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2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

It seems that at the DIII level, the reputation of the coach doesn't matter. It's more about the hockey program and whether it's a winner or not. In Darwitz's case, she built this team in only a few years and recruits will now follow, whether she's a good coach or not, or did it ethically or not. Not many teams make it to the NCAA Final Four in such a short amount of time. Look at Gustavus. Carroll is not well liked at all, yet he gets top-notch talent year in and year out. The River Falls coach has a shady history with recruiting, but, again, top-notch recruits. Either these coaches feel like this is how they have to be in order to compete with other schools to get these kids, or this is how they really are. In the end, if their team wins (as they do), character doesn't really seem to matter to kids looking to go there. And while the DIII motto is supposed to be "academics first", the top kids really only care about winning. I know some kids who have chosen Plattsburgh over a NESCAC because Plattsburgh wins. We can debate how Darwitz got these transfers, but the point is, she got them, and now her team is a contender and will (should) continue to be.
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

It seems that at the DIII level, the reputation of the coach doesn't matter. It's more about the hockey program and whether it's a winner or not. In Darwitz's case, she built this team in only a few years and recruits will now follow, whether she's a good coach or not, or did it ethically or not. Not many teams make it to the NCAA Final Four in such a short amount of time. Look at Gustavus. Carroll is not well liked at all, yet he gets top-notch talent year in and year out. The River Falls coach has a shady history with recruiting, but, again, top-notch recruits. Either these coaches feel like this is how they have to be in order to compete with other schools to get these kids, or this is how they really are. In the end, if their team wins (as they do), character doesn't really seem to matter to kids looking to go there. And while the DIII motto is supposed to be "academics first", the top kids really only care about winning. I know some kids who have chosen Plattsburgh over a NESCAC because Plattsburgh wins. We can debate how Darwitz got these transfers, but the point is, she got them, and now her team is a contender and will (should) continue to be.
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I agree with your point. A handful of transfers may be unsavory to purists but unless someone drops dirt on how Hamline recruited them, there doesn't appear to be any violations of transfer rules.

I don't know much about Natalie Darwitz other than what she accomplished on the ice. There's clearly some animosity towards her on this board I'm missing out on as a DIII fan from NY. Is this likely to end up like a Jenny Schmidgall-Potter at Trinity situation where a brief D3 coaching stint by an accomplished player turns into a D1 position? If she does bolt for a bigger opportunity the question will be if Hamline can keep up what she's building now.
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

Scott_TG said:
Do we know for sure it was the players who transferred were involved in whatever incident that caused the school to self-impose a ban? I don't think it's fair to case aspersions on their character just because they transferred. Maybe they transferred because they weren't involved and didn't think collective self-imposed punishment was fair, especially since it sounds like it was over an incident a lot of teams would not have instituted a postseason ban for.
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My comment was a hypothetical. Guess I should have prefaced my comment with "if the offending players are the ones that transerred to Hamline from St. Thomas..."
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

shelfit said:
I have to say I would much rather have seen River Falls or Gustavus or Lake Forest (or several other teams) in the spot Morrisville had. That game was a joke for Norwich (8-2 score, 39 shots to just 14, and clearly took their foot off the gas in the 3rd period) and it shows what an unfortunate waste that conference's AQ is and supports what many people here said about what a joke it was to see Endicott being ranked in the top 10 this season.
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....Yepp
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

Scott,

question for you: do you know what's going on at Plattsburgh with injured/suspended players for the final 4? Pretty sure they can make it to finals regardless but if they're missing a few key pieces it looks like it may be Norwich's year.
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

GTOWN said:
Scott,

question for you: do you know what's going on at Plattsburgh with injured/suspended players for the final 4? Pretty sure they can make it to finals regardless but if they're missing a few key pieces it looks like it may be Norwich's year.
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Suspended players were only for one game. They'll be back on the ice.
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

Scott_TG said:
Question to anyone with more knowledge of midwestern higher ed than I: where would you rank Lindenwood, Hamline and St. Thomas academically? Would going from Lindenwood to Hamline or St. Thomas to Hamline be considered an upgrade, downgrade, push?
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I think it depends on where one plans to live/work. If somebody plans to live in the Twin Cities, then the name "Hamline" or "St. Thomas" on a diploma will open more doors than "Lindenwood" does. If someone wants to live in St. Louis, maybe the opposite is true, I don't know.

