Bradley tennis

[Da Coach]

I have wondered how many sports Bradley has to maintain to be an NCAA school? I believe I heard somewhere there is a required minimum.

Division I member institutions have to have at least seven sports for men and seven for women (or six for men and eight for women) with at least two team sports for each gender. Also, each playing season has to be represented by each gender as well.

[tornado]

How did Lewis compete in DI VB, and DBU in DI baseball for several years?

[Da Coach]

How did Lewis compete in DI VB, and DBU in DI baseball for several years?

Lewis is Division II, and NCAA Men's Volleyball combines Division I & Division II.

Prior to 2012, the NCAA men's volleyball did not have any official divisional structure. They combined all 3 Divisions, I, II, and III.
But in 2012, the NCAA established a separate Division III Championship. But DI and DII are still combined together.

[tornado]

but there are schools that compete in only one Division I sport...many of them...they must get a special OK from NCAA...
UMass-Lowell for years have had all their sports compete in Division II except ice hockey which has competed since 1983 as Division I.

Likewise Minnesota-Duluth is D-I in ice hockey only

[Da Coach]

The NCAA has always allowed exceptions that allowed lower division schools to participate in some D1 sports. But those schools are not considered D1 schools.

[Buesch N Chips]

Averaging over 20 wins a year is not mediocrity, no matter how many times the current admins and JL-haters keep repeating it. I am sure it makes them feel better to keep repeating it, considering the woeful state basketball and other sports have been in since the extensive changes.
But right now, most faithful Bradley fans would be happy just to see the program get back to mediocre.

I think if you are going to compare W/L records, it's more valid to compare regular season records. Would you rather have an 0-1 NCAA appearance or a 5-0 CBI appearance?

[Da Coach]

An NCAA appearance with an 0-1 record is nice, but leaves some fans unsatisfied. Going 5-0 in the CBI is also a nice way to end a season, and fans get to see additional games. I agree that CBI wins aren't the same as NCAA wins, but they are wins, and usually over good teams, not 320+ RPI teams like IUPUI. So I don't understand the mentality of ridiculing when your team actually wins games against good opponents, and calling 21 and 22-win seasons "mediocre". Sure, I'd prefer an NCAA run, but winning 20+ games against good teams will always trump losing seasons, and NCSOS's like we've seen the past couple years in the 300+ range.

[Da Coach]

Brief PJ Star article-

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20140512/SPORTS/140519802/11130/SPORTS

And the article from BUBraves.com

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25971&SPID=1508&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=209494563&DB_OEM_ID=3400

We'll probably never know the entire story of why he quit, but it's reported men's tennis coach Tim Gray quit to "pursue other opportunities in California." He had tremendous success at the Division II and III levels. He appears to be from the East Coast, and has spent most of his career in the East and Southeast. Maybe he didn't like the Midwest, or maybe he just didn't like Division I and the MVC or didn't think he could be successful here? But we wish him the best of luck in pursuing opportunities in California.

[LongTimeFan]

We have nicer weather here year-around. However, this week is not a good indication of it. Four days in a row in the mid to upper 90's. Hoping it cools off quickly.

[Buesch N Chips]

An NCAA appearance with an 0-1 record is nice, but leaves some fans unsatisfied. Going 5-0 in the CBI is also a nice way to end a season, and fans get to see additional games. I agree that CBI wins aren't the same as NCAA wins, but they are wins, and usually over good teams, not 320+ RPI teams like IUPUI. So I don't understand the mentality of ridiculing when your team actually wins games against good opponents, and calling 21 and 22-win seasons "mediocre". Sure, I'd prefer an NCAA run, but winning 20+ games against good teams will always trump losing seasons, and NCSOS's like we've seen the past couple years in the 300+ range.

But, generally speaking, you would surely concede that going 5-0 in the CBI could very easily skew one's W/L record more positive than NCAA bubble teams that go 0-1, making the W/L records, in essence, invaild if using them for comparisons. Regular season, and more specifically conference record is really the only thing that is relatively standardized.

[Da Coach]

No I don't agree. If you can start "invalidating" wins because of subjective definitions, then we can always argue over the value of any win, or discount just about any winning season.
I would never say any wins over quality opponents are worthless, or not valid. That is the argument detractors use to try to diminish the success of past teams, and to make themselves feel better about these last 3 years of fallout, and I know that isn't what you are trying to do. Wins are wins, IMO.

We could even play that game with the conference seasons... You would surely concede that winning 7 games, like Bradley did last year, against a weakened and watered down MVC with no Creighton, and with 2 of those wins over a bad Loyola team that finished with a nearly 300 RPI is no better than winning 4 or 5 games against a better MVC, pre-Loyola?

And we could easily play that invalidating game with the terrible non-conference schedule we've had the last 2 years. Surely a couple extra wins each year came from scheduling so many cupcakes. So should we discount those wins, too?

[Buesch N Chips]

No I don't agree. If you can start "invalidating" wins because of subjective definitions, then we can always argue over the value of any win, or discount just about any winning season.
I would never say any wins over quality opponents are worthless, or not valid. That is the argument detractors use to try to diminish the success of past teams, and to make themselves feel better about these last 3 years of fallout, and I know that isn't what you are trying to do. Wins are wins, IMO.

We could even play that game with the conference seasons... You would surely concede that winning 7 games, like Bradley did last year, against a weakened and watered down MVC with no Creighton, and with 2 of those wins over a bad Loyola team that finished with a nearly 300 RPI is no better than winning 4 or 5 games against a better MVC, pre-Loyola?

And we could easily play that invalidating game with the terrible non-conference schedule we've had the last 2 years. Surely a couple extra wins each year came from scheduling so many cupcakes. So should we discount those wins, too?

Which just goes to show that you can find a stat that will support any point of view.

[wily coyote]

Which just goes to show that you can find a stat that will support any point of view.

Which gets done on this board an awful lot. Now if we could just figure out how to beat Quincy College????? That would make our stats look a lot better.

[tornado]

or IUPUI

[Tulsa Brave]

Quality wins over Austin Peay, Oakland, Pacific, UIC, Florida Gulf Coast, Richmond, East Tennessee State, SEMO, SIUE, and Loyola helped get us to 20 wins in 2009. We missed a chance at another quality win that season when we lost to UMKC. A whopping 1 win out of the 21 that season was against a team in the Pomeroy top 100. We were 1-10 against top 100 Pomeroy teams that season, and lost 5 games to sub-100 teams. How I long for the good old days of unparalleled success we enjoyed back then.