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Post by sdyotefan on Mar 25, 2016 12:34:08 GMT -6
sandakst--You need to transfer to a real school where some form of logic is taught (you just wouldn't qualify at USD)--my statement still stands if USD was so bad then why could the "powerful wrabbits" (who by the way lucked out winning the Summit tournament) only win by 4 in the Dome?
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Post by Yote 53 on Mar 25, 2016 12:58:15 GMT -6
I haven't watched Augie and never catch D2 basketball, but I find it just so incredibly hard to believe their team this year would amount to much of anything in the Summit League. Perhaps my perceptions are off but D2 just aint D1. I think it is safe to say typical D2 isn't typical D1. However, we are not talking about typical anything. Augie is some crazy figure like 60-4 over the past 2 years with players that could have played D1, but didn't. And - I know this will offend some - the Summit is on the bottom half of 'typical D1'. So, when NDSU FB beats Iowa St. that is taking elite FCS over lower-tier FBS, and the same applies here. I believe even the rabbits beat writer has conceded something similar. Actually the Summit was in the top half of D1 this season in RPI, one of the top mid-major conference. As for Augie beating USD or SDSU, not a chance. D1 is a different level. Both fan bases have seen this play out as we transitioned from D2 to D1. I too used to believe that top of D2 could compete with bottom half of D1. After having seen this transition that statement just isn't true. Bottom line is D1 teams are bigger, faster, stronger, deeper, and more athletic.
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Post by Yotes on Mar 25, 2016 13:05:38 GMT -6
I haven't watched Augie and never catch D2 basketball, but I find it just so incredibly hard to believe their team this year would amount to much of anything in the Summit League. Perhaps my perceptions are off but D2 just aint D1. I think it is safe to say typical D2 isn't typical D1. However, we are not talking about typical anything. Augie is some crazy figure like 60-4 over the past 2 years with players that could have played D1, but didn't. And - I know this will offend some - the Summit is on the bottom half of 'typical D1'. So, when NDSU FB beats Iowa St. that is taking elite FCS over lower-tier FBS, and the same applies here. I believe even the rabbits beat writer has conceded something similar. Unlike football however D2 basketball is basically isolated from D1 so we unfortunately have very limited examples of teams from the two divisions playing outside of exhibitions. I'd research how teams typically fare when making the move from D2 to D1, but I'm just not that bored. Maybe I'll just catch the D2 title game tomorrow and re-evaluate my opinion.
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Post by usdtator on Mar 25, 2016 13:12:53 GMT -6
I haven't watched Augie and never catch D2 basketball, but I find it just so incredibly hard to believe their team this year would amount to much of anything in the Summit League. Perhaps my perceptions are off but D2 just aint D1. When we are banging on bunnies for being arrogant and obnoxious, the last thing we want to see is a supposed Coyote fan trying to be the voice of reason in these threads. Join the fun and bang on a bunny once in awhile. They make it really easy!
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Post by mraugustana on Mar 25, 2016 14:09:28 GMT -6
The key point I think people (particularly SDSU fans on Zimmer's live chats) mix up in these situations is that, as an Augie fan, I will readily admit that I don't think Augie would beat USD or SDSU every year. I do think this year's Augie team would be competitive. And when I say competitive, I don't mean "win the Summit League title outright," but I do mean be competitive as in we'd win some good games and probably lose some bad ones.
In terms of talent, we have the national NABC Division II Player of the Year on this team in Daniel Jansen. We have two kids (Jansen and Schilling) who were named to the 16-member NABC All-America team (Augie being the only team with two players on that list). That means the National Association of Basketball Coaches thinks we have not one, but two, of the best 16 Division II players in college basketball on our roster. We also have multiple kids on our roster (even bench guys) who had low-major D1 offers or would at least be getting minutes at a low D1 at this point in their careers. So with this year's team specifically, I feel like I'm being reasonable if I say we would at least be competitive.
Now, next year, we might not be a National Championship caliber team. We graduate an incredible class of seniors that includes our program's #1 and #2 all-time leading scorers in Jansen and Schilling (the only two on the all-time list to pass the 2,000 career point mark) and our program's #13 all-time leading scorer in Richter. So I won't sit here and say ridiculous stuff like Augie could join the Summit League next season and win it, because I don't think that's necessarily the case. But I think, as the Vikes compete for a National Championship tomorrow, this year's team has proven that they would be somewhat competitive at the low-D1 level. If a team good enough to go 64-5 over the past two seasons with multiple All-Americans, a national Coach of the Year, and several other players who have earned various awards and honors over the past two years, wouldn't be considered competitive in the Summit League, I think you guys have at least a slightly inflated opinion of your conference.
