcast and Jason can attest to this, there’s nobody who loves Jordan more than I do.

And to sit down and watch that and just go through and have the recollections of, Oh yeah, I remember that. And I remember where I was when that took place. And I mean, I think Michael Jordan is probably the reason why I’m a North Carolina fan. And so I think back to just, Again, going back to the shot against Georgetown and I mean, you described it really well that he never let you down.

I always kind of go the other way or a similar direction and say that I always felt like he was just inevitable. Like, Yeah. You might lose a game in a series, you might lose this game, he might miss this shot, but he just was going to keep coming and keep coming and keep coming. And obviously there’s a lot of talk out there and had this talk on the podcast about who’s the greatest ever.

And I just continue to maintain that if you were there. And you saw Jordan, there’s just nobody in the history of the game that has combined the physical tools that the guy had, the fundamental skills that he had. And then there’s been nobody with his mentality. I mean, the mentality that he had, and you described it perfectly that he just was going to keep coming on both ends of the floor.

And I’ve never seen a guy with a will to win and just a desire. To just keep, keep, keep going and to not have. To not be afraid of the moment ever, not be afraid in any circumstance that he was just going to go at it full tilt. And man, I mean, the reason why I asked you the question, cause man, that thing got over and I was just, I was devastated.

I’m like, there’s no more episodes. Like we’ve got to make a whole nother one of these. There’s got to be more stories.

[00:28:18] Bob Quillman: The world sucked so much at that point that it, that was such a, like a relief every time that came on. Yeah. And we were all desperate for stuff like that. Like, wait, when it ended, it was depressing.

So if you were a fan Jordan, it was depressing when that ended.

[00:28:33] Mike Klinzing: It certainly was. So, all right, getting back to the Q cast. So how, from a technical standpoint, obviously you had lots of experience broadcasting, but just kind of putting it together easy, hard, how would you describe the process of just kind of, okay, I want to do this.  How do I do it?

[00:28:50] Bob Quillman: Yeah, there’s so little production to it. I should probably figure out how to add more bells and whistles and do it fancier, but I I’m just using Zoom. I’m just recording a Zoom meeting and we’re having a conversation. The average one goes 45 minutes. So there’s really no, I’m, there’s no editing.

I always tell people, I said, I’m going to hit record and I don’t edit anything. Whatever we say, we say, and everyone’s like, that’s great. And so it’s really easy to do. The toughest part about it is the prep. I really, really pride myself in making sure that I know my guests beforehand, and I know, let’s say the team, the players.

I don’t want to just turn the mic on and ask dumb questions. I really feel that that would be a disservice to, to, to them and their time. And so the prep is the most consuming part of the process. Other than that, boy, once we start the show, it’s just all fun. It’s easy.

[00:29:51] Mike Klinzing: So for you on the prep side.  What does that look like in terms of how in depth are you trying to go with each coach’s background and then with their team in that particular moment in time in the season? What are you trying to garner from whatever research you’re doing beforehand?

[00:30:08] Bob Quillman: Some of it’s just easy stuff like stats like making sure that you got the record right.

And if you’re going to ask about four players, what are their stats? What are they doing? I think the thing that helps me the most is I go back and watch huge chunks of games. So like if I’m going to have Jason Zimmerman from Emory on, I’m going to pull up maybe the last two Emory games and watch at least a full half of both games.

Just to get a, like to get a real feel, cause looking at stats is one thing, but to watch Ben Pierce play and Jair Knight and who like, that’s where you figure out how his team’s playing and what defense are they playing and what did they do when they got down 10? How did they come back and cut it to two?

So for me, it’s. I’d rather just watch some of the games and then to me, the questions just sort of flow from what I’m seeing on the screen.

[00:31:03] Mike Klinzing: How much do you talk? X’s and O’s because I know one of the things that we found, at least on here, to be a little bit challenging is when you start diving into, and of course as well as anybody that coaches really like to talk X’s and O’s, but a lot of times it’s hard to translate. in an audio format, right?

