Tag Archives: Birmingham-Southern

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The Scoop on D3 Women’s Hoops: 2 head coaching hires + BSC survives…for now

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Good morning and welcome to another week of the offseason! Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. He is Risen!

Getting to another D3 WBB update…there was some notable news in the world of coaching towards the end of last week. I’m also anticipating a few more head coaching hires to be made in the coming week, though time will tell. Several jobs remain open, the most notable being the head coaching positions at Loras and Mary Hardin-Baylor.

The first head coaching hire came in the Pacific Northwest, when George Fox University hired an alum in Lauren Howard to lead the program. Howard, who played for the Northwest Conference program from 2013-2015, was a key cog in the Bruins’ run to the D-III national title game in 2014-15, starting all 33 games on a team that went 32-1.

With that background, this hire makes sense. This is a program that could be competitive in what is a somewhat wide-open league and went 11-14, 8-8 (NWC) this past season. I don’t see this being a major rebuild for Howard, and she will have a great recruiting base there in the western part of Oregon. Plus, as previously mentioned, she has seen this program at its peak and knows what it takes at this school specifically to reach that point. That is very valuable. I really like this hire.

Howard comes back to George Fox from D-I Portland, where she was the Director of Basketball Operations. Last season, Portland reached the NCAA Tourney for the first time in 26 years. Pretty impressive stuff. Howard was a high school head coach prior to that, so she has both collegiate coaching experience and high school head coaching experience. Now it’s about combining those two things.

The second head coaching hire of the week came in the WIAC, where Shelby Lyman was promoted to head coach at UW-River Falls after serving as the interim for the entirety of the past season. A four-year member of the coaching staff at UWRF, Lymna was promoted to the interim HC job from her assistant coaching role following the departure of former head coach Blake DuDonis, who took an assistant coaching role at D-I Fairfield. UWRF fought hard within a very deep conference this past season, posting a 14-11 record and 4-10 mark in WIAC play. Amongst the highlights of the 2022-23 campaign, UWRF took down UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire, both NCAA Tournament teams.

“I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to lead this program and grateful for the support and belief that Crystal Lanning and Kellen Wells-Mangold have in myself and our staff,” Lyman said in a UWRF press release. “I love River Falls, I love being able to work with our incredible student-athletes day in and day out and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Falcon women’s basketball.”

UWRF had four seniors on its roster this past season, including two of the three who started all 25 games for the Falcons. However, both Julia Seidel and Annie Feine, who started 15+ games for UWRF, are likely to return for the upcoming season. There is the possibility that some or all of the four seniors will return, including Macy Nilsen, who has played four collegiate seasons and was named All-WIAC last month.

Well, Birmingham-Southern College (out of the Southern Athletic Association) will survive a little bit longer, per an announcement by the college’s Board of Trustees on Thursday of last week. It was decision day for the institution, located in Birmingham, Ala., as students, faculty, and staff were allowed into a meeting announcing the future of the university.

If BSC was unable to pull together ample funding, it would have been forced to close its doors following the spring, which would have been a travesty, considering their athletics have been decently good in recent years, led by its baseball team, ranked #1 in the nation. However, the board announced it received $46M from private donors. While this does not mean the school is safe for the next decade, it does give the school more time to reach its goal of a $200M endowment. The fundraising process will continue, but we will have BSC around for at least another year.

The WBB program was decent in the SAA this season, known for its fast-paced style of play and 95.7 points per game, which ranked No. 1 nationally. The team posted a 13-13 record with a 6-8 mark in SAA play, under 7th-year head coach Mike Ricks. Recruiting has likely been difficult, as the financial situation was public dating back to December.

Hopefully Thursday’s news will allow Ricks and his staff to bring in a quality freshman class. Although, the future of BSC is still in doubt, which is still going to make recruiting difficult until the school is on more solid ground.

Scranton scored pretty big on the recruiting front with Rider (D-I) transfer Victoria Toomey, who played in 20+ games for all four years of her time at Rider. She’ll be a grad transfer to head coach Ben O’Brien’s squad, and there’s a connection there, as Toomey played for O’Brien at Dunmore high school. It is not often you see players who started at the D-I level transfer to a D-III, but it does happen on occasion. Toomey not only started but averaged 9.0 points and 4.5 rebounds per game this past season. At 6’2, she could be a game-changer for Scranton and have the sort of impact Katie Titus had at Rochester this past year. We shall see.

Hope also picked up commitments from Class of 2024 prospects in Leah and Anna Richards. From talking with a couple people, the program they play for at Lansing Catholic is top-level in the state of Michigan (Reigning D-II state champs), and there are some Hope connections there. Brian Morehouse continues to score big with top-level high school players in the western Michigan area, and to get commitments this soon is also fairly impressive.

That’s all I have on this Monday morning. Plan to check in later in the week as I’m willing to bet something notable will come up. Something news-worthy always seems to show up, even as we look into a calendar with six straight months of no games! We shall see. In the meantime, have a great week and as always, feel free to email me at rileyzayas@gmail.com with tips/feedback/thoughts or DM me on Twitter (@ZayasRiley).

The case for Centenary (La.) and D-III

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The Shreveport Times broke a story on Wednesday that Centenary College, in Shreveport, La., had an exploratory meeting with the presidents of the American Southwest Conference as part of what seems to be “due diligence” concerning its ongoing intercollegiate athletics program.

The other Division III conference is reported to be the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, whose presidents are scheduled to meet in the next 1-2 weeks. The report also said that two other D-1 conferences were being evaluated.

