FB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

DeLaSalle 

Bingo!

[faunch]

Men's Hockey final in the MIAC Championship game tonight... Augsburg 3 - U$T 2. Augsburg was the best team in the MIAC all year, I'll tell you that for free.

It starts with a trickle,first basketball, then hockey...and like a small crack in the wall of a dam which suddenly becomes a breach with flood waters emptying the mighty structure. What's next? baseball, track & field....FOOTBALL  time will tell,but it appears we may be seeing the loosening of the chokehold UST athletics has demonstrated on the MIAC in recent years. The kids are seeing more than the limestone buildings at Cretin & Summit and realizing that carrying around the lifetime label of being a "Tommie" just ain't worth it 

The Toms are actually getting better at some sports they haven't "traditionally" been a power in recent years. Men's Soccer made the NCAA final four this year. Swimming and Diving has taken over the MIAC in recent years. Oh, and about that Track & Field. The Men just won the 33rd consecutive MIAC indoor track & field title. How many years has there been MIAC Indoor Track you ask? 33 years!! No one else has had the opportunity to see what the trophy even looks like.

YAWN!!!  Can't imagine how or why U$T might be improving in other sports.  Maybe it might have something to do with having about 1,500-2,000 more students?

[miac952]

Men's Hockey final in the MIAC Championship game tonight... Augsburg 3 - U$T 2. Augsburg was the best team in the MIAC all year, I'll tell you that for free.

It starts with a trickle,first basketball, then hockey...and like a small crack in the wall of a dam which suddenly becomes a breach with flood waters emptying the mighty structure. What's next? baseball, track & field....FOOTBALL  time will tell,but it appears we may be seeing the loosening of the chokehold UST athletics has demonstrated on the MIAC in recent years. The kids are seeing more than the limestone buildings at Cretin & Summit and realizing that carrying around the lifetime label of being a "Tommie" just ain't worth it 

The Toms are actually getting better at some sports they haven't "traditionally" been a power in recent years. Men's Soccer made the NCAA final four this year. Swimming and Diving has taken over the MIAC in recent years. Oh, and about that Track & Field. The Men just won the 33rd consecutive MIAC indoor track & field title. How many years has there been MIAC Indoor Track you ask? 33 years!! No one else has had the opportunity to see what the trophy even looks like.

YAWN!!!  Can't imagine how or why U$T might be improving in other sports.  Maybe it might have something to do with having about 1,500-2,000 more students?

You are predictable if nothing else. The enrollment argument. How does Mount Union do it in football; the biggest numbers sport there is. What about UWEC? Why don't they dominate? Maybe you can point me to the recruiting and signup booths in the cafeteria to play sports that coaches have to pull their athletes from the student body. You want to argue budget or resources go ahead, but enrollment. A cheap and tired argument usually reserved for those who don't know the first inkling about D3.

Enrollment isn't even what it used to be as a indicator for HS sports too. Is Kenny Novak still recruiting Minneapolis hard to stack the bball squad?

[GoldandBlueBU]

You are predictable if nothing else. The enrollment argument. How does Mount Union do it in football; the biggest numbers sport there is. What about UWEC? Why don't they dominate? Maybe you can point me to the recruiting and signup booths in the cafeteria to play sports that coaches have to pull their athletes from the student body. You want to argue budget or resources go ahead, but enrollment. A cheap and tired argument usually reserved for those who don't know the first inkling about D3.

Enrollment isn't even what it used to be as a indicator for HS sports too. Is Kenny Novak still recruiting Minneapolis hard to stack the bball squad?

I'll start by saying that I don't have any issue with UST being in the MIAC...so you won't hear me arguing that they should be gone, etc.

However, I could see the argument about enrollment being a factor in the broad nature of UST's athletic success, though again, I don't think there's anything "wrong" about it.  Also, there's certainly more to it than purely enrollment.  UST's commitment to wanting to have strong athletics, quality coaches, facilities, etc. have built a tradition that is somewhat self sustaining.

Most kids at the D3 level that are involved in athletics only play one sport, due to the time commitments of varsity athletics, and the fact that their academic pursuits are also very time consuming, and for most of them, more important than athletics.

Given this fact, having a larger pool of potential athletes to play on your teams can make a difference, as a smaller school's student body will have less top tier athletes to go around, and once they pick their preferred sport, they are unlikely to want to play a second sport.  So, teams dip into that second tier of available athletes to fill out their rosters.  Larger pool of potential athletes = larger number of top tier athletes.

