MBB: Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference

[JUSTINTYEM]

Nice Job Hoops go get your copy rights to it.NoAC is yours,you thought of it.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

OK, so somebody has to change the room name.

Then, they have to tell me who is officially in the NoAC.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Institutions that signed the letter of intent to form the new conference are Alverno College, Aurora University, Benedictine University, Clarke College, Concordia University-River Forest, Concordia University-Wisconsin, Dominican University, Edgewood College, Lakeland College, Maranatha Baptist Bible College, Marian College, Milwaukee School of Engineering, Rockford College, and Wisconsin Lutheran College.

I found this press release, but there is no mention on a conference name, is Northern Athletic Conference even official?

[Big_Uns]

Clarke and MSOE are not in it.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I just copied the press release.  Apparently they once signed a letter of intent to join, however, I have also heard that they will not be a part.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

How are we coming on the name change for the message board?

[sac]

12 teams seems like a lot in one conference, will there be divisions?

Full round robin?  22 conference games is a lot, not much room for non-conf games.

[Pat Coleman]

I changed the name -- we can skip acronyms altogether.

We will continue to let the North Atlantic Conference be the NAC on the site and probably will ... uhm ... not sure NoAC makes sense either, considering that can still mean North Atlantic. We'll figure it out.

Hey, with all the massive publicity the schools involved have put out about this process, I'd be surprised if we even heard about it when it got finalized.

[Big_Uns]

12 teams seems like a lot in one conference, will there be divisions?

Full round robin?  22 conference games is a lot, not much room for non-conf games.

It is and I know that there were several concerns about this when the conference first was "announced." Truth is, nobody really knows right now whether the conference will be split into divisions.

Let's be honest, D-III "Super Conferences" basically only work for the prospect of possibly fielding more than one NCAA tournament contender. More often than not it's just a travel hassle for every already low-budgeted school involved in the first place.

I don't like the idea of the divisions because it will be almost as if the NIIC and LMC never merged (more likely to make it a North/South split than an East/West considering the geography of each school) and hope they can come up with a schedule like the Big Ten uses where some schools play twice but the others once. This would probably be more effective. Perhaps play 7 teams twice and 4 once for a total of 18 conference games.

Of course, with Alverno being a female school, that leaves only 11 teams for the men. Twenty conference games is still way too many in my opinion. Would you then have 6 teams twice and 4 teams once for 16 conference games? Who knows.

I think the only thing most people know is that we'd like to know real soon. 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Rumor in the MWC board was that Clarke and MSOE had applied to play there.  Anyone have any updated info?

[Ralph Turner]

The 6 and 5 format for the men would allow divisions.

I see the real winners being the other sports getting AQ's and having some flexilbility in their scheudling and a specific number of games against peer institutions.

The Pool system is being evaluated for Tennis and Golf, a definite plus for a conference.  At 11 members, not every school would need to have those sports for the Conference to have an AQ, only the minimum 7.

The 11 schools for men allow definite access to Pool A in Baseball and Soccer and Basketball, espeically for the NIIC holdovers.

The Northern AC has enough football members to get an AQ:

Aurora, Benedictine, CU-RF, CU-W, Lakeland, Maranatha, Rockford and WLC.

The conference would have the option to add football affiliates, e.g, as WLC currently in the MIAA until Tri-State comes on board, or Catholic in the ODAC.

This will cannabilize the IBC, but the UMAC is headed towards a football AQ anyway.

[Gregory Sager]

We will continue to let the North Atlantic Conference be the NAC on the site and probably will ... uhm ... not sure NoAC makes sense either, considering that can still mean North Atlantic. We'll figure it out.

I suggest calling it "N'ernAC". 

As to the other concerns, there will be neither divisions nor a double round-robin next year. After that ... who knows? But it'll be just one big eleven-team aggregate in men's basketball next year. I'm not sure if there will be a postseason conference tourney or not; since both the LMC and the NIIC held them, my guess is that there will be one, but who knows how many teams will be in it.

I'm not sure if the regular season schedule for the new league will consist of 16, 17, or 18 games, but it won't be the full twenty-game double round-robin. And you can already anticipate immediate repercussions, since one of the matchups that will be single-game-only next season will be archrivals (and perennial NIIC powers) Aurora and Benedictine.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

What about the "NAthCon?"


Of course that also sounds like something the late James Doohan would attend for a small appearance fee.

[Big_Uns]

If they dropped "Athletic" from the name they could have the NoCon much like the SoCon in D-I. Other possibilities:

NorthAC
or NortAC for you native speakers 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I like NoCon.  That's a good one.  Becuase of the SoCon in d1, we'll know that the 'No' implies North.  Hard to get too confused there.