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The KSU women won the Jacoby trophy and the men finished 3rd for the Reese. Sadly, for those that claim our programs are at a serious lull, this sort of invalidates your arguments.

While I would have wanted the men to win it also, we were the 3rd best MAC program and finishing behind WMU who only has 5 mens programs seems a little disingenuous.

Here is to a fruitful summer for everyone and for those of us ready for KSU fall sports a quick return.

WMU with only 5 sports was a little weak. Also in the past a MAC school had to play baseball to be eligible. Akron benefitted from that rule change. They still would have won but it would have been close.

This only means our programs are holding up compared to other MAC schools. I think most agree Mac basketball is down and at least this year Mac baseball too. Men's golf winning the Mac by 20 and then finishing next to last in the regional seems to indicate men golf wasn't too good either. Unless our 4 track qualifiers do awfully well our Directors Cup points will be down and we won't be the best MAC team in that measurement for the first time in awhile. I think we are down from our peak nationally. When I say the programs are down that's what I am looking at. It's a pretty high standard I know but in the less popular sports I think that's what you should measure yourself against. When you say you have one of the best baseball and golf programs in the north winning the MAC should be the minimum expected. This year only the women's golf team took it to the next level (and even they disappointed a bit). I know every team won't do this every year but recently we haven't done as well.

When are we going to see some actions taken as a result of the decision that was made to make men's basketball the top priority? Or have steps already been taken that I'm not aware of?

C'mon Burden. Men's golf top 50 all year with 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores and a junior. They didn't get out of the regional, but that would have been an overachievement. Teams ranked 26-50 would not be predicted to make the championship round. Yes, we have had teams do better, but also had teams in the last 20 years who didn't do nearly as well. There is no decline here. It's an excellent young team.

(06-02-2016 07:44 AM)axeme Wrote:  C'mon Burden. Men's golf top 50 all year with 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores and a junior. They didn't get out of the regional, but that would have been an overachievement. Teams ranked 26-50 would not be predicted to make the championship round. Yes, we have had teams do better, but also had teams in the last 20 years who didn't do nearly as well. There is no decline here. It's an excellent young team.

I also disagree with his assessment that mens golf "wasn't too good." Anyone can play poorly at a given tournament, and although it wasn't too long ago, I believe we had one poor day that crushed us.

(06-02-2016 07:44 AM)axeme Wrote:  C'mon Burden. Men's golf top 50 all year with 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores and a junior. They didn't get out of the regional, but that would have been an overachievement. Teams ranked 26-50 would not be predicted to make the championship round. Yes, we have had teams do better, but also had teams in the last 20 years who didn't do nearly as well. There is no decline here. It's an excellent young team.

I just expected better that 78th place especially after winning the MAC and getting into the top 50.

(06-02-2016 08:27 AM)dannyb73 Wrote:  

(06-02-2016 07:44 AM)axeme Wrote:  C'mon Burden. Men's golf top 50 all year with 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores and a junior. They didn't get out of the regional, but that would have been an overachievement. Teams ranked 26-50 would not be predicted to make the championship round. Yes, we have had teams do better, but also had teams in the last 20 years who didn't do nearly as well. There is no decline here. It's an excellent young team.

I also disagree with his assessment that mens golf "wasn't too good." Anyone can play poorly at a given tournament, and although it wasn't too long ago, I believe we had one poor day that crushed us.

Fair enough. My only point was they had one bad round, the women's golf had one bad round, the baseball team had one bad game, the gymnastics team had a couple bad events, etc. I said it was a tough measure but it is a measure. Maybe our eighth in basketball, 5th in baseball, 5th and 9th in men's golf and 11th in gymnastics in about ten years were all just good luck. I think not though. In golf about 30% of the teams make the NCAA and in gymnastics almost 60%. I think it's fair to consider their NCAA performance in rating how they did. Our performance in the MAC is good but some sports are victims of their prior success and need to be rated against those standards.

(06-02-2016 07:44 AM)axeme Wrote:  C'mon Burden. Men's golf top 50 all year with 2 freshmen, 2 sophomores and a junior. They didn't get out of the regional, but that would have been an overachievement. Teams ranked 26-50 would not be predicted to make the championship round. Yes, we have had teams do better, but also had teams in the last 20 years who didn't do nearly as well. There is no decline here. It's an excellent young team.

I am just curious why having a young golf team really has a large impact. They have been playing tournament golf probably since they were 12. It is the end of their first year by the time the NCAA rolls around. Being an individual sport not a team sport seems to minimize some of the issues a basketball freshman would have (facing tough talent for the first time, learning how his teammates play, etc). What do you think makes a big difference. I suppose playing a high level college tournament instead of a junior tourney might apply some extra pressure but what else.

