MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[tigersports]

For my loyal listeners, I apologize.  My computer just said to me, "you're not going to broadcast the first half tonight."  Tried rebooting several times and finally did a system restore to last Thursday.  Probably more than you wanted to know.

Great game, great atmosphere, though I thought some of the PP students got a little ugly behind me, but nothing too untoward.

It's hard to judge who's good and who's not in a game like this.  It was not aesthetically pleasing but you could tell that both teams wanted the game really badly.

To me, the entire league comes down to who can win at Cal Lu.  They host each of the top 3 in the second half.  Of course, the team between Oxy, CMS and PP that wins on thhe other's floor likely wins the conference, but given the way thesegames went in the first half, that's going to be hard to do.

As for a safety school, I guess just about every school is someone's safety school.  That is, Princeton is probably a safety school for Harvard.  Oxy, though, hardly qualifies as the classic safety school.  I can think of a lot of local schools to which that would apply.

Anyway, the second half is now available in podcast for those that care.

[OXY Oswald]

To me, the entire league comes down to who can win at Cal Lu.  They host each of the top 3 in the second half. 

I think that is an unbelievable call, Cal Lu is always a tough school to play at, Occidental will be ready and believe me their student following will be right behind them!

Go Tigers!

[Gregory Sager]

North Park University?! What a coincidence. That was my safety school.

Uh huh. Fifty dollars says you never even heard of North Park until you saw one of my posts. My alma mater is much too obscure to be a safety school. 

[pomonaalum]

My take is that there is probably not a lot of crossover in terms of applications between Pomona and Oxy, or Pitzer and Oxy for that matter.  At least not when I was in school...things may have changed a bit now, but I think the type of student that the schools attract is a bit different too.  Common overlaps with Pomona would places like Stanford, Carleton, Williams, etc...not sure about safety schools - maybe a UCLA or UCSD for someone from CA...as far as academics, you definitely do have to work hard, and like most liberal arts schools, there's nowhere to hide with small classes.  Getting through and graduating isn't that hard, but getting through with a good GPA does take a bit of work.

Only seen Lloyd play a couple of games, back a few years ago (Wexler-Barons Fr year, and it was already apparent that he would be quite good)  Back then, Lloyd was very athletic, and a bit out of control on the offensive end, but you could definitely see the explosiveness.

[David Collinge]

I like to think that the "safety school" chant was meant tongue-in-cheek, the kind of banter that goes on between two academically superior schools.  I can imagine my Wooster compatriots chanting that at their Wittenberg adversaries, but not at Mt. Union; it's a matter of respect.

Speaking of safety schools, somebody tipped off Bill Plaschke to the fact that Caltech has intercollegiate athletics, and he wrote a fawning (if shallow) piece about Roy Dow and the Beaver program, which appears on the front page of today's LA Times sports section:

Humble Pi

It's a little condescending, but I'll take whatever exposure I can get.  Of course, you still have to search the page 15 Scoreboard section with a microscope to find a Caltech score (Whittier 75, Caltech 48), and you won't even find the more important Oxy/Whittier score there or anywhere else in the paper...

[David Collinge]

Here's the LTE I wrote to the Times in response.  Since they'll never publish it, I thought I'd at least put it here:

Thank you for highlighting the college basketball program at Caltech.  As a devoted follower of NCAA Division 3 sports, I always appreciate it when I see positive publicity for these great student-athletes who understand what intercollegiate athletics are supposed to be about.  However, it is ironic that it would be the LA Times that publishes this story, since your newspaper has practically non-existent coverage of the Div. 3 league that plays in and around Los Angeles, the SCIAC (of which Caltech is a member.)  One has to search today's scoreboard page for the only mention of Caltech's score, and wouldn't even find there the result of the thrilling game for first place in the conference, won by Occidental College, 53-52, over Pomona-Pitzer.  Puff pieces are great, but we'd prefer actual news coverage.  Thank you.

[El Tigre]

The chants were pretty standard.  The "Safety School" chant was pretty good because the Oxy fans had nothing to return with.  There were a few lower class chants from the Oxy students, such as "You are ugly." Not very clever, but not all that unexpected at a game like this either.

I post on the football site, but first time posting on the hoops page!

mr_rayburn,
I want to disagree with your statement.  Having sat in the student section for the tigers and assisted in starting most of the chants ... we never began chanting "You Are Ugly."  It was actually the PP fans who began chanting when our cheerleaders game out to perform.  Then later the cheerleaders came back out and they began chanting "Your Still Ugly."  The oxy section has tried to be more classy and thus far has done a good job of it. 

