Posted by 2bounce on 6/18/2010 8:38:00 PM (view original):

The Freedom Conference is the conference of champions.  In Naismith's 40 seasons the Freedom has:

• 14 appearances in the NT Championship Game
• 9 National Championships (with 3 different teams and 4 different coaches)
• 7 appearances in the PI Championship game
• 3 PI Championships

In fact, the Freedom has won the National Championship 3 of the last 8 seasons, 6 of the last 16, and 8 of the last 25.  Remarkably, in the last 25 seasons the Freedom has put 12 teams in the Championship game.  And the Freedom has won 3 of the last 4 PI Championships, with three different teams.

 

Freedom's National Champions:

• Season 7  DeSales (mswilson)
• Season 16 DeSales (mswilson)
• Season 19 DeSales (mswilson)
• Season 25 DeSales (mswilson)
• Season 27 DeSales (mswilson)
• Season 28 Drew (alex24057)
• Season 33 Penn St., Behrend (2bounce)
• Season 37 Penn St., Behrend (2bounce)
• Season 40 Drew (alblack56)

Freedom's PI Champions:

• Season 37 Lake Erie (jhook)
• Season 38 Lycoming (hannibal)
• Season 40 Fairleigh Dickenson (paland)

No question.  You guys are a Division III monster!  You guys have set the bar so high, it would be amazing if my Conference (CUNY) could one day even be competitive with you.

Funny thing is, Capital has been arguabley the best conference for the past several seasons.  They have lead this World with the best RPI for D3.  But for whatever reason, come tournament time we have teams step up.  And it is not just one team.  One reason is that we have a number of coaches who not only have won a title in Hoops Dynasty, but multiple titles.  But what makes Freedom special is it is a very active and fun conference. 

This season, however, Capital had two teams in the Final Four

But still, as great of a conference as Capital is they only have 4 Championships in 6 appearances in the Championship game.  Freedom has 11 titles in 16 appearances.  It almost reminds me of the Heartland in D3 IBA, Al.  For years it was one of the most dominant conferences at any level in any world.  Yet only 1 title in 45 seasons.

just for fun, I went back and compared the last 5 seasons-- it's not all that close in terms of total numbers, but is even in Titles. Go back 10 seasons, and the Freedom looks a lot better (but i'm too lazy to write all that down). Either way, these are 2 sick conferences.

5 seasons: 

CAC: 11 teams made post-season, 8 of them the NT.
Freedom: 10 made post-season, 9 made the NT

                                          CAC                                   Freedom
N1                                      15                                            7
N2                                      10                                            5
S16                                     1                                             4
E8                                       4                                              4
F4                                        3                                             1
RU                                       1                                             0
NC                                       1                                             1

I couldn't agree more! 

5 Lake Erie ~ Last season 11-16, 3-13 conference; graduated 3; returns 2 SRs and 1 JRs; lead by SR SG Mike August, 8.3 ppg, 2.7 ast.

6 Scranton ~ Last season 7-20, 1-15 conference; graduated 5; returns 3 SR and 0 JRs; lead by SR C Guy Engleberg, 8.8 ppg, 7.4 reb.

I agree for the most part, but i think 2-5 are interchangeable in the East.  I'm looking for FDMU too have its best year in a while.  I think we have 9 post season teams with 5 or 6 in the NT.  Going to b e a strong year in the conference.

Posted by kap the cub on 11/13/2010 7:27:00 PM (view original):
I agree for the most part, but i think 2-5 are interchangeable in the East.  I'm looking for FDMU too have its best year in a while.  I think we have 9 post season teams with 5 or 6 in the NT.  Going to b e a strong year in the conference.

I couldn't agree more about 2-5 in the East.  That was really difficult making those predictions!

I agree as well. Although somehow were ranked #1?    Still means nothing until we prove it.....and Drew has never been an easy game for us. I think Al still has someone on the inside here at Del Valley relaying the gameplan to his guys.

rock, I didn't want to tell you this but God laid it on my heart, along with the winning lottery numbers. 

It's your family, rock, who is sabatoging your gameplans and your career at Del Valley. They want you to return to the level of your highest success, coaching the junior high girls 'B' team.

i once coached a a 5th grade boys C+ team.  That was, there was an A team and 2 B teams split evenly. Maybe 2 evenly, as we beat them by 2 in OT to put us at 1-12 and doom them to 0-13.  This, on a side note, was the same team that was losing 64-11 at the start of the 4th quarter in a game.  When the coach kept his starters in still running a half-court trap(no pressing).  I look over at him in disgust and disbelief, but Bobby F'ing Knight JR over there was too busy to calling out play number 5 (we didn't even run our #1 right), to notice me.  So, I took a full water bottle, zipped it about 4 inches over his head as it sailed and then burst apart on the endzone bleachers.  That seemly got a lot of attention as even the players heard it and quit playing, and in a horrible example to the kids, I said "What the f**K is wrong with u".   He looked in shock as he realized it was a real possibility that he was going to get his *** kicked in front of his son and other friends, by a highly offended lunitic with serious concern for the self-esteem of his youngsters.  He said, and if it wasn't so funny I might have punched him then, "This is some of these guys last time to ever play in front of their home crowd".  I looked around at the 21 adults and 13 kids in attendance, who probably now had real issues that i was 300 yards near their kids,  and was satisfied.  Sat down, finished the game, losing 74-15.  In the ironies of all ironies, we met again 2 weeks later in the playoffs, and John Wooden had nothing on me that day in terms of preparation.  Dean Smith was smiling somewhere, as I pulled out the 4 corners, for all 4 quarters  and lost 17-9.  The ref came to me with 2 minutes to go, and said he was at the last game and this was the greatest coaching job that he'd ever seen.  That was the last game I ever coached 12 years ago.  BTW, only had one complaint on my outburst, and most parents applauded me standing up for their kid.

that is a fantastic story.

Too funny!!!  LOL!  I coached youth basketball for over 25 years.  I had to quit 4 years ago due to all the travel for work.  I may start again next season.  I got a promotion in May I am not traveling as much.  Let me tell you, I have some stories!!!  There are just too many dads playing coach instead of being teachers who make it fun.  Ironically, with the lack of antics, being a small school (and small players), lack riding refs, playing all the kids and equal amount of minutes, and just working on fundamentals, my teams had a lot of success and we put a lot of kids onto high school teams.  More important, I feel very comfortable in saying that the kids all had a lot of fun.

One of the funniest stories I had was about a father who liked to coach from the stands and he kept trying to tell the kids what to do, which in most cases was different than what I was telling them to do.  But this guy didn't volunteer to help me coach at the start of the year and would always drop his kid off and pick him up from practice and would never stay to see what we were trying to do.  After the third game of the season I guess he was getting frustrated that his son was listening to me and not to him so he confronted me about the offense and defense.  Did I say he was a former HS player who was reliving his past through his son?  Anyway, when he confronted me, in a very calm voice I said "You have a lot of great ideas.  I would love to have you come to all our practices and see what we are doing and I would welcome your input."  He still never came to a practice and he stopped his coaching from the stands.  Of course it also helped that we went 10-0 that season and in the previous 3 seasons under another coach they were 3-27.  Listening to him in the stands I can only imagine what kind of coach he would have been. Probably very similar to your opposing coach, Kap.