BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[scaccommish]

Just released:

http://www.scac-online.org/baseball/07allscac.htm

[Lynx Tracker]

At this moment it is taking all the restraint I can muster to keep from using a string of expletives to describe my absolute shock and disappointment at the disgraceful vote by the SCAC coaches in robbing the Coach of the Year Award from Jeff Cleanthes of Rhodes College for the second year in a row.

I am sure that Coach Carl Iwasaki of Austin College is a fine man, a good coach and absolutely no disrespect is intended to him.  Sure—congratulations to Austin College for winning the 3-day tournament.  They played well and deserved to win.  But, even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a blue moon!  I could even see it if Austin had not gone "2 and out" in California, and had advanced deeper into the regional tourney.

Personally, I would be absolutely embarrassed to accept this award if I were the coach of a below .500 team—when men with .783 and .761 winning percentages were in the running!  It sounds to me that there is some petty jealousy and vindictiveness among the SCAC coaches. 

[Pat Coleman]

I've never seen a group of petty, vindictive coaches actually prefer "the new guy" to one of their own.

When I'm choosing coaches of the year for D3football and D3hoops, I look long and hard at the coach whose team most exceeds preseason expectations. Austin was essentially tied for seventh in the SCAC preseason poll.

[Ralph Turner]

At this moment it is taking all the restraint I can muster to keep from using a string of expletives to describe my absolute shock and disappointment at the disgraceful vote by the SCAC coaches in robbing the Coach of the Year Award from Jeff Cleanthes of Rhodes College for the second year in a row.

I am sure that Coach Carl Iwasaki of Austin College is a fine man, a good coach and absolutely no disrespect is intended to him.  Sure—congratulations to Austin College for winning the 3-day tournament.  They played well and deserved to win.  But, even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a blue moon!  I could even see it if Austin had not gone "2 and out" in California, and had advanced deeper into the regional tourney.

Personally, I would be absolutely embarrassed to accept this award if I were the coach of a below .500 team—when men with .783 and .761 winning percentages were in the running!  It sounds to me that there is some petty jealousy and vindictiveness among the SCAC coaches. 

Pat Coleman got to this before I did, but the above post is very petty and vindictive.

I will make the case that Coach Iwasaki did a better of job of preparing his team for the post season.  He did not shy away from strong competition either.  He sought mid-week games versus UT-Tyler 3 times, he lost 2 games versus UT-Dallas, and then traveled to Abilene for a HSU McM midweek doubleheader.  When the time came to play the #15 and the #25 ranked (ABCA Polls) teams in the country in the SCAC tourney, he beat them.  He even beat the Rhodes #2 pitcher in the tourney!

I am interested to see what type of baseball program that B-SC puts together.  They have excellent facilities and a love of baseball.  I think that the SCAC just got tougher!

[Ralph Turner]

Scrushy-Striplin Field at Birmingham-Southern College.

[jekelish]

wow...that looks like an incredible facility for D3.

[Ron Boerger]

It ought to - it's a D-I facilty, as are most of B-SC's facilities.

[frank_ezelle]

Many years ago I was helping a friend with Little League baseball and this friend decided to give a "Hustle Award" to one player after each game.  It sounded like a good idea on the surface but the end result was the winner of the award went away from the game happy and 10 other players went away thinking they had been screwed.

Coach of the Year is always a tricky pick.  Do you give it to the guy who won the league or the most games or the one who did the most with the talent he had.  I think we all get tired of seeing the coach with the most talented players getting the nod for best coach while another guy might have done magic with next to nothing (this is a general statement, not a reference to any current SCAC teams).

This award was going to come from either Millsaps, Rhodes or Austin.  Certainly Coach Page at Millsaps and Coach Cleanthes at Rhodes are worthy candidates but they are the ones with the most talent.  Rhodes had 5 all-SCAC position players and 3 of the 7 pitchers.  Millsaps had 6 position players (including the offensive player of the year) and one pitcher.  On the other hand, Austin had 4 position players and no pitchers and yet they finished 2nd in the tough SCAC West and they came up big when they had to come up big.

I say congratulations to Coach Iwasaki of Austin and I see the SCAC becoming one of the premier baseball leagues in the country--now we just need to find a way to get some at-large teams in the tournament.  I hate that Millsaps and Rhodes both seemed to be the equal of World Series participant Emory this year and yet neither team was picked to participate in an NCAA regional.

