BB: CCIW: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Go Cards]

Thanks

[Gregory Sager]

Other question would be with Carroll rejoining next year creates an imbalance of odd number of teams so what will a conference schedule look like - anyone see anything yet?

First of all, it'll mean that the CCIW slate will have to begin one weekend earlier. It's the only way to get in all of the games.

In the past, the CCIW schedule has been played over six weekends -- four or five weekends in April, plus one or two in May, depending upon how weekends fall on the calendar for that particular spring. That covered six of the seven CCIW three-game series that each team played. During the first week or two of the CCIW portion of the slate (it was all condensed into the first week this past season), the seventh series per team was played on weekdays; it was the week when every CCIW coach had to do some juggling with his pitching staff and went deeper than his usual three weekend starters.

Pushing the CCIW sked forward into the last weekend of March isn't ideal in terms of weather; the average temperature in Chicago in late March, for example, is between 35 and 50 degrees. But it is what it is. Every league in D3 that has nine or more teams plays league games during the last weekend of March. With Carroll in the mix, each CCIW team is going to have to play an additional series. Seven weekends rather than six means that most teams would still only have to play one weekday series. Since the odd number of teams means that someone will have a bye during each series, those weekday series would have to be stretched out beyond the first week or two of the CCIW sked until each of the nine teams had their weekday series covered (and some unfortunate team will have to play two weekday series).

The point is to keep all CCIW series in the warmer-weather part of the season schedule, because CCIW games take priority over non-conference games.

[Ralph Turner]

New to this board so will apologize up front if i am not doing things correctly so fill me in if that isn't the case please.

Hopefully can be a regular who will chime in on NCC baseball and CCIW baseball as well. 

Welcome to the boards Go Cards.

Welcome and +1! 

[BigPoppa]

Fun note: Carroll University Head Coach, Stein Rear, began his playing career at Carthage before moving closer to home at Whitewater.

How do we see Carroll stacking up in the CCIW in 2017? There is quite a jump from the MWC to the CCIW and Carroll was a middle of the pack MWC program.

[Go Cards]

Fun note: Carroll University Head Coach, Stein Rear, began his playing career at Carthage before moving closer to home at Whitewater.

How do we see Carroll stacking up in the CCIW in 2017? There is quite a jump from the MWC to the CCIW and Carroll was a middle of the pack MWC program.

I know Coach Versnik well from Carroll and he said it will be a huge adjustment for them.  Difficult for sure especially in the first years but really a great move for Carroll getting into a tougher conference in his opinion.

Personally I think it is great that another Wisconsin team is back in.  Would be interesting to know if the CCIW is looking at adding any more teams to balance out to an even number but perhaps this is a good number for other sports such as football?

[Gregory Sager]

Personally I think it is great that another Wisconsin team is back in.  Would be interesting to know if the CCIW is looking at adding any more teams to balance out to an even number but perhaps this is a good number for other sports such as football?

The CCIW's presidents aren't really looking to add a tenth full member, so I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. But associate members are another story entirely. Over the past several years the league has added associate members in certain sports that don't have 100% participation from full members. This was done so that the CCIW meets the seven-team minimum requirement for an automatic NCAA tournament bid. Rose-Hulman is an associate member in men's and women's swimming, and Dubuque is an associate member in men's and women's lacrosse; over the past couple of years Carroll has participated in the CCIW as an associate member for men's and women's lacrosse, too. The CCIW has also added Washington (MO) as an associate member for football, starting in the fall of 2018, in part because football is harder to balance, schedule-wise, for odd-numbered leagues due to the fact that football teams play so few games (and only once a week).

Now that football has set a precedent for the league by adding an associate member for reasons other than meeting the seven-team NCAA minimum, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the CCIW added an associate member for baseball and softball (a tenth member for one sport would pretty likely mean a tenth for the other). As I detailed the other day, adding Carroll means that the CCIW baseball schedule is now going to be extremely cramped. Adding a tenth member would eliminate the byes, but it wouldn't make the CCIW season any shorter. However, it wouldn't make it any longer, either, and it would eliminate any possible unfairness in terms of when each particular team gets its bye. Adding a tenth team would therefore have some logic behind it.

There are only three reasonable candidates for CCIW associate membership in baseball: Chicago, Maranatha Baptist, and Illinois Tech, the latter of which put its baseball program on a one-year hiatus for this past season due to a hazing incident in 2015. Maranatha Baptist and Illinois Tech are independents in every sport; Chicago, like Washington (MO), is a member of the UAA for most sports (although the Maroons are independent in football, baseball, and softball).

