MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[fredfalcon]

Herink started 15 games at Mankato. Seifert played in 16 games at Bemidji. Herink will be a junior, Seifert a sophomore at RF.

[tomt4525]

Saw a tweet from one of the UWSP basketball commits tonight...wishing Blake Ehrke from Deerfield a happy birthday and that he couldn't wait for college together.

Seems to me that 6'4" G/F Blake Ehrke will continue his basketball career for the Pointers, ranked 48th in the Wisconsin Senior Top 50.  Good athlete that can get to the hoop and shoots solid from the outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_mYPgprslc

Senior Year Highlights

[tomt4525]

Point fans...

I don't remember UWSP ever carrying more than 15-16 players.  With returners and known incoming recruits, the roster sits at 18.  I don't think the recruiting class is done either.  There leaves a possibility of some returnees not playing, but I won't speculate on that.  What is everyone's thoughts on a possible larger roster??  What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages??

Obvious advantages is that you cast a wider net on players across the state.  If you hit on just a couple players each recruiting class, you're going to have a program with staying power.  Disadvantage I see is that more practice players equals less attention for each player.  I hope it wouldn't hurt their development over their careers but there is a realistic chance that could happen.

Thoughts??  It seems that this is becoming more normal.  You look at La Crosse and Whitewater and they could carry rosters in the twenties at this point.

[AppletonRocks]

What about Title IX issues?  If you carry that many men, how do you balance participation for Title IX ?  More girly men on the Point football team 

[cubs]

Add another guy to the list for Ken Koelbl and La Crosse...

Brookfield Central guard Andrew Bruggink (6-2) has decided to attend La Crosse and play basketball.

[John Gleich]

Point fans...

I don't remember UWSP ever carrying more than 15-16 players.  With returners and known incoming recruits, the roster sits at 18.  I don't think the recruiting class is done either.  There leaves a possibility of some returnees not playing, but I won't speculate on that.  What is everyone's thoughts on a possible larger roster??  What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages??

Obvious advantages is that you cast a wider net on players across the state.  If you hit on just a couple players each recruiting class, you're going to have a program with staying power.  Disadvantage I see is that more practice players equals less attention for each player.  I hope it wouldn't hurt their development over their careers but there is a realistic chance that could happen.

Thoughts??  It seems that this is becoming more normal.  You look at La Crosse and Whitewater and they could carry rosters in the twenties at this point.

Ever is a long time. You can thank the redshirt ban (I think at least in part) on the smaller roster size.

If you go back to the Jack Bennett years, we carried more than the NCAA Tournament roster max of 15*.

*Teams can only dress 15 for NCAA games and though we had more than 15 on the roster, we only dressed 15, between the redshirts, guys who shared jerseys, or guys simply being practice players

96-97 - 18
97-98 - 20
98-99 - 21
99-00 - 20
00-01 - 21
01-02 - 19
02-03 - 20
03-04 - 20
04-05 - 19

Jack Bennett retired in the fall of 2005 and Bob Semling took over

05-06 - 15
06-07 - 15

I'm not sure if they have practice players that just aren't on the roster... but they have only kept right at that 15 man roster (so everybody on the roster with a jersey).

That has meant than Point has dressed fewer than the allowable maximum (for NCAA games.... there is no restriction for the regular season - see Grinnell) EDIT: when there have been injuries.


Positives vs. Negatives:

Negatives - a player has a higher view of himself than the coach does (or than reality... or both) and thinks he should be playing more (or playing, in general). Of course, there's nothing about 16 players that can cause this. If you've got 6 kids, then whoever doesn't start can feel this way.

- It can create a divide between those who are playing and those who are not playing. This is somewhat related to the previous point but it can come to a head if ever one of those second tier players is called upon and they haven't gelled with the first tier.

- If you're trying to do simple 5 on 5 (just two teams) then you've got lots of players standing around doing nothing (unless you have the space to have 10 going 5 on 5 and the other 10 doing something else productive).

- Due to lack of playing time, a higher percentage of players may quit or look to transfer


Positives - a team can run three full squads, with subs, in a competition or rotation-type drill (If offense scores, they stay, new defense on. If defense gets a stop, they move to offense, new defense on).

- Should player(s) get hurt, there's a "next man up" and there are actually men who can fill that role (not so much with just 14 guys on the roster).

- Attrition is less of an issue because you have more players per grade. If you start with 6 freshmen and 2 quit over the years, you end up with 4 seniors. If you just start out with 4, then you're potentially self-limiting the number of upperclassmen.


There are probably more but these were the ones that I came up with off the top of my head.

[chmarx]

Thanks for the informative post john.

[John Gleich]

Disadvantage I see is that more practice players equals less attention for each player.  I hope it wouldn't hurt their development over their careers but there is a realistic chance that could happen.

One more thought related to this.

The old saying goes "teams are made during the season, players are made in the off-season."

That adage is very true. Though there is *some* individual development, most of it is done in a team setting. So everyone is doing ball handling or guards and bigs are split up... and the group is all doing the same thing. So the individuals develop, but there's far less one-on-one coaching that occurs. Most happens before or after practice than during.

If a player wants to get better, then they need to put the time in outside of the structured team time.

[tomt4525]

Disadvantage I see is that more practice players equals less attention for each player.  I hope it wouldn't hurt their development over their careers but there is a realistic chance that could happen.

One more thought related to this.

The old saying goes "teams are made during the season, players are made in the off-season."

That adage is very true. Though there is *some* individual development, most of it is done in a team setting. So everyone is doing ball handling or guards and bigs are split up... and the group is all doing the same thing. So the individuals develop, but there's far less one-on-one coaching that occurs. Most happens before or after practice than during.

If a player wants to get better, then they need to put the time in outside of the structured team time.

Thanks for your input John.  And...just to clarify, I shouldn't have said the roster was 15 forever.  I should have said that as far back as I can remember following Point basketball I thought the roster was 15.  My first year at Point was 03-04, I've followed them ever since.

[Greek Tragedy]

03-04? Convenient time to start following them.       

[tomt4525]

03-04? Convenient time to start following them.       

Very convenient, it just so happened to be the perfect time to graduate high school and become a UWSP fan.

[tomt4525]

Appleton West 6'7" Senior Jack Flynn will attend UW-Oshkosh to play basketball for Coach Juckem.

[AppletonRocks]

Appleton West 6'7" Senior Jack Flynn will attend UW-Oshkosh to play basketball for Coach Juckem.

They went 6'8", 6'7", 6'6" so far.  Strong returning guards and wings.  Titans will be strong.

[tomt4525]

And it continues...another recruit for La Crosse...6'3" G Mason Denoyer of Lakeside Lutheran will play for Coach Koelbl.  I know they just won the regular season and that gives reason for recruits to give a longer look at La Crosse, but how many minutes do these kids think are available??

[cubs]

Deerfield senior Blake Ehrke (6-4) plans to attend UW-Stevens Point and play basketball for the Pointers.