Quote from: CNU85 on Yesterday at 12:41:57 PM

Quote from: WLCALUM83 on October 08, 2025, 10:09:33 AMNews about another change here:

https://athletics.alverno.edu/news/2025/10/3/general-c2c-welcomes-alverno-college-as-newest-member.aspx

Interesting. This one is news to me. I wonder, what prompted the move?

They've cancelled a bunch of sports for this year.  I suspect, between that and being a single-gender college, perhaps their conference has grown a little tired of them?

Quote from: Ralph Turner on October 09, 2025, 11:13:14 AM

Quote from: jknezek on October 08, 2025, 01:12:34 PMI hate that the ODAC has so many members in some sports you can't even do a traditional home and home for the conference schedule. Soccer is a big culprit, with the unbalanced schedule every year seemingly given some team a huge advantage as they avoid the bigger names and get a solid seed for the tournament, then can't progress. But with 14 core members, and three of those single-sex schools, Hampden-Sydney, Hollins, and Sweet Briar, you just can't quite get the split.

Has the ODAC ever considered splitting into divisions for some sports. The ODAC is not playing double-round-robin in men's basketball, for instance. I see 16 conference games for Guilford this year. But is that schedule balanced and fair across the entire conference? Is Guilford's schedule better or worse than another team's?

Double round robin intra-division and single round robin inter-divisional would give 16 games and might be fairer.

Just thinking...

They play every team three times in two years or something like that.  Although with serious questions about Averett's future existence, the ODAC might look different soon, as well.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on October 06, 2025, 01:12:24 PMNone other than Bill Simmons (formerly of ESPN fame) called out Flo$port$ for their inferior (and infuriating) product after his experience this weekend - see the excerpt from his "BS Podcast":  https://x.com/BQuillmanQcast/status/1975192844592886041

Funny enough, I was watching that Bowdoin-Emerson game live that he referenced.  His daughter scored a screamer two minutes in.  I don't think that Bowdoin stream is anything spectacular, but it's a lot better than most WSoc broadcasts.

Quote from: ziggy on October 02, 2025, 03:09:00 PM

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on September 21, 2025, 04:24:09 PM"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

Quote from: ronk on September 21, 2025, 07:17:27 PM

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on September 21, 2025, 04:24:09 PM"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

 College decisions are made based on a number of factors: academics, finances(public vs private; merit vs income aid; commuting vs room & board), student body size, prestige, and, for the athletes, program success; separation of D3 athletics into tiers of philosophy will largely depend on what proportion of that decision should be allocated to athletics vs all the other factors.

Whenever these kinds of statements and comments get out, I think it has less to do with the future of DIII and more to do with that particular institution's future in DIII.

I think that's true, but there also aren't really great alternatives.  I can certainly feel for folks who've seen the division slowly move away from what it was.  I also think this is why there has been and will always be a "Division IV" rumor out there, even if it's not likely to come to fruition.

Quote from: Ron Boerger on September 30, 2025, 09:19:50 AMI didn't even know this was a D3 institution, or that you could participate in D3 with so few sports offerings.

That could be why they're leaving.  I'm not going to take the time to go back through the membership committee minutes, but maybe there was a waiver denial in there that forced their hand?

Redlands only loses one guy.  A couple of the guys listed as seniors last year have another year of eligibility.  They're also getting a start back who missed most or all of last season due to injury.

But Trinity will be hands down the favorite, for sure.

Ok, so we've now become a thread arguing over the definition of "cliff."  Seems about right.

Why are people engaging in this?  It's a fact.

College enrollment peaked in 2010 at just over 21m.  It's been gradually decreasing since then.  There are fewer children now than there were before - a full 15% drop if you go all the way back to Kindergarten.

If you add fewer 18 year olds to declining college enrollment you get massive enrollment declines.

Add to that the extra burdens currently being placed on foreign enrollments, it gets worse.

It's going to eat up a ton of small and poor colleges over the next decade.

Maybe the raw numbers won't change at rich, prestigious schools or large state institutions, but it's going to impact what it means to attend them or run them.

