MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[OxyBob]

seems like you get as much pleasure from a CMS loss as you do from an OXY win.

It's always a great day when Oxy wins. And I get no pleasure from a CMS loss. I get pleasure from your extreme displeasure and incredulity from a CMS loss.

Doing some hypotheticals right now on the seeding, and there some interesting ways the 2-4 seeds play out, and who gets left out of the playoff. Will update once i've looked them all the way through

Glad you're up to that task.

OxyBob

[DIIIghetto]

The silence is deafening out of Claremont. 

The game at Cal Lu could be replayed this weekend so it will be a great one to watch.  If Cal Lu wins that game, as I think they will, Cal Lu becomes the team to beat.  By itself that would be a remarkable tournaround. 

This is a great year for the SCIAC Tournament and the entire reason why it was so important that the old guard finally gave the nod to put it in place.  If CMS loses tomorrow night, the SCIAC champ would have otherwise gone limping into the post-season.  With the conference tournament, two things will happen that will put us in a better position to send the team with the best chance of winning in the Dance: (a) a team will streak through with two Ws in pressure environments, or (b) CMS will get another game and a chance to gain distance from the haunting agony of the Kats female dog slap.  Either scenario puts our conference rep in a much better position than if we did not have the conference tourney and CMS won the ticket based on their Ws in the 1st half of league. 

[Gray Fox]

The silence is deafening out of Claremont. 

The game at Cal Lu could be replayed this weekend so it will be a great one to watch.  If Cal Lu wins that game, as I think they will, Cal Lu becomes the team to beat.  By itself that would be a remarkable tournaround. 

This is a great year for the SCIAC Tournament and the entire reason why it was so important that the old guard finally gave the nod to put it in place.  If CMS loses tomorrow night, the SCIAC champ would have otherwise gone limping into the post-season.  With the conference tournament, two things will happen that will put us in a better position to send the team with the best chance of winning in the Dance: (a) a team will streak through with two Ws in pressure environments, or (b) CMS will get another game and a chance to gain distance from the haunting agony of the Kats female dog slap.  Either scenario puts our conference rep in a much better position than if we did not have the conference tourney and CMS won the ticket based on their Ws in the 1st half of league. 

What a bunch of crap.  A tournament makes the regular season almost meaningless.  They only exist because the ACC found it was a good way to make big bucks.  There are no big bucks in the SCIAC.  They might as well let Chapman play them during the league season because the games are meaningless.  At least the SCIAC doesn't let all the teams in so some lucky second tier team gets to go to the Big Dance.

[OxyBob]

This is a great year for the SCIAC Tournament and the entire reason why it was so important that the old guard finally gave the nod to put it in place.   

What a bunch of crap.  A tournament makes the regular season almost meaningless. 

Must agree with Gray Fox. The SCIAC AQ should go to Claremont because the Stags won the conference. Appreciate the body of work over the conference season, and not what happens in an unpredictable, single-elimination, 4-team tournament. If there's another SCIAC team which deserves an at-large Pool C bid, then great, they get in, too. Conference tournaments are exciting to be sure, but today the only teams who are in favor of the tournament are Oxy, UR, CLU, and Pomona.

OxyBob

[stag44]

This is a great year for the SCIAC Tournament and the entire reason why it was so important that the old guard finally gave the nod to put it in place.   

What a bunch of crap.  A tournament makes the regular season almost meaningless. 

Must agree with Gray Fox. The SCIAC AQ should go to Claremont because the Stags won the conference. Appreciate the body of work over the conference season, and not what happens in an unpredictable, single-elimination, 4-team tournament. If there's another SCIAC team which deserves an at-large Pool C bid, then great, they get in, too. Conference tournaments are exciting to be sure, but today the only teams who are in favor of the tournament are Oxy, UR, CLU, and Pomona.

OxyBob

Playing in a SCIAC tournament game is great, but I have to agree with OxyBob and Gray Fox. The conference season becomes a bit more marginalized, as you'll have more room for error. Perfect example of this is CLU this year - even after a 2-5 start, they can forget about it and still receive a bid. It's great for upsets or streaking team, but really does not award consistency. Before the conference tourney started, if we lost a game in SCIAC play it was HUGE. You knew you had to go 11-3 or better to get the conference bid. CMS and PP have been on the lucky side of things the 2 years we've had the tournament, but given the known lack of bids for the SCIAC, it seems more appropriate that our bid is determined on an entire body of work rather than 2 games.

In 07-08, I'm sure Oxy and CLU felt the same way, especially CLU becasue they were the 2 top seeds and were knocked off. With a strong non-conference, Oxy was able to get an at-large, but CLU was one of the last teams left out. CMS and PP were both teams with 8-6 records while CLU and OXY were both at 11-3 probably would have both made the tournament if we didn't have a Conference tourney. This is all hindsight though. 

I agree that the games are fun, exciting to watch, but they do not reward a full complete season. If we were in a power conference that got multiple bids on a regular basis, then a tournament would be fine, but for our one precious bid, it seems like a full season provides a better barometer than a 2 game playoff. 

