MBB: Centennial Conference

[Dips75]

reserved seat. some basketball teams in the CC can do better on the court. some basketball teams can do better off the court. reasonable? let's keep it simple.

I think it's a more than fair assumption to think that in the Centennial Conference, none of the teams are littered with guys on the verge of failing out or barely getting by.  If you're a Dean's List student, congratulations - you absolutely should be proud, but the solid B .. or even high C ... student is likely still getting a darn good education at any of our schools and will end up with a degree and a relatively good shot in an admittedly difficult job market. Isn't that what it's all about?

That sums it up quite well. I don't see success on the court and off the court as mutually exclusive.

[centfan]

dips and reserved seat... is it a coincidence that your list from "the daily beast" has F&M high up on it? a classier response would be not to make it about F&M and personalize it and to say congrats to the schools that had several honor roll recipients and acknowledge that some schools can do better. and by the way, i certainly do respect a kid who works hard to get a C+, but let's not confuse it with an A-...just not the same thing. congrats to swat, hopkins and haverford for their academic achievement.
dips,some more stats for you:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/page+5

[sunny]

dips and reserved seat... is it a coincidence that your list from "the daily beast" has F&M high up on it? a classier response would be not to make it about F&M and personalize it and to say congrats to the schools that had several honor roll recipients and acknowledge that some schools can do better. and by the way, i certainly do respect a kid who works hard to get a C+, but let's not confuse it with an A-...just not the same thing. congrats to swat, hopkins and haverford for their academic achievement.
dips,some more stats for you:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/page+5

It's clear you're trying to make some sort of statement about the quality of students in some programs versus those of others based simply on one year's CC Academic Honor Roll recipients.  Besides the other reasons stated above, this is flawed for a number of other reasons:
1) To make Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll, in addition to the minimum GPA, you need to be a starter or significant reserve.  To be a significant reserve, you have to play in at least 50% of your team's games. Thus, there can be guys further down the bench pulling great grades, but not making that list.
2) To make Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll, you also need to be at least a sophomore. Combining this with #1, means, that if you have a short rotation and a couple of freshmen in said rotation, you will have very few eligible players before you even get to GPA.
3) This completely ignores "depth" of the team's GPAs. What's a more "impressive" team academically, one with four academic honor roll nominees and a couple guys with low C's or one with one, but the rest of the team filled out with B students? (Hypothetical, and obviously, we don't have access to all those numbers, which is kind of my point).
4) The sample size is simply way to small because of #1 and #2. If two teams each have eight non-freshmen in their rotation and one has three CC Academic Honor Roll qualifiers and the other has one, that is a huge gap percentage-wise resulting from a small number numerically. (Team 2 may very well have two guys who "just missed" the GPA minimum, by the way.) Maybe you can try to make some sort of case if you look over the numbers historically or maybe you can draw more conclusions in a sport with very large rosters like football, but with basketball, the numbers are just way too low to make any conclusions about what teams "get it done" in the classroom.
All in all, with the lack of information about how the rest of the team is performing academically (we only know about the guys with 3.4+ GPAs who are sophomores or older AND are in the rotation) and with the very small sample sizes we are dealing with, let's keep the Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll as what it is intended to be - an individual accomplishment that teams can be proud of, but not some sort of conclusive evidence as to which teams are strongest academically.

[r.w. mcnickels]

Congrats to Giorgio on being D3 Hoops co-regional POY with Lemons. Also thanks to GM on 4 great years of thrills and entertainment seldom seem at the D3 level, what a gutty final performance with an injured wheel.

A final point that bothers me when people keep saying Kates (by the way Kates was surperb beyond any words I can offer) abused Milligan (blew by him etc.) is that Milligan played the best game I've can recall by someonewith a badly injured foot. Plus the also maimed Porter should have been guarding Kates frequently, but he couldn't play at even 50% of his normal skill level after his sprain. It is quite possible that even with the Dip starting guards healthy the big yet white hot shooting MIT team would have prevailed anyhow, but I think it would have been a fierce, closer game. In the end the F&M achilles heel of poor foul shooting plus the great talent size & poise of the MIT starting 5 may have been too much to hope to overcome.

Milligan is a great athlete & clutch warrior the likes of which may not be seen at F&M for a long time to come. When the year started a would have taken a 20 win team in a heartbeat, but as they improved and the trio of Hayk, Early & Salandra improved  my expectations grew (I couldn't have dreamed of a 28 win season at the start).

