The 2004-05 Concordia Men’s Basketball team shrugged off modest preseason expectations while becoming one of the most successful squads in program history. On Sept. 27, 2024, Head Coach Grant Schmidt’s ’04-05 team officially earned induction into the Concordia Athletics Hall of Fame. As part of the Hall of Fame banquet, Schmidt, assistant coach Marty Kohlwey and former players Steve Carretto and Marcus Wernke took the microphone to share stories.
As the 2024-25 basketball season approaches, it will have been 20 years since the famed ’04-05 team embarked upon a special campaign. As Schmidt once said of this group, “When they strapped on their shoes, they didn’t lose.” The 2004-05 team finished at 32-6 overall for a school record number of wins in a season while also placing as the NAIA Division II national runner up. The season included GPAC tournament and CIT championships and a second place conference regular season claim.
Below are thoughts that were provided during the Hall of Fame banquet and a selection of text from the feature, “Coach Schmidt: Concordia’s Godfather of Basketball.”
In April of 2020, Concordia Athletics also released an in-depth feature on the 2004-05 squad titled, “The ‘junkyard dogs’ of 2004-05.”
Grant Schmidt
An exceptional story teller, Head Coach Grant Schmidt seems to recall the smallest of details from his 24 seasons leading Concordia Men’s Basketball.
Said Schmidt of his 2004-05 team, “We were predicted to finish seventh in the conference, so there was very little respect. These guys knew that. They felt it. It was great motivation. Honestly, we didn’t know what we were going to have. We did just lose the GPAC Player of the Year in Rick (Dietze). Now it was time for these guys to make a name for themselves. We started out going 13-0. We started to realize what we had, especially when we beat Southern Nazarene down in Oklahoma. They paid us to come and play them. I thought the game was starting at a different time. We showed up at the gym at Southern Nazarene and they were already in their warmups. So we really looked like a bunch of losers, especially the head coach. We went on to beat them with, I think, with about 15 minutes of warmup.”
--Concordia defeated Southern Nazarene on Nov. 26, 2004, by a final score of 85-72 in Bethany, Okla. The Bulldogs (9-0 at the time) were led by 24 points from Jason Jisa. Scott Beck finished with 15 points and Benjamin Buhr and Jon Ziegler added 13 apiece.
Continued Schmidt, “This was such an interesting team. It was so talented. Whenever you have such a good team, you have guys on your bench who could be starting. It’s tough to make decisions. That’s why it’s tough sometimes being a head coach. The pickup games were brutal, they were physical, they were emotional and they didn’t like each other (on the court). If somebody lost, it just wasn’t acceptable. They took that same attitude to the court and became this unified group. We just really became difficult to beat.”
At the national tournament, Concordia won four games in five days to advance to the national championship game. Said Schmidt of that experience, “The national tournament was like a season within itself. Our first game, we are playing Trinity Christian and they have a 6-7 All-American. They were our weakest opponent and we really struggled. Luckily, we had Jason guarding their 6-7 All-American. Scott had an excellent game and the bench had a good game. Marcus had double digits in rebounds and points and he had nine blocked shots. It just set a tone for Marcus. His senior year he was easily the most improved player in the league, and our team.
“Game two was interesting because we played the team that had the most Division I transfers, Flagler. That was a battle. They were so talented. Another guy from our bench was the star of the game – that was Steve Carretto. He just lit it up. Steve had that ability. He could light a fire in a forest without a match. Game three we had Cornerstone. We were playing so good we were only down 18 with 14 minutes left. All the sudden in the second half, Wes Gehrig showed up coming off the bench. Wes ignited a rally for us in the second half. We outscored them by 21 points over the final 14 minutes. It was just an incredible win. Then we get the final four opportunity down in Branson, which was a thrill because you got treated like kings. They had the funniest comedy show I’d ever seen. They told us we got an hour practice time between 9 and 10 on Sunday. I told our guys, ‘We’re going to church.’ We went to church, and we won the next day. When we won, we got an hour-and-a-half practice time in the gym on Monday, and I said, is there a church open? We practiced and we lost.”
