MBB: Midwest Conference

[carletonsid]

Mr Ypsi, where were you when Monmouth beat  a very overmatched Grinnell in football 65 -3? We're not complaining, mind you, we're just playing our game the best we can just like Monmouth did. And St Norbert. And Cornell. No complaints...other than we wish we'd have played better and won.

Play the System; enjoy the System; but don't expect applause when you abuse the System to set totally phony records against 'teams' that were utterly helpless to defend themselves.  I have no doubt that Jack Taylor is a very good player; getting 100+ against 'teams' like Crossroads or CoF does NOT impress me.

This sums up my feelings about all this recognition, plus it casts D3 basketball in a poor light, like we're some sort of silly circus sideshow. And yet, jeffp and the Grinnell faithful wonder why they have trouble getting games...

[AppletonRocks]

Mr Ypsi, where were you when Monmouth beat  a very overmatched Grinnell in football 65 -3? We're not complaining, mind you, we're just playing our game the best we can just like Monmouth did. And St Norbert. And Cornell. No complaints...other than we wish we'd have played better and won.

Play the System; enjoy the System; but don't expect applause when you abuse the System to set totally phony records against 'teams' that were utterly helpless to defend themselves.  I have no doubt that Jack Taylor is a very good player; getting 100+ against 'teams' like Crossroads or CoF does NOT impress me.

This sums up my feelings about all this recognition, plus it casts D3 basketball in a poor light, like we're some sort of silly circus sideshow. And yet, jeffp and the Grinnell faithful wonder why they have trouble getting games...

Maybe they should withdraw from D-3 and the MWC and just go on a barnstorming tour.  Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal made it work.   

[Gregory Sager]

The reason teams will not schedule Grinnell is because preparing for them is totally unlike any other team.  Coaches don't want the disruption.  Preparing for Grinnell is totally contrary to preparing for every other team on the schedule.

This is precisely the case, and the reverse is true as well. Last season the North Central women's team adopted the System, and it looks as though NCC head coach Michelle Roof is committed to the System for the long haul. So this year NPU head coach Amanda Reese Crockett got Knox on the schedule, since Knox's women's team also plays the System. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she tries to keep Knox on the schedule in future seasons as well. Playing the Prairie Fire gives everyone on the NPU team a good feel for what they can expect when the Vikings face North Central in January and February, which is especially important on a team like this year's North Park edition, which features a large group of freshmen who weren't around last year to face NCC's System team.

In an ideal world, every head coach would tailor his or her non-conference schedule to fit his or her team's particular needs. Play in a conference filled with lots of dominant bigs? Schedule some teams with dominant bigs for non-conference play. Play in a conference in which everybody plays smash-mouth basketball? Find some non-conference foes that like to body up their opponents, and get 'em on the slate. Play in a conference with a System team? Schedule a non-conference opponent that plays the System, so that your players will be more prepared for the conference System foe.

But if you're never going to see a team in your league that uses the System, why on earth would you want to disrupt your practice patterns to prepare for a team that plays a totally atypical style, a style that actually forces your players to go against what they're normally taught in certain respects in order to succeed? There's absolutely no upside to playing such an opponent -- unless you consider the chance for some national novelty-style publicity in the "And now, on the lighter side of sports ..." vein to be an upside. (As if anybody ever pays attention to the Washington Generals. ) And that, ladies and gentlemen of eastern Iowa, is a key reason why your Pioneers have to settle for playing non-D3 Bible colleges in November and December.

Mr Ypsi, where were you when Monmouth beat  a very overmatched Grinnell in football 65 -3? We're not complaining, mind you, we're just playing our game the best we can just like Monmouth did. And St Norbert. And Cornell. No complaints...other than we wish we'd have played better and won.

Play the System; enjoy the System; but don't expect applause when you abuse the System to set totally phony records against 'teams' that were utterly helpless to defend themselves.  I have no doubt that Jack Taylor is a very good player; getting 100+ against 'teams' like Crossroads or CoF does NOT impress me.

This sums up my feelings about all this recognition, plus it casts D3 basketball in a poor light, like we're some sort of silly circus sideshow. And yet, jeffp and the Grinnell faithful wonder why they have trouble getting games...

Maybe they should withdraw from D-3 and the MWC and just go on a barnstorming tour.  Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal made it work.   

Thanks for planting "Sweet Georgia Brown" in my head as an earworm.

[jeffdc]

And now Deadspin and a multitude of commentators take GC to task. Only a small percentage seem to have any inkling what GC does or what the MWC is:

http://deadspin.com/5962514/d+iii-players-138-point+game-is-a-sham-record-and-shouldnt-be-celebrated-by-anyone/1466714609/@barryap

[sac]

Grinnell reminds me of the celebrity who does outrageous things for attention, but then can't figure out why anyone would criticize them.

