WBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[airball1]

Coaches should receive ballots this week and respond by the end of the week. The earlier fan's summation is pretty good. DePauw should be the odds on favorite. Trinity and Oglethorpe basically return the same teams. Southwestern should improve. Watch out for Rhodes! They are loading up. Austin is a newcomer and did ok in its previous conference. Hendrix has a good point but lost some key people as well as Sewanee. Millsaps lost Roser and a couple of others but have a new coach and Centre is building. KEY GAMES: Trinity plays DePauw away once and Oglethorpe once at home and Rhodes & Southwestern twice. DePauw plays at Rhodes Trinity & SW Home and OU home and away. OU plays Trinity & SW away, DePauw home & away and Rhodes home and away. Schedule advantages this year lean toward Depauw and they are also the best team. They will be hard to catch. Southwestern upset both Trinity and OU last season and they will be improved. And watch out for Rhodes. They have DePauw at home and they are hard to beat in Memphis.
Should be an interesting year.

[wbballfan10]

"Here's some scoop...Trinity had a closed scrimmage on Saturday vs. St. Mary's and Coach Kielsmeier from Howard Payne showed up...Is that legal???"

[moseshightower]

That is interesting.  I think that's illegal.  Trinity had its second scrimmage last night against those UT Longhorns.  A 78-29 loss, similar result to two years ago when both programs were in the top 10 in the country.

[roaring0506]

If its a closed scrimmage, then no one should have been able to get in (my question would be were parents and other Trinity fans at the game).  A scrimmage cannot be promoted in any way... so how did HPU and St. Mary's know when the scrimmage was going to take place? 

[The Departed]

An action like this from HPU doesn't surprise me at all...On to the game Friday, any predictions? 

If Trinity can shut down Meia Daniels, HPU is done.  Although this is no easy job, Trinity has some phenomenal on the ball defenders and plays excellent team defense.  On the offensive end, expect people who were roll players for TU last year to step up into big time starting rolls this season.  You heard it here first, by the end of the year Trinity will be regarded as one of the top 5 teams in the country.  As for the HSU game on Saturday, this could be a tough one for the Tigers, especially only 24 hours after a tough game in Brownwood.

[roaring0506]

DePauw finally has new 06-07 roster up.

Looks like they added some size with their eight new freshman:
Kelsey Flanagan  5-8 Guard
Tina Frierson  5-7  Guard
Katie O'Connor  5-11 Guard
K.C. Stoll  5-11 Guard
Kristin Barrow  6-1 Forward
Jenna Fernandez  5-11 Forward
Emily Marshall  6-1 Forward
Meghan Warner 6-0 Forward

DePauw tips off this weekend vs. #10 Washington University.  DePauw has never beaten WashU, so it will be exciting to see whether the Tigers have what it takes this season to get over the hump.  I'm sure the DePauw girls from St. Louis (Bailey, Lowes, Fernandez, Stoll, and Marshall) would like to take this one home for bragging rights.

And The Departed, I would agree that we could see two SCAC schools in the top 5/10 this season.  Should be a great year in the SCAC!

[Borat...NOT]

Anyone have preseason predictions on the SCAC??? I think it's going to shake out this way

1. Trinity
2. DePauw
3. Oglethorpe
4. Hendrix
5. Rhodes
6. Austin College
7. Southwestern
8. Sewanee
9. Millsaps
10. Centre

Trinity and DePauw are pretty interchangable from my point of view.  Not knowing very much about the new DePauw freshman, has anyone had a chance to see them play?  I've heard Trinity has 4 freshman, only 1 of which will see any playing time at the beginning of the season but they are all tall also, the shortest being 5'9". 

[roaring0506]

DePauw has played in two scrimmages, in which I had the opportunity to watch one of them.  They won their first game (against a D3 program) easily, and in a tighter competition, beat out a quality D2 program.  They have one of their big kids out right recovering from surgery, but stepping up to fill that void are a couple of freshman and sophomores.  I'm not sure how much room there will be in the back court in having any of the freshman playing this season when you return both point guards from last year (2nd and 3rd team All-SCAC last year), and four guards who either started or played in all 30 games last year (unless they were injured).  Now... that's not to say the freshman that were brought in aren't talented!

And Borat... I'd have to disagree with you in when you said that Millsaps is "garbage" (mentioned on the other message board - Also, they lost to DePauw in the SCAC tournament, not Trinity).  They were VERY young last year, and their best players were freshman.  That can only mean good things for them this year, especially with a year under their belt and a new coach.  They may not finish in the top of the conference... but with the quality of teams there are in the SCAC this year, that's not saying that much.  The SCAC is one of the strongest conferences in the country this year. 

