MBB: Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference

[The Roop]

You have to keep the same conference name and bylaws to retain the automatic bid. Other than that you can add or drop as many teams as you want. Provided you maintain the minimum required. It's not like the new conference is banned from post season play. It may even get two teams in under the Pool B criteria.

[WLCALUM83]

You have to keep the same conference name and bylaws to retain the automatic bid. Other than that you can add or drop as many teams as you want. Provided you maintain the minimum required. It's not like the new conference is banned from post season play. It may even get two teams in under the Pool B criteria.

That happened this year in Men's Soccer in this conference. Dominican won in regular season and the Stars and Aurora both got in as Pool B teams, so it is possible, if both in-conference and overall record is good enough to justify it. If you manage to knock off a ranked team or two, that helps as well.

(As a comparison, in volleyball, Benedictine IL took the post-season tournament after Aurora won in regular season, but either strength of schedule was too weak, or overall record--particularly in Benedictine's case--wasn't good enough. I heard from reliable sources at two NathCon schools that the overall record in volleyball against ranked teams wasn't very good.)

This poster wonders how costly this conference's out of conference basketball losses will be at the end of the season. 

[John Gleich]

The level of quality for Pool B teams making the tournament haven't quite been as high as the Pool C (general at-large bid) in most recent years.  Last year, the Pool B teams were much more competitive, but years ago, they would be laugher teams, usually with a record barely above .500.  Some (or most) of the biggest blowouts in NCAA history have been with Pool B teams.

...  But, because, generally, the teams haven't had a ton of competition, this is good for a conference such as the NAthCon because they won't have the same stringent qualifications (necessarily...) as at-large teams from conference that DO recieve an automatic bid.

... but, again, at the same time, if the entire conference would end up at around .500, then they aren't guaranteed a big at all, so I guess it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other

[Pat Coleman]

libero is 100% correct.  MSOE has once again cost this conference their automatic bid.  I'm surprised more of you didn't already know that.

No offense, but someone with the e-mail address of tigerwoodsfavre@yahoo.com doesn't strike me as an authoritative source on how the NCAA might decide to award an automatic bid.

You only needed four core members of one of the two conferences if you re-organized correctly. I was pretty sure you had more than five from one side or the other. Perhaps MSOE is just being made a scapegoat here.

[cardinalfanrochelle]

What was the main or real reason for the 2 conferences to merge? Was it that both conferences were failing ? And what did they lose by joining together like post season play? Why blame MSOE because they felt they had a better shot in a different conference?This works out better for me because we play more Illinois schools so less travel time

[WLCALUM83]

It appeared to make more sense from a geographical location/travel standpoint. WLC's football situation is such that in their current conference (MIAA) the Warriors end up traveling to Michigan for all their road games. Further, since that squad could only schedule non-conference in-WI teams, WLC's football team gets at least slightly less local attention. Once the NathCon football conference begins play in 2008, the likelihood that that squad may draw more local talent could increase. WLC's been competing with Rockford and CUW yearly anyway.

Further, adding the IL squads may figure to bolster the strength of the new conference (as far as nationwide reputation) in the long run.

Maybe a fan from an IL school can chime in with their side of things.

(Don't know enough about MSOE's rationale for trying to get into a different conference to comment on that.) MSOE's squads still win their fair share of games (MBB landed an NCAA tournament berth a few years back,)

[WLCALUM83]

11/28 NathCon final:

Concordia, WI 69, Concordia-Chicago 66.

[luv d3hoops]

AU beat north central in good fasion yes thats right number 19 ranked NORTH CENTRAL is this au team for real.

[plattbacker]

Does anyone know if Dominican's webcast is a live webcast or an archived one? 

[budder]

The webcast at DU will be live

[Tiger Woods]

Pat,

wow, I apologize for my email address.  I didn't know we were supposed to have intelligent email addresses before we began posting on here.  By the way, I do really appreciate your hard work with this site.  It's been a great site for many years, and it continues to get better.

Anyways... I thought people on here were expecting CUC to be good this year?  Losing to CUW without probably their three best players (Lipanot, Becker, and Leibham) is a huge surprise.  Maybe it was just one game, but I don't see CUW being very competitive at all with some of the top teams in the conference.

[LUMAN80]

i really dont think that this thing falls on msoe especially seeing the former position of your ad

[WLCALUM83]

Final:  Dominican 61, Edgewood 59.

A Stars steal and pass to Haiduc for a jam--then Dominican held on. 

[Illinihoops4]

Tough loss for EC.............

[WLCALUM83]

Final per MSOE's web site:  MSOE 70, Rockford 66.