MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

Started by Pat Coleman, February 24, 2005, 09:17:07 PM

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Pat Coleman

This is a great back-and-forth game right now.

Former WIAC BASEballer


Former WIAC BASEballer



Brian R. Carroll

A belated "Thank you" to Old School for his fine work in handling the pick 'em standings. I appreciate the effort.                Also, congrats to the Pick 'em winners. I envy your brilliance.

Same as Above

It's the same old story every year.  We envy the NCAA Division I tourney and its selection process (hordes of people analyzing, evaluating, debating, etc.).  Even then there is still a ruckus or three among the "bubble teams".  Multiply that by about 7 and you've got the idea for D-III.  When was the last time a team in Division III got an at large bid with double digit losses (or only a few more wins than losses)?  It happens every year in D-I.

Anyway, conferences such as the WIAC and the CCIW will continue to get "snubbed" even with the expansion of the tourney, because we beat up on eachother AND there are way too many freaking automatics (which isn't a problem at D-I) Unfortunately, I'm afraid it will never change, and we'll continue with our annual grumblings.

Same as Above

You're right Cab.  How many CCIW teams matched up with WIAC teams last season.  If I'm not mistaken, it was only two.  Elmhurst vs. Platteville, and North Central vs. Oshkosh.  The 200 mile does play a role, in that both of those games counted towards their regional records.  Both games were great battles, and I as a fan would love to see more heavyweight matchups.  I think the players would be in agreement also.

Nobody on Oshkosh's team would rather play Maranatha Baptist over Illinois Wesleyan's team or vice versa.  Right?!

Mr. Downtown

I think TVD and Oshkosh would love a shot at Illinois Wesleyan just to get them prepared for perhaps a future dance run.  

Here is a suggestion, how about condensing the regions. I'm sure since I haven't been posting since 1998 unlike some...though if there were only 4 regions, that would allow conferences like CCIW and the WIAC to play each other more often. Seeing that they would HAVE to put both of them in the same region (also add in the MWC).  

North
South  
East
West

That's all. I mean cmon, Football does it that way and how many teams get to go to the playoffs. Thats right, 32 now throughout the nation. However, it allows teams like Stevens Point travel and host a team like Linfield (OR), who is the number 1 team in the nation. They have less "wildcard or pool C" teams make it in. Though with the way they run nonconference games, its more of WHO you beat, rather then "how was your regional record?"

This way, I think teams from the CCIW and the WIAC would get a little more slack (Kinda like the Big Ten and the ACC in D-I) when considering Pool C bids. Yes, Old School is right. No one from the WIAC was close last year. If Platteville was able to beat Whitewater, then who knows, perhaps still a long shot.  

If the regions were condensed, coaches could still schedule great games that perhaps have more of the nation paying attention to them (kinda like an Illinois Wesleyan vs UW-Oshkosh). Though, until that happens. I guess teams will have to schedule tournament games during winter break all over the country (the Oshkosh men are going to Vegas, while the women are going to Atlanta), and still take on teams like Edgewood, Carrol, Ripon, and Lawerence everyear. And hope they finish with only 3 conference losses to earn a Pool C bid.

Point Special

Downtown,

There are more basketball teams than football teams.  I don't have the number, but I bet Pat could fill us in (as he runs the best D3 football AND D3 basketball sites in the country, and he's got a derth of information swimming around in his head).  And, though the West SEEMS like it's pretty illogical, with schools from the midwest (small "m") and from the left coast in the same region, for the most part, the other regions are pretty logical. Especially with the new 200 mile rule, there isn't a whole lot that the NCAA can do to divide up the nation.  And even though fans from the CCIW and the WIAC would love to see regular season match-ups that MEAN something, to put them in the same region would skew the "balance of power" too far to the Midwest (the seeminly "logical" region for the WIAC to be in).

When it all gets down to it, the WIAC (and CCIW, and any other conference than tends to beat itself up) needs to take care of business in the non-conference if they want any chance of the NCAA tourney.  That's not a guarantee, even with the extra bids, but think of Point last year... they would have had 6 in-region losses, all to conference teams (the 6th would have had to come in the conf tourney).  They might have had a chance with the extra bids to get into the NCAA's, but other teams we've talked about, namely River Falls, would not, because they had non-con losses on top of their WIAC losses.

Mr. Ypsi

Mr. Downtown,

You can already schedule Linfield in region in bball - you're both in the West!  And a possible explanation for only 4 regions in fball vs 8 in bball in that there are nearly twice as many bball schools: 394 vs 231, last numbers I saw.

Nonetheless, I agree with your point.  If the NCAA keeps the 8 regions in bball, I'd love to see an 'adjacent region' rule as well as the in-region and 200-mile rules.  I was really looking forward to a UWSP-IWU showdown last spring - I really thought they were the two top teams, and regretted that it would occur in the Elite Eight rather than the championship game.  Alas, we did not uphold our part of the match-up! http://discus.d3hoops.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":-)" BORDER=0>

Mr. Downtown

I just wonder how many out there think that this is to enhance their regional rankings, or a money issue why we don't see too many outside nonconference match ups?

Old School

Cabs beat me to it.  Linfield is in the West, just like Point.  I don't recall the numbers and I'm too lazy to look it up, even though it's on this site, but if you took the WIAC out of the West Region, there would hardly be any West Region teams.  

I was actually thinking about a UAA situation where you could put WIAC teams like Platteville, Oshkosh, Whitewater and Point in the Midwest Region, while keeping Superior, River Falls, Eau Claire, La Crosse and Stout in the West Region.  This way, the first four teams could play Midwest Region teams while conference games would still be considered "in-region."  Sure, the WIAC/CCIW games are good in concept, but, really, how many WIAC teams are within 200 miles of CCIW teams (or MWC for that matter)?  I don't know (again, too lazy to look!)

