CCLA Pre-Season Coach's Poll

[Andy Sharp]

Division I
1 Michigan
2 Michigan State
3 Buffalo
4 Pitt
5 Central Michigan
6 Oakland
7 Indiana
8 Purdue
9 Western Michigan
10 West Virginia
11 Miami
12 Eastern Michigan
13 Ball State

Division II
1 Dayton
2 Calvin
3 Grand Valley
4 Carnegie Mellon
5 Ferris State
5 Northern Michigan
7 Taylor
8 Grove City
9 Saginaw Valley State University (New CCLA Team)
10 U of M - Dearborn
11 Hope
12 Rose Hulman


Other News
Indiana Univ. of PA was dropped from the CCLA Division II

Elections:
Owen Blank - Commissioner
Ron Hebert - Secretary
Robbie Heaps - Past Commissioner

[Gvlax]

any other interesting news besides no more AQ for d2 and SVSU getting in from the meeting?

[lgriemsman]

Three new teams introduced themselves at the meeting as well. Each hopes to gain admission for the 2008-2009 season.

Aquinas College (Grand Rapids, MI)
John Carroll University (Cleveland, OH)
Davenport University (Grand Rapids, MI)

[Gvlax]

anything change with the playoffs for Div 2? Div 1 has three teams from each north and south come, will div 2 do the same? i believe D 2 only has one less team than D1.

[Andy Sharp]

anything change with the playoffs for Div 2? Div 1 has three teams from each north and south come, will div 2 do the same? i believe D 2 only has one less team than D1.

I brought it up for discussion, but did not gain enough interest to happen in 2008. Given the presentations from the prospects for entry next year things might change in the future. The main problem remains our compact schedules.

[Gvlax]

i dont know what ccla views are on D2 but it feels the difference between D1 and D2 conference playoffs lead me to believe CCLA views D2 as a developmental league. If they want D2 to be for smaller schools with smaller budgets than ccla needs to make the playoffs equal for both 1 and 2.

[John Paul]

It seemed that the main reservations in the room to expanding the D2 tournament field were scheduling issues. For it to work, because some D2 schools cannot play on Sunday, the tournament would either have to extend over two weekends or play two games on one of the days. I don't think anyone was opposed to D2 having an equal number of teams in. It was a question of logistics.

[detlaxhead]

i dont know what ccla views are on D2 but it feels the difference between D1 and D2 conference playoffs lead me to believe CCLA views D2 as a developmental league. If they want D2 to be for smaller schools with smaller budgets than ccla needs to make the playoffs equal for both 1 and 2.

JP is correct. Because of the make up of Division 2 we would need to either start an extend D2 playoffs on the thursday before the playoffs, host a playoff game the weekend before, or have teams play two games on either friday or saturday of the playoff weekend. We tabled the idea for this year so we can work out the details for each option.

It's something the board will support, but we need to make sure it is something that can do the right way.

[Gvlax]

is saginaw valley in north or south division? tried to find this on the CCLA webpage but that isnt up to date.

[GCCLAX3]

Saginaw Valley will be in the north. The North now consists of 7 teams and the South consist of 5 with IUP dropping. All teams in attendance were in favor of this format, as there would have been a large burden of travel placed on one team if it were 6 and 6.

[Gvlax]

mcla.us put SVSU in the south fyi

http://mcla.us/teams.cfm?conferenceid=1 ... seasonid=4