MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[hopefan]

More on last night's Prin - Loras game... both teams coming off nice wins, Loras over Edgewood, Prin over Illinois College...   Nice crowd, Prin always has some students and admin there, but this seemed double what I'm used to seeing... and they were loud... good atmosphere....

I must admit to being disappointed in play, hence I referred to the game as ugly... Prin has 5 darned good players, but after initially getting the ball to big man Justin Ball and having him miss several 10-15 shots, the offense degraded to mostly one on one stuff, bad shots from either 3 point range or forced when covered from inside... very few penetration and dishes from Patterson, no weakside cuts, action off the ball. 
Prin has two of the nicest forwards in the league in Ross and Davidson, and they're just not getting the right scoring chances.. Davidson gets 9 shot attempts, 8 are 3 pointers.. Patterson 6 3point attempts, not a particularly good shooter...he doesn't need to score, he should be an assist man.. just my point of view, but the offense just didn't flow very well.  New face Anumu is a solid player, mixed it up nicely with perimeter shooting or fake and go to hoop.
Loras had a rough night too... missed a lot of decent looking shots, Prin did a nice job on the defensive boards..A back and forth game had gone Prin's way, up 6 with two minutes, Loras hit a 3 pointer to cut it to three with less than a minute... Prin inexplicably set up an out of bounds play that inbounded the ball to 'non-shooter' joey Sander who was fouled immediately...shooting one and one, if he misses, Loras can tie, and he has 0 points for 39 minutes... shooting foul shots with a parabola higher than the St Louis Arch, son of a gun if he doesn't make both!!!!.. He's the HERO... Patterson and Anumu also make 2 apiece, and it's a good win for Prin. 

So is Prin for real.. yes.. their 5 top could start for any team in the conference... Can they win?  They need to flow that offense much better, and depth over the long season may kill'em... Ball looked wiped out, Ross plays so hard and fast he looked beat too... Patterson is so solid he looked like he could have gone another 40...  After that first 5, well, there isn't anyone who is going to set the world on fire, though Sander did make those two foul shots....Nothing would please me more than to have Prin compete in the top 4!!!

Hint.. Ross and Davidson should watch tape of the recently graduated Kenny Sydness... he knew how to move without the ball, he took it to the hole... you guys have the same physical skills he had, learn to take advantage... I hope Davidson doesn't just become a 3 point shooter...


Tonight to Illinois College... Mac vs a very good Dubuque team

Incidentally, Prin #9 in conference.... ha ha ha ha.....

[Denny McKinney]

Thanks again Hopefan. Prin has Lincoln Christian and Millikin coming up. 4-0? I don't recall Prin EVER having a start like this. Keep it rolling boys.

[hopefan]

Had to look up Mo Bap history on the net.. could not find ANY reverence to the school being referred to as a JC or CC...

from wikipedia
In 1957, a growing need for an evangelical Christian institution in the St. Louis area prompted the opening of a campus extension of Hannibal-LaGrange College at Tower Grove Baptist Church. Sixty-eight students were enrolled that inaugural year.
In 1964, Missouri Baptist College was chartered as an evangelical Christian, four-year liberal arts college.

Perhaps red was referring to those initial years when classes were held at the church... don't think they had a hoops team back then

[WUPHF]

Missouri Baptist was never-ever a junior or community college.  Not at least in the traditional sense.  But, it was a two-year college much in the same way Cottey College was until a few years ago.  The 1960's brought about a lot of changes to the St. Louis area colleges.  For example, Maryville and Webster moved to a lay board.  And, Missouri Baptist started offering four year degrees.

Of course, if you go back far enough, most institutions in Missouri offered something other than the four year degree to undergraduates.

[WUPHF]

How about the SLIAC becomes the Western Rivers Conference?

I asked my Dad about a new name for the SLIAC--he knows everything about the Mississippi River system and loves small college basketball--and he suggested the Confluence Conference or the Western Rivers Conference.

The Confluence Conference would seem to favor the folks at Principia who live just up river from where the Missouri and Mississippi meet, but I like the historical nod that it gives to the St. Loujs area while also capturing something that ties together the region.

Incidentally, I wonder how many Division III schools could take a riverboat to St. Louis.

OK, I'll shut up about it.

[y_jack_lok]

How about the SLIAC becomes the Western Rivers Conference?

I asked my Dad about a new name for the SLIAC--he knows everything about the Mississippi River system and loves small college basketball--and he suggested the Confluence Conference or the Western Rivers Conference.

