Quote from: Gregory Sager on March 23, 2023, 04:08:14 pm

Wow! I wonder if any league has swept both Josten's awards in the same season before?

Nice Ypsiism there GS!

Turnabout is fair play, FDF.

Maddux Dieckman, a 6'6" center from Moline HS, is going to attend Augustana.

Bob's reporting on Twitter that Cody Mitchell is playing his Covid year as a grad student at Roosevelt. This will be the last year for the Lakers in the NAIA and the CCAC; they're moving to D2 and the GLIAC in 2023-24.

I haven't heard any word yet as to whether or not Fillip Bulatovic and/or Dan Carr are getting any bites from scholarship schools.

Sorry, never watched it.

I can see where there were some strong egos back in 2003 that led to no discussion or consideration in the process. None of those people are still coaching so I am not sure how this alleged conspiracy continues.

Inertia, perhaps, or a sense that, "I'm the new guy, and this is the way that they do things around here, so I'm not going to rock the boat."

I can tell you that in football, in 1982 Lloyd Krumlauf was awarded COY after finishing 2nd because the undefeated coach, Augie's Bob Reade (RIP), asked the other coaches to vote for Lloyd because he thought he deserved it. I can also tell you that Mike Conway won in 2013 because John Thorne and Mike Swider basically demanded the other coaches vote for him. The same thing happened in 2018 for Larry Kindbom.

This basically proves my point that for the football coaches this is viewed as an open process. It may take one or two elder-statesmen voices to make it happen, but the precedents are there and the reality that someone other than the conference champion's head coach can be COY is both a matter of record and has multiple examples within very recent history.

Although there is no love lost between several of the CCIW football coaches, as you note, the sentiment among basketball coaches was very different with egos ruling the day way back when. I can't imagine Dennie Bridges telling the other coaches that Bosko deserved COY over him. And no one was going to bat for Grey Giovanne. I don't think that's true now.

I definitely agree. That's why I made the reference in my post yesterday to the 2003-era CCIW coaches being very much the products of past generations in which college basketball head coaches seemed to be a different breed than what they are now. I know that Sean has been impressed by the collegiality shown by his new CCIW coaching peers towards him, especially Anthony Figueroa and Mike Schauer in particular. I don't sense the holding-grudges vibes among the current crop of CCIW head coaches that seemed to be par for the course in the past, even among the ones who were known to socialize with each other on occasion in the off-season. Part of that is that the two current deans of CCIW MBB coaches, Schauer and Ron Rose, never really reflected that old sharp-elbows mentality, anyway.

I don't know if the Schauer vote this year was unanimous but I do know the Conway and Lindbom votes were definitely not unanimous. I just don't see the deductive reasoning that tells me the CCIW coaches vote is a rubber stamp today the way it was in 2003. I get the egos involved back then. But as you note, if there was some rubber stamp process there is enough of us in the know that would have heard more specifics. Otherwise how does Kramer Soderberg, Tom Jessee, Anthony Figueroa, Taylor Jannsen, and Sean Smith become part of the cabal?

You're doing the same thing as I am -- you're speculating in a vacuum regarding the inner workings of the COY vote. As I said, I've heard allusions to the gentlemen's agreement from the coaches, but I could never decipher how serious they were about it. They read the boards, after all, and they're aware of the regularly-recycled discussion on CCIW Chat regarding the alleged rubber stamp that they've been using for more than two decades now.

Certinly Bosko Jr and John Baines have enough experience that they may know where the "train station" is, but for me, it's hard to get on board with a multiple decades long rubber stamp without more compelling evidence.

We will have to agree to disagree on this, because the unbroken correspondence between award and championship over the past 21 years is to me more than compelling evidence that this is not a coincidence.

It is possible in my mind that this year there were two nominees and the coaches considered Schauer's resume (at that point) better than Sean Smith's. I would suspect if the vote was a week later, the result might have been flipped.

Taking for the sake of discussion that there is no rubber stamp, or that there was one but it left the premises with the departure of almost all of the old warhorses of CCIW MBB head coaching, what you're saying is certainly possible. It's also possible that, if this is true, Sean didn't win it because he's a newbie and Mike was the elder statesman who had never won it before and was past due to win it. I'd really hate it if that was the case, because Mike's performance as head coach this season deserved better than a lifetime achievement award, but ... again, this is all just uninformed speculation on both of our parts.

