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.
