MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[lmitzel]

The sectional field is...
* Augustana
* Emory
* St. Thomas
* Whitman

Hosting sites will be announced later this morning, but this group will certainly be going to Rock Island. Had St. Thomas beaten St. Olaf in the MIAC final (at home), I am pretty sure this sectional would have been awarded to St. Thomas.

And it is. Benedictine, Tufts, and Oswego State appear to be the other sectional sites.

[Gregory Sager]

I think Chrishawn Orange is going to be a stud, but the more I watch Augie play, the more I believe Pierson Wofford is the better of the two freshman by a pretty good margin.  Wofford's combination of size, skill, athleticism, and quickness is pretty scary.

I still think Orange is the guy, but I'll admit that I'm reaching the point where I'm open to changing my mind about this. Orange has been a mainstay for the Augie rotation since he stepped on campus, but Wofford's end-of-season charge is very impressive.

In my opinion, Augustana will return as much talent from 1 through about 8 in 2016-17 as any team in the CCIW except North Central...

Yes, I think that you can make a pretty good case for this.

which is pretty impressive since they are about to win the national title with a huge group of seniors.

"About to win the national title"? Waaaaay too premature, Bob. Yes, Augie is the solid favorite of the field of 16. But nobody's just going to hand Grey Giovanine that Walnut & Bronze. A lot of unexpected things can happen over the next two weekends, and I don't see any pushovers left among the other fifteen teams. There's too much basketball left to be played to refer to Augie's coronation as a done deal.

[kiko]

This will likely have an indirect impact on brackets and non-essential flights for D3 tournaments in the near-term since our D1 sugardaddies fund the various and sundry D3 tournaments each year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2016/03/04/ncaa-loses-9-million-2015-associations-investments-take-hit/81324884/

[iwumichigander]

This will likely have an indirect impact on brackets and non-essential flights for D3 tournaments in the near-term since our D1 sugardaddies fund the various and sundry D3 tournaments each year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2016/03/04/ncaa-loses-9-million-2015-associations-investments-take-hit/81324884/

Nah Kiko, somebody was not paying attention to investments (and, somebody's will be fired). 

They still managed to give D1 member institutions $20M more in payouts than last year and spend $3M more in expenses.
The NCAA numbers does not include  TV and media revenue of conferences like the BIG10 private cable channels but the NCAA piece probably included. The D1 TV revenue of $720M in 2015 is growing at 3% per year. 
It is similar to the problem all the university and college endowment funds are having.  But, there is nothing wrong with the economy - right

[kiko]

This will likely have an indirect impact on brackets and non-essential flights for D3 tournaments in the near-term since our D1 sugardaddies fund the various and sundry D3 tournaments each year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2016/03/04/ncaa-loses-9-million-2015-associations-investments-take-hit/81324884/

Nah Kiko, somebody was not paying attention to investments (and, somebody's will be fired). 

They still managed to give D1 member institutions $20M more in payouts than last year and spend $3M more in expenses.
The NCAA numbers does not include  TV and media revenue of conferences like the BIG10 private cable channels but the NCAA piece probably included. The D1 TV revenue of $720M in 2015 is growing at 3% per year. 
It is similar to the problem all the university and college endowment funds are having.  But, there is nothing wrong with the economy - right

Right -- they continued to support the D1 membership in what is, broadly speaking, a challenging investment environment.  The D3 headline in this is that if the NCAA is running a deficit and is paying out more to the D1 membership, the likelihood of additional dollars coming to D3 tournaments is probably pretty low.  And those private cable network dollars are certainly not coming our way.

[mwunder]

St. Thomas 94
Elmhurst 81

This one was back-and-forth going into the final ten minutes, but Elmhurst just couldn't get any stops. The Tommies looked very impressive on offense.

Thus ends the career of a very large and talented EC senior class.

I can honestly say that I'm glad I clicked on this link Saturday night to watch.  What a great college basketball game.  Back and forth...3s answered by 3s.  The Tommies just made shot after shot.  I did feel that the officiating was called very tight, especially when the Tommies had the ball.  Two or three trips, I thought they got away with obvious push-offs that were not called and resulted in made hoops for the home team.

