Hi All. I joined up about a month ago as I have finally emerged on the other side of the recruiting wringer and my daughter will be starting her journey in the Fall. I picked up a lot of semi-useless (and maybe some useful) knowledge along the way. Some conferences and programs that I have much better information on than others. Seems most of you focus more on the top teams, or conferences in the North East primarily. I have just been watching a lot of games and have interests in schools/conferences because of many of my daughter's former high school and travel teammates have gone onto play, and again, because of schools we looked at.
So anyway, conferences and schools I'd be able to have better insight into?
The ODAC: Did a lot of research here and visited two of the lower tiered schools, as well as had extensive contact with some of the higher level ones... Interesting snippet on this conference. I went back about 13 years and this conference is a definite matter of "Haves and Have Nots". Conference typically has a membership of 14 and the top 8 or 9 (if they do a play in game that year) make their conference tournament. In the last 13 years the same 7 schools have ALWAYS made the top 8, and the rest of the teams kind of take turns getting the 8th spot.
The Always in Crowd:
Washington & Lee
Virginia Weslyan
Lynchburg
Randolph Macon
Bridgewater
Roanoke
Shenandoah
The Sometimes in Crowd:
Randolph
Ferrum
Eastern Mennonite
Guilford
The Cannon Fodder:
Sweet Briar
Hollins
The conference lost Emory & Henry to Division 2 last year, but have picked up Averett. E&H was part of the "Sometimes" crowd, and I figure that's where Averett will fall as well... Have a feeling Guilford might make a little noise in the next few years (Not going to win the conference or anything, but will be more competitive than usual (They came in 6th last season). Their coach is a former D1 men's coach from UNC-G. If he stays for an extended run, I could see something happening there.)... My daughter has some friends that play at Eastern Mennonite, Randolph and Roanoke as well and met the Lynchburg coaches a few times. Had a nice visit with EMU and their coach and he is just a guy and a program you want to pull for.
The AMCC: Has been a one-bid conference to the NCAA tournament which is almost perennially won by Penn State-Behrend. Pitt-Greensburg has made noise of late though and in 2019 were able to get the automatic bid. They went 16-3 last season and I think were hoping for an at-large, but got snubbed. Not sure if it was a matter of consistency or just a fairly weak schedule that did them in... Mount Aloysius is an interesting team and I really liked their coach. I think it is one of those schools that it is tough to get kids there, but if he gets a decent crop in, I could see them making a big leap in the next few years. He seems to be one that looks well beyond state borders for players as well... PSU-Altoona is kind of the midling program there. Their achilles' heel is that they lose a majority of their sophomores to the main campus every year, so I imagine it is hard to get much continuity, but they occasionally catch lightning in a bottle. Of the remaining five, LaRoche seems okay, but Medaille, Alfred State, Hilbert and Pitt-Bradford seem to be pretty down.
Those are the main two conferences I'm very familiar with, but beyond that, individual programs that I know players or coaches at include:
Mary Baldwin: Program is only a few years old but the coach is a very aggressive recruiter. Saw her at every travel tournament and every player seemed to come back with her card. The camp my daughter went to was very well attended and they had a pretty good year last year. I could see them competing for the top of their conference in the next couple of years.
Lesley College: Former teammate of my daughter is there. Looks like they had a pretty good '21 season, but didn't watch much of them.
Emory & Henry: They are now D2 but wanted to mention them anyway (And will likely get smoked in the SAC for the foreseeable future), but daughter has a high school teammate there, so will be cheering them on!
Goucher College: My daughter SO much wanted to play here for this coach. She was great, the school was beautiful. Just ran into issues finding a major that fit. They are a mid-level school in the Landmark Conference which seems to be pretty much owned by Scranton, with a side of Susquehanna...
Anyway, as you can see I really enjoy chatting it up on the women's side of things here. With 400+ D3 schools, I'm guessing I'll see a lot of perspectives here and am looking forward to it! Would love to hear everyone else's stories and perspectives. Have enjoyed SimpleCoach's interviews as well. Let's get the activity ramped up here! We only have 5 or so months before the season! LOL!
And if anyone has questions about recruiting, we literally visited 22 campuses did 5 on-campus ID camps, 6 official visits and 4 overnights and a TON of email correspondence so I may or may not have some insight that can help anyone beginning or in the middle of the process...
Cheers!
