MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[fcnews]

The Griffin's schedule is out and they will play the following non - conference opponents. Hannibal-LaGrange@ Chicago, Fisk University, @Concordia-STL., @Rose Hulman, @Washington University, @University of Tampa. Alittle bit of road testing. All I can say about the conference schedule is there are no Sunday or Monday games. The rest of the week is being used through out the season. FU has Greenville ( away ) and Eureka ( home ) before the Xmas Break.

Hopefan - Any news out of MU this year yet?

[fcnews]

FU has added Oakland City College as an exhibition game. The game will be played at Indiana. OCC was the runner up at the NCCAA tourney last year.

[Mac Attack]

Any news on recruits from any of the SLIAC schools - or players who didn't return? Mac has everyone back who was expected to be back, along with at least three new players on campus who figure to contribute and the return of a part-time starting point guard who left the team midway through last season. Early word is the players are very excited about Coach Hettinga and working hard on pre-season conditioning and open gyms. Mac will be on the small side again this season, but figure to be much more disciplined at both ends of the floor. Hettinga had zero time to recruit for this year's team. Next year will be a different story. Look for Mac to improve on its nine wins from last season. How many more will depend on how quickly the Highlanders adapt to Hettinga's style of play - and of course the competition. Midnight Madness is less than a month away!

[fcnews]

Not that anybody reads this. FU has their 06-07 roster posted. Seventeen incoming freshmen along with last years class of eight. FU does have a 16 game JV schedule this year. I beleive Ryan Good and John Thomas will be coaching it.

Sliac Fans if we don't start using this site Pat will probably find better things to do with this space!!! No offense Mac Attack

[Mac Attack]

No offense taken. I check the site once or twice a day, hoping for updates or input from other SLIAC posters. Can get pretty discouraging in the off season. 16 JV games is terrific! If a team has the numbers, coaches, and facilities, this is a great recruiting tool and an opportunity for the younger players to get experience at the college level. On the MAC front, there will be some new faces joining a core of eight returning players. Coach Hettinga has some good athletes with experience. Bad news is the Highlanders will be undersized again. Good news is this year's team will be much more disciplined at both ends of the floor, in much better shape, and will make much better use of its talent, regardless of class. Unless injuries or grades sidelines any of the top players, Mac should finish at .500 or better and be in the thick of the SLIAC race down the stretch.

In the "not to be overlooked" department, the Mac basketball website finally has information up on the new coach and the 2006-2007 schedule. This is a step forward. No mention of who the assistant coaches will be, but it appears that neither of last year's assistants are back. Now if we could just get rid of the two-year old picture on the basketball home page, get our new roster posted, and get our home AND road games broadcast, that would be really nice.

The MacMurray athletic department has built a new weight room, which is light years ahead of what they had, and they have a brand new training room that is really nice. They also have installed a new curtain in the gymnasium, as well as a new sound system that's first-rate. I understand the next step is new bleachers in the gym, and upgrading the locker rooms. The new AD has done tremendous things at Mac in a very short period of time. The Highlander family is lucky to have him.

Let's hear from the rest of the SLIAC!

[y_jack_lok]

Don't worry, things will pick up in a few weeks.

[dynasty22]

I am soooo pumped up for another great season of SLIAC basketball!
Go Beavers!

[Mac Attack]

Dynasty22: Any idea how good Blackburn will be this year? I know they lost their head coach and several of their better players. With Zak Allan and Zeb Hammond coming back, the Beavers have a solid foundation to build on. Who else is coming back and what are the expectations?

Midnight Madness this coming Sunday!!!

[Mac Attack]

I see where Fontbonne has its 2006-2007 roster up. They list 27 total players, of which only five are either juniors (3) or seniors (2) - and 16 freshmen. I didn't realize that Fontbonne was that young. This should be a team that will be tough for the next few years, assuming some of the younger players can get it done.

I'd be interested to know how many of the SLIAC schools have "try outs" for their basketball teams - and how many just give uniforms to anyone who shows up. The former would be the way most NCAA D1 and D2 schools handle it - while many D3 schools use the "come one, come all" approach as an extension of their admissions department. I've seen D3 football teams dress out more than 100 kids, many who never play, but at least they get to warm-up - and later in life can tell their kids and grandkids they played college ball.

But if a D3 basketball program has the resources (coaches and money) to provide a junior varsity team, that's an excellent way to build a program. Some schools do this more extensively than others, again depending on the resources.

My guess is most D3 schools have some kids who are walking around their campus right now who were pretty good high school basketball players. But they were never recruited and just figure their playing days are over. Try-outs is certainly one way to tap into that unknown talent pool.

[Gregory Sager]

Any school that is relying upon walk-ons for anything other than promotional purposes is sunk. Yes, there have been walk-ons that actually amounted to something on the D3 level, but they are far and few between. Even if they play a prominent role in practices by being a member of the second team (i.e., the ninth or tenth man) they are almost always hindering the team. Any good college basketball coach worth his salary has at least a dozen (and more like fifteen as a better minimum) of his own recruits on the team at any given time. If there are unrecruited players on campus who show up for tryouts and are good enough to play any sort of useful role on the team, that's a surefire sign that the program has a serious talent shortage.

