MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[pantherpride06]

Again, I'm not talking about scheduling stuff anymore because it's a lost cause.

On the other hand, I would like to take my hat off to Wheaton (Ill.) on taking Northwestern (Ill.) to the wire.  Good job.

[Beaver_SID]

Beaver_SID, are you saying that some SLIAC schools have 40-50 students try out for basketball, or were you talking about football, baseball, soccer, etc.?

I was wondering the same thing Y_jack. I hope he wasnt implying that the larger STL schools get that many players out for the team, they are no where close to that.

I was speaking of an average between all sports, but still the same you can't say that Webster or Fontbonne gets less players coming out than Blackburn or some of the other smaller schools in the conference. And continuing with that, you can't say more numbers doesn't help them in building and keeping up their programs. I am not complaining, I'm just commenting off an earlier post.

The reason why enrollment is of such limited importance is because most varsity sports, especially the major men's sports such as basketball, football, and baseball, don't draw their players from the general student pool. Those teams consist of students who were specifically recruited to come and play there. The general student pool only comes into play when you're talking about unknown walk-ons, and those types of players seldom play an important role in a team's fortunes. If the 12 players that I recruited are better than the 12 players that you recruited, my basketball team is going to beat your basketball team in spite of the fact that your school has 5,000 students and mine only has 800.

Greg-
Id agree with you if this was a D1 or D2 conference, where schools actually had defined recruits, but it's not, it's D3, and every student that comes out to play is in most part a walk-on, with nothing holding him to his team or organization. Yes, all schools send out reps and try to talk players into coming to their program, but they have neither anything to offer them or keep them there once they've committed.  So in essence schools like Blackburn and Eureka have a harder time feilding god-given athletes from their student body than would Webster, Fontbonne, or Greenville strictly based off of student enrollment, with larger schools having a 2-to-1 advantage on numbers.

[y_jack_lok]

Beaver_SID, I think we're on the same page. I would have been surprised if Blackburn had 40-50 students try out for basketball. And it never would have occurred to me that Webster would have fewer students trying out for basketball than Blackburn. By the way, I have mentioned this in posts from years past. My wife grew up in Carlinville and her father taught at Blackburn for 21 years, retiring in 1976 or 1977. So I have a fond feeling for Blackburn.

[Daryl L Lloyd]

Beaver_SID, are you saying that some SLIAC schools have 40-50 students try out for basketball, or were you talking about football, baseball, soccer, etc.?

I was wondering the same thing Y_jack. I hope he wasnt implying that the larger STL schools get that many players out for the team, they are no where close to that.

I was speaking of an average between all sports, but still the same you can't say that Webster or Fontbonne gets less players coming out than Blackburn or some of the other smaller schools in the conference. And continuing with that, you can't say more numbers doesn't help them in building and keeping up their programs. I am not complaining, I'm just commenting off an earlier post.

The reason why enrollment is of such limited importance is because most varsity sports, especially the major men's sports such as basketball, football, and baseball, don't draw their players from the general student pool. Those teams consist of students who were specifically recruited to come and play there. The general student pool only comes into play when you're talking about unknown walk-ons, and those types of players seldom play an important role in a team's fortunes. If the 12 players that I recruited are better than the 12 players that you recruited, my basketball team is going to beat your basketball team in spite of the fact that your school has 5,000 students and mine only has 800.

Greg-
Id agree with you if this was a D1 or D2 conference, where schools actually had defined recruits, but it's not, it's D3, and every student that comes out to play is in most part a walk-on, with nothing holding him to his team or organization. Yes, all schools send out reps and try to talk players into coming to their program, but they have neither anything to offer them or keep them there once they've committed.  So in essence schools like Blackburn and Eureka have a harder time feilding god-given athletes from their student body than would Webster, Fontbonne, or Greenville strictly based off of student enrollment, with larger schools having a 2-to-1 advantage on numbers.

Beaver_SID: Since you addressed Greg with the majority of this post, I will let him respond.  I will say that in years past Webster has had problems with the number of players that were in the program.  As recently as 3 years ago they fielded a JV team comprised of 3 practicing Basketball players, 2 of the schools baseball players and a school security gaurd.  It was an off year in recruiting.  Seldom do walk ons contribute to Websters program, and thats not a knock to walk on players.  I am going to whole heartedly disagree with you that in D3 recruiting does not play the role it plays in D1 or D2.  That is completely incorrect in my opinion, and any team truly relying on walk ons to contribute a majority share is going to be hard pressed to compete (even in the SLIAC).

[hopefan]

Certainly most D3 schools  DO recruit  -  Blackburn SID, you are either being unrealistic or Naive -  Ask most SLIAC players how they ended up at their particular school and I'm sure part of the reason is their contact with the athletic department during their high school senior year.  There are very few walkons who show up in the Coach's office  unknown and unannounced, if for no other reason that at times, a student athlete applies, the admissions office informs the coach that there as a student athlete application, then the coach recruits him.  In coaching D3 out east a while back, I only had one unknown show up in 5 years.  Recruiting is why the Eurekas and Blackburns can compete with the Maryvilles and Websters.