As selfish as it might sound, I'll have to disagree with S.A.B.'s comment about who a team wants to play.  As most of us know, some of the selection criteria is based on SOSI and winning %.  Based on mathematics, a good team would rather play a bad team with the "assumption" of winning than go up against another good team with a better chance of losing.  

Beating a poor team at home is worth 8 points (winning % below .333), while losing to a good team (winning % at/above .667) on the road is only worth 7 points.

The big battles are good for the progam's image and helps attendence as a Ill. Wes. vs. Osh. game sounds a lot more intriguing than Ill. Wes. or Osh. playing some bottom-feeder team.  But, at the end, winning % and SOSI rule, IMO.

Granted, sometimes I hate to see Point's nonconference schedule because I say to myself, "Great, now we get to beat up on so-and-so."  But, at least we don't have nonconference losses! http://discus.d3hoops.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif" ALT=":-)" BORDER=0>

Mr. Ypsi

OS, AMEN!

I find it rather sad that BEATING a Williams or Hampton-Sydney (traditional east coast powers) counts absolutely nothing, while beating [I don't wanna get flamed - insert your own midwestern patsy here!] counts at least 8 points.  Unless you are REALLY confident, why schedule an in-region power: an in-region win against 'powder-puff' still counts more than an in-region loss against 'national champion'.

When the lowest win still scores above the highest loss (sorry, but losing to UWSP by one is a bit MORE impressive than beating Cal Tech by one!), there is an obvious problem - overcome by human polls [and some computer polls] - but obviously not by d3 selection committees!

For reasons that were thoroughly hashed out last bball season (and, no doubt, will be again this season), SOSI as currently calculated is a total crock!  But it is what we've got, so....

Gregory Sager

PS, those teams (Ripon, Lakeland, Edgewood) don't have to be powerhouses in general D3 terms. They need only be powerhouses in terms of their own leagues to make them useful non-conf opponents for UWSP and other WIAC schools, since their strong conference records will give them decent regional records, thus boosting the SOSIs of UWSP and any other WIAC schools that play them. And that's why scheduling them is so advantageous to WIAC schools; with the exception of Lawrence the past couple of years, even the best MWC and LMC teams are going to struggle to beat mid-level WIAC teams.

Bennett's actually put together a decent sked for UWSP this season in terms of tailoring it to D3 criteria. While only Northland is a West Region team (they're an "actual" now), Ripon, Edgewood, and Lakeland are all within 200 miles of the UWSP campus and are thus regional opponents for the Pointers. That's four regional non-conference games where the Pointers can make hay (although Northland probably won't help the UWSP SOSI).

Clarke hasn't put the participants in their 2005-06 eight-team tourney on their schedule, but going by their tourney fields over the past three years it's not likely that UWSP will face more than one opponent that qualifies as in-region. Clarke likes to invite NAIA teams, as well as D3 Great Lakes and Midwest teams that're beyond the pale as far as the Pointers are concerned.

And the games against NAIA members Cardinal Stritch and Viterbo are superfluous by D3 standards, although since Stritch finished 24-11 and Viterbo was 18-14 in 2004-05, they might be good opponents for the Pointers in strictly competitive terms. UWSP plays Viterbo every year, and more often than not they meet in Stevens Point rather than LaCrosse. I don't know why Bennett put Cardinal Stritch on the UWSP sked; it could be for competitive purposes, it could be because he couldn't find another regional game, or it could be because CSU agreed to a one-game contract in which the Wolves would visit UWSP with no guarantee of a return game in Milwaukee in 2006-07. NAIA teams frequently accede to scheduling such one-offs with NCAA teams, since they have 32 regular-season dates to fill each season.

It boils down to the Pointers playing 5 or so regional non-conf games to go with their 16 regional games within the WIAC and however many they play in the WIAC tourney. That's pretty typical for a WIAC team; UW-Whitewater's likely going to be playing 5 regional non-conf games (assuming a UWW win over Loras and a North Central win over RMC-Springfield in the opening round of the NCC Tipoff Tourney). UW-Platteville's only going to play 4.

Five games is a little less than a quarter of the regional games UWSP will play in 2005-06, and a little more than a fifth of the regional games they'll play if they make it two rounds into the WIAC tourney.

Gregory Sager

Another handicap besides geography or intimidation in terms of WIAC teams scheduling regional non-conf games, perhaps even bigger than the handicap of WIAC cannibalization (since it's not a given that the league will beat itself up from top to bottom every year), is the size of the league itself. There's nine teams in the WIAC, which in a double round-robin means 16 conference games. UWSP and its sister schools are thus often matching regional records against teams from seven- or eight-team leagues that have two or four extra non-conf games that they can tailor to their own specs. Of course, there's also leagues such as the MIAC and the ASC that have even less flexibility than the WIAC.

Guys, as far as your complaints about D3's regional geography and the strict emphasis D3 places upon regional games are concerned, you're preaching to the choir. We'd all like to see competition enhanced on this level by enabling better regular-season matchups, a la more CCIW vs. WIAC contests. But what you have to keep in mind is that D3 does not consider competition to be its top priority, as sad as that sounds. It considers proximity (i.e., forcing schools to schedule games close to campus so that students aren't missing classes) and participation (i.e., every full-member league gets an automatic postseason bid) to take priority over competition. And that's not going to change. Those things are central to what D3 is all about, for better or worse.