MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[April]

Good lord, CLU could have beaten the #10 team in the country just by having a half way decent time at the line?

Time to start shooting some fts after practice boys, your chance of getting ranked and the SCIAC getting taken more seriously (not to mention a very important regional win and subsequent playoff seeding) just left the building.

[OxyBob]

Good lord, CLU could have beaten the #10 team in the country just by having a half way decent time at the line?

To be fair, Buena Vista clanged a bunch of FTs, too. Also, for your statement to be true one has to accept the premise that BVU is the No. 10 team in the country. From what I saw from watching them, if the Beavers are No. 10 then Pacific Lutheran and Cal Lutheran are Nos. 11 and 12.

OxyBob

[Gray Fox]

East Coast and Midwest bias?

[April]

Good lord, CLU could have beaten the #10 team in the country just by having a half way decent time at the line?

To be fair, Buena Vista clanged a bunch of FTs, too. Also, for your statement to be true one has to accept the premise that BVU is the No. 10 team in the country. From what I saw from watching them, if the Beavers are No. 10 then Pacific Lutheran and Cal Lutheran are Nos. 11 and 12.

OxyBob

Theoretically you should be familiar with shooting FTs in your own gym though. There's a pretty real advantage to using familiar hoops in terms of give of the rim, being used to shooting with x amount of distance behind the glass, etc.

East Coast and Midwest bias?

TOTALLY!!! 

But seriously, can you boys try to play nice with the boys from the other side of the block.. and vice versa to my CCIW friends? The good points on both sides are getting lost amongst the whining, testosterone, homerism, and general male bravado.

[Gregory Sager]

But seriously, can you boys try to play nice with the boys from the other side of the block.. and vice versa to my CCIW friends? The good points on both sides are getting lost amongst the whining, testosterone, homerism, and general male bravado.

Must be all that red meat we eat. That's why when General MacArthur wrote the postwar Constitution for the newly-disarmed and occupied nation of Japan he included a provision that required the Japanese to eat lots of sushi.

[OxyBob]

Scores from Dec. 31:

Amherst 106, Caltech 56

AC: Brian Baskauskas 17, Steven Wheeler 13, DJ Carcieri 13, Mike Holsey 10
CIT: Travis Haussler 16, Matt Dellatorre 16, Han Bin Man 10

Halftime: AC 57-33
Rebounds: AC 37-20
Records: Caltech 0-9, Amherst 8-0

I hope Amherst got good seats for the Rose Parade.

On Friday, Caltech plays Babson at 2:00 p.m., and Amherst plays Pomona at Caltech at 4:00 p.m.

Babson 47, Oxy 43

Oxy: Jack Hanley 10, Justin Goltz 9 pts, 9 rebs
BC: Zach Etten 17 pts, 8 rebs

Halftime: BC 31-21
Rebounds: Oxy 39-28
Records: Oxy 4-5, Babson 7-3

Oxy got down 10 and didn't get closer than 3. 43 points won't win many games. Oxy faces UMass-Dartmouth on Friday at 7:00 p.m.

UMass-Dartmouth 71, Pomona 66: The Sagehens had a 10-point second half lead but the Corsairs rallied for the win. Pomona is 2-7, UMass-Dartmouth is 8-1.

Redlands 74, La Sierra 48: On Saturday, Redlands (4-6) is at Biola (9-3) at 7:00 p.m.

OxyBob

[tigersports]

Happy New Year everyone.

Sounds like a lively board for December.  We'll have the Oxy/UMD game tonight at 7:00 PST.  Just go to www.oxybroadcast.com.   We'll also have Oxy/Chapman next Wednesday at 7:30.

[OxyBob]

Eyewitness report from Eagle Rock:

UMass-Dartmouth 78, Oxy 59

Oxy: Sean Anderson 12, Jack Hanley 11
UMD: Brandon Shelton 18, Jeff Macchi 14, Matt Walker 13, Brandon Stephens 11, David Riley 11

