MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Beaver_SID]

Monday, December 4   
Concordia
   
Tuesday, December 5   
Central Mo.
   
Wednesday, December 6   
Webster
Greenville ( should be a good game if GC plays like they played @BC)
Wheaton
Eureka (I hate going against BC but they need to start sinkin some baskets b4 they plan to compete in the SLIAC)
MacMurray
   
Friday, December 8   
DePauw
Robert Morris
   
Saturday, December 9   
Maryville
Greenville
Webster
Westminster
Eureka

[fcnews]

Beaver_SID takes Conncordia tonite? FU gets no respect!!

[y_jack_lok]

Beaver_SID probably doesn't know it's Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis, not one of the Concordia's in Illinois or Wisconsin.

[fcnews]

Very true Y_Jak. Beaver still has time to change. Unless he thinks the Griffin's will stumble.

[Daryl L Lloyd]

FC: If Concordia Seminary beats yall, Id call that more than a stumble for the Griffins. 

[fcnews]

You'd think.

[pantherpride06]

I had to look up with one FU was playing to see my pick.  I'm sure he thought it was Concordia (Ill.).  If Fontbonne loses to Concordia (St. Louis)... wow....

[hopefan]

Come on FC  does that game really count in FU's record?

[Beaver_SID]

My mistake I did think it was a Concordia from Il.
In that case I would like to change my pick to FC if it is still possible.

[Mac Attack]

Hmmmmmmm. My sense is this is a learning opportunity for all of us, Beaver_SID. I would have let change the pick had it been earlier in the day. But not at game time. Notwithstanding the fact being that there are about 15 different Concordias, a card laid is a card played. Sorry...

[pantherpride06]

Great Junior Varisty game tonight at Greenville.

Greenville d. Webster 74-67 ish....  I left the book at the school.

Greenville comes out early with a decent lead, Webster comes back and takes a 6 pt lead at half.  Runs it up to 9 at one point.  Greenville battled back and was down 3.  Panthers applied some pressure and caused 4 Webster TO's that turned into 8 GC points in 7 seconds.  Greenville took the lead and never looked back.  Greenville had a crown of about 175 in attendance and the crowd was nuts.  The Orange Crush will battle the Crazies of Blackburn for the best crowd this year.  I'm betting my money on it.

FCnews, better be prepared for Wednesday.  I'm pretty excited!!!

[Gregory Sager]

From Sager:
I'm sympathetic to your alma mater's plight, Pride, but at the moment it's just not sound scheduling policy for a CCIW team to play anything but the top-level SLIAC teams, for reasons of both tournament consideration and competitive utility.

- Therefore this whole talk about the SLIAC scheduling CCIW teams goes in the garbage can.  If the CCIW sees it that scheduling a SLIAC school is "not sound scheduling," then what is the conversation for?

No, Pride, you're not following what I said. I didn't say that CCIW teams consider scheduling any SLIAC team to be "not sound scheduling policy". I said that CCIW teams consider scheduling anything but the top-level SLIAC teams to be "not sound scheduling policy".

Notice the first reason that I cited: Tournament consideration. The D3 selection committee bases its Pool C (at-large teams from automatic-bid conferences) selections upon the basis of five primary criteria. One of them is QOWI, Quality of Wins Index. Basically, the strength of schedule of each team is measured in terms of regional play, with grades of 15 to 1 assigned to each regional game (15 for a road win against a regional opponent whose regional winning percentage is .667 or better; 14 for a home win against a regional opponent whose regional winning percentage is .667 or better; 13 for a road win against a regional opponent whose regional winning percentage is between .500 and .666; etc.). Add up the grades, divide by the number of regional games played, and you get a team's QOWI.

What this means is that a CCIW team that aspires to make it to the national tournament -- and that should be all eight of them, although some CCIW coaches are more astute than others when it comes to strategic scheduling -- should welcome the chance to put, say, Webster or Blackburn on the docket. Why? Because those schools are the ones that have been most likely to dominate the SLIAC from one year to the next, and therefore they're better bets to finish the season with regional records on the plus side of .500 than are, say, Greenville or MacMurray. In other words, beating Webster or Blackburn is probably going to help a team aspiring to a Pool C bid more than would beating Greenville or MacMurray. Beating a lower-tier SLIAC team will help a potential tournament team's regional record, but it would actually drag down that team's QOWI.

LCC may not be a great add to the SLIAC, but they have been a very decent squad in years past.  We are 31-11 in years past against them.  Last two games have went into OT.  LCC scheduling the bible schools now, because Im sure they have had contracts with them.  Will they continue to schedule them, probably a few.

Last year LCC went 1-6 against SLIAC teams, and four of those losses were blowouts. The Preachers split with Principia, which went 0-14 in SLIAC play. The year before that, LCC went 0-4 against SLIAC teams. The year before that they went 0-4. And the year before that they went 0-5. So, basically, LCC has a cumulative record of 1-19 over the past four years against SLIAC teams, with the lone win coming against a Principia squad that couldn't win a SLIAC game, went 2-22, and was generally regarded as being right up there (down there?) with Caltech, Maine-Presque Isle, and Daniel Webster as one of the worst teams in all of D3. So how do you figure that the Preachers have been a "very decent squad in years past"? Those "years past" must go back a ways.

