My shot at bracket glory

Well, here they are. My brackets for the women’s and men’s Division III basketball tournaments. I posted thumbnails of my predictions, which I filled out on d3hoops.com. Just click them for the full-sized version. Let me know what you think.

Top half of men’s bracket

Click to see the rest of my predictions. Read more

Brackets set for men’s and women’s tournaments

The NCAA released the fields for the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments on Sunday evening. Monday morning they released the official brackets. Click here for the men’s bracket, and here for the women’s bracket.

Also, for those of you that enjoy filling out brackets when the Division I tournament rolls around, check out d3hoops.com. They have a free pick ‘em contest for both the men’s and women’s tourneys. I’m in the process of filling out my brackets as I write this, so if I’m able to post them here, I will do so. Otherwise I’ll just post my predictions for some notable games and any upsets I forsee.

Whitworth TE surprises at NFL Combine

Yes, college basketball is the main focus of most sports fans right now. But let’s not forget that the NFL offseason is in full swing, as evidenced by the college combine and the impending free agency period. I was reading through ESPN.com’s Todd McShay’s most recent observations from the combine, and found a little blurb about a Division III tight end. McShay writes:

Whitworth TE Michael Allan has emerged as one of the most captivating stories of the 2007 combine. The first Division-III prospect invited to the NFL scouting combine since WR Ryan Hoag in 2003, Allan proved worthy of the invitation when he ran the second-best 40-yard time (4.71) of the entire tight end group. He is raw and he doesn’t show ideal lateral quickness, but Allan has the size, speed and hands to warrant draft consideration on the second day.

Allan recorded 53 receptions for 1,100 yards and nine touchdowns in his senior campaign. He is also featured on d3football.com, which links to an NBC video of him working out in preparation for the draft.

Expect more updates on Allan as the date of the NFL draft approaches.

As the dust finally settles

After a completely wild weekend of D-III college basketball, the fields are set for both the men’s and women’s championship tournaments. The NCAA announced all the teams for both sides, which were promptly posted by d3hoops.com. The matchups will be determined tomorrow when the NCAA releases the official brackets.

Monday also marks the day when other tourneys, such as the ECAC Upstate New York bracket, are announced. Be sure to check here tomorrow for information on that, as well as other championship tournaments around Division III.

Yup, it’s almost March.

I’ve found my new favorite website

Tonight the Empire 8 men’s and women’s basketball tournaments open in Rochester and Elmira, respectively. On the men’s side the matchups are: No. 1 St. John Fisher vs. No. 4 RIT and No. 2 Utica College vs. No. 3 Ithaca College. The women’s matchups include: No. 1 Elmira College vs. No. 4 RIT and No. 2 Ithaca vs. No. 3 Utica. Fisher and Elmira get to host the tournaments since they finished as the top seeds.

In one of the most competitive seasons in the history of the Empire 8, the games will, for the first time, be available to anyone with internet access, via free webcasts on PennAtlantic.com. All it requires is a free user registration (but what doesn’t these days) that takes 30 seconds. After registering earlier today in preparation for tonight’s contests, I browsed through the site to see what else they had to offer. I was excited to see that their schedule included a ton of games (upwards of 40) in a short time period (Today through March 1st). Some do require extra viewing payments, but a solid portion of the games are free.

My apologies to family and friends - this site will be commanding most of my free time for the next week, and probably longer.

Defending champions ranked second in preseason poll

Since I posted the preseason baseball poll a few days ago, I figured I’d post the preseason softball poll, which was just released today by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association. Defending champion Rutgers-Camden University is ranked second despite receiving six of the eight possible first-place votes. Go figure that one out.

Rank Team Record Pts

1 Muskingum (1) 46-6 186

2 Rutgers-Camden (6) 47-5 184

3 Ithaca (1) 40-7 177

4 Washington-St. Louis 37-7 160

5 Wisconsin-Eau Claire 37-6 154

6 Linfield 37-11 153

7 Wartburg 40-7 149

8 St. Thomas 48-4 128

9 Ramapo 38-18 127

10 Plattsburgh State 40-9 120

11 Louisiana College 38-9 108

12 Williams 30-10 102

13 Chapman 28-10 93

14 Gustavus Adolphus 31-9 92

15 Moravian 37-9 77

16 Emory 36-11 62

17 Methodist 39-8 56

17 Illinois Wesleyan 32-12 56

19 Cortland State 34-11 54

20 Rowan 41-7 52

21 Univ. of Redlands 31-13 50

22 Coe 41-13 49

23 Hope 32-14 36

24 Transylvania 32-12 33

25 Central (IA) 33-13 31

Others receiving votes:

La Verne (27); Wisconsin-Osh Kosh (17); Rhode Island College (14); Babson (13); Augustana (12); Roanoke (12); Buffalo State (11); five others received votes but appeared on only one ballot.

New rule change allows for eye protection

I’ve always believed that any and every sport involving a ball/puck and a stick of some sort should require facial protective gear. Case in point: I was one of the few kids to wear goggles during floor hockey in high school gym class. My reasoning? Simple. I’d rather play with semi-fogged goggles then risk losing an eye.

