MBB: Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference

[dropkick11]

Hey what does anyone know about Dominican? New team in the conference...any expectations

[budder]

Dropkick 11,
8 of Dominican's top 9 were freshmen and Sophs(6 frosh, 2 sophs) last year.  If those guys develop things could be alright, we'll see.  Should have decent size upfront, Hejduk is 6-8 in the post.  there should be pretty good competition for playing time with 11 new kids added to the program.

[True Basketball Fan]

If Dominican and Concordia combined basketball teams (their schools are separated by only a few blocks), I think they would still struggle in reaching double digit wins.  Does that help, or was it too vague?

[True Basketball Fan]

Luvd3hoops,

The talant at Weslyen is way gooder than the talant at Arora, specialy this yeer.

[roleplaya]

Busty is a believer!  WLC is bringing it home this year.  The "gay" Way's ideas of a no post game team have been completely diminished this year.  He won't see that until season, however a presence will be made by Krygiel(previously mispelled as Kriegel), Sorum (who has made huge strides since recovering from injury two years back), or even backup freshman Lemirande.  Wait and see, a guaranteed 12pts. and 7 reb. out of Sorum or Krygiel a game.  Listen to Busty, he knows his team.

[Bust Ya'll]

"Gay" Way-  You misunderstood me, I do not really believe that we have a true post.  But this is said minus me seeing the new transfer Krygiel play and Sorum's limited role thus far on the team.  I agree with roleplaya that Sorum has made significant gains and will be running the pine not riding it. 
Our big guys can shoot well outside consistent enough to be considered effective.  Thats why Im excited, being a post guy myself, to see if we will have a big boy banger down low.  However, WLC offense doesnt really "allow" our big guys to get rebounds.  I believe Lewis "The Brain" Jiles is probably one of our best rebounders.  The way Skip runs our offense is a little funky much to my dismay, but he sees fit to run it that way.  I mean, he does have a few Conference titles under his belt right?....but thats besides the point. 
The point being, since the departure of Admiral Nelson, WLC has had no true bang around post guy.  I always looked at them as a more flexible hybrid.  Play inside but comfortable with the jay.  Now we can look forward to a more traditional post player out of the two contenders for the starting spot.  Anywho, this dragged on post is about to end.  Hope those fields are ready for the winter....
Bust Ya'll

[midwestd3]

True Basketball Fan,

I agree with you. Dominican is a team that will easily be a plus 2 on the win side for all of the LMC teams. I know there will be some long bus rides for them. Do you think they will even bother to show-up ? 

Hopefully, they have a soft non-conference schedule before they get to the real deal.

[Gregory Sager]

Um, I'm not looking to wander into your conference's room just to pee in your cornflakes, midwestd3, but I have to tell you that teams from the other leagues in the Midwest Region consider games scheduled against LMC opponents to be a leading indicator of "a soft non-conference schedule", and that no other league in this region (with the possible exception of the SLIAC) would consider the LMC to be "the real deal".

In other words, Dominican coach Mark White would have to move heaven and earth to construct a non-conference schedule that would be considered "soft" by LMC standards. He's scheduled Trinity (TX) and Southwestern on a Texas road trip for this season. Trinity (TX) made it to the Elite Eight last spring before losing to eventual national champion UW-Stevens Point in a game that Pointers fans insist was the toughest test their team faced in the tourney. Southwestern shared the SCAC crown with Trinity (TX) last season. Those teams are "the real deal"; there isn't a team in the LMC that could stay within a dozen points of either one. Dominican's also playing their now-former conference rivals Aurora and Benedictine, and those games will certainly prove to be as tough for them as anything their new LMC leaguemates can dish out.

The NIIC that Dominican is leaving behind is no great shakes either, but it has been on balance a better basketball league than the LMC. Aurora and Benedictine (and, in recent years, Rockford) have been more consistently good than any of the LMC's programs. F'rinstance, no LMC team has ever won an NCAA tournament game in the six years that the league has participated in the tourney. Only once has an LMC team even come within 17 points in an NCAA game (Edgewood's nine-point loss to Gustavus Adolphus in '02). In that six-year span, the NIIC has at least been able to register a win; Aurora won a first-round game in the '03 tourney. And the NIIC even has a bona-fide Elite Eight team to its credit -- Benedictine made it that far back in '91 before eventual national champion UW-Platteville trounced them in the sectional final.

Dominican has its own reasons for leaving the NIIC (reasons which have become largely moot now that most of the LMC and NIIC are merging into one conference), but moving up to a tougher basketball league is not one of them. And, while the Stars are hardly a force to be reckoned with in the greater scheme of the Midwest Region, I'm dead certain that your prediction that they "will easily be a plus-2 on the win side for all the LMC teams" is way off the mark.

