Roundup: Basketball season in full swing

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. The annual stuff-your-face-with-food holiday was again good to Hat Trick, full of lots of turkey, but sadly no mashed potatoes (a crime, in my opinion).

It’s been a solid two weeks since my last post (my bad…), so there’s a lot to catch up on. First let’s take a look at the football playoff picture. Read more

More playoff action

So I figured that since I updated the women’s soccer playoff picture earlier today, I should mention the D-III field hockey playoffs. Today marked the start and completion of the first round, and didn’t really produce any upsets to note. A quick look at the bracket shows that every home team won, and advanced to the second round of the tournament, which will be played this weekend. Keep an eye on defending National Champion Ursinus, who had a bye in the first round. They play Juniata, who defeated Johns Hopkins in the opening round.

And while I’m at it, here is the scoreboard and updated bracket for the men’s soccer playoffs. Three-time defending Champion Messiah received a bye in the opening round of the tourney, and faces Greensboro this weekend.

Women’s soccer tournament underway

There’s been some buzz on the South Hill about the Ithaca women’s soccer team, who faces Bowdoin in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday. The first round actually began today, with a number of games on the slate. Wheaton, last year’s champion, will be looking to repeat this year.

The Bombers haven’t won since they collected back-to-back National Chamionships in 1990 and 1991. Take a look at the full bracket?and make some predictions. It’s playoff time.

So much ado over text messages

It looks like this will be my last post for a while (technological updates and such, boring stuff really), so I guess it’s only right that I discuss a college sports issue. Though, I had a lot of fun creating my own mock draft and offering up a new book of the month. But Hat Trick is a college sports blogger at heart, so let’s get back in the swing of it, shall we?

A number of months ago, the NCAA put a ban in effect (beginning for next season) on coaches sending text messages to players they are recruiting. There was a lot of questioning at the time, as the average sports fan wondered why this was even necessary. But upon closer examination, the NCAA’s rationale really isn’t that complicated.

Every traditional recruiting tool - visits to the campus and by coaches, recruiting packages, phone calls, etc. - are all limited. Coaches simply can’t invade a recruit’s life and overwhelm them with…well, crap…for lack of a better term. It is also, hypothetically, supposed to even the playing field, and create competition between schools for recruits.

But prior to this ruling, text messages, a relatively new technology in the context of recruiting, were completely unaccounted for. Coaches could literally text recruits as much as they wanted, and receive as many texts as they wanted. But the NCAA said no more.

So why then am I babbling on about this? Well, today I opened up my new ESPN MVP service on my cell phone (quite possibly the coolest gadget thingy ever created) and one of the top headlines read as follows: “TTYL? NCAA to reconsider text messaging ban.” Hmmm, I wondered; why would they do that?

As it turns out, the ban is going to be put into effect on August 1st regardless. The NCAA will have a board of directors meeting on August 9th to decide the fate of the ban. Many schools objected to a ban on texting, saying they would be OK with a restriction on it (just like all other recruiting tactics), but not with an outright ban. Honestly, I would have to say that I agree with the schools on this one.

How can you ban texting but not phone calls? It sets a bad precedent to treat one recruiting strategy differently than others. My hunch is that the board will either rescind the ban completely, or, more likely, amend it so that texts are allowed, but only to a degree.

From (an extra foot) down town

With the NBA Finals set to tip off Thursday night, I find myself in a basketball kind-of-mood today. Case in point: I went to the gym and launched jumpshots for a solid hour. While I felt like I was dying at the end, I also felt accomplished, as it was my first physical activity in quite some time. Hey, I’m in college.

My favorite sport was always, and still is, basketball. I played all throughout middle and high school. I was never the fastest guy on the floor, nor could I jump very high at all. But man oh man, could I shoot (a snapshot of myself dominating The Ithacan’s new editor-in-chief in a game of knockout). Surprisingly enough, my shot still remains intact. But as I bombed away shots from the three-point line today, I began thinking about the NCAA’s latest change to the dimensions of the college basketball court.

About two weeks ago, the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a proposal by the Men’s Basketball Rules Committee to move the three-point line back a full foot (from 19 feet, 9 inches to 20 feet, 9 inches). This will go into effect the 2008-2009 season (the year after next year).

Being a long-range specialist myself, I can speculate (with good reason) that this will really affect a lot of three-point shooters at all levels of collegiate basketball. Players will have played throughout high school (which will remain at 19 feet, 9 inches), and will then have to account for an extra foot of distance. And while a foot doesn’t sound like much, it is more than enough to throw a shot off. I predict a sharp decline in three-point field goal percentage two years from now. Maybe to account for the extra foot, the NCAA could widen the basket by 6 to 12 inches. Yeah, I could live with that.

Men’s tennis NCAA bracket released

The NCAA announced its selections for the 2007 NCAA Division III men’s tennis tournament today. There were no real surprises among the 41 teams chosen. The two teams from last season’s championship game - Emory University and Middlebury College - return to the tournament as number one seeds this year.

Oddly enough, the bracket features three teams with sub-.500 records - the University of Redlands (12-14), Swarthmore College (6-9) and Ithaca College (9-12). Hat Trick doesn’t pretend to be a tennis expert, so (unfortunately) we won’t have any predictions for this tournament. But as consolation, there will be plenty of updates over the course of the next two weeks or so on how the tournament unfolds.