[ballhog01]

Long time reader first time poster.
On the subject of student body size. Of the 1000 or so under grads attending Fontbonne only about 20% are male. Basically if your a guy attending this school and your not a student athlete you are in the minority.

I strongly agree with the previous posts that state walk ons are extremely rare.

On the heated subject of schedules, I think you all are splitting hairs. You guys are complaining about the scheduling of about 5 games out of a possible 70 non-conference games the league played. Accross the board the SLIAC has vastly improved their schedules over the past few years.

[Gregory Sager]

Id agree with you if this was a D1 or D2 conference, where schools actually had defined recruits, but it's not, it's D3, and every student that comes out to play is in most part a walk-on, with nothing holding him to his team or organization. Yes, all schools send out reps and try to talk players into coming to their program, but they have neither anything to offer them or keep them there once they've committed.  So in essence schools like Blackburn and Eureka have a harder time feilding god-given athletes from their student body than would Webster, Fontbonne, or Greenville strictly based off of student enrollment, with larger schools having a 2-to-1 advantage on numbers.

As Daryl, Hopefan, and Ballhog have already stated, I think that you might not be all that aware of how D3 men's basketball works with regard to roster construction. Coaches recruit the players that they want; they don't post signs in the dorms and ask for anyone who is interested to show up on the first day of practice. They almost always know coming into the school year how many players they will have, and who those players are. If they do take in walk-ons, they're usually just warm bodies used to fill out the JV team or keep the roster full for practice purposes, particularly if there's a rash of injuries. Walk-ons very rarely amount to much on the D3 level, although of course there are exceptions.

The fact that D3 student-athletes do not commit with letters of intent and are not bound to the team by scholarship makes no difference whatsoever in terms of how teams are constructed on this level. A player enrolls at a D3 school largely because he was recruited to play ball there. As I said before, D3 men's basketball rosters consist entirely, or almost entirely, of players specifically recruited to play for that school -- and, therefore, the size of the student body makes no difference in terms of the team's talent level.

[Beaver_SID]

I never said D3 teams don't recruit at all. I said that D1 or D2 recruiting is a completely different procedure than D3. So comparing the two would be impossible.

Yes, all schools send out reps and try to talk players into coming to their program, but they have neither anything to offer them or keep them there once they've committed.  So in essence schools like Blackburn and Eureka have a harder time feilding god-given athletes from their student body than would Webster, Fontbonne, or Greenville strictly based off of student enrollment, with larger schools having a 2-to-1 advantage on numbers.

Of course Webster and fontbonne have never had a problem with recruits, "Its Webster and Fontbonne"!!!!
I guarentee that some of the smaller schools of this conference have had these problems. I know ,as a fact, that only 2 of BC's players were recruited if you could call it that, Zak Allen and Zeb Hammond. Every other player on BC's roster was pulled from the student body.
Of course Inner city Universitys dont have a problem with recruiting. They have a larger high school population to pull from, with the advantages of location and popularity. How many St. Louis high school athletes are going to come to BC or Eureka when they have these larger newer schools with known academics, not mentioning that their only 10-20 minutes down 55 or 64 from their parents homes. BC also has to compete with the "Websters, Fontbonnes, SIUEs" to find recruits. Last year a BC recruit changed his mind just before the start of the semester to attend "FONTBONNE" based on academics. 
Even further these schools have the oppuruntiy for one sport speacilized athletes. Lets take Webster and Fontbonne sports against BCs. Over half of BC's athletes play more than one sport. How many of Websters or Fontbonne's players play another sport as well?
As for percentages, I doubt that Fontbonne's male to female ratio is 20-80, BC only has a student body of 600 with close to a 50-50 ratio of men to women.

Anyone that has the nerve to compare the recruiting programs of Webster or Fontbonne or any other large D3 school in the St. Louis area to BC's is being completely ignorant to the fact.

[Beaver_SID]

Also,

BC will be going into tonights game at milikin shothanded with three players (Leotis Howard, Brandon Bundren, and Bryan Waters) and an assistant coach (Todd Stevens) serving a 1 game suspension.

[ballhog01]

BC - I know for a fact that FU's student body is only about 20-25% male. Remember it was an all womens school till about 1980. And, GC gets alot of good athlete's like your Justin Bennett and Bryson Taylor's because of their great Track program. BC and GC have a large are of cental Il. to recruit from. Those small towns produce some good hard nesed ball players. Cause we all know Il. basketball is better.

Anybody see the FU v. Wash U. game. I hope FU was able to keep from getting blown out like the other SLIAC schools have.

