MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[matblake]

Guys, you are my friends so I wanted you to know my wife Charmaine passed away last night. She had been sick so I'm glad she's no longer suffering, but my world is upside down and inside out right now. I usually try to keep religion off of here, but I will say I'm glad she knew Jesus. She would always ask what I was doing on the computer and then knowingly complete the sentence, "Just checking out the D3boards."

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Very sorry for your loss.

[Titan Q]

Guys, you are my friends so I wanted you to know my wife Charmaine passed away last night. She had been sick so I'm glad she's no longer suffering, but my world is upside down and inside out right now. I usually try to keep religion off of here, but I will say I'm glad she knew Jesus. She would always ask what I was doing on the computer and then knowingly complete the sentence, "Just checking out the D3boards."

Really sorry to hear this.

[Titan Q]

IWU SG Keondre Schumacher was part of the winning 4 x 100 team yesterday at the Sycamore Open.  The Titans beat D1s Evansville and SIU-Edwardsville.

https://www.iwusports.com/news/2021/4/24/womens-track-and-field-five-event-wins-highlight-titans-impressive-performance-at-sycamore-open.aspx

Keondre also ran the 100m Dash.

PG Luke Yoder is also a first-time track participant this season - he has been doing the 400m Dash.

In this year where a lot has been taken away from student-athletes, nice to see Keondre and Luke finding new ways to compete.

[kiko]

It would be interesting to see if there are any other D3 leagues that can claim eight member schools that have won one or more D3 national team championships.

Not gonna let you Ypsi me on this, but the first place I would check if I were looking into this would be the NESCAC.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It would be interesting to see if there are any other D3 leagues that can claim eight member schools that have won one or more D3 national team championships.

Not gonna let you Ypsi me on this, but the first place I would check if I were looking into this would be the NESCAC.

I didn't check the individual sports with team titles (like track and tennis, maybe you included those?), but eight current NESCAC schools have won team sport titles. Hamilton won a lacrosse title when they weren't in the league (they would be #8, not sure how you're counting). Colby, CC, and Bates weren't on any of the lists I saw.

[Caz Bombers]

It would be interesting to see if there are any other D3 leagues that can claim eight member schools that have won one or more D3 national team championships.

Not gonna let you Ypsi me on this, but the first place I would check if I were looking into this would be the NESCAC.

10 of the 11 NESCAC schools have won at least one team national title with Connecticut College the lone member not to do so.

also 8 SUNYAC institutions, and 8 have won titles from the WIAC - but one of those is now the UMAC's UW-Superior.

[Caz Bombers]

It would be interesting to see if there are any other D3 leagues that can claim eight member schools that have won one or more D3 national team championships.

Not gonna let you Ypsi me on this, but the first place I would check if I were looking into this would be the NESCAC.

I didn't check the individual sports with team titles (like track and tennis, maybe you included those?), but eight current NESCAC schools have won team sport titles. Hamilton won a lacrosse title when they weren't in the league. Colby, CC, and Bates weren't on any of the lists I saw.

Colby was 2003 national champs in women's rowing and Bates is a 4-time (and current 3-time defending) women's rowing champion.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Eight NJAC schools have won titles.

[GoPerry]

Guys, you are my friends so I wanted you to know my wife Charmaine passed away last night. She had been sick so I'm glad she's no longer suffering, but my world is upside down and inside out right now. I usually try to keep religion off of here, but I will say I'm glad she knew Jesus. She would always ask what I was doing on the computer and then knowingly complete the sentence, "Just checking out the D3boards."

I am sorry to hear this.  Condolences to you and the family. 

[Gregory Sager]

10 of the 11 NESCAC schools have won at least one team national title with Connecticut College the lone member not to do so.

I'm not terribly surprised. Every NESCAC school seems to sponsor a zillion sports.

[WUPHF]

The men's volleyball forum I follow has for years pooh-poohed midwestern teams as not playing the competition of the Eastern brahmins. I have long felt it was only a matter of time before a midwestern team (and nobody gets dumped on in that forum like Carthage, so I'm glad it was them) won a Doorstop - I don't think the east will be able to keep up and before long Springfield, New Paltz, Stevens and the like will be relics of history.

I did not realize Men's Volleyball was considered by some to be an eastern or northeastern sport.

The Midwest has a number of strong high school and college programs as does the west coast.

The MIVA has won 5 of the last 10 Division I (of sorts) national championships; Loyola twice and Ohio State three times.

[Gregory Sager]

normally there would have been 16 teams in the tournament, but bracket reduction this year made that 12. 2019 national champion New Paltz and perennial #1 juggernaut Springfield were not selected for at-large bids this year. Vassar beat New Paltz in their conference title match while Springfield I believe only made it onto the court for 3 matches, not enough for the committee to justify picking them.

The men's volleyball forum I follow has for years pooh-poohed midwestern teams as not playing the competition of the Eastern brahmins. I have long felt it was only a matter of time before a midwestern team (and nobody gets dumped on in that forum like Carthage, so I'm glad it was them) won a Doorstop - I don't think the east will be able to keep up and before long Springfield, New Paltz, Stevens and the like will be relics of history.

This sounds a bit like the d3boards.com forum for D3 men's soccer. Of course, Messiah, although no longer pre-eminent (but still very good), used to dominate that sport the same way that Kenyon dominated swimming and Mount Union dominated football, so it's no wonder that there's long been a northeastern tilt to the sport. But of late it's been the NESCAC that's collectively sucked all of the oxygen out of the room, and, combined with a preponderance of northeastern-based posters, that's led to the midwestern teams getting little or no respect in the d3boards.com soccer forum.

For sure, Wheaton, Ohio Wesleyan, and Kenyon do get a bit of grudging recognition as historical artifacts, but by and large the assumption seems to be that the good soccer in D3 is played almost exclusively east of the Appalachians and the Allegheny River. Chicago was an exception in terms of respect for a few seasons, but not so much anymore. Calvin, which has been a regular in the Final Four in recent seasons, is considered to be nothing more than the designated patsy for northeastern dominance on the final weekend in Greensboro, while North Park has merely supplanted Rothert-era Loras as being the johnny-come-lately from the heartland.

I don't get upset about it, because in an amusing way it mirrors exactly what we do here in the men's basketball section of d3boards.com. Everybody gives the NESCAC its due for its hardwood prowess, but by and large we midwesterners are quite proud of the fact that this sport is dominated by programs that aren't located within a five-hour drive of the Atlantic Ocean and for whom the nearest large body of water is a Great Lake. And nothing aggravates the NESCAC hoops posters more than the insistence that their teams have a comparatively easy path to the Final Four every year (unless it's the continual ragging on their league's single round-robin by non-NESCAC posters ).

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

That's just part of US soccer's dilemma, right?  You basically need some pretty sizeable wealth to really rise through the ranks of youth soccer to the point of being noticed.  If you're playing a sport that skews wealthy, it makes sense you'd gravitate to schools that skew wealthy, as well.

[Gregory Sager]

... which is bizarre, because soccer is the sport played by the poor and the working class around the rest of the world. All you and your friends need are four trash cans, a ball, and some open space, and you've got a game.

(One of my favorite quotes about the English relates to their preferences within the football family of sports: "Football (soccer) is a gentleman's sport played by hoodlums, while rugby is a hoodlum's sport played by gentlemen.")