WBB: American Southwest Conference

[hsusid]

I never said that UTD was an inferior team. I said don't lose to teams you should not and I didn't make an argument that the Cowgirls should have been in. Could they have won a game or two or even more in the tournament? I personally believe they could. They lost three games in the final seconds of the game (UTD, MC and HPU). If, and that is a big little word, they win any of those it is a moot point. They are probably the next team in line to get in. That is how small the margin of error is for our conference, with the NCAA setup as it is now.

[Ralph Turner]

When Patrick Abegg ran his OWP/OOWP numbers (and then did an RPI calculation to "rank order" them), UTD (by virtue of their loss to UMHB) fell from 3rd to 7th.

Mississippi College, which lost to the Pool A HPU, only dropped from 4th to 5th in that one variable.

HPU rose from an "off-the-table" 8th to 4th by beating MC, McM and HSU.

hsusid is correct. The margin of error is that small.

[golden_dome]

I just listened to the commitee chair on audio.  When asked about UTD and MC all she said was MC was slightly ahead in final regional ranking.  What a cop out.  Sounds like she just side stepped the answer completely.  Why have them on if they will not give real answers?  Wasted 15 minutes for nothing lol.  Only the NCAA at all levels gets away with this kind of stuff!!  Thanks for nothing committee chair 

Sabine,
I've been disappointed on many occasion with the NCAA and the importance of travel, often it hurts teams from the ASC. There's no doubt that MC being a bus drive from Oglethorpe didn't hurt their chances and could have gotten them in, but it's also very possible MC did finish ahead of UTD in the rankings. The NCAA chair mentioned several times the importance of travel this year, so she did not dodge the question. She could very well have answered honestly and MC was ahead.

HSUSID is right, at this point it is splitting hairs. Maybe .0035 isn't a significant difference, but it is the difference in six pool c positions in pabegg's calculations. That should give you an idea how close it was for the last spots. I'm happy we got in, but I think all the the top ASC teams had an argument that they were deserving. I don't think there is any doubt we have teams staying home in the ASC who are better than teams who received pool c bids, but unfortunately the system doesn't do us any favors.

[Ralph Turner]

ASC vs the tourney teams...

Babson (NEWMAC NE Region*) 20-8 lost to HSU 84-75 OT in the Bahamas

Southern Maine (Little East NE Region*)  22-6 lost to UMHB at Trinity TX 82-73

Baldwin Wallace (Ohio AC Great Lakes Region Pool C)  21-7  beat UMHB at Trinity TX 74-67

In the Fred Jacoby/I-20 Classic...

College of St Benedict MN 24-3 (Minnesota IAC  West Region*) lost to UT-Tyler 81-70  and
                                                                                          beat UT-Dallas 75-67 (OT)

* Pool A winner

[Rick Akins]

Ralph, et al.

I have been VERY quiet and in fact non existent this year as far as posting is concerned. I am of course thrilled my Lady Jackets made such an amazing run to win the conference tourney and make the NCAA tournament. With your well documented discussions of so many conference games skewing our OWP and OOWP and the well known travel restrictions, WE NEED TO BE TWO CONFERENCES! There has to be a way to get that done.

That is the only way to get our fair share of teams in. I have no doubt that the top five could all do well in the tourney (UTD, MCM and HSU plus HPU and MC). The UAA and the WIAC are obviously great conferences, but 4 of 8 and 3 of 9 in while we have 2 of 15 is unfortunate. The 4 for the UAA seems especially generous. The ASC has a final four team and a national champion in the the last 3 years so we should have some street cred even if that does not translate to NCAA rules cred. The only realistic solution I see given the rules and the travel problems is 2 conferences.  Ralph, I think you recently gave some scenarios to make it work.  That should be pursued.

In Texas we have virtually zero margin for error, and losing to almost any one and especially lesser teams will do you in. I have no doubt that the loss to Southwestern by HSU a couple of years ago in NOVEMBER kept them out.

We have all worn out our complaints about the unfairness of the system to the geographically isolated and also to our 15 team conference.
 
We need 2 conferences!!

[SabineBBall]

Ok my venting day is over   Go get them HPU and MC!!!!

[Ralph Turner]

Glad to have you back, Rick!

Okay Lady Jackets.

You have been here before.  As you walk into the WashUStL Field House, you will recognize some of the trophies that they have.  They have more of them, but yours is newer.

The Transy crowd may not be as big, just because the Transy men are at "near-by" Centre.

That should be a good game to get under your belt.  Play hard and remember that you have been here before.

Best wishes!

[JACKET84]

Ralph, et al.

I have been VERY quiet and in fact non existent this year as far as posting is concerned. I am of course thrilled my Lady Jackets made such an amazing run to win the conference tourney and make the NCAA tournament. With your well documented discussions of so many conference games skewing our OWP and OOWP and the well known travel restrictions, WE NEED TO BE TWO CONFERENCES! There has to be a way to get that done.

That is the only way to get our fair share of teams in. I have no doubt that the top five could all do well in the tourney (UTD, MCM and HSU plus HPU and MC). The UAA and the WIAC are obviously great conferences, but 4 of 8 and 3 of 9 in while we have 2 of 15 is unfortunate. The 4 for the UAA seems especially generous. The ASC has a final four team and a national champion in the the last 3 years so we should have some street cred even if that does not translate to NCAA rules cred. The only realistic solution I see given the rules and the travel problems is 2 conferences.  Ralph, I think you recently gave some scenarios to make it work.  That should be pursued.

In Texas we have virtually zero margin for error, and losing to almost any one and especially lesser teams will do you in. I have no doubt that the loss to Southwestern by HSU a couple of years ago in NOVEMBER kept them out.

