The Decline of a
Storied Tradition
By Liam Halferty
The Titan men’s basketball program is one of the most historic programs in the history of collegiate basketball in our country.
With the likes of legendary coaches such as John Lawther, George Roark, Grover Washbaugh, Buzz Ridl, and Ron Galbreath, the Titans thrived as one of the best small-college basketball teams in the country for over 70 years.
Unfortunately, this storied tradition has not continued into the 21st century.
The Titan men’s basketball team recently capped off the statistically worst season in school history, finishing the year with a 6-20 record.
Starting in 1897, the Titan basketball program has had much success over the years. When head coach John Lawther took over the program in 1926, the Titans had only achieved a record of 109-135. Lawther turned the program around, piling up 164 wins and only 44 losses in nine seasons as head coach. One of these wins was a victory over St. John’s at Madison Square Garden.
George Roark then took over the helm, leading the Titans for one season to a 14-7 record.
The next coach in line was Grover Washbaugh, who led the team for 19 years with a record of 297-129.
The legendary coach Buzz Ridl then took over the team in 1956, and kept the winning tradition alive. Ridl led the Titans to a 216-91 record, before moving on to the University of Pittsburgh.
Succeeding Ridl was two-time All-American Ron Galbreath, the all-time leading coach in wins at the school, with 523 career coaching victories.
If only this winning tradition were still alive today.
Over the past five seasons, the Titan men’s basketball program has compiled an overall record of 37-94, including a 22-44 mark in conference play.
In that time span, the only team in the President’s Athletic Conference with a worse overall record than the Titans, is the team that recently defeated Westminster in the opening round of the conference tournament, Waynesburg.
The Yellow Jackets have compiled a record of 27-100 record since the 2007-08 season.
However, Waynesburg has earned same number of postseason wins as the Titans in that time span: one.
One factor that leads to the Titans’ downfall is the lack of upperclassmen leadership, or the absence of upperclassmen at all for that matter.
There has been one lone senior on the team in the past two seasons.
From the 2007-08 campaign through the 2010-11 season, there were 28 new players to join the Titan basketball program. This not only includes freshman, but upperclassmen transfers as well.
To this day, only six of these 28 players still compete on the team.
Only one of the 28 players graduated as a member of the team, and one player graduated in three years as part of an academic program.
This means that from the graduating classes of 2011 and 2012, only two of fourteen players associated with the program at one time actually graduated as members of the team. These players are Max Spinner and Rob Briggs.
To put this in perspective, take a look at the Westminster soccer program.
From the graduating classes of 2011 and 2012, the Titan soccer team will graduate 18 of 24 seniors brought into the program as freshmen. This is a much more consistent rate than that of the basketball program.
Head basketball coach Larry Ondako spoke of the team’s lack of upperclassmen before this year in the season outlook.
"We ended the season last year with no seniors and one junior," Ondako said. "Two years ago we basically started from scratch. Now you see the progress. It's a lot easier to have a good preseason when you have juniors and seniors."
Ondako is right about one thing. Two years ago, the Titan basketball team did basically start from scratch. However, progress is not the best word to describe the direction of the Titan basketball program.
Twenty losses this year is the most in a single-season for a team in Westminster basketball history. This 20 loss season follows up three 19-loss seasons, and a 17-loss campaign.
Other than the ongoing trouble of retaining players for four years, there are several reasons on the court that the Titans have had trouble earning wins.
One main aspect of the game that the Titans struggle with is defense.
According to NCAA.com, of 405 total teams in NCAA Division III this season, the Titans ranked an alarming 404th in field goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to shoot a whopping 51.7 percent from the field per game.
Several Titan opponents this season, including Otterbein, Mt. Union, Thiel, and Geneva, all shot more than 60 percent in games against Westminster.
The Titans also ranked 376th in NCAA Division III in scoring defense, allowing 77.4 points per game. They ranked last in the conference in this category.
Rebounding is another area in which the Titans struggled with this year.
Ranking at 395th out of 405 teams in NCAA Division III in rebounding margin at -8.6 rebounds per game, the Titans were last in the conference in both rebounding offense and defense. The next best team in the rebounding margin in the President’s Athletic Conference was Washington and Jefferson, at -3.4 rebounds per game, more than five more than the Titans.
The Titans also struggled on offense, ranking 9th in the conference in assists (10.58 per game), 7th in assist to turnover ratio (.82), 8th in field goal percentage (41.2 percent), and 6th in free throw percentage (69.7).
Although they ranked first in three-point field goals made with 212, the Titans only ranked fifth in the league in three-point field goal percentage at 32.6 percent.
The Titans also ranked 373rd in NCAA Division III win/loss percentage.
The Titans struggled this season not only as a team, but also individually. There was not one Titan basketball player who earned an All PAC selection, while other teams had several players earn these accolades. One of these teams was the Bethany Bison. The Bison had three players selected to the All PAC teams, including PAC Player of the Year Nick Wilcox.
Bethany recently won their second consecutive President’s Athletic Conference Tournament Championship, their third in the past five years.
Bethany has been the cream of the crop in the President’s Athletic Conference in the recent past. Coach Ondako and the Titans are no stranger to this fact. The Bison have recorded an 11-2 record against the Titans since 2007-08, with three of those victories ending the Titans’ seasons in the conference tournament three years in a row from 2009-2011.
Bethany Head Coach Andy Sachs took over the Bison basketball program before the 2009-10 season. Since Sachs began coaching at Bethany, the Bison have won 65 games, and have won two consecutive President’s Athletic Conference tournament titles, sending them to the NCAA tournament the past two seasons.
In a recent interview with D3hoops.com, Sachs credits the success of the Bison to their strength of schedule.
“We really upgraded our schedule and it’s helped make us a better basketball team,” Sachs said.
Coach Ondako and the Titans have taken the opposite route, by substituting two talented teams with winning records on their schedule in AMCC powerhouse Penn State-Behrend and Notre Dame College, with two lesser opponents in Penn State-Dubois and Penn State-Greater Allegheny this past season.
This schedule change may help the Titans earn some wins, as they have not had much success against teams with winning records as of late. In the past three years, the Titans have posted only two wins against teams with winning records (vs. Thiel in 2009-10, vs. Geneva in 2010-11).
The season outlook for this past season stated that “the wave of juniors making its way through the Westminster College men's basketball team for the 2011-12 season represents progress and excitement. There are also some unknowns because the group has not tasted success.”
The Titans will continue to wait to taste success another year, unless changes are made to truly generate this “excitement” through progress of one of the most successful small-college basketball programs in the history of this great sport. As of right now, it is apparent that this “progress” is not being made.
