MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Greek Tragedy]

Thanks for the history lesson, Steve.

I never understood why they don't play each other on a semi-regular basis. Must be politics. They are one of the closest schools to UWSP, less than an hour and a half away. I, for one, am happy to see them play the Green Knights.

[John Gleich]

Thanks for the history lesson, Steve.

I never understood why they don't play each other on a semi-regular basis. Must be politics. They are one of the closest schools to UWSP, less than an hour and a half away. I, for one, am happy to see them play the Green Knights.

We scrimmaged them a few years between 2001 and 2005.

[Pat Coleman]

Thanks for the history lesson, Steve.

I never understood why they don't play each other on a semi-regular basis. Must be politics. They are one of the closest schools to UWSP, less than an hour and a half away. I, for one, am happy to see them play the Green Knights.

We scrimmaged them a few years between 2001 and 2005.

Midwest Conference teams don't actually have a lot of non-conference games. They play just 23 regular-season games by conference rule and have a large conference schedule.

[Greek Tragedy]

That's a pretty bad excuse if they are using that up in De Pere. We've played fellow MWC foes Ripon and Lawrence on, at least, a semi-regular basis, as well as MIAC members St. Thomas,  St. John's,  St. Olaf and Bethel, and the MIAC has the same amount of non conference games (5) as the MWC has.

De Pere is less than 1 1/2 hours away, making the Green Knights one of closes schools to Stevens Point.

[Greek Tragedy]

Shockingly, Pointer men's schedule released already!

http://athletics.uwsp.edu/news/2014/8/2/MBB_0802143457.aspx?path=mbball

Point is slacking. They are two weeks behind last year's schedule release. It was September 5 when they released the  2-man recruiting class. 

[Greek Tragedy]

I'll bite on the prop bet. Make the o/u 4 and we have a deal. So 4 losses is a wash. They could easily end up with 4 or less losses, but that doesn't mean they will repeat. Augustana returns virtually everyone. I'm sure Williams willbe tough as nails despite losing their coach and I have no idea what kind of team IWU will have...not to mention the usual national contenders.

As for Point, I have no worries. We won the National Championship in 2005 and 2010, so naturally...it's ours to lose in 2015. LOL :-)

BTW, if you aren't keeping track, T-MINUS 3 months before Point's schedule is released!

Apparently I predicted (ok, not really) a National Championship for the Pointers in June of last summer. LOL   

[sncdangler]

Thanks for the history lesson, Steve.

I never understood why they don't play each other on a semi-regular basis. Must be politics. They are one of the closest schools to UWSP, less than an hour and a half away. I, for one, am happy to see them play the Green Knights.

We scrimmaged them a few years between 2001 and 2005.

Midwest Conference teams don't actually have a lot of non-conference games. They play just 23 regular-season games by conference rule and have a large conference schedule.

This must be the first time ever a school has caught grief for playing somebody. Who cares if they didn't play them before they're playing them now and that's a lot more than most school can say.

[frodotwo]

Thanks for the history lesson, Steve.

I never understood why they don't play each other on a semi-regular basis. Must be politics. They are one of the closest schools to UWSP, less than an hour and a half away. I, for one, am happy to see them play the Green Knights.

We scrimmaged them a few years between 2001 and 2005.

Midwest Conference teams don't actually have a lot of non-conference games. They play just 23 regular-season games by conference rule and have a large conference schedule.

This must be the first time ever a school has caught grief for playing somebody. Who cares if they didn't play them before they're playing them now and that's a lot more than most school can say.

Well it will certainly help St Norbert's SOS come tourney time if Point doesn't have a complete letdown. They were 26th in SOS in the Central Region and 0-1 vs RRO last year.

[Pat Coleman]

That's a pretty bad excuse if they are using that up in De Pere. We've played fellow MWC foes Ripon and Lawrence on, at least, a semi-regular basis, as well as MIAC members St. Thomas,  St. John's,  St. Olaf and Bethel, and the MIAC has the same amount of non conference games (5) as the MWC has.

