MBB: American Southwest Conference

[rimrocker]

For the second week in a row UMHB has dropped in the polls despite winning both games it played, on the road no less...this time from 13 to 15.  Any thoughts on this?

The voters must have looked at the opponents records and not deemed them "good" wins. 

[Ralph Turner]

For the second week in a row UMHB has dropped in the polls despite winning both games it played, on the road no less...this time from 13 to 15.  Any thoughts on this?

The voters must have looked at the opponents records and not deemed them "good" wins. 

Rimrocker, I think that there is more support for other conferences ahead of the ASC this year.

The ASC rarely gets any "pre-season love".  In 2000 McMurry, an Elite 8 team and 27-2, finished #6 and was voted #11 in the 2001-02 pre-season.  In 2006 Miss College was 29-2/Sweet 16 and finished #13.  They started the 2006-07 pre-season poll at #11.

UMHB lost in the first round of the 2007 playoffs and finished 22-6.  They received four votes in the Final Poll.  UMHB started the 2007 pre-season poll at #14.  That is the 3rd highest start for an ASC team in a pre-season poll, and with less of pedigree than any previous team.

They picked up a good win early over Miss College, when everyone else was losing, and "floated" to #4 in the Week #7 poll before the two losses in Abilene.

The other thing to look at is that the voters like UMHB as the second best team in the South.  They went from 319 votes to 297 votes over the week where voters probably thought that the last week's worth of games were not as convincing compared to what someone else had done.

Now I think that the voters are comfortable with UMHB around 300 votes, which is #14 on the "Perfect Top 25"  (In the Perfect Top 25, #1 gets all 25 #1 votes for 25 * 25 = 625 points.  #25 gets 25  25th place votes worth one point each.)

I think UMHB is in good shape.  The bullseye on the jersey is not too big! 

[#1ascfanman]

You are not stealing my thunder, I wish more would do this so we could see who does the best at the end of the year.  Thanks for joining!

LC, we are in good shape, ETBwho lost and all we need to do is win Thursday and it is all ours baby!!!!!

[gccfan]

Actually, LC needs to win both games to assure a playoff spot.  If they only win once, then the Jackets still have a chance to get in should they beat Ozarks and ETBU would lose to Ozarks.

LeTourneau finally looked like the team I saw crush HSU by 25 in Abilene early in the season.  Last night they were running on all cylinders against ETBU, but it might be too little too late.  I'm glad I at least got to see that team once more though.

[#1ascfanman]

My boys lost a tough one to UT Tyler.  We HAVE to win today boys!

[gccfan]

I just wanted to find out if we will have "correspondents" in Marshall and Pineville to keep the rest of us informed of the how those games are going.

[Ralph Turner]

UMHB took a lead with one-minute left in the half, 31-29.

McMurry came back to tie at 43 at 10:00.  It was a two-possession game until the last minute.

Final -- UMHB 70, McM 59. 

UMHB hit 12-21 on Fg's on the second half and 12-20 on FT's

[#1ascfanman]

Well, my boys gave it their all like they do every year.  I know we didn't get in but congrats to LC for the effort when everyone counted them out.  I saw the bracket on the ASC website, so I will fill in my bracket with my predictions:

Game #1: MC over HPU
Game #2: CUA over Dallas               Game #5: MC over CUA
Game #3: Tyler over HSU                 Game #6: Tyler over UMHB     MC over Tyler
Game #4: UMHB over ETBU


My upset will be Tyler over UMHB, that is a tough one to pick with UMHB hosting but Tyler is playing so well right now.

[Ralph Turner]

I really think that UMHB is hurting badly from the losses of Jason Wagner and Matt Dickey.  Those two guys are very talented and give UMHB that athleticism that they have not found how to replace, yet.

The McMurry game was a 1-2 possession game until the last minute, and UMHB could not put McM away.

I think that this is a toss-up.  The fact that we are not playing in Clinton is a big factor.  This is as close to a neutral court as we have seen in years.  Only Miss College has a "extremely" long drive to the tourney.

[t_money]

Ralph,

I have not kept up with the season like I did in the past seasons.  I have seen MC play once and while they are a solid team I know Coach Jones has had better teams.  Who do you like in the ASC tourney and is the winner of the tourney the only team the ASC will have in the NCAA?

[Ralph Turner]

Beating UMHB in Belton is tough, and I think that they will win it all.

UT-Tyler is my choice to upset UMHB.  I think that they have the athletes to do it.

CUA can win it, if they can get past Miss College.  I think they have the athletes to beat UT-Tyler.

Miss College has the tradition.  That may be their advantage.

[#1ascfanman]

I did not know UMHB was missing those two players, that may make things interesting.  Does anyone think with that scenario ETBU could pull off an upset.  They have beat some good teams but have been bad over the last few weeks. 

