MBB: Great South Athletic Conference

[Spencer Beaty]

sounds like somebody cares more about postseason awards than the games being played.  NO big deal but I would personally take any of the three MC players over green in a heartbeat...no offense.

[MC wild animal]

Apparently, winning is bad these days.  I am curious to see if Maryville WINS the GSAC tournament will they fall out of the top 8 in the South region rankings?  By the way, I thought Bowers had a strong case to be Co-MVP with Jake Baldwin.  After I saw the All-Conference team, I saw Bowers over in the gym working on his game.  To me, that said it all.  He just wants to lead his team to Salem.  I can't wait to arrive in Demorest!

[old_lion]

Grubb,

Surprised? Maybe that's because you are a former POY who has a little insight into the value a true PG brings to the table.

The selectors really s/b more honest and just call it the all-scoring team. Rule of thumb in the gsac ... if you ain't one of the top scorers ... you ain't s**t!

Apparently accomplishments in other areas mean nothing. I apologize for the cut and paste below ... for some reason I can't get links to specific areas of the ncaa.org site to work.

Jake Green's national rankings from ncaa.org:

Prior years:
Yearly National Rankings 
Year        Category          Rank  Actual  National Leader  Actual 
2006-07  Assists Per Game  10  6.3  David Arseneault , Grinnell  8.5 
2005-06  Assists Per Game  43  5.0  David Arseneault , Grinnell  8.6 
2004-05  Steals Per Game  50  2.3  Keith Darden , Concordia-Austin  3.8 
2004-05  Assists Per Game  4  7.1  John Ancrum , Elms  8.4   

This year:
Assists Per Game (500 ranked)  16th  5.7
Steals Per Game (500 ranked)  27th  2.6

Personally, I think it is an embarrassment to the gsac that a player could be the conference leader in assists for 4 straight years and never make an all conference team. And on top of that, be the conference leader in steals, as well ... IMHO, it's not a reflection of the player's true value ... but it says a heck of a lot about the mind sets of the people making the selections.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Apparently, winning is bad these days.  I am curious to see if Maryville WINS the GSAC tournament will they fall out of the top 8 in the South region rankings? 

Doubtful, but we'll never know.  Today was the last public regional rankings; selection is based on rankings after all conference tourneys, but they are not aired publicly.

But, relax - Murvul is an absolute lock for a pool B, win or lose.

[old_lion]

sounds like somebody cares more about postseason awards than the games being played.  NO big deal but I would personally take any of the three MC players over green in a heartbeat...no offense.

Spence,

That's an awfully silly and unnecessary statement ... no offense ... probably not worthy of a response. But hey, that's never stopped me before.   

You don't think it's possible to care about both?  I can think about one without losing the capacity to care about the other. I can even go back and forth ... 

[batteredbard]

Its the constrictions of a team chosen by coaches in a four team league.

It appears I may have misworded that last post. I shouldn't say apply as there are hoops to jump through before you can apply to a conference. So lets say the flirting stage may have begun.
Have to wait to May to see if it goes anywhere. Thats when the USAC's next big meeting of ADS and Presidents takes place. I don't believe Maryville has ever gone before, be interesting to see if they come up with a football issue as a reason to attend this time

[scottiedoug]

Jake Green ought to be all GSAC.  Last year, too.  And not to replace any one of the other four. 

I appreciate Ralph's work on the conference alignments, although I do not see that time allows for the salvation of the GSAC.

[Ralph Turner]

I appreciate Ralph's work on the conference alignments, although I do not see that time allows for the salvation of the GSAC.

Thanks for the kind words, scottiedoug.  Good luck to Murvul in the playoffs!

[old_lion]

Jake Green ought to be all GSAC.  Last year, too. 

Scottie, I appreciate your sentiments. From the comments I'm hearing, you are apparently one of many who are dismayed by his omission ... again.

Frankly, I'm having difficulty imagining the thought processes that occurred in that meeting that could have yielded such results.     Word on the street is that, even as we speak, a team of investigative reporters is working feverishly to get to the bottom of this.      Stay tuned ...

All kidding aside ...

Let me be clear ... I don't have a problem with anyone who made it ... I think they were all worthy. I just don't understand how you leave off the best PG in the league ... repeatedly. 

I just don't understand how they could arrive at such FUBAR results, again. I mean come on ... only 8 guys, again ... scorers only, again. 

Only a couple of possible answers come to mind ... and I don't like either one of them. Seems to me it either has to be lack of insight or lack of caring. If I had to choose one of the two, I guess I'd have to go with apathy. Because frankly, I just can't believe that collectively, a group of guys who do basketball for a living could actually be that un insightful.

Either way, it's just unfortunate that the whole thing wasn't handled more responsibly ...

[mattgrubb]

i would have to agree a great point guard makes a huge difference and it is apparent the best pg in the league got left off of the all conference team

[old_lion]

This just in ... a crack team of investigative reporters have gained access to the minutes of the meeting of the "gsac brain trust" where the all-conference selections were made. 
This explains a lot.
Enjoy.
(Note: Names have been omitted to protect the apathetic.)


All right, let's get down to business. We'll select 8 guys ...

Wait ... I thought we talked about this ... why only 8 guys?

Because we have only 4 teams.

And that is relevant how?

Pay attention boy... I want to go to lunch ... 4 teams, 8 guys, 2 per team ...

But we picked 3 from Murvul last year.

That's because Murvul finished first.

So 2 per team is not really the criteria? I thought we were trying to fix this ...

