MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[WUPHF]

...and still, any other discussion = 0

I hate to say it, but if you cannot find value in the process of drafting your thoughts and taking note of the number of views you get afterwards, you are always going to be frustrated...

I am thankful for the two others that post over on the UAA thread, but I am mostly used to bowling alone.  I guess you remember when the conversation was vigorous.  I am sorry that you no longer have that here.

If you want more posts, you will probably have to work a little harder to cultivate the posts.  You have to engage everyone that posts in a conversation.  For example, when I post about Will Berger, you have to say something.  You do not have to, but it helps.  This is social media after all. 

You should ask more questions too.  Probably more than anything, you have to ask questions even if the lack of responses to the question is more frustrating than to the statement.

I get it though...I had thought about creating a poll in the UAA thread with one yes or not question: if I stopped posting about UAA basketball, would you miss me?  But, I am afraid to see the results.

By the way, I just the got the reminder that the Women have priority this year.  I have been neglecting the Women's team this season because I do not have the time to follow both but I'll probably hit the road...  Maybe we can carpool to wherever if Westminster [book it] and Washington University are in the same pod.

[Smitty Oom]

...and still, any other discussion = 0

I hate to say it, but if you cannot find value in the process of drafting your thoughts and taking note of the number of views you get afterwards, you are always going to be frustrated...

I am thankful for the two others that post over on the UAA thread, but I am mostly used to bowling alone.  I guess you remember when the conversation was vigorous.  I am sorry that you no longer have that here.

If you want more posts, you will probably have to work a little harder to cultivate the posts.  You have to engage everyone that posts in a conversation.  For example, when I post about Will Berger, you have to say something.  You do not have to, but it helps.  This is social media after all. 

You should ask more questions too.  Probably more than anything, you have to ask questions even if the lack of responses to the question is more frustrating than to the statement.

I get it though...I had thought about creating a poll in the UAA thread with one yes or not question: if I stopped posting about UAA basketball, would you miss me?  But, I am afraid to see the results.

By the way, I just the got the reminder that the Women have priority this year.  I have been neglecting the Women's team this season because I do not have the time to follow both but I'll probably hit the road...  Maybe we can carpool to wherever if Westminster [book it] and Washington University are in the same pod.

To both of you.... I read all of your posts and really enjoy them. Both the UAA and the SLIAC have captured my imagination this year. I used to be just a MIAC guy but now from just reading all of the posts from the Central region I have learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it. Actually I am quite jealous of all the talk that happens in the Central Region, but I can't be too upset the MIAC is better than most in traffic, it is just no CCIW board. Well that was a little bit of a tangent but I will try to engage more on these boards for both of you and I will learn more on the way. And WUH, I actually have tuned into a couple WashU games this year, Rochester game from a couple weeks ago and the latest Carnegie game as I wanted to see Serbin play. I also loved Coach Edwards interview on Hoopsville, would love to meet him and talk some bball. As of now I haven't watched a SLIAC game but I may tune into the Greenville tourney game, because well, the System is interesting, especially when ran well. So thanks to both of you and I hope you keep posting!

[Smitty Oom]

How about we start with this... what qualifies a team for the USCAA tourney? I would imagine it is not just provisional D3 teams. I have heard a lot about USCAA but never fully understood what teams are apart of it, whatever it may be. Is it just a tourney or is it a league as well, like the NCAA or NAIA?

