MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[AndOne]

I even heard that some fairly regular posters are neither parents of players nor alumni.   

[sac]

Let's not forget those of us who started out posting as "younger alumni" but are no longer considered "younger". 

[NCF]

Let's not forget those of us who started out posting as "younger alumni" but are no longer considered "younger". 

age is just a number

[Pat Coleman]

Let's not forget those of us who started out posting as "younger alumni" but are no longer considered "younger". 

Yes! There are a good number of those.

[AndOne]

Let's not forget those of us who started out posting as "younger alumni" but are no longer considered "younger". 

age is just a number

And, size DOES matter. 

* Just in case there are/were any misconceptions out there, I was keeping it entirely clean and referring to the size of a poster's AGE, nothing else. 

[mr_b]

North Park chooses Tom Slyder as head basketball coach

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere!

Slyder was head coach at his alam mater, Anderson (IN) University.

[sac]

North Park chooses Tom Slyder as head basketball coach

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere!

Slyder was head coach at his alam mater, Anderson (IN) University.

This seems like really exciting news for North Park, more so than say the last 2 or 3 hires.

[Gregory Sager]

As I said last Wednesday, NPU athletic director Jack Surridge was going to move very fast on this hire. Exactly two weeks elapsed from the day Dylan Howard resigned to the day Tom Slyder was announced as the new head coach of the Vikings. There will be the damage to recruiting that always happens when the head coach changes, make no doubt about it, but the dispatch with which Jack Surridge moved on this hire minimizes that damage as much as possible.

Tom Slyder was a finalist for the job last year, and when I heard last Wednesday that he was going to be on campus for an interview that day I got a pretty strong vibe that he was going to be the guy this time around. In fact, I went out on a limb and told a fellow North Park alumnus in church on Sunday that I thought that Coach Slyder would get the job.

His record at Anderson is impressive. That's not a school that has exactly covered itself in glory over the years on the basketball court, and in spite of that he won the school's first conference title in almost three decades a couple of years ago with a Ravens team that made it to the second round of the D3 tourney. He's the only Anderson head coach since the 1960s who has a career winning record. Over the past five seasons his Ravens teams have gone 86-51.

Welcome to NPU, Tom, and best of luck to you!

[kiko]

Nice addition, particularly considering when in the offseason the Park had to go looking for a new coach.

[kiko]

Whether something is considered like to like is in the eye of the beholder.

Not really. Are you denying that football and basketball have significant differences in terms of schedule length, roster size, demographics, etc.?

Not at all.  I won't belabor the broader conversation as it will inevitably spiral into a football-focused discussion and my point is meant for a broader context.  But if you can figure out the probability of 'x' happening in one sport, and can also figure out the probability of 'y' happening in another, then you can compare the probabilities.  All those other factors are simply independent variables that influence the likelihood of 'x' or 'y'.

It is roughly as likely that a major D3 conference will experience (1) a team with a two-year winless streak in basketball as it is they will experience (2) a team with a four-year winless streak in football.  So, if you adjust for the norms it is a perfectly reasonable comparison.

I don't agree with that at all. You can't simply multiply a football schedule by two and say, "OK, I've accounted for the extra round-robin. Now we're talking about the same thing."

I agree with this -- and that's not what I did.  I looked at a sample of conferences for a rough incidence level of consecutive winless conference seasons in basketball, and tried to estimate what the rough approximation was for football.  There aren't many instances of either, but in the sample I looked at, it happened to turn out that a four-year streak in football had a similar incidence level.

[NCF]

Let's not forget those of us who started out posting as "younger alumni" but are no longer considered "younger". 

age is just a number

And, size DOES matter. 

not in my book:)

[CCIW]

Anyone have an opinion about the ranking of recruiting classes?   We will know how good they REALLY are in a couple years, but on paper, who do you think helped themselves the most?

[iwu70]

Welcome to the new NPU Coach, Mssr. Slyder.  Looks like a good choice.  Good luck to him and NP in the coming few years of rebuilding and hopefully improving.

I also would be interested in views on the strengths of the various recruiting classes of incoming CCIW players.  Any big surprises in teams improving markedly?

Clearly NCC will be favored, ranked #1 in the pre-season CCIW poll.  IWU probably 2nd or 3rd.  Perhaps Augie will provide its skill yet again at underperforming.

Race to the bottom still there for MU and NP to pursue.  IMHO.

Lovely summer weather here in B/N now, great biking days . . . and some time to watch baseball, CornBelters at the Corn Crib! 

Happy summer to all chatsters.

IWU70

[Titan Q]

Anyone have an opinion about the ranking of recruiting classes?   We will know how good they REALLY are in a couple years, but on paper, who do you think helped themselves the most?

I think Augustana's recruiting class looks tremendous.  On paper I believe Augie clearly has the #1 recruiting class in the CCIW (as far as names that have been made public at this time).

Just my opinion from afar...I haven't seen any of those kids play.

[Gregory Sager]

I agree. Augie's class looks the best on paper.

And do you know how much that's worth? About as much as the paper upon which it's written.

It's all nothing but idle speculation until they put on the uni.