(05-01-2017 09:47 PM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(05-01-2017 07:25 PM)teamvsn Wrote:  

(05-01-2017 03:01 AM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  You always say NAIA was better than D-II, funny the D-II guys said they've always been better. I look at it this way, the D-II playoff schools the last 15-20 years were better than the NAIA playoff schools for the most part, in football and basketball. The GVSUs, UNA, NW Mo, UND, N.Colos, Valdosta Sts were better than the Carrolls, Sioux Falls, Georgetown(KY), St. Francis(IN) NW Ok. Same in bball, the CSUBs, Kentucky Wesleyans, Metro St., UC Davis> Life, Ok City, G'town, Birm-So.

It depends on the sport, and that usually comes down to scholarships.

D2 football is better than NAIA football because there difference is (I think) 50% more scholarships for D2. NAIA allows 24 (but doesn't count honors students and JVs) and D2 - I think - allows 36(?). Football is what most here care about I guess. There aren't many head to head games to compare for sure, the one that does come to mind is Marian vs. Indianapolis.

For basketball, yes I think NAIA is better but not by much. Eleven scholarships (again, not including honors students) vs 10 for D2. There are a couple of head to head comparisons that bear this out, although they are getting a little old. NAIA St Catharine was a 1st round tournament loser in 2011 but beat D2 national champion Bellarmine. NAIA Westmont didn't qualify for the 2010 national tournament but beat D2 champion Cal Poly Pomona. If you have other comparisons that show otherwise let me know.

you gave 2. I do believe they are similar in that most NAIA moves are to D-II vs D-III. But scholly vs scholly aren't equal. Fresno gets 85 and so does USC but USC gets better quality for their 85. So you could use that example for when an NAIA wins it should be vs a better quality athlete. What is the NCAA D-II top 25 record vs the NAIA top 25 the past 20 years? That will tell us something. If you can find that somewhere that would be telling. Are you insinuating that the D-II top 25 guys don't have wins let alone not as many or more vs top NAIA schools? Crazy talk. I don't know if Missouri Valley is good but NW Mo beat them 103-58. I couldn't find a D-II vs NAIA record. I just clicked NW Mo schedule and they had 1 gm vs NAIA. 1995 UCR beat Pt. Loma, Coll. of ND and UCSC(dual member) who were all NAIA back in 1995. Findley beat Marygrove by 50. Ashland beat Wilberforce by 35, GVSU beat trinity Christ. by 37. You can tell me how good or bad they are. i don't even know how good all the D-II schools I'm posting are. Most of the gm lists are from the last 2 yrs. The UCR was a random find going back 20+. ccaa was 10-2 vs NAIA, Biola who is moving to D-II, won by 1 and 4 vs 18-10 and 26-8 teams. Oregon Tech though, the 1 name when it comes to NAIA D-II bball power, lost to a 13-16 ccaa team.
You can look through every D-II schedule if you want. I sure don't. I did the CCAA, since we are both from CA. Hey David St. Have at it! tell us the final count
http://campus.mst.edu/athleticsarchives/...hoops.html

Now I wonder what D-II record vs the bottom of D-I is.

NAIA will always have the biggest upset ever. Then NAIA Chaminade beats #1 Virginia

But let me give you an example, Lehigh beat Duke in the tourney. So the PL must be better than the ACC. And Lehigh is a better basketball program than Duke. See how that doesn't work. I can give way more than 2. Enter any 14/15 seed that won vs 2/3 seed. None of the 14/15s are better programs or in better conferences.
And yes D-II football allows up to 36 some conf. have rules of only 24 and some play under the 24.

You've come upon the key problem: D2 schools generally do not play NAIA schools. My understanding is that the D2 rating system severely penalizes games against non-D2 teams. And when they DO play, they generally don't play good ones. So meaningful comparisons are few and far between. I went down the list of recent D2 basketball champions and looked at their schedules to see if I could find more than the ones I listed (and already knew about) but I didn't find any. Further back from 2007 it started getting hard to find actual schedules for the D2 champions. So I listed what I could find. I'm not aware of anyone keeping a list of D2/NAIA matchups over time. Of COURSE D2 Top 25 schools have wins over NAIA schools, but in general they play creampuffs. To address the ones you mention:

UCR (26-6, lost in the D2 championship game) was on the cusp of joining D1, PLNU was 13-17 that year. Loma had some good years and bad years in the NAIA, not a real creampuff. College of ND and Santa Cruz were never very good, that conference (Cal Pac) is/was the worst in the NAIA. UCR also beat CBU (13-17) by 15. Step one year forward though and UCR (18-9) loses twice to Master's. Can't find Master's record for that year but they went 1-1 in the tournament. Marygrove (11-20), Wilberforce (13-12) and Trinity Christian (12-17) are all NAIA DII (6 scholarships max) doormats. Wilberforce was on the cusp of closing a couple of years ago.

Biola this year - along with 3 other GSAC teams - were solid 2nd round teams in the NAIA. For the other 3, Masters lost to APU by 5 and beat Humbolt by 10. Westmont beat Concordia by 9 at Concordia. Hope International didn't play any D2s.

Oregon Tech is not what they used to be. Danny Miles retired, and his teams really had trailed off in his last few years at the helm. This year was actually a bit of an improvement for them, rebuilding with their new coach, going 24-10 but not making the tournament. This was their best season since winning their last championship in 2012. And they are a DII team, limited to 6 scholarships.

Right with you on the crazy comparisons. That's why I looked for matchups of similar quality teams. They are very tough to find, because generally good teams don't want to play good teams from other associations. The CCAA/PacWest/GSAC comparisons are probably the most consistent because they can easily play out of conference without traveling far.

Generally, D2 is about the same as NAIA *DI* with a slight edge to NAIA DI. Really, it comes down to the individual schools you're comparing. D2 has scholarship minimums, the NAIA does not. So there are some NAIA DIs that are terrible. St Louis College of Pharmacy is (predictably) not at all competitive. But at the top of the standings it's very good. Once you get down below elite levels of athletics, a scholarship is a scholarship and what makes the difference to the athlete is the attributes of the school, coaching chemistry, prospects of playing time, etc. Few players aspire when they are young to play for Findlay or Texas Wesleyan. They go because they have a chance to start rather than ride the pine at Colorado State, or because they like Texas Wesleyan's prelaw program, or because their family can come see them play at Findlay.

I'll give you one example you can probably relate to. At the NAIA tournament this year, one of the favorites was a team from Oskaloosa Iowa, William Penn. Their top player was one Torren Jones, formerly a starter at Fresno State (busted for controlled substances). They had another FSU player in PG Lionel Ellison, who transferred because he wanted playing time before he graduated. Jones averaged 10.5 points and 7.9 rebounds at FSU, 20.4 points and 12.3 boards at Penn. Ellison had minimal stats at FSU and 11 pts, 4.6 assists and 4.3 boards at Penn. They had 2 other guys that averaged double figures. Penn got beat in the semifinals. So they had a legit D1 forward and 3 other scorers and weren't good enough to win the championship.