Crowdsourcing with students

Eat crow, Traxler.

I might have to do that with regards to my previous comments about the student section relocation at Frost Arena. In a crucial conference game at Frost Saturday against Western Illinois, the students made a difference. That was the word when students were moved from their better (I don't think anyone can argue this) to behind the baskets on each end.

WIU, who normally shoot 65 percent at the free throw stripe as a team, went 3-of-11 from the line against the Jacks.

"That’s one of our weaknesses," Leatherneck head coach Jim Molinari said. "We shoot a good percentage as a team but we’re not a great shooting team. That's something we need to be better at."

I feel this was mainly because of the students, who would either all jump forward as the player was shooting the free throws or sit down at the same time. It worked. Either that or the Leathernecks suck at free throws. Both are theories.

This much I know: No team has shot that poorly against SDSU over the last 12 seasons and that's all the farther the records go.

But how much of a difference have the students made on the free throws this year? Let's go to the grid.

There's the last two seasons worth of home games at Frost Arena and the free throw shooting of SDSU's opponents. The 2012-13 shooting is a blip better than than last year and while the end of the season (when the students got more involved with the free throw distractions) are low, the numbers don't show a ton of difference. SDSU allowed far less free throw attempts in 2012-13, however.

Hats off, students. You did what college kids should do. I'll be impressed if it happens next season as well and more importantly, what kind of student turnout is in Sioux Falls. It's not over Spring Break this year, so I'm expecting a lot. 

I think the move has worked out fine and students have responded positively but I HATED the way it was done. Basically, the administration said, "We're moving you. If you don't like it, too bad."

The point I brought up on The Sports Lounge show Monday(which can be listened to on demand here) is that SDSU might want to consider moving its "renovate Frost Arena" plans up in the grand scheme. Honestly, maybe ahead of Coughlin-Alumni Stadium.

There's no doubt that CAS needs to be rebuilt but if the Jackrabbits want to reach the next level as a mid-major, they need the budget and the facilities to do it. Frost may not need more seats but they certainly need more good seats, as many of the wood bleachers are at tough viewing angles.

A lot of elements added up to get three sellouts in Brookings this season, mainly No. 3 at point guard. But the program is only going to grow and, if nothing else, both facilities should be worked on at the same time.

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It's hard not to think about the Summit League tournament, especially when there's a local media ad for the four-day dance airing every three minutes. In advance, I wrote this for the Sports Lounge blog earlier today about what sort of tourney is shaping up. 

For much of the season, the race to become the Summit League’s top dog has been cloudy. However, I have looked at the crystal ball and the future is becoming clearer.

SDSU’s men’s basketball team is the team to beat when the conference converges on Sioux Falls in March for the Summit League tournament.

There’s a lot of candidates — and honestly, who would have thought there would be four legitimate teams challenging for the conference title when the season started — but the Jackrabbits have emerged as the odds-on favorite.

Sure, there have been a fair amount bumps along the way. Those ugly performances the Jacks had in December seem so far away and even in last weekend’s loss to Oakland at the O’rena, SDSU looked like a team that could be in the field of 68 again.

But as Brett Favre famously said during the Vikings’ 2009 season, “the pieces are in place.”

Their defense (more on this later) has been quite good, the Jacks are a strong three-point shooting team (especially at home) and SDSU has the best player in Nate Wolters, who is taking over games once again.

Of course, one of the biggest parts of the Jacks chances’ is having a decidedly home court advantage in Sioux Falls. In each of their games (regardless of opponent), there will be at least 5,000 people screaming in their favor and riding each up and down. To me, this is the biggest part for the Jacks. Western Illinois has seen this atmosphere twice now — last season’s conference title game and Saturday at Frost Arena.

“You can’t win a game in this atmosphere unless you play perfect basketball,” Molinari said after the Leathernecks’ loss at Frost Arena.

Molinari said something almost exactly like this after his team lost in the championship game last year. It stuck out like a sore thumb because I believe the quotes were so similar.

“This was a road game,” WIU head coach Jim Molinari said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making excuses. But I think you have to be 10 points better to win here and we weren’t tonight. I knew because of the crowd that they would never let the game get away from them.”

Ah, yes. There it is.

Western Illinois is just a good team, said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy. He’s right. Summit Leaguers like to stress WIU’s defense but they are good on offense and have pretty talented players like Ceola Clark III and Terrell Parks underneath the hoop.