The Confluence Conference would seem to favor the folks at Principia who live just up river from where the Missouri and Mississippi meet, but I like the historical nod that it gives to the St. Loujs area while also capturing something that ties together the region.

Incidentally, I wonder how many Division III schools could take a riverboat to St. Louis.

OK, I'll shut up about it.

I wasn't going to get into this, but it's too tempting. Your suggestions are just too simple and make too much sense.  I was thinking the MIKIAC (Missouri Illinois Kentucky Iowa Athletic Conference). Then if a school from another state gets added you just add the first letter of that state's name.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm gonna be fascinated to see what Greenville can do against SLIAC opponents.  They are obviously not very good at The System yet (IWU didn't know until tip-off that they had gone that way

Come on, Chuck. That's not what happened. Greenville played a JV game against Wesleyan right before the varsity game, and the Greenville JV employed the System:

IWU first hint that Greenville was running the system - watching the JV game.  So, IWU had no prep time for the "system" other than quick coaching right before the game started and at half time.

I get that you're taking the opportunity of Greenville's shift in methods as an excuse to further burnish the accomplishments of your alma mater's team, but there's no need to throw the truth out the window in doing so. As iwumich pointed out, there was ample opportunity before the game started for Ron Rose to go over a revised game plan with his players. Sure, there was no time to prepare for it via practice -- not that practice ever really simulates the System all that well -- but to say that "IWU didn't know until tip-off that they had gone that way" is just plain wrong.

[iwumichigander]

I'm gonna be fascinated to see what Greenville can do against SLIAC opponents.  They are obviously not very good at The System yet (IWU didn't know until tip-off that they had gone that way, and still put up 150 on them with no prep whatsoever), but it can be quite an equalizer against less talented teams (Grinnell has had a fair amount of success in their conference, but less in the play-offs - IWU's previous all-time record was 132 [vs. 91] against Grinnell in the 2001 tourney).

One astute Titan fan thought they had the talents to do quite well with it.  With some experience I suspect Greenville may wreak a bit of havoc in the SLIAC.  I'll be quite intrigued to see which teams get burned and which can blow them out.

Greenville is going to win some games.  1) Their stats were good enough against IWU to win , or at least closely contend, in most games.  The Titans just shot the lights out at 68.9%. 2) Most SLIAC teams are going to have to spend extra time prepping - particularly if never experienced the "system". 3) Unless the opponent is in great physical shape, the following contest will be a tough one for the opponent as you just expend soooo much physical and mental energy playing against the system.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, so sue me for exaggerating a bit!  It is still true that they didn't know Greenville had gone System until the JV game, so VERY little time to prepare for a style the Titans hadn't seen since the 2001 tournament!  (And since Ron Rose was coaching Bloomington HS, and the players were in kindergarten or at most about 3rd grade, there's no assurance any of them had ever even SEEN the System before.) 

As we saw with the NCC women, there is quite a learning curve for adopters of the System, so I'd expect Greenville to suffer a number of blow-outs early on, but eventually it may produce some really interesting results in SLIAC play.

[Gregory Sager]

Missouri Baptist was never-ever a junior or community college.  Not at least in the traditional sense.  But, it was a two-year college much in the same way Cottey College was until a few years ago.  The 1960's brought about a lot of changes to the St. Louis area colleges.  For example, Maryville and Webster moved to a lay board.  And, Missouri Baptist started offering four year degrees.

Based upon what hopefan and WUH said, it sounds like Missouri Baptist was either a Bible college or a two-year extension of Hannibal-LaGrange (in which students could've taken their first two years of Hannibal-LaGrange courses at what is now Missouri Baptist). Bible colleges, until relatively recently, were always either one- or two-year institutions. (A lot of them still are.) They traditionally offered certificates or institutionally-based (non-accredited) diplomas, not the associate of arts degree that is the main staple of junior-college academia. And a two-year extension campus wouldn't hand out degrees of any kind; it'd pass along the students to the main campus upon completion of their sophomore year.

In other words, just because a school has a two-year curriculum doesn't make it a juco.

How about the SLIAC becomes the Western Rivers Conference?

I asked my Dad about a new name for the SLIAC--he knows everything about the Mississippi River system and loves small college basketball--and he suggested the Confluence Conference or the Western Rivers Conference.

