MBB: Midwest Conference

[scottie]

Scottie's Monday Morning POSITIVE Ramblings:

1. For some of you new guys who thought Pat and I were just whistling Dixie, I present to you http://mwchoops.blogspot.com/  Thank you, Sam Johnson, wherever you are.

2. Depending on what part of the country you're from (and what accent you carry), could Hoops Fan be mistaken for Hope's Fan??   

3. A pretty good weekend for Monmouth Track & Field. 

4. My recollection is that the Drury=All American conversation began pre-season.  Let's hope it continues post-season.

5. But, is Drury missing the key ingredient?  A nickname?

6. MWC Hall of Fame nicknames include: Bopper, Manimal, Yao Mingram.

7. If you can think of something positive from the Illinois/Iowa game, please let me know.   

[cubs]

And still nothing on D3HOOPS. Carroll shocks 2 teams,and still not a thing for the MWC.

Cut the guy some slack..... 

Before D3hoops.com came around, things were pretty boring for a lot of us.  Go into some of the other conference rooms and see the amount of respect Carroll is getting.  That right there shows people know what they accomplished last week regardless of having a front page story or not.

[diehardfan]

Hey guys, I just thought I'd pop in to let you know about a little project we did. A group of around 40 posters banded together and created a Unofficial Guide to the 2006-2007 NCAA Tourney, that contains a team-by-team breakdown of the teams in the tournament. This is especially cool given the fact that the official NCAA guide gives you very little insight into the teams, and nearly all of the previews in the Unofficial Guide were made by fans of the team.

The website is: http://wheatonhoops.googlepages.com/ncaatourney and on that website you can find browsable information, as well as a 19 page printable PDF document. This was updated as of this morning.

While I doubt that we'll ever get any posters to submit information for the 11 teams that did not submit previews, it does include previews from 48 of the 59 teams in the tournament, and all of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen. I hope you check it out and enjoy the content!

If there are any corrections or content additions you would like to me, please submit them to me by PM. Thanks!

[sac]

  What weaknesses are out there that they can exploit against Hope? 

Hope has a guard jumping center.

[The Roop]

Who really cares about the front page? Why does anyone think it's important? Front page stories stay on the front page for what,  24 to 36 hours?! Big f'in deal.

And lets not forget about Coach Schultes being interviewed on Hoopsville last night as Carroll was the team of the week. It's also hard for Pat to put things on if the conference doesn't send him anything. That was a huge issue in the past but they have been doing better this year.

[monsoon]

Just started a separate board for the Stevens Point Sectional in Multi-Regional Topics...that way we won't have to be in 4 different places while discussing Hope - Carroll - Wash U - UWSP.

[Greek Tragedy]

TICKET POLICY FOR STEVENS POINT SECTIONAL!!!!

[titan2000]

Everyone says the MIAC is so tough, and maybe it is top to bottom, but the last three years, the MIAC Champion has been eliminated from the NCAA Tournament by the MWC.

Who says that the MIAC is tough? It's considered a pretty average conference by most of the people who follow D3 nationally. It annually turns out rather undistinguished non-conference records, and three Final Fours in 32 years is not exactly the stuff of which power conferences are made.

The top couple of teams in the league are usually very good, but the MIAC tends to have an awful lot of dross in it in the middle and at the bottom. This year the MIAC room regulars kept saying that the league as a whole was down, but I've been unable to distinguish whether or not that's really true. Some of that could just be the GAC people projecting their own team's atypical mediocrity onto the rest of the league, or non-GAC people misinterpreting the lack of a strong Gusties squad to mean a lack of strong MIAC teams as a whole, given that GAC (along with St. Thomas) has been one of the league's two most prominent programs in recent seasons.

Congrats to Carroll on what so far has been a terrific run. It may not be over yet, either; I saw Hope twice this past weekend, and while they're very good they're definitely beatable.

The MIAC is only slightly tougher than the CCIW.  Don't make it out to be more than it is.

[hoops_malone]

BTW, a tip of the hat to POY Drury for reaching the 1500 point milestone in the game the other night.

I'm guessing he liked the win more, but still a nice accomplishment.

I wonder if Drury will get some All American consideration given the success his  team is having in the tournament.

Not only did Drury reach the 1500 point milestone, but he also set the all time assist record at Carroll with 398 in his career.

[The Roop]

The MIAC is only slightly tougher than the CCIW.  Don't make it out to be more than it is.

In football I'd give it to the MIAC over the CCIW but in basketball I don't know how you can even compare the two conferences. So I'll just ignore it as T2K propaganda. LOL.

I still say Carroll is not a cinderella until they make it to Salem. Why......... 1. because they are good and 2. the MWC has had teams get this far in the past. The D3 Tournament is not the Stevens Point Invitational that it was in their second championship run so whomever comes out of this bracket will not surprise me. Although I still expect Stevens Point to do it.

Here's a newspaper quote from a few years ago. "Beloit shouldn't be winning National Championships, but they should be winning conference championships". I don't agree with that thinking and it's all too common in the MWC.

Academics, academics, lets all play nice, academics. Not exactly a haiku and it wasn't meant to be. I just  think historically that the MWC has been a better conference than it has been given credit for but there never seems to be an incentive for anyone to succeed in the NCAA Tournament. Apparently Carroll missed that memo however. Well good, I guess it's about time then.

I've never seen Hope, Wash U. or Point and I've told everything about Carroll that I know already. Hopefully somebody chimes in soon.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The MWC has had two different teams make the round of sixteen in consecutive years in the toughest region.  I think there's some respect earned there, especially when the conference was so tight at the top during the regular season as well.

[sac]

I don't know much about MWC tournament history.........other than it took a last second shot for Hope to beat St. Norbert the only other time we paired up against the MWC.

Couldn't the MWC's lack of tournament success untill the last few years simply be explained by having to be paired with CCIW and WIAC teams repeatedly?

[The Roop]

Couldn't the MWC's lack of tournament success untill the last few years simply be explained by having to be paired with CCIW and WIAC teams repeatedly?

Yes and no. In most years the MWC entrant has been "the opponent" for all practical purposes to the home team. But there have been times when they simply lost against the #3 in the bracket. So the MWC has simply found ways to win in recent years.

[Nites]

Nice article on Dave Schultz:

http://www.d3hoops.com/pressreleases.php?release=1304

[RiponRed34]

Massey ratings have been posted.

One thing that surprised me was the strength of schedule associated with the MWC.  Carroll had the 11 hardest according to massey and Ripon had the 24 hardest followed by LU with 36 and LFC with 56.  I forgot what Grinnell's was.

But still interesting none the less.  It seems MWC or Carroll for that matter, have played a tough schedule to prepare them for this run