Nagy said he stressed that the Feb. 16 game wasn’t the conference championship but I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Necks and Jacks play for the title March 12 in Sioux Falls. That’s my pick for now.
We are two weeks away from knowing the seeds but it’s hard not to look ahead. So, as for the rest of the tournament …

North Dakota State is a confusing bunch right now. They posted 36 points against Western in a loss but have effectively defeated everyone else they’ve needed to beat and convincingly. They have a defensive style that is similar to WIU and can effectively stop teams. I can’t get away from the fact that they have been an early out from the tournament in the last three seasons. The X-factor remains to be Marshall Bjorklund, who still leads the country in field goal percentage but the Jackrabbits and Leathernecks have effectively shut him down in the two most recents meetings. He had four points on five shots against Western and four points against SDSU in late January. Since scoring 23 points against USD Jan. 3 (a game where he shot 11/13 from the field), he’s had nearly as many games in single-digits scoring (5) as he has in double digits (7). Maybe Taylor Braun is the difference but Drue and I agree that the problems seem to go further than the return of Braun.

Oakland is certainly capable of winning the tournament but there’s a few things standing in their way: 1. They don’t exactly play great defense. That’s not new. 2. They are far too reliant on Travis Bader and their three-point shooting.

This is actually the big one. Oakland has good players, including Corey Petros underneath the basket but I don’t feel like they have been utilized as much as possible. Considering Drew Valentine’s profile two seasons ago in the Summit League, he has been as quiet as anyone as a junior or senior. As Bader goes, so go the Grizz.

Depending on crowd turnout, USD could be a semifinal candidate and for sheer interest and atmosphere’s-sake, I hope they are in the final four. Say what you will about the Coyotes (and as a student at the Brookings school, I hear plenty of people say bad things about them), it would be great to have them win a game at the tournament. That would increase interest in the 2014 tournament, in my opinion and show the red fans what the event is really about.

I would also laugh if Kansas City makes a run for the finals, considering they are leaving the league for a trash heap and it would show that they can win in the conference. They’ll be out right away, though. It’s a bad year for Omaha to be out. They would be in the 4/5 game if they were eligible.

Defense

Our friend Travis Kriens always digs up the stats. He says the Jacks have been giving up 65.1 points per game, the lowest average since 1984-85, when the Jackrabbits allowed 64.4 PPG. Over the last 58 seasons of SDSU basketball, it is the second-lowest PPG allowed season average.
He says the defense story hasn’t received the coverage it should, so here’s some coverage, Travis.

The cash cow is going dry

The days of Jackrabbits sacking Nebraska quarterbacks could be numbered.

If you have been closely watching the tea leaves of college football, I guess you could figure this day was coming.

On Tuesday, Wisconsin athletic director and Rose Bowl football coach moonlighter Barry Alvarez said the Big Ten Conference has decided to stop scheduling FCS football games. Closer to home, North Dakota State athletic director Gene Taylor said he knows not every athletic director in the Big Ten is fully aboard.

A lot of teams have a bunch of FCS games scheduled out for the next five seasons or so. You can check out the Missouri Valley's list on the right side of this page or click here.

With the addition of Maryland and Rutgers and the near inevitability of the conference to go to nine or 10 games of Big Ten play, we should not be surprised by this move.

The games are somewhat beneficial for Big Ten teams because they provide an extra home game and a 98 percent chance of winning. What more do you want, Purdue?

But the reality is that outside of die-hard fans of the Wolverines and Hawkeyes and the fans of the FCS schools playing in the game, nobody cares about these games. Everyone is always complaining about how every SEC team plays an inept SWAC team in early November and it's not because people don't like Alabama State, another great institution of higher education in America. It's because Alabama State sucks. (Tavaris Jackson too.)

At the same time, there is a good reason why the games are played from the FCS end. These games are often times a serious way for schools to fund their athletic programs. Savannah State made $860,000 last year to get its proverbial butts kicked at Florida State and Oklahoma State. That can be worth it, if it pays for tennis, soccer and softball. Missouri State has been known to come out well financially from these games and perennial power Northern Iowa played at Iowa and Wisconsin last year to help the bottomline.

If you win, even better. We all know about Appalachian State because of their ability to knock off Michigan in the Big House to open the 2007 season. North Dakota State has regularly won these games but that's not the norm. SDSU's 13-10 loss at Minnesota in 2009 and 17-3 loss at Nebraska in 2010 represents the good in the recent "money games." They don't celebrate the 55-0 rear kicking at Illinois in 2011 and for good reason.

Plus, the games provide some much needed visibility for recruiting and otherwise. South Dakota has played at Central Florida, Air Force and Northwestern in recent years and those three states -- Florida, Colorado and Illinois -- have high school talent that the Coyotes would love to have. The same can be said for when Montana opened the season at Tennessee in 2011. That's tremendous visibility, both nationally and for local recruits to connect the team on the field with the colorful stationary that pops up in their mailboxes every day.

This post at footballscoop.com raises some pretty good points in favor of FCS but I think there's a chance the lower-level schools benefit some from this. Because there will be no incentive to pay D-II or NAIA schools to come play, it could force teams to play other FCS teams, which can only help for competition and selections come playoff time. For SDSU, it might open up more teams that could come up to Brookings for a September game, much like UC Davis last year.

