MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Pat Coleman]

Anyone who has made more than 200 posts can affect any poster's karma by +1 or -1 points within a 24-hour period.

Among CCIW fans, there are many karma-enabled posters!

[CCIWchamps]

With all this complaining, I can't avoid wondering, what if Raymond had taken a better shot, rather than letting it fly with six point something seconds left in the game against Washington? Was there anyone else in the building who thought that was chucked up a little early, a little panicy?

It happened with four point something left, and it definitely looked like a broken play, with a back court fumble and a defender collapsing on Kent.  With WU's D, I don't know if he'd have gotten a better look. 
It was a great setup for a fairy tale finish, with the panic and the deep 3 to tie... but as it went, the National Champio- er, the 3rd Round Game finished just a few possessions too soon for Wheaton. 

What is the argument against travel in the NCAA's, just cost?  Come on- they sell T-Shirts at the game.  Certainly that money goes somewhere!

[CCIWchamps]

Anyone who has made more than 200 posts can affect any poster's karma by +1 or -1 points within a 24-hour period.

Among CCIW fans, there are many karma-enabled posters!

Got it.  Well as sac pointed out, if I get on another run, I may hit 200 in a few days.  And I mean total posts.  Not -k.

[chairman]

I think we should use our energy to petition the NCAA to end the silliness that was the 2009 D3 tourney. This thing has to be seeded and they have to find the way to fund it, or the schools shouldn't bother to participate.   The money is there; the NCAA wastes that much on coffee each year.

While the money may be there for men's basketball, the NCAA also funds "national tournaments" for several other sports. It's easy to demand distinctive treatment for the "revenue sports" in D3-- Basketball might actually be able to break even at DIII, but I don't see the rank and file of Division III restructuring Basketball and football for competitive balance and being ok with leaving the other sports in their current format, and I definitely can't see them changing the formats for all the other sports.

On another note, and I'm only coming in  because I haven't had the chance to kick the thoroughbred yet.

I can say that there is a quantitative difference between the quality of play in regions. There are really good players in other regions, but I'm not sure one can make a better case for himself as POY than to score 24 + points a game on a team that goes something and 4 ( I think he only played in two of the losses, but I could be wrong) while playing one of the toughest schedules in the nation.

At the end of the day, KR has plenty of accolades and will succeed in life without the D3hoops POY award. On the other hand, I cannot in any way imagine how someone could possibly be 100% confident in the decision between the two outstanding players for the award. Maybe 90%, but certainly not 100%.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

Secretariat is dead - long live the memory of the greatest horse of all time.

23 lengths at the Belmont Stakes !

dgp

[Dennis_Prikkel]

Does any one have any recruiting news?

[dansand]

Secretariat is dead - long live the memory of the greatest horse of all time.

23 lengths at the Belmont Stakes !

dgp

I think it was 31 lengths!

Does any one have any recruiting news?

Justin Bertrand's little brother is going to Illinois. 

[Gregory Sager]

Well, I'm glad I've brought about some sort of entertainment to at least some of you. 
I don't mind putting in my two cents among a literate group of people, and truth be told, I expected more posts would've been added to the mix before the dead horse mark.  As USEE mentioned, I too thought that this was the point of the board.  I made a post.  Pat responded.  And here we are.  A message board acting like a message board. 

If I were to do it all again, based on the lack of interest by other readers, I'd simply use the DIRECT EMAIL feature I just found and ask him directly my questions about the aforementioned topic (as you'll note, I've changed the topic of this message to avoid going over any unwritten rule limitations, and am avoiding using any buzzwords to reopen the discussion   ).

I don't think that anyone has told you to cease and desist regarding this debate. As USee has said, this is what the board is for. I do find it a little wearying to read the same facts and figures stated over and over again, but wearying me is certainly your prerogative. There are no "unwritten rule limitations" here, only self-imposed ones.

