MBB: American Rivers Conference

[doolittledog]

It's my first post, and I know I'm a little bit late to the party, but I thought I would post some things that I have noticed over this season. I am a fan (parent) of a Nebraska Wesleyan player. I have read the board all season, just never posted before.

Regarding the final rankings, I can't believe that Wartburg was the only IIAC team rated, or even receiving votes. As a newcomer to the IIAC, and for the most part, D3, has the IIAC always not gotten much respect? It seems that if your 6th place team goes as far as Wartburg did in the tournament, and beat the teams they did, the teams that finished ahead of them in the regular season would get more respect.

NWU should be pretty good next year. As noted before, they have a lot of experience returning. And of that experience, most of it is current freshman and sophomores. I am looking forward to watching them the next couple of seasons.

A couple of things I noticed in moving from the GPAC to the IIAC. First of all, the competition was very good in the IIAC. Even though Wesleyan ended up in first place, they played a lot of close games. I think the top teams in the GPAC are better than the top teams in the IIAC, but after you get by the top couple of teams in the GPAC, the teams in each conference are pretty close. The second thing is that the officiating in the IIAC is not even close to being as good as it is in the GPAC. There were a few good officials in the IIAC, but not a whole lot. I don't think they were biased or anything, just not very good. Another thing is that I thought the coaching in the IIAC was pretty good.

I look forward to a lot of good, close games in the next couple of years. I wish the Iowa schools were closer to Wesleyan, it makes for a lot of long trips. Hopefully Wesleyan will be a good addition to the IIAC basketball portion of the conference.

Welcome to the board. Love to have new posters here.  Bring your friends here, the women's basketball board, and the football board as well   

As for rankings, there are so many D3 schools, it's hard to make a dent in the rankings.

Officiating can make anyone pull their hair out.  I thought it cost Dubuque a game against Central this year.  But, like you say, IIAC officials call a consistent game.  I see no bias in IIAC officiating, which I like.  They can be frustrating, but fair. 

I was curious to hear of the difference in the GPAC/IIAC.  I had heard for football Morningside would be a clear favorite, but after that the two conferences were fairly similar.  Sounds like your assessment is pretty similar for basketball.     

Happy to have NWU in the conference.  I had some initial reservations about bringing in a non-Iowa school, but now that I have discovered more about your school, I like what I see. 

[doolittledog]

Will be interesting to see who steps into those roles.  Any idea what the recruiting situations are around the league?  There was quite a bit a talent in Iowa this year, curious to see who is going to end up in the IIAC.

I notice when kids post on twitter they are committing to a school...but I'm out of the loop as far as knowing if those kids will end up making any sort of impact in the IIAC.  I'm a teeny bit biased and hope all of the Dubuque commits end up being the second coming of Andre Norris    Or old school...and are the second coming of Dave Crawford or Damon Rogers 

[AndOne]

It's my first post, and I know I'm a little bit late to the party, but I thought I would post some things that I have noticed over this season. I am a fan (parent) of a Nebraska Wesleyan player. I have read the board all season, just never posted before.

Regarding the final rankings, I can't believe that Wartburg was the only IIAC team rated, or even receiving votes. As a newcomer to the IIAC, and for the most part, D3, has the IIAC always not gotten much respect? It seems that if your 6th place team goes as far as Wartburg did in the tournament, and beat the teams they did, the teams that finished ahead of them in the regular season would get more respect.

NWU should be pretty good next year. As noted before, they have a lot of experience returning. And of that experience, most of it is current freshman and sophomores. I am looking forward to watching them the next couple of seasons.

A couple of things I noticed in moving from the GPAC to the IIAC. First of all, the competition was very good in the IIAC. Even though Wesleyan ended up in first place, they played a lot of close games. I think the top teams in the GPAC are better than the top teams in the IIAC, but after you get by the top couple of teams in the GPAC, the teams in each conference are pretty close. The second thing is that the officiating in the IIAC is not even close to being as good as it is in the GPAC. There were a few good officials in the IIAC, but not a whole lot. I don't think they were biased or anything, just not very good. Another thing is that I thought the coaching in the IIAC was pretty good.

I look forward to a lot of good, close games in the next couple of years. I wish the Iowa schools were closer to Wesleyan, it makes for a lot of long trips. Hopefully Wesleyan will be a good addition to the IIAC basketball portion of the conference.

