The UAA hype fest you see on social media is a bit quiet tonight with RIT beating Rochester.  The Tigers outrebounded UR 56-32 despite a height disadvantage at every position.

UR's obsession with having d1 size costs them again. Great win for RIT.

SLU gets their first double digit sweep against Clarkson since 2007. Of all teams this was not the one I expected to do it, but their road heavy difficult schedule up until now has paid an early conference dividend. All SLU freshmen looked noticeably more poised and collected compared to the first 10 games, the team is growing up quick.  J'Lin Brown who I have talked about previously with regard to his recruiting profile is starting to play according to his pedigree. He had some bad luck with minor injuries to the start the season, but looks like a player with sky high potential. Didn't have a flashy box score but he was a menace on the defensive side of the court and under the rim, and could have had double digit assists if not for several missed layups.

I have not seen it posted anywhere else (including anywhere related to d3hoops.com), but rest in peace to the great Jerry Welsh.  The story of division 3 basketball cannot be told without mentioning Welsh's tenure at Potsdam, and that is an understatement. 

Everyone even tangentially connected to north country basketball has a story about Welsh. My father has one that I think sums up Welsh's legacy.  My dad attended a coaching conference downstate in the mid/late 1980s. Every big name coach in the country was there.  Dean Smith held a Q&A session one afternoon, and one of the first questions asked came from none other than Jerry Welsh.  According to my dad Dean Smith cut Welsh off before he could finish his question by saying "Jerry, why on earth are you asking me this?  I should be asking you this! 

A major, major loss for college basketball. 

SLU drops a close one @ #16 WPI for the first game back after a long break. The result may be frustrating, as the game was there for the taking with SLU having a lead at various points and erasing a 9 point deficit late in the 2nd half to get it within 1 for the final minute, but the process is there.  When WPI extended the lead with about 6 minutes left Downs put in 4 freshmen and a senior that has played only a handful of minutes in 4 years. That unit held serve and chipped away getting it within 5. SLU starters got them right back in it making it a 1 point game with the ball in the last minute.  WPI's experience finished the game out, but this youthful SLU team is learning and seemingly buying in.

SLU has played a heavy road schedule too, so it's been baptism by fire for this squad.

Oswego- overcame 19 point deficit to get it within 3 late
Nazareth- overcame 17 point deficit to get it within 3 in the 2nd half
Union- overcame 19 point deficit to get it within 2 in the final minute
RPI- overcame 14 point deficit in the 2nd half to go up by 5 in the last 2 minutes
WPI- down 1 in the final minute with the ball

All of these games were played on the road.  Shows you how there is low margin for error and that experience matters a great deal, but with just a little more seasoning this SLU team can tool themselves for a strong Liberty League showing.

Outside a couple seasons under Glenn Miller Conn has never historically been an upper tier team. I wonder if Sweeney is thinking about whether or not the grass has been greener at Conn than it was at Hobart. I'm pretty sure he took the Conn job because he was frustrated about not getting at large selections, but all things considered he had a pretty good thing going at Hobart. His first full recruiting cycle made the sweet 16 (and could have gone further if not for covid) the season after he left for Conn, and it's been fairly mid at Conn outside of 1 season where they still didn't make the tournament.  Now Hixon's protege just took Conn down and seems to be building something at Hartford.  I don't know how much priority the Conn administration places on men's hoops, but one has to wonder about that situation if it doesn't end up great this season.

Their opponent is 394th ranked on Massey out of 409 teams.

Someone should tell Frank since he seems to think otherwise.

A whole bunch of people asked him what "best case scenario" means in this context and he replied about 10 times with "the context is that this is best case scenario for all involved".  Does he think he's the chief d3football gatekeeper and thinks it matters this much?  Talk about ego.   I even saw a couple Ithaca players call him out on it and he said the same thing.  I've never had an issue with him but that is really, really weird behavior.

