BB: NAC: North Atlantic Conference

Started by Ralph Turner, May 31, 2008, 02:19:03 PM

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kscer

Quote from: Ralph Turner on April 29, 2012, 08:02:52 PM
The affiliation agreement between the NAC and the NEAC in baseball (and women's lacrosse) will end after the 2012 season.

Let's see if the NAC front office has gotten all of the administrative paperwork done to regain the Pool A bid in 2013.

I will bet that they have.

The net effect will be for there to be one less Pool C bid in 2013.
Ralph, has the NAC picked up an eighth team? How many AQ's will that make for New England?

Ralph Turner

Here is the NAC (NEAC-East).  It only takes 7 schools to earn the AQ.

Castleton State    21-3    0.875    159    54       30-14    0.682    284    164    6-4    Won 4
Thomas    19-5    0.792    157    60       25-17    0.595    228    187    3-7    Lost 2
Husson    14-8    0.636    120    75       19-18    0.514    187    200    6-4    Lost 2
Colby-Sawyer    10-14    0.417    74    101       20-22    0.476    162    174    6-4    Lost 2
New England College    8-16    0.333    73    134       21-17    0.553    193    185    5-5    Won 1
Maine-Farmington    7-16    0.304    91    142       8-28    0.222    123    259    3-7    Lost 3
Lyndon State    3-20    0.130    44    152       5-26    0.161    71    229    3-7    Lost 4



I count 8 AQ's in New England when the NAC gets it AQ again.

GNAC
LEC
MASCAC
NAC
NECC
NESCAC
NEWMAC
TCCC

gap to gap

2 leagues with no business getting a team in.

KSCfan

Wow the NAC NEAC East is bad.

Looking at some of these teams in this conference it doesnt seem right that one of these teams gets into the tournament but a quality team from another that loses in the conference title game would not.  I know that its D3 and that there is no money in athletics, but we see schools leaving leagues all the time to go play in more competitive conferences (WNE and ST Joes of Maine, come to mind in recent history).  Could a lack of a pool c bid make some schools go back to weak conferences so that they can punch thier ticket to the regionals every year.  I mean Castleton is 21-3 but would what would thier record look like in the LEC, or the NASCAC, or MASCAC.  By the same token if you were to put say a middle of the pack team in the LEC say a Umass Boston in the NAC, they would be world beaters. 

Is the only qualification 7 teams for an AQ?  Is there some kind of "quality" standard?  Just curious because i cant see the NAC or NEAC East doing real well in the regionals, not saying it wont happen but Lydon State , New England College is a bit of different competition than ECSU, Wheaton, Salem State, Amherst etc

WNECalum222

You want to guarantee yourself a spot in the tournament? Win your conference. It is just like every other NCAA tournament, you aren't going to get the best 64 teams into the field.

KSCfan

Oh i agree WNECalum, if you keep winning you dont have to worry about anything.  What did AL Davis always say?  Just win baby.  I was just wondering how it would it impact the regionals as 8 conferences now have AQ's and that means no pool c bids in the new england regional

ECSUalum

#21
The other odd situation we have in D3 baseball is in one of the west coast conferences,  where there is a team that has not won a game in at least 4 years, (based on the historical stats that I could see), and most likely even longer. In addition, the score differentials in their losses are to the point of absurdity!!!
I am sorry, but, IMHO allowing teams with this degree of non-competitiveness to play NCAA D3 baseball, degrades college baseball in general and NCAA D3 baseball in particular.  ( I could understand a couple of bad years, but the result is the same every year....0 Wins-30 Losses,... no improvement.)
In addition games played against this team guarantees every other team in the Conference at least 3 wins and  in essence a "run up" of their statistics which are taken into consideration at NCAA tournament time.  Frankly, teams like this should consider playing club baseball, which would in turn, allow their students athletes to compete just as effectively, and, at the same time allow a much more competitive team a chance to play in a more competitive conference. 
What also makes the above situation even more bizarre is that the particular institution in question prides itself in being one of the most competitive, and awarding some of the most prestigious mathematics and science degrees in the world!!!   :o :o :o  However, when it comes to athletics, the school doesn't care about competitiveness!!
We all know of similarly competitive acedemic institutions around the country, and at the same time, these school have some of the best athletic programs in the country.  This makes no sense to me!!!  Am I missing something??

