No, not exactly, but we’re already delving into 2005-06 schedules. We don’t have many, but it’s a start — Albion’s men’s schedule and Carleton’s men’s and women’s schedule.

There are other schedules available, but they’re not complete. We need to know the first-round pairings for any in-season tournament before we post the schedule. So if you know a school has a schedule on its Web site, e-mail us and/or post it here. We’ll punch it in if it has tournament pairings — not just the four teams listed.

Doug Doughty’s local colleges notebook in today’s Roanoke Times details a conversation between Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim and Roanoke coach Page Moir regarding Syracuse’s Billy Edelin transferring to Roanoke for his senior season.

In short, Edelin was likely headed for eligibility problems at Syracuse, and if that’s the case, how is he going to transfer and be eligible at a Division III school? Forget the entire question about what such a transfer would do to the chemistry of a team — one would have to question whether someone in shaky academic standing even merits being admitted to a D-III school.

There’s nothing wrong in general with players transferring from Division I schools. It happens pretty regularly. Some pan out, some don’t, but often an athlete moves up to Division III to become a student-athlete, to concentrate more on education, to have fun playing basketball instead of it being a job.

I could name some not-in-the-spirit-of-Division-III transfers, but I think D-III veterans probably already have some idea of what those would be.

In short, Division III is not a pit stop for someone on the way up from or the way down to Division I. Don’t use us like that. If you’re here to be serious about your education, we welcome you. Otherwise… try a different division.

Congratulations to the Division III spring sports champions:

Baseball — UW-Whitewater
Men’s golf — Guilford
Women’s golf — Methodist
Men’s lacrosse — Salisbury (celebration shot from Salisbury athletics)
Women’s lacrosse — New Jersey
Women’s rowing — Ithaca
Softball — St. Thomas
Men’s tennis — UC Santa Cruz
Women’s tennis — Emory
Men’s track — Lincoln
Women’s track — Wartburg

Women’s water polo doesn’t have a Division III championship, but Redlands was selected for the NCAA all-divisions tournament and won one game in the three-game tournament to finish seventh.

And also, a special congratulations to Johns Hopkins, which won the Division I men’s lacrosse championship … even if those players are on scholarship!

Even if you know who Gary Bettman is, you’re probably confused by the headline. But if you think about it, the NHL commissioner may very well have ensured more Division III basketball coverage on ESPN next season.

Blame the NHL players, blame the owners — it doesn’t matter. There was no hockey this past season and the lockout depressed the television contract’s value so much that ESPN not only didn’t pick up its $60 million broadcast contract option for 2005-06, it ended negotiations on a new contract altogether, according to Toronto’s The Globe and Mail newspaper.

“If the NHL decides it wants to come back with us, and propose a new offer, given our history, we’ll listen,” ESPN’s executive vice president of programming and production, Mark Shaprio, told the newspaper. “But anything in the neighborhood of $60 million is a conversation we’re not willing to have.”

Without hockey in the way, you can expect ESPN to add more college basketball, and the cable network should consider a WIAC game or a CCIW game for next year’s schedule.

If that happens, you know who to thank.