Quote from: Bartman on December 09, 2025, 11:39:26 PMHobart doubles up Ithaca in a fast paced first half tonight 53-26 with hot shooting , good defense and rebounding. Game gets sloppy in the second half as Hobart wins 86-66 and moves to 7-2 on the season. The new coach at Ithaca does not seem to have the same chemistry with the team as last year's coach, so I think Ithaca is in for a long season. Hobart goes 2-1 in the LL and I think we should finish in the mix this year come playoff time. Monty Nedd plays with great speed but sometimes out of control finishes with 27 on 11-15 , leads the team with 9 rebounds but also has 7 turnovers. Alex Moesch with 20 and Dorian Paki with 17. I like this team because it is talented, plays good defense and its frequently wild fast play is exciting yet imperfect at times but should improve as the season progresses.

Ithaca was missing who I think is their best player, the transfers the coach brought with him but there are some perplexing coaching decisions.  They have the reigning rookie of the year and he's barely gotten in the games. Gives them scoring and physicality but he's relegated to the 2nd and 3rd option.

Quote from: mhm0417 on December 07, 2025, 07:02:38 PMI think Canton has won around 15 games over the past three seasons combined. 

One thing if they were still competitive, but they are routinely blown out.  Meanwhile the women's team is 8-1.

Some monstrous BS loses SLU a game they should have won, just a season of nightmares. Best player gets his ankle stepped on by an RPI player on the final defensive possession giving RPI a free 5 on 4 basket to send it to overtime.  The rebound off the missed shot literally bounced to where Dudzinski was but was in too much pain.  Just insane luck that I've never seen a team get before. Well, I'm sure I have before but that's just frustrating. 3 freshmen have to play overtime and yet again just cannot stay poised enough to win.  I hope they're taking these efforts as positives, could be easy to get discouraged but they are almost there.

Already 3 games SLU has taken a 19 point deficit on the road to a one possession game late with a chance to tie or take the lead only to still lose all of them.  Very definition of riding and dying with freshmen.  They're just going to live with the mistakes in the hope the experience builds quickly. Frustrating in terms of results so far but you can see the pedigree and potential with all the young players, just hoping the large and talented first year class follows the same trajectory of the similar classes of 2009 and 2017.

SLU is in for a very long season at this rate.  More horrible body language and horrific offense.  Best player looks like he'd rather be anywhere besides a basketball court. Could have double the rebounds but is standing with his hands down under the rim and allowing players half his size to get the board over him.  Freshmen with almost as many turnovers as the opponent total. 9 for their last 56 from three. They are taking half of the shot clock to get into their offensive sets. 

Quote from: Kuiper on December 01, 2025, 05:16:18 PMAnother student newspaper story about a Final Four team that might be of interest, in part because it's an oft-discussed topic on this Board - the growth of D3 rosters.  In this story, the writer suggests that the reduction in the size of the Trinity roster before this year helped team culture and the competitiveness of practice. Given the team's success, it's hard to argue with the results.

QuoteOver the past year and a half, the Trinity men's soccer team has lost two games total between the regular season and playoffs, making it all the way to the final 16 teams of the NCAA Division III playoffs last year. Meanwhile, this year's seniors were a part of the first team under Head Coach Paul McGinlay to fail to make the national tournament since 2001, not including the shortened 2020 season.

There are a lot of reasons why Trinity has seen such a transition over the past four seasons, one of those being significant roster cuts, according to McGinlay.

"It was out of necessity," McGinlay said. "It's hard to run a program with that many players. We'd be on away trips, with 24 players and 18 left at home. It doesn't bring a group of players together."

QuoteUntil last season, men's soccer kept a substantial number of players on their roster. At points, the program was basically split into two teams, according to Aguilar.

"There was 'September Squad,' a squad for people who didn't make the first team but wanted to be on the team," Aguilar said. "Mentally, it was hard to be there. You came to training to play and to get minutes, and we were not even considered."

This situation, according to Aguilar, was a less-than-ideal playing environment, and McGinlay knew it.