Swimmers excel in pool and classroom

The College Swimming Coaches Association of America (the CSCAA) announced their annual team academic awards on Monday and there was both good and bad news. The good news: a combined 108 Division III schools had cumulative GPAs of at least 3.0. The bad news: aside from being able to lap me in a swimming pool, a huge portion of D-III swimmers can now top me in the classrooms.

All jokes aside though, this is a staggering total. The discrepancy between men’s (36) and women’s (72) teams above a 3.0 was pretty surprising. The Washington University men’s team had the highest cumulative GPA in all of college swimming with a 3.6. The Hamilton College women’s team had the second highest cumulative GPA with a 3.59.

With so much focus being paid to college athletics at this time of year, the NCAA would be wise to promote these statistics. It shows that athletes can do well in the classroom, as well as in their respective sport. The Washington men’s team finished 18th at Nationals almost two weeks ago, while the Hamilton women’s team finished ninth in the NESCAC Championships last month. Props to the athletes on all 108 of these teams for superb swimming seasons and even more stellar academic performances.

Division III crowns new crop of champions

Well, I’ve finally escaped the cocoon of laziness and traveling that is spring break. But I guess I had to get back on schedule at some point. Unfortunately, mid March just happens to be one of the busiest times of the year in sports, so let’s quickly recap the past week or so in Division III.

On Saturday night Amherst College won the men’s basketball national title, while Depauw University claimed the women’s basketball national title. Amherst defeated last year’s champion Virginia Wesleyan College 80-67 to pick up the first championship in school history. Depauw made things a little more interesting in their game as they squandered a 13-point lead against Washington University with less than 10 minutes remaining. The Tigers held on to pick up the 55-52 victory and bring home the national title.

Both teams had spectacular seasons, as evidenced by their final records of 31-3 (Depauw) and 30-2 (Amherst), but what separated these two squads from the rest of the country was their ability to come up with big performances against quality opponents. In their respective tournament games, the two teams won each contest by averages of 14.4 (Amherst) and 12.3 (Depauw) points per game. They didn’t just squeak by; they dominated. Congratulations to both Amherst and Depauw on solid seasons.

In semi-related news, the final results of my bracket predictions are in … and I didn’t do so bad. On the men’s side I correctly guessed 34 out of the 62 total games played (55%). For the women’s bracket I got 32 right (52%), so at the very least I was consistent. I had only one correct final four team on each side, and none of the four squads playing in the two championship games. Clearly I didn’t win the d3hoops.com Pick ‘Em Challenge, but hey, I’ll be back next year.

And finally, SUNY-Oswego won the men’s ice hockey national championship earlier today, defeating Middlebury College 4-3 in overtime. Junior goalie Ryan Scott did his part for Oswego, recording a staggering 47 saves. The title is the first ever for the Lakers.

Roundup: NCAA track qualifiers announced

Hockey brackets set: The NCAA released the official brackets for both the men’s and women’s ice hockey championships Sunday. Middlebury College returns to both tournaments this year as the defending national champion. Their path to a repeat looks to be more difficult this year, as Plattsburgh State claimed the top women’s seed with a 25-0-2 record. On the men’s side, top seed Saint Norbert enters with a record of 24-3-2. Both championship games will be broadcast online.

Track announcements made: The NCAA also released the official list of qualifiers for the national championships in both men’s and women’s track and field yesterday. On the men’s side, Wisconsin Oshkosh had the most individual qualifier (13). On the women’s side, Wisconsin La Crosse qualified a meet-high 15 members.

My bracket busted? Well, not quite. But it would be fair to say that I had mixed results in the first weekend. In my women’s bracket, two of my final four teams (Hope and Lake Forest) are already eliminated, so that’s not helping at all. But otherwise I have nine of the Sweet 16 teams, including my two championship squads (Bowdoin and NYU). On the men’s side only one of my final four teams is out so far (Trinity College). I also have nine out of the Sweet 16 teams, including my championship teams (UW-Stevens Point and Wooster). More updates to come after this weekend.

Do athletics and education go together?

This seems to be the age-old question in collegiate athletics. Are college athletes really getting the same educational experience as the rest of the student population is, or are they just brought in to win games and perform at a high level? Well Josh Centor, the main blogger/one of the creators of the NCAA’s Double-A Zone blog offers his take:

I?ve never felt that a college education is about what you learn in the classroom. Of course that?s important, but I remember far less of my economics courses than I do of the growing up that transpired on campus for four years. I walked into college an 18-year-old high school graduate and left a 21-year-old man who had met the girl he was going to marry, made lifelong friends, learned how to handle social situations, got over a fear of flying, figured out the principles of international business, adapted to a college curveball and had the greatest four years of his life.

Centor was a student-athlete for all four years of his undergraduate education. Never having played college sports myself, I can’t say what it is like to balance an athletic schedule with everything else. However, a very large portion of my time at Ithaca has been devoted to covering sports on campus, which is what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. And while I am majoring in sport media, if I had not gotten involved with The Ithacan and covering sports, I would never have gotten the extensive writing experience. And as Centor discusses, it’s all about getting that experience.

Anyway, Centor’s blog addresses this, as well as many other issues pertaining to the NCAA. It is definitely worth checking out.

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