My honest opinion, after watching Bartolatta and Raymond play in person more than once, is that Jimmy Bartolatta is not in the same league as Raymond.  There is a huge difference in the level of competition.  Put Jimmy Bartolatta in the recently concluded tournament at Wheaton against that level of competition....he is an above average player.  No POY.  That is my honest opinion.  I suspect there was more to the decision by our Mr. Coleman than talent that lead him to select Jimmy Bartolatta.  Spreading the award around, a show that he has no regional bias, other unknown motivations came into play.  And he has his right to do whatever he chooses to do with his site.  And I have every right to come to the conclusion that he has NO credibility as a judge of talent and he has little political courage.  Do your thing, Mr. Coleman.  

Y'know, for all the grief people have given CCIWchamps, at least his challenge to Pat Coleman was based strictly upon the statistical merits of Raymond and Bartolotta. I give him credit for keeping the discussion civil and above-board, rather than using it to cast aspersions at Pat's integrity, let alone Pat's competence as a student of the game of basketball. Aside from the incoherent argument that Pat was demonstrating that he has no "regional bias" (how do you prove or disprove bias for an award that has only been given out four times for a division that consists of eight regions?), all we get from "cciw" is a vague accusation that Pat is subject to "other unknown motivations" as well as a charge that Pat has "little political courage", although no evidence is given that there are any politics whatsoever that enter into the POY choice.

I understand and sympathize with the disappointment Wheaton fans have shown over the snub of Raymond, but turning it into a personal smear campaign against Pat Coleman is carrying it too far.

With all this complaining, I can't avoid wondering, what if Raymond had taken a better shot, rather than letting it fly with six point something seconds left in the game against Washington? Was there anyone else in the building who thought that was chucked up a little early, a little panicy?

Good question. It might be the best "What if?" of the season, as we can't help but wonder if the POY result might've been different if Raymond had hit that shot and Wheaton had taken Wash U into overtime. I thought that it was a bit of a panic fling (there was 1.2 seconds left on the game clock after the refs blew the whistle following Raymond's airball), and I and most of the people with whom I spoke afterwards thought that he had enough time to set his feet and get off a better shot, but it's hard to gauge a moving clock in that situation -- and it's thus hard to indict Raymond for taking a bad shot.

[Gregory Sager]

I would like to see the national POY somehow awarded through a vote by the players themselves. something just seems wrong to have men with little to no real athletic ability sitting in judgement of others that do. Kent's character was defamed earlier in the season by someone who could not even stand in his shadow let alone posess the kind of althletic ability that Kent has. I am without a doubt that his chances for POY were poisoned by certain posters whining about Kent.

and yes,  -k

Wow, that is a seriously paranoid post. You are "without a doubt" that Kent Raymond's chances for POY were poisoned by "certain posters whining about Kent"? Upon what basis do you make this claim, let alone make it with such absolute certitude? Did you put Pat Coleman under a continuous state of hypnosis when he was in Wheaton a week and a half ago and then extract a confession from him after the All-American team was announced?

Your proposal to award the POY by player vote is just plain silly. Let's leave aside for a moment the logistical difficulties of getting 5,000 to 7,000 players from 400 or so schools to record their votes, when the d3hoops.com staff has to pull teeth just to extract game information from any number of those schools on a given night. What in the world makes you think that those 5,000 to 7,000 players are any more informed about players in other parts of the country than are the d3hoops.com staff? I'll bet all the corn in Manito that Pat Coleman, Dave McHugh, etc., have seen a lot more teams and players from multiple regions than have anyone else involved with D3 men's basketball, be it player, coach, or fan (with the possible exception of Ralph "Streaming Video Is My Middle Name" Turner  ). In other words, you're advocating taking the award out of the hands of the most informed selectors in the D3 universe and putting it into the hands of those who couldn't distinguish between Jimmy Bartolotta and Joey Buttafuoco.

And this comment:

something just seems wrong to have men with little to no real athletic ability sitting in judgement of others that do.

... is just breathtakingly absurd. Granted, we can all name sportswriters and commentators who make us scratch our heads or yell at the TV set or crumple up the newspaper on occasion, but the idea that you have to have athletic ability in order to comment on sports either in the writing medium or the broadcasting medium (and, by extension, to manifest one's judgments on an award ballot) is totally off the wall. I'm trying to imagine a world in which one's qualifications for being a sportswriter or a color commentator are his times in the 40-yard dash or his vertical leap or his bench-press numbers. It's not a pretty picture.

