A champion one year, rebuilding the next. Well, not exactly.

Scott Rueck has something of a basketball dynasty brewing in Newberg, Ore. A year ago, his George Fox women were on top of the world, making the trip to Holland and winning the program’s first national championship; now, he’s lost arguably his two best players from last spring’s title-winner, and he’s still got his Bruins right there among the nation’s elite.

George Fox athletics photo Hannah Munger has stepped onto the roster, into the lineup and into the spotlight for George Fox.

He’s working without Kristen Shielee, his senior center from last season’s championship team, and without Sage Indendi, the freshman who led the team in scoring last season but left school after one year. Rueck has found ways to fill in the cracks.

“We were young even last year, except at center, where we had Kristen,” he said. “We had a lot of talent sitting on the bench waiting their turn. And obviously losing Sage was a big blow to us -- she was often the one the ball was going to late in the game. She played like a senior, even though she was a freshman.”

“This group is taking it as a challenge. It's a collective effort. We lose a player, and the entire group comes together and says to themselves, 'How are we going to make up for it?’”

They’ve patched things up with teamwork and good leadership. They’ve got a deep, deep rotation, with 11 players averaging double-digit minutes; they've got two seniors, Elise Kuenzi and B.B. Gardner, returning to the starting lineup; and they've got a returning sophomore, Keisha Gordon, tied for third in the Northwest Conference with 15.2 points per game. So no, it’s not surprising that the Bruins are once again a national power.

“Not at all,” said Suzy Barcomb, head coach at rival Puget Sound. “You go and you get another [6-foot-5] post player, and you have Keisha still, and Elise, and B.B. Gardner -- not at all. And I think that obviously, they were well stocked with incoming freshmen from the previous year. And when you win that many games and you win a national championship, you naturally have a lot more going for you moving forward.”

The new post presence is Hannah Munger, a homegrown talent straight out of Newberg High School. Munger has slotted right in to fill the shoes of the graduated Shielee, and with crop of sophomores that runs seven deep all getting significant minutes, this is a new-look Bruins rotation.

But the nucleus -- Kuenzi, Gardner, Gordon -- is still the same, and the challenge at this point is staying hungry to keep winning. After all, this is the same group of girls that brought home a title in Holland last spring -- it’s hard not to get complacent.

“We felt that way to start the year, kind of,” Rueck admitted. “I don't know -- it was an interesting start to our season. We weren't playing great at first, and we had some players playing, I believe, below their potential. But once Christmas hit, we had had the loss to Cal Lutheran, which I thought wasn't a very good loss, and then another [to Division II Lewis-Clark State] against what I thought was a very good team -- and those were losses that refocused us, I thought.

"It's almost like our season restarted after that point. They regained their competitive edge, and now it's like this year's team is just like last year's.”

Last year’s Bruins ran the table at 32-0, beating up on everyone in the NWC and blowing away the competition in the NCAA Tournament. This year, they got a couple of losses out of the way early -- but they’re still dominant. They’re 16-2 this season, they’re No. 7 in the nation, and they’re a perfect 9-0 in league play to date.

“Now our goal is just to get better every day,” Rueck said. “That's what we've been talking about. It’s about asking them, ‘You're 8-0, are you satisfied?’ So are we just going to be satisfied with what we've done so far, or are we going to keep getting better as a team?”

“You can't hope for a national title. You've just got to be the best team you can be and see what happens. That's where our focus is. We're on top of our conference, and we just want to stay on top.”

But here’s where it gets tricky.

If the Bruins don’t take care of business this weekend, they might not be staying on top for long. Friday night brings a visit to Puget Sound, where Barcomb’s Loggers have won seven straight games and are nipping at the Bruins’ heels in the NWC standings.

Puget Sound’s one league loss came to George Fox -- a 65-62 nail-biter in Newberg decided on the final possession by a crucial Kuenzi steal with five seconds to play. Now 7-1 in the conference, they have a shot at redemption against the Bruins at home, and a win Friday would mean a shot at evening up the race for the top seed in the NWC playoffs.

The Loggers might be facing the defending champions, but they’re not scared. This is nothing they haven’t seen before.

