MBB: Midwest Conference

[doolittledog]

Not sure if this was talked about here or not...

http://www.cornellcollege.edu/athletics/General%20News/general%20news/midwest-conference.shtml

Over on the IIAC board, carletonsid wrote this...

This is unlikely to be the last change for the Midwest Conference. I think they'd like to purge themselves of Carroll, St. Norbert, etc. Grabbing Cornell and keeping fellow ACM schools Ripon, Monmouth, Lawrence, Lake Forest, Knox, Grinnell and Beloit gives them eight schools. Seems like a nice, round number. I do think it would be hard for an ACM-centric conference to get to 10 institutions, unless maybe they could grab Colorado College and maybe Macalester. I don't see Luther, Carleton or St. Olaf leaving its current conferences.



I know Coe and Luther stated last year they don't want to leave the IIAC.  Coe did move over to the IIAC with Cornell in 1998 so they would make sense, but I don't see them leaving for an ACM centric conference.  

I think maybe adding Macalester, along with Cornell to form a 9 team conference would work.  8 conference games in football and then let schools play 1 non-con rivalry game for a 9 game season.  In most other sports you could play a 16 game round-robin schedule.  The schools would hardly, if at all, need to play out of conference games.

If that happened.  Where would St. Norbert, Carroll, Illinois College move?  Nathcon?  CCIW?  SLIAC?  Grab schools out of other conferences and form a new conference?

[The Roop]

Maybe I can tie this all together.  Baron Van Raschke got his degree from Coe.    And The Crusher used to do his workout running beer kegs up the hill just west of the Kern Center at MSOE. 

I'm pretty sure the Crusher ran to wherever he could get that keg refilled.

[hickory_cornhusker]

Not sure if this was talked about here or not...

http://www.cornellcollege.edu/athletics/General%20News/general%20news/midwest-conference.shtml

Over on the IIAC board, carletonsid wrote this...

This is unlikely to be the last change for the Midwest Conference. I think they'd like to purge themselves of Carroll, St. Norbert, etc. Grabbing Cornell and keeping fellow ACM schools Ripon, Monmouth, Lawrence, Lake Forest, Knox, Grinnell and Beloit gives them eight schools. Seems like a nice, round number. I do think it would be hard for an ACM-centric conference to get to 10 institutions, unless maybe they could grab Colorado College and maybe Macalester. I don't see Luther, Carleton or St. Olaf leaving its current conferences.



I know Coe and Luther stated last year they don't want to leave the IIAC.  Coe did move over to the IIAC with Cornell in 1998 so they would make sense, but I don't see them leaving for an ACM centric conference.  

I think maybe adding Macalester, along with Cornell to form a 9 team conference would work.  8 conference games in football and then let schools play 1 non-con rivalry game for a 9 game season.  In most other sports you could play a 16 game round-robin schedule.  The schools would hardly, if at all, need to play out of conference games.

If that happened.  Where would St. Norbert, Carroll, Illinois College move?  Nathcon?  CCIW?  SLIAC?  Grab schools out of other conferences and form a new conference?

IC could probably go to the SLIAC. MacMurray is in that conference and they are just across town from IC in Jacksonville. Eureka is actually farther north than Jacksonville so it wouldn't be SLIAC adding another school on the fringe of its geographic footprint.

SNC and CU are a trickier situation. I think both would love a move to the CCIW if the MWC didn't work out for them. Carroll was there until 1992 but they burned some bridges on that move. Carroll actually has a decent shot of getting in the CCIW. Geographically it isn't much of a stretch from Kenosha (Carthage) to Waukesha. St. Norbert is in a tougher spot with two things working against them. They are a few hours north of Chicago. That is a lot for a conference that already stretches a few hours west of Chicago and a few hours south of Chicago. The other thing working against St. Norbert is that they are a Catholic college. None of the CCIW schools are in a very Catholic area. The fear may be that St. Norbert would have a recruiting advantage by being Catholic.

