MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[y_jack_lok]

To try to put all this in the simplest terms possible:

Whether you are D1 or D3, if you are an elite program you have a hard time scheduling all your non-conference games against top calibre competition, so some "cupcakes" are going to appear on your schedule -- in part because those schools want to play you because they want to schedule games against superior competition for the experience. Similarly, if you are in a weak conference you can only either schedule tougher competition or, in the case of D1 schools schedule a few D2 or D3 schools. If you are a weak D3 program and/or are in a weak conference, you can either schedule better competition, look for your peer (i.e. weak) programs in other D3 schools, or go outside D3 to find weak competition. Think about the fact that Wash U plays several SLIAC schools each year as part of their non-confernece schedule. Are they padding their schedule with "cupcakes"? Should they not play SLIAC schools and look for better competition?

[BunchTime]

I don't have the time or energy to that kind of research, but what about schools like Illinois College, Lake Forest, Dominican, Rockford College, Knox College, or North Park.  I am sure there are more that are eluding me right now too.  These would be teams that are closer for you guys. Many of these schools will agree to a 2 year home and home series.  This would be an effective way to increase the strength of schedule, while also, in most cases, not getting blown out.

[Mac Attack]

Good post, Panther. Very good post.

I've been around the MacMurray program for some time now, and the program there has many of the same problems that Greenville has. Jacksonville isn't exactly San Diego. It's a very small campus with a very small enrollment. Older facilities and tight financial constraints. MacMurray isn't for everybody. But neither is Wheaton or Wisconsin or Texas A&M. But it's a great place for the young man or woman who is looking for a quality education at a smaller school, and a chance to play college basketball. Success at any level is important. Not everyone can win a national championship, or even be ranked. But being in a position to be competitive certainly impacts the attitude and enthusiasm of the players. I don't think MacMurray is known as a program that trolls the bottom of the barrell looking for automatic wins every now and then. But it's nice when players at the end of the bench have a chance to play, either in a big win or when the game is out of reach. I'm not big on scheduling automatic wins and I hope MacMurray never goes that route. But you don't have to look very far for very long and you'll find the top programs in the country at every level do it. Every one of them. I'd love to see the Highlanders pick up games against any of the other CCIW schools. Our players would love the opportunity - anywhere, anytime, anyplace. I think the better the competition, the better chance we'll have of recruiting better players. But MacMurray can't get Illinois College, a school less than five miles away, to play them. My sense is scheduling quality opponents is a lot more difficult than any of us realizes. Nobody likes to get their brains beat in, night in and night out - I completely understand your point of view, Panther. Sometimes you have to take your wins where you can get them. What that means in the bigger picture, I'm not exactly sure. Success breeds success. How you get there will always be open to debate and interpretation.

That being said, there are some pretty big conference games on tap the first two weeks of January, including Westminster @ MacMurray (1/6), Fontbonne @ Blackburn (1/6), Greenville @ Maryville (1/9), Webster @ Westminster (1/9), MacMurray @ Greenville (1/12), Eureka @ Webster (1/12), Eureka @ Westminster (1/13), and MacMurray @ Fontbonne (1/13). I wonder when the contenders and pretenders will begin to separate themselves?

My sense is this is going to be a dog fight all the way. Should be a lot of fun for the coaches, players, and fans. Hope everyone stays healthy and eligible.

[BunchTime]

Yjack...Wash U is in a unique situation in D3 because their conference shcedule is more geographically spread out than many D1 conferences.  So, they schedule many games with teams located within, say 100 miles of them, to decrease their traveling expenes since they fly to most places already and have an extremely expensive traveling budget.  It makes sense.  And, in the last 5 years or so, they were not likely to play difficult competition without having to travel a ways, because they were far superior to many teams located close to them.

[pantherpride06]

Mac Attack:  Thanks for seeing eye to eye a little with what I am saying.  Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't schedule these schools, but it's difficult to schedule schools outside ofabout the 100 mile radius because of expense.  We can do a home & home, but schools don't want to come here bc of being in Nowheresville, Illinois.