If you purposely seek out attention, you deserve the attention you receive, good or bad.

[jeffp]

Careltonsid -
The Grinnell faithful don't wonder about it at all. Misters Ypsi and Sager have spelled out what we've known for years.

What you all really want is conformity. Well. Grinnell has never been considered a conformist institution, so why should you expect the Basketball program to be any different? And stop with the nonsense about Grinnell causing ALL of DIII to be considered in a bad light. Many of you spend an inordinate amount of time trivializing (or attempting to, anyway) what Grinnell does, but you are about the first to trivialize it and give it great national importance as a determiner of what millions of people think about the whole of Division III in one sentence! It's enough to give a person whiplash!

So, I have a question. Since we seem to have moved away from "this isn't basketball" (finally after 20 some odd years...) to "this isn't sportsmanship" as the way to belittle Grinnell basketball, I'd like a solid all inclusive definition of what good sportsmanship really is - since you all seem to know, and I'd like to know what makes ANY of us omnipotent enough to be the final arbiter. What makes running up the score in football ok while trying for records and running up the score in Basketball isn't. What makes a system contrived to give one player a shot at a national record unsportsmanlike while placing quotation marks around the word TEAM when referring to Finlandia or Crossroads is ok, or suggesting that Crossroads was laying down op purpose ("because IC might actually try and play defense and not be an act in the circus" - Larry U)?

All the the chest pounding and delirium used to make a big deal out of this or anything else surrounding the system is something Grinnell is used to. One word to sum up 20 years of derision? CONFORMITY. Nuh uh. Not at Grinnell anyway. Not as an institution and not as a basketball team, and I personally remain proud of what has been accomplished by both. Jeffdc, just add Deadspin to the list of detractors with no dog in the chase. Who really cares outside of a few self proclaimed basketball purists...er...conformists anyway.

[Mr. Ypsi]

jeffp, you're wrong about ALL of us wanting conformity.  As I've already said, Grinnell is just fine with me in using The System.  What is NOT fine with me is warping The System (isn't one of the key tenets to get everyone involved?) in order to get ONE player a record against a totally hapless opponent.  As I also already said, if Grinnell needs Jack Taylor to get 100 against a competitive opponent in order to win, more power to him if he can do it.  But running up the score against a totally over-matched opponent is NEVER good sportsmanship (try bullying).  And this applies to any sport and regardless of whether a team's approach is 'conformist' or unique.  I've long believed the Heisman trophy should be renamed, as it currently honors a coach who perpetrated perhaps the single worst case of sportsmanship ever - the 216-0 win over a hopelessly over-matched Cumberland team.

[carletonsid]

Careltonsid -
The Grinnell faithful don't wonder about it at all. Misters Ypsi and Sager have spelled out what we've known for years.

What you all really want is conformity. Well. Grinnell has never been considered a conformist institution, so why should you expect the Basketball program to be any different? And stop with the nonsense about Grinnell causing ALL of DIII to be considered in a bad light. Many of you spend an inordinate amount of time trivializing (or attempting to, anyway) what Grinnell does, but you are about the first to trivialize it and give it great national importance as a determiner of what millions of people think about the whole of Division III in one sentence! It's enough to give a person whiplash!

So, I have a question. Since we seem to have moved away from "this isn't basketball" (finally after 20 some odd years...) to "this isn't sportsmanship" as the way to belittle Grinnell basketball, I'd like a solid all inclusive definition of what good sportsmanship really is - since you all seem to know, and I'd like to know what makes ANY of us omnipotent enough to be the final arbiter. What makes running up the score in football ok while trying for records and running up the score in Basketball isn't. What makes a system contrived to give one player a shot at a national record unsportsmanlike while placing quotation marks around the word TEAM when referring to Finlandia or Crossroads is ok, or suggesting that Crossroads was laying down op purpose ("because IC might actually try and play defense and not be an act in the circus" - Larry U)?

All the the chest pounding and delirium used to make a big deal out of this or anything else surrounding the system is something Grinnell is used to. One word to sum up 20 years of derision? CONFORMITY. Nuh uh. Not at Grinnell anyway. Not as an institution and not as a basketball team, and I personally remain proud of what has been accomplished by both. Jeffdc, just add Deadspin to the list of detractors with no dog in the chase. Who really cares outside of a few self proclaimed basketball purists...er...conformists anyway.

[Also noting that while I composed this, the venerable Mr. Ypsi authored a post with much the same thoughts.]

Jeffp -  I suggest you google the term "red herring."