Kiko,

When you say this "Now I will bite my tongue about how Sean Smith wasn't even coach of the year in his own conference.  No disrespect to Mike Schauer, but the myopic tradition of simply handing this recognition to the coach of the regular season winner requires zero cognitive ability and does not reflect well on the conference's coaches." You are very much saying you disagree with the choice. Whether you deny you are saying that or not, 90%+ of every reader sees you as disagreeing with the choice. Just own it, it's fine to have an opinion on a public opinion board.

I disagree.

With all due respect, there are two parallel issues here that you're conflating. One is the process, the other is the selection that came out of that process in this particular iteration of the All-CCIW awards. Both kiko and I are against the process. There have been plenty of seasons in which I would've agreed that the championship coach was the most deserving of the COY award, and I still would've disagreed with the selection process. As for Mike Schauer and his 2022-23 coaching performance, neither kiko nor I are badmouthing it at all. I think it's the one thing we can all agree upon here.

Strictly speaking about the selection itself -- not the process -- would I have voted differently if I was a CCIW head coach and I had a say in this? Yes. I would've voted for Sean Smith. It's pretty apparent that kiko would've done the same. Does that mean that either of us considers Mike Schauer a bad choice for 2023 CCIW COY? Not at all. The first opinion does not negate the possibility of also holding the second opinion. The problem is that the process prevents the possibility of acting upon that first opinion. Because of the rubber stamp, there wasn't even the possibility of the coaches contesting the relative merits of Mike Schauer and Sean Smith, or of Ron Rose and Kramer Soderberg last season, etc.

Quote from: Gregory Sager on March 20, 2023, 11:44:15 am

Quote from: USee on March 19, 2023, 12:26:42 pm

Quote from: kiko on March 18, 2023, 08:11:35 pm

This is well-deserved (as is the All-American recognition for Tyson Cruickshank and Matt Helwig).

Now I will bite my tongue about how Sean Smith wasn't even coach of the year in his own conference.  No disrespect to Mike Schauer, but the myopic tradition of simply handing this recognition to the coach of the regular season winner requires zero cognitive ability and does not reflect well on the conference's coaches.  It should be taken to a farm upstate where it has plenty of room to roam and to shoot baskets against the barn all day long.

I am thrilled for Sean Smith as NCOY. Well deserved. To be fair, the CCIW coaches awarded Mike Schauer COY (his first time ever as COY) prior to NPU winning the CCIW tourney and advancing to the sweet 16. Schauer's squad finished a game clear of NPU for the regular season title and he took a team picked 4th in the conference and went 14-2 in one of the toughest conferences in the nation. His team also happened to advance to the elite 8, losing to National Champ CNU by 6. No disrespect to Sean Smith, who is deserving as NCOY, I think Mike's award as COY was deserved at the time it was awarded and the idea he was given it as a gratuitous tradition by the other coaches diminishes what is probably his best coaching job as Wheaton's head coach.

I have no argument with the rest of your comment, but the part I bolded strays from defensiveness into misconception.

It's not an "idea" that the CCIW head coaches annually award the COY honor to the coach(es) of the team(s) that win the league. It's a fact. The CCIW's MBB history page amply demonstrates the near-perfect correspondence between the COY and the conference champion -- including, as you yourself pointed out, seasons in which there were co-champions, in which case the COY award was shared as well. The lone exception was 2003, the second year that the COY award was given out by the league. The CCIW title was shared by Augustana, Carthage, and Illinois Wesleyan that season, but the award was only given to Scott Trost of Illinois Wesleyan. It would be difficult to prove, given the closed-mouthedness of CCIW head coaches where league awards are concerned, but my guess is that the gentlemen's agreement among them to annually award the COY to the conference champion's mentor, even if it meant splitting the award among the coaches of co-champions, dates back to that year. It's only a theory, but, given the egos and the hypercompetitiveness of that generation of CCIW head coaches, it makes total sense.

As for the tradition being "gratuitous", that's an eye-of-the-beholder statement. I'm sure that, if pressed, the coaches would've said that locking the COY award to the final standings keeps the peace among the nine men involved. Now, kiko considers that policy to be "cowardly", and that, too, is a judgment call. I think that "negligent" or "unnuanced" or "diminishing" (or kiko's original choice, "myopic") would be a better adjective there. I think that the COY loses some of its juice by the fact that it is a de facto rubber-stamp of an award ... which is why I can understand your defensive stance here regarding Mike Schauer's worthiness. But kiko's right that Schauer's a perfectly fine choice for 2023 COY, too -- particularly since, as you said, the award was given out prior to the CCIW tourney.