I am super excited about the SLIAC going into full swing in January.  Greenville really has a chance to get up quick in the SLIAC in the first week out.  Two good games (Maryville & MacMurray) and probably two wins (Principia & Lincoln Christian).  The Panthers need to go 3-1 or 4-0 before we take three long road trips to Eureka, Westminster, and Webster.  Pending Greenville going 3-1 in during the 1st week of January, they'd be 5-1 going into the tough stretch of the schedule.

Go Panthers.

[y_jack_lok]

Not to stray too far from the SLIAC, but Wash U played SIU-Carbondale this year. Would they have been better served playing SIU-Edwardsville, which is closer and D2? Also what about UMSL & McKendree? If the goal is to schedule tougher non-conference competition, that might work bettr for them, that going all the way to D1 -- except for the financial benefits. I understand the budget issues and am grateful that Wash U is willing to play SLIAC schools every year. Once in every 10-15 years they even lose one of those games.

[Gregory Sager]

If North CENTRAL is the caliber of teams that are in the CCIW, the coaching staff is the caliber of coaching staff in the CCIW, if the coaches/players attitutes are the caliber of general attitudes in the CCIW, I don't want any part of them.  Why, because they had their noses in the air all weekend here at Greenville.  Facilities not great, sorry.  No Radisson in Greenville, sorry.  No Pondarosa or expensive, nice restruant to eat at, sorry.  All they wanted to do was come in, play, and leave.

Are you going to paint the entire eight-school CCIW with the same brush, Pride? North Central's players and coaches represent their school, and their school only, with their behavior and their attitudes. The rest of us have no control over them, nor do our teams answer to the North Central folks. And if the Cardinals were that arrogant, then they certainly got their comeuppance at the hands of a weak Harris-Stowe team, didn't they?

Judge a team's behavior on its own merits, not on the merits of its conference peers.

I don't have a problem w/ you Greg, it's just I'm tired of you and CCIW this and that.  It's easy when you are the best conference in D3.  It's easy for the ACC to gloat because Duke, UNC, Georgia Tech, Maryland... those teams are dominate every year and kick the crap out of what could be the second best conference in america the Big 10 every year.

Actually, the best conference in D3 is the WIAC. But I hope that you're not implying that I'm gloating. I'm most certainly not. I've said all along that I want the SLIAC to improve; the region as a whole will be better off if the SLIAC becomes less of a weak sister, because the competition level in non-conference play would improve for everybody. And I should also point out that I'm not the one who keeps bringing up the CCIW in this discussion -- you're that one who keeps going on and on about them.

Getting guarnteed wins do not hurt your program.

Actually, they can. As Bunch Time pointed out, prospects aren't dumb. They know that every coach who recruits them is going to put the best gloss possible on his program. And if that means pointing out what a good record the team had last year, then the kid and his parents are going to want to know what sort of competition that team was playing. And if they aren't aware that that coach's team was playing inferior competition, then count on other coaches who are recruiting the kid to point it out. Trust me, coaches use every possible angle to both talk up their own school and talk down other schools that are recruiting the kid. They don't necessarily badmouth the other schools; they merely point to the facts. And if you're inflating your record by beating club teams and Bible school squads, or if those kinds of teams appear on your next season's schedule, or if both these things happen to be the case, you can count on opposing coaches to point that out to the kids you're trying to recruit. It happens all the time. I've had players tell me that this happens, and I've had coaches tell me that they do it. It's all a part of the salesmanship game involved in the recruiting process. And it's completely ethical, because all you're doing is pointing out the facts about that other program, facts that can be checked out with a single glance at a team website.

Besides, as I said before, I can't imagine that there are many players who are members of a legitimate D3 team that take any satisfaction whatsoever out of beating seminarians or future chiropractors or pharmacists-in-training. If you're a ballplayer, you want to test yourself against other ballplayers -- not against hobbyists.

As stated before, the CCIW schools don't want to come to our gym.  I was alerted to this when learning about the North Central coach not wanting to come here.  We had to say we'd go up there and play before he'd come here.