No one here has said nor insinuated that Grinnell needs to conform. No one is blasting The System. The problem that people have is that feeding one guy like DA + co. have intentionally chosen to do vs. inferior opponents reeks of blatant self-promotion. They're not doing it to improve, or for the betterment of the team, but instead for self glory. It's the ultimate example of Hero Ball, it's self-serving and frankly disgusting. Now Grinnell is feeling that PR blowback. You and the Grinnell fan base can defend it all you want, but it's only a publicity grab at the expense of another team and institution. You can use say you're fighting The Man or whatever, but just because you schedule an inferior opponent doesn't automatically mean you need to feed your best player for basically every shot and have him rarely cross half court and play defense (sorry, pressing the inbounder isn't defense).

I've seen The System. It's a brilliant idea for a place like Grinnell, and certainly helped lift the Pioneers into relevancy in the MWC and kept them there. I love the concept and how it fits a place like Grinnell - 15 kids get to play every game. Wonder how the other 14 players feel when Coach says "Hey tonight only one guys shoots the ball." Each player only gets a certain amount of college games - 100+ if you're really lucky, but probably more like 40-60. Why not let a few of the guys who don't normally get a ton of shots to be featured against Crossroads and Faith Baptist.

Popular opinion is running against Grinnell for shenanigans like this for a reason. It has nothing to do with "having a dog in the chase" or conformity. Using a foe for personal glory (and make no mistake, Grinnell USED Faith Baptist and Crossroads), IMO, certainly runs counter to the D3 philosophy. But that's just my $.02.

Finally, just want to add no hate here, just healthy disagreement.

Former CarletonSID

(PS - How would Taylor fare playing night in and night out in the IIAC or MIAC in a more traditional system? Not being snarky - actually wondered this. Is he easily an all-conference guy? Obvious the dude can shoot it, just wonder if he could get his own against a bit higher level of competition night in and night out in a game with a more normal amount of possessions.)

[Gregory Sager]

What you all really want is conformity.

Baloney. Don't tell me what I want or don't want.

Chuck (Mr. Ypsi) and I have both gone on record numerous times as declaring that we have no aesthetic objection to the System. I can name lots of other college basketball fans who don't get all hot and bothered by Grinnell's approach to the game. One of the things that makes college basketball so great is its variety. Sure, there's plenty of the same copycat mentality among college basketball coaches that you get with coaches in other sports (enough with the motion offense already, people -- not every team has a roster suited to it), but there's also a lot more diversity in terms of tactical approaches to the game at this level than you see in other sports. Variety is still considered to be the spice of life in college basketball, especially here in D3 where recruiting constraints make for a greater need for creativity among coaches.

So, please, spare us the "we at Grinnell are non-conformists in everything we do, and the System illustrates how we let our freak flag fly!" propaganda. If Dave Arseneault was so hell-bent on being college basketball's version of the unicorn, he wouldn't be writing books on how to coach the System and setting up networks for his fellow System coaches on the high-school and college levels to promote that style of play. This isn't about campus sociology; this is about basketball. And D3 basketball allows and encourages coaches to go their own way in terms of how they approach the game.

So, I have a question. Since we seem to have moved away from "this isn't basketball" (finally after 20 some odd years...) to "this isn't sportsmanship" as the way to belittle Grinnell basketball, I'd like a solid all inclusive definition of what good sportsmanship really is - since you all seem to know, and I'd like to know what makes ANY of us omnipotent enough to be the final arbiter.

Nobody said that there was a "final arbiter" of sportsmanship. But there is a universally-recognized (or near-universally-recognized) informal code of sportsmanship by which coaches are expected to abide, and that code includes not running up the score. If there wasn't such a code, there wouldn't be this constant hue-and-cry about the way that Grinnell has gone about setting these scoring records from so many people who have no personal stake as fans in either the success or failure of Grinnell basketball.

How does that code work in terms of college sports?

* In college football, it means taking a knee at the end of games if you're the winning team and you have the ball -- or putting in your reserves, not snapping the ball until the play clock has run down, and running straight-vanilla rushing plays into the middle of the line if you have a big lead and there's still plenty of time left on the clock.

* In college baseball, it's less of an issue because of the ten-run mercy rule. But you will still see coaches sub in their reserves in the late innings when they have eight- or nine-run leads, and -- just as happens in pro baseball -- you won't see the coaches whose teams are up big use the steal or the bunt or the hit-and-run or other small-ball tactics that are designed to push one run across the plate at a time.

* And in college basketball, it means, as is the case in the other sports, taking out your main players and going to your bench. That's admittedly somewhat problematic in a style such as the Arseneault System, in which the entire bench is typically employed, anyway. But it also means slowing down the pace of play by holding onto the ball deep into the shot clock; it means not pressing; and it means not attempting treys unless the shot clock is about to expire and there's no alternate shot available.