Quote from: USee on March 19, 2023, 07:11:44 pm

I think it has to be more than “perfectly fine choice” to give it to anyone besides the clear conference winner.  How many times has there been a no brainer winner that wasn’t the regular season champ? I wouldn’t have voted for Soderberg over Ron rose

Disagree ... and since you're a football guy I'm rather surprised to see you say this, given that the CCIW football coaches refuse to rubber-stamp their COY award and will award it on occasion to a coach whose program makes huge strides forward rather than merely giving it to a champion coach whose powerhouse program simply performed as expected. I seem to remember that the posters on the CCIW football board have talked before about how it's a good thing that the CCIW football coaches do it that way, in stark contrast to their hidebound basketball coaching brethren.

I'm not sure that the world would come to an end if the CCIW MBB coaches broke with tradition and adopted the more open-ended attitude of their football colleagues. There's been wholesale turnover in the MBB coaching ranks in this league in recent seasons; with Carroll's pending new hire, six of the nine CCIW head coaching jobs will have turned over since the Covid pandemic struck. It seems to me that the new breed of coaches don't have quite the sharp elbows of their predecessors as far as personal rivalries are concerned. This could be the perfect time for the new generation to set the old gentlemen's agreement aside and start awarding the COY based upon what they view as merit -- even if there isn't 100% consensus as to how that merit is measured -- rather than maintain a custom that only diminishes the award by making it automatic.

Greg,

You make some good points and I mostly agree with your discourse here. I would point out two things:

1-My choice of the word gratuitous was not a misconception, rather a reaction to Kiko saying "...simply handing this recognition to the coach of the regular season winner requires zero cognitive ability and does not reflect well on the conference's coaches". I understand your feeling that this is a rote excercise but I have not heard that specifically from any of the coaches directly. That doesn't prove or disprove your assertion.

You're right, it doesn't. What does prove it is: a) the total correspondence between COY and league champion since 2003; and b) the fact that, in the second year of the award, only one coach among the three championship coaches was given the award, and this involved some pretty obvious personal rivalries among outspoken men with very strong opinions and considerable egos (qualities very much in keeping with their generation of basketball coaches).

Two-decades-plus of total correspondence between award and standings is too much of a proven trend to be viewed as a mere coincidence. I don't view this as a "feeling" on my part, or on kiko's part, or on the part of anybody else who's spoken about the rubber-stamp nature of the CCIW MBB COY over the years. I view it as a logical deduction based upon totally compelling evidence, as well as a few cryptic allusions made to it by coaches and SIDs in the past.

2-Football is a very different animal. Most years there isn't a "co-COY" award because teams play each other just once and the winner gets it over the loser if there is a tie at the top. There have been 3.5 exceptions since 1978 to the COY CCIW football award that I am aware of. In 1982 NCC's Lloyd Krumlauf went 6-1-1 in 1982 (Augie went 8-0), Paul Krohn was awarded Co-COY after going 3-4 in his last year as head coach at Elmhurst (Swider was also awarded it as conference champion), Mike Conway was given the COY title in 2013 after going 3-4 in the league, and in 2018 Larry Kindbom was given the award after going 7-2 in WashU's first year in the league (NCC and IWU were 8-1). That's really only 3 times in 45 years the football champion wasn't at least Co-COY.

... but twice within the last decade. That's a stark contrast to the track record of the MBB coaches.

(Is it the sports version of a mixed metaphor if I refer to "the track record of the MBB coaches"?  )

Final poll is out.

* Wheaton finishes #6 (up from #9 prior to the tourney)
* North Park finishes #14 (up from #19 prior to the tourney)

https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2022-23/final

I agree with Pat. After watching the Twitter gif of Barber's arm going up and into Parker's chest, I'm fairly (but not 100%) sure that it was an offensive foul -- but the fact that Parker was backpedaling at the time gave the officials the luxury of not having to blow the whistle and thereby decide the national championship based upon that whistle, because it's impossible to say how much (if any) force was applied by Barber to accelerate Parker's self-propelled movement backwards.

I'm always one to argue that officials should call the final thirty seconds of a game the exact same way that it was called in the previous 39:30. But, given the stakes, I understand the human element involved, and I entirely sympathize with the officials. Until the day comes when we can have robots officiate a national championship game, a natty can only be decided by an official's call if the foul is clear and conclusive ... and, because of Parker's backpedaling, that foul wasn't.