The NEW Official Thread of the Augustana Vikings

[Augieholic]

Speaking of next year, does anyone know if Lebrun is planning to come back for a fifth year, thanks to COVID?

It appears he is being honored for Senior Night this evening so this appears to be his final season. That is too bad for Augie fans as he would have been a tremendous asset amongst the youth next season. Hopefully his final season still has over a month left in it.

[Augieholic]

I have and will watch those celebration videos more times than I'll ever admit. Last night was wildly entertaining for a fairly large margin victory and I'll do my best to highlight the good parts:

-Matt Cartwright's senior night recognition was still extremely awkward and then after his first (of two made field goals on 13 attempts) made 3 he blew a kiss to the Augie section.
-Doug Votava had himself a bender in the second half. On one of the first possessions Slater and Dykman fall to the floor on a missed shot. Doug takes the cowards way out and calls a double foul. The Augie bench requests a review for a hook and hold call. The officials review the video AT LENGTH and overturn the double fall call in place of a hook and hold technical on Slater. Several minutes later a USF player (I think Kettner) makes a pretty obvious flop on a charge attempt but play goes on and a shot is missed. As Riemersma and a USF player are still fighting for the ball Doug is so excited to do his job that he blows his whistle to CALL A FLOP WARNING! As both teams are setting up for Augie to inbound the ball the other officials led by Jason Harstick consciously make Doug determine who has possession and because the ball was still in doubt when Doug prematurely blew his whistle they go to the jump ball arrow and Augie keeps it. Truly a master class in showboat officiating.
-I dont think there was much doubt about who the POY was going into last night but after this game it's over. Tyler Riemersma is the only answer.
- Going into this season I was expecting a competitive team that might contend for the Regional if things broke right. Now they're NSIC Champs and in control of their Regional hosting destiny. We don't say it enough, Never Doubt Texas Tom.

[MrAugustana]

Awesome win last night. When it comes to winning a conference championship, doing it on your rival's home court while simultaneously eliminating them from playoff contention and essentially ending their season is pretty high up on the list of fun ways to do it. And holding a former teammate (and the conference's leading scorer) to 7 points on 2-13 shooting doesn't hurt either.

Reflecting on this team, it's kind of remarkable to be where we're at. I don't know that many other teams in this conference could afford to lose two starters (Todd and Cartwright) and their third-leading scorer (Schaefer, who came off the bench) before the start of the season and end up winning the conference championship outright and potentially have a shot to host the Regional.

Just a fantastic job by the coaching staff and players to lock in like they have and win at such a high level throughout the season. The biggest thing is that everybody on the team just looks like they're truly having fun and enjoying playing with each other.

Obviously a tough game tomorrow with SMSU in town. Isaac Fink got lava hot in Marshall, which ended up skewing the score a little in the Vikings' first matchup with the Mustangs. Would be a bummer to win on such a high note last night and end up dropping one tomorrow. Either way, win or lose, we end up as conference champions, which I certainly can't say I was expecting back around the time we lost to Wayne and our offense looked about as clunky as a bag of concrete cinder blocks.

Congrats to the Vikings. Hoping there's still plenty of basketball to be played this season.

[MrAugustana]

A couple of fun tweets from last night's win:

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And Coach Billeter about as hyped as I've ever seen him not yelling at an official:

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[Inkblot]

Being that I am new to D2 Sports, how is the regional ranking set? Is it akin to football where you are ranked based upon your wins, opp wins, and opp opp wins? Also, is it something that is just a measure of that week or does it have more value for projecting forward? Sorry if that is clear as mud, I am still learning about the D2 Football rankings as well.

There are several factors that influence the rankings. The handbook lists these criteria:
? In-region winning percentage
? Division II winning percentage
? Division II strength of schedule
? Division II head-to-head competition
? Results versus Division II common opponents
? Rating percentage index (RPI)
? Performance indicator
? Record vs. ranked teams

Now, these aren't all weighted equally. I'll go over the ones that seem to be most important.

Strength of schedule: This is 66.67% your opponents' win percentage (excluding games against you) and 33.33% your opponents' opponents' win percentage (excluding games against the opponent in question).

In-region RPI: This is (a) 50% your in-region winning percentage, (b) 25% your in-region opponents' in-region winning percentage, and (c) 25% their in-region opponents' in-region winning percentage. Note that "in-region" is broader than just being assigned to the same region; for example, it includes games against anyone in a bordering state. (The exclusions in components b and c are the same as in the strength of schedule calculation.)

Performance indicator: Every game you've played is given a value from 0 to 47, and the values are averaged. The maximum value of 47 for a game would be achieved by winning (24 pts) on the road (2 pts) against a team with a winning percentage of at least .875 (21 pts). Unlike in SOS and RPI, games against you are included in the winning percentage component.

I've found that if you multiply the RPI by 0.55, the SOS by 0.1, and the PI by 0.35 (after first dividing it by 47 to get it onto a scale of 0 to 1) and then add them together, it tracks pretty well with the regional rankings. But some of the non-numeric criteria are important too. A head-to-head win sometimes overcomes a numerical deficit, as does a better record against the rest of the top 10.

[MrAugustana]

Congrats to Tyler. He's done much better in the classroom than I ever did, and I never had to focus on being an all-conference basketball player (or any type of athlete at all) while doing it:

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[WPHB]

Being that I am new to D2 Sports, how is the regional ranking set? Is it akin to football where you are ranked based upon your wins, opp wins, and opp opp wins? Also, is it something that is just a measure of that week or does it have more value for projecting forward? Sorry if that is clear as mud, I am still learning about the D2 Football rankings as well.

[WPHB]

NCAA- give the people what they want and post the Regional Rankings already, we've waited long enough!

Ask and you shall receive!

[Augieholic]

NCAA- give the people what they want and post the Regional Rankings already, we've waited long enough!

[MrAugustana]

Cool Midco story featuring Isaac Fink:

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Great work, as always, David Brown and Midco.

[vikingfaithful]

Vikings hit #5 in the NABC Top 25, #8 in the CoSIDA Top 25.

If you need me, I'll be in full Apostle of Apprehension mode pretty much throughout the rest of the season.

EZ to see why you're in A.O.A mode the path is so clear for the Vikes to host the regional, maybe to clear.

[MrAugustana]

Vikings hit #5 in the NABC Top 25, #8 in the CoSIDA Top 25.

If you need me, I'll be in full Apostle of Apprehension mode pretty much throughout the rest of the season.

[MrAugustana]

Also congrats to Tyler Riemersma on being named to the Top 50 of the Bevo Francis Award List: ?https://goaugie.com/news/2022/2/15/m...-the-year.aspx

Other Central Region athletes I saw on the list included Tray Buchanan of Emporia, Trevor Hudgins of NWMSU, Isaiah Wade of UCO, and Ryan Hawkins of Creighton.

Just kidding about Hawkins. Not sure if I missed any others. Congrats to Tyler on this great recognition. Should be interesting to see if he makes the cut down to 25.??????

[MrAugustana]

Congrats incoming Viking Jackson Loge on being named a top 10 finalist for the Minnesota Mr. Basketball award. Only D2 kid on the list.

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[laker]

Jeff has been the voice of the Vikings since the late 80's after graduating he is a great guy. Thank hin yoursel


Jeff Fylling (@JeffFylling) / Twitter

Thanks for the info. I did follow him and got a very nice reply back. He said that there were technical difficulties on the MSU end and when asked to do the feed was happy to help!