MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

Started by FC News, March 01, 2005, 11:03:19 PM

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Mr. Ypsi

Q,

I never knew that Matt was a walk-on. 

Inspiring story (and a zinger to Greg - though I suspect he is MAINLY correct)! 

Titan Q

#871
He is absolutely correct.  Just thought of another one though...

John Camardella (IWU '03)

As a senior John started all 27 games and averaged 13.2 ppg and 7.5 rpg on a CCIW title team.  He was voted IWU's MVP by his peers (on a team with All-American Luke Kasten).

John was a Division I volleyball prospect as a senior in high school.  He was hardly recruited for basketball (and not recruited by IWU), but he chose to attend IWU and try to play basketball.  When John showed up for practice his freshman year, he was told by then IWU head coach, "We're glad to have you, but you are #21 out of 21 right now."  By his sophomore season, John was playing 21 minutes/game on a Final Four team.

Mr. Ypsi

Let's not boost Greg's ego TOO high - that only makes him ALMOST absolutely correct! ;) ;D

Titan Q

See above - I editted my post.  Thought of a second walk-on.

Titan Q

Well, thought of a third...

1991 CCIW Most Outstanding Player David Caldwell (20.9 ppg, 8.3 reb, .633 FG%, .882 FT%).  Wasn't recruited to IWU to play basketball at all.  Showed up a 6-6 string bean who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time...left a 6-10 CCIW stud.

Mr. Ypsi

April's all-time favorite Titan was a walk-on - cool! ;D  [Actually, with that nasty 'practical joke' played on her a couple of years ago, can't recall if he is still a favorite or if he was an innocent bystander.]

I guess that means I should downgrade Greg from "ALMOST absolutely correct" to "usually correct"!  ;)


Titan Q

And a fourth...

Matt Hoder (IWU '98) - 16 minutes per game on the 1997 national championship team, and a starter in the national semifinal and national championship games.

http://www.sportsstats.com/jazzyj/past/97iwu.htm

A walk-on.

Mr. Ypsi

Q,

If you keep going back in time and finding more examples, you're going to do two things:

1. Blow Greg out of the water (but also me, since I already agreed with him)! ;D

2. And bore the hell out of the SLIAC posters (but since they don't seem to be using the board at the moment, I guess we can). ;)

wilburt

Quote from: Gregory Sager on October 10, 2006, 03:51:47 PM
Quote from: wilburt on October 10, 2006, 03:00:07 PMGregory although what you say is true for D3 today that was not always the case in D3.  Twenty years ago (when there were far fewer D3 schools) there were plenty of "walk-ons" for a number of collegiate sports and they were competitive with some regularity.  At least I could say so at Fisk because a handful of those "walk-ons" earned All-Conference honors in basketball and track and All-American honors in track during my time at Fisk as a student in the 1980s. 

Today I would have to agree with you that "recruiting" has become a mainstay of D3 athletics, but 20 years ago it was a slightly different story. My goodness today "recruiting" has come to high school and even some grade school teams. That was virtually unheard of 20 years ago.

That may have been true of the Fisk men's basketball team, Wilburt, but it has never been true of the programs in the top conferences like the CCIW, the OAC, and the WIAC. Those schools have always recruited their basketball talent. Always. And I daresay that this is true of every successful D3 program going all the way back to the inception of the division in 1974-75.

The so-called "minor sports"? That's another issue altogether. But every D3 men's basketball program that has been a national powerhouse (or even a reasonably outstanding regional program, especially in the northeast and midwest) over the past four decades has recruited all of its players.

1. I was talking about men's and women's basketball at Fisk as well as the Men's and Women's Track team at Fisk in the 1980s.

2.  Now you changed the discussion from D3 walk-ons to making a significant individual contribution as a walk-on versus "developing a quality basketball program."  Your point is well taken that to develop a quality program one needs to recruit all of its players, but by the same token there have been numerous examples over the years of "walk-ons" making significant contributions to a D3 program. 
Fisk University: Founded by Missionaries, Saved by Students.