So again, when you start talking about, okay, if you’re going to add, we’re going to add in video film and we’re going to add in excess clips and all this stuff, like then you get into a lot of production values and that kind of thing. So just as you’re talking about the, the team with a coach, how do you go about making sure that it’s consumable for the audience, for lack of a better way of saying it.

[00:31:49] Bob Quillman: Yeah, I think it’s a great point. You got to ask, you got to keep it within a kind of a narrow scope. So like I had Jimmy Smith on the head coach of Trinity, Texas, and they play zone. And I had just had a chance to see them in person. They played University of Dallas, which is 20 minutes from my house.

And I’d seen them on video playing their zone. And so, that’s one where I asked him about what, why do you play zone? And I thought it was, his answer was like, really, really insightful. Like the way he answered that question of why did he start playing zone? It started as kind of an experiment, used it a little bit and now it’s exclusive.

So, I’m not afraid to get into X’s and O’s. I will say I’m not a guy that played college basketball. You know, the last time I played basketball was in high school. So, I’m not comfortable to the degree that like you and Jason would be on asking X’s and O’s questions. That said, I’m probably a little better than I give myself credit for.

Like, I watch I watch D3 games non stop, right? So I know a lot about offensive and defensive X’s and O’s, but I get into that quite a bit with coaches. You know, I’ve had a lot of great conversations about like with Elliot Steinmetz of Yeshiva about his motion offense, kind of patterned off of Bobby Knight’s Indiana offense.

Talk to like Nebraska,Wesleyans, Dale Wellman about his zone. And I mentioned Jimmy Smith and just things like that. I think other coaches and fans find really interesting.

[00:33:23] Mike Klinzing: Especially when you start talking about the why behind it. So it’s one thing to describe, Hey, this is what we do. It’s another thing.

Well, okay. So that’s what you do, but why do you do it? And I’m sure that provides a lot of interesting answers.

[00:33:35] Bob Quillman: It was like Jimmy Smith. I think his answer was something like. You know, at the time his personnel was more, was not geared toward like, we’re going to get up in your grill and deny you and play man to man all over the court.

Like he, he had a group of kids. That, that were more suited for zone. And then he learned that over time that by playing zone, there was some efficiencies on the court and kind of where guys were having to expand energy and not that, that could benefit him on the other end of the floor on the offensive end.

Right. So I just, there was, there’s interesting stuff when you ask the right questions. And I think it’s all about just finding some of those little questions to dig into.

[00:34:19] Mike Klinzing: Which teams have you enjoyed your research on the most? Do you have one or two that stand out either because they were doing something interesting or you just like their style of play?

Does anybody jump out at you this year that you think of that you could, that you talk to?

[00:34:36] Bob Quillman: This wouldn’t be a this year one, but the whole Yeshiva thing has been one of the favorite things I’ve been part of in all my years doing D3 stuff getting into the relationship that was developed between Illinois Wesleyan and Yeshiva leading up to that big game a couple of years ago.

Number one, they were number one and our guys were number four and you know, talking to Elliot Steinmetz leading up to that, getting into style and X’s and O’s. That would probably be, Mike, the, the favorite one of, of mine because. Like, I knew nothing about, I literally knew nothing about Yeshiva University.

You know, I’m a kid from South Side of Chicago. I’m an Irish Catholic guy. I certainly don’t know about an Orthodox Jewish university in New York, you know? And it was, it was two worlds coming together. And that whole, like, digging into what they do was, was really fascinating. They do have a lot of interesting stuff that they run.

[00:35:38] Mike Klinzing: And a lot of it is very, very unique, which makes it interesting to study. I know that Chris Oliver, Basketball Immersion, I know he’s shared a lot of their stuff that, that they run and that they do, and it makes them unique. And I think one of the things that’s interesting, and just tell me in your experience, if you found this is, I think that a lot of times, if you’re doing something, basketball tends to follow trends, right?

Like once something is successful, lots of people copy it and start trying to do it. And I think that Especially when you talk about the division three level, there’s so many different styles of play, both offensively and defensively. I think that’s one of the things that makes the game so interesting is just the fact that, Hey, here we are, and we’re doing this thing that’s completely unique, and a lot of times that can be a part of the program’s identity and can help you in your recruiting, in being able to generate and get more fans to your games, just because again, you’re playing kind of a unique style.