Continued Schmidt, “There was never any quit in these guys. Jon, Jason and Scott were our leaders in those games. The Cedarville game was just incredible. Marty and I – I’m glad we were married because we had a hug on the court that was just like from the notebook. It was pretty bad because we were roommates in college. Anyways, we made it to the championship game and we had to face 6-10 Robert Whaley, a second round draft choice of the Utah Jazz. That’s who finally beat these guys. We were up by five at halftime, but we just didn’t quite have enough.
“Whatever we lacked in skill, whatever we lacked in congeniality, these guys were so hard to play against. They were so difficult to beat. Scott Beck dribbled the ball above his head, and yet his unconventional style was so effective. He was probably the hardest matchup on this team for anyone to deal with. He could take you down into the lane and use his pivot. He was so hard for other guards to guard.”
Marcus Wernke
A 6-foot-9 senior on the 2004-05 team, Marcus Wernke proved to be a force inside for Concordia. Wernke improved dramatically over the course of his career.
Said Wernke, “I came up from Arizona because of Coach Kohlwey. I was thinking about transferring right away. I had a serious knee injury and it took me about two years to feel normal again. God had a plan in all of this. It was tough mentally. These guys were all behind me. They are all my brothers. I really appreciate these guys. They are some of the best men I know – the best husbands, fathers and Christians that I know.
“In practice, we fought hard and sometimes nearly came to blows, but it was because we wanted to make each other better. It wasn’t anything personal. We really came to fight on that court. We were probably the worst 3-line shoot team in Coach’s history. We would never hit the mark.
“We set the table defensively. That’s where our identity was. No one was going to get an easy basket on us. We had true grit and were true brothers on the court. I played with three All-Americans up here. You might not get the opportunity you think you deserve, but know your role and fulfill that role.
“This is a platform to give all glory to God and Jesus Christ. I just appreciate these guys, and go Bulldogs!”
Steve Carretto
A native of Wisner, Neb., Steve Carretto was a 6-foot senior guard on the 2004-05 squad.
Said Carretto, “This didn’t just happen to be a great season. This came out of the people who grew up at Concordia. The bigger thing about being at Concordia that I took away from being part of this team was perseverance. That was a big lesson. It was hard work every single day. I drove by Hillcrest today and that hill still seems so big. The biggest thing I take away is the teamwork that went into it.
“It was said in the newspaper when we were at the national tournament that we all looked like a bunch of people that just came out of the YMCA, except one individual. You can guess who. We all had our roles and we relished those roles. There was something that we could feel in that classroom at the beginning of the year. We were going to do this together. We were going to win together, and we did that because we looked out for one another. It’s a great lesson – always looking out for the others.”
Marty Kohlwey
“All I can say is I loved coaching with my roommate from college and seeing the joy that coaching brought to him. These guys were so much fun to coach. You actually called a play, and it worked. It was really fun to coach this group. All praise to God.”
2004-05 narrative (from Coach Schmidt: Concordia’s Godfather of Basketball)
Grant Schmidt had piled up more than 300 career wins by the time the 2004-05 season beckoned. That offseason, league coaches picked Concordia seventh, perhaps due to the graduation of Rick Dietze and the lack of size on the roster. But this was a squad with two of the all-time greats in program history: Jason Jisa and Jon Ziegler. Not only that, point guard Scott Beck was ready to take his game to another level and senior Steve Carretto, sophomore Wes Gehring and incoming freshman Benjamin Buhr were more than capable outside shooters.