The skill levels increase from adolescence well into the 20's. The best college players are generally better than the best HS players and the best mid-20's pros are better generally than the best college players. One thing Herbie does really well is help his players improve over their careers.

(06-02-2016 11:52 AM)axeme Wrote:  The skill levels increase from adolescence well into the 20's. The best college players are generally better than the best HS players and the best mid-20's pros are better generally than the best college players. One thing Herbie does really well is help his players improve over their careers.

I tested your theory. I looked at all golfers since 1993 who played in at least 10 tournaments in all four years. Here are their average scores by year. 74.10 as a freshman, 73.63 as a sophomore, 73.28 as a junior and 73.55 as a senior. The last three years probably aren't statistically different so your comparing 74.10 to 73.49 a significant 0.6 stroke improvement. It's a biased sample in that all these golfers were good enough to play full time all four years. However since the 5 guys we are playing today will probably be in that category (barring a super recruit coming in) I'd say it's reasonable to compare this to our current five. As freshman they averaged slightly worse at 74.57 (Whalen at 75.4 is the main reason for that). The three that have a soph season average 73.37 which is a much greater improvement of 1.2 strokes (smaller sample size but the trend is there). Whalen is the only one with a third year and it is only 0.15 lower than his soph year. Again it fits the trend.

As I said this has the bias that a Mutual Fund company uses. You know the line. Seventy % of our funds beat the industry average because we got rid of most of the ones that don't. The remaining ones will be gone soon. If you invested in any of those we are sorry. So this probably isn't all Page the coach. Page the recruiter also must take some credit. There are many players on the list that did not improve and therefore did not play as much.

One concern is that of our five players only one equaled or beat the 15 player freshman average of 74.10. That was Sveinbergsson at 73.79. The other four were 0.15 higher to as much as 1.3 higher.

Having said all this, your guess is a good as mine as to what 0.6 strokes times two players per round (3.6 strokes per three round tournament) will do for our team results next year but it can't hurt.

Another issue with this is that it assumes that course rating and slope are equal. With this sample size it's probably close but USGA handicap would probably be more accurate, but the data are not easily available.

I looked at the directors cup data for the last 23 years and it's not as clear cut as I thought. Here's what I found:

1. We broke the 220 point mark in 2000 and have been higher than that ever since except for two eras.

2. The first was 2004-2007 where we had point totals of 202, 185, less than 165 ( only the top 100 were shown and Kent wasn't in the top 100) and 100. I did not remember that stretch but obviously we had some down years.

3. The second was 2015 at 210 and 2016 at 151. Track is still out but I can only see one of our athletes scoring so at most an additional 10 points might be had. Two years isn't a trend but it might be the start of one. Most of our sports that scored points consistently from 2008 through now (field hockey, wrestling, gymnastics, both golfs, both tracks and baseball are either staying the same or declining slightly. Also none of the sports that rarely or never score points ( XCountry, volleyball, soccer, football, women's and men's basketball and softball) are improving and picking up the slack. That was my point this morning.

Now most people don't give a hoot about most of the sports on the list but it's not like our major sports of football and men's basketball are doing super well.

A young team has a significant impact at any level, including the professional level. In athletics, nothing beats experience, nothing.

If the athletes haven't been in high pressure situations, they will not know how to respond. Each level of participation offers more unique pressures. As a retired professional athlete, I can assure you, it makes ALL the difference in the world

(06-06-2016 07:32 AM)ksujobber Wrote:  A young team has a significant impact at any level, including the professional level. In athletics, nothing beats experience, nothing.

If the athletes haven't been in high pressure situations, they will not know how to respond. Each level of participation offers more unique pressures. As a retired professional athlete, I can assure you, it makes ALL the difference in the world

The data reviewed backs up your claim especially between the freshman and sophomore year. However the improvement while significant is less than a stroke per round. My point has always been that the current golf team is not going to compare to our past teams by just getting older. If they were, they would be finishing higher than 78th by now. We are young because a couple years went by where we did not recruit well and we are living with that now. We need to recruit some people in the next couple years that will challenge this group. Its just my opinion and I realize a team that wins the MAC by 20 strokes is certainly a decent team. I just think this team should be measured to a higher standard since its proven itself over the years to be able to achieve national success. It sometimes comes across as being negative but it really is exactly the opposite. By the same token I would be happy with a 6-6 football team every year.

I don't disagree that it seems as if there has been a plateau. I'd be curious to see if a longitudinal analysis would show that the learning center is a blessing and a curse. While I know very little about golf, I would think playing on the course would lead to better results than hitting at a high tech driving range every day.