Quote from: Pat Coleman on July 16, 2025, 08:51:18 PM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on July 16, 2025, 04:38:32 PMand it's the nine presidents and their cabinets who call the big-picture-policy shots in the CCIW, not the league office in Naperville.

True of most conferences for something at this level, and that point belies the thought that CCIW SIDs would magically know everything. The Flo MO is to tell conferences to keep this away from their SIDs, ever since the NACC SIDs got the proposal killed in their conference.

There's no "magic" to it. It's simply good administrative policy to consult with the employees who have the most firsthand knowledge of an aspect of corporate function before making a radical change to that corporate function, if for no other reason than feasibility. F'rinstance, Ryan's been laying out the financial specs for FloSports vis-a-vis how many subscribers it's going to require per school. Well, the people who have the hard data on how many eyeballs are watching a school's sports webcasts are the SIDs / directors of athletics communications.

With regard to the SID revolt in the NACC, the CCIW's braintrust in Naperville was interested in PPV as well -- I'm assuming FloSports, but I don't know for sure that that was the vendor in question -- but the CCIW's SIDs raised a hue and cry about it. I don't know if the commish's interest in PPV was nixed or simply tabled by the league's presidents, but I do know that there's been a plan in the works for about a year now to go with an umbrella site for the nine schools' individual networks to continue their free streaming, like what the WIAC has.

Quote from: Pat Coleman on July 16, 2025, 03:22:58 PM

Quote from: IC798891 on July 16, 2025, 02:41:02 PMhttps://x.com/JoeGinley/status/1945228379801735530

This is exactly the kind of thing I'd be doing if I were a college not getting on the Flo train.

You offer up the free viewing as a benefit of sending your kids to the school. I talk to a lot of athletes, and, while I doubt it alone is enough to sway anyone, they all mention parents being able to watch them as being something that matters to them.

I would be too, but the SIDs also generally have no visibility as to what the conference will do. That could backfire in the wrong conference.

I guess that that could be true of some conferences, but it's definitely not true of the CCIW. The nine CCIW SIDs generally talk to each other pretty regularly about anything and everything regarding the league, and each one appears to be pretty dialed in as to what his or her school's administration has in mind for athletics policy -- and it's the nine presidents and their cabinets who call the big-picture-policy shots in the CCIW, not the league office in Naperville.

Case in point: Last year folks from the eight other CCIW schools were in an uproar over Carthage putting two MBB games on PPV (Marquee Sports Network) long before the Carthage press release announcing it came out.

Again, though, every conference is different, so this is a YMMV situation.

FloSports = cordyceps

North Park has landed 6'0" rising junior PG Adrian Anderson from Morton College. Last season the Berwyn native averaged 14.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 4.4 apg, and 1.5 spg for the Panthers with a 1.7 a:to ratio and .500/.476/.838 shooting splits. He had the third-highest trey shooting percentage in all of NJCAA D2, and at 68-143 it's not as though he snuck in atop the leaderboard as a low-volume type who was extremely selective about when to attempt a trey.

He led the Panthers in scoring and assists, and this was for a 21-win Morton team that won the tough Skyway Conference.

I like this pickup for NPU.

Kolden Vanlandingham, a 2024 D3hoops.com All-Region guard who has scored over 1,200 points thus far in his career, has left the transfer portal after a one-year hiatus and will return to North Park in 2025-26 to finish up his degree and his college basketball career.

D3hoops.com All-Region guard and 1,000-point scorer Kolden Vanlandingham is returning to NPU to finish his degree and wrap up his collegiate career in 2025-26.

Quote from: GusD on July 10, 2025, 06:48:03 PM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on July 09, 2025, 03:53:52 AMTyvin Garrison, a rising junior 6'7" G/F from Springfield, is transferring to North Park. He played for D2 Lincoln (MO) in 2022-23 and 2023-24, achieving modest stats in limited playing time (eight games as a frosh, 14 games as a sophomore), then transferred to a USCAA school in Florida last fall but decided not to play there, thus retaining two more seasons of eligibility.

Fun fact: Until he joined the Springfield HS team as a sophomore, he'd never played organized basketball before. He was a hockey player up until then. I doubt that you see a lot of downstate 6'5" fourteen-year-olds playing hockey instead of basketball.

Quote from: tomt4525 on July 08, 2025, 02:07:35 PMFormer Carthage Big Man, Julian Campbell, is transferring to North Park.

Campbell verbally committed to NPU last fall. Not sure why it took him this long to finally announce it on X, but the Vikings are glad to have him!

