BB: WIAC: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[badgerwarhawk]

Earlier the topic of the impact that a natural grass field might have on defenses was discussed.  For whatever reason I thought it would be interesting to keep track of it.  The numbers are skewed because some teams played more games than others but here are the results.

Team....Regular Season....World Series
Cortland State... .976 ... .911 (10 errors)
Linfield... .975 ... .911  (5 errors)
Salisbury... .967 ... .966 (4 errors)
WHITEWATER... .964 ... .967 (5 errors)
St. Thomas... .963 ... .938 (8 errors)
Southern Maine... .962 ... .946 (9 errors)
Emory... .960 ... .937 (15 errors)
Baldwin Wallace... .951 ... .971 (3 errors)

Interestingly it seems to have had the most impact on the two best teams and the worst team improved the most.  It didn't seem to have much of an impact on either us or Salisbury.  Emory averaged the highest number of errors per game yet played for the championship.   

[bleedpurple]

Coach Twardoski and Jared Welch were really impressive in the Emory post-game press conference. Very classy and humble guys.  I continue to be impressed with D-III coaches and athletes.  The video is worth watching. 

[jackson5]

So is Wisconsin-Whitewater ready to admit that they don't belong in D3 yet or do they still want to pretend that D3 was designed for Public universities with 5 figure enrollments?

[GBMAN]

Awesome job Wisconsin Whitewater.. From the conference tourney, to the regionals and now the World Series.  Amazing job 

[Strike1]

Whitewater looked very good but seemed to have some advantages, playing at home and with the ideal game times didn't hurt their chances any. Curious how they pegged the west team with the early time slot of 10am Ct which of course is 8am PT. With bp before game and other pre-game functions it meant a very early start of the day for those players. Why wouldn't they give the west coast team a later start?  Talk to anybody outside of Appleton and they would all sense the tilt towards Whitewater and the snub for some other teams. Linfield team didn't even get full introductions like the opposing team in the same game! Pretty low blow by those running the tourney! Watched multiple games and the field prep for the late whitewater games were stepped up compared to earlier games, not as much water on the field made for a few rough games and the errors should that! Some crazy hops in some Emory games and same with Cortland. This tourney was down compared to previous years, I think it's time for a change. Previous years had more festivities, more pictures and souvenirs! Great teams playing in a poorly ran, home team favored tourney! I hope to watch from a different venue next year!

[BigPoppa]

Whitewater looked very good but seemed to have some advantages, playing at home and with the ideal game times didn't hurt their chances any. Curious how they pegged the west team with the early time slot of 10am Ct which of course is 8am PT. With bp before game and other pre-game functions it meant a very early start of the day for those players. Why wouldn't they give the west coast team a later start?  Talk to anybody outside of Appleton and they would all sense the tilt towards Whitewater and the snub for some other teams. Linfield team didn't even get full introductions like the opposing team in the same game! Pretty low blow by those running the tourney! Watched multiple games and the field prep for the late whitewater games were stepped up compared to earlier games, not as much water on the field made for a few rough games and the errors should that! Some crazy hops in some Emory games and same with Cortland. This tourney was down compared to previous years, I think it's time for a change. Previous years had more festivities, more pictures and souvenirs! Great teams playing in a poorly ran, home team favored tourney! I hope to watch from a different venue next year!

You are the first I have heard say that. It is staying in Appleton as it should be. Regardless of field prep dIfferences, it was the same for both teams each time Whitewater played so not sure how field prep favored them.

In my years on this board, that may be the most illogical statement I have ever read.

[Strike1]

And the scheduling?

[ShineTime]

The tourney schedule is different every year I remember when point played Emory at 10 am on a Friday when Zimmerman pitched a gem.  The same argument could be made for uwsp having to travel to linfield I'm sure the time change affected them somewhat.  The World Series is far and away going to do better in appleton than any other venue.  On a side note man can some of those whitewater fans pound beer I was highly impressed and had a good time watching some of the games.  All in all I feel the NCAA did an awesome job and now realize it's nearly impossible to ever get the best 8 teams in the nation to appleton.  I think the field was outstanding but still think there were more than likely a few teams maybe only 2 that probably were better than two of the teams there.  Linfield going two and out was rather shocking but I was never overly impressed with their offense including last year.

[mr_b]

And the scheduling?

I don't think you can do too much about the scheduling. They can't spread games out much more than that because they can never predict what the weather will be like over the course of four days.  I'm not sure how they assign the initial pairings, but it's probably set by the NCAA.  All teams arrive a day or two in advance so they can get acclimated.