Apparently I’m not the only one with that kind of thought process. Just yesterday the NCAA announced that:

The Divisions I, II and III Field Hockey Committees approved all International Hockey Federation (FIH) rules changes for the 2007-08 during their annual meetings last month, including one that will allow players to wear eye protection if they choose to do so.

Previously the only players allowed to wear any kind of protective gear over their eyes were players with medical reasons. The goggles will resemble the pair to the left.

This new rule is far overdue, but nonetheless still gets approval from me. I must admit I’m interested to see what the reaction is to this decision. I suspect it won’t be as boisterous as it would be if the protective gear was made mandatory. I believe it should be mandatory, as it is in college ice hockey, but that’s another argument for another day.

Collegiate Baseball Newspaper’s preseason baseball poll

I thought I’d post the preseason poll for all your enjoyment. Let the debates begin. (via Collegiate Baseball)

No. Team Record Points

1. Otterbein (Ohio) 34-16 -2 252

2. Chapman (Calif.) 33-13 248

3. Montclair State (N.J.) 35-19 -2 246

4. Wisconsin-Stevens Point 35-18 244

5. Southern Maine 32-17 241

6. Eastern Connecticut 36-20 240

7. Marietta (Ohio) 43-11 238

8. College of New Jersey 38-8 235

9. Wheaton (Mass.) 42-10 232

10. North Carolina Wesleyan 31-19 229

11. Cortland (N.Y.) 39-9 226

12. Aurora (Ill.) 34-14 225

13. Wooster (Ohio) 34-14 222

14. St. Thomas (Minn.) 31-11 220

15. Kean (N.J.) 31-17 217

16. Millsaps (Tenn.) 37-13 215

17. Ripon (Wis.) 34-7 212

18. Texas Lutheran 35-13 -1 209

19. Carthage (Ill.) 34-9 208

20. Ithaca (N.Y.) 33-11 206

21. Salisbury (Md.) 37-10 204

22. Western New England (Mass.) 35-12 202

23. Rensselaer (N.Y.) 34-11 197

24. Rowan (N.J.) 30-15 196

25. Augustana (Ill.) 31-10 194

26. Trinity (Texas) 34-13 191

27. George Fox (Ore.) 29-15 190

28. St. Olaf (Minn.) 30-10 189

29. Bridgewater (Va.) 32-14 -1 185

30. Manchester (Ind.) 35-11 183

Also receiving votes: Emory (Ga.), St. Scholastica (Minn.), Cal Lutheran, William Paterson (N.J.), Johns Hopkins (Md.), Mount St. Joseph (Ohio), Alvernia (Pa.), York (Pa.), Methodist (N.C.), Washington & Jefferson (Pa.), La Grange (Ga.), Texas-Tyler.

Miller quietly leads aquatics powerhouse

The Union College women’s swimming and diving team won the NYSWCAA (states, for the acronym-challenged) Championships this weekend, earning their second title in the last three years. The Ithaca College women’s swimming and diving team beat Union by three and a half points last season. Otherwise we’d be looking at a three-peat for the Dutchwomen.

The Bombers should hardly hang their heads though, as they have an equally, if not more impressive streak going. With their second-place finish in the state Ithaca picked up its eighth consecutive Empire 8 title. Eight years is a long time, but in Division III swimming, it isn’t other-worldly. What’s especially noteworthy is that Ithaca’s head coach, Paula Miller, won her eighth NYSWCAA Coach of the Year award in the past nine seasons. Congratulations to Miller for this impressive feat.

Since she took over for Jim Perkins in 1985, Miller has turned Ithaca into one of the strongest D-III women’s swimming programs in the country. She has led the Bombers to 12 top-10 finishes at Nationals, including two fourth-place finishes. She has coached countless All-Americans and been named Division III Coach of the Year twice in her career.

With a number of her swimmers earning NCAA “B” and provisional times at states, Miller appears to be on her back to Nationals, which are held at the University of Houston this year.

It’s finally time to play ball

It’s that time of year again. Can’t you just smell it in the air? It’s almost time for baseball season to start. On the professional level, the first pitch of the first spring training game will be thrown in 10 days. Most college baseball teams begin their seasons in the first or second week of March, which, depending on where the school is located, can often result in a large amount of cancelations or postponements. This wasn’t so much of an issue for Marietta College last season, as they went on to win their fourth National Championship in school history. And while Marietta deserves coverage here (which they will get during their championship defense), I found something else that deserves recognition.

Virtually the only site devoted to covering everything about Division III sports is D3sports.com. It has two other sites that are devoted specifically to football (d3football.com) and basketball (d3hoops.com). Both sites have weekly rankings, analysis, features, commentaries, statistics - everything a fan could look for. As you’d probably imagine, I have spent way too much time on these sites. You can also understand why I was ecstatic to read that d3sports.com had added a new site: d3baseball.com.

The website, which is only a week or so old, is the upgraded version of a formerly self-maintained D-III baseball site. Jim Dixon, the website’s creator, approached d3sports.com about combining his site with theirs. The rest, as they say, is history.

This is a great step towards increasing national coverage of D-III sports. Now three of the four major sports have their own websites - awesome.

Play ball.

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