Six time SIAC Football Champions 1913, 1915, 1919, 1923, 1973 and 1975.

Six NFL draft picks and one Pro Bowler!

Mac Attack

While I can't argue that SLIAC basketball teams are national title threats year in and year out, I think the case can be made that many of the SLIAC programs depend on a certain number of walk-ons to fill out their roster and/or help the numbers on the junior varsity. No, this isn't the way to build a top-notch program, but so many of these schools - MacMurray included - haven't had the resources, the support from the AD, or a coach who was committed to beating the bushes for talent. And of course there is the issue of the admission's office using a uniform as a way to increase enrollment. A coach told me one time that his orders were to recruit ten players every year - two who could "play" and eight who could "pay." My sense is there's a lot of that going on at the D3 level - probably not at the elite level - but much more so at the mid-level and lower. MacMurray took a real hit when its previous coach, who wasn't the most aggressive recruiter in the first place, decided to move on early last summer. By the time the new coach was hired, the recruiting season was over. So a bad situation got worse. Maybe this happened at Blackburn too - don't know. I do believe that our new coach is much, much more committed to recruiting quality kids and quality players, and that this approach will start to pay dividends two or three years from now. Just takes time, effort, and support from the administration. Until then, the Highlanders will rely on a core of about eight players or nine who contributed last year - which is about the number most coaches use in their game rotation anyway. Walk ons will be needed to help in practice and the JV games. Not the formula for a league championship, but anyone who watched MacMurray play last year - especially down the stretch - knows how competitive these kids are. Add our new coach's fresh approach and personality into the mix and I think fans will see a definite improvement, with better days ahead.

fcnews

Greg 1974-75 ?? FU's 1st men's team did not appear until '89-90.

That's the main difference in alot of D3 conferences. Some are very young programs and others have been around since the early 1900's. CCIW is a very good example of an older established conference filled with programs with rich traditions.

Others are trying to still get their feet wet !

Also feel free to use this as a CCIW overflow area. It's not being used for much else these days.

Gregory Sager

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on October 10, 2006, 08:48:23 PM
Greg,

Nice comments on JV teams and differing philosophies - seems spot on.

At the top schools, I suspect JV is more a way of getting playing time for freshman who would otherwise ride the pine due to an 'embarassment of riches' in the older classes.

This is often the case. But it's not the only successful philosophy extant in D3 with regard to junior varsity squads. There are plenty of programs where the best players always get to play varsity, no matter what their experience levels happen to be. The JV team thus tends to be more of the "catchbasin" variety that I described earlier. This scenario was the preferred method of both Dan McCarrell and Bosko Djurickovic at North Park, and it's still the way Bosko operates at Carthage (although he will use the JV team for developmental purposes for unschooled big men; he did that at North Park with Dan Mulkerin and he did it at Carthage with Mike Hart).

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on October 10, 2006, 08:48:23 PMI wonder if anyone else in any conference has ever gone from JV as a freshman to POY [MVP, whatever] as a sophomore?! ;D)

I'll go you one better, Chuck. I'll name a CCIW player who went from playing on the JV team as a freshman to winning MOP awards as a sophomore, junior, and senior: Michael Harper.

Quote from: Mr. Ypsi on October 10, 2006, 11:32:10 PM
Q,

If you keep going back in time and finding more examples, you're going to do two things:

1. Blow Greg out of the water (but also me, since I already agreed with him)! ;D

2. And bore the hell out of the SLIAC posters (but since they don't seem to be using the board at the moment, I guess we can). ;)

C'mon, Chuck. Read what I said, willya? I said that walk-ons that amount to something are few and far between. Nothing Bob has said changes that; in fact, I already knew about three of his counter-examples (I didn't realize that Hoder was a walk-on as well). I can also name walk-ons who managed to contribute for NPU, North Central, Carthage, Augustana, Elmhurst, and Wheaton ... in other words, every program in the league but Millikin. CCIW Chat's own Rob Berki was a walk-on; he came to NPU because his best friend from high school was a student there. Nobody else, including the coaches, knew him from Adam. He went on to become the CCIW's top three-point shooter and an All-CCIW second-teamer as a senior. If we had WIAC or OAC people reading this room, they'd be able to name some exceptions as well.