[Gregory Sager]

The USCAA is a discrete umbrella organization of schools, just like the NCAA, the NAIA, the NJCAA, and the NCCAA. It serves to cover a lot of schools that fall through the cracks of the other organizations, and it caters mostly to very small Christian schools, commuter-based and/or recently-established branch campuses of state universities, and a stray specialty school here or there like Wentworth Military Academy or The Apprentice School. It also has some members that are transitioning from one umbrella organization to another, such as Iowa Wesleyan, Illinois Tech, and Berea (NAIA to NCAA D3) and Dean (NJCAA to NCAA D3). The NCAA and NAIA are exclusivist in the sense that if you announce that you're leaving the NAIA fold you're no longer welcome to participate in their postseason championship tournaments and meets while you're in the transition process; and in the case of NCAA D3, schools are not permitted to participate in D3's postseason championship tournaments and meets while they're in the four-year provisional process of acquiring full membership. The USCAA welcomes anybody and everybody, so it's an ideal temporary landing place for those transitioning schools to pick up the added experience and prestige of participating in postseason play while they're waiting for full membership in D3, because D3 doesn't mind if a member school (whether full or provisional) participates in some other body's postseason tournament.

The USCAA has two divisions for basketball, like the NAIA, although I'm not sure what the criteria are for separating the two. As far as I can tell, all of the schools currently in the pipeline for D3 membership are playing in the USCAA's Division I tourney.

[Smitty Oom]

The USCAA is a discrete umbrella organization of schools, just like the NCAA, the NAIA, the NJCAA, and the NCCAA. It serves to cover a lot of schools that fall through the cracks of the other organizations, and it caters mostly to very small Christian schools, commuter-based and/or recently-established branch campuses of state universities, and a stray specialty school here or there like Wentworth Military Academy or The Apprentice School. It also has some members that are transitioning from one umbrella organization to another, such as Iowa Wesleyan, Illinois Tech, and Berea (NAIA to NCAA D3) and Dean (NJCAA to NCAA D3). The NCAA and NAIA are exclusivist in the sense that if you announce that you're leaving the NAIA fold you're no longer welcome to participate in their postseason championship tournaments and meets while you're in the transition process; and in the case of NCAA D3, schools are not permitted to participate in D3's postseason championship tournaments and meets while they're in the four-year provisional process of acquiring full membership. The USCAA welcomes anybody and everybody, so it's an ideal temporary landing place for those transitioning schools to pick up the added experience and prestige of participating in postseason play while they're waiting for full membership in D3, because D3 doesn't mind if a member school (whether full or provisional) participates in some other body's postseason tournament.

The USCAA has two divisions for basketball, like the NAIA, although I'm not sure what the criteria are for separating the two. As far as I can tell, all of the schools currently in the pipeline for D3 membership are playing in the USCAA's Division I tourney.

All very useful info, I appreciate it! Follow up question, why the D3 provisional period? Do they want to discourage from all teams just leaping over to the NCAA? I can't imagine the paper work takes a full four years...

[Gregory Sager]

Yes, part of it is to act as sort of a valve on incoming membership. Prior to the creation of the provisional period, there was practically a stampede of incoming members, most of whom were fleeing the NAIA. Having to go through a four-year process (actually, it's now more or less five, since the exploratory year before entering the provisional pipeline seems to be part of the process) presumably raised the bar enough on joining D3 to make it less attractive to schools looking to stick their fingers in the huge pie of that TV revenue D3 gets from D1 football and men's basketball.

The other reason for the four-year pipeline is to flush any scholarship student-athletes out of the school's team rosters. D3 is so purist about the no-scholarships rule that you can't even have a scholie student-athlete grandfathered in. If he or she is still around when the school acquires full membership, he or she has to pay their own tuition bills just like everybody else.

[monsoon]

Thanks Greg & Smitty!

[WUPHF]

To both of you.... I read all of your posts and really enjoy them. Both the UAA and the SLIAC have captured my imagination this year. I used to be just a MIAC guy but now from just reading all of the posts from the Central region I have learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks man!

Both the UAA and the SLIAC are having intriguing seasons.  The SLIAC tourney games will be worth watching on Friday and Saturday.

I do not know Coach Edwards all that well, but he is incredibly nice and generous with his time.  If you ever find yourself in St. Louis, e-mail him.

[WUPHF]

Westminster gets the win over Webster, 75-61.