Thursday’s Shreveport Times reported on a news conference held by men’s basketball coach Greg Gary who completed his first year as head coach. Gary said that he thought D-I was the place for Centenary.

Centenary College, a private liberal arts college of 854 undergrads, and its athletic community are at a crossroads.

Centenary College has been a member of the Summit League, a non-football D-1 conference formerly known as the Mid-Continent Conference, since 2003. The Summit League spans nine states with its 10 full members, from Oakland College in Rochester, Mich., to Southern Utah in Cedar City, Utah. All other members are state schools except Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa. Four Summit League members play FCS football.

Travel from Shreveport to the rest of the league requires one and two layovers in major hubs. Air travel out of Shreveport goes to Memphis, DFW, Houston Intercontinental and Atlanta. There is no direct flight to Chicago from Shreveport, a feature that Oral Roberts in Tulsa enjoys. Fellow Summit league member Oral Roberts is still 347 miles away from Shreveport.

Centenary was recently placed on a postseason ban in men’s basketball for poor Academic Progress Rates (APR). The Centenary baseball program was also under scrutiny for APR issues in 2008-09.

The economic downturn is said to have decreased earnings from Centenary endowments by $1.5 million. The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) 2008 report gave Centenary’s endowment at $118 million as of June 30, 2008. Centenary reported that the endowment was down 20% this year. The 2008 endowment was less than nearby D-III schools Austin, Southwestern and Trinity (Texas).

Centenary currently awards scholarships in men’s and women’s basketball, golf, soccer, swimming and tennis, baseball, softball and women’s gymnastics and volleyball. Full D-I funding for those varsity sports would entail 107.9 men’s scholarships and 112 scholarships for women, roughly 25% of the undergraduate student body. At current tuition rates of $22,000 per year, that is $4.8 million for 219.9 scholarships, a sum greater than the annual yield of the entire endowment at a prudent 4% rate of draw.

The challenge to find another D-I conference in the south is problematic. The Southland Conference is comprised of D-I (FCS for football) schools from Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. All 12 members are public schools. Eight currently play football. Two more have announced the addition/restoration of football, and one is studying restoring football. The announced fundraising efforts to accomplish this have been in the tens of millions of dollars.

The Sun Belt Conference is a BCS-football conference of 13 schools over eight states including Louisiana. Louisiana Tech is in the Western Athletic Conference. The other, better known D-I options are not plausible.

Centenary has not mentioned the option of a non-football D-II conference, which would be the Heartland Conference, which extends the 1050 miles from Laredo, Texas to Jefferson City, Missouri.

So, Centenary has two options in Division III.

The American Southwest Conference is a 15-member conference in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi that is divided into two divisions, East and West. The eight-member West Division is west and south of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Centenary is right in the middle of the seven-member East Division. Six of the seven ASC-East members are within a three-hour bus ride on the interstate from Shreveport. Being the eighth member would balance the “travel partner” schedule used by the ASC.

The ASC sponsors every varsity sport that Centenary offers except swimming and women’s gymnastics. Several ASC members have varsity or club swimming programs. men’s club lacrosse, which Centenary has, is being explored by a few ASC schools. Centenary swimming might be the catalyst for the ASC to add the sport. Women’s gymnastics might be the only casualty in a move to D-III. The membership of the ASC has seen four members add football in the last decade, which would also be an option for Centenary.

The case that the ASC makes is almost complete accommodation for Centenary’s sports, geographic proximity, and a minimum of missed class time. The ASC offered charter membership to Centenary when the conference was formed in 1996. The conference would presumably love to have Centenary.

The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference is expected to receive the Centenary delegation at its Presidents’ meeting later this month. Although geographically more dispersed than the ASC, the SCAC can host all of Centenary’s sports except varsity gymnastics. The burgeoning interest in men’s lacrosse in the SCAC is also a plus for Centenary’s club team. If Centenary follows the model used by Birmingham-Southern when it announced its move to D-III in 2006, then male sports such as football and lacrosse are integral to the strategy. Centenary’s re-instituting football could become the SCAC’s 10th football program. The current male: female ratio of the student body is 42:58. Adding football might bring that closer to parity. (The SCAC does not sponsor women’s gymnastics either.)

The “fit” as a peer institution is what may give the SCAC its inside track. Centenary is one of 16 schools in the Associated Colleges of the South.

Fellow ACS members in the SCAC include Birmingham-Southern, Centre, Hendrix, Millsaps, Rhodes, Sewanee, Southwestern and Trinity (Texas). (Other D-III schools in the ACS include Spelman and Washington and Lee.)

Centenary would strengthen the western side of the SCAC. The SCAC has maintained that it wants to be a 12-member conference, but Colorado College’s decision to drop football this spring probably took some of the luster of having the Colorado Springs, Colo., school in the league. DePauw, in Greencastle, Ind., is another geographically isolated member of the conference. Since the SCAC uses a travel partner format for scheduling, the departure of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (Terre Haute, Ind.) from the SCAC because of travel constraints and missed class time for its student-athletes has made DePauw’s isolation more pronounced.

Centenary joined the Summit League in 2003. It has won an average of seven games in men’s basketball in the last five seasons. The budget crunch that has hit all college athletic programs seems to be affecting Centenary. B. David Rowe will become the 12th president of Centenary on August 1st. Dr Rowe is a Southwestern grad and has spent time at Emory and LaGrange. He has a solid D-III background. However, the decision may be made by the time that he begins.

The Centenary board has hard decisions to make, but Division III athletics seems to have more plusses than minuses for a school that prides itself in its academic reputation.