[DIIIghetto]

Gray Fox is tainted by his knowledge of other conference tournaments.  The genesis of the SCIAC tourney is not to make money, but instead to prepare our conference champ for post-season play. We are a bottom-tier conference that always gets shipped on the road to places where basketball is a greater priority and there is greater fan support.  Because of that reality we need to do everything we can to prepare.

This year is a PERFECT example of why we need the SCIAC tournament.  Sure CMS has earned the ticket but if they go into the postseason limping, then none of us should want them to be our representative.  I would rather have a cumatively disappointing but surging Cal Lu represent us if that puts us in the best position to claw our way out of the DIII ghetto to become a middle tier conference. 

[Gray Fox]

John Wooden's goal was always to win the PAC10 (PCC) conference championship.  There was no conference tournament.  It didn't seem to hurt the Bruins success.  A champion will win regardless of conditions or venue.

[DIIIghetto]

To paraphrase from AI:

"We are talking about Wooden in a SCIAC basketball conversation, JOHN WOODEN!!!!"

[DIIIghetto]

Did anyone notice that the Stags could get a chance to play PP if they have the sack and skill to beat CLU?  Or will they run for the hills and be thankful to duck their rivals?

Of course, PP has to beat a tough Tiger team. 

It will be interesting to see how many minutes Blees plays.  If Scali plays him 20, we will know the tank/duck Kats was on.  Problem with tanking that game is that Cal Lu might be coming right back and you might not want them to get too confident...

[Gregory Sager]

I like it better when CMS wins.

The announcer said that, in sports, it is very difficult for a team to beat another team 3 times in one season.  true?

Paging Dr. Sager --- Dr. Sager to the SCIAC room, stat!

No, basically, I don't think there's a lot of truth to that particular chestnut. The saying used to be that it's difficult to beat a good team three times in one season but clearly, if you played Caltech today the odds wouldn't be in their favor simply because you've already beaten them twice.

If you figure that when two evenly matched teams meet up, the odds of any team winning are 50-50, then yes, there's around a 1-in-6 chance that the same team would win all three. But there's no magical difference in game three that makes it any different than the 50-50 it was for the other meetings.

Nicely done, Patrick. No need here to have me pick up the white courtesy phone.

[stag44]

Did anyone notice that the Stags could get a chance to play PP if they have the sack and skill to beat CLU?  Or will they run for the hills and be thankful to duck their rivals?

Of course, PP has to beat a tough Tiger team. 

It will be interesting to see how many minutes Blees plays.  If Scali plays him 20, we will know the tank/duck Kats was on.  Problem with tanking that game is that Cal Lu might be coming right back and you might not want them to get too confident...

I think its absurd that you think the Stags would "tank" a game. That is just terrible. You play to win, end of story.

[DIIIghetto]

There are some rumors that Kats did something similar a few years back.  Tanking a game is the sensational way to look at it.  Another way is to note, " Coach Scali took advantage of his secured conference title and home court advantage to rest key players for long stretches against Cal Lu."

[CMSfan]

This is a great year for the SCIAC Tournament and the entire reason why it was so important that the old guard finally gave the nod to put it in place.  If CMS loses tomorrow night, the SCIAC champ would have otherwise gone limping into the post-season.  With the conference tournament, two things will happen that will put us in a better position to send the team with the best chance of winning in the Dance: (a) a team will streak through with two Ws in pressure environments, or (b) CMS will get another game and a chance to gain distance from the haunting agony of the Kats female dog slap.  Either scenario puts our conference rep in a much better position than if we did not have the conference tourney and CMS won the ticket based on their Ws in the 1st half of league.

Playing in a SCIAC tournament game is great, but I have to agree with OxyBob and Gray Fox. The conference season becomes a bit more marginalized, as you'll have more room for error.

This is a tough one for me, but ultimately I think I like the tournament.  Since only four teams get in, you still have to earn a spot.  The SCIAC tournament is the closest approximation to the national tournament, with high-intensity, win-or-go-home games.  Sure, CMS has been fairly dominant in SCIAC (except for freaking P-P!), but I think the weaknesses exposed against P-P are real and CMS still has something to prove.  Putting more weight on the most recent results makes sense to me, so I like the tournament.

That said, if CMS had gone undefeated in SCIAC play, but then lost in the tournament, I'd probably feel differently.  But, in such a case, hopefully at at-large bid would be in the works.  There's probably no perfect system, but I think the current one gives SCIAC the best chance of winning games in the postseason.  That said, I'll be awfully disappointed if the Stags fail to get the SCIAC bid, and I'll be absolutely crestfallen if it's P-P that knocks us out.

[OxyBob]

That said, if CMS had gone undefeated in SCIAC play, but then lost in the tournament, I'd probably feel differently. 

Undefeated in SCIAC?! Who the heck do you think you are? Oxy?

http://www.d3hoops.com/school/OXY/mens/2003

OxyBob

[West Coast Bias]

That said, if CMS had gone undefeated in SCIAC play, but then lost in the tournament, I'd probably feel differently. 

Undefeated in SCIAC?! Who the heck do you think you are? Oxy?

http://www.d3hoops.com/school/OXY/mens/2003

OxyBob

I don't know which is more amazing about that season, the undefeated SCIAC record or the 70-69 loss to La Sierra (whose only other wins that year were against Cal Tech) at home!!!!