Hence, the words "few and far between". Exceptional walk-ons that can contribute to a top-level D3 team, or a team in a top-level D3 league, are rare enough to be statistically insignificant in terms of overall roster construction over time. I chose my words very carefully, and nothing that has been said by Bob or anyone else contradicts them.

Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 07:25:19 AM1. I was talking about men's and women's basketball at Fisk as well as the Men's and Women's Track team at Fisk in the 1980s.

Yes, but you extrapolated a general conclusion about D3 sports in your post #866 yesterday based upon Fisk in the 1980s. If you're going to draw overarching conclusions about D3 based upon one school, you can be rebutted without actually using that school as the counter-example.

Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 07:25:19 AM2.  Now you changed the discussion from D3 walk-ons to making a significant individual contribution as a walk-on versus "developing a quality basketball program."  Your point is well taken that to develop a quality program one needs to recruit all of its players, but by the same token there have been numerous examples over the years of "walk-ons" making significant contributions to a D3 program. 

No, it's the same discussion. It's two different ways of saying the same thing. If your walk-ons are making significant individual contributions to your team on a regular basis, your team is not going to be a top-notch one by D3 standards. And, as I said above, of course there are exceptions to the "walk-ons are substandard" rule of thumb. Again, that's why I very carefully chose the words "few and far between" to describe walk-ons in D3 men's basketball that amount to something.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

Gregory Sager

Quote from: fcnews on October 11, 2006, 09:04:41 AM
Greg 1974-75 ?? FU's 1st men's team did not appear until '89-90.

I know, but Wilburt pulled out Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine to go back to the 1980s, so I had to follow suit.  ;)

Quote from: fcnews on October 11, 2006, 09:04:41 AMAlso feel free to use this as a CCIW overflow area. It's not being used for much else these days.

Heh. Sorry about that. Fortunately, Mac Attack is doing a good job of keeping this discussion grounded in the SLIAC.

Quote from: Mac Attack on October 11, 2006, 08:09:32 AM
While I can't argue that SLIAC basketball teams are national title threats year in and year out, I think the case can be made that many of the SLIAC programs depend on a certain number of walk-ons to fill out their roster and/or help the numbers on the junior varsity. No, this isn't the way to build a top-notch program, but so many of these schools - MacMurray included - haven't had the resources, the support from the AD, or a coach who was committed to beating the bushes for talent.

Schools from the major conferences use walk-ons to fill out their rosters as well. There are lots and lots of D3 schools that don't recruit enough players to fully stock a varsity and a junior varsity, and many of them thus use walk-ons as warm bodies for practices and JV games. The SLIAC programs aren't alone in this. I'm not sure that it's a matter of resources -- even a coach who has no full-time assistants and who can only make cursory contact with local high-school players ought to be able to have at least a dozen of his own recruits on the roster. After all, some recruits require more work to reel them in than others.

Quote from: Mac Attack on October 11, 2006, 08:09:32 AMAnd of course there is the issue of the admission's office using a uniform as a way to increase enrollment. A coach told me one time that his orders were to recruit ten players every year - two who could "play" and eight who could "pay." My sense is there's a lot of that going on at the D3 level - probably not at the elite level - but much more so at the mid-level and lower.

This might be a significant difference between SLIAC programs and programs at higher levels of D3. I don't think you'll find basketball coaches at the top-tier leagues recruiting just to fill out their rosters for admissions purposes. That does happen in football in the top conferences, because football is a numerically significant sport in admissions terms, especially in light of the current shortage of males in American colleges and universities. I know of one CCIW head football coach who was given an explicit mandate by his school's president to have 150 players show up for summer camp (and, no, this is not North Park I'm talking about). But basketball doesn't have anywhere close to a roster of that size, so recruited basketball players at the upper levels of D3 tend to be there because their coaches want to make use of their basketball skills, not so much because the school needs the tuition money.
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

wilburt

Quote from: Gregory Sager on October 11, 2006, 09:36:52 AM
[
Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 07:25:19 AM1. I was talking about men's and women's basketball at Fisk as well as the Men's and Women's Track team at Fisk in the 1980s.