Here were my picks for SCAC (obviously I am showing bias towards DePauw)
1. DePauw
2. Trinity
3. Oglethorpe
4. Southwestern
5. Rhodes
6. Hendrix
7. Austin
8. Millsaps
9. Sewanee
10. Centre

It's good to finally see this message board alive.  Any information on how Trinity's looked in scrimmages.. Impact of freshman.  Other schools in the SCAC?

[d3bballfollower]

lookout for Southwestern...Coach Ruder has been there a year now and the returners should have her system down pretty well...with Azizi and George down low and a few guards who can shoot the ball, including a transfer who I heard can shoot lights out, they will be a lot better than last year if they can put it all together...they will be a tough matup for anyone except for maybe depauw

[Borat...NOT]

One of Trinity's freshman is still inactive because she played soccer all fall.  The soccer team just lost and she should be joining the team in the near future.  There is a freshman forward, Carlee Culver who saw over 20 minutes of playing time in the Exhibition game against Texas.  She hit two threes but it's hard to judge from a game like that.  There is another freshman, Scheneeka McNair who looks to have alot of potential.  I think she is more of a project though, she is very raw and probably won't contribute much this year but could be a force down the road. 

Other notes from the exhibition game at Texas.  Trinity played much better in the second half.  Texas looked to be playing their normal rotation for the entire game and Trinity came out more aggressive.  They looked very intimidated in the first half and were down by almost 40 points at half, in the second half they were only outscored by around 10.  Kate Dawson was very aggressive taking the ball to the basket and Krista Prato Matthews looked as quick as the Texas posts.  If she can consistently play like she did at times last season (scoring 27 with 14 boards in one game), the offense might be better than the defense. 

As for Millsaps, I agree with your points about them being young and having a new coach and such...it also looks like they have a new sophomore transfer who could contribute, however you are still picking them to be worse than all but 2 teams in the SCAC.  Garbage may have been too strong of a term for the quality of their team but I don't know how you can argue they are a decent team and then pick them to be 8th place in the conference, the same place they finished last year and late year they only won 7 or 8 games total.  t

[scaccommish]

DePauw women huge favorite to repeat in 2006-07 SCAC Basketball Title chase

SUWANEE, Ga. - It will be difficult to duplicate the success the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference experienced last season. The league sent a record-tying three women's basketball teams to the NCAA Division III Tournament, including SCAC champion DePauw University who made it all the way to the Elite Eight.

With four starters returning, including last year's SCAC Player-of-the-Year Liz Bondi, it is no surprise that DePauw is once again the favorite to win the league championship. The DU Tigers, who received nine of 10 first-place votes (99 points total) from the league's sports information directors, have won or shared the SCAC title six times since joining the league in 1998-99.

For the complete release:
http://www.scac-online.org/basketball_womens

[Ralph Turner]

I am really interested in how Austin College will fare in the SCAC.  They went 10-10 in the ASC-East last year.

The Lady Roos lost a player in mid-season to a tragic automobile accident,

http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=1526.547

and recovered nicely.

[roaring0506]

I do think they (Millsaps) are a decent team though (having only to judge them on last years team).  Whether or not they are ranked 8th in the conference doesn't mean their a bad team.  Last year in the conference tournament, they lost the game by 19 to DePauw (in the second half, they battled DePauw to lose by two points 39-37).  Obviously, DPU was the stronger team so they should have won, but it shows the ability level of the Millsaps team.  They also took games from both S'Western and Hendrix last year.  I'll reiterate that I think the SCAC is one of the best conferences in the nation this year... DePauw, Trinity, Oglethorpe, Southwestern, Rhodes, and Hendrix.  Those are some tough teams.  Do I think Millsaps is better than those teams.  No.  But I don't think a lot of "good" teams across the country could beat those teams either.  I put Austin in front of Millsaps solely because I know nothing about them except they come from a relatively strong conference. 

I hope this helps you understand where I'm coming from.

[Borat...NOT]

That was pretty much my thinking on Austin also. 

I'll be traveling to Brownwood tonight for the Trinity-Howard Payne game.  It should be a good one, lets hope the SCAC can get the year started on the right foot.  Are any other SCAC teams in action tonight?

[roaring0506]

DePauw vs. #10 Washington (Mo.) University, 6:00 CST

GO TIGERS!!