NSIC meetings: Coaches want 22-game schedule

Released July 31, 2009
St. Cloud, Minn.

St. Cloud Times

The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference basketball coaches can’t control their schedules.

The final decision on whether to expand the conference season from a 20-game schedule to a 22-game schedule following the 2009-10 season will be made by the 14-team league’s athletic directors Saturday.

The NSIC began its annual meetings at the Best Western Kelly Inn in St. Cloud Thursday with each sport getting its say in front of Commissioner Butch Raymond and other conference administrators.

Basketball was front and center Thursday with all of the league’s coaches in attendance. Both the men’s and women’s coaches appeared to be in favor of a 22-game conference schedule with the idea that the Holiday HoopsFest over Thanksgiving weekend in Sioux Falls, S.D., wouldn’t be continued after this season.

The coaches made their recommendation on the subject and it will now be passed on to the athletic directors, who meet Saturday morning. The schedule wouldn’t be put into place until the 2010-11 athletic year.

“We talked about a lot of different issues,” St. Cloud State men’s basketball coach Kevin Schlagel said. “The most important one was scheduling. We voted for the 22-game schedule and now that’s moving on to the next phase. We’ll see where the athletic directors take it from there.
“It was a good meeting and we shared a lot of ideas. People were mostly talking about what their needs are. We all have different needs.”

The men’s and women’s basketball coaches first met together and then separately. The women’s meeting went longer than expected. St. Cloud State women’s coach Lori Fish said the issue of whether the conference basketball tournament should be expanded from eight to 10 or 12 teams was also a hot topic.

“As of right now, I think we tabled the idea of expanding teams in the tournament,” she said. “There’s not much we can do on it this year. We’ll talk about it more next year. We’re trying to decide if we want to do the tournament at a neutral site, though. When everybody was in Winona this year, it was fun and special. It was a neat thing because we could support the men’s team and they could support us.”

The most probable location for a neutral site would be in Fargo, N.D., according to Fish, Augustana men’s head coach Tom Billeter and Northern State men’s coach Don Meyer.

“They’re thinking that Fargo is a possibility,” said Meyer, who is the all-time NCAA wins leader in men’s basketball. “They have three different sites to play at that aren’t close to one certain school. I think it would make our conference tournament more special. But what do I know?

“I’d like to see the neutral conference tournament site come together as soon as possible. I’d like to see eight girls and guys teams playing eight games that first day, then four the next and on the third day we’ll have a champion. You just have to streamline it. Having everybody together in one place just makes sense.”

Billeter favors a 12-team postseason tournament. He’s also in favor of a 22-game league schedule if the HoopsFest is done away with.

“You want as many kids to get into that postseason tournament as possible,” Billeter said. “We’re all about the student-athlete and a big part of a student-athlete’s career is participating in postseason play. I think our league is so good that maybe a 12th-seeded team could win the entire tournament.

“I like the HoopsFest because it’s in Sioux Falls. We’re in it every year. I like the 20-game schedule and the HoopsFest. But, I understand why people want it to be gone. But for me, it’s in my backyard, and I like it.”

On the other side, there’s Meyer, whose program leads Division II in attendance and has to give up two nonconference games that would most likely be played in Aberdeen, S.D., at the Barnett Center.

“We’ll play in it this year and then move on. It’s not too far away for us, but we have to give up two home games and we lead the nation in attendance,” he said. “We lost revenue from it. I think we lose a lot of revenue on it. It’s good for the league, I guess. We just have to wait and see. If we go to a 22-game league schedule, that will make the HoopsFest shaky.
“It doesn’t matter to me because I don’t have any control over it anyway. Whatever you get, you get.”

Baseball and softball coaches also met on Thursday. St. Cloud State baseball coach Pat Dolan said the league coaches met for three-plus hours and recommended to the athletic directors that doubleheaders be moved from a pair of seven-inning games to a nine-inning game followed by a seven-inning game.

The baseball coaches also recommended that weekend series in the conference be extended to be allowed to play on Tuesdays if bad weather arrises. Right now, series can only be extended out to Monday.

Dolan said the baseball coaches also talked about scheduling and whether to allow more than six teams into the postseason tournament. The six-team limit can’t be changed until after next season, however.

The league meetings continue today and Saturday