So this started today and I've been loosely following updates.



Everyone I've talked too it does seem like Grace are on a mission. One big upset already with 15 seed Evangel (MO) besting Florida Memorial.

Maybe our NAIA experts Todor or teamvsn have some hot takes for this.

(03-15-2024 11:32 PM)Mid-Major Hoops Enthusiast Wrote:  So this started today and I've been loosely following updates.



Everyone I've talked too it does seem like Grace are on a mission. One big upset already with 15 seed Evangel (MO) besting Florida Memorial.

Maybe our NAIA experts Todor or teamvsn have some hot takes for this.

Grace had some trouble with Washington Adventist. WA led most of the game until about the 10 minute 2nd half mark when their leading scorer got his 4th foul. From there on, Grace outscored WA 33-11.

Although the app I am using doesn't include scores, you can track the bracket here:
http://mbbbracket.victorysportsnetwork.com/master.php

Unforunately you are too late to submit your own bracket. :(

I think it's going to be Grace vs Langston in the finals. A classic NAIA matchup of a school loaded with D1 transfers (Langston) vs a program that's team oriented with 4 year players (Grace).

(03-15-2024 11:48 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(03-15-2024 11:32 PM)Mid-Major Hoops Enthusiast Wrote:  So this started today and I've been loosely following updates.



Everyone I've talked too it does seem like Grace are on a mission. One big upset already with 15 seed Evangel (MO) besting Florida Memorial.

Maybe our NAIA experts Todor or teamvsn have some hot takes for this.

Grace had some trouble with Washington Adventist. WA led most of the game until about the 10 minute 2nd half mark when their leading scorer got his 4th foul. From there on, Grace outscored WA 33-11.

Although the app I am using doesn't include scores, you can track the bracket here:
http://mbbbracket.victorysportsnetwork.com/master.php

Unforunately you are too late to submit your own bracket. :(

I think it's going to be Grace vs Langston in the finals. A classic NAIA matchup of a school loaded with D1 transfers (Langston) vs a program that's team oriented with 4 year players (Grace).

Other than the Texas, Kentucky and a couple of the Indiana schools (all states I lived in, and the Oklahoma and Louisiana schools neighboring Texas, I only counted 11 schools out of the other 50 or so that I had ever heard of.

Looking back at past champs, it included Louisville, Southern Illinois, Indiana St., Marshall, East Texas A&M, Texas St., Missouri St., Grambling, Prairie View, UTRGV (Pan American back then), Coppin St. and Texas Southern. In the 70s and 80s there were a lot of current NCAA Division II schools win the championship.

The NCAA funding Division II and III with Division I basketball money has pulled the larger schools out of the NAIA.

If anyone remembers Dee Brown from those great mid-00s Illinois teams, he’s the coach of a Roosevelt team that just won its first conference title. RU is smack dab in Downtown Chicago and probably has fan support in the dozens, but good for them.

These regionals are a bit for me to get used to, having known the 32-team event in Kansas City (and Tulsa) for years. I noticed where Antelope Valley, who crowd-funded the rest of their season after the school shut down, was sent to a regional in Glendale, AZ. They lost their first round game. And The Master's University (CA) was sent across the country to Miami Gardens, FL. They're still alive.

In the NAIA, schools pay for their own travel to national tournaments.

Go Oregon Tech Owls!!

(03-16-2024 01:08 AM)bullet Wrote:  The NCAA funding Division II and III with Division I basketball money has pulled the larger schools out of the NAIA.

Yep. Not just larger schools, but smaller schools with larger athletic department scope and budgets.

It'll be interesting to see the effect on Division II and Division III if the Power schools break off from the NCAA and form their own tournament. The money for Division II and III regulation, administration, and tournaments will be very sharply reduced.

I'm glad my alma mater moved from NAIA to Division II, but I have great memories of the NAIA.

(03-16-2024 11:19 AM)johnintx Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 01:08 AM)bullet Wrote:  The NCAA funding Division II and III with Division I basketball money has pulled the larger schools out of the NAIA.

Yep. Not just larger schools, but smaller schools with larger athletic department scope and budgets.

