MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[hopefan]

Westminster schedule is up on their site, but very short... shows conference schedule and the tourney with Hendrix/Rhodes.... missing 7 other non-league games...

No critique, but why?   I would think most of the rest of the schedule would be pretty solid by now....

[Denny McKinney]

First time visiting this site since spring. I went back several pages, didn't notice any info on GC's Coach Barber.

About 2 weeks after Dad's wake, when Coach Barber and Doug Falkner, AD brought last years entire team to pay respects, George was hospitalized with a bad heart valve. It was discovered when getting a stress test, before leaving on a 600 mile bike trip.

He was born with the bad valve. He underwent a dicey open heart surgery and an extended stay at Barnes Hospital. When I spoke to him about a week ago he said he was about 75%. But, would be ready to go by season. He did mention it really hurt recruiting.

GC folks are a Class Act.

AARH - Thanks for the compliments and I'm sure Lee liked you too.
Hopefan - Hands tied?

I have nothing relevent to add this board anymore. Doubt I'll see many SLIAC games.

Will be following Lil' Brother, who is the new Head Coach at Sullivan HS.
And enjoying watching Mo Bapt play in their brand new fieldhouse. Throw in a couple of games watching former FC player Kevin Walsh's team at Vianey.

Good Luck to All. And, Best Wishes.

[hopefan]

Fantastic article on MacMurray's tough road to recovery from a flooded campus this summer....

Best Wishes to all involved.......

[hopefan]

Fontbonne's schedule has been sent to me and is very solid...   non conference includes 6 D3 games, vs Mo Bap (always tough) and Logan Chiro (ugh) at Greenville, and a second matchup with Mo Bap.  D3 games are at Franklin, Central (Iowa) at home, Rose Hulman at home, at Augustana, Austin at home, and at North Park....  Don't be surprised if those non D3 games disappear next year, and a couple more CCIW games are added....   Looking forward to meeting the new coach!!!

Now then, who is going to be wearing the purple representing the Griffs next year?  New faces with a new coach?  Old faces with new attitudes?  VERY curious....

[hs_pg_qb]

First time visiting this site since spring. I went back several pages, didn't notice any info on GC's Coach Barber.

About 2 weeks after Dad's wake, when Coach Barber and Doug Falkner, AD brought last years entire team to pay respects, George was hospitalized with a bad heart valve. It was discovered when getting a stress test, before leaving on a 600 mile bike trip.

He was born with the bad valve. He underwent a dicey open heart surgery and an extended stay at Barnes Hospital. When I spoke to him about a week ago he said he was about 75%. But, would be ready to go by season. He did mention it really hurt recruiting.

GC folks are a Class Act.

AARH - Thanks for the compliments and I'm sure Lee liked you too.
Hopefan - Hands tied?

I have nothing relevent to add this board anymore. Doubt I'll see many SLIAC games.

Will be following Lil' Brother, who is the new Head Coach at Sullivan HS.
And enjoying watching Mo Bapt play in their brand new fieldhouse. Throw in a couple of games watching former FC player Kevin Walsh's team at Vianey.

Good Luck to All. And, Best Wishes.

Denny-

I can understand that losing your father was very difficult, and ultimately you have to do what is best for you.  If the SLIAC gives you too many painful memories, then as I said, do what's best for you. 

But for someone who was so passionate about SLIAC and FU basketball, I guess I don't understand how or why you wouldn't want to be a part of it anymore.  Your father left a huge legacy behind at FU that I know you are very proud of.

You offer a lot of insight on this board that at least gives hopefan a run for his money, if not interesting conversation to follow.

I hope that you will find your way back to the SLIAC and to this board at some point in the future!

[hopefan]

Well put hsqbpg....  I share your wishes that Denny finds his way back to SLIAC hoops.... 

[hopefan]

ok   to really get into the upcoming season, I have reviewed and rated the non conference schedules of each of the 9 SLIAC teams.. rated on toughness, "D-3ness", what do I as a fan want to see... etc etc...

I will post the countdown over several days to maintain the fan base interest...  whoever that fan base might be..

Number 9, or the worst nonconference schedule, AS PREDICTED, goes to......
GREENVILLE COLLEGE....   
Honestly, this is a schedule that no legitimate D3 school should play, it's just really sad, and it falls into last place easily on my 'hopefan scale'
It says something when the top ranked school on your schedule is Missouri Baptist, a team that finished 9-21 last year. Only 3 D3 teams on the schedule, Concordia Illinois (9-16), Rhodes (7-18), and Hendrix (10-16),  Lindenwood Bellville is a 2nd year program that is a big ?,and the rest,  Lincoln Christian, St. Louis Pharma, St. Louis Christian, and Concordia St. Louis are rarely competitve with any but the lowest level of D3...

