MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Sabretooth Tiger]

Hmmm . . . or "Intragalactic?"

[diehardfan]

Hmmm . . . or "Intragalactic?"

Well yes, but also intrastellar. 

[TeeDub]

In this league, it's a struggle just to be nominated.

Apparently, in this league, it's also difficult to get a decent draw in the tourney...

[tigersports]

what on earth is "International."  Is that Naboo or Tattooine?

"International" would be Bulgaria, Ceylon, Madagascar, etc.

I just figured that since all races were covered, "International" had to be a completely different type of living thing.
"Ceylon?"  You forgot Siam, Formosa and Persia.   

[Sabretooth Tiger]

Or my personal favorite . . . Abyssinia  8)

cheers

[Gray Fox]

SCIAC fans traveling to Clinton, the local entertainment is interesting for historians.  There is the Vicksburg Battlefield, the USS Cairo (an ironclad that has been restored in Vicksburg), and the beautiful and historic Natchez Trace.  (The Natchez Heritage Tour doesn't start until March 10th but you might investigate it).

Also there are the casinos in Vicksburg if you wish.

No wonder the Tigers are excited to go.  Will a history prof go to make this an educational experience?

[Sabretooth Tiger]

tooth,
I am planning to drive over from Dallas.  It's always a problem to do these things on short notice, but I expect I can make it.

Gray,

Be sure to bring your laptop and wireless card so that you can provide realtime updates!

[Gray Fox]

tooth,
I am planning to drive over from Dallas.  It's always a problem to do these things on short notice, but I expect I can make it.

Gray,

Be sure to bring your laptop and wireless card so that you can provide real time updates!

I'm hoping they do another videocast.  You can watch for free.  (hint to tigersports)

[Ralph Turner]

tigersports:

I doubt if anyone's going to kick up a fuss. According to the Princeton Review, Mississippi College is 70% Caucasian, 24% African American, 2% International (whatever that is), 1% Asian, and 1% Hispanic.

Native American? Zero%.

OxyBob

Actually many native Southerners have native American blood in them.  This is especially the case in the Mississippi, Oklahoma and some families who have been in Alabama since the 1820's.

[DIIIghetto]

Absolutely hosed. 

Whitworth wasn't on here crying?  That is big of them.  Let's see, Mary Hardin only beat Trinity by 15, which beat Depauw in their last game.  And Mary Hardin got beat by MC by 30.  Whitworth got a fair seed.  Good for them.  I hope that they win both games in the first weekend.   But to equate them to Oxy isn't close - for that to be the case Whitworth would be playing UW SP in the first game. 

The right, fair, and proper fix would be for the Committee to come out tomorrow morning, announce that MC is playing Maryville and Oxy is playing MH.  They already came out and made one correction.  This one isn't a stretch.  It is the fair thing. 

By not doing it, the Committee is telling Oxy, yet again, this is an imperfect system, we do the best we can, yes we made a mistake, things are tough all over.  The thing is, why aren't they telling that to Maryville.  Why is it once again the SCIAC (OB, help me out here, how many times has this happened to Oxy in football)? 

Irrespective of whether or not Oxy wins or not, what happened to Oxy this morning was something that smacks of politics.  How did Maryville get to play a lower ranked team than Oxy and Oxy as a #3 seed have to play the #1 seed?   

I give the Committee its due.  They have a difficult job with so many good teams and yes, it almost has to be imperfect.  Luckily for them they are in DIII and won't be scrutinized outside of this community.  Can you imagine the headlines in the LA Times if the committee shipped UCLA to play Florida in the first round?  This thing won't even be mentioned anywhere in the LA Times, or probably even in Oxy's student paper for that matter.  Nobody in the SCIAC cares, maybe beyond writing a little letter in protest. 

I feel badly for our conference and for our kids, who are trying to raise our national profile.  We are trying to get rid of the one and dones of the past.  Oxy took the right steps.  They played St. Thomas tough - on somewhere other than their home floor.  They spanked, and I mean spanked Wisconsin Lutheran (which was a good team and split with Aurora).  Then they beat down Williams, which wound up punching a ticket to the Tourney too. 

I'm not sure what else Oxy can do.   It is unfortunate that someone at Oxy or in the SCIAC doesn't have the pull or doesn't care as much as someone from Maryville or Mary Hardin does.   Someone look up how much the AD's at those two institutions make because I am need to know how overpaid the SCIAC ADs are. 

Since Whitworth got such a tough draw too, how about they send in a letter to the committee and offer to swap with the Tigers? 

Again, the RIGHT thing to do is to correct this and let Oxy play MH in the first round.   

[oldnwcer]

Just to give all you Oxy fans some hope, four or five years ago, Lewis and Clark drew Mississippi College at Clinton in the second round, I think, and MC was undefeated at home, ranked top 5.  The Pioneers went in and beat MC to advance to the Elite Eight (or maybe they had to beat one of the Wisconsins next to get to the round of 8).  So don't fold your tents quite yet, unless, of course, you feel that the SCIAC isn't quite as strong as the best of the NWC.

[Ralph Turner]

That 2002 MissColl team was given a bye (IMHO, a geographic bye in the away/home/bye 48-team era) and then lost ugly to L&C.  I thought that that MC team ranks #6 among the ASC Pool A teams in the last 7 years.

How does getting exposure in another part of the country not help the SCIAC cause?  Apparently the traditional SCIAC-NWC first round scheduling has not boosted the SCAIC image.  I would accept this as another chance.

I think that we in the ASC do not match well with the Great Lakes teams that Miss Coll usually catches.  We have the chance to go to the Mid-Atlantic.  If Oxy moves to the East Coast, how does Oxy compare to Johns Hopkins which played at the Westmont tourney?

Good luck and travel safely.

[D O.C.]

Wasn't the logical question in football playoffs the last couple of years 'why do the west coast teams got sent to knock each other out?' Then this could/should be a good thing that Whitworth and Occidental get to play someone else (first).

So much for seeing a DIII game this week. Anyone for Fairfax or Mater Dei high school games?

[tigersports]

It's interesting that Maryville and UMHB's coaches are both well-connected as conference rep and former South chair.

[Gregory Sager]

A fairer regional would have Oxy playing UMHB and MC playing Maryville -- don't understand why they can't do that.  19 v. 23 in the first round is not a gross injustice, just as 19/23 v. 5 in the second round isn't either.    But to switch so that the two highest-ranked teams play each other is just ludicrous and really smells.  Why doesn't the NCAA go back to what it does best -- making sure a teammates parent doesn't buy a player a hamburger.

LOL!

I agree that Oxy got jobbed by the last-minute switch. It's just one more instance of the people who run this tournament looking really, really unprofessional over the past couple of weeks -- starting with their decision that a ghost ferry across Lake Michigan makes Hope and Carthage less than 200 miles apart, and then followed by their revelation last week that, oops! Pool B gets one extra team than we said they'd get back when the season started, and Pool C gets one less.

The D3 poobahs have enough egg on their faces right now to make a Denny's-sized Denver omelet.