The Year in Review

[Wick250]

Four years ago, I posted a summary of our sports for the just concluded academic year.  The picture was bleak and ugly.  Except for Gorby's runners, who themselves had an off-year, we stunk at just about everything.  Our women's sports were especially awful, marked in infamy by a basketball team that lost all of their games.

Four years later and it is hard to believe that we are talking about the same programs.  Here is a summary of our 18 sports and how they finished their league competitions.

Fall Season, Men:

2nd Football (a statistical quirk from which nobody can take any satisfaction.)
2nd Cross-country (runner-up in conference meet)

Fall Season, Women:

6th Soccer (lost in tournament first round)
3rd Volleyball (lost in the tournament semi-finals)
1st Cross-country (champions of conference meet)

Winter Season, Men:

7th Basketball (lost in tournament first round)
2nd Track and Field (runner-up in conference meet)

Winter Season, Women:

3rd Basketball (lost in tournament semi-finals)
6th Swimming and Diving
1st Track and Field (champions of conference meet)

Spring Season, Men:

3rd Golf (third place in conference tournament)
3rd Tennis (lost in conference semi-finals)
1st Track and Field (champions of conference meet)
1st Baseball (champions of conference tournament)

Spring Season, Women:

3rd Golf (third place in conference tournament)
1st Tennis (champions of conference tournament)
1st Track and Field (champions of conference meet)
5th Softball (lost in second round of conference tournament)

For every three sports in which we participated, we won a championship (6 out of 18.)  Amazing.
Our women won 40% of the available championships in the Horizon League.  Amazing.
To use the horse racing parlance of win-place-show as an indication of success, we finished at least third in 14 of 18 sports. (77.7%)

Now I realize that as long as the football team remains bad and the basketball team flirts with oblivion, these women and Olympic sports victories will mean very little to most of you.  Nor do I think that these successes exonerate the performance of an athletic director who fails in his prime mission (football playoffs) 91% of the time.  But in interest of fairness, these figures must be documented.

[paladin]

The problem lost on the picture is that YSU is in a league that is a DOG, except for basketball. Citing the place  they finish avoids some obvious eyesores. Baseball gets into the NCAA but has a 17-38 record when done. Much can be said for the   other sports as the HL is terribly weak. The fact that YSU has finally improved in the DOG that is the HL is way overdue. However, its not lost that compared   to other  D-I programs, YSU isn't very good. Still.

Once again the  outside world recognizes  that, but the rose colored glasses crowd marches on.  If your parochial vision is all you want, understand others may continue to laugh at the less than 20/20 vision here.

[Wick250]

Sorry Paladin, I no longer value anything that you have to say.  You exposed yourself this year as merely a YSU hater, in the same category as the hack "journalist" at the Vindicator.  Your pathetic attempt to tarnish these accomplishments reinforces my evaluation.  Should others here continue to value your opinion, that is fine.  Free country and all of that.  I don't value the thoughts of anyone who hates the institution that I love.

[edpuskas]

Wick, don't drag us into your skunk match. And if you're going to critique someone's work, you ought to have the guts to do under your own name, not a pseudonym.

[ELPENGUIN]

I would like all of us to use our names not some moniker to hide behind.  How about it?

[IAA Fan]

Paladin, you are such a cracked-pot sometimes. Just what more can a team do that improve in their own conference? NOTHING. Oh I have an idea, let's schedule all Big East or PAC-10 teams in basketball; all SEC or Big-10 teams in football. How about PAC-10 teams in baseball and softball? Yes that's the ticket. I love watching our butts being kicked every week in the fall, even worse than last year. We will have maybe 3 home games in every sport each season. Will we improve? NNNOOOTT ONE BIT Why because we are not in any of these conferences.

You are in the conference that you are in because you belong there. If you improve and want to move up ...then go for it. We are mid-major program. Everyone has accepted this except you. We are not ND with an NBC contract. Our contract is with WKBN and WNIO. We will get bumped for anything from Limbaugh, to Mancow, to the HS game of the week. I am damn proud to say that ...how about you?

If someone told me that YSU would be in the Big-10 in 2023 ...I would not stop watching them for 10-years. Heck, I may not live 10-years.

[Observer]

A paradox.  Some believe YSU can and should strive to be better, and until they assert dominance should not be satisfied with horizon league or any other I-AA mediocrity regardless of major, mid, low or high.  Some believe YSU has a max potential cap and we're either at or close to it, and anything extra is just icing on the cake.  No one really knows for sure which one is the correct answer but consider this.   There is no 1AA or billion dollar tournament with tv contracts in olympic sports.  YSU has an athlete that is currently a Division I all-american, not voted upon by CoSida and whomever else, but purely on performance. A third place one to be exact.  It would seem that in the most obscure event in the most unpopular sport on this forum an athlete has found a way to get it done.  Perhaps the ceiling hasn't been hit, its been removed.

[jjysuwin]

Sorry Paladin, I no longer value anything that you have to say.  You exposed yourself this year as merely a YSU hater, in the same category as the hack "journalist" at the Vindicator.  Your pathetic attempt to tarnish these accomplishments reinforces my evaluation.  Should others here continue to value your opinion, that is fine.  Free country and all of that.  I don't value the thoughts of anyone who hates the institution that I love.

I agree 100% with Wick on Paladin and the Vindicator. Neither are worthy of my time or money. 

[jjysuwin]

The problem lost on the picture is that YSU is in a league that is a DOG, except for basketball. Citing the place  they finish avoids some obvious eyesores. Baseball gets into the NCAA but has a 17-38 record when done. Much can be said for the   other sports as the HL is terribly weak. The fact that YSU has finally improved in the DOG that is the HL is way overdue. However, its not lost that compared   to other  D-I programs, YSU isn't very good. Still.

Once again the  outside world recognizes  that, but the rose colored glasses crowd marches on.  If your parochial vision is all you want, understand others may continue to laugh at the less than 20/20 vision here.

Paladin at the beginning of the year "winning championships matter, and YSU is a loser"

Paladin after YSU wins SIX CHAMPIONSHIPS "Championships don't matter, even if YSU wins them, they're meaningless because the conference they play in is weak".

WHAT!?

[IAA Fan]

It really is not a paradox "observer". Every team in the conferences should be doing the same thing. When the teams improve within a conference ...the conference improves. Did Butler help our conference in MBB? Yep. Has the HL dropped in RPI and reputation because the Bulldogs left? Yep.

[Observer]

Great point IAA maybe its the conference level, or maybe its the lack of coaches, administrators etc. willing to hang around in the low income mid-major schools.  I mean we could all count the coaches that used and continue to use the mid-majors as the stepping stone to get to the better paying jobs.  But that could be the same reason why conferences dont progress, because they cant pay and we all know money is the great equalizer.  If coaches salaries were regulated much like the government institutions they are attached too would we see more parity?  Not saying coaches are the be all and end all,  but they do hire staffs and staffs do the recruiting.    And before i get nasty replys this is an honest question, no political bias to be had, just an OBSERVation.

[IAA Fan]

I have really never read him. I do not read columnists that much. In general, I think the line between fact and opinion has been almost eliminated in media today. If he is clearly an opinion-pusher, then I have no issue. The internet is really making things worse. You log onto a Google or Yahoo new page and they serve you both in the same grid. They give you all kinds of options to eliminate news that you do not want, but they deliberately fail to provide you the two options that you need:

1. block news by provider
2. block news by writer.