Monthly Archives: November 2005

Games to watch this week

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We don’t have all the schedules in yet, so we’ll probably end up leaving some games off, but with 95% of the games in the system hopefully anything will be minor.

Here’s some of the games to keep an eye on this weekend, as games tip off Friday:

Tourney twosome: To call it a battle would be overstating it, but should be interesting to see the Texas-Dallas men, which pulled off three upsets to make the NCAA Tournament at 15-13 last year, go up against No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan on Friday night. Probably more like a rude awakening.

Plenty of 20: Baldwin-Wallace’s men open Friday with St. John Fisher on a neutral floor at Westminster (Pa.). B-W went 20-9, St. John Fisher 28-1.

Recipie for confusion: Aurora, from the same state as MacMurray, plays McMurry, from Texas, at Wheaton of Illinois’ tournament. Guarantee you at least one newspaper story or press release puts an A in McMurry.

Who are these guys? That’s the theme of the season for Christopher Newport, which opens the season with Southern Virginia. They also play St. Joseph of Vermont, Maryland Bible, Fisher College (not St. John Fisher, of course), Maine-Presque Isle and Keystone, plus they will play either Maryland Bible or Southern Virginia a second time since both are in their Thanksgiving tournament. Sorry. Only one turkey at that tournament, and it’s CNU’s schedule, with a whopping one in-region non-conference game, five games against non-Division III members and two more against provisional D-III members.

Opposite end of the spectrum: Couple of interesting games Friday at F&M’s tournament with Trinity (Conn.) facing Cortland State and F&M hosting what’s left of Gwynedd-Mercy after the end of Badou Gaye’s collegiate career.

Sleeper pick: St. Thomas against UW-Stout, which are less than two hours apart but meet at Wooster on Friday night..

Can you go home again? We’ll find out Sunday, as Randolph-Macon’s men’s coach Michael Rhoades gets set to perhaps face his alma mater. The All-American guard helped lead LVC to a national title and brings his team north to face either Arcadia or LVC.

In women’s action, those who felt Williams should have gotten preseason poll consideration will get to find out right away, as the Ephs play Southern Maine at Maine-Farmington’s tipoff tournament. Elsewhere in first-weekend women’s games:

Big bracket: Not the NCAA one, the tournament at Marymount, which has Gettysburg taking on Wesleyan, Trinity (Texas) against Gwynedd-Mercy, Elizabethtown at Marymount, and King’s at North Park. Whoever comes out 3-0 will have deserved it.

Getting defensive: No. 1 Millikin starts its quest for another Walnut and Bronze on Friday by opening with Webster. They also host UW-Eau Claire on Sunday.

Saturday’s no walk in the park: How about scheduling for Randolph-Macon’s women as the No. 2 Yellow Jackets host No. 12 Springfield on the second day of their tipoff classic?

Northeast notable: No. 8 Brandeis could end up with Bates on the second day of its tournament. Wonder what Bates will be like without Olivia Zurek and last year’s seniors.

Into the fire: Southwestern coach Pam Ruder, who came in from UW-Oshkosh this offseason, gets an early baptism Saturday with a game at No. 24 Hardin-Simmons.

Sunday on the air: If Eastern Connecticut and No. 3 Bowdoin meet Sunday afternoon in the finals of Eastern Connecticut’s tournament, we’ll be there and will broadcast it for you. There will be details out front.

Feel free to chime in with neat storylines, interesting games from the upcoming week, through next Sunday.

Most wonderful time of the year?

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I’m as eager for the start of basketball as the rest of you, but to be honest, I could really use another week. We got really poor, in my opinion, help from schools on schedules this year, so we’re still catching up on those. Although we got the Top 25s out earlier than our target date, the preseason All-America teams were slower than usual. One of those is still on our plate.

I love Division III basketball, but why does tipoff have to overlap with the start of football playoffs? I can’t find enough time in the day to get everything done as it is, and now with three kids in the house I’m finding it harder and harder to get time to work on the sites.

I have a tech guy who is holding up the process, who can never make a deadline, and since I’m related to him I have to play nice. He has a to-do list that’s pretty long, which we may never get to. Some of the things have been on the list for more than a year.

And now I’m griping to you, the reader, which probably isn’t the best thing either. But I write to tell you this — although it looks like we might not be doing much on the site this time of year, it just isn’t true. What we’re doing is a bunch of behind-the-scenes work, getting the schedules (still) into the system, making sure score reporting works correctly. Dave McHugh is working on getting Hoopsville warmed up and ready to go, starting a week from now, almost a week to the minute from the time this post goes up. So I ask your patience. This isn’t the only job for any of us, and my full-time job has gotten a lot fuller in the past 12 months, as well as my house.

Stay tuned. We’ll get there.

Division I teams are using us

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Division III teams should not be playing Division I teams. Not as a regular season game. Not as an ‘exhibition.’ Not ever, really.

I know that this will not be a popular position, but heck, that has never stopped me before.

I know it feels good to see your team or your son on the ESPN crawl, but the D-I schools are using us. They want a live practice under true game conditions and we are giving up a game that could otherwise enhance the competition within D-III. How much do we really get out of it? You can’t really run your system. You can’t play your normal rotations. You learn nothing about how your stuff works because let’s face it, unless you are playing a horrible D-I program, they are still way better than anyone we are going to see most years.

Let’s think about this … you get to ‘play your heart out’ basically knowing that winning or losing isn’t important in the game.

Well gang, that isn’t what basketball or life are about. Yeah, it’s how you play the game and all, but in the end we do keep score in these games. We don’t say at the end of the year “Well LeTourneau plays really hard, so let’s give them a Pool C bid over Augustana.”

Some will argue that it helps D-III recruiting … ehhh I doubt it. I have heard kids say that they come because the program wins. I have heard kids say that they come because the academics are good. I have heard kids say that they come because they think they will get more playing time. I have heard kids say that they come because of a strong national travel schedule. I have never heard a kid say that he went somewhere because they play a D-I exhibition game.

Some will argue that the games bring much-needed money into poor athletic departments. Playing for the money makes us mercenaries. It’s what is wrong with the D1 game and they are making us dirty by close contact. Do you want to be seen as Marathon Oil? Because that is all you really are to the D-I program in all but the most unusual situations.

As for reputation helping the D-III program’s reputation … nope not really. Who but the most dedicated among us remember Princeton almost losing to a D-I a few years back. With all due respect, how obscure is the D-I vs. D-III record? Usually all a D-I loss signifies is that the team was Prairie View A&M or Loyola or that they had five players suspended.

We should not be letting ourselves get used this way. If it’s an exhibition, why does it count against our 25 permitted games? Why isn’t it a scrimmage? Because then the D-I could not charge admission for it or broadcast it. Face it, we are dirtier every time we associate with the ‘big boys.’

As I said at the beginning, I know that it won’t be a popular position, but let’s think about it. We are good enough without them.