Pride, most coaches demand scheduling reciprocity. Very few coaches are willing to take on a one-shot contract in which they visit another team's campus and never get a return visit. It has nothing to do with North Central or any other CCIW team being arrogant. That's simply a D3 coach demanding the usual courtesy of a return visit from another D3 coach.

I just want you to realize Mr. CCIW that it's not as simple as you think.

Who said it was simple? I agree that schools such as MacMurray and Greenville are in a tough position, and I've never said otherwise.

I will refer back to budgeting.

You seem to have changed your tune in mid-discussion. Before, it was all about getting some sweat-free W's to make the team feel good and to fatten up the record to impress prospects. Now it's all about travel costs. The latter is a better argument in Greenville's favor; it's a shame that you didn't lead with it rather than use it as your fallback argument.

I agree with you that it isn't easy for a team on a slender budget that's based on a campus in the middle of nowhere to assemble an affordable schedule. I'm sure that your coach has to work hard and be creative when it comes to fitting together a schedule that fits within the team's travel budget. But it's not as though the rinky-dink schools on your schedule are right next door to your gym, either.

I don't have the time or energy to that kind of research, but what about schools like Illinois College, Lake Forest, Dominican, Rockford College, Knox College, or North Park.  I am sure there are more that are eluding me right now too.  These would be teams that are closer for you guys. Many of these schools will agree to a 2 year home and home series.  This would be an effective way to increase the strength of schedule, while also, in most cases, not getting blown out.

Exactly. Don't forget Millikin, a central Illinois CCIW program that always plays two or three SLIAC teams a year. Elmhurst has shown a willingness in the past to play SLIAC teams (the Elmhurst head coach is a downstate native who recruits a lot of downstate kids), and so has Concordia (IL). Monmouth, Dubuque, Augustana, and Loras are relatively close as well -- and there's a whole bunch of NAIA schools nearby, too. NAIA teams are always looking for games, because they play such big schedules (NAIA rules allow up to 32 regular-season games).

Why don't we let the coach do what he needs to do to make the program successful.

OK, so if we define successful as "winning in SLIAC play", then which programs have been the most successful in recent years? Webster, Maryville, and Blackburn. Can you name the three SLIAC schools that have played the toughest non-conference schedules in recent years? I can ... they're Webster, Maryville, and Blackburn.

Coincidence? I think not. The tougher a non-conference slate that you play, the better prepared you are for conference games. If what you're really interested in doing is winning the SLIAC rather than padding your overall win totals -- two goals which are largely divergent, if not in outright conflict -- you toughen up your troops by having them play better teams before the conference slate begins. Metal sharpens metal. That's why I said that the Griffins probably got a lot more out of their close loss to Rose-Hulman the other night than they could ever get out of whomping the pitiful likes of Concordia Seminary or Moody Bible Institute. The Rose-Hulman loss will make Fontbonne a better team; the wins over the seminarians and the Moodies do absolutely nothing in that regard.

Of course, if you define successful as "winning as many games as possible, whether inside or outside the SLIAC", then by all means -- schedule as many cupcakes as you can, and accept the fact that most of your wins are going to come in November and December rather than in January and February.

[Superfoot Wallace]

I can't imagine that there are many players who are members of a legitimate D3 team that take any satisfaction whatsoever out of beating seminarians or future chiropractors or pharmacists-in-training. If you're a ballplayer, you want to test yourself against other ballplayers -- not against hobbyists.

Realize this is a basketball post, but would put the best D3 has to offer in hockey up against Life University of Georgia.  Chiropractic school that manages more loopholes than average NCAA institutions with regards to immigration lw and canuck players.

Life plays at the club level, and am sure there are many hobbyists that would put the wood to the best the NCAA has to offer in the other sports, much less division three.



Tigger

[Gregory Sager]

I can't imagine that there are many players who are members of a legitimate D3 team that take any satisfaction whatsoever out of beating seminarians or future chiropractors or pharmacists-in-training. If you're a ballplayer, you want to test yourself against other ballplayers -- not against hobbyists.

Realize this is a basketball post, but would put the best D3 has to offer in hockey up against Life University of Georgia.  Chiropractic school that manages more loopholes than average NCAA institutions with regards to immigration lw and canuck players.