Again, not the only factor, and probably not the largest factor, but IMO, enrollment size certainly can be a needle mover.

[miac952]

I'll start by saying that I don't have any issue with UST being in the MIAC...so you won't hear me arguing that they should be gone, etc.

However, I could see the argument about enrollment being a factor in the broad nature of UST's athletic success, though again, I don't think there's anything "wrong" about it.  Also, there's certainly more to it than purely enrollment.  UST's commitment to wanting to have strong athletics, quality coaches, facilities, etc. have built a tradition that is somewhat self sustaining.

Most kids at the D3 level that are involved in athletics only play one sport, due to the time commitments of varsity athletics, and the fact that their academic pursuits are also very time consuming, and for most of them, more important than athletics.
play another, the second tier of available athletes end up filling those spots.  A larger pool of students makes for more top tier
Given this fact, having a larger pool of potential athletes to play on your teams can make a difference, as a smaller school's student body will have less top tier athletes to go around, and once they pick their preferred sport, and are unlikely to want to athletes, and less of a need to get second tier kids on teams.

Again, not the only factor, and probably not the largest factor, but IMO, enrollment size certainly can be a needle mover.

Good post.

I have trouble with the enrollment argument because in most sports enrollment does not appear to play a major factor. In football, schools like Mount Union and Linfield are more than successful. In basketball Williams and Amherst do very well, negating both enrollment and academic standards as contributors.

D3 enrollment is high variable with member institutions ranging from 430 to 20,000+. Average is around 2,700. UST isn't in the top 20 by enrollment currently (#22). Meanwhile they ended ranked #9 in the Directors Cup, so they are outkicking their enrollment. 

Maybe a resident statistician can do a correlation analysis on enrollment to athletic success, but based on the naked eye in the big sports it doesn't seem to check out. For the final directors cup standings last year only 6 schools that were in the Top 20 were also in the Top 20 for enrollment. Judging by those schools that ended in the Top 20 in Directors Cup standings, ENDOWMENT appears to present a MUCH stronger correlation to athletic success than ENROLLMENT.

The endowment number vary greatly in D3 and the MIAC and present a very inequitable landscape. Mac and Carleton are $700 + million. UST and St Olaf are the next tier at $450+ million. Meanwhile Bethel is at $26 million. Wash U is at $6 BILLION. Williams at $2 BILLION.

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/2015-16/misc_non_event/D3StandJuly6.pdf

I prefer facts, something missing from the Faunch, who prefers conjecture and whatever he finds on his weekly rummage through the Caruso family trash bin. Are they sufficiently complying with St Paul's single sort recycling Faunch?

[MadRedFan]

Don't believe I've seen this on the board or in the paper, so I guess it's "news":


"Minnesota-Crookston (D-II): St. John's (D-III – MN) quarterbacks caoch Mike Orts has been hired as the quarterbacks / wide receivers / passing game coordinator."

from http://footballscoop.com/the-scoop/

Not sure how much impact that has on anything in Collegeville, I expect those of you a little closer to the program would know.  But sounds like a good move if he's interested in moving up in coaching.

[Boys of Fall]

Don't believe I've seen this on the board or in the paper, so I guess it's "news":


"Minnesota-Crookston (D-II): St. John's (D-III – MN) quarterbacks caoch Mike Orts has been hired as the quarterbacks / wide receivers / passing game coordinator."

from http://footballscoop.com/the-scoop/

Not sure how much impact that has on anything in Collegeville, I expect those of you a little closer to the program would know.  But sounds like a good move if he's interested in moving up in coaching.

Is there a non-conference game to be named later?

[sjusection105]

Given this fact, having a larger pool of potential athletes to play on your teams can make a difference, as a smaller school's student body will have less top tier athletes to go around
Again, not the only factor, and probably not the largest factor, but IMO, enrollment size certainly can be a needle mover.