On the interior, Schmidt had no choice but to start 6-foot-9 Marcus Wernke, a transfer from Phoenix College who had needed time to develop. Wernke was one of the super veterans on the team who were physically mature and strong. As Marty Kohlwey put it, “We had five-year players coming out of our ears.” Schmidt and his staff never left the door closed even as players like Jisa (University of Nebraska) and Ziegler (Concordia Mequon) went elsewhere to begin their college careers. When Kohlwey had driven to Arizona on a recruiting trip, he noticed Wernke and asked, “Who is that really tall kid over there?” Kohlwey was told that he wouldn’t want him. He replied by saying, “I’ll be the judge of that.”
Wernke became one of the missing links as a shot blocking dynamo. Meanwhile, the Lincoln Lutheran product Ziegler emerged as the team’s leading scorer, Jisa set the tone with his relentlessness and Beck averaged an astounding 8.2 rebounds per game as a 6-foot-1 guard. The group mastered the swing offense and became known more than anything for its tenaciousness defensively. Kohlwey marveled at the team’s “ridiculous wingspan” across the board and Jisa termed the team the “junkyard dogs.” As Schmidt would playfully say about this team, “when they strapped on their shoes, they didn’t lose.” Said Kohlwey, “The options looked pretty good no matter what you pulled out of your pocket. It was a deep team. We just had so many different weapons and they played so hard. They responded extremely well to Grant’s demands from them. I felt like Jisa was such a catalyst for how hard he played every possession.”
There was an early indication that this could be a special season when Concordia won on the home court of 11th-ranked Bellevue, 78-76, in the season opener. The Bulldogs jetted out to 13-0 and took up residence within the top 10 of the NAIA Division II coaches’ poll. Fast forward to the postseason and there Concordia was celebrating a second GPAC tournament championship in three seasons. The Bulldogs had defeated Sioux Falls in the title game, 62-58, in front of another spirited old gym crowd. The ride took Concordia all the way to the national championship game in Point Lookout, where Walsh University of Ohio seized the title behind eventual NBA Draft pick Robert Whaley.
Jisa and company had won a school record 32 games with the type of grit that allowed them to pull out the close ones at the national tournament. Jisa himself was a GPAC Defensive Player of the Year honoree and a national tournament “Hustle Award” winner. The Seward native Jisa gave plenty of credit to the head coach. “He always knew the best way to attack a game. He had a gameplan set in his mind. He knew that if we followed what he said we would get it done. Not once in my time at Concordia did we watch film on an opponent – zero times. We always focused on ourselves. The rest would take care of itself.”
Even as he was guiding Northwestern to two national titles early in his head coaching tenure, Kris Korver always knew it would be a tough and physical game when he took his Red Raiders up against the Bulldogs. The 2004-05 Northwestern team was beaten in the semifinals by Walsh, eliminating the possibility of an all-GPAC final. “They ran the swing offense and they were going to beat you baseline,” Korver recalled of playing those Concordia teams. “They were going to play physical defense and they were going to be tough-minded. You take on the personality of your coach most of the time. His teams definitely reflected his character and personality.”
The rebuild after the 2004-05 season was a bit rough in terms of results as Concordia finished below .500 in the 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 seasons. Ziegler still managed to provide plenty of thrills as he played out his junior and senior campaigns. The 6-foot-3 do-it-all wing averaged 18.8 points in ’05-06 and then 21.3 points in ’06-07. His efforts on February 17, 2007, became the stuff of legend when he poured in a school record 47 points in an 87-78 overtime upset of 11th-ranked Sioux Falls. He also moved past 2,000 career points and became the program’s all-time leading scorer in that same game. Ziegler barely rested a single second in that game because Schmidt never wanted him off the court. Led by Ziegler, the ’06-07 team made a run to the GPAC semifinals before being beaten by Sioux Falls in a rematch.
“He was such a good basketball mind X’s and O’s wise,” Ziegler said in reflection of Coach Schmidt. “He was defensive-minded, intense and got the most out of his players. At the end of the day, he was still able to joke around about stuff off the court. He has that wittiness about him. He loves cracking jokes. Sometimes you didn’t know if the moment was right to laugh or not. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, the times I had there, the good and the bad. It was always fun.”