And I think that at the division three level, that’s even more pronounced than it is maybe at other levels.

[00:36:59] Bob Quillman:  I agree. Like, for example, the ultimate extreme would be Grinnell. Right. I had I had their leading score on the Q cast this, this season. Kai Tahouki, 6’6 freshman. I can’t remember what his numbers are I’d have to look at his final numbers, but check them out. They’re pretty amazing. Grinnell, everyone scores, but when a kid is shooting 38 percent from three and he’s scoring 24 a game, that’s pretty darn good. And you know, when you get into Grinnell and you get into the, like, why are they playing their system?

Everyone thinks it’s a gimmick. It’s actually, there’s a reason that they started it when they started it. There’s a reason that they’ve tweaked it a little bit. And so, yeah, everyone has a reason for how they’re playing and it certainly, to your point, certainly helps with recruiting when you know who you are.

When a kid comes to the game as a recruit. And he says, man, they get after it defensively. That’s the kind of play, right? I’m a tough kid that wants to play defense or. Look, this team is lightning. I’m a three point shooter and I can picture myself in this offense coming off that screen and hitting that three.

I think if you know who you are and have an identity, it makes it a lot easier to find the kids that fit your program.

[00:38:00] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, that’s really true. And it goes both ways, right? As you said, a kid can look at the program and go, okay, here’s the way I play. Do I fit that style? And conversely, I know that’s been one of the things we’ve talked about a ton, college coaches is.

I get this job and especially if it’s a first time head coach, they’re still kind of trying to figure it out, right? They’re taking bits and pieces from all the different coaches that they’ve worked under or played for over the course of their career. And now they got to kind of forge their own identity of, okay, how are we going to play?

And a lot of guys talk about how it took them two, three years to kind of figure out, okay, what kind of player fits the way that I want to play? What kind of player fits. my institution, because obviously you have different schools that have different feels both in terms of what the basketball is like, but also just what the school is like and all those kinds of things.

And so there’s definitely, I think, a learning curve when someone takes over a job of trying to figure out, Hey, What kind of player is going to be successful here? Obviously, we all know that recruiting is a very inexact science and you don’t always get it right. Sometimes you get it right when you weren’t quite sure that you had it right and players end up, players end up overperforming maybe what you thought when you, when you brought them in.

And it just goes to anything where you’re trying to evaluate human beings. There’s some things that you can see obviously in some measurables, but there’s a lot of things that are under the surface that you don’t know what kind of kid that kid is going to be and how much work they’re going to put in and all those different things.

And so it is interesting to talk to coaches about their recruiting process and just how they try to identify players and what they’re looking for. And we always talk about what are those intangibles that you’re looking for? Because clearly, if you’re going to be a college basketball player, there’s. a certain level of skill that you have to have at whatever different positions.

But again, somebody in one program, you might need a big guy that can shoot threes. Another program, you might just want a big guy who’s on the block and setting screens and playing rugged defense. And so it just depends. One kid might be a good fit one place and not as good of a fit in another. I’m sure that you see when you talk to coaches that you’re hearing them talk about what their program’s all about and what the players are that they want to bring in and who’s important to, to be able to come in and be a part of that, to be a part of that program.

So I’m sure those conversations are always, are always interesting. Let me ask you about the Division III NCAA tournament. And when you start looking at, as the season’s winding down, how much are you, how closely are you looking at who’s getting in and, and kind of doing your own, doing your own thing and trying to figure out who’s going to get the at large bids?  What’s that like for you as we’re headed towards the tournament?

[00:40:54] Bob Quillman: Yeah. There, there, there’s not a big community of what we’d call D3 Bracketologist, but, but I think I’m one of them. I think there might be three or four of us and a D3 bubble. My friend Drew Pasteur is I call him the goat, Matt Snyder. He does great stuff.