We have all worn out our complaints about the unfairness of the system to the geographically isolated and also to our 15 team conference.
 
We need 2 conferences!!

I've always thought our conference was too big geographically.  Alpine to Clinton, MS?

How would you divide up the conference?  How would this effect football, since several schools don't have that sport?

[Ralph Turner]

Jacket, here is my post from last week.  The advice that the late (and wise) Fred Jacoby gave was that having only 7 teams made that conference vulnerable to being "held" hostage by one team that would threaten to leave, causing the loss of the AQ.

The regional rankings are out for the last public time.

We will probably have two very good teams that might qualify for bids, and we might have a division that is shut out of bids for the playoffs, just barely.

We have CTX announcing adding track and field and ETBU adding tennis (both mens' and women's I assume).

Let's look at an option to increase the number of AQ's that we get.

To be a conference to earn the AQ, you must have seven full members (or at least 4 core members and three affiliates.) 



The ASC-West could split off the ASC (go into Pool B for two years) and then 2 years later have these AQ sports.

VB
Football (accepting ETBU, LaColl and MissColl as affiliates)
M/W Soccer
M/W Basketball
M/W Tennis
Baseball
Softball
M/W Golf (accepting the ASC-East teams in both sports as affiliates; currently LeTU, MC, UTD and UTT for the men; LeTU UTT and UTD for the women.)

The ASC-West would have the required four schools to sponsor a conference championship in M/W T&F (CTX, HSU, McM, SRSU and TLU-women).  UT-Tyler and MissColl could affiliate for both genders.

The ASC-West also has 4 schools sponsoring  Men's XC (CTX, McM, SRSU and Schreiner) and 5 in women's Cross Country (CTX, HSU, McM, Schreiner and SRSU).   The West schools could affiliate for a combined championship with the East if they wished under an affiliation agreement.



Where does that leave the ASC-East.  I understand that a conference needs to sponsor five men's and five women's sports.

The East has the full 7 schools to earn the AQ for these sports.

M/W Soccer
M/W Basketball
M/W Tennis (now that ETBU has added both M/W tennis)
Baseball
Softball.

The ASC-East has these core members in Cross Country to sponsor the sports.

MXC -- (5) ETBU, MissColl , UOz, UTD, UTT
WXC -- (6) ETBU, LaColl, MissColl, UOz, UTD, UTT.

The West schools could affiliate with the East "conference" for the championship.

What is left that we haven't covered?  LaColl and UOz need to add volleyball for the ASC-East to have the AQ.

The result--

We gain AQ bids in Volleyball, M/W Soccer, M/W Basketball, M/W Tennis, Softball and Baseball!


You win the East.  Your first playoff game may be the West, but it is in the NCAA's and not the ASC tourney finals.

That is 9 more bids to the NCAA's after the two provisional years needed by the new conference.  Long-term crossover contracts between the two conferences could be signed to assure games.  Our complaints about weak schools on the schedules would be mitigated by the fact that we had doubled our bids in this part of the country.

The weakness in this strategy is this.

Texas Wesleyan spent an exploratory year moving up from D-II about 2001.  TWU moved right on thru to the NAIA and Red River AC.

UDallas, a charter member left the ASC in 2001.

Another Charter member, Austin College left us in 2006.

Those schools are "east".

This strategy has been on the books for nearly a decade.  It has suffered three setbacks.  It makes sense.  Nevertheless, a team leaving the conference and dropping below the threshold of 7 teams and this strategy backfires.

[ex-jacket]

Will we be able to watch HPU's game over the internet?  I can't find a link, but was wondering if I missed something.

[dballa]

check out the sidebar on the front page of d3hoops where it shows the schedule of the women's games.  On that it has the HPU/Transy game where you can view the livestats and the video.

[Rick Akins]

Ex-Jacket:

You can also listen to the game with Dallas Huston by going to hpusports.com and clicking on "Listen Live." It's not the Washington U. video, but he can make you feel as if you are there sometimes!

Also, Washington University has a very nice tournament page with a lot of information including those live stat/video links.

Go Lady Jackets!! Good luck in less than 2 hours!

[mcmfan]

So what happened to us?  East division UTD gets knocked out in the first round of the ASC tournament, then McM and HSU get beaten by HPU, which also beats MC by one point.  So then HPU and MC get into the playoffs and they both get taken out in their first round of their respective sectionals.  To an outsider, it must not look like we're nearly as strong or consistent as we've been thinking that we were...

[SabineBBall]

Or you could say the ASC's 2 best most consistent teams for the season got beat in a 3 day tourney and didn't even get into the tourney because of one game.  Call me stupid but when neither your East or West Champion don't even get a shot something is wrong with the system!!!  IMO 

[Ralph Turner]

Or you could say the ASC's 2 best most consistent teams for the season got beat in a 3 day tourney and didn't even get into the tourney because of one game.  Call me stupid but when neither your East or West Champion don't even get a shot something is wrong with the system!!!  IMO 

A question for HPU fans...

Were the Lady Jackets a little flat after three hard games in the ASC tourney?

I can imagine how hard it might be to play Mississippi College, McMurry and HSU back to back.

The UAA doesn't have a post-season tourney and yet managed to get 4 women's and 3 men's teams into the tourney.

They are a special case and a quality league.

The CCIW men's fans think that they should not renew the post-season tourney that they have had for a couple of years.  They think that it hurts their chances in Pool C.

I believe that Linfield gained a Pool C bid in baseball in 2008 because the Northwest Conference does not have a post-season baseball tourney.