The daily dish on Division III basketball
Four Hardin-Simmons women’s basketball players have found their summer job by creating one. Lindsay Steinberger, Lindsay Thompson, Melissa Contrucci and Laci Thompson have started a summer lawn maintenance service.
More in the Abilene (Texas) Reporter News.
Thankfully, there aren’t any restrictions on student-athlete income at the D-III level.
We’re told to expect some more conference shuffling today, as the SCAC made the foregone-conclusion addition of Birmingham-Southern official on Thursday afternoon.
Today, we’re expecting to see Centenary and Notre Dame (Md.) added to the increasingly misnomered Pennsylvania Athletic Conference. Notre Dame is effectively an independent with the breakup of the Atlantic Women’s Colleges Conference. But Centenary becomes the fourth team to leave the Skyline in nine months, joining Stevens (which left two conferences in that time), Kings Point and Manhattanville.
Oh, sorry, Kings Point has finally decided between its two interchangeable names and wants to be known as the United States Merchant Marine Academy. We’ll settle for Merchant Marine.
Remember, Manhattanville joined the MAC Freedom, Stevens the Interstate 8, then the Empire 8, and Kings Point the Interstate 8.
We’re expecting a name for the Interstate 8 … which is currently 7 … but not an eighth school. That’s yet to come. The only word we’ve heard around namewise for this league contains “Chesapeake.” That would be interesting for Drew and Merchant Marine, since I am reminded every time I drive north on 95 (the Interstate, remember?) that the Chesapeake Bay watershed terminates significantly south of Northern Jersey.
I still like my name better.
But the question remains over the future of the Skyline. They’d be down to seven teams in men’s. Having Russell Sage on board (still no word) would help the women’s side, though with SUNY-Maritime struggling to field a women’s basketball team there isn’t much of a buffer. And the league wouldn’t have too many automatic bids outside of basketball. What’s next? Raid the NEAC? They’re at 10 teams and falling for 2007-08 after losing Villa Julie (CAC) and Chestnut Hill (moving down to Division II). Polytechnic and Bard are in the Skyline’s footprint. Perhaps the Skyline could be absorbed by the NEAC (or vice versa) and form a “super” conference.
I use the term loosely.
The dominoes are still falling.
PHILADELPHIA — Gordon Mann and I are at Lincoln Financial Field at the Division III men’s lacrosse championships. Salisbury leads Cortland State 7-6 at the half.
It’s a nice, hot, sunny, hot day here at the home of the Philadelphia Eagles, where the lower bowl is about three-quarters full. It’s been a back-and-forth game, but the Sea Gulls, winners of 69 consecutive games, took the lead late in the second quarter. Mike Felice has two goals and two assists for Cortland, while Jimmy Creighton and Matt Dasinger each have two goals for the Sea Gulls.
The game is broadcast on CSTV for those watching at home. Back down to the field.
We don’t hear much from UC Santa Cruz, which hasn’t had much to talk about in basketball. (Perhaps if we covered soccer or tennis we might hear from the home of the Banana Slugs.) But another reason we don’t hear from them is that the department is extremely poorly funded, and is at the mercy of the student body. The students narrowly voted down a proposal to increase their own fees to better fund the department.
The local paper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, has written a couple of stories on the endangered species, first a news story, then a column. They’re worth reading, even if the columnist’s math is a little fuzzy, claiming the men’s basketball team pushed close to a .500 record (they finished 9-18).
Birmingham-Southern fans, coaches, student-athletes:
Welcome to Division III.
We don’t harbor any delusions that you want to be here. From the outside, Division III doesn’t compare very favorably to Division I. But let’s be honest: Birimgham-Southern wasn’t a Division I power, and the trip from Division I mid-major to Division III isn’t as far as you might think.
Your school is giving scholarship money to more than 200 people solely based on athletic ability. When that stops, your institution will be able to redirect that money to award need-based or academic-based aid. That will raise the level of the student body and, in fact, will increase the value of your degree.
You may not think much of your likely new fellow conference members, but let’s be honest — it’s not like the Big South is populated by well-known names. High Point? UNC Asheville? Radford? Winthrop? Rhodes, Trinity University, Austin College, Colorado College and others have stellar reputations, and they are not based on being on the 13, 14 or 15 line every March … or by being the brainchild of a televangelist.
Coaches and administrators: I expect you have no desire to be in Division III. If you are at all conflicted about the Division III mission, I would suggest leaving. You can’t be half-hearted about Division III. It’s a challenge. But if you’ve ever faced a halfway-decent Division III program you know one thing: This is not glorified high school ball.
A further discussion of the issues is posted in our Q&A with Birmingham-Southern president David Pollick.