I know this post sounds like snobbery, but this has bothered me ever since I began posting on these D3baseball threads.


Ralph Turner

Quote from: KSCfan on May 01, 2012, 09:57:10 AM
Wow the NAC NEAC East is bad.

Looking at some of these teams in this conference it doesnt seem right that one of these teams gets into the tournament but a quality team from another that loses in the conference title game would not.  I know that its D3 and that there is no money in athletics, but we see schools leaving leagues all the time to go play in more competitive conferences (WNE and ST Joes of Maine, come to mind in recent history).  Could a lack of a pool c bid make some schools go back to weak conferences so that they can punch thier ticket to the regionals every year.  I mean Castleton is 21-3 but would what would thier record look like in the LEC, or the NASCAC, or MASCAC.  By the same token if you were to put say a middle of the pack team in the LEC say a Umass Boston in the NAC, they would be world beaters. 

Is the only qualification 7 teams for an AQ?  Is there some kind of "quality" standard?  Just curious because i cant see the NAC or NEAC East doing real well in the regionals, not saying it wont happen but Lydon State , New England College is a bit of different competition than ECSU, Wheaton, Salem State, Amherst etc
Actually, this conference has a bid because these schools got together to offer baseball as a conference.  Because 7 schools came together (like the 7 schools in the NEWMAC) they got a bid.

If those 7 schools dropped baseball, that bid would go away.  The NCAA would not keep funding it.

The quality in D-3 is that you are a student-athlete, "going pro in life".

Give the conference a chance to grow and develop.  Would those schools that added baseball as a sport do so with the prospects of being hammered in the LEC?  No, and those 25 or so players on the roster probably would not get the chance to play intercollegiate baseball.

How many kids came to college to play baseball and go to school?

Unlike their buddies who quit after high school, went to college and flunked out at the first semester, they continued the routine of school, work-outs (off-season or in-season), study to make your grades and 4 years later have your diploma.  That is a really successful program!

If we want to talk quality of teams, let's consider football.

Most of D-III looks at New England football and sees teams that might not be beat their local high school team. (That might be the case, were it not the fact that a 22-year old senior defensive lineman from a New England college probably overwhelms the 16-year old high school offensive guard and sacks the QB before the 17-year old phenom Wide Receiver, who has already committed to the SEC school, can get open.)  The worst team in the football power conferences like the ASC and the OAC would compete for the title in most New England football conferences.

As for conference realignment, I think that the "mission-and-vision" stuff is more likely to drive the conference alignments.  In D-III, most schools are not worried about winning a national championship. They just want to be competitive.  D-III has built strength in the conferences.  Schools are adding sports all of the time, so student-athletes can have the experience of  playing the game.  And when a conference can have a playoff and the winner gets a bid to the national championships...great.

St Josephs ME came from NAIA because they liked the D-III model better than the NAIA model.  That says something right there about what we are doing right in D-III.  You have the same situation in the Upper Midwest AC (UMAC) where St Scholastica dominates, but some year a team will rise up and knock them off, because there is a conference that provides a framework in which the program can improve.

Ralph Turner

Quote from: ECSUalum on May 01, 2012, 09:59:45 PM
The other odd situation we have in D3 baseball is in one of the west coast conferences,  where there is a team that has not won a game in at least 4 years, (based on the historical stats that I could see), and most likely even longer. In addition, the score differentials in their losses are to the point of absurdity!!!
I am sorry, but, IMHO allowing teams with this degree of non-competitiveness to play NCAA D3 baseball, degrades college baseball in general and NCAA D3 baseball in particular.  ( I could understand a couple of bad years, but the result is the same every year....0 Wins-30 Losses,... no improvement.)