Thanks again Georgio, thanks for the memories

D.B., I'm a bit late here but I want to echo your post. It was a great four years for Georgio, and it's hard to see it end. He played well against MIT despite the foot injury.

GM is the most clutch player I've ever seen at F&M, from his performance as a freshman in the 2009 Elite Eight to the all-around game he played in the win over Amherst last week. And, my personal favorite, the closing minutes in the Sweet 16 at St. Mary's two years ago. He always seemed to kick it into another gear in the final 5 minutes of a close game on both ends of the floor. He was a starter for 11 wins in the NCAA tournament - I believe that is an F&M and CC record. For my money, taking into account offense, defense, and postseason success, he is the best player since the Centennial's inception in '93-94.

Next year's Dips will be competitive, but I think we'll see the CC playoffs hosted elsewhere. People are asking "who's going to replace Milligan?" and the answer is, you don't.

[Dips75]

dips and reserved seat... is it a coincidence that your list from "the daily beast" has F&M high up on it? a classier response would be not to make it about F&M and personalize it and to say congrats to the schools that had several honor roll recipients and acknowledge that some schools can do better. and by the way, i certainly do respect a kid who works hard to get a C+, but let's not confuse it with an A-...just not the same thing. congrats to swat, hopkins and haverford for their academic achievement.
dips,some more stats for you:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/page+5

It's clear you're trying to make some sort of statement about the quality of students in some programs versus those of others based simply on one year's CC Academic Honor Roll recipients.  Besides the other reasons stated above, this is flawed for a number of other reasons:
1) To make Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll, in addition to the minimum GPA, you need to be a starter or significant reserve.  To be a significant reserve, you have to play in at least 50% of your team's games. Thus, there can be guys further down the bench pulling great grades, but not making that list.
2) To make Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll, you also need to be at least a sophomore. Combining this with #1, means, that if you have a short rotation and a couple of freshmen in said rotation, you will have very few eligible players before you even get to GPA.
3) This completely ignores "depth" of the team's GPAs. What's a more "impressive" team academically, one with four academic honor roll nominees and a couple guys with low C's or one with one, but the rest of the team filled out with B students? (Hypothetical, and obviously, we don't have access to all those numbers, which is kind of my point).
4) The sample size is simply way to small because of #1 and #2. If two teams each have eight non-freshmen in their rotation and one has three CC Academic Honor Roll qualifiers and the other has one, that is a huge gap percentage-wise resulting from a small number numerically. (Team 2 may very well have two guys who "just missed" the GPA minimum, by the way.) Maybe you can try to make some sort of case if you look over the numbers historically or maybe you can draw more conclusions in a sport with very large rosters like football, but with basketball, the numbers are just way too low to make any conclusions about what teams "get it done" in the classroom.
All in all, with the lack of information about how the rest of the team is performing academically (we only know about the guys with 3.4+ GPAs who are sophomores or older AND are in the rotation) and with the very small sample sizes we are dealing with, let's keep the Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll as what it is intended to be - an individual accomplishment that teams can be proud of, but not some sort of conclusive evidence as to which teams are strongest academically.

Well said, though I imagine it will fall on deaf ears.

[centfan]

dips, seat and sunny...i was not making any conclusions, though some schools are better than others and some schools have better students than others, whether you want to accept that or not. that is common sense and honor roll awards do not necessarily indicate that, although this year they actually do.what are you guys arguing? all teams are judged by the same standards and some did better than others. what is so hard to understand? schools can't be leaders in everything, despite your passion. on another note, should we disqualify giorgio's achievements because he is really a low mid or mid major Division 1 athlete who dominated D3?that would be analogous logic to what you are using. i think not. we had the pleasure of him being in our conference. you are searching for reasons rather than acceptance. accept, my brothers...it will set you free.
and dips, i resent the deaf ears comment. i simply disagree.
enjoy march madness!!!

[onetinsoldier]

i'm not really sure i understand the conversation.  Students who do well in the classroom should be commended.  Students who maintain a rigorous academic schedule (as you get at every CC school), and do their best work on the basketball court should also be commended.  Centfan's assertion is the equvalent of a fan yelling Safetly school when his team is down 10 at the end of a game.  Why dont you follow that up with a meaningless endowment statistic, or tell us the student/faculty ratio!

