Saying Sean Devins' work on offense was average is laughable.  Every time his Trinity teams needed a bucket in a tight game, that is where they went.  That wasn't an accident.  Ask Southwestern, the second best team in the SCAC for much of that era.  He shot a high percentage, banged 3's, threw passes, and got to the line and was nearly an 80% ft shooter. 

I believe the undersized Millsaps team you refer to was 03-04.

1st meeting, at Trinity - 19 minutes, 2-3 fg, 5 points, 5 rebounds, but he did hit the all crucial bucket with 5:33 left to make it 61-28 to secure the big win.
2nd meeting, at Millsaps - 32 minutes, 6-13, 18 points, 14 rebounds, 1-1 from 3, in a close game where he was needed to score.  Average?  He scored about 30% of his teams points.  Only Morris was also in double figures for TU.
3rd meeting, at SCAC - 20 minutes, 5-7, 13 points, 6 rebounds, game was never close, Devins ties for high scorer with Morris.

Average numbers?  Perhaps, but a little bit of context does matter.

Using his point average as a method of coming to that conclusion doesn't stand up too well.  Look at the minutes he played.   He never averaged more than 26 minutes a game.  Bet that scoring average would have been higher if Trinity a) had not been so talented across the board and b) had been in closer games so the kid played bigger minutes. 

I thought that was a very honest post by Petey and didn't think that he came after anybody in a negative way.

No chance that Burr would have started for Trinity.

I will issue the correction for SCACSID.

The Depauw 2001-2002 team did not make it farther than SCAC men's team in league history.  Trinity 04-05 also made it to the sectional finals and lost to two-time eventual national champion UW-Stevens Point on the road. 

Stevens Point won their tourney games that year by 34, 18, 6, 23, and 24 (Pat Coleman, your site is an unbelievable thing and I thank you).  Anybody who saw that Stevens Point team in 04-05 or the year before knows how ridiculous they were.  Trinity was the second best team in the country that year.  They went through the regular season on relative cruise control (hence the loss to Millsaps, among others) but turned around to win the conference tourney games by 15, 19, and 19. 

People who saw the Millsaps teams in the mid 90's always say that they were pretty nasty. 

Thanks Ralph.  It is good to be "read" again.

I am not familiar with the players like I used to be and don't get to see many games so I am not as active as I once was, but I know a killer travel schedule when I see one. 

It is easy for all of us to forget that in the midst of all of these games that the kids are dealing with being college students.  I remember the 7 or so days before Thanksgiving as being a killer for school work.  Coming off a four day trip and trying to make sure the important stuff is all in order can be a challenge.  But if you can get through it all, it makes the turkey taste that much better. 

I am sure TLU kids had the same school challenges but it is more easier to be on top of stuff when you have been at home vs. the road. 

I think it is hard to say that Trinity may have been looking past TLU. 

I don't think people realize how tough of a turn around it is to play on the road in a tourney on Saturday and Sunday, and then on Monday (a class day) fly home, practice, rest and then on Tuesday (another class day) play another game. 

I am assuming they flew home on Monday because the game against Chicago was an evening tip.

Just something to think about. 

Quote from: D1Scout on July 23, 2007, 01:42:16 PM
Just heard that Neumann's Men's basketball coach will be leaving
to accept a D 1's assistant job. Great achievment for him moving
all the way up to a D1 school that was in the NIT last year.

Marist is the destination. 

The new coach at Schreiner will be Trinity assistant Drew Miller.  Congrats to Drew. 

YES!

Congrats to Coach Cunningham and the San Antonio Tigers.

Sorry to see Tom Oswald leave TLU and D3.  Coach Oswald is a good guy and he nearly turned the corner at TLU.  He had a couple of pretty good teams but they got a couple of tough breaks on the court and in recruiting.  Best of luck to him in the future. 

Historically speaking, a physical game where the refs let stuff go has not been to Trinity's advantage.  It is interesting to hear that a physical game might benefit them more now. 

Quote from: DPU3619 on January 07, 2007, 07:30:11 PM

Quote from: irion on January 07, 2007, 06:25:40 PM
I don't think it would have changed the outcome but the offciating was inconsistent at best.