And then I guess, I think there’s three of us that really dig into this stuff and, and post projections and we all do it a little different. Yeah. And the last forever and ever, I if there’s 20 pool C bids, which are the at large bids, I’ve gotten 19 to 20, 20 to 21 this year, I got 21 to 22. I’ve never gotten it perfect.

And that’s just hanging over my head. It’s just, it’s bucket list that someday. Someday I’m going to get them all right. So yeah, to answer your question, I like digging into it and, and I think like, I’m, I’m, I’m pretty good at it. And I know that that helps people when I’m tweeting stuff, like here’s where I see pool C here on February 15th.

It starts to help people understand where their team fits. Like, like, Oh crap, we need to win our conference tournament. We have no chance or. Yep. We’re in great shape. If we lose the conference tournament championship, we’re fine. So  I’m big into that stuff. Love it.

[00:42:12] Mike Klinzing: Now, I know you had Luke Flockerzi on, we had him on as well from the University of Rochester, and we talked to him obviously more about his program and not about his role as the for the NCAA Division III tournament, but tell me a little bit about what you talked with him about in terms of his role as the committee chair, what does that role look like?  And what did he tell you about that?

[00:42:33] Bob Quillman: Yeah, I had him on twice. Once was like early in the season. And once then was kind of later when the first regional rankings were going to come out. And what I like about having Luke on and his predecessors, it’s like Mike Schauer of Wheaton College was really good when he was the chair, of being very open and transparent.

So with Luke, what I’m trying to do is give him an opportunity to educate people. Because in Division 3, there are a lot of fans, like, let’s say players, parents, or just more casual fans, that think about how things work in Division 1, and they try to apply it to Division 3, and it just doesn’t work.

Division 3’s system for selecting teams and bracketing teams it’s very different. It’s very different. So what, when Luke comes on, I know what questions to ask him to give him an opportunity to educate people, and he’s really good at that. And again, Sarah Kwotrocki last year, the chair was phenomenal.

Mike Schauer was phenomenal. And there’s just a lot of transparency with those chairs and coming on shows like mine in Hoopsville. Your show and helping people understand it.

[00:43:47] Mike Klinzing: So, for our audience, give us an idea of what might be different between the Division 3 selections and a Division 1 selection process.

[00:43:56] Bob Quillman: The big one is this, is like in Division 1, you’ll hear people talk about like your record in your last 10 games or something. In Division 3, that’s just not a thing. In Division 3, all games, all 25 or 27, whatever you play at the end, they’re all, they’re Literally equally weighted. So like my team, Illinois Wesleyan on the second game of the year lost by like one point to Mary Harden Baylor.

And I remember walking out of the gym. I went up there for that. I remember thinking that, that is huge. That’s a killer. I remember thinking that is a killer. And on the flip side, then my team, I think lost two games from January 1st on. And so people think like, how could they leave a team out that w that was whatever in two since January 1st?

Well, it’s because it’s about your resume that’s been constructed over the whole year. And if a team loses too many games early. And then they catch fire. Doesn’t matter the numbers of the numbers for the whole year in division one the committee will look at like how’d you finish? And that would be a big one that is very different than division one.

[00:45:14] Mike Klinzing: How do you think about the, I don’t even know if this is a word, the regionality of division three in terms of teams playing, like, obviously we’re here in the state of Ohio where there’s a number of tremendous leagues and really good teams. And in a lot of cases, teams kind of tend to stay within their region.

Obviously they’re, they’re traveling more in the UAA, clearly you’re traveling and playing in different areas of the country, but just how do you think about just comparing teams from one league to another and thinking about the geographics of, Hey, this team maybe doesn’t get to play they’re whatever Nebraska Wesleyan, they’re not maybe playing on the east coast and playing some of those same teams.

So how do you think about that from a division three standpoint?

[00:46:00] Bob Quillman: The interesting thing is it’s gotten easier because there are so many teams that are playing these interesting games. There’s, first of all, there’s some great tournaments. The Great Lakes Invitational hosted by my friend Ryan Wittnabel, like this year had Marietta, Calvin, Redlands, Oshkosh, Illinois Wesleyan, LaRoche, Middlebury.