“We've been playing against George Fox in league for as long as I can remember,” Barcomb said. “I don't think there's an intimidation factor -- I just think everybody in our conference takes these league games so seriously because of the quality of the competition. And I still think our conference gets overlooked with its quality of basketball. To us, it's a league game. And if you look at it as 'you're playing a national champion,' you're going to get too excited about one league game rather than focusing on the task at hand."

One way or another, these two teams will probably find their way to the top. In five of the last six seasons, one of the two has earned at least a share of the conference title. Usually, they meet head-to-head for all the marbles in February. But neither team is taking anything for granted.

“We have the same goal we have every year, and that's to make the Northwest Conference playoffs, which means top four,” Barcomb said. “And we really don't want to be the three or four, which means you're on the road for the first round. We want to be top-two.”

Their chances of that are good. Last season, the two teams finished one and two in the conference. The year before that, one and two as well. The year before that… you guessed it.

If you know your recent history, you know that George Fox is going to remain on the scene. And you also know that Puget Sound will be right there with them, battling it out until the very end.

“The more people learn about this rivalry,” Rueck said, “the more they learn to love it.”

U-DUB-DOUBLED UP: Big in-state rivalry, big game, big upset. That's the story out of Wisconsin on Wednesday night.

Once again, we could be in for a changing of the guard atop the men's national rankings -- national No. 1 UW-Stevens Point fell at home to No. 5 UW-Whitewater, 61-58. It came down to the final possession, when junior guard Phil Negri came away with a big steal with four seconds to play to ice the victory.

Negri led the Warhawks all night, finishing with 16 points on 5-of-11 shooting.

"I've been coached into being a shooter," Negri told Madison.com on Wednesday night. "I was never a shooter growing up. Coach [Pat Miller] says you just shoot through slumps, and I just put a couple up there, and they happened to go in."

It was a big night not just for Negri, but for a Whitewater squad that beat Stevens Point for the second time this season and established its presence as the team to beat in the WIAC. And you just might see them shake things up nationally, too.

FLOORED: The Trinity Bantams dedicated their gym this weekend to a legendary former coach -- but they couldn't dedicate a win to him.

The Trinity program dedicated its arena, the storied Oosting Gymnasium in Hartford, Conn., to retired men's coach Stanley Ogrodnik on Saturday afternoon. The Bantam men and women then each took on NESCAC rival Amherst in their newly christened gym, and things didn't go well. The men dropped a close one to the Lord Jeffs, 67-65, while the women were no match for Amherst's national powerhouse squad, falling 75-55.

Ogrodnik didn't seem to mind.

"I don't think a coach can have a greater honor than to receive the permanency of having your name on the court where you spent so many hours," Ogrodnik told the crowd.

Ogrodnik coached the Bantam men for 27 seasons, compiling a 469-190 career record and retiring in 2008 as one of the most successful coaches in D-III history.

AFTER THE ELITE EIGHT: Looking back at our preseason men’s basketball poll, there are four teams ranked in that Top 10 that now aren’t ranked at all -- No. 2 John Carroll, No. 5 Richard Stockton, No. 7 DeSales and No. 8 Mass.-Dartmouth.  Not only have those teams fallen out of the Top 25, they received just one vote combined in the most recent Top 25 poll.  In full disclosure, I voted the Bulldogs No. 25 in this week’s poll.

While DeSales has slipped off the national radar, the defending MAC Freedom champions are rolling along undefeated in conference.  On Saturday they defeated a well coached King’s team 66-55 at home.  Preseason All-American Darnell Braswell led the team in points (21) and rebounds (8) in that game as he has this season and was clearly the difference maker.  With his quickness, Braswell is catalyst for a Bulldogs’ offense based on crisp, quick passes along the perimeter, prodding the defense for an open shot.  He can zip to the basket for his own shot or collapse the defense around him, opening up opportunities for the other Bulldogs.  His quick feet make him a great on the ball defender and his athleticism makes it hard for smaller guards to get their shots off.

DeSales returns much of the team that made a run to the Elite 8 last year with the exception of post player Ed Lipinski.  The Bulldogs are still searching for someone who can fill that role.  I spoke with DeSales coach Scott Coval after the game about what kind of big man he needs and how this team compares to last year’s.

Video has no source Url in id="utv545907" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="400" height="186" name="utv_n_110669">

If you have a tip or note, send it to atn@d3hoops.com.