I’m moving this post back to the top because it got a new comment today and it seemed relevant. St. Vincent isn’t exactly taking the PAC by storm so far.
Originally posted July 01, 2005 at 6:08 p.m. ET
St. Vincent won’t be in the PAC at all until 2006-07 and won’t be eligible for the NCAA playoffs until March 2011, but we already know what they plan to do in the league, thanks to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
“We’re going into the PAC to be successful,” coach D.P. Harris said. “I’m still going to come into my office each morning at 6 a.m. I expect to see my assistants there. I’m not changing. A big part of this is how the men’s basketball program accepts Division III and accepts the challenge.
“We want to change the perception of Division III basketball in the district.”
Phew … they’re getting into the office about three hours after I usually log off for the night. And how many full-time assistants does he have? Or is it just the part-timers that have to be in at 6 a.m.?
I read that article, too, and thought, “What a joke!” Obviously, Coach Harris has not done much research. He also does not seem to have much respect for the “district” D3’s. No doubt an NAIA lifer and those guys do not do so well at the D3 level. Rudy Marisa had a great NAIA run at Waynesburg, then came to the PAC and won one PAC title in about 12 years. Westminster had one or two years of great success so far in the PAC and one of those years was with D2 players left over.
Coach Harris also stated that he thinks they can win the D3 title. Look, let’s be real here. If they could not win the NAIA 2 title with the renegade crew he has, and teams like Wabash and Wittenberg beat Robert Morris (NAIA D1 Final Four team this year) and Cedarville (I think another NAIA D2 Final Four team), respectively, how the heck does he think he can win when his scholarships are history, unless he cheats.
I think Coach Harris needs to change his perception of D3 or someone will do it for him.
I saw St. Vincent play at the St. Xavier University Christmas tournament during the 2002-03 season. The Illinois Wesleyan team I follow that won the CCIW that season and won at #2 ranked Wash U. in the tournament couldn’t have stayed with 15 points of St. Vincent. And I’m quite certain the Williams national championship team couldn’t have beaten them. I didn’t see a single Division III player that season as good as Tony Washam.
It will be an interesting transition for them. He talks in the article about having to recruit a different kind of kid now and I’m guessing they won’t get the same kind of talent without the scholarship money.
Pupfan, I’m almost certain that you’ve confused the two Robert Morris campuses. The main campus in Chicago is the home of the perennial NAIA-1 powerhouse that reached the Final Four in that division this past spring. The branch campus in downstate Springfield is a member of the USCAA rather than the NAIA or NCAA. It’s those Eagles, not the vastly stronger Eagles from the Chicago campus, that have played Wabash and so many other D3 teams in recent seasons.
Well pupfan, looks like you were right about D3 and the PAC challenging St Vincent. What is Harris’ excuse for having a 12-9 record (4-6 in the PAC) with a team of talented scholarship players that include CC transfers and a d-1 transfer? I listened to a game the other night and Harris said the reason they arent winning against the PAC is because they arent used to the style of play? Give me a break- you have 8 or 9 returning players on scholarship playing against kids on no scholarship. I give credit to the other PAC teams and the coaches. Perhaps if Harris wouldnt have padded his schedule with a very weak non-conference schedule for some wins, his team would have been prepared. Or perhaps, it is because he finally has a team that needs a coach who is not relying simply on raw talent to win games and they actually need a coach? Guess they are spending lots of 6am mornings together…………
From a Jan. 19 story:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/college/s_489284.html
well if you can’t succeed in teh president’s athletic conference you can’t succeed anywhere else just about, so at least st. vincent has the weakness of the conference going their way. all but maybe the bottom 3 odac teams could win the PAC championship. Of course Bethany is normally pretty solid (although they have the benefit of a terrible conference), but after that all they have is a very overrated Westminster squad and not much else. Just look at how low the PAC as a whole is rated in the massey ratings. As individual teams, Bethany, the best in the conference, is rated just 137 and westminster, second in the conference, is 204 through games of the 28th.
