Small/Mid-Major Conference WrapUp 2012, Part 1

May 1.  The NBA playoffs are going strong.  Olympic Basketball is just around the corner.  And college hoops is completely off the radar.  Sure, there is some talk out there.  The WAC continues to lose members.  SMU apparently is grossly overpaying Larry Brown for nothing but name recognition.  But the teams and players themselves are for the most part  “out of sight and out of mind”.  So, what is there to discuss as we slowly wind ourselves through those long months until Midnight Madness begins a new season of practices and games?

My intent is to spend the next two months revisiting the year that was 2012.  This column is the first of a series that will run through the end of the 2011-2012 NCAA athletic year.  Come the start of the new year on July 1, we will turn to new topics.  Of course, I am not going to be focusing on the “Big Boys”.  Yes, Kentucky had themselves a pretty good year and cut down some nets in the end, but before we ever reached that point, there were some major accomplishments by the little guys.  The Small/Mid-major conferences and schools.

This was the year of the 15 seed.  Norfolk State upset Missouri.  Lehigh shocked everyone by knocking off mighty Duke.  It was also a banner year for the state of South Dakota, as they put their first ever team into the NCAA tournament, leaving Alaska and Maine as the only two states never top have a school in the Big Dance.  Finally, this year saw the end of the longest streak of failing to qualify for the tournament by a team that had qualified at least once before.  Harvard returned to the Dance for the first time since 1946, passing the title of longest time since their last appearance to conference mate Dartmouth who has not been since 1959 (and speaking of states, Dartmouth is the only school from New Hampshire ever to make the field, giving that state the longest active drought as well).

In much lesser known news, this was also the best year ever for the Great West conference.  In addition to having North Dakota qualify for the CIT tournament through the league’s “automatic bid” as conference tournament champions, Utah Valley received an at-large invite to the CIT.  In its short existence, this was the first time the Great West had ever qualified two teams for postseason play.  This year also saw the rare feat of an independent school receiving a postseason invite.  Cal State-Bakersfield was invited to participate in the CIT, giving the Roadrunners their first ever Division I postseason appearance.  Bakersfield as not been able to, as of yet, turn that into a conference invite.  The school at one point was on the verge of an invitation from the Big West, but with much more attractive options such as Hawai’i and San Diego State having come along due to realignment, that membership is all but dead.  Perhaps if the WAC somehow survives as a non-football conference, the school may be able to finally find a home for its basketball team (their baseball team is currently an affiliate member of the WAC).  Heading into next season, with Seattle, Longwood, and Nebraska-Omaha all slated to join conferences, CS-Bakersfield may end up being the last of the independents, though what happens with the remains of the WAC and the Great West (which is going to be down to only four members in two years), remains to be seen.

There were also programs that experienced the exact opposite of banner years.  Towson, Binghamton, Grambling, Kennesaw State, South Carolina State, Tennessee-Martin, and Navy were all particularly woeful this season.  But hope does spring eternal, as was shown by the Savannah State Tigers.  Just a few years removed from being one of the outright worst overall programs in Division I, Savannah State won the MEAC regular season title and received an automatic bid into the NIT.  This was a truly remarkable turn-around for a program that just a few years ago looked like they would be better off dropping their sports down to a lower division.

One final note about dropping down to a lower division that came out of this season: the New Orleans Privateers.  Once a proud program, New Orleans disappeared from Division I entirely this season, having decided at first to play Division 3 and eventually deciding to move to Division 2 instead.  This season was the first of their “transition” down to the lower level.  While it has not been uncommon for a school to announce a transition up to Division I and then give it up after a season or two, New Orleans is apparently working in reverse.  The last word was that they have given up on their “downward transition” and will remain a Division I school after all.  So, expect the Privateers to return next season, though it remains to be seen if they will have a conference affiliation.

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The Indefensible Transfer Rule Strikes Again

April is always a fascinating month for college basketball. The National Title game starts off the month, and then people immediately forget about college hoops in favor of NBA or MLB interests. Which is probably a good thing, because the month of April showcases the underbelly of college basketball about as well as anything.

As happens every year, April sees the closing of the recruiting process, the heavy movement of coaches from program to program, the declaration of underclassmen to the NBA draft, and the opening of the transfer process. This week, it’s been the transfer process that has grabbed the headlines, and as normal with college basketball, it’s for all the wrong (and indefensible) reasons.

If you want a fuller rundown, check out Rob Dauster at CBT, who does a good job taking a measured approach to things. I’m not feeling anywhere near as charitable as Rob was, however.

