Sorry Pantherpride, I screwed up. FC News is correct that Greenville's loss Saturday knocked the Panthers out of contention. I was in too big of a hurry to get This Week In The SLIAC done last night. Even if Greenville wins and the other three lose, thereby creating a four way 11-7 tie, the tie-breakers go to Eureka and Fontbonne. I did a three way tie at 11-7 (Fontbonne, Greenville, and Westminster) and forgot about Eureka.

My apology to Greenville players, coaches, and fans who saw it and got their hopes up. It's been fixed.

Time to clear up a few things that have accumulated over the past few weeks. In reverse chronological order:

1) Scores are up and standings revised on the SLIAC website, www.sliac.org, each weekday by 10:30 pm CST, and by 6:00 pm CST on Saturday. Perhaps we should have them sent to D3hoops but we don't have a conference SID, we have a webmaster who takes care of getting our information out via our website.

2) As usual, Hopefan is right. The conference alternates the start times of the Men's and Women's game from year to year. This year the Men play first on weekdays and the Women play first on weekends, including the two Friday games. It was reversed last year and will be reversed next year. There are valid points on both sides of this issue but Title IX and Gender Equity tip the scales toward spiltting up the "prime time".

3) Pat Coleman correctly pointed out that you can't trust the school enrollment figures you see unless they are broken down. Most schools list total enrollment which includes anyone who has signed up for a class. The larger figure makes them look better. The figure that counts is fulltime undergradutae enrollment. Those are the only ones who are eligible to participate in intercollegiate athletics. My guess is that the fulltime undergraduate enrollments of Fontbonne, Maryville, and Webster are closer to 1,000 than they are to 2,000.   

Hopefan (and others),

You may have had this wrong (twice) just to see if anyone is paying attention but the Blackburn-Greenville game tomorrow is at Greenville.

We don't want anyone to make the trip to Carlinville to be greeted with an empty Beaverdome.

Hopefan's analysis is almost always right on the money but he missed this one.

Gregory Sager owes Principia College, and the millions of Christian Scientists in the world, an apology for taking a shot at their most fundamental religous belief, ("Well, you're certainly not paying for health service").

I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it, but it certainly took a shot at one of our school's religous principles.

Principia provides contracted medical sevices for all visiting teams; their own student-athletes' injuries are treated according to their religous principles. That should be respected, rather than made light of.

While I agree that the time has come to get off of the scheduling topic and focus on the games, especially since conference play begins tonight, I can't help but reply to FCNews' gratuitous shot at my former scheduling practices. So, Hopefan, "once in a blue moon" time has come. Perhaps I did play "my share of cupcakes", but that's a time-honored tradition in college basketball. During UCLA's run of ten NCAA championships in twelve years, Coach Wooden rarely had to pack a suitcase until mid-January when the conference season began. Everybody plays some cupcakes and it benefits the cupcakes by giving their kids a chance to play in a nicer gym against better competition, maybe get a guarantee check for the program, and it gives the stronger team a chance to get a "W", gain some confidence, and play some of its lesser players. It shouldn't be overdone such as Mizzou football this year, but it's OK in limited doses. What FCNews didn't say is that while I was playing a cupcake or two, I was also playing Ohio State (twice), Iowa (when they were ranked third in the nation and had three NBA players), Oklahoma, Oregon, Indiana State (with Larry Bird the year they reached the NCAA Championship Game) Kansas State, Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Stanford, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Dayton, UNC-Charlotte, South Carolina, etc.

And Bunchtime, I am not "allowing this mockery of a schedule". Who each school plays is up to its AD and head coach. Further, there is no reason upgrade our schedules until we can be successful playing the schedules we play now. What's the point? The MVC schools upgraded their schedules because they had a real opportunity to get at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. It will be a long time before one of our basketball teams is even considered for a Pool C (at large) bid to the NCAA Tournament. Even in the sports in which we do well, we have not even been under consideration for Pool C. Playing strong schedules, such as Webster and Maryville have done in recent years, helps the image of the conference, but so does winning and we haven't done enough of that. Our schools simply do not have the resources now to compete, on any consistant basis, with the CCIWs, UAAs, WIACs, and even the MWCs and IACs of the D3 world. We focus on giving our student-athletes the best possible experience we can, and if that means they play a Bible school or two, then so be it.

That's it for me for a long time, but I enjoy reading everyone's thoughts.   

I'm getting a little tired of the complaining by mark_reichert about the officiating in the Maryville-Washington University game. That was two months ago; get over it! Maryville won the game because it played great and Wash U had an off night.

Maryville was ahead by sixteen at the half and led by double figure margins through most of the game. The two best Wash U players fouled out late in the game when they had to foul to try to get the ball back. The officials who worked the game were assigned by the same person who assigns for Wash U, and they have worked many games at Wash U.

It's too bad you, and some of the Maryville fans who were at Wheaton, can't accept the fact that most of the time a game is won or lost because one team was better on that night.

OK, I probably shouldn't have posted in the first place and I'm not going to respond to all comments, but here goes:

TIE-BREAKERS

A tie for fourth will be played off on February 22 at a neutral court to be determined by the Commissioner, unless one of the tied teams has won both games between the two.

Any other tie will be determined by, in order, results between the two tied teams, results of the two tied teams against other SLIAC teams beginning with the highest ranked, point differential in the games between the two tied teams, and a coin flip conducted by the Commissioner.

POST SEASON TOURNAMENT

Having a Post Season Tournament to determine the SLIAC representative in the NCAA Tournament was adopted only after a long struggle. Some in the conference felt it would make the regular season meaningless. Holding the tournament on the homecourt of the champion, and allowing only the top four teams in, gives meaning to the regular season.

Therefore it WILL be played on the homecourt of the champion.

That said, if it is at Blackburn, we have some ideas to insure that as many fans as possible can watch their team play.

OFFICIATING

After a recent SLIAC game, a very successful and respected area high school coach made the exact comments to me about Division I cleaning up rough play as FC News did in his post. The next night I watched the North Carolina-Maryland game on TV. Are you kidding me? Division I may have cleaned up hand-checking some, but the rest of the play was full body contact!

Officials paying attention to comments from the stands, unless they are profane, threatening, or abusive, is not acceptable. On that I agree with those who commented.

I enjoy reading everyone's posts, but this is probably the last time you will hear from me.

 

For Hopefan and the other posters, the results are on the SLIAC website (www.sliac.org) at 10:30 pm weeknights and 6:00 pm on Saturdays.