BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Lynx Tracker]

Rhodes was listed as the #6 seed in the Central around 3am.

[Pat Coleman]

Yes, there was an error in our retyping of the NCAA release that persisted on the site for a few minutes last night. We have apologized to the team affected. 

Frank, really, I think you are going way offbase in blaming geography. I wish you would read what people are telling you and quit beating that horse.

[Ralph Turner]

Frank, there are only 33 Pool A conferences.  The exceptions include the Capital AC, CUNYAC, the UAA  and the Empire 8 which have basketball AC's and not baseball.

[Spence]

Rhodes was listed as the #6 seed in the Central around 3am.

Wondered how many people other than me saw that. Unfortunate error, I feel bad for the team and for the folks that run things here, because I know they try to do the best by everyone involved with the sport.

[frank_ezelle]

Well, I guess I should start off by nominating myself the the Mike & Mike "Just Shut Up" award this morning and I will follow up that nomination with two apologies:

1)  I didn't think I was being critical to anyone when I responded to Lynx Tracker's post about Rhodes briefly being listed on a website.  I didn't even know which website he was referring to.  But in hindsight, I obviously touch a nerve unintentionally by even mentioning the subject so I apologize.  I know from experience that criticism comes quickly and thanks comes seldom so I understand the reaction and I'm sorry I even touch on the subject.
2)  I had to go back and look at my posts on the subject of geography (top of page 21 of the Pool C thread and then a few posts above here).  I tried very hard to clearly state that I didn't blame geography for Millsaps not getting selected.  I stated that if all other things were basically equal, I personally would consider cost as a tiebreaker which seems like a more practical tiebreaker than flipping a coin.  I apologize for not making that more clear in some way and for giving anyone the impression that I thought Millsaps was shunned because of their location.

And with that, I will close with my usual thanks to Pat, Jim and Dwayne for all the work they have done this year.  It is amazing just how much they and a handful of others have opened up the world of D3 sports with their efforts.

As for me, I have enjoyed the year here with football, basketball, and baseball.  This year was a year that I tried to do too much with the photographs (over 12,000 donated to the athletes at Millsaps), the failed attempt to start a Millsaps sports email, and way too many posts here on the message boards.  It may be that I force myself to just cut back to the photography next year in order to regain at least a part of my normal life.

Good luck to Austin this week and I hope everyone has a great summer.

[base_knock]

Thanks for all your work here frank, its greatly appreciated... Not to disrespect Austin's upcoming games (and I do wish them luck), but anyone have predictions for the conference next year?

[frank_ezelle]

I figure there won't be much action on this board since the Austin folks don't post so maybe no one will mind if I post a few more things.  Naturally I've been watching the scores, especially the ones in the South and Central Regions, the regions where I figure Millsaps and Rhodes had the best shots of finding a slot.  I'm not sure if my stomach will be able to take it and the Rhodes folks probably feel the same.

In the South, Methodist beat Bridgewater 21-14.  Methodist was 4th in the South regional QOWI with Millsaps 5th and Rhodes 6th.  Rhodes folks will also remember that Methodist lost 6-1 to Rhodes and Robert Flanagan this season.  The contrast in scores has to make you wonder about quality of pitching in some areas of the South Region.

In the Central there are a ton of interesting things:
--The #1 seed is Luther, the AQ from the IIAC, a 29-9 team that went 0-0 in the regular season against teams in the NCAA Tournament.  That's right, zero games against teams that made the tournament and they only managed to go 29-9.  That's the top seed in the region.
--The #2 seed is Illinois Wesleyan with an at-large bid.  SCAC people will be familiar with some of the teams IW played this year--they went 0-2 with Rose-Hulman, 1-0 with MS College, 0-1 with Millsaps, 0-1 with Rhodes, and 0-1 with Washington.  Not a great record against quality teams outside their CCIW Conference.
--The #3 seed is Carthage, the AQ from the CCIW, and I really found no ties between them and SCAC teams.
--At #4 we have Washington with an at large bid.  They went 1-1 with DePauw, 0-1 with Rhodes and 0-3 with Emory but they did go 1-0 against Illinois Wesleyan just like Rhodes and Millsaps.
--At #5 is Webster, the AQ from the SLIAC.  There were 1-5 against teams in the NCAA Tournament and I know that Millsaps beat them 15-1 at last year's regional but that was last year.
--At #6 is Augustana, maybe the recipient of the last at-large bid since they are seeded 6th in what appears to be a fairly weak regional.  Augustana lost 3-1 today to the top-seed Luther so maybe Augustana is deserving or maybe Luther is a paper tiger that feasted on weak teams. 

Illinois Wesleyan, Carthage, and Augustana all come from the CCIW Conference which Illinois Wesleyan won with a 20-1 record.  I wonder if a league that can be so throughly dominated by Illinois Wesleyan is deserving of 3 teams in a regional--apparently the members of the selection committee thought that was the case.  It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

[D3baseballdad]

Frank, I love that fact that you are such a great advocate for your team! I have to say that I would have loved to see Rhodes and Millsap both in the tourney!! I think it would have been great for the SCAC to have three teams there.

