BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[D3Fan10]

All I am trying to say is that it is Division 3 baseball.  There are not too many media outlets or really anyone that could really care about who gets post season recognition for division 3.  It seems that the only people that really care about getting post season awards are the parents of the players so they can have something extra to brag about.  I am not saying Denison didn't have players that should have been on the NCAC team, however, there are also players from every team in the league that could state their case that they should get some type of recognition.  It has been widely accepted that the NCAC team is not really the best players in the league all the time.  It seems that the 1st team are usually the best all around players, defensive abilities included, then the 2nd team and honorable mention seem to be whoever the coaches can influence more.  Also, as far as you saying that the Denison coaching staff should receive recognition, I couldn't disagree more.  Their head coach backed his way into taking over a well established team that he had nothing to do with.  Their current head coach did not recruit any of their really good players.  I say we can start giving credit to him if Denison will have the ability to keep up 27 win seasons in another couple years once he gets his own recruits in.  Also, their current head coach learned everything from his former coach who learned everything from wooster's head coach.  Anyone can win 20+ games in the weak NCAC now with decent talent.....let's see if he has the ability to keep bringing in talent and consistently being competative like a OWU or a wooster. 

[75westbound]

Anyone who knows anything about the Denison situation knows how ill-informed the previous comment is.

The new coach helped recruit most of the players on this team. He wasn't the head coach in the two years before this year, but even as an assistant he was much more active and effective as a recruiter than the previous coach -- as evidenced by the much larger recruiting classes that he helped bring in. Not to mention the talent shown by the sophomores and freshmen.

This year's team was more successful on the field, and a happier bunch of guys off the field, with good reason. Ask any player or parent associated with the program.

[cal denison fan]

I appreciate the opportunity to have this dialogue. I was being facetious in suggesting our coaches deserved post season recognition. Having said that I consider them both to be fine individuals who I am sure will become a success at whatever endeavor they indulge in.  And I hope that they will be given the opportunity to continue what they have begun at Denison.

I am sorry that my comments were not apparently transparent enough. What I was saying was in response to an earlier comment which implied that somehow our team had not played well together and I coupled this with the fact that we only had one second team, all conference selection. My attempt was to contrast this with our NCAC west first place finish  and 27 win season. Thus I facetiously concluded that if we had few good players and did not play well together (false assumptions obviously) our coaches must have coached the hell out of players in order to get those results.

And finally Westbound is correct. This years team was a success both on and off the field and from what I gathered from my son (one of four seniors) and observed myself, was an extremely close knit group that I am certain will stay friends forever, which is certainly a most important take away from their college baseball and academic experience.

[D3Fan10]

My only comment on that is that Denison's program was a complete joke before Coach Cradock took over.  Denison was considered pretty much an automatic win the years I played in the NCAC and now they are one of the best teams in the conference.....which is not even close to as competetative as the NCAC used to be...but that is for another post some other time.  I am not saying that their current coach didnt do a good job this season, all I am saying is that I see him stepping into a great situation as a result of some poor judgement from the old coach.  Denison's program owes a lot to Craddock, he took them from a joke to a contender year in and year out

[ScotsFan]

Personally, I see the selections of the All-NCAC teams as an indirect result of the BS that is the two divisions of the NCAC!  Clearly, the West is the toughest top to bottom.  With the decline of Allegheny in the East, Wooster has a pretty easy road to winning their division every year.  Kenyon has been getting better, but they would probably finsih 3rd at best out west.  As a result of the weakness of the east, Wooster seems to pad their stats against the weaker teams in the east.  Combine that with Wooster's overall record and it's not too hard to see why they dominate the all-conference selections.  Whether its right or wrong, it is what it is... 

Personally, I was quite shocked to see how many Scots made all-conference this season.  Sure they had the best conference record, but they didn't even make it to the finals of the conference tournament.  That conference final consisted of 2 teams from the West division.  That clearly shows me that the west was the better division and the all-conference team should have consisted of players predominantly from the best division.  Not players from a team that feasted on the weaker teams of the NCAC east.

What this also shows me is that the NCAC needs to get rid of this silly East/West divsion thing!  The OAC seems to do fine without needing 2 seperate divisions.  I just wish the NCAC could realize this and lose the divisions.

[D3Fan10]

I completely agree with Scotsfan in the aspect that Wooster is able to pad their stats playing against weaker teams in the division.  The NCAC needs to get rid of the East and West....The schools are not that far apart where they can play every school in the conference.  It seems that in past years the East was better than the west when Allegheny was a national power and now they just can't compete.  In the early 2000's it seemed to be more competative with Wooster, Allegheny, and OWU being in the top 25 of the country for several years.  With that being said, there is no way to tell if another team will emerge as a competative team in the years to come, but overall, the NCAC is just not as good as it used to be.

[Pat Coleman]

The OAC seems to do fine without needing 2 seperate divisions.  I just wish the NCAC could realize this and lose the divisions.

Allegheny to Wabash: 452 miles.
Wilmington to John Carroll: 211 miles.

That seems to be the longest trip in the OAC. Heidelberg/Marietta and Ohio Northern/Marietta are similar but shorter.

The conferences are the same size in numbers but not in geography.

[cal denison fan]

Certainly the west was a better top to bottom league this year, however was certainly impressed with Kenyon. They seem to be going in the right direction. Interesting idea, perhaps with merit, about collapsing the conference. The two Indiana schools make that somewhat difficult in terms of travel.

[woosterbooster]

I would also like to see the NCAC discard the divisions, but as I suspect they were first installed as a money-saving device, chances of a reversal now, in today's economic climate, seem remote.

Individual awards in team sports interested me much more when I was younger, as did pro wrestling.  And, to make the leap from not caring about the all-star teams to not caring who actually wins the ballgames is, well, a leap.  A huge one.

[ScotsFan]

The OAC seems to do fine without needing 2 seperate divisions.  I just wish the NCAC could realize this and lose the divisions.

Allegheny to Wabash: 452 miles.
Wilmington to John Carroll: 211 miles.

That seems to be the longest trip in the OAC. Heidelberg/Marietta and Ohio Northern/Marietta are similar but shorter.

The conferences are the same size in numbers but not in geography.

They make the trip over the winter for basketball.  Granted, Allegheny, Hiram, Earlham and Wabash make it a combo trip taking each other on in back to back nights.

I just think it could be pulled off much the same way.  In the OAC, each team plays the other in a single DH and they rotate the home and home season by season.  As far as the distance thing between Hiram, Allegheny, Earlham and Wabash, they could still incorporate it into one trip like they do in basketball.  The NCAC already plays back to back double headers as the league is set up now.  It wouldn't be much different than the current setup.

But, alas.  I highly doubt a couple of posters from a DIII message board will make too much of an impact on getting things changed for the NCAC baseball conference alignment... 

[75westbound]

The 2009 conference baseball schedule has been posted. (Probably a long time ago, but I just noticed.)

http://www.northcoast.org/pdffiles/schedules/ba09.pdf

[D3Fan10]

Does anyone know what is going on with the interim head coaching jobs?  Will OWU and Denison hire new coaches or will they go with what they had last year?

[NCAC4Life]

Mott is the head coach at OWU. Denison will probably keep  Deadman.

[D3Fan10]

I wasn't sure about OWU but I heard that Denison was interviewing for new coaches...Deadman might be out

[75westbound]

No, Dedman* got the job for good. Not sure about Mott at OWU -- search may still be going on this fall.


* not Deadman