Leaving the professionals aside, how about the rest of us who "sit in judgment" -- i.e., every single person who posts on this website and other fan sites like it? Should we confine posting privileges to those who can prove that they earned a varsity letter on the collegiate level in that sport?

Also, I haven't seen anyone "defame" Raymond's character on this board all season or, for that matter, throughout his entire career. As I said on the AA board yesterday, the respect that CCIW Chat has demonstrated for Raymond throughout his career is universal. We have respected him for his tremendous excellence as a basketball player, and we have respected him for his toughness in playing through pain. Nobody has defamed his character; in fact, the opposite is true. When he took a year off of basketball for religious reasons, he was treated with kid gloves on CCIW Chat even by those who don't share his beliefs, and the exception or two to that was shouted down by the rest of us who believed that Raymond ought to be saluted for having the courage of his convictions rather than mocked for it.

No, we don't all see Kent Raymond as wearing a halo above his head, but how thick must someone's orange-tinted glasses be to confuse criticism of his penchant for complaining to the refs with outright defamation of character? You can't defame someone for actions that have thousands of eyewitnesses. Even Wheaton fans on CCIW Chat have acknowledged that Raymond worked the refs; most of them insisted that his complaining was justified by the way he was defended every night by opponents, but they didn't dispute the fact that he did frequently plead his case with the men in stripes. That much was obvious. In fact, several of the people who were critical of his complaining and who pointed out that he was often the one who initiated physical contact rather than being strictly on the receiving end of it all of the time have simultaneously given him credit for these two things, since they showed his competitiveness.

Lastly, with regard to:

Kent's character was defamed earlier in the season by someone who could not even stand in his shadow let alone posess the kind of althletic ability that Kent has.

What does character, or the right to judge it, have to do with athletic ability?

I thought that Kent Raymond should've been selected d3hoops.com's POY, and I was disappointed that he wasn't. I thought that CCIWchamps stated Raymond's case well, even if he did drag it out a bit too long. But a couple of the pro-Raymond posts subsequent to CCIWchamps's campaign have been both inflammatory and ludicrous, and do neither Wheaton nor Raymond any credit at all.

[Pat Coleman]

I was amused by the political suggestion -- if I were to have made the politically safe decision, it would be the one that appeases the bigger constituency. And the CCIW constituency is much bigger on this site than the NEWMAC's is.

But that isn't a factor. And it shouldn't be.

By the way, not sure how a national vote by the players would work. I don't think many of them have seen Raymond or Bartolotta play.

[titan2000]

I was amused by the political suggestion -- if I were to have made the politically safe decision, it would be the one that appeases the bigger constituency. And the CCIW constituency is much bigger on this site than the NEWMAC's is.

But that isn't a factor. And it shouldn't be.

By the way, not sure how a national vote by the players would work. I don't think many of them have seen Raymond or Bartolotta play.

They should be forced to watch videos and listen to 16 hours of Hoopsville to qualify. 

[Pat Coleman]

Oh, let's not go overboard.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Hmm... 16 hours of Hoopsville? That is only about two to three weeks of shows... that doesn't seem to be enough to truely appreciate the information being shared! (OK, can't even say that with a straight face!)

[Dennis_Prikkel]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[fcnews]

Overboard!!!!

We're way pass overboard. It amazes me that this much effort has been spent on splitting hairs. Like if you post maybe 25 more times, Pat is going to say "Ok your right, sorry Jimmy."

It's an award with 0 economic value. Now, if the award carried a $100,000 check with it things might be different.

Or, you could of spent all this time writing a letter campaign asking Bartolotta to pull his name from consideration.

I for one have found some of the posts to be entertaining, informational and amuzing. But, even cats only have nine lives. This horse just can't stay buried.

I have turned to the CCIW page, in the past, because it is the closet to our conference and has by far some of the most knowledegable posters. Subject matters are great and it's the best place for regional DIII news.

Could we please get back to basketball. I'm interested in who the SLIAC rep will be facing in next years NCAA Tourney first rd. game.

This will drop my Karma about 20 points.