MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[NCF]

Junior college transfers are something we regularly see, but bringing in a college player that we know in advance will be with the team for 1 year only, is a much less common occurrence, and one that can accurately be described as a "rental" situation as defined by our common vernacular.

North Central has had two "rentals" in the last five years: Jeremy Williams & Kyle Julius, who was on his fifth school in five years.

Yes indeed they did.
More precisely, five years ago Jeremy Williams played in 14 games before being injured, and Kyle Julius very unfortunately appeared in 9 games before disappearing three years ago. 
No such player 2 years ago, again last year, nor 2 this coming season.
I'm not personally fond of this type of arrangement as far as trying to build a team. Accordingly, I'm glad it hasn't occurred again at NC. But I'm also not a coach, so my opinion doesn't matter. I'm sure there are others who both share my opinion and disagree with it.

I agree with on this one. One year transfers are slap in the face to the guys who have busted their a**es  and worked their way up through the system.IMHO is does more to hurt team morale than build it.

[KnightSlappy]

My use of the term rental stems from the well known terminology regularly used by sportswriters and sportscasters alike to describe a free-agent signee who is likely to be with a team for only a single season (as with a college player with one year of eligibility remaining) before moving on again. You've both read it in the paper, and heard it on TV and radio time and time again. It is very characteristic of our everyday sports language, and an accurate description of this type of situation.

I've actually never heard this type of player be referred to as a "rental". It's really a trade deadline term, not a free agent signing period term.

Professional players are described as "rentals" when they're traded from one team to another during the final year of their contract. It's always used to describe a player who will be with the new team for less than a full year.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

My use of the term rental stems from the well known terminology regularly used by sportswriters and sportscasters alike to describe a free-agent signee who is likely to be with a team for only a single season (as with a college player with one year of eligibility remaining) before moving on again. You've both read it in the paper, and heard it on TV and radio time and time again. It is very characteristic of our everyday sports language, and an accurate description of this type of situation.

I've actually never heard this type of player be referred to as a "rental". It's really a trade deadline term, not a free agent signing period term.

Professional players are described as "rentals" when they're traded from one team to another during the final year of their contract. It's always used to describe a player who will be with the new team for less than a full year.

Rentals (based on this description) do indeed happen in DIII as it did at Adrian College last year.  Richaud Pack, D1 transfer who joind the Bulldogs mid-season, played the remainder of the year, and was very vocal as the season neared its end that he would be headed to a different D1 school this year.

[Gregory Sager]

Former Hope G Jared Mysliewiec will attend Elmhurst. 

http://www.grccraiders.com/news/2012/7/25/MBB_0725124405.aspx

It seems like Mark Scherer is becoming the CCIW transfer/short-term rental specialist. A couple of years ago he brought in a former Carthage player for one season, and last year did the same thing with Jerome Robinson, bringing him in from Lewis with one season of eligibility remaining. This year he will have 4 jr college transfers, along with 2 kids who will be at their 3rd school in 3 years. 

Save your indignation for when NPU's final newbie list is announced, Mark, because the Vikings will likely have plenty of incoming transfers as well. And I suspect that at least one of the players whom the Vikings coaches are currently wooing has multiple schools already listed on his transcript. NPU has always been a school that embraces transfers (whether they're athletes or not), and it will continue to be that kind of school. So if anybody else wants to post in high dudgeon about CCIW programs using transfer student-athletes, get in before the rush and scold North Park about it now, before the list even comes out.

Oh, and I'm not particularly pleased with the use of the term "rental" to describe a transfer, either.

If there is any indignation to be saved, I sense it is you, Greg, that needs to do so.

I think it's a well-deserved indignation on my part. All too often I see transfers demeaned either openly or obliquely on these boards. I don't like it, and I'll speak out against it every time that I see it. It's totally unfair to lump all transfer students together; roughly 600,000 current students at American four-year colleges, or 5% of the total student population of four-year schools, have transferred from one school to another at some point. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that percentage is higher for student-athletes. They do not deserve to be collectively stereotyped or treated as pariahs.

If you will examine the wording of my post a little more closely, you will notice that it reads CCIW transfer/short-term rental specialist. I purposely used the slash (/) between transfer and short-term rental to differentiate a jr college transfer from a kid with one year of eligibility remaining. Especially one who has already been at 3 different schools.

Oh, I saw the slash. But it's a distinction without a difference. By introducing all of Elmhurst's transfers into your point, not just the seniors-to-be, you tarred them all with the same brush. You followed it up in this instance by cataloging the total number of Elmhurst transfers, including the sophs- and juniors-to-be who are coming in from the juco ranks.