Speaking of the Jackrabbits, they could get some money out of Minnesota if the Gophers and the Big Ten have to buy out their scheduled opponents past 2016, which is believed to be the start date of this new policy. I would rather see the two teams on the field but I guess that can't be the case.

What I do know is this: The large schools usually get what they want and the SEC has some pull. I could see those teams playing FCS opponents going forward because their conference is so good. The Big Ten doesn't always have that particular luxury. They're going to need better non-conference scheduling to make the new playoff system. In that instance, they can't afford to play the Indiana Teachers Colleges of the world.

If the Big Ten is out, that's bad news for the Missouri Valley Football Conference and more importantly, its school's budgets.

Kriens: The Poll Truth

Editor's Note: Travis Kriens is good friend of Traxler's Take and staff assistant for media relations at Tennessee State University. He is also a voter in the weekly Sports Network Top 25 FCS Poll.

What is the purpose of polls in sports?



In every sport not named Football Bowl Subdivision level college football, a playoff at the end of the regular season decides the eventual champion. FBS is also the only sport that takes the top two teams at the end of the regular season and faces them off to determine that season’s champion. Besides that, what is the reason we rank teams week after week?

In this week’s Football College Subdivision media poll, there are two examples of confusion.



South Dakota State is the first team receiving votes outside of the Top 25 and has a 5-2 record. Indiana State is ranked #15 and has a 6-2 record. These two teams played last month in Terre Haute, Ind., and Jacks soundly defeated the Sycamores, 24-10. Those that have Indiana State ranked over SDSU will argue ISU’s 17-14 win at then #1 North Dakota State is proof the Sycamores are the better team. I would argue the 14 points win for SDSU when the two teams faced each other is the reason why I have SDSU (#20) ranked ahead of Indiana State (#21).



There is a similar situation in the Ohio Valley Conference. #18 Eastern Kentucky is 6-2, while #21 Tennessee State is 7-1. TSU defeated EKU 23-20 less than three weeks ago. How you can have EKU ranked ahead of TSU when the two teams played recently and EKU lost is beyond me.



In a month's time, the regular season will be over and this won’t matter much because the FCS selection committee will take over. They'll select the 20 teams that will qualify for the 2012 playoffs and have a chance at the national championship. The polls at that point are meaningless. There will be a few teams inside the Top 20 that don’t qualify and a few teams outside the Top 20 that will and that's far from unusual.

It should be noted that the weekly coaches' poll is no better when it comes to ranking teams. So what is the purpose of ranking these teams week after week?



"I think the polls capture the national landscape,” said Craig Haley, who is The Sports Network Senior Editor/FCS Executive Director. “I think they are a guide for the members of the FCS playoff committee, but strength of schedule and results are important."



There are 121 universities that play at the FCS level. That’s a lot of teams to keep track of, so if the Top 25 does anything, it is used as a barometer. You may watch one or two FCS games a week from start to finish. How do the voters keep track of them and know that team A is better than team B or better than team C?

"Well, so much information is at the tip of our fingers with the Internet, so it's easy to be informed,” Haley said. “I send out a scoreboard to the voters before they vote. Over time, a team's scores usually reflect what kind of team it is."

That is really the only way to do a national poll the takes into account such a large quantity of teams. However, there is no way to watch the amount of games that you would need in order to make an informed and fair decision. As we know, the box score, the stats and the final score don’t always tell the story.



So who makes up the voting population?


"I hope all the voters are objective because The Sports Network wants a widespread panel reflecting all the FCS conferences,” Haley explained. “We have about 175 voters. Personally, I value the bigger conferences a bit more on my ballot, but I like schools that play a tougher schedule."



"I think the depth of the poll speaks volumes,” Haley continues. “We've been around a long time and the FCS schools respect The Sports Network. But in addition to the media, we have voters who are SIDs (Sports Information Directors). I think that can cause a problem if a voter tries to favor his school and conference. I see the ballots and it's not rampant, but it happens."



In last week’s poll, Georgia State picked up their first win of the season to improve to 1-6. They received 23 points in the poll, which is the same as voting a team third in the country. It’s no coincidence that Georgia Southern is a top ranked team and that whoever put Georgia State third meant to put Georgia Southern. Those are the kind of mistakes that can’t and shouldn’t be made by a voter.

Why do voters punish teams for losing to higher ranked teams? For example, if #15 loses to #1, why is #15 dropped in the polls the next week? Are they any worse of a team because they lost a game everyone expected them too? You, the voter, placed them at #15, which says that you don’t think they are as good as the #1 team or any team above them.



Late in September, #21 Montana lost to #7 Eastern Washington on the road by six points and dropped out of the Top 25 to #28. They dropped seven spots for losing a close game that they were expected to lose.