Non-Conference total beat downs do nothing for your program.  I'm telling you.  I've worked with Coach Barber here at Greenville for four years now.  It's tough to get kids here.  One because of the money commitment.  The christian environment isn't really a draw back for anyone.  But, if they have the option of going out to play ball in the middle of a corn field and down town St. Louis (FU, MU, WU)... what would you choose.  And on top of it, if they seen us goinig 0-7 in non-confrence play with big losses to Millikin, IWU, Augie, Wash U, Rose-Hulman, Wabash, and DePauw... why are they going to come here.  Scheduling a game you are going to win is fine.  My goodness, DI football and baskebtall teams do it.  Butler scheduling us, Eastern Kentucky playing us and Webster a few years ago.... don't tell me it makes teams any less scheduling a lower tier team.  When people schedule most SLIAC schools, they are scheduling lower tier teams.  So, do we look less on those schools?  Obviously not because you think we should play them.

No, I don't think you should play them. In fact, I agree with Bunch Time. I think that you should stop playing the rinky-dink teams.

I certainly understand the psychological difficulty involved in getting drubbed in non-conference play by other D3 teams. And I recognize as well the psychological value in winning. But if the competition is absolutely terrible, I think the psychological value of such a win is nil. Players aren't stupid. They know when they're being forced to take the floor against a patsy that's an intercollegiate team in name only. It's hard to feel good about beating such a team.

I think that if your goal as a conference is to truly improve, then you take your lumps in November and December to the Wash Us and the Millikins and the Hanovers and the Rose-Hulmans, you pull off the surprise win every now and then, and you consolidate your overall level of play as a conference until you get to the point where you can compete regularly against other local D3s, at least with your top teams. You'll never get better as a league by playing Concordia Seminary, Logan Chiropractic, Moody Bible Institute, and St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

I'm sure the big game between Principia @ Wheaton will add to this discussion. 

I'm scratching my head as to why Wheaton coach Bill Harris agreed to this contract. Principia is going to drag down Wheaton's QOWI like an anchor. In the past he's played Greenville, true, but as a fellow Christian college Wheaton has a natural affinity towards playing Greenville; in other words, non-basketball considerations are at work in that case. Principia's a Christian Science school, so Wheaton has no intrinsic interest in playing the Panthers from Elsah.

That's right, you are from North Park.... a lower tier team....  You have Judson on your schedule for atleast the last 5 years and have beat them the last four (excluding this year).  Judson is a NAIA/NCCAA team.  A christian school who is 1-10 this season.  I'd call them a "easy game."

Judson's a lot more respectable than those other schools I mentioned, since they play in a legit NAIA conference (the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference). However, playing the Eagles adds absolutely nothing to NPU's schedule. They're usually quite bad, as they are again this year (as you pointed out), so they don't challenge the Vikings to play at a higher level; and since the Eagles are NAIA, beating them means absolutely nothing in terms of NPU's regional record. I dearly wish that North Park would simply drop Judson from the schedule every year and replace the Eagles with someone like Aurora or Hope or Chicago. Playing Judson is an annual waste of a game.

I just get fustrated when it comes to this scheduling debate because it is tough to get kids at D3 schools wherever your at.  But, when it comes to our level (and yes there are different levels in D3), its even more difficult.  In this area, we are fightning with a ton of other places... JUCO's, other D3 schools, our facilities, STL schools....   There are some things you do to make it look a little better.  If we have a couple of schools on our schedule to help make our record look a tad bit better, then good.  In sted of 7-18 (which is already horrid), we'd been 6-19 (bc we lost to the easy team STL Pharmacy).  Instead of 9-16 a few years ago, we'd been 7-18.  May not make much difference to you up in Chicago, but here in So. Illinois it does.

I understand the particular difficulties faced by SLIAC schools, and as I said I understand the desire to improve one's overall record with a few cupcakes here and there. But just as eating cupcakes in real life comes with a price in terms of empty calories and bad cholesterol, so also does beating cupcakes in basketball come with the price of failing to improve one's team, not to mention the lack of respect that comes with playing the Concordia Seminaries and the Moody Bibles. As I said, I'm with Bunch Time 100% on this.

[hopefan]

Greg - thanks for the interest in some of our writers' great enthusiasm towards the SLIAC - just one point to enlighten you on - Principia was decent just two years ago in the 2004-05 season- They ended up 11-13 and made the 4 team conference tourney that was held over at Webster.   They finished with a first team and a 2nd team all SLIAC team member.  But in my preview  of the 2005-2006 season "who's coming back", I pointed out that the cupboard was bare, Prin was losing 85% of its scoring/rebounding  -  I was right.   But as both the 2004-05 season and  the 2002/3 season (when they also made the conf tourney and were 13-11 overall) show, Prin has not always been at the bottom of the conference.   It does appear they'll battle LCC for 9th/10th this year however.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg - thanks for the interest in some of our writers' great enthusiasm towards the SLIAC - just one point to enlighten you on - Principia was decent just two years ago in the 2004-05 season- They ended up 11-13 and made the 4 team conference tourney that was held over at Webster.   They finished with a first team and a 2nd team all SLIAC team member.  But in my preview  of the 2005-2006 season "who's coming back", I pointed out that the cupboard was bare, Prin was losing 85% of its scoring/rebounding  -  I was right.   But as both the 2004-05 season and  the 2002/3 season (when they also made the conf tourney and were 13-11 overall) show, Prin has not always been at the bottom of the conference.   It does appear they'll battle LCC for 9th/10th this year however.

I was aware that Principia had been respectable as recently as 2004-05. Team records for the past four years are listed on the schedule page of each D3 team on D3hoops.com. In fact, that's where I gleaned all that info about how Lincoln Christian had performed against SLIAC teams over the past four years.

[hopefan]

Greg  -  I reread your comment  - you were referring to LCC regarding the poor record, not Principia....   sorry