Pool C

[Mr. Ypsi]

So who reads alumni magazines?

Since Denny Bridges must be at least mid 70s by now (maybe 80), not surprised to hear of his retirement, but no I missed that.

Big Mike, switching Gregory from IWU to Wheaton - you don't even want to know what sort of trouble you're in now!

And, BM (seems an appropriate set of initials ), I guess it never occurred to you that IWU might also have been in a down period.  I would love a rematch, but alas ....  I don't know how it would turn out, but I'd bet big money against a Midd blowout.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Dang, and you made an IWU alumni magazine reference before I could!

I'm glad to see we've moved on to more important issues.  My wife's uncle teaches in the poli-sci department; I think he published a book last year.  I wonder if he made the magazine.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm glad to see we've moved on to more important issues.  My wife's uncle teaches in the poli-sci department; I think he published a book last year.  I wonder if he made the magazine.

I dunno. Hey, let's ask Mr. Ypsi! He's on top of everything IWU-related!

So who reads alumni magazines?

Since Denny Bridges must be at least mid 70s by now (maybe 80), not surprised to hear of his retirement, but no I missed that.

It was in all the papers!

Seriously, Bob made a big post about it, and several other Titans fans chimed in  -- Lanny, Larry, your boy Mark Sheldon ... the usual suspects. I'm astonished that you seem to have missed it, given your quotidian perusal of CCIW Chat. Same with the announcement by Bob that Mike Wagner had been hired as the new AD, although less ballyhoo was made about that than about Bridges retiring (although I'm sure that Mark S. then used it as an excuse to go on endlessly about something IWU-related, probably having to do with the Titans women's track team or searching for the next Yao Ming over in Hong Kong and filling him up with green kool-ade).

Big Mike, switching Gregory from IWU to Wheaton - you don't even want to know what sort of trouble you're in now!

Do we really want to keep track of what he doesn't know?

And, BM (seems an appropriate set of initials )

Now, that is funny!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Don't feel bad, Chuck, I had forgotten Dennie Bridges continued to work there after he stopped coaching basketball until this thread today.  I mean, I did know he was AD, but I had forgotten that I knew that.

[nescac1]

Greg just a few points to wrap this up from my end:

First, if you are not defending the statements I found objectionable in the first place and which inspired this whole discussion, and not disagreeing with my assertion that THIS year it is unfair to denigrate beating northeast competition in the tourney as less impressive than any other path a team might take, I'm not even sure what we are arguing about.  I've said from the outset and continue to say that New England is aberrantly deep in quality this year (although perhaps like the rest of D3, no single New England team appears to be a juggernaut prohibitively favorited to win the tourney.  Midd sure has been on a major roll though). 

How about we agree on this much: this year, the New England teams in the tourney are demonstrably worthy as a group, and going through them to get to the Final Four is a very difficult path.  Whether that is accurate more generally or in past years, we can leave to another day.  And I think we can also agree that New England and NESCAC in particular receive far more scrutiny than any other region/conference here.  Whether that is always fair, sometimes fair, or never fair (my view is "sometimes"), again, I'll leave for another day. 

Second, I have to point out that these are certainly not "mirror statements":

I said that NESCAC may have done better OR worse had the brackets been organized differently.  You've said NESCAC may have done the same or worse but could not possibly have done better.   That you view these statements as equivalent is telling.   

Third, regarding your Williams/Amherst point, if you eliminate from consideration the best two programs from any region (and recall the WIAC teams until very recently were in the West) how many regions have produced more than three final four teams from OTHER programs outside those the top two in the past 15 years?  It's not really fair to say, "well, the region hasn't done that well at getting teams to Salem outside of the top two programs in said region."  I would guess the majority of regions produced fewer (not the midwest, I realize, but I guess all or at least most of the rest).  And I'm betting that this year, at least one maybe two other non-Williams/Amherst teams make it to Salem in all events.  And if they do, I like their chances to prove they belong (especially Midd and if healthy Babson or Tufts). 