Listen, you're thinking too much ... at this rate, we'll never beat the lunch crowd ...

And another thing, no other conference counts their # of teams and then multiplies by 2. Isn't that sort of arbitrary, in fact, absurd? I don't know about you guys, but I don't like looking like I need to make a trip to Oz to see if I can get a brain ...

Jeez, you're busting my balls here ...

And besides, they don't do that multiply the number of teams by 2 crap on the women's side ...

Yeah, but they are just girls. Everybody knows girls ain't good at math.

Huh?

Never mind. Can we just move on here?

But hold up ... picking 8 is just silly. It's has no reasonable basis in logic. In fact, it makes us seem sort of  ... I don't know, simple minded ... and stubborn.  I mean, we all know that having only 8 on an all conference team is absurd. Who does that, seriously?  Now it's just going to seem like we aren't men enough to admit we made a mistake last year and fix it. Think about it ... all other conferences pick their teams in increments of 5 ...

Increments? What's the heck is an increment?

Just listen ... you know, groups of 5 ... like we play, five guys per team.  First team, second team, etc. ... why can't we just do it like all the other conferences?

We ain't like other conferences.

You can say that again.

We ain't like other conferences.

No, I didn't mean ... never mind ...

I'm starving here ... can we move on?

OK, OK ... we pick 8. Let's discuss the criteria we should be considering ...

Son, you making this way too complicated ... the rest is easy ... we just print out the list of top scorers ...

Hold up, this is important ... shouldn't we seriously be trying to recognize the guys who have made the most significant contributions ... in all aspects of the game?

Ass what? Jeez boy! You and all your thinking! You are giving me a serious headache. Just listen ... it don't take no thinking to finish this up. It's simple ... we just go down the list till we hit the 3rd Murvul guy.
 
1.Jake Baldwin-PCM.........    24  257   28  131  673  28.0
2.Demetris Render-LCM......    24  179   11  142  511  21.3
3.Jeremy Pittman-HCM.......    25  159   12   86  416  16.6
4.Alex Bowers-MCM..........    24  130   46   73  379  15.8
5.Joe Cromwell-LCM.........    24  151   15   44  361  15.0
6.Samuel Coppage-PCM.......    25  113   37   86  349  14.0
7.Michael Rubio-PCM........    24   92   46   89  319  13.3
8.Eryk Watson-MCM..........    24   98   20   77  293  12.2
9.Caleb Smallwood-LCM......    24  100   23   63  286  11.9
10.Christopher Orr-MCM......    24  120    0   25  265  11.0

That gives us Bowers, Watson, and Orr.  Piedmont was 2nd, so we start back at the top and get Baldwin and Coppage ...

But shouldn't we be considering ...

Will you shut up?  I ain't finished. Next we get the top 2 from LaGrange ... Render and Cromwell. Then we pick 1 from the last place team, that'd be Pittman, and we're done. See it's simple if you'd just quit thinking so much.

Can't we just slow down for a minute and give this a little thoughtful consideration? I know all the casual fan pays attention to  is scoring ... but we're supposed to be basketball guys with a little more insight into the subtleties of the game ... Shouldn't we be considering ... defense, rebounding, assists, steals, intangibles ....

Is all that crap on the scoreboard? Let's go ... I'm hungry.

Just wait a minute. We are talking about recognizing a lot of effort here. Guys have put their hearts and souls into this. What about considering the intangibles ... leadership, making your teammates better, quarterbacking the team ...

Quarterbacking? Son, this is a basketball meeting ...


Oh never mind ... I'm whizzing in the wind here and I'm getting soaked. Let's go eat.

Now you're talking. See, it ain't so hard when you just quit thinking so much. I never could understand all the fuss about agonizing over leaving off the guys who were right on the cusp of making it ... you just pick the top scorers ... done, no thinking required.  What the heck is a cusp, anyway?

Never mind. Let's go eat.

That concludes the official transcript. Let the record show that the other members of the committee were apparently sitting quietly with their thumbs firmly up ...  Well, you get the picture.    



Quote for the day:
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
   - Henry Ford -

[MC wild animal]

All I care about is the five guys who walk off the floor with the GSAC trophy. In any case, Green has been a solid PG since his freshmen year. Unfortunately, life is not always fair.

[Pat Coleman]

Just listen ... you know, groups of 5 ... like we play, five guys per team.  First team, second team, etc. ... why can't we just do it like all the other conferences?

We ain't like other conferences.

You can say that again.

We ain't like other conferences.

Indeed, other conferences don't have 2.0 players per team on their All-Conference team either. That would be like having an All-SCAC team of 20 players.

All the children are above average, after all.

[old_lion]

Indeed, other conferences don't have 2.0 players per team on their All-Conference team either. That would be like having an All-SCAC team of 20 players.

If the SCAC wanted to pick a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th team, I don't think that would be unreasonable or unheard off.
Some even pick a few honorable mentions ...

For example:
Here's 21, 28 including honorable mention ...
http://gomarquette.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/030507aad.html

But I'm not aware of any conferences who use the "times 2 factor" ... maybe you are. I just don't see the downside of picking a 1st and 2nd team ... and recognizing a couple more guys. Maybe you do ...

All the children are above average, after all.

Nice comment. 

[old_lion]

Unfortunately, life is not always fair.

No argument on that point.

I just hope for logical and reasonable ... I'm frequently disappointed.   

But I feel we should pick our battles and all speak up from time to time on things we feel are particularly absurd.
My hope is that just maybe people can be made to stop and reconsider things sometimes ... nothing ventured, nothing gained ...