MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[fhsutiger]

Congrats to Chapman on a great season. Even though I was at the game last thursday and saw my beloved Stags lose, I was still very impressed on how Chapman handled themselves. You guys had a great season. Hopefully you guys can continue to play at that level and make it tougher for us SCIAC teams.

My question is this....how do you guys see yourself playing out next year. You lost a great point guard who I believe was the glue of your team. Sure you bring Riley back, but against certain teams he can be taken out of the offense. The Stags bring back a lot of players, including the 2-time defending SCIAC player of the year in Chris Blees. The stags should be very competitive again next year with a great recruiting class coming in this year as well. I can't wait for Chapman to come to CMS next year! Payback will be nice!

Once again...great Season!

[oldchap]

fhsutiger,

I elude to your questions in my last post: http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=5506.90

You make a good point though (pun intended... ) Kyle Wood is a hard act to follow. Well, losing 3 seniors who started for 3 years is devastating to be honest. But, one doesn't build a basketball program in one night. Chapman's modest success will get attention, and the remaining players are quite a handful. Next season is a long way, let's not fret about it too much and enjoy the down time....

[Gray Fox]

The stags should be very competitive again next year with a great recruiting class coming in this year as well.

Fill us in on the recruits please.

[fhsutiger]

I would be in deep trouble if I gave out way to much inside information this early in the game. Recruiting is a tough job in its self, so when the Stags and coach Scalmanini decide to post it on the web, you will know. With the likes of Blees, Lacey, Davis, Heidrich, and Blue coming back, the stags will again contend for the Conference championship.

[CMSfan]

With the likes of Blees, Lacey, Davis, Heidrich, and Blue coming back, the stags will again contend for the Conference championship.

Joey Anderson, too.

The stags should be very competitive again next year with a great recruiting class coming in this year as well.

I also have heard good things.  We'll see...

[fhsutiger]

Holy crap...I can't believe I forgot Joey A. Sorry Joey if you read this. One of my favorite players on the team. I look for great things from Joey next year, because he can only get better.

[D O.C.]

Having seen only the DIII playoff game in ORANGE last week I have a question about recruiting. How many truly big men of grace and power ever play in SoCal DIII? (Maybe since 1999)
I ask because the 'big men' were 6'7" and I saw only one leaper above the rim and he was not a center.

[dahlby]

D O.C.
I think that the tall guys are all at the beach playing volleyball.

[tigersports]

Having seen only the DIII playoff game in ORANGE last week I have a question about recruiting. How many truly big men of grace and power ever play in SoCal DIII? (Maybe since 1999)
I ask because the 'big men' were 6'7" and I saw only one leaper above the rim and he was not a center.

None. If they're bigger than 6'7" and can play, they don't play in the SCIAC.  They get scholarships.
Best "big men" since I've started doing this ('00) were Al Lloyd, Andy Meier, Jeremiah Martin and not much else.  Maybe OB can help me out here.

[Still Can Play!!!]

Here let me help you guys out here.  From a former D3 coach right here in so cal, the dilemna is this.  Any 6'7" + post that can play ends up being a potential project for UCI or CSUF at the D1 level.  They can recruit that guy to be a walk-on or even a scholarship and that guys going there because he can tell everyone that he plays at a D1 school.  If he happens to fall through the cracks, then he ends up at San Diego Christian or Westmont or one of the middle teams in the GSAC.  Azusa and Biola tend to get D1 bounce backs so they don't need to take High School posts.  The other problem is this.....most of the coaches out here have to think about the problem =  if you have a 6'10 guy he has to score a bunch to out weight the possibility of him having to guard a 6'6" post that can move and get him away from the basket.  Don't get me wrong, there has been some good ones in the sciac over the years, Pomona has had a few, but they got them from Chicago and honestly did a great job getting them and got lucky that the kid wasn't been recruited by some of the many other schools between here and there.  California has every single level........JC (non-scholarship), D1, D2, D3, NAIA and NCCAA and you must now get real creative in founding that Big post that can play. 

[sciac_is_fun]

The "biggest" big man I can recall was CLU's Justin Muth, circa '98-'01.  He was about 6'10" and quite athletic and strong.  He was POY his senior year, and I believe made an all-region team, with CLU winning SCIAC.  CLU has had quite a succession of taller players since then, including Zareh Avedian (who played more like a scoring '3') and Ryan Hodges (probably a natural '4'), down to Meier and Van Klaveren these the last couple years.  Actually Muth, Hodges, and Avedian (the latter two both freshmen) were all on that '01 team (quite the recruiting coup there), but there wasn't room for Big Z to find much PT as a frosh.

[stag44]

Having seen only the DIII playoff game in ORANGE last week I have a question about recruiting. How many truly big men of grace and power ever play in SoCal DIII? (Maybe since 1999)
I ask because the 'big men' were 6'7" and I saw only one leaper above the rim and he was not a center.

Fully agree with all the posts about the bigs - There is skilled bigs in the Cali area that will filter down into the D3 ranks simply becasue of the skewed #of scholarships availabile. There are well over 15 D1 schools, the entire GSAC and a almost all the CCAA that can give scholarships.

The true pipeline for big man talent either comes from transfers in (see Brian Jolley, Drew Menez, Pat Lacey) or not from California. We see players coming in from Arizona, Chicago, but really the hotbed for D3 talent really lies in the Northeast. With the plethora of prep schools, private schools, and serious emphasis on academics, as well as a glut of D3 schools, players from that area are more knowledgeable about the D3 level. It's just simply a very difficult task to recruit out there for SCIAC schools, when they are competing against the likes of Amherst Williams and Middlebury. Outside of the weather, it's a difficult sell to convince the parents to get their kid to go all the way across the country to play. Thats where the campus visits REALLY make the difference. The other area to recruit out of is the Northwest. There was  great SI article about seattle being a very quiet hotbed of basketball talent, and from the NWCs success over the SCIAC, its probably the easiest place to try and steal recruits from.

