D3 Championship Belt

[augie77]

The connection would be Swedish Lutheranism.  Makes sense!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The connection would be Swedish Lutheranism.  Makes sense!

I reached out to the MAC office, to see if they have the info - after that, someone in Illinois is going to have to make a trip to the library.

[augie77]

I'm headed to Rock Island for some hoops this week-end.  No promises, but I'll see if I can fit in a trip to the Swedish-American research center on campus (within the library), where this would likely be housed.

I do have plans with friends, so we'll seed how this works out....

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'm headed to Rock Island for some hoops this week-end.  No promises, but I'll see if I can fit in a trip to the Swedish-American research center on campus (within the library), where this would likely be housed.

I do have plans with friends, so we'll seed how this works out....

Hopefully the MAC will have the info, but if not:

Upsala "College History Records," Box 1a, folder 3.

[ronk]

LeMoyne-Owen only played two games against D3 opponents that season -- interestingly enough, they were the last two games of the season. The Magicians lost to Transylvania, 112-92, and beat Sewanee, 87-86. (Transylvania was a D3 program into the mid-'80s, switched over to NAIA, and then came back into the D3 fold about a decade and a half ago.)

Almost all of the rest of LeMoyne-Owen's schedule was played against NAIA opponents, although I think that a couple of those opponents may have been NCAA D2 already at that point. Most of them belonged to the Volunteer State Athletic Conference, of which LeMoyne-Owen was the only member that held NCAA D3 affiliation; all of the rest of the VSAC schools were NAIA at the time.

Alright, so here we go, LeMoyne-Owen had the belt through most of 1976, then lost it to Transy in the NCAA Tournament.  They lost it the next game to Miles, who lost it to Wittenberg, who lost it to Scranton in the NCAA Final.

1975 - LeMoyne-Owen
1976 - LeMoyne-Owen
          Transylvania
          Miles
          Wittenberg
          Scranton
1977 - Scranton


Greg's got to redo his magic here - Scranton lost to St. Francis (NY), Bucknell, Army, and Philadelphia Textile, before dropping a game to Kings - from cross checking, I discovered this is, in fact, King's NY and not the current d3 Kings's (in PA).  Not confident any of those schools were d3.  What do you have for us, Sager? - http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/statsPDFArchive/MBB2/E/Men's%20Basketball_Men's_Division%20III_1977_633_University%20of%20Scranton.pdf

No, it was Kings of PA; the archive for both teams has Kings over Scranton 61-58 on 1/29/77, so we just have to find out whom Kings lost to after that date.
Phil Textile was D2 and the others, D1. Incidentally, that '77 Army team was coached by Coach K and he won only in OT after losing the year before. So, Coach K was only 1-1 against Scranton and we're probably the only team that he doesn't have a winning record against in his career.

The NCAA has the whole season categorized under the wrong name, then - which, as well know, is not too surprising.

I double checked, it is filed under the wrong school.  It's definitely King's PA.  They lost, the rest of the year, to E Stroudsburg, St. Joe's, Niagra, Textile, and Trenton.  Trenton is now TCNJ and d3, but I want to double check that none of the others were back then. thoughts?

E Stroudsburg and textile were D2, St. Joe and Niagara, D1; don't know about Trenton.

[ronk]

Upsala was definitely D3; they were in Scranton's conference, the MAC and we played them 2 weeks after that loss to Kings..

[sac]

Upsala was the Vikings, but most of you could probably have guessed that.

[augie77]

With blue and gold colors?  Like both Augustana Vikings (Illinois and South Dakota), and the North Park Vikings--all patterned after the Swedish flag?

[sac]

With blue and gold colors?  Like both Augustana Vikings (Illinois and South Dakota), and the North Park Vikings--all patterned after the Swedish flag?

Looks like blue and white, maybe some grey or silver

[Gregory Sager]

LeMoyne-Owen only played two games against D3 opponents that season -- interestingly enough, they were the last two games of the season. The Magicians lost to Transylvania, 112-92, and beat Sewanee, 87-86. (Transylvania was a D3 program into the mid-'80s, switched over to NAIA, and then came back into the D3 fold about a decade and a half ago.)

Almost all of the rest of LeMoyne-Owen's schedule was played against NAIA opponents, although I think that a couple of those opponents may have been NCAA D2 already at that point. Most of them belonged to the Volunteer State Athletic Conference, of which LeMoyne-Owen was the only member that held NCAA D3 affiliation; all of the rest of the VSAC schools were NAIA at the time.