[centfan]

be nice soldier...sounds defensive. as i said much earlier, there are better teams and better schools. the world says that, not me. would you lump all teams together? be reasonable, if you would.
"to say that scranton is not swarthmore is like saying that a salad is not a hot fudge sundae.  The academic mission of scranton is completely different than that of Swarthmore." by the way, this is your quote. self serving for you to act like all the schools are the same in the CC. acceptance.

[onetinsoldier]

be nice soldier...sounds defensive. as i said much earlier, there are better teams and better schools. the world says that, not me. would you lump all teams together? be reasonable, if you would.
"to say that scranton is not swarthmore is like saying that a salad is not a hot fudge sundae.  The academic mission of scranton is completely different than that of Swarthmore." by the way, this is your quote. self serving for you to act like all the schools are the same in the CC. acceptance.

Just to be fair, i made that point on the Landmark board when a poster tried to compare Swat, a liberal arts college to Scranton, a regional university.  10/11 CC schools are what you would consider National Liberal Arts colleges, while the 11th is a national top tier university.  Are Swat, Haverford and BrynMawr a cut above F&M,  UC, GB Dickinson and muhl, which is a cut above Wash and MCD?  Probably, but all schools are rigorous and have an academic first mindset.  My guess is if you compare the academic missions of all 10 schools, they would likely be similar. 

[Reserved Seat]

My grandfather always said, "Don't get in a pissing contest with a skunk."

[sunny]

dips, seat and sunny...i was not making any conclusions, though some schools are better than others and some schools have better students than others, whether you want to accept that or not. that is common sense and honor roll awards do not necessarily indicate that, although this year they actually do.what are you guys arguing? all teams are judged by the same standards and some did better than others. what is so hard to understand? schools can't be leaders in everything, despite your passion. on another note, should we disqualify giorgio's achievements because he is really a low mid or mid major Division 1 athlete who dominated D3?that would be analogous logic to what you are using. i think not. we had the pleasure of him being in our conference. you are searching for reasons rather than acceptance. accept, my brothers...it will set you free.
and dips, i resent the deaf ears comment. i simply disagree.
enjoy march madness!!!

Whether the results of your methodology back up your presupposed thesis (which schools are "best") is a moot point because your methodology is flawed. How do I know?  Because all you need to do is look at the Academic Honor Roll for other sports and other schools come out "on top:"

Women's Basketball for example:
Bryn Mawr: 4
Muhlenberg: 4
Washington College: 3
Swarthmore: 3
Haverford: 2
Johns Hopkins: 2
F&M: 2
Gettysburg: 2
Dickinson: 1
Ursinus: 1
McDaniel: 1

I'm not arguing that all schools are equal - I'm arguing that using the Academic Honor Roll for one sport in one year to back up your feelings on which schools are "best" or even have the "best" students who play sports is futile.  It's like if I used one year of men's basketball standings to prove which school has the best athletic programs; even if F&M, Gettysburg, and Hopkins (the three departments most often mentioned as having a claim to that title) finished one-two-three that year in men's hoops, it hasn't proven anything.   

[centfan]

fair enough, soldier. i agree with your last post. and thanks for not being disrespectful.
seat...is your comment directed at me? it is rather rude and personal. i would remove karma points from you for that one. better to be a gentleman and simply disagree.
sunny...i agree with you and i am not trying to prove anything by these temporal honor roll stats. ( i was talking about mens basketball because this is the board for that, is it not?) it seems to be a touchy issue here with respect to which schools are academically superior.if you asked a 100 people who knew the liberal arts genre (high school "college advisors" for eg.) i am sure they would have similar opinions. i am not sure why a  bunch of people on this board attempt to refute that. now,how important is it to go to a "better" school?...i imagine that varies from person to person. people have gone on to do amazing things without school, let alone having gone to a "good" school. but again, that does not deny that certain institutions are academically superior to others.

[emma17]

My grandfather always said, "Don't get in a pissing contest with a skunk."

I like your grandfather already. 

[centfan]

My grandfather always said, "Don't get in a pissing contest with a skunk."

I like your grandfather already. 

me too emma...love him.

[onetinsoldier]

a very deserving winner

http://godiplomats.com/sports/m-baskbl/2011-12/releases/201203191706bx