Demise of DIII Athletics

Players suiting up under this banner deserve more attention.

NCAA DIII Hockey and SNO Tap have never been one in the same sentence. Today that all changes.  We've tried shedding some light on DIII Basketball because ultimately these are the athletes we know best.  They represent the SNO Tap writers the best because Charlie, Big Cat, Easy E, Fant, and new addition J Nelly have all had experience in DIII athletics either on the football field or the basketball court. All of the writers outside of Pratt attend, or in my case attended, a college or university that participates in Division III athletics. I also might argue that UW-Milwaukee should hardly be considered D1, but that's neither here nor there.

 The problem is, some of the best stories in college athletics might come from these non-scholarship athletes, but that makes it less sexy to media outlets outside of the local newspaper.  DIII athletics usually takes extraordinary performances to garner any attention (e.g. Caltech Beavers snapping their 310 game losing streak in conference play, a crazy play on Sportcenter's Top 10 plays, or DIII Football being televised on ESPN). 

When I attended a basketball game inside the Schuldes Sports Center at St. Norbert, it was downright sick to think that high school games usually drew a higher attendance.  How is that a college atmosphere? I'm sure many of the other writers on the blog would say the same thing.  Unless it's the UW-EC vs. UW-Stout I-90 rivalry, attendance is usually sparse.  Football games usually draw a larger crowd, but their exposure is severely limited to local media.  I can tell you that UW-Whitewater played in the DIII National Championship Football game because it was brought to us by our darling ESPN, but I can't even remember if they won. Unless you're an avid fan of that sport, or play at that level, you hear nothing of DIII athletics. 

Now, even I said that the UConn women could beat a DIII guys team.  That was uttered for the sole reason of trying to get under the skin of fellow writers.  But, I really think they'd make it a game if they could slow down the pace and force guys into a half-court offense.  Anyways, it really is a sham that DIII athletics isn't a larger part of national recognition.  These athletes work just as hard, their play is just as exciting, albeit not elite, but there are very competitive national tournaments and match-ups that should be exposed to the sports fans of the world.  Will that ever happen? As our Wisconsin Rapids anti-school referendum friend would say, ABSOLUTELY HELL NO.

 I'm not breaking any news here, but that's because college athletics has been, and always will be about Division that "pays" its athletes with scholarships and reaps millions and millions of dollars in TV rights and likes.  It's just unfortunate that DIII athletics doesn't get more of the spotlight, and maybe as technology continues to take us to new heights in what we can watch and when, the ultimate sports fan will be capable of expanding their horizons to that of DII and DIII athletics.  For now, these athletes will continue to work countless hours a week for half-empty gyms; all for the love of the game, the purest motivator in sports.

-Patrick

Tom Izzo Saying No To Cavs

Tom Izzo turned down the Cleveland Cavaliers off to come coach for them next you. He turned down a 5 year $6 million contact to stay at Michigan State. The Cavs made it hard for Izzo because he would have doubled his pay. I think its really two reasons why Tom Izzo turned down the Cavs off. One is because he doesn't know what LeBron James is going to do, is he coming back of is he headed some where else. Second i mean look at the college coaches in the pass that have gone from college to the NBA, the track record is not to good. I believe other then Larry Brown college coach haven't been successful making that jump. So why leave a place where I'm sure he can coach for another 10 years to go to a place where if he has one or two bad season he can get fired. Now I'm going to throw something out there to you all. I heard that LeBron James was all for Tom Izzo as the Cavs head coach so many think LeBron will be back next year but i also heard that Tom Izzo wanted to talk to LeBron before he decided to take the offer. So does this mean Lebron is out? Well I'll talk about that in a future blog. Thanks for reading once again.

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Watch Butler vs Duke Live Stream

Butler Bulldogs are about to have their dream of becoming NCAA champions. One more victory in NCAA basketball final and it's done. Butler Bulldogs will face Duke Blue Devils in 2010 NCAA Final on Monday, April 5, 2010 at 9:00 pm ET in Indianapolis. Watch the men's college basketball online for free.