Halftime: UMD 39-33
Rebounds: Oxy 33-32
Records: Oxy 4-6, UMass-Dartmouth 9-1

UMass-Dartmouth's unrelenting pressure defense finally got to Oxy in the second half, and the Corsairs pulled away for a comfortable win. Oxy led 8-0 after 3 minutes, but UMD came back with a 15-2 run of its own and led 15-10 at 11:45. Sam Kesten's 3-ball gave the Tigers a 29-26 lead at 4:25, but UMass took the lead on a 4-point play by Matt Walker, and the Corsairs led by 6 at the break. In the second half, UMD led 52-40 with 12 minutes to go, but another 3-pointer by Kesten cut UMD's lead to 54-48 with under 10 minutes left. That's when UMass really turned up the heat with it's all-over-the-court pressure. The Corsairs outscored the Tigers 22-5 over the next 8 minutes, and easily won the game by 19. For the game Oxy outshot UMD 45.7% to 41.8%, and outrebounded UMD 33-32, but the Tigers had a real tough time with the Corsairs' press as UMass forced 24 Oxy turnovers.

For Oxy, Henry Meier and Justin Goltz played good defensive games with 7 rebounds each, and Sam Kesten came of the bench and scored 8 including two 3s. For UMD, they had 4 starters in double figures, led by Brandon Shelton who had 18 points, 7 rebounds and 8 steals.

Oxy (4-6) plays at Chapman (9-2) next Wednesday.

Other scores from Jan. 2:

Amherst 74, Pomona 52
Cal Lutheran 85, UC Santa Cruz 72
La Verne 85, Tufts 72
Babson 81, Caltech 42

Today's schedule:

Tufts (4-5) vs. Cal Lutheran (8-2) @ La Verne 1:00 p.m.   
UC Santa Cruz (3-8) @ La Verne (4-6) 3:00 p.m.   
Redlands (4-6) @ Biola (NAIA-1) (9-3) 7:00 p.m.   
La Sierra (1-11) @ Whittier (3-5) 8:00 p.m.

OxyBob

[oldchap]

Today's schedule:

Whittier College Tournament (26th Annual Purple and Gold Poet Classic)
Chapman 88 - Swathmore College (PA) 59

Sunday January 4:
Chapman vs. La Sierra at 6 PM

[OxyBob]

Here's an article from the Ventura County Star about Cal Lutheran's 74-69 loss to Tufts:

CLU suffers defensive letdown in loss to Tufts

Not surprisingly, the defense that was good triumphed over the one that was not, at least initially.

Tufts University's effectiveness in limiting Cal Lutheran's inside defense — and the Kingsmen's early woes on the defensive end — added up to a 74-69 win for the Jumbos on Saturday in the SCIAC Classic at the University of La Verne.

It was the final preseason game for CLU (8-3), which opens Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play next Saturday at Occidental.

"We weren't ready for play," said CLU coach Rich Rider. "For whatever reason, we weren't ready to play. And I've got to compliment them. They came to play, and knocked down some open shots. They're a good shooting team anyway, and when you're not ready to play, you make them even better shooters."

Tufts (5-5) could not have been much better at the start, making 14 of its first 15 shots to lead by as many as 12 points in the opening nine minutes.

At the end of that 15-shot run, the Jumbos had scored on 11 of 15 possessions. At the half, they were shooting 76 percent (16 of 21) while CLU was 12 of 29 (41 percent).

"We just came out flat," said CLU forward Andy Meier, "and not prepared to play defense at all."

While CLU survived that early outburst, trailing just 38-33 at the half, and led on four occasions — the last at 68-66 with 3:57 remaining — Tufts defense eventually prevailed, containing CLU's inside game. Cal Lutheran's two 6-foot-7 forwards, Meier and freshman Aaron Van Klaveren, had 20 and 12 points respectively, but were a combined 10 of 22, with Meier going 6 for 16 and Van Klaveren making four of just six shots.

"We'd get the ball in the post," said Meier, "and then they'd clamp down a lot, and I had to kick it out. And they'd run that zone, and the guards couldn't knock down the open shots."

That inability to establish an inside-outside balance was costly against the zone, said Rider, and was in contrast to Tufts' ability to spread out the Kingsmen.

"We didn't knock down enough outside shots to loosen it up," said Rider, referring to the Tufts defense. "They knocked down enough outside shots that we had to come out, and they drove by us."
...

That was true throughout the game — CLU was 5 of 17 on 3-pointers — and decisive after CLU took its last lead, as the Kingsmen hit just one free throw and missed their final four field-goal attempts, three of them 3-pointers.
...

