Category Archives: General

Conference shuffle drifts south

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The announcement today of Shenandoah joining the Old Dominion Athletic Conference has the potential to restart the rearrangement of conference affiliations that started with the departure of football schools from the MAC, the creation of the Landmark Conference for all sports and has reached as far north as the Empire 8 and Liberty League.

Shenandoah’s departure, which takes effect with the 2012-13 season, leaves the USA South in a big hole. All of their men’s sports, other than football, face the potential of losing their automatic bid. Just six full-time members of the conference have men’s sports: Averett, Christopher Newport, Ferrum, Greensboro, Methodist and North Carolina Wesleyan. In football, Maryville is an associate member of the USA South, leaving the conference with the minimum seven members required for an automatic bid.

After a two-year grace period, the automatic bid could be lost in 2014-15.

Could this revive the dormant, some would say dead, USAC-Great South merger talks? Absolutely. The USA South’s Maryville is already an associate member of the league in football and could join for all sports, as could Piedmont and LaGrange. Piedmont is the closest school of the southern portion of the GSAC to the USAC footprint.

If the southern flank of the USA South opens up, might Christopher Newport be the next to leave? The Captains would be the next geographic outlier in this group and, in my opinion, are a good fit for the Capital Athletic Conference. They would also bring a football program that could put the CAC on the verge of being a football conference. Stevenson adds football in 2012, while Salisbury, Frostburg and Wesley already have the sport. Five football programs isn’t seven, but it’s in the ballpark and who knows, Pool B might not be so bad a place to be for a while in football.

Plus, remember the women’s programs in the USA South and the Great South vastly outnumber the men’s. They could well spin off and form their own conference which would be eligible for an automatic bid as well. That group could draw from the following schools: Agnes Scott, Mary Baldwin, Meredith, Peace, Salem, Spelman, Wesleyan (Ga.). They might find that type of affiliation more to their liking.

The MAC had to be considered a strong contender to land Shenandoah. The conference already is home to a handful of Shenandoah’s sports: field hockey and men’s and women’s indoor track and track and field. The conference added Stevenson as an affiliate member for football and Shenandoah would have made it 10 in that sport. But the MAC missed out.

Touring another old gymnasium

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DE PERE, Wis. — I got to see another old gym tonight. I’m at St. Norbert this weekend to see the Green Knights open a new football stadium against No. 5 St. Thomas and got the tour of campus from sports information director Dan Lukes.

When we drove by a particular building, Dan mentioned that it used to be the gym, and I asked if we could get out and see it. We couldn’t get in the gym itself, but it is indeed still a gymnasium. This being September, there were volleyball nets up. There are glass backboards, with “No Dunking Allowed” on the bottom of the glass.

The playing floor is just 77 feet long — just long enough to make a Grinnell game even more of a breakneck speed. If you have ever been in the old gym at Mount St. Mary’s, yes, the Division I school in Emmitsburg, Md., this looks exactly like it. It has a big wall with windows on the end — in this case, facing the Fox River instead of U.S. 15, a high vaulted ceiling, and was built in the 1930s. I could almost picture Jim Phelan stalking the sidelines in a bow tie, although in this case, I was told that Dick Bennett coached in the last game St. Norbert played in the gym, for UW-Stevens Point.

I’ve written about my fascination with old gymnasiums before. Since then, I’ve added the old gym at Wash U to my list (it’s connected to the new gym), as well as the old gym at Stevens. I think Randolph-Macon may be my favorite, however.

From Milwaukee to the D.R.

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The Milwaukee School of Engineering men’s basketball team is in the Dominican Republic to play some exhibition games in addition to holding a basketball clinic for some impoverished children in the country. Senior Austin Meier is writing a blog during the trip:

Day 1 (August 25):

The team was alive and ready to travel this morning despite the fact that we were up before the crack of dawn. We arrived at O’Hare rather early so the down time was spent eating McDonald’s breakfast and bickering about top 50 NBA players. The flight was rather smooth to Miami and a first experience for some on the team. We grabbed a quick bite at Pizza Hut burning a hole through our pockets. The slight layover in Miami went quick due to the anxiousness of the guys to get to the resort for some all you can eat buffets especially (Eric) Bohrer.

After about an hour and a half flight, we safely arrived in the Dominican Republic, but the traveling wasn’t quite over. We took a short bus ride and arrived at our paradise resort with large beautiful rooms with all the amenities. The rest of the night was spent eating and recovering from the day of travel, given there was some fun injected in those last few hours before bed.