The point not being discussed is financial aid. A student athlete is supposed to be treated the same as the general student population. With a larger endowment,the institution could conceivably give larger financial aid packages to the general student population and in turn give recruited student athletes a larger financial aid package than competing institutions. Treating the athlete the same as the general population conforms to NCAA rules but tilts the institution financial impact in favor of the athletes family and intern increasing the chances the athlete chooses the institution when there is less out of pocket expenses to his/her family.  This scenario clearly does not take into consideration that the administration wants to have strong athletics...Macalester comes to mind 

[OzJohnnie]

Some schools emphasize athletics (Middlebury excels at hockey and riots, for example), some schools emphasis engineering (RPI and MIT), some schools emphasize liberal arts education (Carlton), some schools emphasize music (WTF knows, but it must happen).

It's a damned mystery what type of school UST(d) is.

Is it really all that mysterious to say that UST is a big school that sees a lot of value in a broad, nationally competitive athletic profile?  So they administer accordingly?

[HansenRatings]

I started an analysis last offseason using schools' academic/student body/geographic profiles (basically skimmed data on cost, enrollment, and academic barometers from US News & World Report, as well as the school's proximity to a population base relative to that population's rate of HS football participation and competing peer institutions pulling from that same base) to predict their success in football. Enrollment was by and large the strongest single indicator of football success. Next best indicator was the school's retention rate. Using a regression of all the given data, UST had the second-best school/academic/geographic profile in the country, behind only UWEC (who, despite their recent struggles, has been a consistent top 40 team in my ratings over most of the d3football.com era).

EDIT: forgot to mention, but interestingly, schools' costs had a negative correlation to a school's football success, whether you look at the total sticker price or the net price (total cost minus average student aid). If you look at state & private schools separately, there's essentially no correlation between success & cost for state schools, and the negative correlation for private schools gets slightly stronger.

[OzJohnnie]

So, settled by science.

Large school, urban location, lots of aid (in the case of privates).  That profile has mo' better football teams.

What are you going to believe?  Increasing Tommies caterwauls of "No! No! We don't buy our success!" or SCIENCE!


Also of note, despite their ill-gotten and overwhelming advantage of second-best position in the DIII world for football success, the Tommies can't even beat UWEC for squandering an advantage.  It seems that when it comes to football the Tommies lose at both winning and sucking.

[SagatagSam]

... some schools emphasize music (St. Olaf).

Fixed it. Um Ya Ya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYsko2uqVew

[OldAuggie]

Some schools emphasize athletics (Middlebury excels at hockey and riots, for example), some schools emphasis engineering (RPI and MIT), some schools emphasize liberal arts education (Carlton), some schools emphasize music (WTF knows, but it must happen).

It's a damned mystery what type of school UST(d) is.

Is it really all that mysterious to say that UST is a big school that sees a lot of value in a broad, nationally competitive athletic profile?  So they administer accordingly?

Ha ha! No. 
3-19-2    .167
You were expecting this I am sure. Riots?..... ok maybe.

[SagatagSam]

Some schools emphasize athletics (Middlebury excels at hockey and riots, for example), some schools emphasis engineering (RPI and MIT), some schools emphasize liberal arts education (Carlton), some schools emphasize music (WTF knows, but it must happen).

It's a damned mystery what type of school UST(d) is.

Is it really all that mysterious to say that UST is a big school that sees a lot of value in a broad, nationally competitive athletic profile?  So they administer accordingly?

Ha ha! No. 
3-19-2    .167
You were expecting this I am sure. Riots?..... ok maybe.

Maybe not this year, but they've got a history that inspires envy in just about everybody else in D3 hockey.

Middlebury National Championship Teams: Men's Hockey - 8 (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006)

Source: http://athletics.middlebury.edu/information/quickfacts

[OldAuggie]

Some schools emphasize athletics (Middlebury excels at hockey and riots, for example), some schools emphasis engineering (RPI and MIT), some schools emphasize liberal arts education (Carlton), some schools emphasize music (WTF knows, but it must happen).

It's a damned mystery what type of school UST(d) is.

Is it really all that mysterious to say that UST is a big school that sees a lot of value in a broad, nationally competitive athletic profile?  So they administer accordingly?

Ha ha! No. 
3-19-2    .167
You were expecting this I am sure. Riots?..... ok maybe.

Maybe not this year, but they've got a history that inspires envy in just about everybody else in D3 hockey.

Middlebury National Championship Teams: Men's Hockey - 8 (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2006)

Source: http://athletics.middlebury.edu/information/quickfacts

Nice. I am too much of a what have you done lately guy but yes they had their days in the sun for sure. Maybe Norwich has taken over their spot.