Rigyank,

What you need to remember is that NCAA standards for the national tournament and those of the NAIA, which you might be familiar with due to NWU's previous association with the GPAC/NAIA, might well be different in several aspects. 43 of the 64 NCAA tournament bids are what are referred to as Pool A which automatically go to conference tournament winners. The remaining 21 bids go to teams that meet specific detailed criteria. If you don't win your conference tournament, finishing first in your conference in the regular season is no guarantee that your team will be selected. The exception to this would usually, but not always, be a team who finishes first, or tied for first, in one of the top 3 or so conferences in the country (see Augustana). The IIAC is not one of those conferences. One criteria that is very important is strength of schedule. Its obvious that you are somewhat surprised NWU did not get a tourney bid despite tying for the conference regular season championship. However, looking beyond that accomplishment, the Prairie Wolves (or as I still think of them, Plainsmen), had at least three major problems. First, they failed to win the conference tournament which would have automatically gotten them in. Secondly, playing weak teams like MacMurray, Illinois College, and Blackburn will not help at all. Third, wins against NAIA, Christian College Association, and other non-NCAA schools don't even count. Therefore, as far as the NCAA is concerned, NWU had 16 wins this year, not 18. Also, once you get to 8-9 losses, sometimes less, your chances to be selected are exceedingly small unless you played a killer schedule or, got that auto bid by winning your conference tournament.
You talked about 6th place Wartburg doing pretty well in the national tournament. Keep in mind they would not have even been selected had they not won the conference tourney. Loras had fewer losses and didn't go.
Perfect examples of the importance of winning the conference tourney can be seen by looking at North Central and St. Norbert. NCC finished fourth in the CCIW, one of the country's major conferences. However, they beat #1 Carthage and #3 seed Augustana (championship game loser) to win the CCIW tourney and secure the CCIW's automatic bid. St. Norbert of the weak Midwest Conference finished 16-2 in conference. They went into the conference tournament semifinal at 19-4 and lost. Even with finishing with only 5 losses all year, and almost four times that many wins, they did not receive a bid because of their very weak overall schedule. I would guess losing only 5 times and not receiving a bid is almost unheard of, but it supremely illustrates the importance of playing a decent schedule and/or winning your conference tournament.

* I am (long, long ago) a former NWU player. During my years in Lincoln, we fairly often played Buena Vista and Simpson. Fortunately, we didn't go further east. Those bus rides to Dubuque must be hell.

[dunkin3117]

The IIAC gets no love on the national stage, which is a shame.  They tore it up in the non-conference this year.  Central beat Wash U and was in a tight one with UW-W and Auggie (I believe). BV went out and competed well with Whitman and Whitworth, Wartburg should have beaten NCC in regulation but got beat by the buzzer twice before falling and handled UW-E and UW-O with ease.  Hopefully respect is right around the corner after the run Wartburg put together.  This conference has earned it.

[Gregory Sager]

It's my first post, and I know I'm a little bit late to the party, but I thought I would post some things that I have noticed over this season. I am a fan (parent) of a Nebraska Wesleyan player. I have read the board all season, just never posted before.

Regarding the final rankings, I can't believe that Wartburg was the only IIAC team rated, or even receiving votes. As a newcomer to the IIAC, and for the most part, D3, has the IIAC always not gotten much respect? It seems that if your 6th place team goes as far as Wartburg did in the tournament, and beat the teams they did, the teams that finished ahead of them in the regular season would get more respect.

NWU should be pretty good next year. As noted before, they have a lot of experience returning. And of that experience, most of it is current freshman and sophomores. I am looking forward to watching them the next couple of seasons.

A couple of things I noticed in moving from the GPAC to the IIAC. First of all, the competition was very good in the IIAC. Even though Wesleyan ended up in first place, they played a lot of close games. I think the top teams in the GPAC are better than the top teams in the IIAC, but after you get by the top couple of teams in the GPAC, the teams in each conference are pretty close. The second thing is that the officiating in the IIAC is not even close to being as good as it is in the GPAC. There were a few good officials in the IIAC, but not a whole lot. I don't think they were biased or anything, just not very good. Another thing is that I thought the coaching in the IIAC was pretty good.