To say "there's no enrollment cliff" is like saying "the world is flat."  People might do it, but they should be ignored as if they don't exist.

Quote from: IC798891 on September 23, 2025, 09:41:20 AM

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on September 21, 2025, 04:24:09 PM"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

If you actively recruited them, they made their decision based on athletics. The specific weight they give to athletics vs. everything else may vary, but their decision was impacted by athletics.

If you truly don't want people to make a decision based on athletics, you'd save a lot of money because you could scratch off your recruiting budget and just make do with walk-ons.

That's the catch 22, right?  You hire a coach, do you want them twiddling their thumbs all day?  I suspect some schools do.  They want full time faculty who coach part time and make do with whoever shows up to play.

We make a big deal about the fact that D3 isn't just glorified intramurals, but the reality is there are still a lot of faculty and administrations around the country who'd like it to be just that, who see full time coaches with no teaching duties as outside the ethos of d3.

It's not a dichotomy, though (as nothing ever is) - you've got people who want to draw the d3 line all over the place and thus, as I said, I think it's highly unlikely you'll get any real traction for something different, because no one can agree on what that different thing should be.

The question will be what happens when/if (but really when) the NCAA goes away and people are forced to figure out something different.

"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

Ann Arbor has been a satellite campus for a long time, but there was a reduction in programs there, so maybe students transferred campuses?

Quote from: monsoon on September 14, 2025, 04:03:28 PMHas the MIAA had a player from Maine before, or will Trevon Thomas be the first?

He's not actually from Maine.  He went to prep school there.  He's from Chicago.

I did a little research yesterday which shows CUW is in a strong position going forward.

From 2023 to 2024 they reported an increase in undergraduate enrollment from 1700 to 2400.  They had a budget surplus last year and the deficits in prior years haven't been huge.

They're also the flagship campus for the Concordia System, controlled by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (Moorhead isn't part of it, but most of the others you've heard of are).  It's not unlike a state system, where the campuses are independent, but there's an overarching organizational structure that they're all a part of, as well.

In the last seven years they've closed three campuses and Concordia Texas is currently suing to separate from the system.  The Ann Arbor campus (which is technically a satellite of CUW) keeps getting smaller and likely will go away at some point.

If the LCMS is like any other US denomination, it's likely hemorrhaging money and members - consolidating higher ed in one much larger, more stable campus is a good way to move forward in that situation.  A bigger, more robust CUW fits pretty well in the CCIW and I think there's a lot of mutual benefit there.

I'm making a ton of assumptions in this analysis (I don't actually know what the Concordia system is doing), but I don't think they are far-fetched assumptions.

There are definitely schools that resent all the talk of "it runs like a d1 program," that are often selling points for recruits at high performing d3 schools.  I think even things like coaches who don't teach, full time assistants, geographic expansion of the travel, less regional tournaments.

Now, what leads me to think there's no real traction for this is simply that there's no chance these schools can ever agree on what is necessary and what isn't - that's why d3 overall keeps pushing forward.  The more ambitious and aggressive programs push the whole thing.

There are certainly some who believe it needs to be a system in which winning your conference is bigger than competing for a national title.  Getting together to see how conference champions fare against each other is nice and all, but the conference is the main thing.  There are some who already see the conference itself as a concession - athletics should be an extra curricular like anything else.  That's a divide I don't think you can ever bridge or fully delineate.

Quote from: CNU85 on September 10, 2025, 02:34:23 PM

Quote from: WUPHF on September 10, 2025, 01:54:28 PMBoldvich said that their FloSports partnership has paid off for its member schools, both financially and by reducing strain on schools' sports information offices.

How does FloSports help reduce the strain on sports information offices?

Isn't the school still responsible for the broadcasts? So, at a minimum, it's the same strain.

Isn't the school contractually obligated to improve the broadcasts over time? Thus, increasing the strain of adding resources or training existing resources on new equipment.

What am I missing?
 

A lot of the Landmark schools have used their Flo money to upgrade salaries, purchase equipment, and hire more student workers.  If you're adding the Flo money to a broadcast budget that already exists, you're going to be able to do more with that budget (potentially reduce strain).