The most polarizing team early in the season was Northern Iowa. A top 10 team in the preseason poll, the Panthers lost four of their first five games to Big Ten foes Wisconsin (26-21) and Iowa (27-16), #3 ranked Youngstown State (42-35) and then #1 NDSU (33-21). Four games that Northern Iowa was not expected to win, all on the road expect for NDSU. People could not figure out how someone could vote for UNI despite being 1-4. They didn’t lose any games to anyone ranked lower than they were. If you vote with the philosophy of ranking the teams one through 25 based on who you think is better, it’s not that far-fetched to consider the Panthers as a ranked team. They did defeat SDSU this past Saturday 27-6 to knock the Jacks out of the polls.



Polls are most prevalent in college sports but in recent years they have made their way into professional sports.

 I don’t know of many things that are a bigger waste of time than putting together or reading NFL power rankings. They matter about as much as your single vote in the upcoming November elections. At the end of the season, the teams with the most wins make the playoffs. End of discussion.

That is not the case in college sports. With so many teams and a wide variety of schedules, you just can’t go by wins and losses. Recently, it seems like voters don’t even go by that anymore.

2011 MVFC Preview: North Dakota State

My preview of Missouri Valley Football Conference Teams continues with North Dakota State today. To read prior entries, look for them on the right side of the page. 

A year ago, NDSU was close. Up seven points with over two minutes to go, 90 yards from a home FCS semifinal close. As you can see in the video above, that didn't happen. Eastern Washington rallied on the snowy red turf to defeat NDSU in overtime, 38-31, after quarterback Brock Jensen fumbled near the goal-line on the game's final play. As the cliche goes, the rest is history and Eastern Washington ended the season with a 21-19 victory over Delaware for the National Championship. It proved to be a bitter end to NDSU's first FCS playoff trip but it certainly sets the stage for an interesting season ahead for newly-paid head coach Craig Bohl and the Bison.

Offense

NDSU may have been unsure of their running situation at this time a year ago but that part of the offense will not be a worry thanks to D.J. McNorton. He entered the season with just four career starts but ended the 2010 campaign with 1,559 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns, effectively serving as a tough, all-purpose running back for NDSU. The Bison offensive line remains mostly intact, with only the left tackle to be replaced and that should mean more ground game success in 2011. 

Jensen figures to be the starter on when the season starts on Sept. 3 and that has become quite clear since the end of spring practice. Jose Mohler, the quarterback that started last season and helped the Bison to a win over Kansas, transferred when he slipped to third on the depth chart during the spring. Simply put, it’s Jensen’s team now. He battled injuries last year, had seven starts last season and provided he can facilitate the offense effectively without turning the ball over, he should be fine. Senior Warren Holloway has led the Bison receiving corps for the last two years and figures to do the same this fall.

Defense 

Bison linebacker Preston Evans

I’m a huge fan of NDSU’s defense, mainly because it is stacked with talent and returns eight starters from last year. It starts with defensive end Coulter Boyer, who had 10 sacks last year, 18 hurries, and stood out in the Dakota Marker game with an interception return for a touchdown. Senior middle linebacker Preston Evans led the Bison with 95 tackles last year and directs NDSU’s Tampa 2 scheme. Safeties Colton Heagle and Daniel Eaves and cornerback Marcus Williams lead a secondary that will likely be among the Valley’s best. 

Last year, the Bison held opponents to 18.2 points per game and averaged +1.07 in turnover margin, ranking 7th nationally in both categories. Judging by recent success, including 2008, when NDSU led the nation in pass defense and rated 5th in total defense, the Bison will be near those marks again.

Outlook

Of those who attend SDSU, I will likely give the most positive or honest review of the school’s northern rivals but this is a time that is deserving of that distinction. NDSU will have to be stable at quarterback if they want to have a deep run and they can't afford to be hampered with issues at that spot. 


Most conference followers will agree that the conference title has to go past UNI, a team that the Bison has never defeated since joining the MVFC. NDSU hosts the Panthers on October 29th, which would be in the second game of an important four-game stretch that includes traveling to play the Jackrabbits, at Indiana State, and home against Youngstown State. NDSU will travel to Minnesota on September 24, with the intent of invading TCF Bank Stadium and knocking off the Gophers for a second time in three FCS tries. The Bison can count on both of those efforts to be more difficult this time around, with a smaller stadium now compared to the Metrodome and a much more disciplined team under Jerry Kill.

The Bison faithful have sky-high expectations for this team to, not only make the FCS playoffs but to make a deeper run towards a FCS title. However, if this team learned anything from last year’s sudden halt, it’s that there are no guarantees. 


Up Next: A preview of Northern Iowa
Photo property of NDSU Media Relations