If someone would have told me the UW-Whitewater men’s basketball team would make it to the Final Four and win a national championship before the season started, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Actually, I probably would have bet against it.

Yes, Chris Davis and Alex Edmunds returned for their senior year, but that was the only part of the team that was set in place. The Warhawks lost seniors DJ Dantzler and Phil Negri and lost a very good athlete in Antone Byrd, who transferred schools.
Without Byrd and Dantzler (the team’s second and third highest scorers last season), I didn’t think the ’Hawks had enough fire power with just Davis and Edmunds.

I was wrong.

The Warhawks had several players step up this season, including sophomores Alex Merg, Eric Bryson, Cody Odegaard and junior Luke Knoble.
Last season, those four combined for just 13.5 points a game. This season, they combined for 32.2 points per game. Not to mention, freshman Quardell Young was a huge boost off of the bench, averaging 6.6 points per game.

Head coach Pat Miller said this year’s team is not like any other team he has coached before. He said this team is very defensively-minded and every single player knows their role. This season, the ’Hawks gave up only 58.2 points per game compared to last year’s 71.4 points per game.

With the run the team has made these last few weeks, it has raised the bar for the fans.
Throughout the season the student section was weak. Not many people came out to watch, and if they did, they were not lively. Now that we brought home a national championship, students must keep this up because it really contributed to the team’s success.

So far in my senior year, I can say I have been blessed as a journalist. I got to witness history with both the football team and now the basketball team winning national championships.