Alright, so here we go, LeMoyne-Owen had the belt through most of 1976, then lost it to Transy in the NCAA Tournament.  They lost it the next game to Miles, who lost it to Wittenberg, who lost it to Scranton in the NCAA Final.

1975 - LeMoyne-Owen
1976 - LeMoyne-Owen
          Transylvania
          Miles
          Wittenberg
          Scranton
1977 - Scranton


Greg's got to redo his magic here - Scranton lost to St. Francis (NY), Bucknell, Army, and Philadelphia Textile, before dropping a game to Kings - from cross checking, I discovered this is, in fact, King's NY and not the current d3 Kings's (in PA).  Not confident any of those schools were d3.  What do you have for us, Sager? - http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/statsPDFArchive/MBB2/E/Men's%20Basketball_Men's_Division%20III_1977_633_University%20of%20Scranton.pdf

No, it was Kings of PA; the archive for both teams has Kings over Scranton 61-58 on 1/29/77, so we just have to find out whom Kings lost to after that date.
Phil Textile was D2 and the others, D1. Incidentally, that '77 Army team was coached by Coach K and he won only in OT after losing the year before. So, Coach K was only 1-1 against Scranton and we're probably the only team that he doesn't have a winning record against in his career.

The NCAA has the whole season categorized under the wrong name, then - which, as well know, is not too surprising.

I double checked, it is filed under the wrong school.  It's definitely King's PA.  They lost, the rest of the year, to E Stroudsburg, St. Joe's, Niagra, Textile, and Trenton.  Trenton is now TCNJ and d3, but I want to double check that none of the others were back then. thoughts?

Niagara and St. Joe's were, and are, D1. Philadelphia Textile (now Thomas Jefferson University) was and is D2, and, as you pointed out, Trenton State College is now TCNJ and is a charter member of D3.

But this is where I lost the thread the first time that I tried this exercise, lo, all those seasons ago, because of East Stroudsburg State College (now East Stroudsburg University). The problem here is that the PSAC (Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference) didn't mandate a specific NCAA divisional membership for its members until 1980, when the league voted to classify the entire membership as D2. I know for a fact that at least five PSAC schools (Lock Haven, Slippery Rock, Millersville, Kutztown, and Mansfield) were D3 in at least some sports until 1980, and possibly more of them were as well -- including, for all I know, East Stroudsburg. And I was unable to track down any info on East Stroudsburg's late-'70s affiliation anywhere on the Internet. Ronk, you say that East Stroudsburg was D2 in the late '70s. Do you know that for certain? That would clear a lot of things up, but neither the school nor the PSAC (nor anyone else online) has anything definitive about the Warriors' affiliation during the Carter Administration.

If East Stroudsburg was a D3 member in 1976-77, then it lost to Mansfield immediately after beating King's (PA), which would've shifted The Belt^TM over to Mansfield. The Mounties would've given it back to East Stroudsburg the next season, which in turn would've turned it back over to King's (PA) in the middle of the 1977-78 season. In other words, that puts us on a completely different Belt^TM track than the track that has TCNJ possessing Thee Most Exalted Bespangled Cincture^TM the previous season after taking it from King's (PA).

[smedindy]

There's the Belt^TM and possibly an Anti-Belt^TM!

Who goes to Ravenna and who goes to Avignon? Or is this like Rome and Constantinople.


/yes, I'm reading a history of the Papacy
//great movies could be made
///John XII FTW!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I couldn't find any information leading me to believe E Stroudsburg was anything other than d2.



The MAC office came through with a mostly complete Upsala schedule.  They have the Trenton game and the score, but the result is reversed.  I think Upsala got it wrong (because the same season record for Trenton is on the NJAC website, too).  So we'll assume Upsala won that game.

Upsala's next losses were to Mt St Mary's (not the d3 version), Lafayette, and Virginia Tech - so I think we're safe d3-wise.  The next game was against FDU-Florham with no score, but Florham only won 4 games that year, so I think it's safe to assume Upsala won.  The regular season record ends without them losing and they did play in the NCAA tournament.  I could find no evidence they played in the MAC tournament (none of the four semifinalists played Upsala in the post-season).