Think of all those teams from different regions coming together. The d3hoops. com classic. Where Case Western Reserve played Oswego State or Pomona Pitzer played, I think, Trinity, Texas. Illinois Wesleyan’s Jack Sikma tournament, where you’ve always got like next year, it’s Calvin Platteville, Cal Lutheran in Illinois Wesleyan or Illinois Wesleyan travels to California this year to play Redlands and Cal Lutheran.

And Cal Lutheran goes to the East coast to play Randolph Macon and Hood. So. It’s easier Mike, than it was because there are a lot of cross country, cross region match ups. And Division III has become much less regional than it was like 10, 15, 20 years ago. I love it. I love seeing these matchups and I hope it continues.

[00:47:20] Mike Klinzing: It is fun, right? I mean, there’s no doubt that when you get an opportunity to match up with top teams across the country and get a chance to measure yourself, I know that’s an important part of, again, as you said earlier, like figuring out where is my team? Who, who are they? How good can they be. And when you, when you do those inter regional matchups and get an opportunity to play, it obviously then makes it easier for guys who are doing what you do to compare like, okay, so Case and Oswego played against each other.

Now those two teams can go back to their league and you can start to compare, okay, how does this fit? How does this puzzle piece fit? So it’s kind of, it’s definitely, I’m sure for, for guys that are doing what you do, makes it a little bit easier to make those comparisons, as you said, then. It was in the past.

Talk a little bit about how one of the things that’s interesting on the Division III tournament for people who maybe aren’t as familiar with it as they are Division I, where in the Division I, You have, the sites are already set long before the tournament field gets put together. Whereas in division three, you have these quadrants, right?

That are hosted by a given school. And so four teams go there and they play a little, I guess you could call it a little four team tournament in the first and second round. And then you have the same thing here in the sweet 16 and the lead eight. So just talk a little bit about how that process works and how it’s determined Which schools are going to host which games and how they put the bracket together.

[00:48:54] Bob Quillman: Yeah. The, the bracket is put together. What I like, the first thing I’ll say is, what I really like is it’s a national bracket. Now there’s regionality to it. There are certain constraints with budget and flights, but in division two, division two has a regional bracket. There’s eight regions in division two, and if the two best teams in the country are in the same region, they both can’t get to the elite eight and in division three if you look at like what they do with Hampden Sydney and Randolph Macon, they’re two of the top overall four seeds and they were able to split them up as one seeds in different quadrants.

So the first thing is like the D3 bracket is done really well and it’s done way better than the D2 bracket in my opinion because it really is, it’s trying to protect seeds. To your question, which is a great one. Yeah. The first weekend you got four teams that go to a pod. We’ll call that the regional.

Someone comes out of that. Now we have four teams going to the second weekend, and this is where it gets interesting because there’s no neutral sites in division three. We’re not going to go play at American Airlines Arena. So, let’s take Case Western Reserve, Platteville, Trine, and Wash U. Those are our four.

Case Western Reserve is the highest seed of those four. So, people would say, oh, we’re going to Cleveland. But here’s where the mileage comes in. The NCAA wants to minimize flights. So, if they can pick a location, Where everyone can bus versus flying anyone, that, that’s going to be the pick. That is why those four teams are going to Angola, Indiana to trine because had you pick Case Western Reserve, Wisconsin Platteville cannot bus, meaning there’s a 500 mile rule.

Platteville is over 500 miles from Cleveland. Wash U is over 500 miles. So, Trine, for lack of a better word, because they’ve had a great year, they kind of back in to hosting a second weekend and that is huge, right? That’s huge. To me, Trine playing at home is way different than Trine having to go to Cleveland.

So, I hope I answered your question, but it comes down a lot in Division III to geography. Trine has a beautiful arena, by the way. Oh, it’s spectacular. Right. And they have a great fan base. So think about that, Mike. Think about like the difference of Trine’s going to put 2,500 people in that beautiful place and their odds of coming out and going to the final four are so much greater because they’re hosting.

Absolutely. You almost look at that like flip a coin, like they have a great chance to get out of there.