Looking at the first day, they needed to get in four games.  Game one, first pitch, 10.00 AM.  Game four, first pitch, 8.20 PM.  If you move the game up even one hour, then the fourth game wouldn't start till 9.20 PM.  Because Linfield lost its first game, it played the first elimination game on day two, which also started at 10 AM.    If you have an alternative, feel free to pass it along to the tournament planners.

[Strike1]

Hasp going out west for a 10am game would be 12 ct so not a factor, west going out and playing 10 am ct is brutal, one would think it those teams would get at least an afternoon game. Once you lose it is what it is but game one should consider the time difference for sure. Getting there a day early isn't much help.

[bleedpurple]

So is Wisconsin-Whitewater ready to admit that they don't belong in D3 yet or do they still want to pretend that D3 was designed for Public universities with 5 figure enrollments?

If you don't like it, tell your school to get better. Otherwise, just enjoy the show. 

[cubs]

Hasp going out west for a 10am game would be 12 ct so not a factor, west going out and playing 10 am ct is brutal, one would think it those teams would get at least an afternoon game. Once you lose it is what it is but game one should consider the time difference for sure. Getting there a day early isn't much help.

The schedule rotates on an annual basis....  Linfield drew the 1:15 pm time slot last year in their opener against Ithaca.

With teams coming from all over, you are going to run into issues no matter how you schedule it.  I'm sure Kean (New Jersey) would have rather not played their opening game at 9:00 pm EST last season, however they still opened the World Series with a victory.

[houdini]

Whitewater looked very good but seemed to have some advantages, playing at home and with the ideal game times didn't hurt their chances any.

Talk to anybody outside of Appleton and they would all sense the tilt towards Whitewater and the snub for some other teams.


Watched multiple games and the field prep for the late whitewater games were stepped up compared to earlier games, not as much water on the field made for a few rough games and the errors should that! Some crazy hops in some Emory games and same with Cortland.

This tourney was down compared to previous years, I think it's time for a change.  Great teams playing in a poorly ran, home team favored tourney! I hope to watch from a different venue next year!

Whitewater is over 100 miles from Appleton and they were playing on a field they never played on, so I really don't get the home field advantage thing.  Sure they had more fans, but that really didn't seem like a factor to me.

I live 200 miles out of Appleton and am far from being a Whitewater fan.  The only people I heard whining about the tournament were  some Saint Thomas fans, who were also talking conspiracy.  Seeing how they just barely squeeked by in most of their games it's a good thing it was rigged

I don't know if it was part of the conspiracy or not, but for some reason the sun was gone for the Whitewater late games.  For an experiment you can take a sprinkling can out to the sandbox when the sun is beating down on it and when it's not and see what happens to the water.

This is the 7th series in Appleton I've attended all or part of (I missed last year so I don't know what was there last year) other than the people selling overpriced photos and the Hershey's home run (which I thought was cool) I didn't notice any difference.  The players and coaches seem to give Appleton a favorable review.  A lot of the stuff you are whining about are NCAA issues not Appleton issues.  If I hated something that bad I would stay away.

[02 Warhawk]

So is Wisconsin-Whitewater ready to admit that they don't belong in D3 yet or do they still want to pretend that D3 was designed for Public universities with 5 figure enrollments?

And so it begins......

[MasterJedi]

Whitewater looked very good but seemed to have some advantages, playing at home and with the ideal game times didn't hurt their chances any. Curious how they pegged the west team with the early time slot of 10am Ct which of course is 8am PT. With bp before game and other pre-game functions it meant a very early start of the day for those players. Why wouldn't they give the west coast team a later start?  Talk to anybody outside of Appleton and they would all sense the tilt towards Whitewater and the snub for some other teams. Linfield team didn't even get full introductions like the opposing team in the same game! Pretty low blow by those running the tourney! Watched multiple games and the field prep for the late whitewater games were stepped up compared to earlier games, not as much water on the field made for a few rough games and the errors should that! Some crazy hops in some Emory games and same with Cortland. This tourney was down compared to previous years, I think it's time for a change. Previous years had more festivities, more pictures and souvenirs! Great teams playing in a poorly ran, home team favored tourney! I hope to watch from a different venue next year!

The main problem it seemed from watching the games is Linfield didn't really try until there were about 4 innings left in the final game. Looks like they followed the fans and phoned in the second championship. If it really was because of an early start then they should be ashamed of themselves for not having enough discipline to get enough sleep.