MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[hopefan]

The problems with a neutral conference tourney site are attendance and revenue. You'll always get better attendance if you hold it in the gym of the top seed, unless the top seed is one of the geographic outliers (Spalding and Iowa Wesleyan) where none of the fans of the other team(s) will travel. And, unless you hold the tourney in one of the league's other gyms (and that school agrees to host it without making the conference pay an arm and a leg for the costs involved), you'll find that the costs incurred by renting a neutral site won't be covered by ticket revenues.

If Fontbonne isn't in it, they would be perfect to host.. . the SLIAC Tourney in the middle of St Louis... another possible would be Principia, though far more unlikely to want the task on a somewhat sheltered campus. Having attended many conference tourneys, I will say very few travel to see the games. About the only jam packed house I can remember was when Fontbonne played at Webster. And jam packed at Webster doesn't equate to big numbers.

[WUPHF]

SIUE hosted the GLVC championship last season.

The games I attended had a good crowd, but not a lot of students.

It would be cool to have both the women and men competing at the same facility.

The SLIAC may be able to convince a Lindenwood or McKendree to schedule their last two regular season games away for the revenue.

I think it is a shame that the St. Louis Sports Commission gets behind the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, but seems to ignore the SLIAC and the GLVC.  The geographical center of the GLVC is in St. Louis as is the SLIAC.  I would like to see them do more to support the league tournaments.

[Gregory Sager]

The problems with a neutral conference tourney site are attendance and revenue. You'll always get better attendance if you hold it in the gym of the top seed, unless the top seed is one of the geographic outliers (Spalding and Iowa Wesleyan) where none of the fans of the other team(s) will travel. And, unless you hold the tourney in one of the league's other gyms (and that school agrees to host it without making the conference pay an arm and a leg for the costs involved), you'll find that the costs incurred by renting a neutral site won't be covered by ticket revenues.

If Fontbonne isn't in it, they would be perfect to host.. . the SLIAC Tourney in the middle of St Louis... another possible would be Principia, though far more unlikely to want the task on a somewhat sheltered campus. Having attended many conference tourneys, I will say very few travel to see the games. About the only jam packed house I can remember was when Fontbonne played at Webster. And jam packed at Webster doesn't equate to big numbers.

All the more reason to be wary of moving the site to a neutral location, as there's no chance at all to recover whatever the league would have to pay in terms of rent. That would go for a non-competing SLIAC school as well; why should a school incur the costs of putting on a tournament in which its team is not involved without some sort of remuneration?

[hopefan]

Will be tough picking a player of the week this week.  Holding for Spalding 2 games. Lots of SLIAC losses, guys with one good game, one sub par game. I've got a thought though. Check on Sunday.

[Greek Tragedy]

As a basketball fan, I love the Final Four concept of the conference tournament being held at the highest seeded location giving me the opportunity to see three games in two days. Realistically, how many home fans actually show up for that first semifinal? I'm sure very few. Most of the time, that game is played at 5 pm when people are getting off of work, feeding their families etc. To assure the biggest crowds, you have to have two separate semifinals at the higher seeds and then the final at the highest remaining seed. If you do the Friday/Saturday format and the host doesn't advance, the final at a neutral site is a ghost town.

[hopefan]

Spalding crushed by Centre and Trine, gives game away to winless Defiance, yet very competitive in conference...  they are just an example, but the SLIAC is very definitely bottom 5 of D3 conferences, and seems to have fallen from last years level. Horrible record vs D3 out of conference opponents.

[hopefan]

  . All I had to do was put a knock on Spalding and look what happens... a one point win over Adrian...  as I said, well take any win we can get, any way we can get it...  in this case, Adrian down one shooting a one and one for the win with a second on the clock...and misses...the best Holiday gift Spalding could ask for.
Marcus Montgomery, who seems to be a deluxe 6th man for Spalding (meaning why the heck doesn't he start) has another good game...his defense against Prin's Micah Paulson had impressed me earlier this season.

[hopefan]

As mentioned before, tough week to select SLIAC Player of the Week... all nonconference games, mostly losses...

I've ruled out several guys that had 1 good game, one bad...particularly Micah Paulson, Karston Hayes

Looking for consistency, high level, a win...
Comes down to

Raushaun Amos, Blackburn
   22 points, 6/8 from 3s in win over Rhodes
   16 points, 6/9 from the field, 4/6 from 3's in loss vs centre

or

Marcus Montgomery, Spalding
   25 points, 5 bounds, 10/14 from the field, 4/6 from 3s loss vs Defiance
    14 points, 4/7 field, 1/3, 3s, 5/6 line   loss vs Heidelberg
    19 points, 8/13 from the field, 3/4 from 3s  win over Adrian

it's a tossup, I go with Marcus Montgomery Spalding for performing well in 3 games vs Amos 2 games....tough reason, eh...
   