The NATHC would accept Carroll in a heartbeat. The conference offices are already in Waukesha. St. Norbert I would think would be accepted but geography may play a role. The NATHC prides itself on having a small geographic footprint. St. Norbert stretches it north by about 33%. Also the NATHC is already sitting at 12 members (13 for women with the always present chance Mt. Mary College may join now that they are a full Division III member). Also Roosevelt University in Chicago that just restarted their athletic program this year and is a member of the NAIA has made it known that they intend to go to Division III once their program is up and running and would be looking at the MWC, CCIW and NATHC for a conference home. The NATHC would probably be the target because Roosevelt currently has no mention of starting football anytime in the forseeable future.

I think the CCIW would be a healthy step up athletically for both schools. Not so much that they are drwoning do to the level of competition but they will have to up their level play to compete for NCAA bids.

I think the opposite is true about a move to the NATHC. I think both schools would run over a lot of the schools. There are some strong programs in the NATHC but I think Carroll and St. Norbert would be conference championship threats in the vast majority of sports.

[Gregory Sager]

I thought they both left for the IIAC in the early 90s

I believe 1997 was their last year in the MWC.


And if IIRC back when the NAthCon was formed in 2005ish MSOE inquired about joining the MWC. I don't think it got very far but it was far enough that MSOE is not creditted as a charter member of the NAthCon.

That's true. MSOE sat out the first year of the NAthCon's existence and competed as an independent, due to the school's protracted effort to garner MWC membership.

I think maybe adding Macalester, along with Cornell to form a 9 team conference would work.

Macalester is an interesting possibility, if in fact the school is interested in MWC membership (and I don't know if it is or not). Of all the D3 colleges in the upper midwest, Macalester and Carleton are probably the two best suited for the MWC in terms of their profiles and their approach to athletics. It seems, though, that Carleton is content to compete with its neighbors in the MIAC, which makes sense; Carleton's athletic rosters have more of a Minnesota flavor than do Macalester's, and Carleton has much more success in the major sports than does Macalester (which actually pulled its football program out of the MIAC several years ago, amid much contention among the MIAC's leadership, because of an inability to compete at that level).

Macalester is the MIAC's odd duck, and it'd be a great fit for the MWC in a lot of ways. The problem, though, is that it's a long busride away from even the Wisconsin schools, and it might as well be in Timbuktu if you're Illinois College. If the MWC's presidents and ADs are fine with the idea of that increased travel, Macalester would be a terrific addition.

IC could probably go to the SLIAC. MacMurray is in that conference and they are just across town from IC in Jacksonville. Eureka is actually farther north than Jacksonville so it wouldn't be SLIAC adding another school on the fringe of its geographic footprint.

The SLIAC is the logical choice in terms of geography, but IC might view it as a step down. From time to time a MacMurray person will post on d3boards.com about IC's "uppity" attitude and lack of enthusiasm for scheduling the SLIAC school across town. Perhaps IC might attempt to join the HCAC instead, even though it's a bit of a stretch geographically; the HCAC definitely plays at a higher level in most sports than does the SLIAC.

SNC and CU are a trickier situation. I think both would love a move to the CCIW if the MWC didn't work out for them. Carroll was there until 1992 but they burned some bridges on that move. Carroll actually has a decent shot of getting in the CCIW.

No, it doesn't.

Geographically it isn't much of a stretch from Kenosha (Carthage) to Waukesha.

CCIW teams only make one trip per season into Wisconsin for league play -- a trip that's practically right over the border -- and they all feel that that's enough. Kenosha is so close enough to Chicagoland that a trip to Carthage is actually less of a hassle for the CCIW's four Chicagoland schools than is a trip to Augustana, Illinois Wesleyan, or Millikin. Heck, you can actually get to Kenosha via the Metra, Chicagoland's commuter rail system. (It's how I, as a Chicago resident, get up there to see games at Carthage.) A very high percentage of Carthage students, both student-athletes and students at large, are suburban Chicagolanders. If you live in Chicago's northern suburbs, Carthage is considered to be just as much of a local school as is Elmhurst or North Park or North Central.

