Richfield Women's Coach LeeAnn Wise

Richfield showed what they can do with a full roster vs. Eden Prairie in their first round game in section 2AAAA. Hear what Coach Wise has to say about the team and the student support.

Click Here to listen to this interview

Minneapolis All Conference Team Announced

The audio interview that makes the announcement is with Conference Coach of the Year Robert Grace of Minneapolis Southwest.

Click here to listen to this interview.

MCTC's 600th win

Based upon records posted on the men’s basketball web site for MCTC, in 1965 Community College basketball begin its run at 1501 Hennepin Ave. South. The first Coach Ron Leviense started MCTC off with a 5-15 record.

After getting the school’s first winning season in his third year, 28-3, he went to Normandale Community College where he would complete his very successful Community College coaching career in 1995. He left with a 39-35 MCTC record.

It would take 6 more coaches over a 9 year stretch to get MCTC as many wins. In fact, outside of Alan Burmeister’s 1969-70 team finish of 12-10, there would not be a winning season for MCTC until Coach Bill Chambliss did it 2 years in a row in 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons gaining the schools 100^th victory in that first year.

After Coach Chambliss set a tone for future coaches to try to follow, in comes the late Mel Riley. Like his many predecessors, Coach Riley discovered how difficult it is to recruit players at the Community College level but none the less was able to guild the school to a .500 or better record in 3 of his 4 years.

In the 1984-85 season, Ralph G. Powell took over for the next 5 years, getting the schools 200^th win in his final season (1988-89). Although he did not have the success that Coach Riley had there was now a feeling of stability in the coaching ranks at MCTC. No longer was the expectation of a coach to be in charge of this team for just 2 or 3 years, and as we would see later, along with this stability it would be easier to tell players considering playing at MCTC that a coaching change would be unlikely.

In the 1990-91 season, a young coach by the name of Jay Pivec took over after the second win less season in school history. It took him 3 seasons to become the schools winningest coach and to put that in perspective it took him 10 seasons to get more losses than any other coach in school history (no other coach lasting longer then 4 or 5 seasons).

Coach Pivec has never had a MCTC team finish with more the 10 losses (3 times) and has had as many as 29 wins in a season (2004-2005). There have been many milestones achieved over his 18 seasons at MCTC both personal and school related.

On the personal side Coach Pivec has reached career wins of 200, 300, 400, and this season 500 wins. Coach Pivec is also on pace to get his 400^th win as the head coach of MCTC if his team gets to the national tournament this year.

On the school side numbers 300, 400, 500, and on this season’s final regular season game, the schools 600^th win.

Dual milestones include many trips to the national tournament finishing as high as national runners up, but most notably from a records stand point not one losing season in 18 years.

From the perspective of a fan of Minneapolis area basketball overall I am only slightly bothered by the fact that the schools 600^th win seems to have gone unnoticed while Coach Pivec’s 500^th career win came with a ton of handshakes and congrats (both against Anoka Ramsey CTC). But when you think about it there was a hand shake that went unnoticed by me as well, until now.

This program would not have seen this milestone for a number of years to come without Coach Pivec and his staff --- FANTASTIC JOB GENTLEMEN --- and keep up the great work, (hopefully) for years to come.

Side note: The Mav's ended the year in regional semi's gaining 2 more victory's to get there for a current school total of 602.

Photo's from the 2008 Slam Bash

Photo's that we took are below but if you want to see the
Photo Gallery on the Minnesota Lynx Webste click here.

WNBA All-Star Katie Smith
Timberwolves and Lynx broadcaster Lea B. Olson
future WNBA star Lindsey Harding
Gophers head coach Pam Borton
2008 U.S. National Team Coach Anne Donovan
Hall of Famer and TV analysts Cheryl Miller
Hall of Famer and TV analysts Nancy Lieberman
WNBA President Donna Orender

Community Hoops Director of
Player Skill Development Lisl vonSteinbergs
Community Hoops Co-Program Director Tony Geer
Lynx Vice President of Business Operations Angela Taylor
WNBA President Donna Orender
Community Hoops Player Advisor Onika Nicole Craven

Community Hoops Co-Program Director Jamiela Taylor
WNBA President Donna Orender

Community Hoops Player Advisor Onika Nicole Craven
WNBA All-Star Katie Smith

Community Hoops Player Advisor Onika Nicole Craven
WNBA All-Star Katie Smith
future WNBA star Lindsey Harding
Hall of Famer and TV analysts Cheryl Miller



Hall of Famer and TV analysts Cheryl Miller
Community Hoops Player Advisor Onika Nicole Craven



Frank Sentwali
Community Hoops Player Advisor Onika Nicole Craven




Hall of Famer and TV analysts Cheryl Miller
Community Hoops Co-Program Director Jamiela Taylor



Community Hoops Co-Program Director Jamiela Taylor
Community Hoops Player Advisor Onika Nicole Craven
Community Hoops Co-Program Director Tony Geer
Community Hoops Director of
Player Skill Development Lisl vonSteinbergs

South vs. Central Video

As promised, here are the links for this contest from February 2nd.

1st half


2nd half


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RECAP - 1st Annual Minnesota Lynx SLAM BASH

It was a great evening of awards, recognition, and discussion. I will post some comments, quotes, pictures, and yes some interviews on Friday and over the next weekend. Needless to say, when Cheryl Miller, Lindsey Harding, Angela Taylor, Donna Orender, and Lea B. Olsen (just to mention a few) take the time to pose for pictures and/or do interviews with you big props have to go out, they will.

Minneapolis South 72 - Saint Paul Central 52

I started the day thinking I would do the Play by Play of this contest just as i have done for many games on this website, but then I was asked to do Video commentary for Keystone Productions (I will post a link the video production when it is ready - could be a week or so). To be honest, I did not realize I missed doing Video Production so much until this event. I will need to do more in this area.

That aside, I have the following thoughts about each of these teams.

Minneapolis South - I have seen them play 6 times now, 3 at the Hopkins tournament, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and now Central. It is clear to me that there are few teams in the state that can keep up with the Tigers. Once they stop relaxing their play during the games, this team is unstoppable. Their coach has kept the starters in at times past a point when a game was over for these 2 reasons. 1 - The opposing coach has kept her/his starters in, and 2 - to try to get his main players to understand how important it is to play 100% every minute you’re on the floor. I have yet to see South do this as a team. Some of the players understand but not all and this can hurt them in the long run. This is why they lost to Hopkins. Granted it was the 3rd game in 3 days but same for Hopkins. 100% effort 100% of the time!

Saint Paul Central - Although they do not have the power tools of a year ago, they do have the talent to win it all IF they take better care of the ball. I have seen them 2 times now (Long Beach Poly at the Target Center was the other time) and I could forgive some of the mistakes against Poly (Ranked #2 in the country at the time) but to still make the same mistakes now with little improvement seems to be an issue. Although Central had some success against the press they need to steady the nerves every time not just 2 or 3 times a game. Also, Central allowed South to establish defensive position when they wanted to shoot and this resulted in many of their shots looking like they were forced. Lots of leaning back or to the side shooting instead of going straight up or passing out of trouble. Having better results in both of these areas will make Central a serious contender and not simply just the best of the rest.

These are just a few my opinions.