BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

...  Trinity proved on the field exactly what I've been pointing out over the last couple of weeks and it's a shame that weaker conferences have a far better chance of producing a Pool C team than a stronger conference like the SCAC.

Frank, I still must be missing some statistic or quantifiable or historical data that you have uncovered that tells us D3baseball fans that weaker conferences are getting the Pool C bids in the tourney, preferentially over stronger conferences.

Please share with me those points and I will share it with Jim Dixon for an off-season analysis of the trends in the playoffs and in Pool C.

Over on the national tourney board, I proposed that there were 80-90 schools that were playoff quality because of the parity that we are seeing.  When Mr Ypsi followed up on a post to Massey Ratings and showed where Webster and Adrian had been rated, he pushed that number to about 120.

Thanks in advance of reading your research.   

[frank_ezelle]

Ralph, you highlighted the word conference and I probably shouldn't have used conference since in most cases that only amounts to half of a schedule.  I probably should have either phrased it as a stronger area of a region or maybe just a stronger schedule.

I go back to the tennis example of a 4.0 player playing in a 4.0 league will not have as good a record as a 4.0 player playing in a 3.5 league.  Ideally, there are be rules in place that even up these differences in strength of schedule, but I'm not sure that winning percentage is completely balancing the differences.  Since the NCAA could care less what I think, I'm not going to do a case study on this subject but here are some interesting numbers using the Massey ranking of strength of schedule.  I know the NCAA doesn't use the Massey ranking but it's the only numbers I have available to use.

Pool C teams and their Massey strength of schedule:

Adrian -- 222
Augustana -- 66
Carthage -- 91
Eastern Connecticut State -- 134
George Fox -- 53
Lynchburg -- 47
Montclair State -- ? (Couldn't find on list)
The College of New Jersey -- ? (Couldn't find on list)
Rose-Hulman -- 79
Rowan -- ? (Couldn't find on list)
Southern Maine -- 108
Wisconsin-Oshkosh -- 57
Wisconsin-Whitewater -- 94
Wooster -- 95

Those are not exactly the top of the crop when it comes to playing difficult schedule.  I have no doubt that in other years you will find teams with tough schedules on the list and maybe the three teams I couldn't find have tough schedules.  For the record, here are the strength of schedule for SCAC teams this year:

Millsaps -- 8
Rhodes -- 10
Trinity -- 14
Austin -- 18
Oglethorpe -- 33
Southwestern -- 38
Sewanee -- 44
Hendrix -- 49
DePauw -- 64
Centre -- 151

When you play a tough schedule, it is hard to build the winning percentage needed for a Pool C.  Plus, when your opponents are all playing a tough schedule their winning percentages are lower so you get less credit for beating those teams even with the added layer of winning percentages this year. 

Of course this is all going by the Massey rating and for what it's worth, they had Millsaps as the 17th best team in D3 in 2007 and 19th at the moment in 2008, a high ranking for a team that didn't get one of the at large berths.  Of course, in the eyes of the NCAA the Massey ratings are worth nothing.

[Pat Coleman]

I wouldn't advocate using Massey 2008 ratings. You ought to take a look at the records he cites for teams: 23 games for Chapman, 19 for Trinity CT, 7 for Transylvania ...

[tiger_fan2000]

On a different note, I think the SCAC did a huge injustice their all-SCAC voting.  I know I am biased, but how could Evan Bronson not be pitcher of the year.  His overall numbers were better than Tschantz and no doubt played in a tougher division of the SCAC.  Bronson won both his divisional game and his conference tournament game.  Again, not saying that Tschantz didnt deserve it, but I think Bronson deserved it more.....

[frank_ezelle]

I wouldn't advocate using Massey 2008 ratings. You ought to take a look at the records he cites for teams: 23 games for Chapman, 19 for Trinity CT, 7 for Transylvania ...

Very valid point.  I only looked at that source because Ralph asked for numbers and he had posted a link to the Massey ratings.  Maybe the bottom line is that it would be nice if there were more Pool C bids.  Millsaps in 2006 made it to a regional final.  In 2007 they returned basically the same team, went something like 36-12 with the same basic players (trading one All-American outfielder for another and two transfer pitchers replacing 2 senior starters), and they were left out of Pool C because of the records of the teams they played.  In 2008 the record wasn't as good but the opposition had a far better record--still no dice. 

The 2007 team was certainly capable of winning a regional and this year's team would have been tough to beat based on their showing in the SCAC Tournament and Trinity's showing in the West Regional.  I know other teams are in the same boat, such as Emory this year even though they did lose a lot from last year's runner-up team.  While I'm in favor of AQ's for a lot of leagues, I think there is something wrong when teams that have a reasonable shot of winning a regional are left out of the tournament.  That's just my opinion, one that is obviously not shared by the NCAA.