The NCAA head office likes to present themselves as the supposed advocacy arm for student-athletes. Yet it’s the NCAA’s own rules that ridiculously restrict STUDENTS (who cares if they’re athletes?) from exercising the rights that every other student has — namely, the right to go to a different institution of higher learning of their choosing without penalty. We’ve seen these cases for as long as I can remember — whether it’s Phil Martelli refusing to allow Todd O’Brien to transfer, or whether it’s Bo Ryan restricting Jarrod Uthoff from a wholly arbitrary list of schools, or whether it’s 1990 Bob Knight refusing to allow Lawrence Funderburke to transfer to a Division I school. There are plenty of reasons why these transfer restrictions take place, whether it’s vindictiveness, greed, avoiding giving a potential opponent a strategic advantage. None of the reasons justify the restrictions.

The utter, brazen hypocrisy of the NCAA’s member institutions continues to amaze, even when grim familiarity with these tactics should dull the reaction. Every other member of the athletics complex in college sports — administrator, coach, student manager — is free to leave their job and take a position elsewhere, without penalty. Yet the basketball or football player who finds themselves at a school they don’t like, or playing for a coach who they don’t mesh well with, or who is simply homesick, finds their future college choice left in the hands of an unaccountable athletic department who absolutely does not have the best interests of the athlete at heart. And of course, even after the the athlete is granted a transfer through the divine grace of the athletic department, they still have to wait a full year before getting a chance to resume their short collegiate athletic career.

Does anyone really support this rule? I read some responses from media and fans saying, “Well, if we didn’t have transfer rules, we’d have active recruiting of other team’s players all the time, and we don’t want that.” Right, because that doesn’t already happen today. Even if it does, why is this necessarily a bad thing, and why would it necessarily become an epidemic? Happy players who are getting playing time and enjoy their school aren’t going anywhere. Just like regular students, college athletes aren’t going to just randomly leave their school — there’s going to be a good reason for them doing so. And frankly, why is that anyone’s business but  the athlete’s? Shouldn’t the athlete be given the same power that their coach and athletic director and fellow student is given in determining what is the best situation for them?

It’s remarkable but unsurprising that college presidents and administrators are perfectly fine with allowing members of their student body to have their liberties restricted to this degree. No one who follows college sports closely should be surprised by this. But where are the advocates for college athletes pointing out the unfairness of this process? Where are the media, who have consistently punted their responsibility to hold presidents and schools accountable for these and other practices? And where is the integrity of the coaches, many of whom puff themselves up by talking about how much they care for “kids”, yet act like petty tyrants when those “kids” suddenly want a change of scene?

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Transfer News

Matt Steinbrook is transferring from Western Michigan to Xavier. The guys stats aren’t bad, but WMU was not a team I was actively following during the season. The only two games they played that I paid any sort of attention to were against Akron and Ohio. He didn’t play against Ohio because he was suspended, and he didn’t play much against Akron. He also ended this past season by getting ejected in WMU’s final MAC tournament game.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Xavier fans aren’t exactly jumping for joy over this.

I will say this, though. If you take the time to envision in your head what a stereotypical basketball player looks like, this guy breaks down all stereotypes.

 
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http://vmedia.rivals.com/uploads/1139/1237072.jpg

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Kentucky vs Indiana series endangered?

While it doesn’t have quite the national pop of Duke-North Carolina or Syracuse-UConn, the Indiana-Kentucky series in basketball has a lot going for it, both in terms of the teams’ histories and the rabidity of the rivalry between the fans. But could the series as it currently stands be in trouble?

The answer appears to be yes. Per Justin Albers (@Justin_Albers) of the IU blog Inside The Hall (in reverse chronological order):

What? IU and Kentucky not playing? Sacrilege! We’ve seen some threats to the series before — Bob Knight famously made noise about canceling the series in the aftermath of the mid-80’s scandals in Lexington — but things have sailed along steadily for a few decades now. There were some rumblings earlier this year about Kentucky possibly dropping one of IU, Louisville, or North Carolina due to an expanded SEC schedule, but nothing further has come of that. Continue reading

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NCAA Tournament Live Chat – Day 1

Let’s talk NCAA Tournament:

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Conference Tournament Viewing Guide 03.11.12

Here is the list of conference tournament games on the schedule for today, together with their available television/webstreaming options.  Please note that I only list webstreams for games without national television coverage, even if a stream may also be available. “Local TV” means that the game does not have full national coverage and you should check your local listings.  (PPV) means that the webstream has a fee.

(all times are eastern)

Sunday, March 11

ACC Championship:
1:00 PM    (1) North Carolina vs (3) Florida State    ESPN

Atlantic Ten Championship:
1:00 PM    (3) Xavier vs (4) St. Bonaventure    CBS

Big Ten Championship:
3:30 PM    (1) Michigan State vs (3) Ohio State    CBS

SEC Championship:
1:00 PM    (1) Kentucky vs (3) Vanderbilt    ABC

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