MBB: Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association

[Pat Coleman]

As a reminder, here were the 18 Pool C teams selected last year. A good number of conference upsets. This is the QOWI, regional record and ranking in the final regional poll we got to see, a week before Selection Sunday.

However, there is no provision in the rules that says the committee can't take an unranked team from a region once it has selected all the ranked teams. In fact, the committee tells us they rank extra teams beyond their 5-6-8-10 going into the selection call in case they are needed.

Tufts    11.000    20-5 No. 3 NE
Gordon    10.560    22-3 No. 4 NE
Augustana    10.478    19-4 No. 2 MW
Cortland State    10.440    22-3 No. 2 E
York (Pa.)    10.400    22-3 No. 1 MA
Trinity (Texas)    10.316    16-3 No. 2 S
Carroll    10.087    19-4 No. 4 MW
Wooster    10.042    21-3 No. 1 GL
Carleton    10.000    18-5 No. 3 NE
Baruch    9.958    21-3 No. 1 NE
Illinois Wesleyan    9.952    15-6 No. 5 MW
Widener    9.920    20-5 No. 4 MA
UW-La Crosse    9.880    18-7 No. 6 W
UW-Stout    9.870    18-5 No. 1 W
Randolph-Macon    9.840    19-6 No. 4 S
Occidental    9.750    12-4 No. 4 W
Calvin    9.733    13-2 No. 2 GL
Utica    9.692    20-6 No. 4 E

[northb]

.

well said k2k

[bulldogalum]

I object to the fact that the poll at the top of the screen includes the 1, 2, 3, and 5 seeds, but does not name the #4 seed in the MIAA tournament.

[sac]

I object to the fact that the poll at the top of the screen includes the 1, 2, 3, and 5 seeds, but does not name the #4 seed in the MIAA tournament.

Although I did not start the poll, I've edited to include all 8 teams by seed.

Thats was funny though bulldogalum

[bulldogalum]

Thank you, Sac.

[Gregory Sager]

I did this all using the "shortest distance" (which indeed does take you all through Robin Hood's barn in Chicago)

Is that the bar on Clark Street where the Calvin/Hope game was televised?

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Only 13 folks so far in the MIAA tourney pick'em.

[David Collinge]

Pat has caculated the top 200 QoWIs nationwide and posted the result in a couple of the multi-region rooms.  Here's the GL teams extracted from that list, FYI.  I have added the in-region win %, which can be found here.

OK, these passed a great deal of scrutiny tonight. Through Sunday's games:

Rank   Points   Team
11   10.600   Lake Erie (.950)
20   10.318   John Carroll (.727)
21   10.316   Wooster (.895)
31   10.100   Ohio Northern (.700)
38   9.950   Wittenberg (.800)
47   9.765   Hope (.824)
60   9.500   Capital (.667)
65   9.450   Baldwin-Wallace (.700)
72   9.316   Westminster (Pa.) (.842)
75   9.261   Otterbein (.609)
82   9.174   Penn State-Behrend
115   8.619   Ohio Wesleyan (.739)
116   8.619   Carnegie Mellon (.524)
118   8.588   Calvin (.647)
132   8.435   Heidelberg (.522)
135   8.400   Bethany (.700)
148   8.188   Tri-State (.625)
159   8.083   Wilmington (.500)
164   8.000   Muskingum (.478)
166   7.944   Albion (.556)
197   7.591   Mount Union (.364)

Based on this, I'd expect Wednesday's regional rankings to be

1. Lake Erie
2. Wooster
3. JCU
4. Hope
5. Wittenberg
6. Ohio Northern

[gohope]

Only 13 folks so far in the MIAA tourney pick'em.

Now there are 14! 

[pennstghs]

there are some picks for the MIAA tourney that are in the NCAC Pick Em page as we did the 3 big dogs tourneys this week

[devossed]

I enjoy a mojito, though I generally reserve such beverages for warm summer afternoons.  This time of year, I tend to favor heavier beers and the occasional glass of scotch.

I think it's safe to say that the Kalamazoo student section is the loudest, most positive student section, standing on the highest moral ground, in the history of intercollegiate athletics.

If that's the case, then might I recommend McEwan's Scotch Ale to quench what thirst may arise on a chilly mid-Feb. afternoon?

[sac]

If anyone's having trouble with the email link I provided for the fan poll, you can personal message me your results  (thinking how much easier that would have been on all of us anyway )

Not much time left, still pretty scarce voting.

