MBB: Colonial States Athletic Conference

[MR. PAC]

HEY WOLFPACK HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU SEEN THE VERN PLAY.

[Pat Coleman]

HEY MR. PAC WHY DON'T YOU turn off the caps lock. Thanks.

[chizwiz]

I FEEL BAD FOR THE VERN BY DRAWING A VERY TALENTED LINCOLN TEAM. THE VERN AFTER GOING 23-4 WAS LOOKING TO POSSIBLY HOST NOT ONLY DO THEY DO NOT HOST A HOME GAME THEY GET TO PLAY LINCOLN ON THE ROAD WHICH WAS A RIDICULOUS DRAW. I ALSO THINK THEY COULD HAVE BEATEN CATHOLIC, MESSIAH AND JOHNS HOPKINS BECAUSE THEY MATCH UP WELL WITH THOSE TEAMS.

HEY, LET'S ALL TALK VERY LOUD FOR NO REASON. AND USE MULTIPLE SMILIES.  Mr. PAC, please, take off the caps.  It's a shame you haven't learned this yet.

Listen, Alvernia lost to Lincoln.  Which means they don't deserve to go any further in the tournament.  They get who they get.  I thought they were better than Lincoln, but they were beaten anyway.  Yes, they were probably better than Messiah and maybe Catholic, but I doubt the Vern could beat Hopkins.

Also, 23-4 isn't as respectable as one would think.  They lost to Cal-Luth and George Fox, both are average teams.  They only beat one very good team in B-W, but that was out of region and early.  With losses to Neumann and Gwynedd, two average teams with ho-hum records, there is little Alvernia could do to earn respect from the committee in giving them a host site.  QOWI, buddy.

[WolfPAC]

HEY WOLFPACK HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU SEEN THE VERN PLAY.

As many times as Cabrini has played a game there before you were born probably.                                                                                                      As many times Jack McCloskey lost to John Dzik?  I only saw Vern play once this year at GMC and the Immac game.   


How come I never see you at the Graveyard after a game at the Vern?

[MR. PAC]

chizwiz, I agree with half of what you said. I think Alvernia could beat Johns Hopkins because Alvernia is a great three point shooting team, and I also think Johns Hopkins can't guard outside the three point area. And I don't know who could stop Matt King or Terrence Shawell on Johns Hopkins. WolfPac Coach Miller handed John Dzik his last loss ever.

[WolfPAC]

chizwiz, I agree with half of what you said. I think Alvernia could beat Johns Hopkins because Alvernia is a great three point shooting team, and I also think Johns Hopkins can't guard outside the three point area. And I don't know who could stop Matt King or Terrence Shawell on Johns Hopkins. WolfPac Coach Miller handed John Dzik his last loss ever.

Obviously Dzik lost and coached his last game at the Vern to Miller but I was at every game Cabrini played there including Miller's games as well as the 80 ft buzzer beater for the Pac crown.    Loved Damien Hunter being frustrated by Tim Anderlonis wasn't it great!  Your team was so good but could not win the PAC against Cabrini in a title game even with the cheap refs on your side.   No hard feelings, the Vern is the best the PAC has to offer these days.   Your institution is committed at least to your students which is better than Cabrini could even hope for at the moment.

It is hard to win a game living and dying on 3 pt shots.  Defense wins games with good coaching.  As you say if Hopkins can't defend the 3's then Alvernia has a win, but defense beats the 3 any day. 

The Vern should be proud at any rate, they are the PAC champions. 

[WolfPAC]

Happy March Madness to all.

Enjoy the time of the season when you can sit back and just watch!

[MR. PAC]

Alvernia on the front page of d3hoops

[lefty2]

WolfPAC,

There are certainly those who would argue that the "80-foot buzzer-beater" that gave Cabrini one of their PAC titles (at Alvernia) didn't actually beat the buzzer.

[Jon]

Thanks for bringing that one up left-hander...I wouldn't have been able to start it without the sour grapes alarm going off, but now that the subject has been opened up I believe it was Kenny Mayne who supported that very thought after a few replays oas ESPN's No. 1, Top Ten play that fatefull February day.

[WolfPAC]

The other ironic thing is that the guy who shot the 80 footer at the Vern

Kareem Brunson was a disappearing act.  Almost as if he came in and played just to make that shot.  I would not want to be an Alvernia fan on that day!  Just fate.

Anyhow..... thats the way it goes I won't dwell on the past though.

Seriously, Alvernia deserves credit for being the best team in the PAC and the most consistent team in the PAC.

I also must say whenever I attend a game at the PEC the staff as well as the food and ticket people are always courteous to everyone where ever one  may come from to see them play.  Just sometimes it can get emotional when the fans get into it.  Dangerous to get emotional when you are a player trying to focus though which is what happens often enough on the bench.

If the season is over for Pac basketball this year then I must honestly congratulate the Crusaders and thank Jon for a great season.  If all the schools in the PAc would take their sports as seriously as the admn at the Vern maybe the PAC would be even more formidable.

Thx for all your updates as well Jon.... very useful and informative.
Have a good off season unless you are going to follow the tournament.