It'll be interesting to see the effect on Division II and Division III if the Power schools break off from the NCAA and form their own tournament. The money for Division II and III regulation, administration, and tournaments will be very sharply reduced.

I'm glad my alma mater moved from NAIA to Division II, but I have great memories of the NAIA.

Who is your alma mater, John? I think you've told me before but I don't remember.

Division II and III will become much more like the NAIA. If it were to happen, I think there might be a merger.

(03-16-2024 10:06 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  Who is your alma mater, John? I think you've told me before but I don't remember.

Division II and III will become much more like the NAIA. If it were to happen, I think there might be a merger.

Oklahoma Baptist. We won three consecutive NAIA Learfield Directors' Cups before moving to D-II.

In the event of a Power school breakaway and the accompanying loss of NCAA tournament money, there would need to be some sort of merger between D-II, D-III, and the NAIA.

(03-16-2024 09:44 AM)johnintx Wrote:  These regionals are a bit for me to get used to, having known the 32-team event in Kansas City (and Tulsa) for years. I noticed where Antelope Valley, who crowd-funded the rest of their season after the school shut down, was sent to a regional in Glendale, AZ. They lost their first round game. And The Master's University (CA) was sent across the country to Miami Gardens, FL. They're still alive.

In the NAIA, schools pay for their own travel to national tournaments.

The NAIA has two goals in regards to the National Tournament: Make it truly national, and try to save money.

I haven't seen anything spelled out in a memo or rule book, but what i've come to expect is:

* Top seeds get a local game (naturally)
* bottom seeds get a local game, because it's wasteful for a likely loser to have to spend hotel nights on the road.
* For the 2nd and 3rd seeds, at least one will be out of the region. This gives good teams from tough conferences a chance to prove that they are better than the local top seed from a weaker conference.
* After the above 3 seeds are allocated, the committee tries to balance travel costs and out of region competition.
* Conference mates won't play each other in the first round, and an effort is made to spread conference mates among the 4 quarter brackets. (are you listening NCAA D2???)

Regarding paying your own expenses... I haven't seen actual numbers showing that it's working, but one of the rationales behind the division merger and expansion to 64 teams with local opening rounds, is that financial help would be available for teams that travel outside their region. The idea was that schools or other sponsors would bid for the right to host an opening round tournament, and the money that raised would be used to finance travel. Like I said, I don't know if this is actually working. Personally, I hope it isn't. If the idea fails, we might be able to get the tournament reconfigured back to a 32 team tourny in KC (and Sioux CIty for the women). My idea is for the opening round to be essentially a play in, where teams in quad 1 would play the closest team to them in quad 4, and teams in quad 2 play the closest team in quad 3, with the 32 winning teams heading to KC.

(03-16-2024 10:14 PM)johnintx Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 10:06 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  Who is your alma mater, John? I think you've told me before but I don't remember.

Division II and III will become much more like the NAIA. If it were to happen, I think there might be a merger.

Oklahoma Baptist. We won three consecutive NAIA Learfield Directors' Cups before moving to D-II.

In the event of a Power school breakaway and the accompanying loss of NCAA tournament money, there would need to be some sort of merger between D-II, D-III, and the NAIA.

Oh, you just had to work that in, didn’t you?

(03-16-2024 10:22 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  The NAIA has two goals in regards to the National Tournament: Make it truly national, and try to save money.

I haven't seen anything spelled out in a memo or rule book, but what i've come to expect is:

* Top seeds get a local game (naturally)
* bottom seeds get a local game, because it's wasteful for a likely loser to have to spend hotel nights on the road.
* For the 2nd and 3rd seeds, at least one will be out of the region. This gives good teams from tough conferences a chance to prove that they are better than the local top seed from a weaker conference.
* After the above 3 seeds are allocated, the committee tries to balance travel costs and out of region competition.
* Conference mates won't play each other in the first round, and an effort is made to spread conference mates among the 4 quarter brackets. (are you listening NCAA D2???)