For example, you could say, the Great Lakes isn't a deep region because outside of Hope and Wooster, only Wittenburg or Calvin have made the Final Four in the past 15 years.  The reality is that we see some of the same programs in championship games again and again: of 26 title game slots over the past 14 years, Whitewater, Stevens Point, Amherst, Williams, Wash U., St. Thomas, Virginia Wesleyan have combined for 18 of them!  And that group has won ALL of the past 14 titles.  As much as I'd love it to be otherwise, that streak very likely comes to an end in this weird year in which Stevens Point, Amherst, St. Thomas, and VWU are all down by their usual standards, Wash U. fell victim to Stuive's insane game, Whitewater never played to its talent level, and Williams has finally put things together, but only very late in the season and has to (likely) get through the Middlebury buzzsaw on the road should they manage to survive a tough Susquehanah squad.  But lots of teams, from lots of different regions, have been blocked by that group of repeat finalists, which kind of take turns having dominant runs in the tourney.  What makes this year so interesting and so fun is that the champion seemingly can come from ANYONE left (just about) and it's hard to pick out one or two favorites.  Williams, for example, has faced some combination of Wooster (twice in Salem), Virginia Wesleyan (at least twice in regionals), Amherst (twice in regionals, twice in Salem) and the top two WIAC teams (three times in title games) on each of its deep tourney runs, plus St. Thomas once in a regional, and it each case it was fairly predictable that they would.  That sort of predictability seems to have gone by the wayside this year with more and more parity in D3. 

But yes, I'll fully concede in all events that typically having to beat Williams and/or Amherst, certainly two of the top 6-8 programs in all of D3 (St. Thomas, VWU, Wash U, Stevens Point, Whitewater, Wooster would be my others, although I'm sure there are 5-6 other legit candidates, like Hope or IWU, that could stake a strong claim there) over the past 15 years, to make it to Salem poses a big hurdle for other New England squads. 

[Bucket]

So who reads alumni magazines?

Fighting words!

[warriorcat]

So who reads alumni magazines?

Fighting words!

I agree.  I have done so for 40+ years.  In many ways I know more now about what is going on in general at my alma mater than I did when I was a student there.

[AO]

So as usual..we hear these lame arguments about the Midwest teams but when pitted against Northeast, the physicality of Northeast basketball style wears on the Midwesterners who lose their cool or get out-coached or both......

How about we agree on this much: this year, the New England teams in the tourney are demonstrably worthy as a group, and going through them to get to the Final Four is a very difficult path.  Whether that is accurate more generally or in past years, we can leave to another day.

If only someone had done some work and checked to see which brackets were objectively tougher this year.

Bracket Analysis :  Scored by adding rankings of 16 in pod.  Low score equals tougher bracket.

Whitman Pod: 1025 
Babson Pod:  1141
Wisc. River Falls Pod : 563
Middlebury Pod: 1108

Also, Mike are you still pretending to not be the father of a Middlebury player?  Was fun to look through the NESCAC board last night, but I feel like I might have missed some fun deleted posts in there.  We haven't had a family member pretending to be a neutral observer on the West boards for a year or two.

Again, I'm ignoring it because it's not my argument. It's AO's argument. He thinks that the ex-Jeffs didn't belong in the field because their region is weak. I thought that the ex-Jeffs belonged in the field, in large part because: a) the NESCAC was unusually strong this season; and b) they beat Babson, a team that I've seen in person and mightily impressed me.

I think any team should be able to get an at-large bid regardless of how weak their region is.  It should matter more how you performed against your schedule (margin of victory included) rather than merely who is on your schedule.    Maybe Amherst would still get in under a better set of criteria, but they wouldn't have been the easy pick they were under the current criteria.  But mostly, having the NE region's pool C teams win a couple games in the tournament can hardly justify Amherst's pick over any other team that didn't make the tournament and doesn't get the chance to prove their ability.

[amh63]

Strange for me to read all this talk of Alumni Mags here
Having said that, I do read my Alum Mag....for another sad reason.  It brings me up to date on old friends that have passed away in classes other than mine. 
On the other hand....today's social media and online school websites provides the latest and greatest info on a school....filtered info of course.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

nescac1 - who are you talking to? You said "Dave" which I have found more times than not refers to me.. but I haven't even come close to wading into this discussion. I don't have the time or energy (let alone patience) this year to do it... but if it was referring to someone else, then someone is named Dave I don't realize. LOL

[nescac1]

Woops, my bad, meant Greg, sorry Dave!! Edited! 

[NCF]

This, along with the Sweet Sixteen Fantasy draft, have become the most entertaining threads the past two days. Made me want to warm up the left over popcorn from the movies and put my feet up to enjoy the show. However, in the future, you guys should try this. I would pay to watch.....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPIj1g2C_sU

I hope the link works as I'm sending it from school and YouTube is a blocked site, so I can't check it. 

[iwumichigander]

If the argument is "performance in the Final Four is indicative of the strength of the regional," New England Final Four performances over the past 15 years demonstrate conclusively that New England teams that reached the Final Four in the aggregate undoubtedly belonged there.