The teams were tied at the half and included 12 lead changes, but Westminster began to pull away with 7:00 minutes left.  Tanner Cochran and Collin Caywood went 13-18 from three point range and scored 25 and 18 respectively.  Cochran and Caywood average 6 and 4 points per game.  Sean O'Brien scored 19 points (9-10).

[hopefan]

Greenville gym is packed for game 2!!!

[hopefan]

Absolutely the best D3 atmosphere I've seen in the SLIAC - EVER

[augie77]

]

Absolutely the best D3 atmosphere I've seen in the SLIAC - EVER

I look forward to Hopefan's account of the game. 

[hopefan]

]

Absolutely the best D3 atmosphere I've seen in the SLIAC - EVER

I look forward to Hopefan's account of the game.

Ahh, Augie77, too much to write about... incredible comeback by Prin, Greenville missed a boatload of shots down the stretch, and Prin's Adaku Anumu caught fire... came down to a key offensive rebound for Greenville with about 35 seconds left and Greenville leading by 3 which put Prin into a fouling situation, and Greenville's Elmo Smith making 2 with 10 seconds left to put Greenville's lead to 4...  Heros of the game (to me) were Greenville's lightning quick point guard combo of Jahari Dix and Stevonte Young... both darting in and out of the Prin zone creating seemingly every Greenville shot... they were both outstanding last night... Adaku Anumu's line tells it all...12 Turnovers, awful, a major responsibility for Greenville having a lead in the mid 20's with 10 minutes left, then taking the game over offensively, finishing with 41 points, bringing Prin back to the brink of having an incredible upset.  Geez, I can't say enough about the effort of the 5 Prin players (5 because starter Trevaughn Goodman inexplicibly reverted to a wide eyed frosh and sat on the bench with foul trouble the whole night.. 2 or 3 of the fouls were beyond words silly)... but he was replaced by the enigmatic Jeff Ross, a kid with tremendous athletic ability who simply had not lived up to expectations, but suddenly last night was the player I'd been looking for, finishing with 14 points on 6 of 9 shooting.  Congrats to everyone involved with the GC-PC game... it was a heck of a show...a tough one to match in the future.

First game was great too... tight contest with 8 minutes left between Webster and Westmin, when Westmin guard Tanner Cochrane caught fire....makes 5 3 pointers the rest of the way... score goes from 55-55 with 8 mins left to a 75-59 final... Webster could not stop Cochrane and Caywood from 3 point territory, and Sean O'brien ate them up in the middle.  I don't even want to think of Webster's poor conf tourney performance over the last 10 years, hard to understand.

As I figured, my All Conference team didn't come close to the Coach's team... We agree on 1st teamers Steve Soukup and Shea Feehan... they were no brainers, but surprisingly my 3 other 1st teamers, Sean O'Brien, Elmo Smith, and Michael Soukup were relegated to 3rd team All Conf in the coach's selection... Needless to say I took a little pleasure when O'brien and Smith may well have been MVP's for their team's wins in the semis... replacing those 3 on the coach's 1st team were Shane Smith, Romo Tabb, and Evan Milligan... Tabb and Milligan were on my 2nd team, Shane Smith on my HM.

[Greek Tragedy]

Wow. Sounds like 2 great semi-final games!

Sounds like the MWC had 2 great games too. Sabin with 50 and LFC knocking off the hosts, SNC.

[Greek Tragedy]

I try to read up on the posts too. But most, if not all, of my contributions would be fantasy basketball related. The WIAC is a power conference but the posting there is limited too...less than the MIAC. The CCIW is king when it comes to posting. The WIAC probably has a handful of dedicated posters, but there were more in the past...

There's definitely a lot more lurkers who don't post than you think. I've had people come up to me in Salem and at Point games commenting on my posts and I have no idea who they are.

Here's a test. Record how many views this page has starting today or whenever. Check in a few days or a week and you'll probably get 100s of views, proving that your stuff gets read!

8:24 am EST 1306857 views