A couple months ago we noted that it had been a bad couple years for NBA alumni coaching in D-III, but that Armon Gilliam was still coaching at Penn State-Altoona.
St. Vincent turned down for NEC
St. Vincent was turned down for membership in the Division I Northeast Conference yesterday, according to a report in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Why should you care? St. Vincent, an NAIA member which competes in the association’s Division I for basketball, has been discussed as a possible future Division III member. If so, they’d be a natural for the Presidents’ Athletic Conference.
“I think, should they decide to go Division III, we would welcome their formal application,” Joe Onderko, PAC information director, told the newspaper.
Another western Pennsylvania NAIA school, Seton Hill, is in the pipeline to enter Division III, but is making noises about either going to Division II or staying NAIA. Of course, this is the same school that objected when we ran a story on D3football.com about them entering the Division III pipeline, since they didn’t understand the Division III process. 🙂
Is it 2005-06 already?
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.
Why Billy Edelin isn’t going to Roanoke
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.
Draftees who play hardball
Tuesday was the first day of the major league baseball draft, and seven Division III baseball players were selected:
Eastern Connecticut left-handed pitcher Ryan DiPietro was a sixth-round pick of the Royals (No. 172 overall). MLB’s scouting bureau report says he has a similar frame to former big-leaguer John Tudor.
UW-Whitewater right-handed pitcher Gregory Reinhard was a sixth-round pick of the Devil Rays (No. 178 overall). He is described as having a Jason Marquis build with a Mark Mulder approach.
Calvin right-handed pitcher James Deters was a seventh-round pick of the Indians (No. 214 overall).
Millsaps shortstop Garner Wetzel was a 10th-round pick of the Rockies (No. 297 overall).
Illinois Wesleyan left-handed pitcher Cory Lapinski was an 11th-round selection of the Astros (No. 344 overall).
Southern Maine right-handed pitcher Thomas Fairchild was a 12th-round selection of the Astros (No. 374 overall).
Alvernia catcher Anthony Recker was an 18th-round selection of the A’s (No. 551 overall). Moneyball readers will be glad to know he had a .544 on-base percentage and led the team with 29 walks in 200 plate appearances, striking out 23 times.
Feel free to post updates from the draft’s second day here. We’ll try to check in as well. With 50 rounds to the draft, there will certainly be more names.