2011 Final Four

[Just Bill]

I don't know the answer to your question, David, but I do know accomodations can be made for special circumstances.  I witnessed a game where one of the head coaches had a bad case of laryngitis.  The referees granted that coach the ability to leave the coaching box in order to get a ref's attention to call timeout.  They were clear that she could not leave the box to instruct her team or dispute a call.

Now, if the other coach would have had laryngitis, it would have been a perfectly peaceful game to watch.  *rimshot*  

[hopefan]

Well, between work and wife, I am officially out of the trip to Salem from St Louis....   refresh my memory  -  what is at accessibility to the men's semis on Friday night  on the net-  video?, audio? live stats?

Is Saturday's game on CSTV?

[jagluski]

Well, between work and wife, I am officially out of the trip to Salem from St Louis....   refresh my memory  -  what is at accessibility to the men's semis on Friday night  on the net-  video?, audio? live stats?

Is Saturday's game on CSTV?

Live Stats and Video Friday.  Both are available off the official site of the Final Four(it's some derivative of odaconline)

Saturday's game is on CSTV.  There will still be live stats online.

[AndOne]

I just listened to Pat's podcast interview with Amherst's coach Dave Hixon.  At the end he talks about how difficult it was for him to coach while he was restricted to a wheelchair with his leg in a cast, and I had to wonder what would have happened if Amherst had been sent to play a sectional at St. John Fisher.  The players there sit on the front row of the bleachers, so obviously there's no room for him to be in a wheelchair behind the "bench."  Plus the sidelines are so narrow that players inbounding the ball on the bench side generally had to have bench players move aside to make room, so I don't think there even would have been room for the coach to be on the bench with crutches and a leg cast, nor would it have been particularly safe for him to try it.  It wouldn't have been fair to make him coach from all the way down in the corner, which seems to be the only place where there'd have been room for him in that condition. 

I wonder if the NCAA would have taken these peculiar circumstances into account when deciding on host schools, had the questions been relevant at the time?  Just a rhetorical question.

Rhetorical or not----You MUST be kidding
You have been around a long time David----Do YOU think they would have taken something like that into consideration? That would involve some thought/reasoning on their part you know. 

[Pat Coleman]

Well, between work and wife, I am officially out of the trip to Salem from St Louis....   refresh my memory  -  what is at accessibility to the men's semis on Friday night  on the net-  video?, audio? live stats?

Is Saturday's game on CSTV?

Live Stats and Video Friday.  Both are available off the official site of the Final Four(it's some derivative of odaconline)

Saturday's game is on CSTV.  There will still be live stats online.

We'll have those links on our Audio page, since it's our guys on the call.

[K-Mack]

I didn't know where else to put this, but I thought some people might like to know that people outside of the D3hoops world are noticing you:

Blogging is huge in the newspaper biz these days. So everyone's trying to link to what's news, both on and off the beaten path. USA Today, on Friday, picked up some Bluffton baseball news and the D3hoops.com story on Lincoln, which happened to be written by yours truly in my yearly foray into basketball, when Pat and the gang has more stories to write than writers.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/sportsscope/2007/03/09/index.html

(scroll down a bit)

What's interesting is that I had nothing to do with linking the blog to that story. In other words, they would have found it just the same if I didn't work here.

[ScotsFan]

I had heard that CSTV offers internet broadcasting for a fee.  Is this true?  Unfortunately, I can't make the trip to Salem this weekend because of family obligations.   I just was wondering if there was any way to watch the finals over the net.  It'd be much easier if ESPNU would finally step up and buy the rights to all of the NCAA Championships at every level!  This CSTV thing just irks me!

[woolax]

Any idea were the Wooster team or fans will be staying in Salem/Roanoke this weekend?

Also anyone wishing to view video on Amherst may go to http://www.d3cast.com/archive.php and see video of them playing Williams in the NESCAC Championship game

[Pat Coleman]

The internet broadcast will be free.

Keith -- had no idea you/we got picked up. Awesome!

[division3hoops]

Any idea were the Wooster team or fans will be staying in Salem/Roanoke this weekend?

Also anyone wishing to view video on Amherst may go to http://www.d3cast.com/archive.php and see video of them playing Williams in the NESCAC Championship game

Answered your question on the NCAC page...

