His peers in the Dakota-10 Conference have made the DSU hoops master its women's basketball coach of the year.

     In early December, Dittman was named by the S.D. Sportswriters as South Dakota's women's college coach of the year. Two months later, Dittman was named by the Daily Leader as its Danny Award Winner in that category.

     Dittman's Lady T's, prior to their maiden campaign in the newly-formed DAC-10 Conference, were looked on by many sportswriters and area coaches as, well, maybe sixth-place finishers in the loop.  The Lady T's, under the coaching of Dittman, proved that rating way off the mark.  They fought their way through one of the area's toughest conference schedules to win the inaugural league title with a 14-4 conference mark.

     Dakota State (23-9 overall) went on to produce a "Sweet 16" finish in the NAIA Div. II Women's Basketball Tournament in Sioux City last Friday.

     "This was a great group of young ladies to work with," says Dittman. "When we began the year, no one gave us any chance of winning another conference title or returning to the national tournament."

     Last year, Dakota State concluded its last run of women's hoops in the now-defunct South Dakota-Iowa Conference with a league championship and then an "Elite Eight" finish in the NAIA's national tournament, racking up a school-record 25 wins along the way to Sioux City.  Dittman did that with a senior-dominated team, which saw five seniors depart.

     Dittman said that the Lady T's asserted themselves again this year.  "These young ladies never quit," he says. "If we lost a game, they came right back to work the next night and got better. By the time the national tournament came along, we had developed into a team that could play all three phases of the game well."

     Dittman shies away from taking a lot of credit for the success of the 2000-01 Lady T's, shining the spotlight on the team's last-year veterans.  "I was a very fortunate that we had the leadership given us by our two seniors -- Heidi Honermann and Kathy Shypulski," says Dittman.

     "Heidi led our team with her defensive effort and her work ethics," he said. "Kathy led us at the offensive end, giving us the belief that we could score on every possession. Without these two, I don't know where we would have been this season. It was such a pleasure to coach them throughout their career.

     "There is a saying in athletics that for a team to be great, the sum of the whole must be greater than the sum of the parts," said Dittman. "I think our team achieved so much because they played as a team.  They never cared who got the credit, or who got the publicity -- they just cared what the final score was. And because of that, we were able to have a tremendous season."

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