St Thomas, ONU, Augie, and Benedictine were all very impressive to watch Sat night.

[augie77]

Augustana, 28-1, is within a game of matching the most wins in a season by a CCIW team.

The following teams all finished 29-2:

Augustana, 1973
North Park, 1978
IWU, 1997

[iwumichigander]

Augustana, 28-1, is within a game of matching the most wins in a season by a CCIW team.

The following teams all finished 29-2:

Augustana, 1973
North Park, 1978
IWU, 1997

Taking off my green colored glasses here is hoping they finish with 1 loss this season!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

This will likely have an indirect impact on brackets and non-essential flights for D3 tournaments in the near-term since our D1 sugardaddies fund the various and sundry D3 tournaments each year...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2016/03/04/ncaa-loses-9-million-2015-associations-investments-take-hit/81324884/

Nah Kiko, somebody was not paying attention to investments (and, somebody's will be fired). 

They still managed to give D1 member institutions $20M more in payouts than last year and spend $3M more in expenses.
The NCAA numbers does not include  TV and media revenue of conferences like the BIG10 private cable channels but the NCAA piece probably included. The D1 TV revenue of $720M in 2015 is growing at 3% per year. 
It is similar to the problem all the university and college endowment funds are having.  But, there is nothing wrong with the economy - right

Right -- they continued to support the D1 membership in what is, broadly speaking, a challenging investment environment.  The D3 headline in this is that if the NCAA is running a deficit and is paying out more to the D1 membership, the likelihood of additional dollars coming to D3 tournaments is probably pretty low.  And those private cable network dollars are certainly not coming our way.

Division III gets 3.18% of the operating budget and about 75% of that money then goes to all championships (tournaments and the like). Division III isn't/wasn't going to get any additional money funneled to it in any way, shape, or form. I don't see this having any affect on the division. They aren't going to lose what equates to less than $300k... and they weren't going to get any additional money in the first place.

Now, the membership did approved higher dues starting next year at more-than-double the current rate ($900/year per institution up to $2100). The key to that is the rest of the NCAA is not withholding any of that money. Per the NCAA constitution, those additional fees are considered revenue which is usually put in one giant pot which D3 gets 3.18%. Instead, the division gets to keep all of the additional revenue, which will basically equate to about $500-$600k per year.

[cardinalpride]

Augustana, 28-1, is within a game of matching the most wins in a season by a CCIW team.

The following teams all finished 29-2:

Augustana, 1973
North Park, 1978
IWU, 1997

Taking off my green colored glasses here is hoping they finish with 1 loss this season!

Anytime a team is on the brink of making history, I'm all for it!

[WUPHF]

Augustana, 28-1, is within a game of matching the most wins in a season by a CCIW team.

The following teams all finished 29-2:

Augustana, 1973
North Park, 1978
IWU, 1997

Taking off my green colored glasses here is hoping they finish with 1 loss this season!

This Augustana team is pretty incredible...I may be behind the Vikes should they get by Emory.  Not to mention the fact that Augustana (SD) is seeded No. 1 in the Division II tourney and I still think it would be great to have two institutions named Augustana win national titles in basketball.

[bbfan44]

http://herosports.com/news/best-college-basketball-team-in-every-state-regardless-of-division#14

Here's a fun thing someone put together.  I'm surprised one of the several "green" guys hasn't already posted this.

[iwu70]

Yes, we saw it -- we greenie guys -- and it was widely circulated in/within the Titan nation.   

Thanks to Coaches Bridges, Trost and Rose for bringing us to that level.  Says somethings sad too about U of Illinois basketball. 

IWU'70

[WUPHF]

I have never been a fan of Hero Sports and whatever it was before even if they did list the Washington University GRIZZLIES as the best basketball program in Missouri.

[mwunder]

With a WIAC win, where will that put Oshkosh in the mix  Which CCIW team will they be forced to eliminate in Round 1? 

It's a shame they actually had to play the game instead of relying on trash talk for results.