DISTRICT?????
WHat is this? High School?
He speaks NAIA still. “District” and “national tournament” are NAIA terms. They gotta learn the new lingo.
Yeah — Super Bowl is done here. Done.
In this case, the use of “district” is actually more of a Western PA or Pittsburgh thing. Both Pittsburgh newspapers refer to all of the D-II, D-III, and NAIA games as action around the district. The national tournament does sound a bit NAIA-ish.
Prior to the season, Harris said that his biggest challenge would be to get his big bad scholarship players motivated for playing the likes of lowly Washington & Jefferson, Grove City, Westminister and Bethany. Washington & Jefferson beat Saint Vincent twice – home and away. Westminister beat Saint Vincent twice – home and away. Bethany beat Saint Vincent at Saint Vincent. Grove City beat Saint Vincent at Grove City. If you are wondering why Harris has trouble with the “lingo”, perhaps it helps to know that Harris was not an English major in college. Nor did Harris major in anything in college – he has no college degree! Saint Vincent should be proud of Coach “foot in mouth”.
From what I hear, PAC teams were just waiting for Harris and are having the last laugh. Funny how after SVC notched some wins over several Penn State branch campuses and some other very very weak schools, they started losing once they entered the PAC. There are several players now missing from the roster, the latest is the D-1 transfer who quit the team – SVC should be embarrassed for many reasons, starting with Harris- what has happened to the basketball program that was once held to such a high regard?
It’s amazing to me that St. Vincents went from a legend like Bernie Matthews to a slime-bucket like Harris. I made the mistake of signing my son up for his summer basketball camp, and every day when I would pick him up, he would tell me how Harris was favoring one of the other kids in particular. I thought he was just being over sensitive until I watched Harris put the full court press on the kids mother after practice and during the awards ceremony….and she was married!!! One of the girls that plays for the Lady Bobcats was telling me how St. Vincents is doing it’s best to quietly slip Harris into classes and get him a degree. I love St. Vincents, but I think the administration made a serious mistake when they put a man of such low moral fiber in charge of young minds and lives.
This year 2009 – 2010 at St. Vincent Basketball season is a disaster. Because the coaches are exposed – they don’t know how to coach. There is only one offense they have and it is called the BJ Offense. Any coach watching film will be able to beat this team. It is not hard to defend one play. It is a joke!!! They were so used to a renegade team which basically played street ball and were successful because some of the players had some talent. They have no idea how to develop a team. I watch a few games and I saw just one kid a freshman that could play some defense, but he was unable to show some offense. He has a nice shot but BJ is the man on the team and most of the underclassmen defer to BJ. Any kid that shoot a shot with three people guarding him is not well coached. I am sure that the coaches encourage him to shoot to pad his numbers with dreams to go PRO. I would say BJ takes a lot of shots and might be a 35% shooter at best unless they pad his numbers. Anyone that takes 30 + shots in a game and gets 25 + points is really not that great. Remember if he made every shot that is 60 points. Just a simply calculation. They think they are going to win with feeding just one player. Are they kidding? As far as I know Basketball is still a team sport. DP Harris and company are over there head and unfortunately the talent they do have will suffer. BJ will be the only one left next year because they just will throw these young talented Freshmen under the bus for some new transfers at least that is what they did in the past. It is sad state of affairs at St. Vincent College. They should get rid of the coaches and start all over.
Just a note of interest. Who is keeping score with a heading “Official Basketball Box Score”. St. Vincent’s squad is getting more points than there actually score. It is just a simple addition. Check the stats – they are so bold. They pad there favorite players sometimes by 5 buckets. I guess these stats are the future for some of their players otherwise I can’t understand why they do it. I am not sure how these numbers are plugged into the system but do they think people are stupid and can’t count. I am sure the coaching staff must know what is going on and if not they should fire the whole bunch.