Region 11 Has Lost A Perennially Strong Competitor
October 13, 2020
Council Bluffs, IA – According to a statement released in April 2020 from the Iowa Western Community College athletic department, the men’s and women’s basketball teams are moving from Division I to Division II.
The National Junior College Athletic Association Board of Regents Appeal Committee voted unanimously to grant Iowa Western’s request to move both programs to Division II. The Reiver men will begin competing at the Division II level in the upcoming 2020-21 season, while the women will start in the 2021-22 season.
Iowa Western President and interim Athletic Director Dr. Dan Kinney said the administration has been discussing the move to Division II for more than a year.
“It’s something we’ve thought about for a long time. One of the things that we want in our basketball programs is to recruit more local students, and that hasn’t been the case in the past, so that was one of the reasons we moved to Division II,” Kinney said. “There’s a lot of competition in Iowa. Most of the community colleges are Division II in men’s and women’s basketball. That provides us with a lot fuller schedule with some really good competition. I think we’re going to have a lot more local athletes on those two teams, and that’s important to us.”
Iowa Western started competing in NJCAA men’s basketball during the 1972-73 season. For the first 22 seasons, the Reivers were in Division II. Compiling a record of 210-396, the Reivers only had 6 seasons at .500 or above winning percentage. Their most productive season came in 1974-75, when they went 23-5 and were Region 11 Champions under Head Coach Rod Clarkson (51-31), the only mentor to have a winning record during that era.
The Reivers moved to Division I for the start of the 1996-97 season, under second year head coach Jim Morris. It was Morris who built Iowa Western into a consistent top 20 program. During his tenure, the Reivers won 440 games while losing only 209 (a winning percentage of .667), making him the winningest coach in team history. In his 21 seasons at the helm, Morris teams won 20+ games a total of 17 times, and only had two seasons in which his teams finished below .500. Both in 1995-96 (his first), and again in 2010-11, the team finished one game below .500 at 15-16.
Morris, who retired after the 2014-15 campaign, led the Reivers to twelve Region XI finals, winning three Region Championships, three District Championships, which qualified them for 3 trips to the National Tournament in Hutchinson, KS (2004-05, 2005-06, and 2012-13). In those seasons, Iowa Western finished 5th, 4th, and 8th respectively. Additionally, the 2012-13 edition entered the National Tournament as the #1 ranked team in the country, which earned them the #1 seed for the Championship. All three of his National Tournament qualifying teams won over 30 games.
Michael Johnette took over command of the Reivers following Morris, and the winning continued. In his four seasons as head coach, Johnette guided the Reivers to an overall record of 90-36, which ranks him tops in school winning percentage at .714.
Following Johnette’s resignation at the conclusion of last season, Chad Van Riessen, Johnette’s top assistant for all four years, was elevated to become the Reivers eighth head coach in program history. That announcement came just prior to the programs official move to Division II.
When asked about the reclassification for Reiver basketball, Van Riessen sees the move as a positive step and one that is on par with his recruiting strategy.
“I’m excited about the opportunity that presents itself for our program and our players,” he said. “Obviously, this will cut down our out-of-state travel significantly, just based off of a scheduling standpoint. We’re always going to start our recruiting process from around the Council Bluffs area, then build out. That’s always been my approach with recruiting, so obviously that fits in with my philosophy.”
Prior to his arrival at IWCC, Van Riessen coached 3 years at the high school ranks, as well as stints as an assistant at NCAA DII Northwest Missouri State University (four years), and five years as an assistant at Missouri State University-West Plains (NJCAA DI).
Iowa Western’s departure from Division I leaves Region 11, considered a power region for several decades, with only four teams. Three time National Champs Indian Hills CC (Ottumwa, IA) and Southeastern CC (W. Burlington, IA), along with Marshalltown (IA) CC, and Northeast CC (Norfolk, NE). IHCC and SCC won their six combined national championships over an eight year period (1997-2003), with Indian Hills being the only team in NJCAA history to win titles back, to back, to back (1997-99).
Some of the content for this article is from the Reivers athletic page and The Daily Nonpareil.