[D3baseballdad]

I say congratulations to Coach Iwasaki of Austin and I see the SCAC becoming one of the premier baseball leagues in the country--now we just need to find a way to get some at-large teams in the tournament.  I hate that Millsaps and Rhodes both seemed to be the equal of World Series participant Emory this year and yet neither team was picked to participate in an NCAA regional.

Frank, I can tell you that I have heard that the coaches and A.D.'s of the SCAC  share your concern. They are talking about ways to improve the conferences chances of putting more teams into the NCAA tourney. I think they will be looking at things from scheduling of non-conference games to possibly doing away with four game weekends for conference games.

We shall just have to wait and see what happens in the future to help with this problem.

[Lynx Fan]

Coach of the year.

While its nice to see the SCAC improve (welcome Austin and look for Oglelthorpe to improve next year) I agree that Coach Cleanthes got hosed two years in a row. If you look at exceeding expectations as a prerequisite how does having the most improved D3 team in the NATION in 2006 not qualify you as coach of the year in the SCAC?

Being overlooked in 06 was ridiculous, then its compounded by another snub in 2007. Heck, in 2005 this team was terrible ( 11 wins and alot of losses) and somewhere late in 07 they are ranked 25th in the nation. All on Cleanthes' and his assistants recruits.

No one says life if fair but if Cleanthes can't get the vote than I am not sure anyone should.

Whats a guy got to do, go 50 and 0 and hope that's enough to beat out a team that goes 500. 

Bottom line is you better win the SCAC tournament or it looks like you are going home. Lets prepare for next year and take care of business. All this other stuff seems pretty silly.

Debate all you want. Cleanthes deserves some recognition and should have gotten Coach of the Year  in either 06 or 07.

[frank_ezelle]

He certainly could have won the award in one or both of those years and he certainly has won the support of the Rhodes fans and he has re-established Rhodes on the national scene. 

On the issue of post-season awards, there were a few SCAC players who won awards today.  On the ABCA Regional team you had:
--Hunter Owens of Millsaps as a 1st Team All-South and the Player of the Year in the South.
--Daniel Vanaman of Rhodes made 1st Team All-South.
--Robert Flanagan of Rhodes made 1st Team All-South.

On the D3Baseball All-American team Hunter Owens made the 3rd team, the only SCAC player that was listed (unless I overlooked someone).

[Bob_Lotts]

Personally I think postseason awards should be voted for before the 'postseason' starts....the problem is the East and West will never see each other play....Maybe create separate teams. All SCAC East Team and an All SCAC West team. Instead of two at each position cut it to 1 each and just let the East vote for the east and the west for the west. Just a thought.

And....how was Hunter Owen the only player from the SCAC on the D3baseball team!!!! and on the 3rd team for no less. Your telling me the South region player of the year is only on the 3rd team??? 

[Pat Coleman]

It's an All-American team, not an All-South team, just as a reminder. And the D3baseball.com team doesn't have to agree with the ABCA. I see that D3baseball.com has a different South Region player ranked ahead of Owen at the same position, for example. I would expect that if D3baseball.com named an All-South team, that Salisbury's Andrew Jensen or perhaps Mary Washington's Eric Fitzgerald would be the South Player of the Year.

I stayed out of the selection process, since I didn't see enough baseball to qualify as an expert. But I've been in enough selection processes between D3hoops.com and D3football.com to know how they work, and I know what Jim and his team went through to assemble this team. And I've certainly answered the same kind of questions ... year after year after year ... to answer the most basic ones about an All-American team.

[frank_ezelle]

To weigh in on the Hunter Owen awards, I think it is a tremendous honor for him to be named to the 3rd team All-American list.  With 350 D3 schools in the country that means you have about 1,000 starting outfielders and he was picked in the top 9--that's quite an honor for a guy who only had 5 at bats last year due to an injury (http://www.millsaps.edu/athletic/baseball/owenBio.shtml).

Take all 9 of the outfielders listed on the All-American team and they all have great numbers.  Sometimes the difference between the players is just that one plays on the team that had more postseason success or maybe the player already had somewhat of a national reputation from success in the previous season.  Those things usually factor into the process and I don't have a problem with that.

So, for Hunter to get the recognition that he has received in his first full season of play at Millsaps is really spectacular.  If he can repeat his output from this season and if Millsaps can make it back to the playoffs next season, then maybe Hunter will work his way higher on the list.  He seems like the kind of guy who will work hard to make that happen.

[sports10]

can anyone tell me where i can find the list of all region picks?
what website? ive tried www.abca.com, but its from last year