BB: WIAC: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[hickory_cornhusker]

Bad news for WIAC basbeall.

http://lacrossetribune.com/articles/2009/06/05/newsupdate/13uwlcuts.txt

Barring something major happening before Wednesday UW-La Crosse will be cutting baseball and men's tennis. Men's tennis isn't a championship sport in the WIAC but baseball will be down to only 6 members after this.

[Brian Carroll]

No more chilly April baseball games in the La Crosse marsh. The Eagles are dropping baseball.  I am sorry to see it go.

[Brian Carroll]

I watched Aaron Dott of UWW throw 5 strong innings for the La Crosse Loggers Wednesday night. He allowed only 1 run, but got no run support at all. The Loggers rallied to win, and thus Mr. Dott avoided what would have been a real tough -luck loss. I calculate his ERA to be an impressive 0.75.

[badgerwarhawk]

There goes our automatic bid to the NCAA postseason.  For several years there has been rumors of either Superior or Stout dropping baseball but I never imagined LaCrosse would scrap it. 

It sounds like Dott is having an excellent summer season, BC.  It's probable that he will be drafted in the upcoming MLB draft.

[janesvilleflash]

You would think it wouldn't take too much to fund raise 60,000 to keep it going another year, then see how the budget looks at that time.

[Just Bill]

Headline you'll see in the near future:  "WIAC welcomes Finlandia as associate member for baseball"

[hickory_cornhusker]

Assuming this all goes through, it isn't official until Wdnesday, the WIAC will have two years to find a 7th member before they forfeit their Pool A bid. I think next year they will play with six and put pressure on River Falls, Eau Claire and La Crosse to reinstate baseball. If that doesn't work I think they try to get Finlandia.

I could very easily seeing them joining the league for baseball. I talked about this on the Pool B board. Finlandia is the lone independent in the area other than North Central University in the Twin Cities and I think they will be eventually scooped up by the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference. After them I think the next closest Pool B team is Wash U in St. Louis. Finlandia is already in the conference for men's soccer. Even though Finlandia wouldn't be able to compete they would get a much more stable schedule and more home games than they had this year, two. They mention on their website they are looking for conferences for all of their sports teams. Unfortunately in Division 3 there are no options for them.

[Ralph Turner]

While we are talking about Finlandia, they can fill their niches sport by sport by affiliation.

Men's sports:

Baseball -- can help the WIAC maintain AQ
Basketball -- where can they affiliate and compete?
Cross Country -- doesn't need a conference per se
Golf -- might help the UMAC maintain an AQ in Men's Golf by affiliating.  The UMAC has 7 golf playing members.  Finlandia would give some leeway in case one school did not have enough golfers one season.
Ice Hockey -- Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association
Soccer -- affiliating with the WIAC men.

Women's sports:

Basketball -- where can they affiliate?
Cross Country -- doesn't need a conference per se
Ice Hockey -- Northern Collegiate Hockey Association
Soccer -- affiliation?
Softball --  affiliation?
Volleyball -- affiliation?

The WIAC women do not need Finlandia as much as the WIAC men.

[hickory_cornhusker]

While we are talking about Finlandia, they can fill their niches sport by sport by affiliation.

Men's sports:

Baseball -- can help the WIAC maintain AQ
Basketball -- where can they affiliate and compete?
Cross Country -- doesn't need a conference per se
Golf -- might help the UMAC maintain an AQ in Men's Golf by affiliating.  The UMAC has 7 golf playing members.  Finlandia would give some leeway in case one school did not have enough golfers one season.
Ice Hockey -- Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association
Soccer -- affiliating with the WIAC men.

Women's sports:

Basketball -- where can they affiliate?
Cross Country -- doesn't need a conference per se
Ice Hockey -- Northern Collegiate Hockey Association
Soccer -- affiliation?
Softball --  affiliation?
Volleyball -- affiliation?

The WIAC women do not need Finlandia as much as the WIAC men.

I think from a competitive stand point the UMAC is the best fit for Finlandia in all sports (except for hockey). The problem is adding Finlandia for all sports really stretches out the conference eastward it is already 450 miles from Presentation College (Aberdeen, SD) in the west to Northland College (Ashland, WI) in the east. Finlandia (Hancock, MI) is another 150 miles from Northland.

The WIAC works for the couple of affiliation sports on the men's side but the women's side is no help and this isn't a viable long term option for them.

The Midwest Conference gets severely stretched to the north. St. Norbert (De Pere, WI) is the farthest school to the north and they more than 200 miles south of Finlandia. It would 650 miles from Finlandia to the farthest south MWC opponent Illinois College (Jacksonville, IL) and 600 from the farthest west opponent Grinnell (Grinnell, IA).

The Northern Athletics Conference's closest opponent is Marian (Fond du Lac, WI) who is 280 miles south from Finlandia. The farthest south opponent in the NAthCon is Aurora who is 182 miles from Marian. The NAthCon prides themselves on being geographically small.

The MWC is probably the best option but I don't think Finlandia has enough sports to warrant an expansion that far north. Pretty much the only thing Finlandia brings to the table is hockey and the MWC doesn't have enough hockey teams (currently at 3 men and 1 women's team in 2010-11) that one more school could mean starting their own conference.

[BaseballFan]

Wisconsin LaCrosse was force to drop their baseball program THIS MEANS:

The WIAC drops to 6 teams

Automatically WIAC loses their automatic qualifier and drops to a pool B because conferences need 7 teams to be automatic qualifiers. From my understanding once the conference goes to 6 they lose that auto bid immediately unless they get another team in

They need to find someone to join their conference, which will be hard because teams dont want to leave a conference and join a really good conference, but one team that I think could be a possibility would be be Finlandia

This is huge for the WIAC!

[Just Bill]

You are misinformed.  The NCAA grants a two-year grace period for Pool A conferences that fall below the 7 member minimum.  So the WIAC will have an AQ at least for 2010 and 2011.  Beyond that they will have to find a seventh member either with an exisiting member resurrecting their program or the addition of an associate member for baseball.

[janesvilleflash]

Any word on LAX players planning to transfer? Sucks for them.

[BaseballFan]

You are misinformed.  The NCAA grants a two-year grace period for Pool A conferences that fall below the 7 member minimum.  So the WIAC will have an AQ at least for 2010 and 2011.  Beyond that they will have to find a seventh member either with an exisiting member resurrecting their program or the addition of an associate member for baseball.

ok thanks

[wizbegs1304]

Headline you'll see in the near future:  "WIAC welcomes Finlandia as associate member for baseball"

I agree, they are the only school that could help matters right now.

[OshDude]

Headline you'll see in the near future:  "WIAC welcomes Finlandia as associate member for baseball"

I agree, they are the only school that could help matters right now.

I'm holding out hope that the economy bounces back – and that it's politically acceptable to add sports programs – over the next year or two. It would be hard to start a team in less than a year (admittedly best-case scenario as to when the economy possibly makes it viable and factoring all the legwork in building a program) in the Eau C or River Falls. But if LAX has not burned all bridges, it's conceivable that in two years Dr. Gow goes from a goat to whatever resembles a goat but isn't quite as bad as a goat. I'm a glass-is-half-full guy.

Finlandia? I hope not. If that's the case, the member schools should hold fundraisers and camps for the three without baseball teams or get the NCAA to allow a Whitewater B team. If both UWW teams are worthy of the NCAA tournament, UWW would have to choose one like with relay track teams.