[ballhog01]

ST. LOUIS, — Washington University in St. Louis' men's basketball team defeated Fontbonne University, 83-68, Saturday at the WU Field House. With the win, the Bears improved to 8-1.

Sophomore forward Tyler Nading sparked the Bears to a 7-0 lead early in the game. He scored three buckets in the paint and added a free throw, but Fontbonne rallied back.

Trailing 11-8, the Griffins reeled off seven unanswered points. Freshman guard Joshua Branch connected from beyond the three-point arc, and sophomore guard Patrick McCoy drove the lane for two. Junior guard Chad Fournie scored again and WU called for time with Fontbonne leading 15-11.

After the timeout, freshman guard Aaron Thompson hit back-to-back treys to help the Red and Green draw even at 17-17. Junior forward Troy Ruths scored in the post and Nading drove the lane for two to give WU the lead back at 21-17. The Griffins cut their deficit to one point (21-20) before the Bears responded with a 9-0 run. Ruths scored twice in the paint, sophomore guard Sean Wallis hit a three-pointer, and Nading converted again to force a Fontbonne timeout with 7:33 left in the first half.

Washington U. led 48-36 at halftime. Nading led the Bears with 13 points on 6-of-6 shooting. Wallis added 11 points and four assists and Ruths had 10 points as WU shot .543 (19-of-35) from the field. Branch paced Fontbonne with 15 points and four rebounds.

Fontbonne (2-6) cut the Bears' lead to eight points early in the second half but would get no closer.

Nading led the Bears with 21 points and nine rebounds, while Ruths added 19 points and eight boards. Wallis finished with 16 points, and Thompson added 13 points and five steals. Branch paced the Griffins with 20 points.

Washington U. will have 17 days off before returning to action at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 3, at Webster University.

Press release submitted by Washington U. on Dec 16 2006 at 06:02 PM

[y_jack_lok]

UMSL 99 - Maryville 62
Millikin 81 - Blackburn 74

[hopefan]

A real SLIAC fan would go up to Illinois College tomorrow to see Westminster play  -  it'll be more entertaining than watching the Rams  -   seriously    --- ahh, no, that'd be silly   -  right?

[Daryl L Lloyd]

I never said D3 teams don't recruit at all. I said that D1 or D2 recruiting is a completely different procedure than D3. So comparing the two would be impossible.

Yes, all schools send out reps and try to talk players into coming to their program, but they have neither anything to offer them or keep them there once they've committed.  So in essence schools like Blackburn and Eureka have a harder time feilding god-given athletes from their student body than would Webster, Fontbonne, or Greenville strictly based off of student enrollment, with larger schools having a 2-to-1 advantage on numbers.

Of course Webster and fontbonne have never had a problem with recruits, "Its Webster and Fontbonne"!!!!
I guarentee that some of the smaller schools of this conference have had these problems. I know ,as a fact, that only 2 of BC's players were recruited if you could call it that, Zak Allen and Zeb Hammond. Every other player on BC's roster was pulled from the student body.
Of course Inner city Universitys dont have a problem with recruiting. They have a larger high school population to pull from, with the advantages of location and popularity. How many St. Louis high school athletes are going to come to BC or Eureka when they have these larger newer schools with known academics, not mentioning that their only 10-20 minutes down 55 or 64 from their parents homes. BC also has to compete with the "Websters, Fontbonnes, SIUEs" to find recruits. Last year a BC recruit changed his mind just before the start of the semester to attend "FONTBONNE" based on academics. 
Even further these schools have the oppuruntiy for one sport speacilized athletes. Lets take Webster and Fontbonne sports against BCs. Over half of BC's athletes play more than one sport. How many of Websters or Fontbonne's players play another sport as well?
As for percentages, I doubt that Fontbonne's male to female ratio is 20-80, BC only has a student body of 600 with close to a 50-50 ratio of men to women.

Anyone that has the nerve to compare the recruiting programs of Webster or Fontbonne or any other large D3 school in the St. Louis area to BC's is being completely ignorant to the fact.

Ok you move from generalities to specifics very quickly.  D3 schools with GOOD programs (I use the term loosely) recruit, you can accept this or choose to be "ignorant to the fact." The student body size of a school plays little into the talent level of the player debate other than the role it plays in said players choosing to attend the school AFTER being recruited.  Ill buy that the difficulties faced in a rural area are "different" than those of the city schools. But what you fail to recognize is the inherent problems these city schools face in thier recruiting efforts.  Also what does the student body ratio of BC have to do with the student body ratio of FU? Are they the same school? Of course not, so obviously thier demographics are going to be different.   

[ballhog01]

If anybody saw the Saints or Fontbonne game could you please comment. On paper it seems these two teams are in very similar situations. They both seem to be struggling with young squads. Is there any chance of getting two STL. teams into the post season.