So, I'm going to assume they took the Belt into the NCAA tournament, thus leaving us at:

Belt Path

1975 - LeMoyne-Owen
1976 - LeMoyne-Owen
          Transylvania
          Miles
          Wittenberg
          Scranton
1977 - Scranton
          King's
          TCNJ (non-champion)
1978 - TCNJ
          Upsala
          Widener
          North Park
1979 - North Park
          Augustana
          Carthage
          Millikin (non-champion)
1980 - Millikin
          Eureka

Here, I need some help again - Eureka next lost to Lakeland.  Not sure if Lakeland was d3 back then. They were independent and the NCAA doesn't have a record for them that year, so I assume they weren't in yet.

[lmitzel]

1980 - Millikin
          Eureka

Here, I need some help again - Eureka next lost to Lakeland.  Not sure if Lakeland was d3 back then. They were independent and the NCAA doesn't have a record for them that year, so I assume they weren't in yet.

For what it's worth, I pulled up Lakeland's website and they're listed as making the NAIA Tournament in 1994. I'd be inclined to think then that they weren't D3 in 1980.

[Gregory Sager]

Assuming TCNJ was the one to take it, here's the updated path:

Belt Path

1975 - LeMoyne-Owen
1976 - LeMoyne-Owen
          Transylvania
          Miles
          Wittenberg
          Scranton
1977 - Scranton
          King's
          TCNJ (non-champion)
1978 - TCNJ
          Upsala


This is where we might be in trouble (unless Rider of Sacred Heart were d3 then).  The NCAA doesn't have Upsala's schedule for 1977-78 and Upsala doesn't exist anymore.  I know they were definitely d3 shortly after this, so I assume they were d3 that year.

Rider was never D3. Upsala was a charter member of D3, and remained a D3 school until the institution folded in '95.

However, it appears that Augustana, in Rock Island, Il, retains all physical records of Upsala College (unless it's an entirely different Upsala, which is also possible). So if someone nearby wants to go to the Upsala "college history records," Box 1a, folder 3, there may be schedules there (according to the online table of contents).

It's the same Upsala. As augie77 noted, both Augustana and Upsala were affiliate institutions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (Augie is still affiliated with ELCA to this day) and were among the five colleges founded by Swedish immigrants that were still in existence in the late 20th century (the others being North Park, Gustavus Adolphus, and Bethany (KS)).

Upsala was definitely D3; they were in Scranton's conference, the MAC and we played them 2 weeks after that loss to Kings..

Upsala had a very good men's basketball program; the Vikings went 13-10 in eight D3 tourney appearances between 1978 and 1986. The Vikings were the national runner-up to North Park in 1980, the last year of North Park's threepeat national championship dynasty. I saw that championship game, and Upsala had a couple of really outstanding players in forward Steve Keenan and diminutive PG Elonya "Tiny" Green. (Dick Vitale was the color commentator on ESPN for that game, and he spent about 90% of his airtime talking about Upsala, to the chagrin of North Park fans, because Vitale's a Jersey guy and he knew pretty much each and every high-school coach who had an alumnus that played for Upsala.) Upsala got back to the Final Four again in 1984, finishing fourth in the nation.

Upsala was sanctioned by the NCAA in 1990 for having men's basketball players who didn't pay tuition; the program was put on probation for five years, and the school closed just before the Vikings would've been restored to postseason eligibility.

With blue and gold colors?  Like both Augustana Vikings (Illinois and South Dakota), and the North Park Vikings--all patterned after the Swedish flag?

Only two of the Swedish-immigrant colleges, North Park and Bethany (KS), actually use the colors of the Swedish flag (royal blue and gold) as their school colors. Augustana is navy blue and gold, Gustavus Adolphus is black and gold, and if I recall correctly, Upsala was royal blue and white.

The D2 school in South Dakota called Augustana University is Norwegian in heritage, not Swedish, in spite of the fact that the school's colors are Swedish (royal blue and gold). It was formed when the Swedish and Norwegian Lutheran immigrants who founded the original Augustana College decided that they couldn't get along and split the school, with the Swedes staying in Rock Island and the Norwegians moving first to Marshall, WI and then to Minneapolis and to Canton, SD before finally planting the campus in Sioux Falls, where it remains to this day.

[Gregory Sager]

1980 - Millikin
          Eureka

Here, I need some help again - Eureka next lost to Lakeland.  Not sure if Lakeland was d3 back then. They were independent and the NCAA doesn't have a record for them that year, so I assume they weren't in yet.

For what it's worth, I pulled up Lakeland's website and they're listed as making the NAIA Tournament in 1994. I'd be inclined to think then that they weren't D3 in 1980.

Lakeland was NAIA back then. So was Eureka, though, so Eureka should not be on The Belt^TM's path through the 1979-80 season.