At Sewanee?  Questionable officiating?  You don't say....

So far this is line of the season.  Well done. 

Quote from: Ralph Turner on December 31, 2006, 07:00:19 PM
Amherst 66, Trinity 54.

That is not very impressive for the #2 team in the country.  Respectfully, Top 25? Yes. Top 10? Maybe! Top 2? No!

Trinity might have actually made it hard on Amherst.  It is a possibility.   Trinity normally controls tempo pretty well so it can be hard to blow the game wide open.  A 12 point win in a 66-54 game is more impressive than a 12 point win in a 112-100 game.

Also, the measure of the #2 team in the country isn't just their margin of victory in a single game, or even their average margin of victory.  Amherst might not be the second best team in the country but it is hard to definitively state that because they only beat Trinity by 12, on the road, after a three week lay-off. 

Just a thought.

I think I acknowledged the DPU's original post was not about Devins place in SCAC history, but as a pro.  While I think the reasoning is poor, it is fair and I acknowledged my mistake.

Frank, you are undoubtedly the Dean of SCAC posters.   That is why it surprises me that you would say that Devins weakness was on the offensive end because he never averaged more than 13 ppg.  That is bad reasoning

The reason why he never averaged more than that is because that team was absolutely loaded while he was at Trinity.  There were plenty of guys to score on that team so it got spread around.  As I said in my last post, Devins never played more than 24/25 minutes a game because of the depth.  Also, pace of play has a great deal to do with it.  The 04-05 TU team is 4th all time in SCAC in scoring margin but they are the only team in the top 5 to not score at least 80 points a game.  That Trinity team averaged 71.  So you have a loaded team, that beats people by relatively large margins and there isn't that much relative scoring to begin with because they don't fly up and down the court and because they were so good defensively that people used lots of clock when Trinity was on D.

Thus it isn't fair to use Sean's 13 ppg as a sign that his weakness was on offense.

Trust me on this.  When Trinity needed a basket late in the game the ball was going to Devins and more often than not he delivered.  That is why he was SCAC tourney MVP as a junior and senior and all-tournament as a sophomore.  His D was great but he could really score.

And that brings me to why I got going on this to begin with.  There were lots of "he was really tall and had long arms" comments but no acknowledgement about how skillful of a player he was.  At any level of college basketball it is relatively rare to see a 6'10 kid with the hand and feet skills that Sean Devins has.   Yes, strength was obviously an issue but it is just plain wrong to say that the kid couldn't shoot it, score, play offense, etc. 

Devins is not 7'0.  Listed at 6'10 for his entire Trinity career.   

Yes, you didn't directly challenge the fact that Devins wasn't a good SCAC center.  That is fair. 

You did say that in the few times you saw him play that he didn't shoot outside very much.  With a little bit of research I found that he was 8 of 21 from 3 as a senior.  Pretty good for 6'10.  Probably could have taken many more if he hadn't been so good in the paint.  His numbers (both defensive and offensive) were not as impressive as they could have been because Trinity had so many solid players during that stretch that they were winning by a big margins often and spreading the minutes around.  Not sure if Devins ever averaged more than 25/26 minutes a game during his career. 

It was a weird statement that because a 7'0 kid couldn't shoot from outside that it wasn't surprising that he couldn't play pro (i.e. minor league European ball).

As far the height differences in D3.  Yes, obviously you don't have giants at this level, but I am not sure how many 7'0 footers are roaming around the German 3rd division pro league either.  Also, Devins was probably better against the bigger guys he ran into.  The 6'4 meatballs that you will see in the post in D3 used to give him trouble. 


On another SCAC note.  Good to hear that Chris Eddy is getting close to being healty again.  That kid can really go and should give Sewanee a big lift. 

Wow.  Glad that DPU3619 is nervous for Trinity at 4-5.  Somebody who didn't realize Sean Devins is one of the best SCAC centers in history is nervous for Trinity at 4-5. 

Solid win for Trinity, especially considering that Pat Coleman had Hardin-Simmons as the best team that he saw during the Tour de Tejas.