Life plays at the club level, and am sure there are many hobbyists that would put the wood to the best the NCAA has to offer in the other sports, much less division three.



Tigger

Oh, I agree. And their men's basketball program registered three NAIA-1 national championships and a runner-up performance within the last dozen years as well. But it's the loopholes that you mentioned -- plus some of that good ol' laissez-faire NAIA attitude towards its member schools -- that went a long way towards allowing Life to shape the sort of teams that it wanted. Plus, Life isn't exclusively a chiropractic school; it's also possible there to major in such subjects as exercise science, psychology, and business.

[Superfoot Wallace]

Really a basketball outsider.  Strange, considering Im a school alumni from one of Indiana best prep basketball and my college alma mater made the finals in last years nCAA D3.

Didnt know of Lifes basketball success, kudos on the insight.

Think Ill have to go back over to thematforum.   

best regards,
4pointconversion

[pantherpride06]

After reading that post, I feel like I just got my final paper back from a professor and he just diced it to peices because he wanted the paper to say what he wanted.

I'm not going to continue to argue this.  "I don't  have the time or energy" is the best line I can think of, via BunchTime's post, to use in response.

I'm sorry to the North Parks & Webster's of the world for dragging down D3 basketball by playing "Moody Bible" or "Logan Chiropractic".  Yes, we do gear towards the SLIAC tournament and the SLIAC Season.  Maybe your are right, since we "pad our schedule" for a win or two, we selfish or weakening our program.

But, let me tell you something.   Our kids are 3-5 right now and have loved every minute of it.  The Logan game lit the fire and got is rolling.  The boys were down after going 0-3 into thanksgiving.  They come out firing the Logan game and played very well.  This boiled over to Blackburn (A True SLIAC Team) that we beat.  Then to Fontbonne (A up & coming team bc they played Rose), which we beat.  We did not play well v. Robert Morris & Harris Stowe but had a chance to win both of those games.  But Logan cancels out those games.

Our kids are really on fire.  Not only the 11 guys who suit up, but the student body.  I'll take some responsibility for FCNews leaving because of this type of banter, but if he was here, he'd tell you the GC Crowd was pheonominal.  Everyone is excited about the possibilities that we have with getting a good jump in conference. 

Now, I'm not saying Logan was the entire reason for this, but it helped get us on the right track.  We played some guys who were pushed us around a little.  We found issues and worked them out.  More so than we could have did by getting our back-sides kicked.

Now, I am being very, very sarcastic in sme of the things said previously.  But I hope you get the idea.  Now, I know Professor Greg will break down my paragraphs into quotes and really harp on me.  I'm okay with that.  Because at the end of the day, when Greenville looks back on their season and sees where they were successful and they can smile and be happy with what we have accomplished, I'm happy. 

At 3-5, Greenville has been successful because we have played well in a number of games and managed to win a few.  Good for us.

Greg will say that if I'm good with 3-5 and one of those being Logan, good for me but I'm dragging down the old sister conference of the CCIW, that is the SLIAC.  Sorry.  We may not be the best conference in the world, but we play some good inter-conference basketball and some of the games will go down as some of my favorites of all time.

Maryville at Greenville - 2003-04 SLIAC Title Game
Fontbonne at Greenville - 2003-04 3/OT Game
Greenville at Lincoln Christian - 2003-04 2/OT Game
Greenville at Blackburn - 2006-07
Greenville at Webster - 2005-06

I'm proud to be a SLIAC backer no matter who we schedule.

[BunchTime]

Panther, I appreciate your enthusiasm for SLIAC basketball!  We need more people who share our passion.  That said, its looks like we have different definitons of success and expectations for not only this conference, but for our respective schools.  I am just thankful that Coach Bunch at Webster shares my sentiments regarding his expectation of Webster and this conference as a whole.  I know that they will not win every game, but I would be willing to bet that they make the conference tourney most years, and I believe it is largely due to the non-conference schedule they play.  This means that they might not have as glamerous a record as some other SLIAC schools, but I am alright with that as long as they continue to play "real" teams.  Because I firmly belive that they are, and have been, taking the right steps to build a "program."