Or I just have a slightly inflated opinion of the Vikings, which is quite possible. Again, I feel like I've listed out some reasonable points to consider about this year's Augie squad, but maybe that's just me overestimating our ability. Even if people think we wouldn't compete in the Summit, I'm excited for the program to be where it's at. Since we made the decision to stay D2, the goal was to compete for National Championships at the D2 level. Fun to see the men's basketball team making that happen this year.
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Post by yoteforever on Mar 25, 2016 16:21:30 GMT -6
Not to downplay D1, but I respectfully disagree that the gap between USD/SDSU and this years Augustana team is as wide as some contend. I don't care if it's an exhibition game or not, Augustana did beat a pretty good iowa team at Iowa. The Hawkeyes didn't end the year on the high end, but from the start of the season till mid February, they were playing darn good basketball. THAT is when Augustana beat them.
Year after year, no, they couldn't play with either school. But this year, yes they could. I agree with mraugustana, they would compete. They wouldn't probably win it, but I personally think they would be over .500.
All that being said, it's time to build up our program and compete ourselves. I think Coach Smith will do that.
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Post by Yotes on Mar 25, 2016 17:28:01 GMT -6
I haven't watched Augie and never catch D2 basketball, but I find it just so incredibly hard to believe their team this year would amount to much of anything in the Summit League. Perhaps my perceptions are off but D2 just aint D1. When we are banging on bunnies for being arrogant and obnoxious, the last thing we want to see is a supposed Coyote fan trying to be the voice of reason in these threads. Join the fun and bang on a bunny once in awhile. They make it really easy! I do my best to not acknowledge them, they really don't deserve it.
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 25, 2016 20:06:54 GMT -6
I am glad I started this topic because there has been some good discussion here. When it comes to college sports there are different divisions and obviously different talent levels between divisions but the players still are aged the same between 18-23 years for the majority of them. The biggest difference between players isn't always how good they are when they are seniors but how good they are when they are originally recruited and for many of them that starts when they are juniors in high school. Just because one team happens to be D1 doesn't mean their players will develop at a higher rate or be coached up at a higher rate than a D2 or NAIA college.
In a perfect world every D1 team should be better than every D2 team but this isn't a perfect world. Between divisions whether it's NAIA, D2, FCS, FBS whether it's football, basketball or whatever there is going to be an overlap. I would say that everyone would agree that at least one D2 team in this country is better than the worse D1 team in the country. Where the disagreement comes is how prevalent that over lap is. Some may say that only a handful of D2 teams are better than any D1 teams. Some may think that half of D2 would be good enough to filter in evenly with the the mid to lower level of D1. My general feeling is that the top 20 of D2 falls somwhere between the RPI level of 150-250 threshold of D1 teams. Meaning that some of those teams would be even or better with half the D1 teams and some would fall a little lower. I believe a team like Augustana would probably fall somewhere between an RPI of 80-150 if they were in D1.
If Augustana was in the Summit I think they could finish anywhere from 1st to 6th but I don't think they would be lower than that. The Vikings have the talent of a Summit type team. Schilling and Jansen wouldn't take a back seat to anyone as far as a 1-2 punch. Maybe Augie's depth might hurt them but 1 to 7 they are a Summit caliber team and I don't have much doubt about that. Even for the Augie doubters if they were in the Great West Conference the year the Coyotes won it they would probably have won that conference and perhaps going away.
There are many examples, and not just rare instances where in football teams are constantly competing with and beating teams that are a level or two higher than them. I believe when USF was still in NAIA they defeated the Sioux up in Grand Forks. The next year they nearly did the same thing. I don't think that was a fluke. Over the years UNI has hosted regional type D2 teams in the UNI dome and on many instances the D2 teams gave them all they could handle. I believe as a D2 UND beat them there. App State over Michigan, NDSU over almost every FBS team they play. Even crummy old USD beat Minnesota in their house and barely won another game the rest of the year.
There are just way too many examples of cross division teams being competitive with each other and also keep in mind that the upper division team is almost always at home which is an even bigger advantage for the upper level team. Some of the mid major programs in D1 basketball really are pretty much glorified D2 teams as far as talent and performance level.
