SCAC Scheduling Changes

I’ve been really NPI heavy in my articles this summer so let’s pivot over to some news out of the SCAC. They have 11 teams in their conference this fall before Trinity and Southwestern saunter over with dem smartest schools in the SAA. That left the SCAC with an interesting scheduling problem. Typically, the SCAC has gone with pod scheduling where schools will meet at one location and get 3 or 4-matches in during one weekend. They really didn’t do the home and away type scheduling that other conferences do. The one big advantage to this is that it opens up playing dates for schools that can make use of that. Trinity has always been outstanding in that regard as they can attract teams to their facility for a late in the year tournament.

McMurry released their schedule and it was my first look at what the SCAC was going to do. McMurry and Concordia have moved from the ASC to the SCAC this year with LeTourneau joining in 2025. As I ran down the list of teams, I could tell the SCAC did something funny. I reached out to my best buddy, SCAC Commissioner Dwayne “I’ll be your” Hanberry, and he filled me in on their thinking. The SCAC will go to a two-division model in 2024. Each division will play home and away within their division and then play two pods where the divisions cross play. The divisions have an unequal number of teams so the “Blue Division”, who has one extra team, will play 15 conference matches while the “Gold Division” will play only 14. The divisions were formed geographically with the Gold Division getting Concordia, Schreiner, Southwestern, Texas Lutheran and Trinity. This is a nice tight geographical division although with the improvement from Schreiner last year, it’s really stacked. These schools basically exist in a small funnel from Southwestern to Trinity, which is about 120 miles apart. The Blue Division consists of Austin College, Centenary, Colorado College, Dallas, McMurry and St Thomas. Where Dwayne gets an ‘A’ in geography in the Gold Division, the Blue Division nets him a strong D-. There are about 1,000 miles between Houston (St Thomas) and Colorado Springs (Colorado College), with a nice 200-mile right turn to pull in Centenary and a nice 180-mile left turn to pull in McMurry. I’m not sure what I would have done differently here but it is a little strange St Thomas or McMurry are not in the Gold Division. Both are pretty isolated from their Blue counterparts.

From a volleyball perspective, it’s not a great split based on the 2023 results so the SCAC has elected to bring 8 of the 11 teams into the conference tournament. The top 3 teams from each division with two wildcard teams. Those wildcard teams will be determined based on the next two highest winning percentages regardless of division. I’m not sure why Dwayne just didn’t go with NPI as their decider since that’s all the rage nowadays but results on the court still matter to some, I guess.

In other scheduling news, I had heard that the SAA was going to go with a pod system in 2025 once Trinity and Southwestern move over. This was heavily pushed by the two new schools while the old guard wanted home/away or something close to it. This is a big win for the Texas schools and saves a ton on travel expenses. It’s just funny that this wasn’t part of the agreement when they decided to move. Guess dem not smart all time. Unfortunately, I’ve also heard that with the closure of Birmingham-Southern College that this decision might be reconsidered. I kind of like reporting something like this because there is no way to tell if I’m right or not when a final decision is actually made.

Alright, there is some non-NPI news for the masses. I’ll keep looking for more as I move decimals around while looking at NPI numbers.