As for tampering, I think it is tough for most D-III programs to "recruit" a player off of a D-I roster. Maybe Plattsburgh or Elmira has the clout where people would listen; I doubt that Hamline of a couple of years ago did. What is more likely is that players wind up at a school/team and decide that some piece of it isn't a good fit. They decide that they would like to transfer, and at that point, I think they rely on their network to find a new team. Any of several factors might have taken Bobrowski to Hamline: her dad, obviously, would have been enough; she may have known Darwitz as either the coach at Lakeville South or from some camp when she coached in D-I; Hamline is located about three miles away from her high school. It may not be as obvious for some of the others, but having a friend on the team or a friend's dad on staff could get a program on the short list of options to investigate.

Or maybe it is just like high school, where the parents of the team that lost will tell you that the roster of the team that won is full of players that were recruited.
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

ARM said:
As for tampering, I think it is tough for most D-III programs to "recruit" a player off of a D-I roster. Maybe Plattsburgh or Elmira has the clout where people would listen; I doubt that Hamline of a couple of years ago did. What is more likely is that players wind up at a school/team and decide that some piece of it isn't a good fit. They decide that they would like to transfer, and at that point, I think they rely on their network to find a new team.
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Thanks for the insight regarding the schools.

I agree with your point about relying on networks when it comes to transferring. Most of the transfers whose stories are known is they decided to transfer and a) went to play with a teammate from juniors/hs; b) they reach out to a former juniors/hs coach who helps connect them to DIII coaches or c) called the DIII schools that they visited as a recruit when they were in high school.

At the point they're looking for a new school you cannot blame a coach for being receptive to them. And the current coach isn't likely to complain because why would they want an unhappy player they're not using in games who no longer wants to be there around their squad? It would be bad for morale.
 
Birdwatcher said:
She hunched down holding her arm after making a hard shot.....Needed help from the ice..........Not Funny at all !
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Oh just relax. I was adding to spwood's joke basically covering all areas of potential injury, not joking about any particular player getting hurt. Most people with half a brain would be able to understand that. I think you meant to say she needed help getting off the ice. "Needed help from the ice" is a poorly worded sentence with a different meaning. See, we can all read things however we want, just like you. It all depends how high-strung one is. You seem way uptight!
 
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Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

shelfit said:
Oh just relax. I was adding to spwood's joke basically covering all areas of potential injury, not joking about any particular player getting hurt. Most people with half a brain would be able to understand that. I think you meant to say she needed help getting off the ice. "Needed help from the ice" is a poorly worded sentence with a different meaning. See, we can all read things however we want, just like you.
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LOL means you are laughing.....It just struck me the wrong way.....sorry you had a problem with my shortened version.....I was there and it was obviously quite painful.
 
Birdwatcher said:
LOL means you are laughing.....It just struck me the wrong way.....sorry you had a problem with my shortened version.....I was there and it was obviously quite painful.
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Yes because I did laugh...at spwood's response to the guy that challenged him because spwood covered the entire human body in his retort and I added to it to cover...oh never mind, if I have to explain it to you then I'm wasting my time because you just don't get it and you're never going to get it.
 
Re: 2018 NCAA DIII Women's Tournament

Scott_TG said:
I agree with your point. A handful of transfers may be unsavory to purists but unless someone drops dirt on how Hamline recruited them, there doesn't appear to be any violations of transfer rules.

I don't know much about Natalie Darwitz other than what she accomplished on the ice. There's clearly some animosity towards her on this board I'm missing out on as a DIII fan from NY. Is this likely to end up like a Jenny Schmidgall-Potter at Trinity situation where a brief D3 coaching stint by an accomplished player turns into a D1 position? If she does bolt for a bigger opportunity the question will be if Hamline can keep up what she's building now.
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I have no "inside" information on this, but my take when talking to Darwitz and the higher ups at Hamline is they basically made her an offer she couldn't refuse. They really wanted an upgrade and they made it so she would accept. And that doesn't just mean money. She's got a lot of flexibility with her family and the sort of things that made her think she could take it on and not be affecting her family life too much. I have no idea if she wants to move up to DI, but the short conversation I had made it seem like things there are very cushy for her lifestyle and that would be difficult to give up.
 
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