If you weren't really seeking to disparage transfers in general -- if you had wanted to make a point that was strictly about transfers who only have one year of eligibility remaining (such as Sean Fendley and Jerome Robinson ... or Jeremy Williams or Kyle Julius) -- then why introduce all transfers into your post? All you did was muddy the waters and impute guilt-by-association to the other transfers.

My use of the term rental stems from the well known terminology regularly used by sportswriters and sportscasters alike to describe a free-agent signee who is likely to be with a team for only a single season (as with a college player with one year of eligibility remaining) before moving on again. You've both read it in the paper, and heard it on TV and radio time and time again. It is very characteristic of our everyday sports language, and an accurate description of this type of situation.

I'm well aware of the term. But, as the Dean points out, it's a term that applies to professional athletes. If it exists at all in a college context, it applies to players on scholarship, who are thus semi-professional in fact if not in name. It has no business being applied to a D3 student-athlete, because the context of the term "rental" is of a financial transaction and, thus, an illegality on the part of the D3 school and the player involved.

Junior college transfers are something we regularly see,

Then, given their quotidian and unremarkable presence in CCIW men's basketball, why bring them up at all in your post?

but bringing in a college player that we know in advance will be with the team for 1 year only, is a much less common occurrence, and one that can accurately be described as a "rental" situation as defined by our common vernacular.

I disagree with your second clause, as I've already said. I do agree that one-year transfers are much less common than multiple-year transfers, although they're hardly unheard-of in CCIW circles. We've already named four of them who played in this league within the last five years, and if I sat down and thought about it for awhile, I bet that I could name at least another dozen of them stretching back through earlier CCIW eras, and probably more than that.

And here's the thing: They had nothing in common, other than the fact that they were CCIW men's basketball players who only played their senior seasons at a particular CCIW school. You can't find anything else about them that would bind them together and enable you to make a blanket statement about them. Some of them were good students. Some of them weren't. Some of them graduated from that school. Some of them didn't. Some of them were spectacular CCIW players -- at least seven All-CCIW picks, including one who was a D3 tournament MVP, and at least one other player who deserved to be named to the All-CCIW team but wasn't -- and some of them were busts. Some of them were good teammates. Some of them were locker-room poison. The point is, again, you can't lump them all together and pronounce any summary judgment upon them that goes beyond noting that they were each around for only one season.

I do agree with this statement:

I'm not personally fond of this type of arrangement as far as trying to build a team.

I would certainly hate to have to build a team around multiple one-year players. The problem with over-reliance upon transfers, and with one-year transfers in particular, is that it's more difficult to maintain program continuity than it is for teams that are fully based upon four-year students. But I can't recollect any situation in which a CCIW team has had more than a single one-year player in any given season. So it's not really germane to talk about "building a team" when there's only one player on the team who fits this criterion.

I agree with on this one. One year transfers are slap in the face to the guys who have busted their a**es  and worked their way up through the system.IMHO is does more to hurt team morale than build it.

I couldn't disagree more. It may or may not affect team morale, but that's a secondary consideration at best. You don't win games with morale; you win games by outscoring the other team. And if a newbie, be he a transfer or a freshman, is better than the returning players at his position, he will (and should!) be ahead of those returning players on the depth chart. Basketball coaches, just like the coaches and managers of any other sport, base their lineups upon ability rather than seniority.

[NCF]

I have no problem with a freshman or jc transfer coming in and having the same opportunity to be a starter. One year transfers, however are a different story. I guess we can just agree to disagree yet again.

[Gregory Sager]

I have no problem with a freshman or jc transfer coming in and having the same opportunity to be a starter. One year transfers, however are a different story.

Why? What's the difference? The effect is the same: Newbie shows up, newbie wins the job over a returnee. In terms of next season there's a difference, because the one-year transfer won't be around anymore, whereas the freshman and the multi-year transfer will be back. But you're talking about morale, and I'm talking about winning games with what's on the current roster, and those are both matters of the present, not the future.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Question... since when is a position or "job" on a team just handed to players because of seniority? If a rising junior looks to be in position to be the next center, but a freshman arrives who is better... wouldn't the job go to the freshman? Same goes if a transfer arrives... if the junior isn't the best guy for the job, the job goes to the transfer. Who ever is on the team has to earn the job... not just have it handed to him. How many times have you seen players who should be the number one in their position not try or work hard enough and get taken out of a game for someone who may not be as skilled but is willing to work harder? That other guy takes a seat because he isn't earning minutes.