"Everyone wants to be on the squad [by] Labor Day weekend," McGinlay said. "But when it comes to that third weekend in October, and they haven't played and haven't traveled, there's no way of keeping that enthusiasm and competitive edge. It becomes a drag to practice, and it shows."

The challenges of leading such a large squad go further than managing the time and involvement of all the players. Team culture takes a hit as well, Aguilar said.

"There was segregation between [first-year] classes and senior classes because there were so many of us," Aguilar said. "There were so many players that there was always competition, and sometimes it turned toxic."

For the 2024 season, McGinlay and his staff decided to give players the option to redshirt, where a student athlete delays a year of participation to preserve one of their four years of eligibility. The coaching staff encouraged players to take that option, and some did, while others didn't. Players who weren't even presented with that idea also decided that a year off would be better for them, according to junior defender Luke Mayfield.

QuoteDuring the year McGinlay adopted redshirting, the Tigers went undefeated through the entire season until the third round of the NCAA Division III playoffs, winning the SCAC for the first time since 2018 along the way. McGinlay said he wasn't satisfied, though. During spring exit meetings with players, McGinley pitched the idea to release players to reach a specific roster size.

"There wasn't one person who went through a spring individual meeting and didn't agree that smaller was going to be better," McGinlay said.

Under the smaller system, Trinity has won nine of 10 games to begin the year. However, Trinity's record wasn't the only thing that improved. Mayfield said the team culture improved, too.

"It's fewer people who need to hop on board with the team mentality," Mayfield said. "If everybody's on the same page in the locker room, then we're going to be on the same page on the field."

A few reactions:

1.  Not sure the issue at Trinity was roster size per se.

To put this story in perspective, the 2025 Trinity roster is 36, which is still pretty large.  The 2024 roster was 40 (when they apparently "red-shirted" some players).  The 2023 roster was 31.  The 2022 roster was 41.  It seems like the big dip was from '22 to '23, which would make sense since 2022 was the last season Trinity missed out on the NCAA tournament  Perhaps there was the backsliding because of transfers and big recruiting classes and they're still fighting it.  I suspect the author of the article - Scott Lebo, who is the play-by-play commentator on Trinity's broadcasts and is very insightful and good at the job on the Trinity broadcasts - is recalling a bit of his own circumstances since he left the Trinity soccer team after the 2022 season (because of what he later wrote was post-concussive syndrome).

My guess is the real story is "deadweight" (players who weren't likely to play much, if at all).  I think that's different than roster size per se.  A large roster where the freshman aren't playing much, but are spending the year developing and competing for time in the future, is very different than one where there are juniors and seniors who know they aren't ever going to play much.  The question is whether those upperclassmen are providing leadership and accountability or are just burned out and going through the motions, missing practices etc.  The latter is a killer for team culture for sure.

2.  Travel and communication is an important aspect of roster size

It's one thing to have players on a 28 person roster who don't play much but get to go to all games, feel like a part of the team, and are never explicitly or implicitly given a signal that there is no chance they will play. They still have hope, even if it's only through injuries or a blowout.  It's another thing when every week you have to check to see if you made the travel roster and then it's very publicly made known that you didn't make the cut.  That was probably made harder this year for Trinity because they had more air travel due to joining the SAA (although Trinity actually got a lot of home SAA games this year).

3.  Trinity is a team where the whole is better than the sum of its parts, making team culture very important

There are teams with more talented and more athletic players than Trinity in the Final Four.  Trinity's strength is playing as a team, passing and moving very effectively, anticipating each other's movement, having great technical ability in tight spaces, and having players two deep at almost every position who can do all of the above so that the team can continue seamlessly when subs come in.  That requires a very high level of competition during practice and great team culture.  In that sense, Trinity's move to make decisions that benefit team culture makes a lot of sense.   

I'm sure someone has mentioned it but I didn't find out until very recently they have a player that's the son of a member of Radiohead.

Why does RPI play such an insanely weak non-conference schedule