MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Titan Q]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central (and Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others) are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.  To go from the field at the Wheaton Sectional to this is just ridiculous.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better.

[Ralph Turner]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  (And Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others too.)  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better than this.

Ehhhh, we just call it the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football. 

[chairman]

The Final Four was last weekend. The tournament in Salem is an National Invitation Tournament.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  (And Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others too.)  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better than this.

Ehhhh, we just call it the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football. 

Ralph, while I think the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football also gets screwed, there is a significant difference.  Most years lately, the best Texas team would still finish at best 3rd in the country.  Bob is suggesting (and I'd agree) that the "Bracket of Death" would have finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th ... (and that the Wheaton sectional alone would have finished at least 1st, 2nd, and 3rd - he left out UPS, and I'm undecided whether they would be in the 'and others').

[Titan Q]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  (And Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others too.)  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better than this.

Ehhhh, we just call it the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football. 

Ralph, while I think the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football also gets screwed, there is a significant difference.  Most years lately, the best Texas team would still finish at best 3rd in the country.  Bob is suggesting (and I'd agree) that the "Bracket of Death" would have finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th ... (and that the Wheaton sectional alone would have finished at least 1st, 2nd, and 3rd - he left out UPS, and I'm undecided whether they would be in the 'and others').

I would not put Puget Sound in that category.  I'd say UPS is right in the same tier as Guilford, Richard Stockton, and Franklin & Marshall...and there is definite separation between that tier and the Midwest/West grouping I mentioned last night.

[hopefan]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central (and Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others) are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.  To go from the field at the Wheaton Sectional to this is just ridiculous.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better.

As I said earlier, a shame that, particularly this year, Fontbonne is geographicly in the midst of all of the D3 power - a veteran squad couldn't compete with Wheaton, and likely wouldn't have been competitive with some of the others of the death squad , but in any of the other three brackets, might have been a real threat.

[Titan Q]

As I said earlier, a shame that, particularly this year, Fontbonne is geographicly in the midst of all of the D3 power - a veteran squad couldn't compete with Wheaton, and likely wouldn't have been competitive with some of the others of the death squad , but in any of the other three brackets, might have been a real threat.

Fontbonne is quite a bit behind the other 3 teams here in Salem...they'd be a 15-point+ underdog vs Guilford, F&M, and Richard Stockton.

[Ralph Turner]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  (And Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others too.)  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better than this.

Ehhhh, we just call it the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football. 

Ralph, while I think the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football also gets screwed, there is a significant difference.  Most years lately, the best Texas team would still finish at best 3rd in the country.  Bob is suggesting (and I'd agree) that the "Bracket of Death" would have finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th ... (and that the Wheaton sectional alone would have finished at least 1st, 2nd, and 3rd - he left out UPS, and I'm undecided whether they would be in the 'and others').

I really don't know how to break out that geographic concentration of team that is consistent with D-III principles of regional play.

I wish that someone would post a bracket that has equal or fewer (projected) flights than the current bracket to achieve that deficiencies about which everyone is ranting!

(The Puget Sound pod and the UT-Dallas pod are movable, but there is almost no way to break apart the concentration of non-Final four, or non-Top 16 teams that are in the Mid-Atlantic, Atlantic, East and Northeast Regions.)

[Titan Q]

Sitting courtside at the Salem Civic Center, watching F&M play Richard Stockton.

Wheaton, Elmhurst, Augustana, and North Central are significantly better than these two teams, and the Guilford squad Wash U dismantled.  (And Lawrence, UW-Platteville, UW_Whitewater, St. Thomas and others too.)  I've been pretty quiet about the bracket here and on Hoopsville, but watching this Final Four is disappointing.

Gotta be a way to fix this.  Division III fans deserve better than this.

Ehhhh, we just call it the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football. 

Ralph, while I think the "Texas Sub-bracket" in football also gets screwed, there is a significant difference.  Most years lately, the best Texas team would still finish at best 3rd in the country.  Bob is suggesting (and I'd agree) that the "Bracket of Death" would have finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th ... (and that the Wheaton sectional alone would have finished at least 1st, 2nd, and 3rd - he left out UPS, and I'm undecided whether they would be in the 'and others').

I really don't know how to break out that geographic concentration of team that is consistent with D-III principles of regional play.

I wish that someone would post a bracket that has equal or fewer (projected) flights than the current bracket to achieve that deficiencies about which everyone is ranting!

(The Puget Sound pod and the UT-Dallas pod are movable, but there is almost no way to break apart the concentration of non-Final four, or non-Top 16 teams that are in the Mid-Atlantic, Atlantic, East and Northeast Regions.)

With the current financial constraints, there is no way to fix the problem.  The national committee members are well aware of the imbalance in the brackets, and they don't like it, but their hands are completely tied.

When I say, "There's gotta be a way to fix this", what I'm basically saying is, there has to be a way to find a little more money to pay for a few more flights.

[Titan Q]

Congratulations to the CCIW players on the D3hoops.com 2008-09 All-American team...

1st Team
Kent Raymond, Wheaton (Sr)

2nd Team
Brent Ruch, Elmhurst (Sr)

3rd Team
Steve Djurickovic, Carthage (So)


The complete 1st Team...

G Kent Raymond, Wheaton
G Jimmy Bartolatta, M.I.T.
G Aaron Thompson, Wash U
F Jesse Reimink, Hope
C Jeff Skemp, UW-Platteville

The D3hoops.com Player of the Year is M.I.T. guard Jimmy Bartolatta. 

(Full teams will be posted later.)

[Mugsy]

Scary... WashU's Thompson shoots 2-12 and only has 4 points and WashU is still going to win the National Championship by 10+ points.  WashU was far, far more challenged the first 2 weeks of the playoffs than in Salem.

[markerickson]

Financial constraints?  The NCAA has soooo much money.

The refs love Duke.

Congrats, Wash U.

[CCIWchamps]

The D3hoops.com Player of the Year is M.I.T. guard Jimmy Bartolatta. 

(Full teams will be posted later.)

Wow, that makes 0 sense.  Fine, an overstatement.  That makes 35% sense.

[iwu70]

Congrats to Wash U for being Champs of the Bracket of Death . . . oh yeh, national champs too. 

Thought the Wash U women would run it all too -- but 2nd place isn't too too bad.  Congrats to George Fox on an undefeated Championship season, 32-0. 

[Pat Coleman]

The D3hoops.com Player of the Year is M.I.T. guard Jimmy Bartolatta. 

(Full teams will be posted later.)

Wow, that makes 0 sense.  Fine, an overstatement.  That makes 35% sense.

I don't expect a Wheaton person to understand the selection, but I feel 100% confident in it. They were the only two candidates, but in the end, I thought Bartolotta was simply a better player.