This isn't AYSO or Little League or whatever where players play no matter the situation. This is college athletics and speaking as a guy who rode the bench quite a bit in my college days... you earned your time on the field. I earned my time because other guys weren't playing well enough and I would; I earned my time because I was the second-best goalie on the team and started with the starter was injured; and I knew that if someone came in and was better than me... I wasn't going to be handed the job because of my seniority (which made me work harder, by the way, to be the better player).

The coach's job is not to reward a guy on the team for playing four years more minutes than the guy who came in as a freshman or transfer just because the senior has been there four years (if that was the case... imagine the starting lineups night in and night out around the country). The coach's job is to win and provide a positive environment for his team. If that means a coach seeks out transfers to help the team win... so be it - the players on that team will appreciate it when there are more "W's" on their record. (By the way, seeking out transfers is similar to seeking out freshmen... it is about winning - granted I understand the one-year point, but the coach is still trying to improve his team any way possible.)

And if a player wants to try a new program and transfer, even if just for one year, because he didn't like his old program or other issues... so be it. This isn't "renting" players, as Greg as pointed out, because in D3 they aren't paying scholarships. So a player comes in for one year (paying tuition)... is that as bad as a player transferring in and then transferring out because he didn't like it? Maybe it is the player you should be looking at... not the coach or the program. They all have their reasons and judging either the coach or the player without knowing those reasons... is ridiculous.

[NCF]

I have no problem with a freshman or jc transfer coming in and having the same opportunity to be a starter. One year transfers, however are a different story.

Why? What's the difference? The effect is the same: Newbie shows up, newbie wins the job over a returnee. In terms of next season there's a difference, because the one-year transfer won't be around anymore, whereas the freshman and the multi-year transfer will be back. But you're talking about morale, and I'm talking about winning games with what's on the current roster, and those are both matters of the present, not the future.

Why? Because we don't see this (or the roster issue) in the same light. That's the beauty of the boards, to express our individual opinions without degrading each other. I understand you viewpoint-I just don't agree with it. If we all agreed on every issue the boards would Boring.

[Gregory Sager]

I'm not arguing as much as trying to understand your reasoning. I honestly don't see the difference in what kind of a newbie it is that beats out a returnee. I'm trying to grasp where you're coming from on this.

[Dennis_Prikkel]

yawn....zzzzzzzzzz

John your a bore, we've heard this before, now for .... sakes, John sit down.

Is there anything interesting going on on CCIW campuses.  I visited North Park last week and noticed that while the construction fences are up for the new science center, the site is not completely clear of debris and no holes have been dug.  My son tells me they are waiting for the official groundbreaking - which will be quickly followed by a cold chicago winter when no work can be done digging in the ground.

[NCF]

yawn....zzzzzzzzzz

John your a bore, we've heard this before, now for .... sakes, John sit down.

Is there anything interesting going on on CCIW campuses.  I visited North Park last week and noticed that while the construction fences are up for the new science center, the site is not completely clear of debris and no holes have been dug.  My son tells me they are waiting for the official groundbreaking - which will be quickly followed by a cold chicago winter when no work can be done digging in the ground.

where has this humor been hiding all summer!?!

[Gregory Sager]

Can't have an official groundbreaking without the bigshots, and you can't get the bigshots until they've all cleared their schedules for the same date.

[robberki]

If only I could think of any all-cciw transfer players that North Park has had! Drawing a blank...

[Dennis_Prikkel]

If only I could think of any all-cciw transfer players that North Park has had! Drawing a blank...

shirley you jest

i can think of one "rental" who wound up being the most outstanding player in the ncaa final four

then there was that rotund round mound of no rebound that traveled every time he made a baseline move (at least that's what every coach in the CCIW thought) 

[iwumichigander]

I have no problem with a freshman or jc transfer coming in and having the same opportunity to be a starter. One year transfers, however are a different story.

Why? What's the difference? The effect is the same: Newbie shows up, newbie wins the job over a returnee. In terms of next season there's a difference, because the one-year transfer won't be around anymore, whereas the freshman and the multi-year transfer will be back. But you're talking about morale, and I'm talking about winning games with what's on the current roster, and those are both matters of the present, not the future.

Why? Because we don't see this (or the roster issue) in the same light. That's the beauty of the boards, to express our individual opinions without degrading each other. I understand you viewpoint-I just don't agree with it. If we all agreed on every issue the boards would Boring.

I think a difference might be in - communications, commitment, expectations and institutional integrity.  What were your current players told regarding transfer situtations?  Did you  make any commitments or set expectations regarding transfers and/or playing time?  Do you have the support of your athletic director, admissions department and executives? 

If the focus is on winning games in the present, then a coach is short sighted, looking for greener pastures and does not have a program - the coach just has a one season or less approach.  And, if the athletic director and/or  executive management support a one season approach, the institution is not likely to be successful.