In addition games played against this team guarantees every other team in the Conference at least 3 wins and  in essence a "run up" of their statistics which are taken into consideration at NCAA tournament time.  Frankly, teams like this should consider playing club baseball, which would in turn, allow their students athletes to compete just as effectively, and, at the same time allow a much more competitive team a chance to play in a more competitive conference. 
What also makes the above situation even more bizarre is that the particular institution in question prides itself in being one of the most competitive, and awarding some of the most prestigious mathematics and science degrees in the world!!!   :o :o :o  However, when it comes to athletics, the school doesn't care about competitiveness!!
We all know of similarly competitive acedemic institutions around the country, and at the same time, these school have some of the best athletic programs in the country.  This makes no sense to me!!!  Am I missing something??

I know this post sounds like snobbery, but this has bothered me ever since I began posting on these D3baseball threads.
Actually the big news for Caltech in the SCIAC is that they are getting better. They beat Babson (14-13) last year. They are becoming more competitive.

I would submit that the guys who are smart enough to get into CalTech and play baseball are probably not playing baseball and have an academic scholarship somewhere else.  If they are good enough to play baseball, then they may have a scholarship to Stanford and/or Rice.  Wait!  Didn't those two face off in the College World Series a few years ago?

The SCIAC guys will defend Caltech to the bitter end.  It is what defines their conference.

Guys are playing in the LEC because they can get playing time and because they may have turned down a partial  offer to StonyBrook in the America East. (Stony Brook is the only northeastern school in the D-1 top 30.)

Ralph Turner

Quote from: KSCfan on May 01, 2012, 11:51:34 AM
Oh i agree WNECalum, if you keep winning you dont have to worry about anything.  What did AL Davis always say?  Just win baby.  I was just wondering how it would it impact the regionals as 8 conferences now have AQ's and that means no pool c bids in the new england regional
The AQ's are determined by conference.  Pool C bids are awarded nationally.  The fact that the New England Region has 8 Pool A conferences does not mean that no Pool C will be awarded.  I think that New England gets 2 Pool C bids this year.  The number of Pool C bids is actually determined by how much money the NCAA got from its current March Madness contract that allowed D-III to increase the number of Pool C bids in all sports.  We only had 3 Pool C bids in all of D-III back about 2004.

"Just win baby". :)

The New England schools that are not sent to Mansfield will be sent somewhere else

Ralph Turner

One last point...

The NCAA funds one playoff bid for every 6.5 schools in almost every sport.  The brackets have "maxed out" at 64 for Women's Basketball and 32 bids for for football.

Hobbesy

We also have to remember that the NAC/NEAC East Division winner does not get an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The NEAC East and NEAC West winners meet this weekend in a best-of-three series to determine who gets the automatic NCAA bid. That could change the whole way the seeding is made because all of the NEAC West schools are in the mid-atlantic or new york regions, thus not affecting anyone in New England. If Castleton does win the crossover, which I think they will, I can see them getting shipped to New York but I also see them winning a game if they do make it. Tyler Erickson is a stud on the mound, throwing two complete seven inning games in the same day and then throwing two complete nine inning games in less than 24 hours to lead his team to the NEAC East title.

Teams like Castleton are what is great about D3. Kids getting a chance to play the game they love at the college level. Yes, the NEAC East might not be that strong but look at how great of a season Thomas had and how excited those kids must have been after having losing seasons for a long time. It's good to see and it makes teams in the LEC, NESCAC and NEWMAC play harder every day. Nothing is guaranteed anymore in New England.

KSCfan

Ralph- some great points, thank you for reminding me of my LEC bias.  It is important for some of the younger programs to grow and be competitive in conferences that will allow them do so.  That is a point I did not consider. 

Hobbsey- That kid from Castleton is being straight up abused.  I dont care how much of a rubber arm you have, pitching 18 innings in a 24 hour period, and having pitched 14 innings 163 pitches on the same day is a sure fire way to hurt that pitcher.  I know that chances are the pitcher will never go pro, and if his arm falls off then so be it, but seriously come on.... there is just no need to throw that much.  The coach doesnt have any other pitchers that he can use on his team?  What is the Castleton coach going to do if they get to the regionals?  Throw Erickson every game in the regionals?

rob

Quote from: Ralph Turner on May 02, 2012, 12:53:36 AM
Quote from: KSCfan on May 01, 2012, 09:57:10 AM
Wow the NAC NEAC East is bad.