2003: Williams wins national title
2004: Amherst loses tight game to Williams, Williams loses in title game on last-second shot (Amherst lost in consolation game but they were totally demoralized from losing to their rival at Salem)
2006: Amherst loses by total of 7 points in two games at Salem
2007: Amherst wins national title
2008: Amherst dominates semifinal, gets dominated in title game
2010: Williams wins semifinal, loses tightly-contested title game
2011: Williams and Midd both lose in games that went down to the final possession (and Williams' best player was playing with a broken hand)
2012: MIT loses in semifinal
2013: Amherst wins the national title
2014: Williams dominates Amherst and then loses on last-second shot in title game.
2015: Babson loses badly in semifinal
2016: Amherst loses in semifinal that went down to the last possession

If New England teams were only getting to Salem, as you claim, because they were emerging through weak regionals, you would expect that they would be consistently losing, and losing badly, in semifinal games.  Instead, they generally perform to roughly the statistical average, and when they DO lose, it's generally in a title game or in an extremely close semifinal game.  My point is that I think the strength of other New England teams is generally underrated by many of the posters here who are unfamiliar with them.  In particular THIS YEAR.  The reason no one ever sees them in Salem is that they have the difficult task of beating NESCAC teams to get there -- just like lots of midwest teams have the misfortunate of going through WIAC teams.  But there HAVE in my view been a good number of New England teams that could have performed well in Salem had they not been blocked by Williams/Amherst juggernauts. 

And more generally, you are extremely frustrating to argue you with because you ignore the ENTIRE CONTEXT of this argument, which started with my rebuttal to the following pointed "observation" by AO:

"They can't prove they would be in by any other set of criteria by beating the relatively weak Eastern teams in the tournament."

That is claim entirely specific to THIS YEAR and is what started this whole discussion.  That has NOTHING TO DO WITH what titles CCIW teams may have won in 1982.  I myself said that this year was an atypically strong year for New England as a region, and I stand by that.  So by definition, my very point is that this year is an outlier in terms of New England's exceptional, unusual strength, thanks to a spectacular group of seniors in the reason.  As such, what may have happened decades ago is entirely irrelevant to this discussion.  I took umbrage to AO's initial comment, and you seem to, again, be ignoring the entire context of the argument.  Then you exacerbated things by claiming with no basis (because it's an impossible claim to test) that NESCAC THIS YEAR would have performed worse in the midwest regional, or at least, without any doubt would not have performed better.  Come on, dude, that is a silly statement dripping with disrespect.  Your biases are so ingrained that you can't even recognize it, I guess, and suddenly started bringing in decades of irrelevant data in.  Sorry but the North Park teams from the 1980s have exactly zero to do with the strength of midwest and northeastern teams in 2017.  Zero.  And this year, New England teams beat the two Midwest teams now hosting regionals, which is a pretty good data point. 

As for the CCIW, no national title in TWO DECADES.  By your own logic, that means the CCIW teams who make it to Salem are likely just skating into final fours and when they get there, can't get the job done, right?  Again, I don't think that is remotely the case.  Results in any one game are of course a bit arbitrary and more CCIW teams could easily have won titles, just as three Williams teams were in coin-toss title games, only one of which went our way.  CCIW deserves respect for the final fours and title games it has made over the past few decades, just as NESCAC does, even when those teams don't win.

IWU's coach (Dennie Bridges, now the AD) hated the third place game (A Dunk Only Counts Two Points) since it was such a let-down from the REAL goal.  But I took great pride that IWU NEVER lost a third place game.  Suck it up and play for pride!

BTW, you may or may not be right about TWO DECADES - IWU won in 1997, but I've not yet found whether it was 20 years or just shy of that ago.

Oh please, I was there in 2004.  Amherst players were whining in pre-game and it had relatively nothing with losing to Williams.  The players made it clear they did not want to be there playing for 3rd.  By the late 1st half, Amherst coach was pulling players off the floor for lack of effort, the few fans and parents left were pouty and, IMO, the lack of sportsmanship displayed pathetic.

[sac]

I wonder what Amherst and Williams tournament history would look like if they had to go through a bracket of WIAC schools every year for 20 years just to get to Salem.   

[iwumichigander]

Don't feel bad, Chuck, I had forgotten Dennie Bridges continued to work there after he stopped coaching basketball until this thread today.  I mean, I did know he was AD, but I had forgotten that I knew that.

And he is still there with Emeritus status, an office on campus and holding 'court' at morning coffee. 
Yes, we publish accomplishment of our faculty
Ypsi, you may not have read the articles but how did you miss Bridges with the walnut and bronze trophies on the front cover of the Alumni Magazine?

And Greg, a little misleading - on the occasion IWU is in the tournament representing the CCIW, you do support and become a "fan" albeit no longer than absolutely possible

And Middlebury, the December 29th game when Rose had the flu, two other players were recovering from flu systems and Seibring took the shot in the back, landed on his tailbone, gripped through the rest of that game and impacted his ability to play for most of the remaining season?