Day 2 (August 26):

Since none of us wanted to waste much time with all the activities to do at the resort, we were up at a staggeringly early time of … 9 a.m. We grabbed some more all you can eat breakfast from one of the four restaurants on the resort then immediately transitioned to the ocean front. The group consensus was to snorkel and that is what we did. Not too much action there but it was still a great experience for everyone. We also took a trial dive in the pools just to see what it was look to scuba since the $100 fee was a bit much for us. Then after a relaxing afternoon on the beach we went for an hour drive to see The Three Eyes which was amazing, a natural cave with small pools and a lot of life.

We headed to the gym afterward to play our first game against Los Padros. The game went right down to the wire but we ended up winning by just a couple of points.

The bus ride back to the resort, for lack of a better word, was chaos. Pretty much no street signs, signals, lanes or any of the organization we love in the U.S. The horn is used about 75% of the time while on the streets and a red light doesn’t mean much here.

They are having a Michael Jackson show tonight at the resort and everyone is going to be at that which should be a lot of fun. The night is young and we have plenty of energy for a fun night.

Case in Brazil: Facing the pros

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The Case Western Reserve men’s basketball team is in Brazil, and blogging about the experience as well. Evan Tsudis writes:

I’m writing this blog after one of the hardest and more physical games of my career but I’ll pull a Pulp Fiction and keep you hanging. Last night we enjoyed our last night in Paraty. For a small colonial town it showed a lot of life at night. We enjoyed live music and attempted to converse in Portuguese with the locals. They even let Reid step up to the guitar and give Brazil a taste of his original music. After a nice rest we boarded the bus on the way to our game. Most watched movies or tried to contort their large bodies into small seats to sleep.

We arrived at our game around 6:00 local time. There were fans waiting for us to get off the bus and trying to get autographs. The gym was the nicest we have seen in Brazil and had a lot of life to it. Music was constantly playing and the stands were near capacity. After the playing of the national anthems and handshakes it was time to begin.

Basketball in Brazil and the United States is a bit different. The court and paint have different dimensions and the rules are interpreted differently. Physical play is encouraged and things like palming the ball and lane violations are at the discretion of the referee. The team we were against was a professional team and was extremely physically gifted. The combination of our rust and the other teams athleticism led to a 107 to 57 victory for our opponents. After the game we took pictures and signed autographs for the fans. Every place we’ve played we’ve been treated like rock stars and followed until we drive away.

This whole trip has been an amazing experience. It has been a great time to see new things and spend time with my teammates. Some of my favorite activities were our adventure at sea on the Sir Francis Drake yesterday and taking a picture with my Terrible Towel at Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. I’d also like to point out that my beach soccer team of Rob, Summers, Reid, Brian Curth, Bokan and myself are coming back to Cleveland 2-0 and looking for challengers. One shout out to my father, Peter Tsudis, who celebrated his birthday on Aug. 14.

Go Steelers!

Augie in China: Home again

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Augustana senior Kyle Nelson and his teammates took a summer trip to China. He blogged regularly on D3hoops.com about the team’s journey.

Augustana players and coaches in Japan

Whoa, what a trip! From Aug. 3-18, our Augie basketball team has traveled over 17,200 miles, visited eight cities, taken seven flights, rode one train, played five games, went through three of the world’s five largest airports (Chicago O’Hare, Beijing Capitol Airport and Tokyo Narita Airport), and toured many sites across East Asia. It was the kind of trip that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I’m certain that everyone else feels the same. From bartering in the markets of Hong Kong to climbing the Great Wall, we experienced so many things and saw plenty of differences between our home in America and East Asia that made us both miss home as well as view Asia in a completely new light.

From a basketball standpoint, this trip showed us how much Chinese people really embrace basketball. We know that basketball is still a growing sport in East Asia, but every person we came across was excited to see that we were a basketball team from the United States. Also, the fans at every game were incredibly great to us and cheered for our play just as much as they did for the home team. We were treated as special guests and the people made us feel very welcome because they saw how happy we were to be in their country.

At this point of the trip (roughly over South Dakota traveling at 696mph) we are all ready to get home. It has been a great trip and we have all learned a lot about ourselves both athletically and culturally, but we are anxiously awaiting seeing family and friends again before school starts on Monday.

I’d like to thanks everyone who read this blog for the duration of the trip, or even just once. I really enjoyed writing them and I hope you enjoyed reading them just as much. Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible and I hope to see everyone at the Carver Center during the season!

– Kyle Nelson