[keith45]

Greg,
Point taken, but the top of the LMC is on par (in my mind) to the mid to top of the IIAC, and mid WIAC team..I think Edgewood, last year, could have been top 3-4 in the WIAC, top 2-3 in IIAC and top 1-2 in NIIC..no?
Edgewood lost to UW-O by 9, and beat Platteville by 1
What is your opinion on this new conference next year? A ton of conference games, does that hurt or help in your opinion?
By the way, I was the assistant womens coach at Edgewood last year, and am now the assistant at Aurora, for the women.
Thanks!
KP

[Big_Uns]

Lakeland lost by 11 to Point...and the game was a lot closer than that outcome too as Point pulled away in the final minute or so. Could've been closer had it not been scheduled over a school break when no students were around to back Lakeland.

[Gregory Sager]

I'd agree with that, Keith. I had a chance to see Edgewood last season, and I was impressed by them. They definitely struck me as a notch better than the typical LMC front-runner. I don't think that they were quite as good as Aurora, but they would've certainly been competitive with the Spartans.

(Since the IIAC is in the West Region, I didn't bring them up as a point of comparison for the LMC. I think that the LMC and IIAC are roughly parallel for the most part, although the IIAC champ -- i.e., Wartburg or Buena Vista -- tends to be of a higher grade than the LMC champ. That's not much of a badge of honor, though; for the most part, the IIAC is a dreadful league in terms of quality.)

I think that the new conference, whatever it's called, is going to be a real plus for the teams from the LMC and the NIIC. For one thing, the league's visibility will improve by the sheer weight of numbers. For another, even though I don't expect the overall quality of basketball as a whole to markedly improve as a result, the idea that the top programs of the current LMC and the top programs of the current NIIC will have to play each other twice apiece is a good thing indeed. Of course, that presumes that the mandarins of the new league will choose to implement a double round-robin format in spite of the league's size. If they choose to set up a schedule that's something less than a double round-robin -- if, like the MWC, they shorten the conference season by only having certain teams play each other once instead of twice -- it will devalue the new league. Why? Because the NIIC doesn't have the LMC's parity. It's very lopsided. Aurora and Benedictine are, year after year, at the top, and Concordia (IL) has been stuck at the bottom since the early nineties. As I said, Rockford was able to compete evenly with the two traditional NIIC powers in recent seasons, but now that Bill Lavery has vacated the coaching spot it's questionable as to whether or not the Regents will be able to sustain that level.

To sum up: If teams like Edgewood and Concordia (WI) will have to play Aurora and Benedictine twice every season, the merger will definitely improve the quality at the top of the new league. Of course, the size of the new league means that everyone will have to give up some non-conference games, so it's also important that a program like Edgewood's strives to keep as many top-notch non-conf games (read: games against WIAC and CCIW foes) on the docket as possible.

If, however, there are seasons in which a former LMC team only has to play Aurora or Benedictine once rather than twice (a la the MWC's less-than-double round-robin) while its former LMC rivals have to face the Spartans and Eagles twice apiece, it'll be a bad thing for the new league.

[Big_Uns]

I think what you're going to see is that the new conference will be basically like having these two leagues separated into divisions, like a north and a south division.

It would be kind of unfortunate for it to be done this way, because then most likely you will see division teams playing each other twice, then a single match between non-divisional teams, much like the Big East has done in D-I.

I say this is unfortunate because of the fact that most of these teams already schedule ONE non-conference game against each other. It's just that the stakes are a little higher.

With the teams being spread more north and south than east and west, it'll be more difficult to divide it into East and West divisions. Although who knows, I'm not on the committee, but I think it'd be unfortunate to have a new conference with LMC and NIIC divisions, I mean what's the point really in that scenario?

[Gregory Sager]

Your hypothetical scenario is what I'm afraid will happen, Big_Uns, because as you imply it won't really improve things. All it'll do is remove Aurora, Benedictine, Concordia (IL), and Rockford from the Pool B ranks. Unless the good teams in the as-yet-unnamed new league have to play each other twice apiece, there's little or no competitive benefit to the merger.

[Ralph Turner]

Re: the LMC-NIIC merger, I can see some advantages for sports other than basketball.

The NIIC and LMC will benefit from having enough schools towards getting AQ's in other sports.  I believe the NCAA is moving towards conference AQ's in Tennis and maybe even Golf and Cross Country.  I have seen cryptic comments in NCAA press releases that I construe to imply that.

Also, not much has been said about the move by Eureka to the SLAIC, but the move by Lincoln Christian to the NCAA and its joining the SLIAC made then logical travel partners.  For Eureka, I guess that the question was St Louis or Chicago?  That question is more a Cubbies /Cardinals one, but Eureka must have seen an advantage in mission and vision.

[bigregg]

Aurora is going to be able to play with anyone.  The tempo and type of style they play gets teams to play off balance.  They were an inch away from knocking off a Weslyan team that was pretty hyped last year.  I'll admit that it was the first game of the season, but both teams improved over the course of the year.  The team may take a handful of games to gel, but once they do they can compete with anyone.  Like I said before, they'll have to rebound and they're undersized, but if they can overcome that and play the type of game that most Aurora teams do, they'll be tough.