And "Professor" Greg Sager, I couldn't have said it better myself.  I am glad that someone who follows a respected conference and has vast knowledge of the D3 game can see eye-to-eye with me.  I know that you are genuine in your argument in the improvement of the SLIAC, because as you said, it will improve the overall quality of midwest basketball "once" we get up to par with some of these other conferences.   Again, well said "Professor"!!!

[Mike Owl]

This is the same classic argument that has gone on for years.  What you are looking at is the same thing that all coaches go through.  For example what motivation does a high level division I team have for playing a solid mid-major...None!  If they lose it's horrible for the program, if they win they were supposed to.  It's a no win situation and a dangerous game to play if a coach is trying to keep his job.  What your left with is coaches that will schedule tough games against other high level division I teams or cupcakes.  There is no inbetween.  Mid-Majors cry about this all the time.  They can't get games with the big boys.  Why, because for the big-boys there is no incentive, no upside.  The CCIW treats the SLIAC like whipping boys.  The CCIW plays the SLIAC for wins, nothing else, just wins.  The SLIAC plays Moody Bible for wins.... There is nothing wrong with that.  A team cannot be up and challenged every game of a season.  A team needs nights where they don't have to play their best to win.  A good coach recognized those situations and add "Wins" in where he thinks his team will need a break.  Is it the best thing to do?  I don't know, however, in Division III coaches are being fired for losing seasons more than ever, does it pay to have a few extra wins?  FU for years has played cupcakes, Syracuse is well known for playing cupcakes.  I believe that they won a national championship.  Michigan State two years ago played a brutal schedule and lost about everyone of their tough games and yet still made a deep run in the NCAA's.   From a coaches perspective the general rule is a young team needs to win games, against anyone you can find to beat.  A veatern team needs to be challenged even if it means playing Division II teams.  There is no answer to your argument, there is no right answer.  If there was you wouldn't see the different opinions.

As for the heat on the board.... Keep it coming.  Who want's to participate in a conversation where everyone is in agreement. 

[sully309]

That is the problem here.  There are a bunch of people who are afraid to say anthing that is controversial, because they do not want to stub someone else's toes.  Get over it.

It looks like this problem has been solved, Bunchtime!! Anyway, I have not commented on this scheduling debate yet, but I would like to toss in my 2 cents. I believe Panther said something about you can't go 3-18 every year and recruit at a place like Greenville. Actually, this is exactly what Eureka has done. Maybe they didn't go 3-18, but EC was 6-20 in 2004-05 and 4-22 last year. Last year's nonconference schedule included 3 Midwest Conf. teams (0-3), 7 SLIAC (4-3), 1 CCIW (0-1), 2 Lake Michigan (0-2) and a pretty solid RMC-Springfield squad.

Who knows what EC will end up at this season, but they are 5-2 so far and has again played all games versus D3 competition. This being said, I don't think we should totally dismiss Panther's argument. If Greenville's coach feels scheduling Logan will help his team, by all means let him do it. I don't think Greenville should change its schedule because the Webster's of the world (just throwing out a team as an example...I'm not actually accusing anyone of doing so) want them to. I'd be willing to listen to an argument from someone that can show me that a SLIAC team got snubbed from the tournament because their QOWI was brought down because Greenville didn't schedule tough enough. I'm new here, but to my knowledge this has not happened, in which case, who cares? Let them be.

Nice post Mr. Owl. I've always been a believer that teams should schedule based on what kind of a team they will have. This is easier said than done, of course, but it makes since that a veteran team gains more out of a tough challenge (especially when it's on the road), while a young team gains more from winning (no matter who it's against). Well put.

[Pat Coleman]

I would not dismiss the chance, by the way, that a situation could happen where a SLIAC team goes like 22-4 and doesn't get into the tournament because of a non-conference cupcake schedule. Just because it has not happened doesn't mean it can't.

Remember, they more than doubled the number of at-large bids last year. Before last year it definitely was not going to happen. But last year, the CUNYAC, also a bottom conference, got two bids. Don't aim low because that's where you'll hit.