[Hugenerd]

If anyone is interested, there is a discussion on the Multi-Regional: Pool C board on how OWP and OOWP effects conferences like the ASC. In summary, it puts them at a disadvantage to other conferences like the NESCAC, if you want to know why:
 
http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=4232.1485

[CRUfan08]

"I did not know UMHB was missing those two players, that may make things interesting.  Does anyone think with that scenario ETBU could pull off an upset.  They have beat some good teams but have been bad over the last few weeks."

In response to this, yes having Jason and Matt out has made things difficult, but it shouldn't be a big deal. If you go back and look at the box score from the last UMHB vs. ETBU game, its shows that Jason and Matt combined scored a total 23 points...as of late different members of the team have stepped up in scoring in a way that was not expected before the two injuries.

It also helps that UMHB has homecourt advantage because as everyone knows it is very hard to play at UMHB and the team is very driven to win the whole thing, after being so close the past few years.

[Ralph Turner]

I am moving the Pool C discussion, beginning at post #1484 and continuing for about four pages onto this board.

I will make some suggestions with respect to improving our OWP/OOWP's, especially the men's.

Women's Pool C tables.

The OWP and the OOWP of HPU, McMurry and HSU are higher than anything among the men in the SCAC or the ASC.

Here are the D-3 teams that the Regionally ranked teams have played.
HPU played at Redlands and at Chapman (Pool B candidate) in the non-conference.

McMurry played Greensboro (and Birmingham-Southern) at one tourney in Maryville TN and St Thomas and St Olaf at another tourney in Colorado Springs in the non-conference.

HSU played Trinity and Benedictine and Southwestern and Buena Vista IA in tourneys.

Something is different about the women and the men.  The OWP and OOWP for the men are nowhere near as high.  Playing NAIA schools does not help us.  We play in a closed system, i.e., we are doomed to .500 for OWP and OOWP!

I have shared these thoughts with others.


Here are bullet-points on the ASC and its non-conference games/OWP/OOWP

Building the national reputation.  Things every team can do.

--Play more D-III opponents, outside the ASC.
--Travel to other parts of the country to play D-III teams.
--Invite D-3 teams to play in Texas/the ASC over the holidays.

Build the national OWP/OOWP rankings. Several policies will work to the benefit of the conference

--Mandate fewer inter-divisional games.  Mandated, pre-scheduled games take away from scheduling dates and opportunities to host teams from around the country.

--Only count intra-divisional games towards the tourney, as the ASC did in 2002-03 and 2003-04.

--Help with the travel load by moving to "inter-divisional crossover classics".  Each year the basketball coaches will arrange a crossover classic amongst travel partners on two weekends.

Let's use this example.  In the opening weekend there are lots of tourneys available to play non-conference games.  After Thanksgiving, there are still some non-conference tourney's available.  Then on the third weekend, McM and HSU would go to Clinton MS to play MissCollege and LaCollege in the first Crossover Classic.  These games would be South Region (and count towards regional rankings but would not count towards the tourney or divisional championship).  They would play on Friday and Saturday night (one less day of school missed).  Also that weekend, UT-Tyler and UT-Dallas would play Schreiner and TLU in Tyler.  ETBU and LeTU would host HPU and SRSU in Marshall on Friday and Saturday, and UOzarks would host UMHB and CUA.  (If UOzarks could get another team, maybe a Rust or a Hendrix to be the other team, then Rust or Hendrix would get South Region opponents not travel far.)

The second Crossover Classic would occur on the West on some weekend in January before intra-divisional play.  Sul Ross and HPU would play LeTU and ETBU in Alpine on Friday and Saturday.  McM and HSU would play UT-Dallas and UT-Tyler, etc in Abilene, etc.  Men and women could play all day.  Those are just examples.  i recommend that the coaches and AD's start looking at their travel partners and coaching friends to make this work.

In the second year of the two-year cycle, the teams just flip the schedule.

If a team needs more dates, then arrange the games in the first weekend of January or some other time.  McMurry and LeTU and ETBU played an extra game this year to get South Region games anyway.

--Fewer mandated games allow our better teams to play teams with possibly higher winning percentages to help the OWP and the OOWP.  Yes Schreiner beat Miss College last weekend, but that was tough road trip that no one in the country knows how hard it is.**   If Miss College could have scheduled a road trip to some place in the Great Lakes region for an in-region game, they might have gotten a more favorable outcome. 

(**DePauw in Greencastle IN going to Birmingham Al and to Atlanta GA and home is close to the HPU-SRSU trip for Ozarks or Miss College or La College.  It is a thing that we do in the South Region.)


I hope that this will provoke some thought.  We are not functioning well as a conference in Men's Hoops.  I know that travel is a big expense (especially from McMurry's point of view.)  However, it is our student-athletes that are hurting.

Let's "work the problem".  Thanks