Watch Butler Bulldogs vs Duke Blue Devils Live Stream

College Football Land Rejoices!

Last year the NCAA implemented a new series of rules aimed at lowering times of games. Ostensibly this was done to help out the networks televising the games, as the 14 minutes the rules shaved off of the average game (from 3:21 to 3:07) last year was really useful so that...um...CBS could show 14 more commercials per broadcast? So the networks could fit one more episode of Malcom in the Middle into their early evening syndication lineups? To refresh your memory, the two major rule changes last year were that 1. The clock started when the kicking team kicked the ball (In the past the clock started when the receiving team touched the ball) and 2. On a change of possession the clock started when the official marked the ball (In the past the clock started on the snap). These rules changes did lower the times of games (as well as scoring, down five points a game last year), but they also led to a couple of unforeseen consequences. The change of possession rule made it even harder for a trailing team to get back in the game, as an extra 5-10 seconds lost when there are only 40 or so left in a game can crush a rally. (This also spawned one of my favorite Viewer Heckling moments in all of sports: Every time I watched a game last year I would look forward to seeing how many seconds a QB would waste after the official had started the clock. It was one of those rare moments in watching sports where you could honestly say without question "I could do better than that!" It was also super entertaining to see the deer in the headlights look on a QB when he realized the clock was running. Priceless.) The kickoff rules change was a terrible idea that spawned my favorite moment of all of last football season, when Bret Bielma of Wisconsin intentionally ran his kickoff team offsides near the end of the first half. Joe Pa was then left with two choices, take the ball at the 10 on the penalty, or let Wisconsin continue to use the ploy to run out the clock. Joe Pa chose the latter, and Bret Bielma became my Big 10 coach.

So in light of the obvious stupidity of the new rules the NCAA is poised to overturn them. Yay! say college football fans. Yay! say deer in the headlights QBs. Yay! says everyon..what? Wait. What is that you say? There are more new rules coming in with the repeals of last year's mistakes? Oi. Here is a look at the new rules proposed to come into effect next season:

-The play clock would be shortened from 25 to 15 seconds after a timeout
-Timeouts would be reduced from 65 to 30 seconds
-Instant replay reviews would be limited to two minutes
-Kickoffs would be moved back five yards, from the 30 instead of the 35

Now, at first, I really wanted to hate these new rules. I really did. I consider myself a bit of a traditionalist, and any change to the game sets off little alarms in my head. After thinking about the changes though, they just made too much sense for me to hate them. The first rule is rather benign, and I think it is a good one if only because it gives our friend deer in the headlights QB an opportunity to take a dumb delay of game penalty. The second rule also seems fairly simple, and considering that very few timeouts are actually taken for in depth skull sessions as opposed to clock management, I don't think it will detract anything from the game. The replay rule also seems like a fairly simple and easy one, as I know personally I saw way too many 5+ minute deliberations under the hood by college refs last season. Ah, but now onto the most tantalizing of the rule changes, kicking off from five yards further back. The thinking behind this rule is that more returns = more time run off the clock. That is a fair enough assumption, if saving time is your end goal. This rule has the potential however, to do exactly the opposite of what the two rule changes last year did: make the game more exciting and raise scoring. Yay! says everyone. I know that I saw a lot of kicks last year that were touchbacks, but certainly not by five yards. With the added number of returns caused by the rule we are going to see three things; 1. Better field position for the returning team, which inevitably over the course of a game will lead to more scoring opportunities. 2. More return TDs, as it is just common sense that more kicks will be returned all the way when the total number of returns rises and the distance required to score decreases. 3. More big hits on kick coverage, as the more kicks returned means the more licks dished out. Now this is the way to decrease the broadcast time of a game, while not taking anything away from the product on the field. Where were these guys last year when the rules committee was meeting?