[00:51:44] Mike Klinzing: Right. Yeah. It’s interesting. I mean, again, when you start talking about the reasons behind it and the travel. And thinking about Case Western Reserve, and I know that, like I told you before, I have Anthony Mazzio, who’s a grad transfer at Case and has had an outstanding year.

His dad and I grew up together and used to play a lot of basketball together, and he talked about, as we were kind of going through the season, I was chatting with him, and he’s just, one of the things that he said to me all the time was people don’t necessarily understand how difficult some of the travel is in the UAA where you go in and you play on a Friday night and then you turn around and play Sunday at noon and you’re flying to these places and whatever. And obviously it’s just a different, you forget, I think people sometimes discount, we’re so used to it, right? At the NBA level or even the division one college basketball level that you forget that.

These kids are people and that they have to travel and they have to eat on the bus and they’re studying and doing all these things beyond just playing basketball. I think sometimes people forget that.

[00:52:54] Bob Quillman: Especially at the D3 level where these guys, none of these guys are getting drafted in the NBA.

There’s several that’ll go play overseas. But these guys the school part of it, the, the student part of student athlete is really important. And so I always loved that part about going to these, these D3 first weekend, second weekend tournaments, because you’ll be walking through the hotel lobby and there’ll be three kids in a nook somewhere studying.

And there’s that like #WhyD3 hashtag and yeah, these guys have to do a lot of school work when they’re on the road and all of us fans are just thinking about basketball.

[00:53:32] Mike Klinzing: They have a lot on their plate. Yeah, exactly. There’s no question about that. When you think back to the interviews that you’ve done this year and the coaches that you’ve talked to, is there a theme that comes through of something that they find to be their biggest challenge?

Is there, is there a theme that’s kind of run through some of your interviews? Or maybe you can think about a particular coach that, that talked about what makes their job so challenging.

[00:54:02] Bob Quillman: You know, that’s a great question. I don’t know that I can think of something that makes their job challenging.

I’d say the theme that kind of runs through is the appreciation for the level that, and maybe as the host, maybe I’m always kind of making sure that we steer things there. Cause that’s so important for me. Yep. That gets out I’m always asking questions that give them an opportunity to talk about that, but that’s the biggest theme is Jason Zimmerman from Emory, who I mentioned earlier, he probably had my favorite moment of the season.

I clipped this and I’ve tweeted it a hundred times as he says, he said we always talk about that hashtag #WhyD3, cause it’s good basketball, right? It’s good basketball. He said that like four times and coaches really appreciate. The love for the game in Division 3, and these kids are not on scholarships, they’re good students they have a lot on their plate, and they love the game and are working as hard as their peers in Division 1, and I think that appreciation comes out in the QCAST episodes.

I can’t think of a theme that’s like something that’s challenging, but the love for the level is something that’s a theme.

[00:55:23] Mike Klinzing: I agree with that. I remember early on in the podcast. I had an opportunity to go down and just sort of hang around at the Jay Bilas Skills Camp down at Queens College in Charlotte.

And while I was down there, I met a bunch of different D3 guys. And one of the guys I met was John Baines from Elmhurst. And John eventually ended up coming on the podcast. And I remember that one of the things that he would talk to me about was The number of players that he’ll recruit and he’ll talk to a kid or their family, maybe making an initial contact and that kid or that family will say division three come on.

And Baines said he would ask the kid or the parents. Well, how many Division Three college basketball games have you attended or watched? And he’s like 90 percent of the time. The answer was none. And I think that my go to statement on this, Bob, is always that I don’t care what level of college basketball you’re playing.

You have to be really, really good at the game of basketball to be able to play at the college level. And I don’t care if you’re a Division I player, Division II, Division III, NAI, JUCO, wherever. If you’re getting an opportunity to play college basketball, you’ve done something right as a basketball player to be able to get yourself to that level.

And like I said, it’s been interesting for us. Because again, I was a player that probably when I was being recruited, I was between mostly division threes here in Ohio. And then I was kind of holding out, hoping that I was going to get a division one scholarship, which I was lucky enough to end up being able to do.