[ziggy]

I enjoy a mojito, though I generally reserve such beverages for warm summer afternoons.  This time of year, I tend to favor heavier beers and the occasional glass of scotch.

I think it's safe to say that the Kalamazoo student section is the loudest, most positive student section, standing on the highest moral ground, in the history of intercollegiate athletics.

If that's the case, then might I recommend McEwan's Scotch Ale to quench what thirst may arise on a chilly mid-Feb. afternoon?

Orbit makes a mojito flavored chewing gum that is pretty good.  Not quite as good as sipping the real thing in the tropics, but not bad when you're stuck in the midwest.

[devossed]

I was going through the MIAA boxscores today and decided to count officials appearances.  I was pretty floored to find out that in the games that listed officials, there have been 38 different officials for conference games.  Considering there are only 12 in use on any given MIAA game day, I think thats a lot.

Note to Alma:  Please list the officials present on the boxscore, there's a space for it and everyone else seems to fill it out reasonably well.  You mess up quality research project such as this one by not filling out the form completely.

Here are the most frequently used officials and for kicks the average number of fouls called in their games:

Creek...............7----34.0
Bray.................6----32.0
Kelser..............6----41.2
Buck.................6----33.8
Massa..............6----30.1
Huber..............6----35.6
Vanderstoep...5----39.8
Gilbert.............5----33.6
Favors.............5----29.4
Plain................5----35.8

It should be noted there were 9 MIAA games that did not list any official and I think 3 that only listed 1 or 2 of the 3 officials.  So this represents roughly 80% of the available MIAA games.

Here are the highest average fouls called..........to be fair, a couple of these guys only did 2 or 3 games.

McDermott.......43
Kelser..............41.2
Vanderstoep...39.8
Keeling............39.6
Reece..............39.5
Riley................39

Our "Hack-a-thon" award of the year goes to the crew of Pennington, Miller and Kelser who called a whopping 50 fouls in the Hope at Olivet game.


What I found particularly interesting doing this list was the names that did not appear on this list frequently,  some of the refs I consider to be the better refs in the league.............Schipper, Whitfield, Palmer, Kooiker, Ditsworth, Conlin and Joppe.

Out of curiosity I did a little surfing around the GLIAC and sure enough a number of our better officials are doing GLIAC games, good for them individualy, bad for the MIAA.  I'm really quite thrown by the total number of officials doing MIAA games.

..........and everyone's favorite, Geerlings appears just twice.

I'll certainly be watching to see who gets assigned to the MIAA tournament games Wednesday.

After one more season in the books, do any of these calls from last year need to be revisited or amended?

All this talk made me want to solidify my list. Please feel free to add/subtract/move them around based on your experiences this/previous years. I welcome your comments and your input (especially those Kzoo/Albion fans who've say they've gotten some raw deals over the last few years)...

OK-to-GOOD MIAA REFS (may have a bad game here and there, but generally call it fair, don't take away from the flow much)

Kevin Kooiker, Mark Ditsworth, Dave Joppie, Ryan Huber, Jim Schipper, John Creek, Chad Palmer, Ray "Don't Call Me Greg" Kelser


Not-so-good-to-BAD MIAA REFS (ticky-tack, inconsistent, baffling calls, need to spend time learning the definitions of "hand-checking" and "illegal screens")

Mike Conlin, Jeff Spedoske, Todd Geerlings


YOU SHOULD BE DOING FRESHMAN GIRLS' GAMES (self-explanatory)

Tommy Bray, Dante Favors, Mike Smith, Wallace Whitfield

[sac]

Well I'm sure we don't all agree on who the best and worst refs are............other than the Alma afair, I really hadn't noticed this year.  I'm just surprised at the sure volumne of refs we've had.  I bet I haven't seen the same ref more than twice in MIAA play.

I'm certainly no expert in the area, but I definately feel more comfortable when I see 3 refs I've recognized before.


I went back and checked..........last year there were 1911 fouls called in MIAA play, this year 1950..........not even an increase of 1 per game.

As far as a team breakdown for foul "advantage" in this past season

Adrian whistled for 23 more fouls than opponents
Albion.....................5 more fouls
Alma.......................40 more
Calvin.....................58 fewer
Hope......................17 fewer
Kzoo.......................21 more
Olivet......................26 more
Tri-State..................52 fewer