BB: IIAC: Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[wartburgalum]

Wartburg is a half game behind Luther right now, and the two teams have yet to play eachother, you cant honestly tell me that you expect Luther to take that series, no matter what, Wartburg will always beat Luther, that is the way it will always be. 

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Wartburg is a half game behind Luther right now, and the two teams have yet to play eachother, you cant honestly tell me that you expect Luther to take that series, no matter what, Wartburg will always beat Luther, that is the way it will always be. 

You were correct about the Luther-Wartburg series this week.   I only saw the third game, but it appears as if both the 1st and 3rd games of the series were something else with both going 11 innings.  Great job by the starters on the mound for both teams in those games.

I seem to remember Luther sweeping Wartburg at least 3 times since the mid-1990s, but that really didn't matter when the Knights have won at least a share of the league title in most of those seasons.

Luther lost the series this year, but co-champions of the Iowa Conference must have a nice ring to it for them.

Congrats to both Luther and Wartburg for playing so many league games and innings in the last 8 days and still winning the IIAC title. 

[Floyd in Iowa City]

As most might expect, Wartburg is standing atop the IIAC and is well on their way to their 11th straight title.  So much for all of those holes to fill.  Pitching staff is looking good and nobody can come close to the numbers they are putting up offensively and defensively, good luck all.

I guess a team came about as close as you can to the Knights as two teams finished 18-5!   Last year was pretty close as well with Central, Simpson, and Wartburg all finishing 1st.

Take a look at the league stats now that the dust has settled and the regular season is over.  Wartburg had a great regular season as usual, but Luther led in most pitching categories and in a bunch of offensive categories.  Loras led the league in fielding.

Congrats to Central and Coe for not mailing those last games in even though they may have meant more for Luther and Wartburg.  The Norse and Knights killed their pitching staffs with Luther playing 9 conference games in 8 days with two of the games finishing in 11 innings.  Neither Luther nor Wartburg were able to bring their best pitchers this past weekend, but Coe and Central deserve the credit for getting it done even though Coe lost the series.

Both Wartburg and Luther played Central twice and one game was not played due to the weather.  They both played everyone else three times for 23 league games.

Wartburg now has won 17 titles since 1947.  Luther now has won 12 since 1947 and their first since 1985.  B.V. is still in 2nd place with 14 titles.  Too bad the conference decided after World War II to not count the league champions that were won before WWII (unlike the fact that they count them still for football and basketball).

Good luck to all in the IIAC tourney.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

Congrats to the Luther Norse for winning the Iowa Conference Tournament today and receiving an automatic invite to the NCAA tournament. 

The regular season co-championship is more meaningful since they and Wartburg both played 23 conference games and finished on top, but going 3-0 (over Loras 16-9, over Wartburg 10-6, and over Wartburg 11-8) this weekend is a nice finish against conference foes.

Luther is now 29-9.

Wartburg should still have a shot at making the NCAAs since they also had a great regular season and played 3 games in extra innings against the Norse.  Luther was 3-2 in the five games between the two teams this year.

[Spence]

Has anyone from Iowa submitted a regional hosting bid? If it was ever going to happen this might be the year for it to be in Cedar Rapids or somewhere.

[youcantseeme]

Wartburg gets shut out of the NCAA field and the CCIW gets 3 teams in?  I realize that Carthage and Augie made runs in their tourney and Carthage eventually won it, but three teams is a lot for one conference especially when a co-champ with a great record in Wartburg stays at home.

[wartburgalum]

Sometimes you just have to wonder how the committee determines the regional field.  3 CCIW teams in and 1 from the IIAC, doesnt quite make sense.  Wartburg was snubbed while Luther gets the 1 seed.  I know that Luther made a great run through the tourny this year, but how does Wartburg not even get in.  Good luck to Luther the rest of the way out, hopefully they will represent the IIAC well enough so that maybe in the years to come we can get more than 1 team in.

[Pat Coleman]

Number of teams per conference isn't really part of the selection process. It's far more important what each team did and what the regional records, Quality of Wins Index and results against regionally ranked opponents show.

[wartburgalum]

I understand that number of teams per conference does not factor into the selction process, but I still dont get how the runner-up in the conference tourny and regular season co-champions (not to mention ranked in the top 20) doesnt get in and Luther (who no doubt made a great run in the tourny) can get a 1 seed, and the CCIW gets 3 teams in.  That is my point, I'm not complaining but sometimes you have to wonder what happens during this selection process.

[Pat Coleman]

I think if you compared the ABCA poll, their regional poll, and the NCAA's regional rankings you would see that the NCAA cares little what the coaches do with their ranking.

If someone were to calculate the numbers and put all the selection criteria on the table, I'm sure it would justify the selections.

[Spence]

What I don't get as far as Wartburg goes is how they can be regionally ranked above Augustana all year, by the same criteria presumably that the picks are made, finish 2nd in their tournament to the top team in the region, and lose out. It seems like despite being highly ranked in the region, they never had a chance to get a Pool C, because aside from winning the tournament they couldn't have really done any more from the last region rankings to the selections. It isn't like they got knocked off by low seeds.

[Pat Coleman]

Good question. Perhaps they felt that Augustana's 2-2 performance at the CCIW tournament was enough to push them over the top. Augie did beat a regionally ranked team at its conference tournament, while Wartburg did not.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

I wonder how much the Central series before the IIAC tourney played into this?  Wartburg was 5-5 in their last 10 games, but 5 of those games were against Luther (the #1 seed in the regional).  The Knights and Norse played three of those games into extra innings, so neither team should be penalized much for mostly great baseball.

Wartburg was co-champs of the Iowa Conference and 2nd at the conference tourney.  The only two schools in the region that they had a losing record to were Luther (29-9, 18-5 in the IIAC) and Central (19-20, 12-10).  Getting swept by the Dutch at the end of the regular season appears to be the only real blemish on another good season by the Knights.

[Floyd in Iowa City]

My sense of the regional is that although Luther is the #1 seed, there isn't much that separates how most of these teams rank on paper. 

Luther has now made the Division III regional four times and are looking for their first regional title since they won the Division II regional back in 1965 (the Norse had some pretty good teams during much of the years between 1891-1985 ).

In some of the recent years in the Iowa Conference, Wartburg has made regionals eight times and won the regional twice.

That #1 seed doesn't mean much once they start playing games tomorrow.

[youcantseeme]

Why didnt Lewis and Lawler play for Wartburg in the conference tourney this year?  I figured they were hurt, but I didnt see them on the bench either.