And so kind of my mentality, probably even prior to starting the podcast was always, it’s division one basketball. And I didn’t pay a ton. of attention to Division III. And as I’ve become more educated through the process, and then, like I talked about, my son, who is going to eventually here make a decision and end up playing Division III college basketball.

I got to admit, I’m far more, like I was way more into the division three college basketball season this year than I was the division one. Just because again, the exposure that I’ve gotten through the podcast and the number of coaches now that I know that I’ve built relationships with that I follow their team and I know what they’re doing and I see how they are.

And I’ve sent a note to everybody who made the tournament Hey, great regular season good luck. And I’m sure you feel the same way. It’s kind of amazing how this silly podcast, you can end up making real friends from the thing. And that’s one of the things that’s been most surprising.

And again, because we’ve been fortunate enough to have so many great division three coaches, and I would agree with you that that theme that you’re talking about, that this level of college basketball is really good. I mean, it’s just, I think people completely underestimate who aren’t following it, how good the basketball is.  And I couldn’t agree with you more on that one.

[00:58:36] Bob Quillman: Totally agree. And like I always say, I’ll tweet a lot, maybe a couple of times a year as, as I’m watching a game I’ll, I’ll say look, if for all the kids being told that they’re too good for division three make them turn on the Calvin – John Carroll game.

Or have them go there and sit in the front row and then see after the game, if they think they’re too good for division three, because almost all of those kids that are being told that they’re too good for division three could easily fit in really well at the D3 level. They’re not too good because it’s just, there’s a lot of misconceptions that are out there.  I like trying to break those down.

[00:59:19] Mike Klinzing: There certainly is a lot of misconceptions. I think you can go to any youth basketball tournament anywhere in the country and you can, you can find yourself a lot of misconceptions about What’s important and how good people think their kids are and where they think they’re going to end up.

And look, I think one of the things that’s interesting is that it might have been, if you go back to when you or I were kids, you could, you could plead ignorance probably a lot easier. when you and I were kids in terms of the exposure to other levels of college basketball. Today, in today’s world, it’s, there’s just so much more information out there about what Division III basketball is all about and what every level of college basketball is about.

And I think, and also being able to understand what the recruiting process looks like and all that stuff. And yet I will say that sometimes you’re trying to go through it and you’re working your way through it. And it’s not always easy to navigate. And I feel like I’m someone who’s at least semi educated on the process of what’s happening.

And sometimes even I’m like, I look around, I’m like, am I doing the right thing? Are we doing this right? So I can’t imagine for somebody who’s kind of coming up and, and trying to figure it out and navigate some of that stuff on their own, in terms of parents and players, sometimes, like you said, the lack of education and understanding in some areas is And I don’t know how we necessarily get that out in front of people.

And I think it’s stuff like you’re doing, stuff like what we’re doing, to be able to just give the Division III college basketball world a platform to be able to talk about what it is that is so great about that,

[01:01:05] Bob Quillman: Alot of it’s geographic too, Mike like true. If you’re a kid in the Chicago suburbs, I mean, you grow up or you go to high school and the kid two years older than you in high school, that was the best player on your team.

When you were a sophomore, that kid went to division three. He went to. Augustana or Illinois Wesleyan or Wash U. Kids in the Chicago area grow up respecting Division 3 because there’s such a strong tie. Whereas other parts of the country, kids play high school basketball and they have no idea what Division 3 is.

So, some of it is you mentioned growing up, I think you said in Ohio, I’m sure that you knew all about Wittenberg and Wooster. You know, right? Like Ohio is a hotbed like Illinois is. And if you’re a kid in Wisconsin, you know all about Stevens Point and Oshkosh and Whitewater and the whole WIAC.

But there are many other states where a kid thinks Division III is bad basketball. So there’s a geographic element to it as well.

[01:02:09] Mike Klinzing: That’s well put. And I think it’s totally understandable. And again, like I said, growing up here in Ohio, you just think about the number of programs that are here in the state, the number of leagues that have a presence here in the state of Ohio.