I look forward to a lot of good, close games in the next couple of years. I wish the Iowa schools were closer to Wesleyan, it makes for a lot of long trips. Hopefully Wesleyan will be a good addition to the IIAC basketball portion of the conference.

Rigyank,

What you need to remember is that NCAA standards for the national tournament and those of the NAIA, which you might be familiar with due to NWU's previous association with the GPAC/NAIA, might well be different in several aspects. 43 of the 64 NCAA tournament bids are what are referred to as Pool A which automatically go to conference tournament winners. The remaining 21 bids go to teams that meet specific detailed criteria. If you don't win your conference tournament, finishing first in your conference in the regular season is no guarantee that your team will be selected. The exception to this would usually, but not always, be a team who finishes first, or tied for first, in one of the top 3 or so conferences in the country (see Augustana).

That's not a guarantee, though. There have been teams that tied for the CCIW title that didn't qualify for the D3 tournament (North Park and Carthage this season, and Augustana and Carthage in 2003 comes to mind). I realize that you did use the phrase "usually, but not always", but guarantee is a word that connotes an absolute, and this is not the sort of thing that is subject to an absolute, because: a) it isn't covered within either the primary or secondary criteria of at-large (Pool C) selections; and b) such a guarantee would violate the NCAA's equal-access policy. The better word to use here would be "likelihood" rather than "guarantee".

The IIAC is not one of those conferences.

It's worth noting that in the 43-year history of the D3 tournament, no IIAC team has ever reached the Final Four. Nebraska Wesleyan has reached it -- in fact, the Prairie Wolves have been to four D3 Final Fours (all during their days as the Plainsmen) as what D3 considered an independent (i.e., not a member of a D3 member league), finishing second once and third three times.

One criteria that is very important is strength of schedule. Its obvious that you are somewhat surprised NWU did not get a tourney bid despite tying for the conference regular season championship. However, looking beyond that accomplishment, the Prairie Wolves (or as I still think of them, Plainsmen), had at least three major problems. First, they failed to win the conference tournament which would have automatically gotten them in. Secondly, playing weak teams like MacMurray, Illinois College, and Blackburn will not help at all. Third, wins against NAIA, Christian College Association, and other non-NCAA schools don't even count. Therefore, as far as the NCAA is concerned, NWU had 16 wins this year, not 18. Also, once you get to 8-9 losses, sometimes less, your chances to be selected are exceedingly small unless you played a killer schedule or, got that auto bid by winning your conference tournament.

You know this, of course, but since rigyank is new to D3 it should probably be said here that the selection committee does not base its at-large (Pool C) decisions upon the number of losses a team has suffered. One of the primary criteria -- arguably one of the two most important primary criteria -- is winning percentage against D3 schools. I suspect that a lot of people use the eight-losses mark as their barometer for bubble status because they don't want to (or can't) do the math in their heads in the middle of a conversation in order to calculate winning percentage. Eight losses is a useful shorthand in some ways, but it's a little deceptive in others.

The usual rule of thumb is that a .700 winning percentage against D3 teams is the safe minimum for consideration; anything below that, and you're really pushing it. Until this past March, .667 (i.e., two wins out of every three games) was as low as the committee has ever been willing to go in terms of awarding a Pool C berth. But that floor was broken through this year when UW-Oshkosh was awarded a Pool C berth in spite of having a winning percentage well below .667, basically because UWO played such an enormously difficult schedule that the committee just didn't feel it could say no to the Titans, as spelled out in this article:

http://www.d3hoops.com/playoffs/men/2017/uw-oshkosh-off-charts

(UWO ended up losing in the opening round, but it was by two points to an outstanding Hope team on Hope's home floor.)

You talked about 6th place Wartburg doing pretty well in the national tournament. Keep in mind they would not have even been selected had they not won the conference tourney. Loras had fewer losses and didn't go.

Indeed ... and to further support AndOne's point, there were three Pool C teams in the field of 64 this past month that had lower winning percentages than Loras. I've already mentioned one, UW-Oshkosh. The other two were Williams and Keene State -- and Williams reached the Final Four, while Keene State made it to the Elite Eight. They got into the tourney, and Loras didn't, because of strength of schedule.