Prior to Carroll's 1992 departure from the CCIW, Illinois Wesleyan and Millikin had to play Friday-Saturday basketball games in Wisconsin, with Carthage and Carroll likewise acting as travel partners for Friday-Saturday overnighters in Bloomington and Decatur. Everyone hated that setup, and I don't see anyone from Carthage, IWU, or Millikin wanting to revisit those days.

St. Norbert is in a tougher spot with two things working against them. They are a few hours north of Chicago. That is a lot for a conference that already stretches a few hours west of Chicago and a few hours south of Chicago.

You're underselling this, if anything. St. Norbert is almost three hours north of the CCIW's northernmost outpost, Carthage. That means that it's in the four-to-five-hour range for the Chicagoland Four, the five-hours-or-so range for Augie and Illinois Wesleyan, and it's over six hours away from Millikin. In other words, even the downstate schools would still have more than half their trips left when they pass Carthage on the way north to St. Norbert. Adding SNC would completely ruin the league's geographical compactness -- and geographical compactness is a highly-valued commodity in the CCIW.

The other thing working against St. Norbert is that they are a Catholic college. None of the CCIW schools are in a very Catholic area. The fear may be that St. Norbert would have a recruiting advantage by being Catholic.

You have that backwards. Chicagoland is very Catholic. Two of the best high-school leagues in the Chicagoland area, the Chicago Catholic League and the East Suburban Catholic Conference, consist entirely of parochial schools. One of the obstacles faced by Benedictine, a school that has long coveted CCIW membership, is that its Catholic orientation would give it a recruiting advantage over other CCIW schools due to Chicagoland's heavily Catholic demographic, particularly in terms of recruiting CCL and ESCC athletes. (The other obstacle is that Benedictine's right down the street from CCIW charter member North Central, which wants no part of having its next-door-neighbor in the league. I think NCC would rather close its doors than let the Bennies into the fold.)

Since St. Norbert doesn't use Chicagoland as its primary recruiting base (although the men's basketball and baseball coaches do dip somewhat into that very plentiful recruiting pool as a secondary recruiting base), it's less likely that St. Norbert's Catholic affiliation would be an obstacle for CCIW membership the way that it is for Benedictine and Dominican.

The NATHC would accept Carroll in a heartbeat. The conference offices are already in Waukesha. St. Norbert I would think would be accepted but geography may play a role. The NATHC prides itself on having a small geographic footprint. St. Norbert stretches it north by about 33%.

True, but a mitigating circumstance is the fact that the NAthCon is a lower-tier league that would like to gain more athletic prominence. St. Norbert, which is perennially one of the best across-the-board MWC schools in terms of athletics, would add to the NAthCon's regional and national competitiveness very nicely.

Also the NATHC is already sitting at 12 members (13 for women with the always present chance Mt. Mary College may join now that they are a full Division III member). Also Roosevelt University in Chicago that just restarted their athletic program this year and is a member of the NAIA has made it known that they intend to go to Division III once their program is up and running and would be looking at the MWC, CCIW and NATHC for a conference home. The NATHC would probably be the target because Roosevelt currently has no mention of starting football anytime in the forseeable future.

Since the NAthCon is committed to a divisional format in most of its sports (football being a prominent exception, since many NAthCon schools don't offer that sport), i don't think that the conference sees a large number of schools as being a problem. The bigger issue would be: Can this school bring something to the table that this league can use? In the case of both Carroll and St. Norbert, the answer is an unqualified "yes".

I think the CCIW would be a healthy step up athletically for both schools. Not so much that they are drwoning do to the level of competition but they will have to up their level play to compete for NCAA bids.

Moot point. They're not going to join the CCIW.

I think the opposite is true about a move to the NATHC. I think both schools would run over a lot of the schools. There are some strong programs in the NATHC but I think Carroll and St. Norbert would be conference championship threats in the vast majority of sports.

True, but I wouldn't automatically assume that the Pioneers and the Green Knights would be favorites in each and every sport. I think that, by and large, Carroll and St. Norbert could be penciled into the top four or five teams in every sport in preseason polls, and the two ex-MWC schools would win their fair share of NAthCon championships.