[frank_ezelle]

As indicated by tiger_fan2000, the SCAC baseball honors have been announced:

"SUWANEE, Ga. – Hunter Owen of Millsaps College was named the league's Offensive Player-of-the-Year for the second consecutive season and John Tschantz of DePauw University was selected the league's Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2008 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference's head coaches. In that same balloting, Sam Hill of Birmingham-Southern was selected as the conference's Freshman-of-the-Year and Trinity University head coach Tim Scannell was named the SCAC Coach-of-the-Year."

For the complete story got to http://www.scac-online.org/ and go to the baseball section.  And with that I had better drop off the baseball board for this year as my dropping karma indicates that it is time to move on to other things.

[AGMAN]

Congratulations to Trinity(TX) Tigers Evan Jones, Brian Oates, and Evan Bronson for their selection to the 2008 American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings NCAA III All-West Region Team.  The complete listing can be found on:  National topics  |  Topic: All-Region Teams.

[Major_Fan]

Congratulations to Trinity(TX) Tigers Evan Jones, Brian Oates, and Evan Bronson for their selection to the 2008 American Baseball Coaches Association/Rawlings NCAA III All-West Region Team.  The complete listing can be found on:  National topics  |  Topic: All-Region Teams.

... and to Daniel Ward (Hendrix) and Richard Falcone (S'western) in the West Region as well as Hunter Owen and Hunter Abrams from Millsaps and Richard Hurd and Matt Beesley from Rhodes on the All-South Region Team!! 

[Krakatoa]

Okay, now that whatever was happening up in Wisconsin is over, let's look at the SCAC for the '09 season!!

Which teams are returning most of their starters?  How does returning pitching look?  Anyone care to make any predictions eight months out?   

[LargeTuna21]

If you ever needed proff that the Division 3 ranking system makes no sense, look no further than the final ABCA Top 30. How is Trinity not ranked at 35-15 after reaching the Regional Final? Not only that, but East Bay is listed as "others receiving votes" and Trinity doesn't even get that mention even though they beat East Bay easily twice in the same regional. They may as well just do away with the ranking system in general.

[Pat Coleman]

Final D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25: http://www.d3baseball.com/top25/2008/week-14

[Ron Boerger]

Congratulations to TU pitcher Evan Bronson, drafted by Milwaukee in the 36th round.   Former TU standout Chuck Huggins (UCSB) was drafted in the 23rd round by the Blue Jays. 

[ILVBB]

The SCAC is an anomaly as far as conferences go in that the distances between schools is far greater than any other D3 conference. The past two seasons, each team played a 4-game series within the division. Next season it is my understanding that each divisional team will play a home and an away series.

Each school has just committed to double their conference travel budget. On top of that travel costs have generally gone up 25% in the last few months. Effectively, travel costs for conference games just went up 150% (current cost x 2 x 1.25).

I suspect that athletic directors have yet to focus on this increase in cost. I know that my son's program was as lean as possible with a good deal of funding coming directly from parents. Given this new economy is the SCAC becoming impractical? Given a increase in costs (what was $100 last season will be $250 next season) will any teams elect to forfeit a series so that they can remain within budget? Or am I out of my mind and seeing a problem that does not really exist?

[Ralph Turner]

I don't think that you are out of your mind, but these schools have chosen to align themselves as peer institutions.  There are some relative haves and have-nots, and that depends on the respective adminstrations' wishes to invest in the SCAC itself.

Others may cut this group differently but the "haves" include Trinity, DePauw, Colorado College and probably Southwestern, with its $350M endowment and growing.

Birmingham-Southern wants to be here instead of D-I.
Oglethorpe wants to be here, instead of in the GSAC or USA South.
Hendrix wants to be here so badly that they added football.
Austin College wants to be here so badly that they committed to the extra expense of the SCAC, instead of "just getting by" in the ASC.

Centre, Millsaps, Rhodes and Sewanee are the old guard.  They aren't changing for anything.  What these four schools want to do is probably what carries.

[frank_ezelle]

Congratulations need to be given to Major_Fan (aka the Millsaps Sports Information Department) for the Millsaps baseball media guide winning an award as the best in D3 baseball this season:

"PHILADELPHIA, Penn. – Temple University Associate Director of Media Relations Cathy Bongiovi announced today the contest results for CoSIDA's 2008 Division C baseball media guide category as Millsaps College's 60-page publication designed by the sports information department was named "Best in the Nation" amongst Division III schools."

Link to full story:  http://www.millsaps.edu/athletic/baseball/061208story.shtml

Link to online media guide:  http://www.millsaps.edu/athletic/baseball/2008_baseball_mediaguide.pdf

It's a well deserved award.