University Athletic Association

[newtonnancy]

I don't know if it is a wide open affair but something tells me it will be a very interesting Association season.

[gottaluvhoops]

How is WASH U looking so far?

[y_jack_lok]

Wash U looked very good against Fontbonne Tuesday night (12/11), but they will get a tougher test from another SLIAC team, Maryville (MO) Saturday afternoon.

[y_jack_lok]

Well, the "tougher test" I predicted for Wash U vs Maryville didn't happen. Wash U wins 77-48. The 29 point differential was one less than the win against Fontbonne. The only mitigating factor is that today's game was a home game for Wash U whereas the game against Fontbonne was an away game. If today's game had been played at Maryville it might have been closer -- hard to say.

[nyufan]

Did I hear that Wash U lost a key player due to injury? It seems to me that they are rebounding from the loss fairly well.

[y_jack_lok]

Wash U's Jamie McFarlin sustained a season ending knee injury a couple of weeks ago. Wash U's first game after that was a 27 point loss to McKendree University, an NAIA school in Lebanon, IL about 25 miles east of St. Louis. Their two wins since have been against St. Louis D3 schools who play in the SLIAC, a comparatively weak conference. Wash U looked good in both those games, but they still have to prove themselves against the tougher competition of the UAA. I have no doubt that Coach Fahey will make them competitive. Her 503-88 career coaching record speaks for itself.

[nobody]

Here we go...UAA play begins in a week.  Should be another interesting season!

[newtonnancy]

Ca't wait to see what happens with NYU - Brandeis on Saturday. Just saw that Brandeis added a game (if thats what you want to call it) and beat Husson like an ugly step sister. After the couple of L's guess Simon thought she needed a W. Thats the first time since I have been following Brandeis, 12 years, that Simon played a 25th game. Well, one more cupcake tomorrow and then This weekend starts it for real with the whole Association mixing it up....should be fun, and early matches like the NYU-Brandeis and Chicago - Wash U  should give a real indication of who is who this year

[newtonnancy]

Can somebody tell me the purpose of playing these teams that you are up on 45-14 at half time??? I mean I understand it 10 years ago when you were the same kind of team, but what makes Brandeis continue this. Even NYU upped the quality of their non association games, and Wash U, Chicago, Rochester and even Emory play strong non association games and it readies teams for the conference play, I just don't get it.

And picking up one, Husson, when they weren't even on your schedule until after the season started is a sin.

[Ralph Turner]

Can somebody tell me the purpose of playing these teams that you are up on 45-14 at half time??? I mean I understand it 10 years ago when you were the same kind of team, but what makes Brandeis continue this. Even NYU upped the quality of their non association games, and Wash U, Chicago, Rochester and even Emory play strong non association games and it readies teams for the conference play, I just don't get it.

And picking up one, Husson, when they weren't even on your schedule until after the season started is a sin.

Good Morning, Nancy.

The "knee-jerk reaction" of us fans distant from the Northeast Region is that that is representative of the quality of basketball played in more than half of the conferences and more than 2/3's of the teams in that region.

I am not "dissing" the powers of Bowdoin and Bates and Southern Maine, etc.  ( I think that the state of Maine is one of the 4-5 geographic areas in the country where women's basketball has enough depth of quality players that we see a trickle-down to quality programs in D3.)  There are just so many programs that a coach can craft a schedule that takes advantages of the OWP and OOWP to enhance his teams "stats" for the sake of the committee.  (What other region has 8-9 conferences within 200 miles?)  Getting great and good teams to play Brandeis, and pick up a loss that may hurt your Pool C chances makes no sense, if you don't have to do it.   In fact, the UAA is strategically positioned to take advantage of the Pool C rules, as if their fertile brains were the creators of the Pool C concept.    

[nobody]

I agree that you need wins to up your chances of getting in, but why not schedule tough so that when you get in, you are prepared to do damage???!!!  If you are truly competitive, you should want to play the best teams.  And, in playing in a tough conference like the UAA, it's smart to play good competition in preparation.

[deiscanton]

The Husson game against Brandeis was NOT a game that was added after the season started-- that would be a violation of NCAA rules.  What happened was an unintentional mistake by the Brandeis SID where the game was included in all of the print schedules for the Brandeis season from the beginning, and it was on the electronic schedule that was sent to the NCAA, but the Husson game was accidentally not put into the web version of the schedule on the Brandeis athletics site.  Husson had the game on their athletics web schedule from October on, and it was included on the d3hoops.com schedules from the beginning.  As a matter of fact, I even asked coach Simon about the Husson game just to check that it was indeed on the original schedule, and I was assured that it was on the original schedule.   Nobody, not even Newtonnancy, whined about this back in October or November about the discrepancies between the Husson and Brandeis athletics web sites.  As a matter of fact, even I assumed that the Brandeis SID would eventually correct the mistake, but by neglect, the omission remained on the Brandeis web site until after the Williams game, when I notified Adam Levin of the mistake and asked him to correct it.  Before I notified him, no one else even bothered to call him to point it out.

As a matter of fact, I knew Newtonnancy would whine and raise this "conspiracy" theory the minute I notified Adam of this, and the only way that would happen is if she was not checking other schedules of the opponent.

[newtonnancy]

Alan,
I am sorry that I am not in the habit of "checking" the opponents schedules. I look at the UAA team and don't have the time to sift through every team on the schedules websites. Also, being in Chicago, how would I see the "printed" scheules. I accept your explaination.

BUT

That doesn't explain why a team would continue to schedule such one sided games. You have to admit, it is embarassing.

Also, I thought that the new quality of wins system, punished teams for such wins? Isn't that the case?

[theBroadcaster]

On a different note, just want to let everyone know that Brandeis' WBRS Sports will be at NYU this weekend to bring you both the Judges mens and womens games against NYU on saturday.  You can listen live online at www.wbrs.org or on the radio at 100.1FM if you're in Waltham.

[Pat Coleman]

it was included on the d3hoops.com schedules from the beginning. 

That's why we have these, Nancy.