Number 8, but well ahead of Greenville, is Principia.  Prin's "big" game is with Grinnell, the user of the system... they went 18-7 last year, and were a blast to watch in St Louis 2 years ago against Fontbonne.  Also on the schedule is Harris Stowe (500 team in the NAIA American Midwest Conf), William Woods (another 500 team in the AMC), Missouri Baptist, and D3 Rhodes.... once again we see Lindenwood Belleville (twice) and Lincoln Christian.   This schedule has the one winning D3 team in Grinnell and a couple of pretty fair NAIA teams, keeping it out of 9th place.

Number 7, slightly ahead of Principia, is BLACKBURN...  Blackburn's schedule currently only has 8 non conference games (they COULD play 9) and they are playing in the North Central tourney where other participating schools have not yet been listed on the North Central site.  Blackburn gets a big up because I'm assuming they'll play North Central, 15-11, 11-3 in the CCIW.  Also on the schedule is an improving Illinois college (16-8)...  so that's two nice games, but not much beyond that...  Robert Morris springfield was decent last year, but D3 Dominican (8-17) wasn't very good....  the rest of the sched reads like Greenville's.. St. Louis Pharma, Lindenwood Belleville, and Concordia St. Louis.  I rate this schedule just slightly ahead of Prin primarily due to the two solid D3 games with North Central and Illinois college.  oh, and just conveyed to me, a final non-conference game has been scheduled with Monmouth!!!!

Next time, Number 4, 5, and 6

[hopefan]

ok we've seen schedules ranked no. 9, 8, and 7..
Number 6 is..... Fontbonne
While Fontbonne has scheduled 6 reasonably solid D3 games, the 3 non D3 games on the schedule are relatively weak, forcing their schedule rating to below the middle of the pack.   Two very good games are at Augustana (27-4) and at home vs Rose Hulman (16-10)....  The remaining D3 games are against sub .500 teams Franklin (8-17), Central (12-13),  Austin (12-14), and North Park (11-14).  Fontbonne also goes to Missouri Baptist, and plays them a second time in the Greenville Tourney, along with (UGH) Logan Chiro.
Given the multitude of personnel question marks that this team faces after last year's disaster, the schedule fits the bill..a challenge for a rebuilding program that I expect to see back in the top 4 within a year or two.....

[hopefan]

I know my readers are waiting breathlessly... Number 5, middle of the pack schedule... goes to....EUREKA
Eureka's rating was boosted bigtime with the inclusion of TWO division 1 teams.. Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois....This has to fire up the players immensely...just going into a bigger place, more fans, is a thrill for the players... and any success, be it a hoop or a steal or some other good play is remembered for a long time..... I know when I played and coached  back east, going up against Colgate, Cornell, Army, Vermont and (gasp) Georgetown in my senior year were highlights of my basketball days...
Eureka also has 4 D3 games, Rose Hulman (16-10), Central (12-13), North Park (11-14), and Rockford (10-15), and a game with Robert Morris Springfield.  2 games with weak link Lincoln Christian completes the schedule... As with Fontbonne, a reasonable schedule for a team that is just about starting from scratch....

[Gregory Sager]

I have to question your methodology here, Hopefan. You're putting too much weight upon last season's records in grading SLIAC non-conference schedules.

First of all, games are often scheduled two years in advance, and in the case of long-standing series, the contracts are often renewed practically on an automatic basis. Therefore, a team's record in any given year is frequently not a factor in whether or not another team schedules it. That doesn't necessarily affect the grade, of course, but it does affect the scheduling policy of the coach. There's also the issue of late cancellations, although, unfortunately, it appears that most of the games that the SLIAC teams play against the local non-D3 dregs are within the context of recurring series rather than as last-minute fill-ins.

Second, last season's record is exactly that: Last season's record. It ceases to be relevant on November 15. If you're really looking for indicators as to how past performance will reflect the 2011-12 squads of SLIAC non-conference opponents, don't look at last season's records. Look instead at returning players: Their ppg and rpg, how many starters return, how many rotation players return, etc. That will give you more of an idea as to what to expect from that team in 2011-12.