Yes, but you extrapolated a general conclusion about D3 sports in your post #866 yesterday based upon Fisk in the 1980s. If you're going to draw overarching conclusions about D3 based upon one school, you can be rebutted without actually using that school as the counter-example.

Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 07:25:19 AM2.  Now you changed the discussion from D3 walk-ons to making a significant individual contribution as a walk-on versus "developing a quality basketball program."  Your point is well taken that to develop a quality program one needs to recruit all of its players, but by the same token there have been numerous examples over the years of "walk-ons" making significant contributions to a D3 program. 

No, it's the same discussion. It's two different ways of saying the same thing. If your walk-ons are making significant individual contributions to your team on a regular basis, your team is not going to be a top-notch one by D3 standards. And, as I said above, of course there are exceptions to the "walk-ons are substandard" rule of thumb. Again, that's why I very carefully chose the words "few and far between" to describe walk-ons in D3 men's basketball that amount to something.

1. You need to re-read my post 866 Greg. I actually agree with you, but I did not intend to make overreaching conclusions about D3 based on one school.  However, you did.   I intended to just point out my observations about D3 between now and 20 years ago when D3 was a much smaller Division rather than proffer them as conclusive statistical data from which to be extrapolated from.

But fundamentally I agree with you, but maybe you lost that point when you entered Mr. Peabody's Time Machine.  Anything else you lost ;)?

2. Generally, when one mentions "two different ways" they are usually talking about "two different things." Hence the word two -> one + one. I think in actuality you attempted to use one point (excuse me "way") to buttress another point (way) you were making or describing.
Fisk University: Founded by Missionaries, Saved by Students.

Six time SIAC Football Champions 1913, 1915, 1919, 1923, 1973 and 1975.

Six NFL draft picks and one Pro Bowler!

Gregory Sager

Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 11:48:14 AM1. You need to re-read my post 866 Greg. I actually agree with you, but I did not intend to make overreaching conclusions about D3 based on one school.  However, you did.   I intended to just point out my observations about D3 between now and 20 years ago when D3 was a much smaller Division rather than proffer them as conclusive statistical data from which to be extrapolated from.

I'll not only reread it, I'll quote it -- with my emphases in bold:

"Gregory, although what you say is true today for D3 that was not always the case in D3."

"Twenty years ago (when there were far fewer D3 schools) there were plenty of walk-ons for a number of collegiate sports and they were competitive with some regularity."

"Today I would have to agree with you that D3 'recruiting' has become a mainstay of D3 athletics, but 20 years ago it was a slightly different story."


I don't see how anyone can draw the conclusion that you weren't making definitive statements about D3 as a whole, albeit the D3 of twenty years ago. Yes, you were offering them as observations, but you weren't offering them as opinions. You were, in fact, offering them as general conclusions; there aren't any conditionals in those statements, and the references aren't made any less specific than D3 as a whole. And my rejoinder is that I was following D3 men's basketball pretty avidly twenty years ago, and the overwhelming majority of the players I saw in the CCIW and the other top leagues were recruited.

Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 11:48:14 AMBut fundamentally I agree with you, but maybe you lost that point when you entered Mr. Peabody's Time Machine.  Anything else you lost ;)?

I'm always careful to police the area whenever I time-travel. The butterfly effect can be a real bummer.  ;)

Quote from: wilburt on October 11, 2006, 11:48:14 AM2. Generally, when one mentions "two different ways" they are usually talking about "two different things." Hence the word two -> one + one. I think in actuality you attempted to use one point (excuse me "way") to buttress another point (way) you were making or describing.

No. Two different approaches to discussing the same subject. That was what I meant by the use of the word "way". I'm not sure how you've derived that semantic generalization about the word "way".
"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell