MBB: American Rivers Conference

[5 Words or Less]

#4 US-SP upends Luther 76-56 

The story of this game was a 9-minute scoring drought in the first half where the Stevens Point outscored the Luther 20-0.  Just as PointSpecial had forewarned, the Pointers defense sytmied the Norse offense during that stretch.  From there the #4 team in the nation coasted to an easy win.  Hats off to Stevens Point.  I look forward to watching you for the rest of the tournament, although I hope the next host school has a better video feed - CUW's was pretty chunky.

[5 Words or Less]

One final thought before I turn the keyboard back to Cinco de Wordo ... Four years ago, when Mark Franzen recruited his first class, all he had to sell was blue sky because the MBB team was perennially sub .500.  Several of those freshmen recruits (current seniors) came in and got immediate playing time, but as new recruiting classes were added, much of their PT was redistributed.  Rather than quit out of frustration or bruised ego, these 7 seniors stuck it out and helped elevate the team into the post season for the first time in 27 years.  Tenacity is an intangible trait that hopefully sticks with the program.  Thank you seniors.

[Gregory Sager]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

[5 Words or Less]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win? 

[Gregory Sager]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win? 

A hearty handshake and a warm thought.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win? 

A hearty handshake and a warm thought.

Not even a laurel to go with the hearty handshake?

[Gregory Sager]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win?  

A hearty handshake and a warm thought.

Not even a laurel to go with the hearty handshake?

Don't have one. But I do have some M&Ms and some Blue Diamond almonds on my desk that he's welcome to enjoy if he's willing to come to Chicago to eat them.

And, yes, Chuck, I'm ignoring that pun.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win?  

A hearty handshake and a warm thought.

Not even a laurel to go with the hearty handshake?

Don't have one. But I do have some M&Ms and some Blue Diamond almonds on my desk that he's welcome to enjoy if he's willing to come to Chicago to eat them.

And, yes, Chuck, I'm ignoring that pun.

What, Blazing Saddles is too high-brow for you?!

[Gregory Sager]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win?  

A hearty handshake and a warm thought.

Not even a laurel to go with the hearty handshake?

Don't have one. But I do have some M&Ms and some Blue Diamond almonds on my desk that he's welcome to enjoy if he's willing to come to Chicago to eat them.

And, yes, Chuck, I'm ignoring that pun.

What, Blazing Saddles is too high-brow for you?!

Harrumph, harrumph.

[nwhoops1903]

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon walk into a bar ...

That deserves +k for a month

Post of the Year thus far, as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely brilliant.

Woo-hoo!  What do I win?  

A hearty handshake and a warm thought.

Not even a laurel to go with the hearty handshake?

Don't have one. But I do have some M&Ms and some Blue Diamond almonds on my desk that he's welcome to enjoy if he's willing to come to Chicago to eat them.

And, yes, Chuck, I'm ignoring that pun.

What, Blazing Saddles is too high-brow for you?!

Harrumph, harrumph.

Shaun Cassidy, Darth Vader and Medowlark Lemon standing on a pyramid ...

[Klompen]

Haven't gotten on the computer much lately.  Sorry for the lateness of this post, but I want to add my sincere congratulations to Luther on winning the conference and the tourney championships and then going on to get a good first win in the tournement.  Nice to see another sub-500 team be able to get a new coach that can bring them to the top.  Here's hoping you didn't graduate all your starters, on second thought...

Good job, Norse, but don't keep it up against Central anyway.   

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D3.Coleman interviews Franzen - Thanks Pat!

[doolittledog]

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald story about Loras getting a commit from a Dubuque Wahlert prep. 

http://www.thonline.com/article.cfm?id=321014

Says he was also recruited by Wartburg and UW-Platteville.

[AndOne]

The Midwest Conference board in the Midwest Region asks if Cornell is moving to the Midwest Conference. Anyone have any info regarding that possibility?
What would the primary reason(s) for such a move be?
Thanks.

[doolittledog]

The Midwest Conference board in the Midwest Region asks if Cornell is moving to the Midwest Conference. Anyone have any info regarding that possibility?
What would the primary reason(s) for such a move be?
Thanks.

Cornell was a charter member of the Midwest Conference and was a member from 1922-1997.  Cornell, along with their neighbor and rival Coe left the Midwest Conference for the Iowa Conference together.  There was some talk in 2002-2003 of bringing fellow Midwest Conference member Grinnell over to the Iowa Conference as well.  Grinnell declined the offer because they did not want to add wrestling. 

Most of the talk about Cornell wanting to move back to the MWC revolves around their membership in the Associated Colleges of the Midwest.  6 of the 10 members of the MWC belong to the ACM.  3 of the 9 members of the IIAC belong to the ACM.  A year ago the 14 members of the ACM voted on whether they should leave their own conferences and start up an ACM conference.  The only schools that voted in favor of this were the 6 MWC members and Cornell from the IIAC.  Soon after that proposal was voted down Cornell notified the MWC they wanted to move back to that conference.

That is where it gets interesting.  Cornell has been a weak sister in the IIAC...mostly by their own choosing.  2 years ago when Cornell won the mens conference basketball title they then told their coach he had to take a 20% pay cut.  He then left the school and they were able to replace him with a coach with no head coaching experiance they were able to pay even less than the pay cut they offered their former coach.  This is all after Cornell had just completed a 100+ million dollar capital campain.  The rumors going around after Cornell did this and then asked back into the MWC is that the 6 ACM members of the MWC + Cornell would then try to entice another ACM school into the MWC (maybe Macalester) and then try to punt the non-ACM schools in the ACM out of the conference.  Other rumors flying around were talk if that happened the new MWC would ban NCAA post season play, would allow mostly only conference play with very limited games against non-conference opponants.