I am no "final arbiter" -- if you doubt that I am presenting accurate views of how sportsmanship works in college sports as determined by the general consensus of coaches, players, and fans, then I invite you to ask others with no dog in the hunt (i.e., not Grinnell fans) if what I've presented accurately reflects that general consensus or not.

But remember this: There have been plenty of games in which Grinnell has had a huge lead and Dave Arseneault thereupon called off the System and went to a conventional style. The question one has to ask in that situation is, "Why?"

What makes running up the score in football ok while trying for records and running up the score in Basketball isn't.

Who ever said that it was OK to run up the score in football? Sounds to me like you're constructing a straw man for a sport that uses foam tackling dummies.

What makes a system contrived to give one player a shot at a national record unsportsmanlike while placing quotation marks around the word TEAM when referring to Finlandia or Crossroads is ok, or suggesting that Crossroads was laying down op purpose ("because IC might actually try and play defense and not be an act in the circus" - Larry U)?

I don't know Larry U's intent behind his "act in the circus" comment, so I'll let him defend himself without my help. Personally, I would never denigrate Finlandia or Crossroads by putting snob quotes around the word "team" or anything like that, although I wouldn't hesitate to call them bad teams.

Just as I understand why most D3 teams don't want to play Grinnell, I also understand why some are willing to do so. Finlandia, for example, is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is the eastern half of this country's analog to Siberia. It's a long, long way from the U.P. to any place where there's a substantial population, which for Finlandia means a lack of conference membership and a horrible travel schedule. File Finlandia vs. Grinnell under "Beggars Can't Be Choosers". As for the parade of non-D3 Bible colleges that seem to annually litter Grinnell's sked (and, again, it's just not fair to blame Dave Arseneault for playing them, since his team's unorthodox style makes them an unwanted non-con opponent in most D3 circles), any guess at their motivations for playing Grinnell is just that -- a guess. Some might be attracted by the publicity; a lot of those Bible colleges are run on shoestrings, and could use all the attention they can get. Some might be attracted by the higher caliber of basketball player that Grinnell draws (as compared to most Bible colleges). And some might even be doing it for missions purposes, in which case being a willing participant in a Grinnell record-breaking extravaganza might come under the category of being a Christian witness by turning the other cheek.

But, as I said, those are all guesses.

The point is that sportsmanship doesn't just vanish because some opponent decides to schedule you even though the opposing coach knows all about your reputation for trying to set records like Taylor's. Sportsmanship isn't an opponent-dependent concept. It's something that should reflect you and your school, regardless of who you're playing.

Who really cares outside of a few self proclaimed basketball purists...er...conformists anyway.

Well ... you, for one.

[Gregory Sager]

I've long believed the Heisman trophy should be renamed, as it currently honors a coach who perpetrated perhaps the single worst case of sportsmanship ever - the 216-0 win over a hopelessly over-matched Cumberland team.

It was actually 222-0.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I've long believed the Heisman trophy should be renamed, as it currently honors a coach who perpetrated perhaps the single worst case of sportsmanship ever - the 216-0 win over a hopelessly over-matched Cumberland team.

It was actually 222-0.

Thanks, Greg.  The score I gave was so stuck in my memory (falsely, alas) that I didn't bother checking.

Once he already piled on with the excess 130 before that, I'll give him a pass for the final 6!

[Gregory Sager]

There's actually a fascinating back-story behind that game, which is why I posted the wiki link.

[jeffp]

Wow! Sager and SID are/have been defending the System...except the current version, I guess. And they are really really upset that I put words in their mouths suggesting they desire conformity. I guess I hit a nerve, eh?
Meh.

To clarify, Mr. Ypsi was responsible for the quotation marks around the word TEAM; Larry U is responsible for the defense quote.

Mr Ypsi, everyone in uniform DID participate. 2 1st years had 2 minutes each, 1 2nd year and 1 3rd year had 3 minutes each (that is typical of system ball over these many years) and 13 players went anywhere from 10 to 16 minutes each (also typical) while Taylor had 29 (typical over the last 10 years or so when the team has a truly standout player) and one player didn't suit up.

Almost forgot, One 1st year only played 9 minutes...but was the 2nd leading scorer with 15 points.

Participation doesn't alway mean scoring, but it sure as hell mean teamwork whether you want it to or not.

[jeffp]

And I only care because so many of you blather on about Grinnell's "unsportsmanlike" behavior. I'll defend what they do until it really IS unsportsmanlike. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

There's actually a fascinating back-story behind that game, which is why I posted the wiki link.

A little tidbit in the Wiki piece I was unaware of: North Park has the D3 football record with a 104-32 pasting of NCC in 1968!

Oh how the roles have reversed in recent years!