Insider: Megan Scheele, Edgewood College

Posted on by

Hello, my name is Megan Scheele and I am the only senior on the Edgewood College women’s basketball team. I came from a small town near Madison called New Glarus.

 

As I enter the first month or so of practice and think about the upcoming season, I’m thinking to myself, I can’t believe I’m a senior and this is going to be my last year playing basketball here at Edgewood College.  I remember coming in my freshmen year being so nervous and didn’t talk much at all; oh, how times have changed for me!  Now I’m the only senior on the team and have lots of freshmen and newbies coming in the same way I was, nervous and scared to talk.  But I tell myself I can’t think of this as being my last year; I say to myself, let this be the best year. 

 

In my eyes as the team practices; we get better each day, we get to know one another, we see what everyone brings to the table, but most of all we work hard.  All of those things right there are what make me believe that this will be the best year.  We are a young team having one senior, two juniors, six sophomores, and four freshmen, but look to use what everyone has to offer and come together as a team and be a powerful team in the NAC. 

 

Our conference is very competitive and you never know who’s going to win each night someone plays… this is something I love and makes it fun to compete in.  We are a very team oriented program and live up to that.  We play team defense, win or lose as a team, but most important we stay together through the ups and downs of the season.  We start off our season this weekend up in Adrian, Michigan and we participate in a two day tournament.  We can’t wait to start play and are very excited for the season to get underway. 

New Insiders coming

Posted on by

Just writing to let people know that we have some new Insider bloggers coming to D3hoops.com this season. We should start seeing blog posts from Iowa, New York, Texas and Wisconsin starting soon, as well as Insiders returning from last season, if they are interested.

Sean Wallis, who blogged for us last season as his Washington-St. Louis team made their run to the national championship, is healthy and ready to go on the floor for the Bears, and on the Net as well from what we hear.

Also, we’ll have our first Around the Nation column of the season coming out tonight, all in preparation for Saturday’s tipoff of the 2008-09 season!

In the fold

Posted on by

Since we’re entering 2008 – 2009 schedules into our system, this is a good time to mention that nine teams are now “active” members of Division III. That means they are eligible for rankings and post-season participation.

The nine members who are fully in the fold are:

• Bethany Lutheran (UMAC)
• Crown (Minn.) (UMAC)
• Maine-Presque Isle (Independent)
• Minnesota-Morris (UMAC)
• Mount Aloysius (AMCC)
• Northwestern (Minn.) (UMAC)
• Penn State-Berks (NEAC)
• SUNY-Purchase (Skyline)
• Salem (Independent)

Four of these schools are in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) along with St. Scholastica, Martin Luther and Northland. That leaves Presentation as the only UMAC team that isn’t a full member yet.

This also brings the active Division III membership to 429 schools, a net increase of seven from 2007 – 2008 since Maryville (Mo.) and non-D3hoopsters Cal State-East Bay are headed to Division II.

Assuming the NCAA keeps the same policy as last year, schools in the third or fourth year of the four-year process to become active members are not eligible for the post-season. But games against them count in the primary tournament selection criteria. That means games against the following teams are regional contests:

Fourth Year

• Mitchell (NECC)
• Mount Mary (Independent)
• Presentation (UMAC)
• Morrisville State (SUNYAC)

Third Year

• Lancaster Bible (Independent)
• La Sierra (Independent)
• Lyndon State (NAC)
• North Central (Minn.) (Independent)
• St. Vincent (PrAC)

There are four teams in the second year of their provisional status. Games against these teams don’t count as regional contests, but we will track them on our site.

• Franciscan of Steubenville, Ohio (AMCC)
• Geneva of Beaver Falls, PA (PrAC)
• Penn State-Harrisburg (NEAC)
• St. Joseph’s of Brooklyn, NY (Independent)

Three schools are in their first year of provisional status – Cincinnati-Clermont, Spalding (Ky.) and Cobleskill (NY) State. There are also seven schools in the exploratory phase, most of which are in the Nebraska or Georgia. We’ll wait to track these guys, but you can see the list here.

Other than the schools who became eligible for post-season play, the real winners are the teams in the West region who have a few more places they can get regional games.

Obscure stuff? Yep. But hopefully it comes in handy come regional ranking time. 🙂

All the King’s H-O-R-S-Es

Posted on by

“Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the backboard, nothing but net…”

Remember that commercial featuring Larry Bird and Michael Jordan making trick shots for the right to eat MJ’s Big Mac? Ever wonder what it would be like to really play an NBA star in H-O-R-S-E?

David Kalb, a graduate of Capital University, found out earlier this month. He entered a contest sponsored by a lawn mower company in which the winner had a chance to play NBA superstar Lebron James in a game of H-O-R-S-E. As Marcia Smith of the Orange County (Calif.) Register explains, Kalb has had an interesting journey from the small town of Bucyrus, Ohio to his Southern California showdown with James.

If you haven’t seen the video yet, you can see Kalb versus “King” James here.

Dallas and the NEAC

Posted on by

In an era where the price of a barrel of oil has gone through the roof, where air travel has become slower, more expensive and less convenient and where conferences as big as the WAC have talked about making changes to their schedules to save money, the North Eastern Athletic Conference has expanded into that bastion of the Northeast: Dallas, Texas.

I almost don’t have to say anything more, do I?

This is what pursuit of the automatic bid can do to you. We don’t know how the conference will schedule itself this season or how it will actually determine who gets the AQ (remember, that’s the conference’s decision, not the NCAA’s), but at some point, someone will be getting on a plane from New York or Pennsylvania to Dallas and seemingly vice versa.

I’m not sure this is what Division III is all about. I can’t imagine what the Division IV crowd would think of such a thing. I also can’t imagine what these schools are thinking: It’s not like these are the University of Chicagos, NYUs and Case Western Reserves of the world, large research institutions with endowments to match. The NEAC is made up of athletic departments so small that one coach told me a couple years ago their program could only schedule 22 games because that was all they could afford, not the Division III standard 25.

I feel for the University of Dallas, which has lived the lonely life of an independent ever since leaving the American Southwest Conference early this decade in hopes of gaining admission to the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. And I feel for the NEAC, which has seen its membership change faster than the Law & Order cast,  but I can’t see spending all this money in pursuit of an automatic bid. And if the conference doesn’t play a full round-robin in order to save money, then why bother? You’d only be crowing an illegitimate champ.

Championship access is all well and good, but at what cost?