Finally, by simply quoting 2010-11 records and lumping teams together as "sub-.500 teams" you're assuming a rough equivalence that does not exist. A sub-.500 CCIW team is not interchangeable with a sub-.500 IIAC team. A team that finishes below par in a better league is often better than a team that finishes above par in a lesser league. For instance, North Park beat Spalding in Louisville by a dozen points last season, and NPU went on to finish sixth in the CCIW and 11-14 overall while Spalding finished in a three-way tie for the SLIAC title and went 19-9 overall. Likewise, 2010-11 SLIAC co-champs Westminster lost to two teams that finished at or near the bottoms of their respective leagues: Rhodes, which finished last in the SCAC East and went 7-18 for the year; and Elmhurst, which finished seventh in the eight-team CCIW and also had an 8-17 season. Franklin had that same record last season, but my experience and knowledge of both the Grizzlies' program and the relative competitive levels of the HCAC and the SLIAC tell me that Franklin will be a good bet to beat any SLIAC team it faces next season (although it'd probably be a tossup against a top-tier SLIAC team such as Webster or Westmo if the game was played in Missouri).

I like what you're trying to do here, and I enthusiastically back your campaign to vilify the embarrassing and pointless games against the likes of Logan Chiropractic, Concordia Seminary, and St. Louis Christian that too many SLIAC coaches continue to schedule year after year. But I think that if you're going to gauge the relative worth of games against D3 opponents, you should do it more thoroughly and more accurately.

Just my $.02.

[hopefan]

Greg, NEVER apologize, or imply apologizing for your thoughts... they are always appreciated....
I agree with your points.... particularly about the strength of one sub 500 team vs another... this was simply to give the SLIAC room reader (who may not be quite as "D3- worldly" as you or me) a vague idea of what these teams have accomplished recently.....  I must admit, I don't have the time to review rosters of each team on SLIAC schedules and to use that data to anticipate upcoming season performance...  and of course, there are the unknown new faces too!!!!!
I will however, be doing a review of all the returners to SLIAC teams in another couple of weeks.....

[Gregory Sager]

As I was posting my last comment, I was thinking to myself, "What I'm basically asking Hopefan to do is to devote the better part of a day to doing this project right." So I felt a tad bit guilty about presuming upon your time.

[ac slater]

Excited to see 4, 3, 2, & 1

[hopefan]

onward and upward... the 4th best non conference schedule on the Hopefan countdown is...............   WESTMINSTER
I absolutely love the fact that all nine of Westminster's non conference games are D3 games, and they represent a wonderful geography mix of schools from the SCAC, the CCIW, the NathC, and the IAC... lots of opportunity to boost their Regional rating should they be in NCAA contention at year end... the thing that brings the rating down is the lack of 2 or 3 Blue chip opponents, as well as the fact that 5 of 9 opponents had well under 500 records last year, though a couple of those teams are generally thought of as upper level D3 programs.
Biggest name opponent on the schedule is Wheaton (18-8), and Wheaton comes to Westmin- I'll try to see that one!  Two teams that were in strong contention for NathC championship honors are on the schedule.. Milwaukee Engineering (19-7) and Edgewood (18-10), as well as one of the Iowa Conference's better programs, Coe (17-9).  Perenially strong Nebraska Wesleyan (10-17) and Elmhurst, who was off badly last year (8-17) also are solid opponents.  Westminster always plays Hendrix (10-16) and Rhodes (7-18) in a tourney, two teams that should be wins, but always seem to give Westmin fits...  finally Iowa's Cornell (8-17) rounds out the schedule.   You can't beat this sched for its "D3ness", but there are only a couple of matchups there that would make me consider a run over to Fulton....   oh, one aspect of the schedule I do REALLY like.. it's rare that a SLIAC team plays at home over the Christmas holiday... we real fans usually go 2 weeks with no games to see.. but this year Westmin has scheduled a game on Dec 30 at home vs Nebraska Wesleyan..  a game to see!!! Thanks BLUEJAYS!

[hopefan]

on to the countdown!!!  The 3rd ranked schedule of non conference games belongs to .......SPALDING
Now this was a little hard to evaluate...  We don't know two of the teams in the Spalding Tourney, nor whom Spalding will play in the Marietta Tourney, and even more questionable, Spalding has room for 9 nonconference games on their schedule, but there are 11 games showing up!!!  I emailed the basketball office and received a prompt response that 2 of the games were exhibition games, but when I emailed WHICH 2 games, I received no response...  Anyway Spalding has D1 Coastal Carolina, Transylvania (18-9), Anderson (18-9), NAIA Indiana SE (21-11) and Thomas More (13-14) as non tourney foes, and they line up vs Hanover (19-8) and La Verne (13-13) in the D3hoops Vegas Tourney....    A very solid 7 games.   In the Marietta tourney is Methodist (10-16), Kenyon (9-16) and Host Marietta (27-4)  a potential finals match with Marietta represents a top notch game....The Spalding Tourney includes Victory College from Houston Texas, an NAIA team that has played a tough NAIA schedule with moderate success, but the other two teams remain unidentified.  A lot of good teams on this schedule... but Spalding returns everyone from a very successful team last year... They will be good, and should match up well with most of this schedule.