Jon, Catholic does look a little dim, the refs tended to swallow the whistle as well whenever I was down there it seemed like they were not used to "Philly" ball inside ram it down the throat power like we used to do down there.  All in all though still the atmosphere was exciting.  Shopping for the wife was great as well down there.

If anyone gets any news on the realignment of the PAC would you be kind enough to post it.  Everyone out there have a good night.

[chairman]

WolfPAC--

Thanks for coming back. A couple responses to earlier posts and then I'll go away. First, in response to parking at Eastern. It is terrible, and the gym is small. I think K hit on a lot of things when he talked about young schools that are growing and need time to accumulate endowments and grow an alumni base. While the Eastern parking situation will never be great. There just is not available land. If you look at the cost per square foot of land in St. Davids, you know that EU will not be able to purchase land in any sizable quantity (Unless Cabrini goes up for sale ). the second problem is that the local governing bodies need to grant permission for the school to pull a weed, much less fell a tree. It's easy to say from the outside to tell the local governments to pound sand, but when you have two new residence halls in various stages of planning and construction, and you hope to build a new gym/ fitness center, and a new academic building in the near future, you have to jump through hoops for the township. As close as Cabrini and Eastern are, they deal with different township groups in permitting etc.

Secondly, your call for greater media attention to PAC accomplishments etc is something that the conference needs to address. Unfortunately for EU, Cabrini, Gwynedd-Mercy, and to a lesser extent Immaculata, they are all in a market with a lot of other collegiate action happening. PAC basketball gets several column inches in Scranton, Dallas, Reading, and Dover, but those are markets with slightly more available space. There are things being done, such as the Philly COSIDA All-Academic team that allow PAC Athletes to be recognized alongside kids from Villanova, Drexel, LaSalle, as well as Ursinus, Haverford, and Swarthmore. The PAC has done a pretty good job of getting kids on those lists. I believe there is a PAC player on the upcoming MBB list, which only has 5 guys on it.

In looking at the PAC as a whole, and it's overall health as an institution, I think there are a few simple things that can be done to up the quality of the league as an overall athletic conference. The first thing, ironically, has nothing to do with men's basketball. The first thing I would do if I were the conference commissioner would be to tell the three schools that do not admit men, that they have three choices. They can A) admit men and field teams for men's and women's sports. B) Demonstrate a genuine commitment to developing winning athletic programs through the hiring of full time coaches and institution of building plans, or C) leave. Rosemont and Cedar Crest would choose C) I believe Notre Dame would choose B) in the short run and maybe develop a plan for a. This is just my opinion, but I think that a 9/12 league with 3 teams on the women's side at or near the bottom of every sport every year is not a good paradigm. Immaculata has begun to make progress in a few key sports, and the others will follow over the next four to ten years, and the conference needs that.

The second thing I would do if I were the Commish would be to institute pressure on the presidents to establish minimum facility requirements (800-1000 person capacity with locker room space for four teams, wireless internet connection and working lights, ever notice how dim it is in a lot of the PAC gyms? That's a simple change that could make a big difference. I would demand that every institution fund at least an audio stream of every home basketball game, and would highly encourage the same for games in other seasons. Unfunded mandates stink, but pressure from the conference could help to further sell building projects at EU, Neumann, Centenary, and any of the women's colleges that stick around. Immaculata's gym could be retrofitted with a second side of bleachers (They could just bring in some from their soccer lacrosse facility which has seating for 27,000 people).

Finally, I would look at each sport and identify teams that finish in the bottom three for three or more consecutive years and examine the institutional responses. Institutions that do not respond, need to be prodded to respond. Their choice to sponsor a team in a given sport needs to be questioned, and institutions should have to develop a strategic plan for addressing the issue in that sport. The situation is not that common in basketball, Cedar Crest Women have been bottom two for several years running. Eastern's Women finished bottom two the last two years, but the institutional response has already been made, and there will be a change in leadership there. Cabrini's institutional response came after really just one year, and should Marywood finish in the bottom three (maybe the right number is bottom two) again next year, they should have to present to the league a strategic plan for changing things.

I don't know of any leagues that do such a thing, but I think that there needs to be accountability in the league for running entire athletic departments, and not just sponsoring a bunch of sports so that you can run a couple to win. As the athletic departments grow this way, the league will grow and basketball (which is the linchpin) will continue to get stronger and more competitive within the region.

[Coach K]

Is it safe to say that Alvernia and Miseri would have to stay out of the conference one year, or would they be allowed in for 07-08 immediately?

[chizwiz]

Is it safe to say that Alvernia and Miseri would have to stay out of the conference one year, or would they be allowed in for 07-08 immediately?

I'm just thinking out loud here, but I think 07-08 start for Alvernia and Miseri in the Freedom is too early.  I imagine it would be 08-09 or 09-10.

[chairman]

Alvernia was originally offered a spot at the same time as Arcadia, but something happened. I'm not sure whether they stepped away or whether the MAC rescinded their offer. There would be no way that fall scheduling could be redone to add two new teams to the Freedom. Had they offered the spots as soon as Scranton left, then they might have been able to take one in 07 and one in 08.
I'm not sold on the Freedom as a great League for Alvernia, and would not be surprised if both schools snubbed the MAC.