And so you do get that exposure to. All that division three basketball. So there’s certainly a much bigger awareness here than there are in other places. All right, let’s look ahead to what’s left of the division three tournament. Tell me kind of how you have it. Laying out, what do you see happening?

I don’t know if you want to make picks, you don’t want to make picks, but just give me an idea of what you think’s going to happen.

[01:02:51] Bob Quillman: My original final four, three of the teams are still alive and I’ve lost the final four teams. So I’ll say that Hampden Sydney is still my pick to win it, you know? And look, I’m not going out on a limb.

This is the overall number one seed here, but I think they have the best team. And they have the most ways to beat you and they have incredible depth and they play great defense. They score it. So for me, Hampden Sydney gets to the final four. They’re playing at home this weekend. If they were on the road, I’d start to dig into it more, but I just can’t see anyone but them coming out of that top.

What is that? The top left. Yeah. It gets a little more interesting in the bottom left. I picked Keene State. Before the tournament started. So I’m just going to, I’m going to, I’m going to roll with it. Jeff Hunter Octavio Brito. They are a great team. Now all four teams, they’re playing at Guilford.

So Guilford easily, I guess you could say Guilford might be the favorite cause they’re at home, but I’ll go with Keene State cause I just think they have two really special players. Top right. I picked Platteville. Before the tournament, they’re still alive, and I like Platteville a bunch. I think that Logan Pearson I think they play tough, and so I’m going to stick with Platteville knocking off Case Western in that Sweet 16 game, and then Platteville getting through either Trine or WashU, and then the team I lost, you mentioned our friend John Baines, Pride of Illinois Wesleyan class in 1998, I picked Elmhurst.

Maybe it was a heart pick. I actually thought Elmhurst had a great chance to come out of there, but they’re gone now. And so in that bottom it’s at Trinity of Connecticut. I think I’m going to swap out my Elmhurst pick and go with the Calvin Knights. They have the best big guy in division three in Jalen Overway.

He is a mismatch of epic proportions. And if Calvin shoots the ball at all, they do not lose. Because you have to double, you have to triple this guy. And I think I’m going to go with Calvin. So Hampton, Sydney, Keene, State, Platteville, and Calvin, that’s my four.

[01:05:14] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. We saw Calvin play Elmhurst. We went to that game, my son and I.  And yeah, he’s really good. Huge. And just has a nice touch around the basket. Unselfish. And Calvin shot it really well. I know we talked to John briefly after the game and he was, I think, just wished exactly what you just said that Calvin maybe hadn’t shot it quite as well. Because to your point, when, when the big kid caught the ball inside, He was a load to, to be able to handle and they shot, they shot, they shot it well.

And again, that’s tournament time. It’s one, it’s one game and anything in one game can happen if a team shoots the ball well, especially with the three, the way it is in, in today’s game at all levels, you have a hot shooting game from three, or you have a cold shooting game from three, and that can swing a lot of other factors and, and make the difference in a game.

So it should be, it should be a lot of fun this weekend should be a fun Sweet 16, and then eventually we’ll get to. The final four in Fort Wayne. So definitely going to be watching, watching out for that very closely here over the next two weeks. Before we get out, Bob, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you.

Where can they find the Q-cast? Just give people a little bit of a way that they can connect with you. And then after you do that, I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:06:35] Bob Quillman: Yeah. The easiest way is really probably everything flows through my Twitter, or I guess we call it X nowadays account. And my handle there is @IWUhoopscom.

I used to like run a site, iwuhoops.com and it still exists. It’s just more of like a shell of links. Now it’s all of the stuff I do is on Twitter, so @IWUhoopscom. And from there, there’ll be a link to the Q cast. The Q cast is on YouTube and all the episodes are there. And so I would say everyone can go right there to X or Twitter and you’ll find all my stuff from there.

[01:07:14] Mike Klinzing: Bob, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to jump on and join us, really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun, good conversation. And touched on a lot of things and a lot of different people that are important to us here at the Hoop Heads Pod. So thank you very much, Bob. Truly appreciate it.

And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.