Column: MIAA faces divisional problem in basketball

Skye Pournazari
Jon Dykstra Managing Editor The Maryville Forum

Conference expansion has taken over college athletics lately and the Big 10 adding USC or the SEC adding Texas takes the headlines nationwide, but the turnover has not left the MIAA untouched at the Division-II level.

At the Division-I level, fans complain with the mega-conferences creating an uneven playing field where not everyone plays everyone in football and some teams play some teams twice in basketball and other teams only once. But for the big boys, the television revenue of having late-night west-coast games is worth the extra travel and the messy standings.

The MIAA to its credit has the absolute perfect number of schools for a football league. With a 11-game schedule, 10 conference schools allows for teams to play everyone in nine conference games and lets each school play two non-conference games to boost the league’s reputation and playoff resume.

Football has it figured out and unless there are departures, football should change nothing.

Basketball has to change though. With 14 schools, the league has gone to a 7-team north division and a 7-team south division. Each school in one division plays their own division twice and the other division once.

This has led to a ridiculous unbalanced schedule this season. In men’s basketball, the north teams are 20-11 against the south. That’s unbalanced, but its at least semi-acceptable.

When you look at women’s basketball, it is completely unacceptable. The north is 25-6 against the south this season.

That imbalance affects the top of the standings less than the middle. In men’s basketball, Washburn and Central Missouri are at the top of the league. But Rogers State is third despite getting beat by Missouri Western and Fort Hays State, going 3-2 in crossover games. Meanwhile Arkansas-Fort Smith is 9-6 — last week they lost by 28 at Washburn and by then 28 again at Central Missouri.

In women’s basketball, Missouri Southern is 11-4 in conference play. The Lions are 1-2 against the north division this season. Northeastern State is 9-7 overall, but 1-4 against the north.

Ideally, the MIAA would get down to 12 teams so they can play either an 18-game or 22-game league schedule so everyone can play everyone twice and determine a true champion and a true standings going into Kansas City’s MIAA Tournament.

That requires kicking two teams out of the league though with the non-football members — Arkansas-Fort Smith, Northeastern State, Rogers State and Newman. That’s unlikely to happen, but if schools do decide to leave, that shouldn’t be looked at as a negative and they shouldn’t be replaced.

The potential of a Oklahoma College Athletic Conference Act — which would take all the Oklahoma schools under one umbrella except Central Oklahoma — would be one example of of solving the division problem by taking Rogers State and Northeastern State into that new conference.

The league can’t just rely on shrinking though and I understand that the divisions cut down on some travel expenses, but the schedule imbalance is not worth it. Divisions need to be eliminated and schools should be scheduled on a rotation basis until the league can get to 12 teams in basketball.