If Garrison has a hockey background it wouldn't be surprising if he brings an elevated level of physicality to the hardwood. A nice asset in the rough and tumble CCIW. With his not playing last year it will be interesting to see if his 🏀 skills have depreciated to any significant degree.

Concerning Campbell —— Did he attend NPU or any other institution as a student last year? If he attended another school, did he play basketball there? Two years ago at Carthage he weighed close to 300 pounds. Has he managed to trim down any or is he even more corpulent currently? If he hasn't lost any weight, or especially if he's gained any, NPU will basically be playing defense with only 4 guys. Diametrically opposed to last year's swarming D.

Campbell took a hiatus from college in 2024-25. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining.

I didn't see him at all last school year -- I don't recall him attending any home games -- so I can't answer as to his current physical condition. If he's still packing all of that extra weight around his midsection, his ability to fit into North Park's style of play will be problematic. That's not just because the Vikings are a team built to run, but even more so because NPU's defensive scheme requires switching -- and the Carthage-era Campbell wasn't nearly mobile enough to stay in front of guards.

Tyvin Garrison, a rising junior 6'7" G/F from Springfield, is transferring to North Park. He played for D2 Lincoln (MO) in 2022-23 and 2023-24, achieving modest stats in limited playing time (eight games as a frosh, 14 games as a sophomore), then transferred to a USCAA school in Florida last fall but decided not to play there, thus retaining two more seasons of eligibility.

Fun fact: Until he joined the Springfield HS team as a sophomore, he'd never played organized basketball before. He was a hockey player up until then. I doubt that you see a lot of downstate 6'5" fourteen-year-olds playing hockey instead of basketball.

Quote from: tomt4525 on July 08, 2025, 02:07:35 PMFormer Carthage Big Man, Julian Campbell, is transferring to North Park.

Campbell verbally committed to NPU last fall. Not sure why it took him this long to finally announce it on X, but the Vikings are glad to have him!

Quote from: Kuiper on June 25, 2025, 12:14:21 PMI assumed that students got FloSports for free, but apparently that isn't the case, or it isn't the case at all schools/conferences or in all deals. 

You should read this op-ed from a Pitzer student who just graduated and was the Editor-in-Chief of The Student Life, the student newspaper of the Claremont Colleges.  You should read the whole thing.  It's really well done.  (you should also click the link below to read it directly from the website so they get whatever money or benefits they get from clicks, but I cut and pasted a snippet to give you a preview.)

https://tsl.news/i-dream-of-free-streaming-how-flosports-is-buffering-my-5c-fandom/

QuoteDuring my sophomore spring, my high school best friend and I — both sports editors of our respective campus papers at the time — compared our processes for reporting on games. As a Division I journalist, he viewed the action from the private media section and had to filter his post-game questions through the team's PR manager. Meanwhile, as a Division III reporter, I would just plant myself in the stands right next to the players' parents, walk onto the field and grab a few players for an interview.

This is why I love sports at the 5Cs: They're the most accessible higher-level sports you may ever get. Every student can watch hundreds of live games among over a dozen sports from two of the top DIII programs in the country — for free. And when I learned that this extended to free streaming for all sports, I thought I was set for life.

But that was until this year.

Last summer, the SCIAC signed a five-year contract with FloSports to make the platform its sole streaming home, effective this season. FloSports is a streaming service with a dubious history of data collection and privacy violations that houses several DI, DII and DIII conferences in addition to a number of niche sports. However, this means that instead of watching every game for free, students are now being charged $9.99 a month, or $5.99 if they commit for the whole year. For parents, alumni and everyone else, it's even worse, coming in at a whopping $19.99, or $8.99 if you subscribe for the whole year.

Why make this move? Well, if you ask SCIAC Commissioner Jenn Dubow, it's all about a new "quality streaming experience."

"FloSports has demonstrated a significant and sincere commitment to providing funding and exposure for small-school college sports in a collaborative way that can help each of our institutions' unique approach and goals to streaming and athletics communications," Dubow said when announcing the partnership last June.

As my available time for attending games progressively diminished throughout college, my reliance on SCIAC streaming surged. Lacrosse during Wednesday night classes, baseball during beer league and football at house parties — I was locked in and I loved it.

This year though, I have not streamed a single game. That's because, as I've said before, paying to watch DIII sports directly opposes why they are so great. Yes, subscribing also comes with the entire FloSports package, including plenty of college and other obscure sports goodies — but I don't care about those. I care about the teams of people I go to school with: my friends and the parasocial relationships I've developed with athletes I've never met.