The D1 mentality on bigs as well is anyone with the slightest bit of talent or potential they'll take a chance on. They have the resources and ability to really develop that skill, but as they say you cannot teach size. And to be quite honest, as Still_Can_Play mentioned, the D3 bigs are often more mobile than the burly D1 bigs. In D3, bigs that come in raw usually have to take it upon themselves to really get developed. Obviously the coaches will help in anyway they can, but it really comes down to your individual desire to get better and spend the hours alone in the gym working out. In the SCIAC and I think most D3 schools, your academic schedule really makes it difficult to get in the work needed to fully develop as a big. Also, its very rare that you get a workout partner whose also a big that will go daily with you to improve skills.

As for SCIAC bigs in the last 10 years, there have been a fair share of VERY skilled guys, but again they are all around 6'7 but physical and highly skilled. My top 5 in no order:

1. Brian Jolly (CMS)
2. Ryan Hodges (CLU)
3. Zareh Avedian (CLU)
4. Justin Muth (CLU)
5. Sam Betty (Oxy)

Thought about putting up Miles Taylor, but really he was a point forward, and Lloyd played a roving 4 as well.

[Titan Q]

The true pipeline for big man talent either comes from transfers in (see Brian Jolley, Drew Menez, Pat Lacey) or not from California. We see players coming in from Arizona, Chicago, but really the hotbed for D3 talent really lies in the Northeast. With the plethora of prep schools, private schools, and serious emphasis on academics, as well as a glut of D3 schools, players from that area are more knowledgeable about the D3 level. It's just simply a very difficult task to recruit out there for SCIAC schools, when they are competing against the likes of Amherst Williams and Middlebury. Outside of the weather, it's a difficult sell to convince the parents to get their kid to go all the way across the country to play. Thats where the campus visits REALLY make the difference. The other area to recruit out of is the Northwest. There was  great SI article about seattle being a very quiet hotbed of basketball talent, and from the NWCs success over the SCIAC, its probably the easiest place to try and steal recruits from.

This is not a perfect measure of where the "hotbed of talent" is in Division III, but I looked at the home states of the players on the D3hoops.com All-American teams the last 10 years (25 players per year, 10 years).  Here are the leading states:

1. Illinois - 35 players (those making it multiple years are counted multiple times)
2. Pennsylvania - 26
3. Wisconsin - 24
4. Ohio - 22
5. New York - 22

(#6 Texas had 14, so there is a drop-off after these 5.)

From watching Division III basketball over the years, and seeing a lot of games in a lot of regions, my sense in that the Chicago area is the top hotbed for D3 prospects in the country.  The above seems to support that a little (most of those IL kids were from the Chicago area)...again, I know it is not a perfect measure.

A couple reasons I think Illinois produces so many great D3 players:

1) Really high caliber of high school basketball.

2) The Division III brand is very strong.  

#2 above is critical.  While there is a ton of scholarship competition in the Chicago area, kids often choose D3 schools over scholarships to NAIA and D2's...on occasion, even over low D1 schools.

In many parts of the country, the caliber of high school basketball is not as strong as it is in Illinois, and the D3 brand is not strong.  I live in central Missouri (Columbia) for example, and can tell you that 1) Missouri H.S. basketball isn't even close to IL for whatever reason (even in a large metro area like St. Louis), and 2) D3 is not perceived the same way it is in Illinois - good players here would rather go NAIA or D2.  Missouri has produced 1 D3 All-American in 10 years to Illinois' 35.

Note, California had 9 players on the list, but I think almost all played at a D3 out-of-state (Amherst, Williams, etc).

[D O.C.]

That picture is much clearer now, thanks.

What about SoCal basketball camps and clinics where DIII coaches participate? There a coach can develop a personal  relationship with an 8th or 9th grader and the family. I have seen that work up in Oregon.

[Gregory Sager]

We see players coming in from Arizona, Chicago, but really the hotbed for D3 talent really lies in the Northeast. With the plethora of prep schools, private schools, and serious emphasis on academics, as well as a glut of D3 schools, players from that area are more knowledgeable about the D3 level.

Not true. Q detailed the strength of Illinois in his post, but look again at the other states that have dominated the d3hoops.com All-American list: Wisconsin and Ohio are right up there. And look at the regions that have been the strongest in terms of postseason play throughout D3 tournament history: the Midwest Region, the Great Lakes Region, and the West Region (i.e., the WIAC). D3 is most populous in the northeast, but its power axis is in the midwestern part of the country, particularly the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The northeast, by contrast, has a lot of holes in it in terms of overall strength. Upstate New York has a ton of D3 schools, but the caliber of play there is low; New England has one power conference (the NESCAC, three of whose teams you touted in your post -- and a couple of them recruit out of the region, as Q pointed out), and a whole lot of dross. The NJAC, once a power conference, has been in steady decline for a decade. The leagues based in and around New York City are substandard. Pennsylvania, Maryland, and D.C. have a better all-around standard of play, but even there the national representatives in the Final Four don't fare well, with the only champion within the past decade and a half being Catholic in '01.

Aside from a couple of scattered power leagues (the NESCAC and the ODAC, plus the far-flung UAA -- two of whose traditional powers are midwestern-based, anyway), the midwestern arc of states I named is the true hotbed for D3 talent.