Most coaches will use the JV team as a catchbasin for walk-ons, giving the walk-on the satisfaction of wearing a uniform and getting playing time. Again, though, it's questionable how much better it'll make your recruited freshmen and sophomores who are playing junior varsity if the bulk of their JV teammates are walk-ons. There are different philosophies as to how to stock and run a JV program; heck, there are some D3 coaches who don't like JV teams at all, considering them a waste of the program's limited resources of time and money.

[fcnews]

Good Post Gregory. I agree whole heartedly.

Up till about 4 or 5 years ago almost every player that played at FC did his time on the the JV squad. Some longer then others. That trend was broken mostly by Steve King.

That was when the JV squad was a complete program. FU has returned to that kind of plan. JV will have it's own practice time and a pretty nice schedule. It's still questionable if The FU JV squad will play U of Tampa's JV over Xmas break.

As for as "Admission players", outside of your major D3 programs, these kids are part of doing business. In FU's case it's a number of two sport athlete's attracted by the addition of Lacrosse.

I think the JV program allows some kids to mature physically to be ready for the college play. They may have the shot, the handles and good "D", but need time to get bigger and stronger.

[wilburt]

Any school that is relying upon walk-ons for anything other than promotional purposes is sunk. Yes, there have been walk-ons that actually amounted to something on the D3 level, but they are far and few between. Even if they play a prominent role in practices by being a member of the second team (i.e., the ninth or tenth man) they are almost always hindering the team. Any good college basketball coach worth his salary has at least a dozen (and more like fifteen as a better minimum) of his own recruits on the team at any given time. If there are unrecruited players on campus who show up for tryouts and are good enough to play any sort of useful role on the team, that's a surefire sign that the program has a serious talent shortage.

Gregory although what you say is true for D3 today that was not always the case in D3.  Twenty years ago (when there were far fewer D3 schools) there were plenty of "walk-ons" for a number of collegiate sports and they were competitive with some regularity.  At least I could say so at Fisk because a handful of those "walk-ons" earned All-Conference honors in basketball and track and All-American honors in track during my time at Fisk as a student in the 1980s. 

Today I would have to agree with you that "recruiting" has become a mainstay of D3 athletics, but 20 years ago it was a slightly different story. My goodness today "recruiting" has come to high school and even some grade school teams. That was virtually unheard of 20 years ago.

[Gregory Sager]

Gregory although what you say is true for D3 today that was not always the case in D3.  Twenty years ago (when there were far fewer D3 schools) there were plenty of "walk-ons" for a number of collegiate sports and they were competitive with some regularity.  At least I could say so at Fisk because a handful of those "walk-ons" earned All-Conference honors in basketball and track and All-American honors in track during my time at Fisk as a student in the 1980s. 

Today I would have to agree with you that "recruiting" has become a mainstay of D3 athletics, but 20 years ago it was a slightly different story. My goodness today "recruiting" has come to high school and even some grade school teams. That was virtually unheard of 20 years ago.

That may have been true of the Fisk men's basketball team, Wilburt, but it has never been true of the programs in the top conferences like the CCIW, the OAC, and the WIAC. Those schools have always recruited their basketball talent. Always. And I daresay that this is true of every successful D3 program going all the way back to the inception of the division in 1974-75.

The so-called "minor sports"? That's another issue altogether. But every D3 men's basketball program that has been a national powerhouse (or even a reasonably outstanding regional program, especially in the northeast and midwest) over the past four decades has recruited all of its players.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg,

Nice comments on JV teams and differing philosophies - seems spot on.

At the top schools, I suspect JV is more a way of getting playing time for freshman who would otherwise ride the pine due to an 'embarassment of riches' in the older classes.  Case in point: IWU's incredible senior class last year (who got them ranked unanimously #1 for a while, before underperfoming what we all hoped for).  Of the 8 then-freshmen, ONLY Adam Dauksas saw any significant varsity time -  he was already the best available PG.  (And that includes Keelan Amelianovich, CCIW POY as a sophomore and two-time first team All-American - I wonder if anyone else in any conference has ever gone from JV as a freshman to POY [MVP, whatever] as a sophomore?! )  I remember that posters from other schools were in awe of that JV team (they went undefeated and untested) - my hunch is (based on later achievements) that that JV team, if they had been allowed as a second varsity team, might have finished 3rd or 4th in the conference!  AND THEY COULDN'T MAKE VARSITY!

Which also shows what a 'crap-shoot' the post season can be - how could the 2003 varsity NOT make it to Salem?

[Titan Q]

Illinois Wesleyan actually had a walk-on that was a huge part of the Titans success in 2004-05 and 2005-06.  Matt Arnold (Edgewood H.S., Bloomington, IN) was not recruited by former IWU head coach Scott Trost...Arnold basically recruited himself.  Showed up as a freshman and said he wanted to be part of the team.

The 5-11 "combo guard' played 23 minutes a game as a junior on a CCIW title team and 24/game last year on IWU's national 3rd place finisher.  Arnold hit the biggest basket in the win over then #1 and undefeated Lawrence and then had 19 the next night vs Puget Sound in the game sending IWU to Salem.

A nice story.