I loved this piece so much that I bookmarked it. Something tells me that I'm going to link to it in an online discussion somewhere down the road.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on June 24, 2025, 03:30:07 PM

Quote from: CNU85 on June 24, 2025, 01:20:53 PMThanks GS. The issue is that I will forget 20 minutes after "learning" it yet again!

I'm going to blame it on age.

's OK.  The only thing I remember from two years of high school Latin is that my SAT verbal scores shot way up.

I now have a mental image of you finishing the SAT and jumping out of your chair while yelling, "Veni, vidi, vici!"

Quote from: blue_jays on June 24, 2025, 02:33:46 PM

Quote from: Gregory Sager on June 24, 2025, 01:44:45 PM

Quote from: HansenRatings on June 09, 2025, 11:22:21 AMAnother thing from the President's interview, which I've been wondering about, is that the MWC doesn't sponsor wrestling. Seemed like they're going to try for an affiliate membership in the ARC. I think the CCIW would probably be the next best option.

Dubuque and Transylvania were CCIW men's lacrosse associates in the not-too-distant past, and Chicago was the dominant program in CCIW women's lacrosse as an associate before leaving to become an independent last year.

UChicago WLAX wanted to stay, CCIW office or the member schools gave them the boot.

It would've been the member schools, because the CCIW office doesn't make those calls.

Quote from: HansenRatings on June 09, 2025, 11:22:21 AMAnother thing from the President's interview, which I've been wondering about, is that the MWC doesn't sponsor wrestling. Seemed like they're going to try for an affiliate membership in the ARC. I think the CCIW would probably be the next best option.

I suppose that that could happen. The CCIW's very associate-friendly ("associate" being the preferred language of the league rather than "affiliate"), and wrestling's a good example. There are ten schools participating in CCIW men's wrestling, and three of the ten are associates. And of the five schools participating in CCIW women's wrestling, two are associates.

The associates in various CCIW sports are mostly NACC schools, but Loras is an associate CCIW member in men's volleyball, and for one more year Wash U will be an associate in football. Rose-Hulman was an associate CCIW member in men's and women's swimming & diving before the HCAC began sponsoring those sports eight years ago. Dubuque and Transylvania were CCIW men's lacrosse associates in the not-too-distant past, and Chicago was the dominant program in CCIW women's lacrosse as an associate before leaving to become an independent last year.

If hazzbeen's right and the ARC gives a cold shoulder to Norse wrestling in the wake of Luther's overall departure from the league, I think that the chances are good that Luther ends up getting invited into the CCIW as a men's and women's wrestling associate member.

Quote from: WUPHF on June 24, 2025, 11:56:18 AMalumnx or alumnux = all graduates and or former students (gender neutral) of a UAA institution.

Quote from: CNU85 on June 24, 2025, 10:15:08 AMJust hire an Advancement professional (or 2). They will more than cover their costs and bring in more than the $30k from Flo and also develop long term relationships within the community and alum (ni, nae, nus - I always get those confused)

alumnus = male graduate or former student (singular)
alumna = female graduate or former student (singular)
alumni = male graduates or former students, or all graduates or former students in general (plural)
alumnae = female graduates or former students (plural)

In an era in which the number of people with even a cursory knowledge of Latin is tiny, it's to be expected that most people don't know the differences between these four nouns. So I always explain it thus:

* Everything you did in college was backwards. Therefore, the 'i' in "alumni" stands for all of us, while the 'us' in "alumnus" only stands for me, myself, and 'i'.

* A woman who went to college is an "alumna", because she likely said "naah" if I ever asked her out on a date.

* They are collectively called "alumnae", because they all voted 'nay' to date me.

Quote from: Kuiper on June 20, 2025, 12:18:00 PM

Quote from: jknezek on June 20, 2025, 11:52:47 AMSadly the pebbles are starting to push bigger rocks down the hill. I suspect all of D3 will go this route over the next couple years unless FLO goes belly up.

To state it more optimistically, the value proposition for a FloSports subscription is growing (more games you might want to watch on the network and fewer games available for free outside the network) and the importance of D3 to Flo Sports is increasing, which means that Flo has more incentive to take care of the schools/conferences/subscribers that use it.  This is especially true with some of the original 5 year-deals coming due in the next few years and the possibility of fragmentation destroying Flo's business model if a competitor picks off a few unsatisfied conferences.

I wouldn't characterize Flo Sports being subjected to a potentially competitive market for D3 sports streaming as an optimistic outcome. Pay per view is pay per view, no matter which vendor you're paying to watch a game.

In this case, "more optimistic" means drinking expired milk gone bad, as opposed to drinking expired milk gone bad to wash down a sandwich made with moldy bread.