De Pere is less than 1 1/2 hours away, making the Green Knights one of closes schools to Stevens Point.

You could always go to St. Norbert's December tournament, too. They play Whitewater and Oshkosh on a regular basis. I think SNC is doing its due diligence.

[Just Bill]

There are a number of schools in Wisconsin ducking Stevens Point and Whitewater, but I don't think you can count St. Norbert among them.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Love talking to UWSP and UWW coaches and hearing the fact they have to look out of state for games - for reasons already stated.

[frodotwo]

That's a pretty bad excuse if they are using that up in De Pere. We've played fellow MWC foes Ripon and Lawrence on, at least, a semi-regular basis, as well as MIAC members St. Thomas,  St. John's,  St. Olaf and Bethel, and the MIAC has the same amount of non conference games (5) as the MWC has.

De Pere is less than 1 1/2 hours away, making the Green Knights one of closes schools to Stevens Point.

You could always go to St. Norbert's December tournament, too. They play Whitewater and Oshkosh on a regular basis. I think SNC is doing its due diligence.

Actually St Norbert is only a recent addition to the UWW schedule, playing them the past two seasons. They haven't played them for a long time prior to that, I couldn't find them on the UWW radar all the way back to 1990. Oshkosh is only 45 minutes from DePere and the two have opened the season against each other for the past eight years, and have played every year since 2000. Interestingly the powerhouse team they have played the most against recently is Augustana, whom they've met 5 times in the past nine years.

[Greek Tragedy]

The Whitewater vs St. Norbert home and home series was actually 12-13 and 13-14 years, not last year. The Green Knights' only regular season loss was to John Carroll. Anyway, my original comment had nothing to do with who's afraid of playing who. It's simple geography.  Point and De Pere are close enough where you don't need a hotel.

On the other hand, some of you are probably right, why play Point or Whitewater where a loss is more probable than playing Martin Luther and Northwestern.

[sac]

Scheduling isn't easy, sometimes it takes several years for two schools to find mutual dates that work.


In the last 5 years alone, Stevens Point and Whitewater have played the following Wisconsin D3's
Whitewater-------Beloit, Carroll, Concordia, St. Norbert, Lawrence, Edgewood, Carthage, Wis-Lutheran, Marian
Stevens Point-----Lawrence, Edgewood


That's 9 of the 13 non-WIAC D3's in Wisconsin.  Missing are Ripon, MSOE, Lakeland and Maranatha Baptist.  As Pat mentioned the MWC teams have already limited schedules because of conference retstrictions and the NACC schools are limited to just 5 non-conference games each and I imagine there are other WIAC schools that are scheduling these same teams regularly as well.

Point likes to take at least one long trip per year and they seem to have a thing with playing St. Olaf, St. Thomas and St. John every year, plus yearly games with Lawrence and Edgewood.  Not sure what kind of room is left for any other Wisconsin schools, perhaps the "ducking" problem doesn't really lie with the other schools as much as it does with who and where SP chooses to play yearly leaving slim pickings of dates for anything else.

Basically Stevens Point's recent schedules have been St. Olaf, St. Thomas, St. John's, Edgewood, Lawrence, 2-games on long road trip, CCIW team(Augustana or North Central) and one other (Hope/Buena Vista in the 5 year window above).

Tough to claim someone's ducking you under these circumstances.

[Greek Tragedy]

I completely understand that scheduling is difficult. Maybe Point "has a thing" with the MIAC schools becaus they are the only ones willing to play Point. I'm not trying to say, nor was I ever trying to say, that Point is the Almighty and everyone wants to avoid them.  It was simple geography.  Look at your example.

Whitewater has played Beloit, Carroll, Edgewood, Concordia,  Carthage, WLC...partially,  I'm sure, because of the relative location to Whitewater.  That's all I'm saying. Why wouldn't St. Norbert want to play Point?

I suppose if St. Norbert can attract anyone to their tourney or to their home court and the opponent doesn't care about raveling, I suppose they wouldn't be inclined to invite Point. So I guess I answered my own question.