Regarding paying your own expenses... I haven't seen actual numbers showing that it's working, but one of the rationales behind the division merger and expansion to 64 teams with local opening rounds, is that financial help would be available for teams that travel outside their region. The idea was that schools or other sponsors would bid for the right to host an opening round tournament, and the money that raised would be used to finance travel. Like I said, I don't know if this is actually working. Personally, I hope it isn't. If the idea fails, we might be able to get the tournament reconfigured back to a 32 team tourny in KC (and Sioux CIty for the women). My idea is for the opening round to be essentially a play in, where teams in quad 1 would play the closest team to them in quad 4, and teams in quad 2 play the closest team in quad 3, with the 32 winning teams heading to KC.

I didn't totally study the bracket and who was assigned where. I did see where Antelope Valley lost to Huntington (IN) in Arizona. So someone had to pay for Huntington to get to Arizona. Likewise, Master's went to Florida...not sure how much they spend on athletics...they're a pretty big name in a certain corner of the evangelical world. So teams are getting shipped on longer trips than they would have by going to Kansas City or Sioux City.

The 32 team event in Kansas City was pretty special in all of the incarnations of the NAIA.

(03-16-2024 01:08 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(03-15-2024 11:48 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(03-15-2024 11:32 PM)Mid-Major Hoops Enthusiast Wrote:  So this started today and I've been loosely following updates.



Everyone I've talked too it does seem like Grace are on a mission. One big upset already with 15 seed Evangel (MO) besting Florida Memorial.

Maybe our NAIA experts Todor or teamvsn have some hot takes for this.

Grace had some trouble with Washington Adventist. WA led most of the game until about the 10 minute 2nd half mark when their leading scorer got his 4th foul. From there on, Grace outscored WA 33-11.

Although the app I am using doesn't include scores, you can track the bracket here:
http://mbbbracket.victorysportsnetwork.com/master.php

Unforunately you are too late to submit your own bracket. :(

I think it's going to be Grace vs Langston in the finals. A classic NAIA matchup of a school loaded with D1 transfers (Langston) vs a program that's team oriented with 4 year players (Grace).

Other than the Texas, Kentucky and a couple of the Indiana schools (all states I lived in, and the Oklahoma and Louisiana schools neighboring Texas, I only counted 11 schools out of the other 50 or so that I had ever heard of.

Looking back at past champs, it included Louisville, Southern Illinois, Indiana St., Marshall, East Texas A&M, Texas St., Missouri St., Grambling, Prairie View, UTRGV (Pan American back then), Coppin St. and Texas Southern. In the 70s and 80s there were a lot of current NCAA Division II schools win the championship.

The NCAA funding Division II and III with Division I basketball money has pulled the larger schools out of the NAIA.

I wonder if a bunch move back to NAIA when/if there's ever a breakaway and the NCAA no longer has all that money to keep those D2/3 schools.

(03-16-2024 11:24 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I wonder if a bunch move back to NAIA when/if there's ever a breakaway and the NCAA no longer has all that money to keep those D2/3 schools.

There will have to be some sort of merger between D-II, D-III and NAIA in the event of a Power breakaway. The NCAA tournament money won't be there.

https://www.naia.org/sports/mbkb/2023-24...racket.pdf

The field of 16 is set for Kansas City. 10 of the 15 hosts advanced from the regional sites..one site was a neutral site in Wichita hosted by the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference.

All four top quadrant seeds advanced: Grace (IN), College of Idaho, Langston (OK), and Freed-Hardeman (TN).

(03-17-2024 08:55 AM)johnintx Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 11:24 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I wonder if a bunch move back to NAIA when/if there's ever a breakaway and the NCAA no longer has all that money to keep those D2/3 schools.

There will have to be some sort of merger between D-II, D-III and NAIA in the event of a Power breakaway. The NCAA tournament money won't be there.

I agree. Without the money, I think lots of schools would just as soon be NAIA and skip a lot of the NCAA rigmorale that costs money but doesn’t contribute much. The richer schools can stay, the schools that feel like NCAA is more “prestigious” can stay, but given a little time, some of the NCAA halo coming from D1 may not shine on D2 or D3 quite as much.

(03-18-2024 12:27 PM)Todor Wrote:  

(03-17-2024 08:55 AM)johnintx Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 11:24 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I wonder if a bunch move back to NAIA when/if there's ever a breakaway and the NCAA no longer has all that money to keep those D2/3 schools.