Looking at some of these teams in this conference it doesnt seem right that one of these teams gets into the tournament but a quality team from another that loses in the conference title game would not.  I know that its D3 and that there is no money in athletics, but we see schools leaving leagues all the time to go play in more competitive conferences (WNE and ST Joes of Maine, come to mind in recent history).  Could a lack of a pool c bid make some schools go back to weak conferences so that they can punch thier ticket to the regionals every year.  I mean Castleton is 21-3 but would what would thier record look like in the LEC, or the NASCAC, or MASCAC.  By the same token if you were to put say a middle of the pack team in the LEC say a Umass Boston in the NAC, they would be world beaters. 

Is the only qualification 7 teams for an AQ?  Is there some kind of "quality" standard?  Just curious because i cant see the NAC or NEAC East doing real well in the regionals, not saying it wont happen but Lydon State , New England College is a bit of different competition than ECSU, Wheaton, Salem State, Amherst etc
Actually, this conference has a bid because these schools got together to offer baseball as a conference.  Because 7 schools came together (like the 7 schools in the NEWMAC) they got a bid.

If those 7 schools dropped baseball, that bid would go away.  The NCAA would not keep funding it.

The quality in D-3 is that you are a student-athlete, "going pro in life".

Give the conference a chance to grow and develop.  Would those schools that added baseball as a sport do so with the prospects of being hammered in the LEC?  No, and those 25 or so players on the roster probably would not get the chance to play intercollegiate baseball.

How many kids came to college to play baseball and go to school?

Unlike their buddies who quit after high school, went to college and flunked out at the first semester, they continued the routine of school, work-outs (off-season or in-season), study to make your grades and 4 years later have your diploma.  That is a really successful program!

If we want to talk quality of teams, let's consider football.

Most of D-III looks at New England football and sees teams that might not be beat their local high school team. (That might be the case, were it not the fact that a 22-year old senior defensive lineman from a New England college probably overwhelms the 16-year old high school offensive guard and sacks the QB before the 17-year old phenom Wide Receiver, who has already committed to the SEC school, can get open.)  The worst team in the football power conferences like the ASC and the OAC would compete for the title in most New England football conferences.

As for conference realignment, I think that the "mission-and-vision" stuff is more likely to drive the conference alignments.  In D-III, most schools are not worried about winning a national championship. They just want to be competitive.  D-III has built strength in the conferences.  Schools are adding sports all of the time, so student-athletes can have the experience of  playing the game.  And when a conference can have a playoff and the winner gets a bid to the national championships...great.

St Josephs ME came from NAIA because they liked the D-III model better than the NAIA model.  That says something right there about what we are doing right in D-III.  You have the same situation in the Upper Midwest AC (UMAC) where St Scholastica dominates, but some year a team will rise up and knock them off, because there is a conference that provides a framework in which the program can improve.
Ralph - If I could give good Karma you would get a +1 from me.

Ralph Turner

Quote from: KSCfan on May 02, 2012, 02:07:06 PM
Ralph- some great points, thank you for reminding me of my LEC bias.  It is important for some of the younger programs to grow and be competitive in conferences that will allow them do so.  That is a point I did not consider. 

Hobbsey- That kid from Castleton is being straight up abused.  I dont care how much of a rubber arm you have, pitching 18 innings in a 24 hour period, and having pitched 14 innings 163 pitches on the same day is a sure fire way to hurt that pitcher.  I know that chances are the pitcher will never go pro, and if his arm falls off then so be it, but seriously come on.... there is just no need to throw that much.  The coach doesnt have any other pitchers that he can use on his team?  What is the Castleton coach going to do if they get to the regionals?  Throw Erickson every game in the regionals?
LEC bias?  Hey! As a follower of the ASC football, my ASC football bias is bigger than your LEC baseball bias.  LOL   ;)

The only appearance in the Wisconsin that we have in the ASC includes a first round one run loss by Concordia-TX to ECSU. 

You guys in the LEC looking to get to Wisconsin, until the cold hard reality hits you that you still have to get out of the LEC.   :)