Another question would be: Do Carroll and St. Norbert want to lose the academic prestige of belonging to the MWC? And are they willing to be linked to the schools of the NAthCon, which represent a much wider variety of academic profiles than does the MWC?

[Just Bill]

Greg,

The NathCon is committed to a divisional format in most sports??  Actually basketball is the ONLY sport with a divisional format.  Soccer, baseball, softball and volleyball don't have divisions. I don't think that counts as committed.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg,

The NathCon is committed to a divisional format in most sports??  Actually basketball is the ONLY sport with a divisional format.  Soccer, baseball, softball and volleyball don't have divisions. I don't think that counts as committed.

You're right. I should've said, "committted to a divisional format in most sports in theory."

It all comes down to how many schools are offering a particular sport.

[doolittledog]

Another question would be: Do Carroll and St. Norbert want to lose the academic prestige of belonging to the MWC? And are they willing to be linked to the schools of the NAthCon, which represent a much wider variety of academic profiles than does the MWC?

The way I was taking it from some on here was that it wasn't so much a question of "would Carroll and St. Norbert want to lose the academic prestige of belonging to the MWC"  so much as the ACM schools in the MWC didn't want to be associated with Carroll and St. Norbert. 

[Gregory Sager]

Another question would be: Do Carroll and St. Norbert want to lose the academic prestige of belonging to the MWC? And are they willing to be linked to the schools of the NAthCon, which represent a much wider variety of academic profiles than does the MWC?

The way I was taking it from some on here was that it wasn't so much a question of "would Carroll and St. Norbert want to lose the academic prestige of belonging to the MWC"  so much as the ACM schools in the MWC didn't want to be associated with Carroll and St. Norbert.  

That's the same vibe I've received as well, and not just within the past days' worth of posting in this room. My concluding question was more along the lines of Carroll and St. Norbert fighting to keep the MWC in the status quo situation rather than resigning themselves to the idea of not being wanted and thus moving on to join somebody else's league.

It does lead to the question, though: Can you force schools to leave the conference? I don't have a copy of the MWC bylaws handy, but I doubt that that you can push schools out of the league against their will.

[doolittledog]

Ah, I see what you were getting at now.  These are all interesting questions.  I've also wondered if you could force schools out.  I suppose a way of getting around that could be for the ACM schools to say they are forming a new conference.  If they bring in Cornell and Macalester from outside the MWC, those MWC schools could then say they are forming a new conference with those new schools. 

It's all just a bunch of talk right now, but, that is what message boards are for

[Gregory Sager]

Ah, I see what you were getting at now.  These are all interesting questions.  I've also wondered if you could force schools out.  I suppose a way of getting around that could be for the ACM schools to say they are forming a new conference.  If they bring in Cornell and Macalester from outside the MWC, those MWC schools could then say they are forming a new conference with those new schools.

That would seem to be the likely solution if the schools in question really were committed to forming an ACM-based league, although the new league would lose the name and the cachet of having ninety years' worth of history.

[East Beast]

Maybe I can tie this all together.  Baron Van Raschke got his degree from Coe.    And The Crusher used to do his workout running beer kegs up the hill just west of the Kern Center at MSOE. 

I'm pretty sure the Crusher ran to wherever he could get that keg refilled.

The Blatz factory was right up the hill, although the Crusher claimed that it was PBR. 

[East Beast]

I think some of had way too much time to consider some of these issues.  I had one other issue; how does Ripon fit in the MWC from an academic standpoint?  The word on the street (according to my friend T2000) is that they had major academic issues with the team 3/4 years ago. 

[The Roop]

T2K has no friends so stop lying.

[East Beast]

T2K has no friends so stop lying.

He said he'd be in Arsenault's corner, or be his tag team partner if invited, for the cage match.  Arsenault usually sits in the corner anyway so he thinks he'll get a lot of action that night.

[The Roop]

Negotiations fell through. So that match will just be left to the world of xbox. Cecil was on board for special guest referee duties but a site couldn't be determined. Then the wheels fell off the cart.

I'd probably go for a singles match with T2K but that would be like the drunk leading the intoxicated.