Tonight‘s championship game features Norfolk State versus Florida A&M. This conference in Tark has won several championships and is always competitive, but this is the first time that both teams in the championship game have been from the conference.

between this season and 10 before it... 12/44 final four berths, 27% of total
7/22 championship game berths, 32% of total
3/11 championships, 27% of total

not bad for a D prestige baseline conference!

Congrats on the FAMU title Gil! Been a long time coming

congrats gil! getting it done with the super slow-down

love me some low-baseline prestige championships <3

Posted by trail on 4/10/2023 10:18:00 AM (view original):
congrats gil! getting it done with the super slow-down

love me some low-baseline prestige championships <3

thanks! i almost went normal tempo one of those games, but then i didn't.

pretty sure in my entire career, this is the first time i've won with a predominantly slowdown team, or with a less than 10 player rotation. so that makes my title share 2.5% slowdown, i guess i'll generously call it 2.5% uptempo (perhaps 1.25%, based on one season where i ran uptempo in the f4 and title game), and 95% normal.

i definitely had teams where for game planning purposes, i'd stick in a slowdown or an uptempo for a game, but in terms of base team setup and what ends up getting played the majority of the time, i'm like 90% sure this is a first.

props to the excellent big sky in tark for also winning three in the last 11 years. and of course d1 tark has baums_away's UAB which is one of the most impressive programs i've ever seen. the MEAC, the big sky, and the one man wrecking crew that is baums_away combine for 8 of tark's last 11 titles. very nice job to those folks as well.

Not in Tark but know it isn't easy to take low baseline prestige teams to the top regularly much less take two from same conference to NT championship together in one season. Great job guys!

Posted by gillispie on 4/10/2023 3:04:00 PM (view original):
props to the excellent big sky in tark for also winning three in the last 11 years. and of course d1 tark has baums_away's UAB which is one of the most impressive programs i've ever seen. the MEAC, the big sky, and the one man wrecking crew that is baums_away combine for 8 of tark's last 11 titles. very nice job to those folks as well.

And 9 of the last 12 - 3 from the MEAC, 3 from the Big Sky, 3 from Baums lol.

Incredible run as a conference and great to see you bring one home Gil, I know you've had a few close finishes through the seasons there. Anything next on your HD bucket list lol

Posted by tmacfan14 on 4/12/2023 1:27:00 PM (view original):
Incredible run as a conference and great to see you bring one home Gil, I know you've had a few close finishes through the seasons there. Anything next on your HD bucket list lol

thanks! really, nothing on the bucket list. i already retired for 3-4 years, so can't even say that! when i came back and gave 3.0 a shot, i kinda wanted to get in deep into the new recruiting and stuff, to win as a way of figuring out if i'd figured it out yet... but i didn't even make it 3 seasons before deciding to bail. just having fun at this point, and the MEAC is a pretty good place to be for that. besides, one team is sort of too much for me to keep up with, so no real chance of grabbing another. zero is still too few though! so probably will just take it easy in the MEAC a good while. plus chap does all the heavy lifting, keeping the conference full, keeping delaware state in elite program territory (great confs should have one!), he has this neat post every season about the state of the conference, i am just along for the ride (upsetcity helps find folks and gives a lot of help to some of the newer guys, too - i mostly just post on the CC from time to time!). its neat being in a conf full of invested coaches who are there to swim upstream with that D baseline prestige, i like those guys, and i like that they are hungry for the challenge.