The idea that perhaps some of the other schools should have played an easier schedule is an interesting one. I for one thought that having an easy game here or there for a young team like OU would have kept their spirits high. It is tough on teams like that to lose constantly and be told, "You will be great next year! This hard schedule is great for building character and ability!".

It is tough for a coach and an AD to work out a schedule that will please everyone and I think most coaches want to play a highly competitive schedule to help their team develope. A hard non-conference schedule gets you set for tough conference games. I am not sure if I believe that or not but I hear it said a great deal.

I think in the end the AD's and coaches of the SCAC are going to have to get together and work on a few things to help this conference gain a bit more respect out there! I can also assure you that there are many more teams out there just as deserving of a playoff birth who, like Rhodes and Millsap, did not make it. No matter what not everyone is going to be happy!

I now have summer ball to look forward to and can't wait for next season to arrive! Lets all hope that the SCAC has a better year next year and good luck to Austin in your playoff bid!!!

[Josh Bowerman]

Frank, just for the record, I'm an Austin College fan and I post!  

[jekelish]

Austin College guy here, just discovered this board...

Unfortunately, we're down 3-2 in the bottom of the 4th against Pacific Lutheran, after taking a 2-0 lead in the first.  Let's hope Carl can get the boys to turn it around...the Pacific Lutheran broadcast is tape delayed and won't start for another five minutes, so who knows what has happened, but sounds like Pacific Lutheran took advantage of an error and got to Rushing a little (a bit surprised Carl went with Rushing over Chermak based on end of season performance, but Rush has been quality all year and is a senior, so can't fault the logic).

Anyway, I hope you folks are ready for AC to continue to give you all fits in the years to come...I mean, after all, this year we're not starting a single senior at any of the non-pitching positions, with only one junior getting the majority of the starts (Aurand in right), and more or less relying on frosh and sophs.  Add in that next year we'll be getting Schleizer back (All-West last year), and hopefully Jad Dusek (hitting over .400 in 19 games as a freshman before getting injured, and then getting re-injured in preseason this year so he missed the whole season), along with the good recruiting class Carl seems to be putting together, and we should be good to go.

All we need is another pitcher or two to go along with Chermak and Frosty.

[jekelish]

and now it's 4-2 in the top of the fourth...

come on 'Roos, put some things together and get that pitching in order!  right now is when it REALLY shows that we really, really need someone other than Chermak to show up for crunch time pitching.

[Ralph Turner]

Jekelish, welcome aboard!

We need someone to keep Josh company!

[Ralph Turner]

Jekelish, welcome aboard!

We need someone to keep Josh company!

Is Jad Dusek the son of Brad Dusek of Temple HS, Texas A&M and Washington Redskins fame?

[frank_ezelle]

Josh, I've seen plenty of your posts and somehow I never made the connection that you were an Austin College supporter--or maybe I made the connection and forgot which seems to happen more and more to me lately.

Sorry to see that Austin lost yesterday.  I do believe they will be a force to be reckoned with in the future--just as they were a force to be reckoned with this season.  Millsaps graduated a lot of talent this year but they will still be strong.  I expect Trinity to bounce back.  Austin will be better as the above post mentioned.  I expect Southwestern will keep pace.  And Hendrix is improving even though the record didn't show it this year.  I can't speak for the SCAC East, but the SCAC West should be a heck of battle next year which means you better plan on winning the SCAC Tournament--the teams are going to beat up each other to the point that an at-large berth will be impossible to obtain.

D3baseballdad, I think you and I are on the same page that we would like for a coach to schedule teams that are tough enough to make your own team better.  In the case of OU, they had a combination of a tough schedule and some tough breaks that spiralled out of control in that long losing streak.  Personally, I think the OU schedule is fine and I wouldn't change it a bit because my gut feeling is that the program over there will grow into that schedule and will be successful.  I just hate that the growing pains that come from scheduling tough teams gets passed along to other teams--in this case Rhodes.  The 4 game sweep on the road by Rhodes this year actually lowered the QOWI for Rhodes.  Rhodes was just lucky that they were road games because the home sweep of Sewanee hurt the QOWI even worse.  With these being conference games, Rhodes didn't have any choice on scheduling or not scheduling these games.  But gosh, some of you may have heard me complain about that in previous posts so I'll put that complaint to rest.

Hopefully we'll see Austin come back with a win or two out West and I'll leave it up to our Austin members to post on that. 

Before I leave once again, I'll repeat an offer I've made in the past without many takers.  I have literally thousands of sports photos posted on the Millsaps website.  Naturally the photos are shot and cropped to feature the Millsaps athletes but in some photos there is a pretty good image of a player from the opposing team.  I've always gladly shared these photos with people from other teams at no charge just as I provide these photos to Millsaps at no charge.  The link to the photos is in the area at the bottom of this post--feel free to look through the photos and email me at frankezelle@yahoo.com if you would like the original photo file which is much larger than the photo files in the photo album.

[Josh Bowerman]

No problem, Frank.  I actually have a degree from Hardin-Simmons University, but currently work at Austin College.  Ergo, I have split loyalties. 

From an update standpoint, AC is leading Pomona-Pitzer 5-0 about midway through.  Here's hoping the 'Roos can hang on and get a win!