There will have to be some sort of merger between D-II, D-III and NAIA in the event of a Power breakaway. The NCAA tournament money won't be there.

I agree. Without the money, I think lots of schools would just as soon be NAIA and skip a lot of the NCAA rigmorale that costs money but doesn’t contribute much. The richer schools can stay, the schools that feel like NCAA is more “prestigious” can stay, but given a little time, some of the NCAA halo coming from D1 may not shine on D2 or D3 quite as much.

The NCAA has the brand, and NAIA has the expertise at running low cost high quality athletic programs. The best scenario would be a merger that resulted in the NAIA organization running the show under the NCAA branding. There would probably still be 2 lower divisions, one with zero athletic scholarships and the other with some number of scholarships for each sport, with minimums on a designated number of sports, like D2 does. There would definitely be some current D2s who wouldn't go along with this, and just upgrade themselves to D1 instead. IMHO, any school over 10k on campus undergrad students should be D1 anyway.

(03-18-2024 01:38 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(03-18-2024 12:27 PM)Todor Wrote:  

(03-17-2024 08:55 AM)johnintx Wrote:  

(03-16-2024 11:24 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I wonder if a bunch move back to NAIA when/if there's ever a breakaway and the NCAA no longer has all that money to keep those D2/3 schools.

There will have to be some sort of merger between D-II, D-III and NAIA in the event of a Power breakaway. The NCAA tournament money won't be there.

I agree. Without the money, I think lots of schools would just as soon be NAIA and skip a lot of the NCAA rigmorale that costs money but doesn’t contribute much. The richer schools can stay, the schools that feel like NCAA is more “prestigious” can stay, but given a little time, some of the NCAA halo coming from D1 may not shine on D2 or D3 quite as much.

The NCAA has the brand, and NAIA has the expertise at running low cost high quality athletic programs. The best scenario would be a merger that resulted in the NAIA organization running the show under the NCAA branding. There would probably still be 2 lower divisions, one with zero athletic scholarships and the other with some number of scholarships for each sport, with minimums on a designated number of sports, like D2 does. There would definitely be some current D2s who wouldn't go along with this, and just upgrade themselves to D1 instead. IMHO, any school over 10k on campus undergrad students should be D1 anyway.

I think this is a good observation.

There are a lot of schools, especially in D-III, that have always been part of the NCAA, going back to the College Division days. Many have academically prestigious reputations and ambitions. A merger with the NAIA would be a tough sell for them. I presume this would be especially true on the east coast, where the NAIA has dwindled to next to nothing.

Ironically, in a post-Power breakoff scenario, former NAIA schools (a large portion of Division II) could be enticed into such a merged organization with the NCAA name but without NCAA tournament money to fund it.

(03-18-2024 11:02 AM)johnintx Wrote:  https://www.naia.org/sports/mbkb/2023-24...racket.pdf

The field of 16 is set for Kansas City. 10 of the 15 hosts advanced from the regional sites..one site was a neutral site in Wichita hosted by the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference.

All four top quadrant seeds advanced: Grace (IN), College of Idaho, Langston (OK), and Freed-Hardeman (TN).

Yep, all the top seeds advanced including Grace who cruised in the 2nd round game but 4 double digits seeds did also make it through. The lowest one being 15 seed Evangel who are playing 11 seed Lewis & Clark St in their Round of 16 match in Kansas City.

(03-15-2024 11:48 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  I think it's going to be Grace vs Langston in the finals. A classic NAIA matchup of a school loaded with D1 transfers (Langston) vs a program that's team oriented with 4 year players (Grace).

Sure looks like we are headed in that direction. On another note I know none of the teams in the Sun Conference made it to Kansas City but I saw they got 5 teams in the tournament which is pretty impressive when they only had one auto bid.

All the tops seeds advanced in Kansas City in the Round of 16. Grace, Langston and College of Idaho all won comfortably. Freed-Hardeman the only top seed that had to squeak out in a win over The Master's.

Morningside had a mini upset over U of Cumberlands while two double digit seeds made it to the quarterfinals in #14 Central Baptist who upset 2nd seede Oklahoma Wesleyan and #15 Evangel.

Quarterfinals are today.