Perfect examples of the importance of winning the conference tourney can be seen by looking at North Central and St. Norbert. NCC finished fourth in the CCIW, one of the country's major conferences. However, they beat #1 Carthage and #3 seed Augustana (championship game loser) to win the CCIW tourney and secure the CCIW's automatic bid. St. Norbert of the weak Midwest Conference finished 16-2 in conference.

... and won the regular-season title of the MWC, which should be pointed out here as well. In fact, St. Norbert won the league by two full games.

They went into the conference tournament semifinal at 19-4 and lost. Even with finishing with only 5 losses all year, and almost four times that many wins, they did not receive a bid because of their very weak overall schedule. I would guess losing only 5 times and not receiving a bid is almost unheard of, but it supremely illustrates the importance of playing a decent schedule and/or winning your conference tournament.

* I am (long, long ago) a former NWU player. During my years in Lincoln, we fairly often played Buena Vista and Simpson. Fortunately, we didn't go further east. Those bus rides to Dubuque must be hell.

He's saying that because they didn't have cell phones back when he played for Nebraska Wesleyan, and I'm pretty convinced that Generation Y student-athletes are so addicted to their phones that they don't notice if a busride takes two hours or ten. In fact, I think that the NWU athletic department telephone looked like this when he was a student-athlete:

The IIAC gets no love on the national stage, which is a shame.  They tore it up in the non-conference this year.  Central beat Wash U and was in a tight one with UW-W and Auggie (I believe). BV went out and competed well with Whitman and Whitworth, Wartburg should have beaten NCC in regulation but got beat by the buzzer twice before falling and handled UW-E and UW-O with ease.  Hopefully respect is right around the corner after the run Wartburg put together.  This conference has earned it.

The IIAC definitely did better than it usually does in non-conference play this past season, and, as you said, it won some big games. But it didn't win enough as a whole to lift up everybody's winning percentages (in particular, the winning % of the Duhawks), and close losses don't matter in the eyes of the committee, because scoring margin is not a selection criterion.

[AndOne]

LORAS RECRUIT

Jordan Kedrowski, who was 2nd in scoring for Carthage of the CCIW In 2015-16, will play at Loras in 2017-2018.

[Pat Coleman]

Gregory's 2003 citation of CCIW finish is apples and oranges. That was a 48-team tournament, with significantly fewer at-large bids available.

[Gregory Sager]

True, but beside the point. My point was that the word "guarantee" didn't belong there.

[Pat Coleman]

True, but beside the point. My point was that the word "guarantee" didn't belong there.

Well, I'm pretty darn sure he wasn't talking about guaranteed getting into a tournament structure we haven't had in 11 years.

[Gregory Sager]

I know. But I put it in there to emphasize that there have been CCIW champions shut out regardless of the format used at the time, including the current one.

[AndOne]

Sorry to fail to be technical enough in my explanation, and use words like "guarantee" instead of "likelihood." I was going a bit fast as I was trying to get done with my post in between steps in getting dinner ready. My mission was just to try to give a basic explanation of how things work to a new poster whose background appears to be more NAIA based. i was especially interested in rigyank's situation given he is the dad of a NWU player and I formerly played for the school. That's what I get for trying to be a nice guy. Not sure what the business about a tournament structure we haven't had in 11 years was all about especially when i haven't been around that long. Oh well, I just hope a new poster was able to learn at least a little something relative to his concern. 😐

[Gregory Sager]

No worries. I just wanted to make sure that rigyank wasn't under the wrong impression that perhaps the D3 rules were rigged (sorry) against the non-powerhouse leagues.

[Pat Coleman]

Definitely true that it is not a hard and fast rule!

[rlgyank]

Thanks for all of the reply's to my post. I think it was misinterpreted though. I was not saying that I thought NWU should have been in the tournament. I knew once they lost their first game in the conference tournament their chances were veryyyy slim. I thought Loras had the best chance of a team from the conference getting an at large berth, but that was a long shot also. I understand about strength of schedule and all that, and did my research on how the D3 tourney worked beforehand. I am a stats geek, so I love to try and figure things like that out all of the time. I mentioned the final rankings, and that was the question I was kind of asking. What I couldn't believe was that no IIAC team even received a vote for the final rankings besides Wartburg.

There is a lot of good info in all of the reply's to my original post, thanks for all of that knowledge.

I look forward to expanding my knowledge of D3 basketball on this board.

[Gregory Sager]

Well, we're glad to have you aboard!