[Gregory Sager]

The historical tale of the tape for this year's Final Four:

school	apps	1st app	E8	F4	1-2-3-4	W-L	pct
Wooster	16	1978	3	2	0-0-1-0	17-15	.531
Virginia Wesleyan	7	1978	2	2	1-0-0-0	11-7	.611
Washington (MO)	12	1987	3	1	0-0-0-0	15-11	.577
Amherst	10	1994	5	3	0-0-0-2	18-11	.621

The presence of Final Four newbie Wash U in Salem next weekend continues an interesting trend in the D3 tournament. Of the 33 Final Fours, all but one have contained at least one school that had never been to a D3 Final Four before. The only all-veteran Final Four in D3 tournament history took place in 1992 (Calvin, Rochester, New Jersey City, and UW-Platteville). All four of those programs had made one previous foray into the last weekend of the season. This really speaks as to how new blood constantly forces its way to the top in D3 men's basketball, even though Wash U is hardly a newcomer to the tournament itself.

The reverse is also true to a degree -- it's very difficult to keep the veterans out. There have only been two all-newbie Final Fours. Naturally, the first-ever Final Four in 1975 (LeMoyne-Owen, Rowan, Augustana, and Brockport State) is one of them. The other is the 1978 Final Four: North Park, Widener, Albion, and Stony Brook State were each making their first-ever trip to Banner Weekend that March.

Virginia Wesleyan's presence signals another trend, that of a school that has already won a national championship appearing in the Final Four. Two-thirds (22 of 33) of D3's Final Fours have involved at least one school that already owns a copy of the Big Doorstop. And 25 of the 33 have involved at least one school that had previously made it as far as the national championship game.

One other interesting trend to note is that of schools making back-to-back Final Four appearances. Virginia Wesleyan and Amherst become the sixteenth and seventeenth schools in D3 tourney history to make Final Four runs in consecutive seasons. But this is only the second time ever that two schools have accomplished the back-to-back feat in the same Final Four. In March of 1986, Potsdam State and Nebrasks Wesleyan returned to Grand Rapids after having finished second and third, respectively, the previous March.

Virginia Wesleyan is the ninth Final Four team to have a shot at repeating a championship. The previous repeat aspirants:

school	year	finish
Scranton	1977	third
North Park	1979	first
North Park	1980	first
Potsdam State	1982	second
UW-Platteville	1992	third
UW-Platteville	1999	first
Williams	2004	second
UW-Stevens Point	2005	first
Virginia Wesleyan	2007	?

[AndOne]

Greg---

Good stuff. Thank you!

[Titan Q]

Here are the teams to make it to the Division III Final Four in the Salem, VA Era (1995-96 to present)...


Illinois Wesleyan   4 (1996, 1997, 2001, 2006)
Williams      4 (1997, 1998, 2003, 2004)
Amherst      3 (2004, 2006, 2007)
Calvin      2 (2000, 2005)
Hope       2 (1996, 1998)
Franklin & Marshall   2 (1996, 2000)
Hampden-Sydney   2 (1999, 2003)
Rochester      2 (2002, 2005)
UW-Platteville   2 (1998, 1999)
UW-Stevens Point   2 (2004, 2005)
Virginia Wesleyan   2 (2006, 2007)
William Paterson   2 (1999, 2001)
Wooster      2 (2003, 2007)
Alvernia       1 (1997)
Carthage       1 (2002)
Catholic      1 (2001)
Connecticut College   1 (1999)
Elizabethtown   1 (2002)
Gustavus Adolphus   1 (2003)
John Carroll   1 (2004)
Nebraska Wesleyan   1 (1997)
Ohio Northern   1 (2001)
Otterbein      1 (2002)
Rowan      1 (1996)
Salem St      1 (2000)
UW-Eau Claire   1 (2000)   
Washington U.   1 (2007)
Wilkes      1 (1997)
Wittenberg   1 (2006)
York (Pa)      1 (2005)

[jagluski]

Here are the teams to make it to the Division III Final Four in the Salem, VA Era (1995-96 to present)...

Virginia Wesleyan   2 (2006, 2006)

Twice in one year?  That's rather impressive!  I guess my alma mater(Wash U) is facing a more formidable opponent than I thought!

[Titan Q]

Here are the teams to make it to the Division III Final Four in the Salem, VA Era (1995-96 to present)...

Virginia Wesleyan   2 (2006, 2006)

Twice in one year?  That's rather impressive!  I guess my alma mater(Wash U) is facing a more formidable opponent than I thought!

Corrected...thanks!