[y_jack_lok]

My wife and her siblings grew up in Carlinville, IL and her father taught at Blackburn for over 20 years before retiring. My wife's sister has been visiting us for the holidays so we did the nostalgia tour of Carlinville today and took in Blackburn's game against #20 Loras. Blackburn had a rough first half, down by 18 at halftime, but came back strong in the second half with some amazing 3 point shooting (11 of 18 in the half). It wasn't enough, though. Final was 92-81. Turnovers hurt them badly. Karson Hayes had a good game with 24 and Jamaya Wyatt played really well with 12 points on 6 of 9 shooting and 8 rebounds.

If they can shoot threes every game like they did today, SLIAC foes had better watch out.

[hopefan]

My wife and her siblings grew up in Carlinville, IL and her father taught at Blackburn for over 20 years before retiring. My wife's sister has been visiting us for the holidays so we did the nostalgia tour of Carlinville today and took in Blackburn's game against #20 Loras. Blackburn had a rough first half, down by 18 at halftime, but came back strong in the second half with some amazing 3 point shooting (11 of 18 in the half). It wasn't enough, though. Final was 92-81. Turnovers hurt them badly. Karson Hayes had a good game with 24 and Jamaya Wyatt played really well with 12 points on 6 of 9 shooting and 8 rebounds.

If they can shoot threes every game like they did today, SLIAC foes had better watch out.

Carlinville with its neat streets and OLD homes is just a BEAUTIFUL town...
Agreed with you on Blackburn...

I'd group teams like this at this point

Conference Tourney for sure
Greenville

Conference Tourney Battle for 3 remaining spots
Webster
Blackburn
Eureka
Westminster

troublemakers, but not enough
Fontbonne
Spalding
MacMurray

Nope
Iowa Wesleyan
Principia

[hopefan]

Let's not overlook Mac's performance at the Music City Classic....a close loss to Ripon, a win over Hampden-Sydney...

So conference starts back up today, 4 games, Spalding plays at Westminster on Thursday

Mac at Prin....  Mac plays tough defense, if they can hold down Goodman and Paulson to a combined 40, should be a win.... interesting matchup between two frosh big men... Davidson (Prin) vs Dorethy (Mac), hopefully the first of many battles through 4 years

Greenville at Fontbonne... Fontbonne should score many points with their young aggressive offensive players.... Greenville should score a lot more

Eureka at Webster....  intriguing game....good matchups all around... the better defensive team wins close games... that's Webster

Blackburn at Iowa Wesleyan... BC played well over the break, looks like they're ready for conference... Blackburn wins going away

Tomorrow   Spalding at Westmin.... The game I can't really figure out this season is how Spalding beat Eureka... that is their upset for the year.... Westminster wins this one...

[hopefan]

Let's not overlook Mac's performance at the Music City Classic....a close loss to Ripon, a win over Hampden-Sydney...

So conference starts back up today, 4 games, Spalding plays at Westminster on Thursday

Mac at Prin....  Mac plays tough defense, if they can hold down Goodman and Paulson to a combined 40, should be a win.... interesting matchup between two frosh big men... Davidson (Prin) vs Dorethy (Mac), hopefully the first of many battles through 4 years... NOTE THURSDAY... NOT TODAY

Greenville at Fontbonne... Fontbonne should score many points with their young aggressive offensive players.... Greenville should score a lot more

Eureka at Webster....  intriguing game....good matchups all around... the better defensive team wins close games... that's Webster

Blackburn at Iowa Wesleyan... BC played well over the break, looks like they're ready for conference... Blackburn wins going away

Tomorrow   Spalding at Westmin.... The game I can't really figure out this season is how Spalding beat Eureka... that is their upset for the year.... Westminster wins this one...

Just noticed Mac at Prin game is being played on Thursday, not today... D3hoops and SLIAC.org both have it today in error...

[Greek Tragedy]

I was gonna say, I thought Principia couldn't play on Wednesdays...I was reading your first post when I thought that.

[y_jack_lok]

Let's not overlook Mac's performance at the Music City Classic....a close loss to Ripon, a win over Hampden-Sydney...

I completely forgot about Mac vs H-SC. Glad to see a SLIAC win over an ODAC team, especially my alma mater's arch rival. Congrats to Coach Creal and the team.

[Greek Tragedy]

Tough night for Fontbonne. They lose 111-99 to Greenville, but shoot just 17-44 from the FREE throw line. Those are uncontested shots. They shoot 51.8% when someone is apparently guarding them.