Maranatha Baptist is on the very edge of the new CCIW geographical footprint, as it's located 35 miles northwest of Carroll. The thing about MBU, however, is that the Sabercats are never competitive whenever they face a CCIW team in any sport; their baseball and softball teams would get slaughter-ruled on a pretty regular basis if they were to compete in this league. I'm not sure that MBU really wants to play CCIW competition regularly, either. Illinois Tech is actively seeking full membership in a D3 league in order to best serve the needs of its entire athletics department, and the Scarlet Hawks don't have a softball program, so IIT probably isn't a good fit. Chicago, however, would be an ideal fit for CCIW associate membership in baseball and softball. The Maroons are fairly competent in baseball on an annual basis (2-2 against CCIW competition this past year), but they're outstanding in softball; they've made the D3 tourney ten times since 2000, including this past season.

(While the UAA does sponsor baseball and softball, the league's six participating members condense their entire regular-season UAA schedule in those sports to one-week double round-robin tournaments held in early March down in Florida. Chicago doesn't participate in those UAA tourneys in either sport, and the other non-participating UAA school, Carnegie Mellon, doesn't even have baseball or softball programs.)

I wouldn't mind it at all if the CCIW added Chicago as an associate member for baseball and softball.

[BigPoppa]

Chicago would be a great fit.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

The UAA is going away from the spring break tournament.  I am not sure what this means for chicago, and if they will compete in the UAA for baseball. But they may be able to compete in both.

[BigPoppa]

Anyone have a prediction for the CCIW standings this year?

*Can NPU bounce back?

*Was NCC's run for real (Ed Mathey seems to have them headed in the right direction... again... just like in the early-to-mid-90s)

*Is Wheaton ever going to turn the corner and make the leap from 4-5-6 to 1-2-3? Seems like they have the talent every year.

*What about Carroll? Where do they land in this year's CCIW race?

*Can Elmhurst and Millikin make a push to get out of the basement?

*Can Carthage regain it's former glory? What's to blame for the recent 5-6 year slide? Is the WIAC killing their recruiting of Wisconsin kids?

*Does IWU have enough to make another run in the near future?

*What's up with Augustana this year? Is it time for them to make themselves more than a flash-in-the-pan on the national scene?

Talk to me people.... with projected highs below zero this weekend there is not much I can except think about baseball.

[Ralph Turner]

70 degrees yesterday here in Tyler!

[BigPoppa]

70 degrees yesterday here in Tyler!

Ouch... projected HIGH of minus 10 Sunday.... not a typo. -10* for the HIGH! Just more time to read about baseball, I guess.

[Mr. Ypsi]

70 degrees yesterday here in Tyler!

Ouch... projected HIGH of minus 10 Sunday.... not a typo. -10* for the HIGH! Just more time to read about baseball, I guess.

Wow, that's brutal.  (Can't recall - you're now in the Twin Cities area?)  We've got some predicted LOWS in minus territory over the next couple of weeks, but highs still in the teens or twenties.  Here in SE Michigan we've had two mild winters in a row - not sure we ever went below zero.  After a WAY above average fall, I'm still having trouble with suddenly having a usual winter!

Sorry I can't answer any of your questions.  About the only news I get about CCIW baseball is what I READ on here!

And to Ralph: less than a month ago we had a high of 73.  In 36 hours the temp dropped about 50 degrees.  Winter in Michigan is sometimes (delightfully) delayed, but it can never be forever avoided.

[BigPoppa]

We had the same fall here in the Twin Cities.... nice and warm and we are paying the price this week. We were in the 50s just weeks ago... when winter arrives she usually "announces her presence with authority!" (Bull Durham reference)

[Jim Dixon]

70 degrees yesterday here in Tyler!

Ouch... projected HIGH of minus 10 Sunday.... not a typo. -10* for the HIGH! Just more time to read about baseball, I guess.

Burrrr.  Today we got above 0 for the first time in two weeks.  Looking forward to the games starting in about six weeks.

[ElRetornodelEspencio]

70 degrees yesterday here in Tyler!

Ouch... projected HIGH of minus 10 Sunday.... not a typo. -10* for the HIGH! Just more time to read about baseball, I guess.

Guess who's flying to Ohio on Sunday morning haha. Silver lining...no need for luggage, I'll be wearing everything I'm traveling with!