[Sabretooth Tiger]

I think that Plaschke's "Humble Pi" piece (link in post 452 above) is great and a must read for those who participate in the "why doesn't Caltech leave the SCIAC" debate.

go tigers

[Sabretooth Tiger]

Given the alleged academic superiority to which Pomona grads lay claim, I'm sure that they actually chanted "you're still ugly."

[pomonaalum]

At least Oxy has cheerleaders...if someone ever tried at Pomona, there would probably be candlelight vigils in protest.  Though up until the 50s or 60s, the football team used to weigh and "measure" all of the freshman girls.  How times have changed...

[OXY Oswald]

I have to say one more time, great win last night for the Tigers.. and good showing by their fans. 

On a side note, John Wooden was at the game last night, front and center.  Too bad we couldn't get him to lead a chant. 

Good luck at Cal Tech Tigers, they've made a habit of only loosing by 10 points this year so let's make sure it doesn't get any closer than that.

Go Tigers!

[David Collinge]

Was Plascke there, too?  No? 

John Wooden appreciates D3 hoops.  Sparky Anderson appreciates D3 hardball.  Maybe the media should get a clue.

[WestCoastWhiner]

Great to see out Board so alive.  For a conference trying to come out of the DIII armpit, the passion on this Board is a sign of things to come.  

Also glad some folks here came on to join me in my quest to get SCIAC Administrations to give a hoot about teams they field.  Oxy has been one of the worst.  The fact that their coaching staff can field a top 20 team, in a conference with an embarrassing past outside of conference, and facing the genuine lack of support from anyone at the school who isn't paying tuition, speaks volume for their abilities and drive.  I tip my hat to them.  

Let me get back on the soapbox:

1.  How hard is it to task an SID with spending 15 minutes writing up a game summary and then another 15 posting it, emailing it & calling in the box score to the LA Times?  What?  Worried about providing this to a men's sport and not the women?  Then do the same thing for the women, they deserve it too.  Not doing those MINIMAL tasks that are part of any college SID's job responsiblities, represents incompetence.  The SIDs at Pomona & Oxy should be embarrassed.  Why don't you two folks care?  Unpaid interns in your positions would care more and produce more.  But SIDs are only as good as their leaders.  Our ADs need to be people who identify clear paths to supporting nationally competitive sports and well-respected Athletic Departments.  Hire the right people, set the right expectations and execute.     
2.  Is it that difficult for the conference to actually do something with the conference Website basketball section?  Last year the SCIAC launched a Website and I was peachy happy.  This year, whoever was in charge must have gotten fired because a total of less than 60 minutes has been spent on the basketball info.  
3.  The word out of Pomona is that Oxy was helped by non-functioning clocks, friendly refs & favorable record keeping (can anyone confirm the accuracy of the final score?  Folks in Claremont aren't sure if the final score shouldn't have been PP by 2?)
4.  I may have figured out why Cal tech is in the league.  Secretly, every SCIAC Admin wants to be able to field a team like Cal tech.  No expectations, kids play just to have fun and get relief from studies, team budgets can be under $10k.  

[sciacguru]

 DJ, Lloyd is a pimp and deserved the MVP last year.  WB will take it from him this year, ala Bush-Leinhart.  Knowles wants it too.  Betty is the better athlete but he hasn't proved in the conference that he is in Lloyd's league as a player.   Betty was an outstanding football player for Oxy prior to joining the hoops team and has already registered at least 2 of the top 10 greatest dunks ever by a SCIAC player.  Stepping away from football has clearly opened up his game.  Having said that, Betty's performance against CMS prevents me from jumping on his bandwagon yet.  We'll see whether he has the mental fortitude and poise to put himself on Lloyd's level. 

Is he on the same level now?  17 pts on 7-14 shooting  and 8 rebs against a zone vs. Lloyd's 9 pts on 4-13 shooting and 4 rebs?

[Sabretooth Tiger]

WestCoastWhiner writes:  "Also glad some folks here came on to join me in my quest to get SCIAC Administrations to give a hoot about teams they field.  Oxy has been one of the worst."

That may have been true the decade of the 90's, aka the "Slaughter Era" but it has not been true since then.  The past president, Ted Mitchell was a great friend to athletics and attended many contests in all sports.  The current interim president, Kenyon Chan is continuing in that tradition and is an even more enthusiastic fan.  The administration that has been in place since 1999 has been very friendly to athletics.

I think that the performance of Oxy's football and basketball programs in those years is self- evident.