I agree with Yoteforever. Augustana beat Iowa when Iowa had their swagger. Exhibition or not Augie won the game fair and square. I realize Iowa wasn't playing at NCAA tournament level but they were still trying pretty hard to not allow the Vikings to take them on their home court. Augie was also at the beginning of their season so they were not in top form either.
D2 is a quality level of athletics and that is what made me fall in love with Coyote sports. I was amazed how high the level of D2 sports was when I went to my first USD basketball and football game. It's not at the level of D1 but it really isn't that far behind and rest assured this Augustana basketball team is for real.
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 25, 2016 20:30:33 GMT -6
sandakst--What a troll!! If the USD men were so bad this year why could the San Diego State wrabbits (aka everything eats a jackwrabbit) only win by 4 in the Dome? Also the Yotes had 2 players leave the team in the middle of the year. Any bets on the wrabbit men and USD for the fall??? What place did USD finish in the regular season? What seed were they in SLT? USD men were not good this year. Sorry you can't see that. It isn't entirely true that the Coyotes were not good this year. They were not good during the Summit portion of their schedule but I thought there were pretty impressive during the non conference portion of their schedule. They had some nice wins. I think man to man, fan to fan we were disappointed in how the season progressed. I know I am feeling a bit numb going into the off season. Smith has his work cut out for him right now.
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Post by jackl on Mar 25, 2016 21:39:19 GMT -6
Not to downplay D1, but I respectfully disagree that the gap between USD/SDSU and this years Augustana team is as wide as some contend. I don't care if it's an exhibition game or not, Augustana did beat a pretty good iowa team at Iowa. The Hawkeyes didn't end the year on the high end, but from the start of the season till mid February, they were playing darn good basketball. THAT is when Augustana beat them. Year after year, no, they couldn't play with either school. But this year, yes they could. I agree with mraugustana, they would compete. They wouldn't probably win it, but I personally think they would be over .500. All that being said, it's time to build up our program and compete ourselves. I think Coach Smith will do that. Western Illinois beat Wisconsin who beat Iowa who lost to Augie. Therefore, Augie would have been in the cellar of the SL. It's science.
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Post by jackl on Mar 25, 2016 21:42:01 GMT -6
What place did USD finish in the regular season? What seed were they in SLT? USD men were not good this year. Sorry you can't see that. It isn't entirely true that the Coyotes were not good this year. They were not good during the Summit portion of their schedule but I thought there were pretty impressive during the non conference portion of their schedule. They had some nice wins. I think man to man, fan to fan we were disappointed in how the season progressed. I know I am feeling a bit numb going into the off season. Smith has his work cut out for him right now. What were some of these nice wins in the non-conference schedule?
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Post by yotebewithyou on Mar 25, 2016 22:10:19 GMT -6
It isn't entirely true that the Coyotes were not good this year. They were not good during the Summit portion of their schedule but I thought there were pretty impressive during the non conference portion of their schedule. They had some nice wins. I think man to man, fan to fan we were disappointed in how the season progressed. I know I am feeling a bit numb going into the off season. Smith has his work cut out for him right now. What were some of these nice wins in the non-conference schedule? Milwaukee, Minnesota (ending their streak), Florida Gulf Coast
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 26, 2016 0:27:31 GMT -6
What were some of these nice wins in the non-conference schedule? Milwaukee, Minnesota (ending their streak), Florida Gulf Coast Eventhough some may not agree I also thought the wins in California against Sacramento State and Eastern Washington were good at the time. The Coyotes were really focused during those two games.
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Post by gopheryote on Mar 26, 2016 7:05:20 GMT -6
Don't let the trolls take the thread over - this is about Augie doing something special today, and the natural fan conjecture to try to convince themselves and everyone else that "we could have done it too, if....", which can be an interesting topic.
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Post by Coyote Fan on Mar 26, 2016 10:54:02 GMT -6
This seems to be a matchup of athletisism and speed against size and strength. Even though the Vikings like to play up tempo that is one monster I am not sure they should be willing to take on. They would be better off slowing the game down and making it a tough half court battle. If it turns out to be a track meet I will take Lincoln Memorial by 15. If it comes down to a tight finish decided in the last minute I like the Vikings to hit the clutch shots down the stetch to take home the crown.
I will pick the Railsplitters (love that name) 92-77
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