The Confluence Conference would seem to favor the folks at Principia who live just up river from where the Missouri and Mississippi meet, but I like the historical nod that it gives to the St. Loujs area while also capturing something that ties together the region.

Incidentally, I wonder how many Division III schools could take a riverboat to St. Louis.

OK, I'll shut up about it.

I like both of those names.

I wasn't going to get into this, but it's too tempting. Your suggestions are just too simple and make too much sense.  I was thinking the MIKIAC (Missouri Illinois Kentucky Iowa Athletic Conference). Then if a school from another state gets added you just add the first letter of that state's name.

I like that one, too. Easily-pronounceable acronyms are always good.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I wasn't going to get into this, but it's too tempting. Your suggestions are just too simple and make too much sense.  I was thinking the MIKIAC (Missouri Illinois Kentucky Iowa Athletic Conference). Then if a school from another state gets added you just add the first letter of that state's name.

I like that one, too. Easily-pronounceable acronyms are always good.

Unless it is the former WIAC - WSUC (we suck)

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, so sue me for exaggerating a bit!  It is still true that they didn't know Greenville had gone System until the JV game, so VERY little time to prepare

Any good coach can draw up a game plan in the amount of time that Ron Rose had available to him between the start of the JV game and the start of the varsity game. (And it goes without saying that Ron Rose is a good coach.) It's not rocket science. The trick is to get your team to implement the new game plan. Since the Titans are a veteran and disciplined team, and since Greenville has far less individual talent than does Wesleyan (plus no game experience at running the Arseneault System), I highly doubt that Ron Rose was suffering a panic attack before the game.

Yes, the Titans had no time to practice for the System, but, as I said, there's only a limited amount that a team can do to prepare for a System team in practice, anyway. Unless it's a D3 tourney game and you have a week to get ready, allowing you to force your scout team to commit Dave Arseneault's DVDs to memory , you're never going to really simulate the look of what you're gonna see when you take the floor against a System team.

for a style they hadn't seen since the 2001 tournament!

"They"? Who's "they"? In March 2001 Ron Rose was an assistant coach at Bloomington High, Dave Feeney was the head coach of the girl's basketball team at Normal Community High, none of the other three IWU assistants were even in high school yet, and all of the Titans themselves were somewhere between four and eight years old.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Greg, so sue me for exaggerating a bit!  It is still true that they didn't know Greenville had gone System until the JV game, so VERY little time to prepare

Any good coach can draw up a game plan in the amount of time that Ron Rose had available to him between the start of the JV game and the start of the varsity game. (And it goes without saying that Ron Rose is a good coach.) It's not rocket science. The trick is to get your team to implement the new game plan. Since the Titans are a veteran and disciplined team, and since Greenville has far less individual talent than does Wesleyan (plus no game experience at running the Arseneault System), I highly doubt that Ron Rose was suffering a panic attack before the game.

Yes, the Titans had no time to practice for the System, but, as I said, there's only a limited amount that a team can do to prepare for a System team in practice, anyway. Unless it's a D3 tourney game and you have a week to get ready, allowing you to force your scout team to commit Dave Arseneault's DVDs to memory , you're never going to really simulate the look of what you're gonna see when you take the floor against a System team.

for a style they hadn't seen since the 2001 tournament!

"They"? Who's "they"? In March 2001 Ron Rose was an assistant coach at Bloomington High, Dave Feeney was the head coach of the girl's basketball team at Normal Community High, none of the other three IWU assistants were even in high school yet, and all of the Titans themselves were somewhere between four and eight years old.

Yeah, before I saw this reply I had already amended my post to note just that.  The Titans had not faced the System since 2001; it is entirely possible that no current Titans (players or coaches) had ever even SEEN the System.

[Gregory Sager]

Oh, I highly doubt that. You're forgetting that North Central's women's team runs the System. Even if Ron Rose and his staff and players are men's-basketball snobs who refuse to watching their female counterparts play on normal occasions (which I doubt), they still travel together on weekends in January and February and thus the men's coaches and players sit in the bleachers while the women's game takes place before theirs.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Oh, I highly doubt that. You're forgetting that North Central's women's team runs the System. Even if Ron Rose and his staff and players are men's-basketball snobs who refuse to watching their female counterparts play on normal occasions (which I doubt), they still travel together on weekends in January and February and thus the men's coaches and players sit in the bleachers while the women's game takes place before theirs.

Point noted.  Still, none had ever coached or played against the System.  And who (coaches or players) is likely to take really close note of a style they will probably never face?