Greg Grimm had 15 points and Kyle Knudsen scored 13 for CLU. Tufts was led by 17 points and seven rebounds from Jon Pierce, a [D]3hoops.com preseason All-American. Matt Galvin added 13, Dave Beyel scored 11 and Aaron Gallant had 10.

In other games:

UC Santa Cruz 81, La Verne 72

ULV: Billy Nicolini 21, Kyle Luhnow 16, Matt Heyd 11, Pierre Baker 11
UCSC: Ryan Matsuoka 21, Ted Monson 13, Eshon Mortezaie 12, Daniel Bryant 12, Niel Brennan 12

Halftime: UCSC 36-30
Rebounds: ULV 41-32
Records: La Verne (4-7), UC Santa Cruz (4-8)

The game was tied 60-all at 5:20, but Eshon Mortezaie's 3-ball gave the Banana Slugs the lead and they led the rest of the way and beat the Leopards. La Verne opens the SCIAC season next Saturday at Whittier.

Speaking of Whittier, the Poets knocked off La Sierra 82-60 on the first day of the Purple and Gold Classic, while Chapman routed Swarthmore as reported by oldchap. Today it's Chapman (10-2) vs. La Sierra (1-12) at 6:00 p.m., and Whittier (4-5) vs. Swarthmore (1-6) at 8:00 p.m.

Biola beat Redlands, 67-47. Patrick Coffey scored 14 for the Bulldogs (4-7), who only trailed 20-15 at 9:10, but the Eagles (10-3) outscored UR 15-4 the rest of the first half, and BU wasn't threatened the rest of the way. Redlands hosts Claremont in the SCIAC season opener next Saturday.

It hasn't been a very good nonconference season so far for the SCIAC. Only Claremont (7-3) and Cal Lutheran (8-3) have winning records. The SCIAC is only 33-49 overall (.402), including 1-4 vs. UC Santa Cruz (which has got to be unprecedented), 0-7 vs. Chapman, 0-9 vs. NAIA-1 GSAC teams, and 11-1 vs. 1-12 La Sierra, who Oxy, Redlands, Whittier and La Verne have each played and beaten twice. Not exactly setting the D-III basketball world on fire here.

Game of the Weak: Polytechnic (0-9) @ Caltech (0-10), Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m.

OxyBob

[Titan Q]

0-9 vs. NAIA-1 GSAC teams

On the season, D3 teams are something like 6-26 vs NAIA I teams.  The GSAC is one of the top 2-3 NAIA I leagues.  I know 0-9 vs the GSAC is disappointing, but I don't think it's a biggie.  I believe it's safe to say the SCIAC teams were underdogs in all of those games.

The reality is that NAIA I teams gives scholarships.  They tend to be bigger, stronger, quicker, and more athletic than your typical D3.

[OxyBob]

0-9 vs. NAIA-1 GSAC teams

On the season, D3 teams are something like 6-26 vs NAIA I teams.  The GSAC is one of the top 2-3 NAIA I leagues.  I know 0-9 vs the GSAC is disappointing, but I don't think it's a biggie.  I believe it's safe to say the SCIAC teams were underdogs in all of those games.

The reality is that NAIA I teams gives scholarships.  They tend to be bigger, stronger, quicker, and more athletic than your typical D3.

Gee, no kidding, the NAIA-1 teams from the GSAC are stronger than the SCIAC teams? I have only followed the GSAC for over 30 years, back to the days of Jim Dykstra at Westmont, but thanks for telling me what I already knew.

Even if you take the 9 games against the GSAC out of the equation, and eliminate 0-10 Caltech, the other 7 SCIAC teams are still only 33-30 in nonconference play, including the 11 wins against 1-12 La Sierra.

OxyBob

[Pat Coleman]

0-9 vs. NAIA-1 GSAC teams

On the season, D3 teams are something like 6-26 vs NAIA I teams.  The GSAC is one of the top 2-3 NAIA I leagues.  I know 0-9 vs the GSAC is disappointing, but I don't think it's a biggie.  I believe it's safe to say the SCIAC teams were underdogs in all of those games.

The reality is that NAIA I teams gives scholarships.  They tend to be bigger, stronger, quicker, and more athletic than your typical D3.

Gee, no kidding, the NAIA-1 teams from the GSAC are stronger than the SCIAC teams?

Not every post merits a smart-ass response.

[Gray Fox]

But Pat,

The last sentence says something about the strength of the SCIAC this year.

[LogShow]

UCSC beating La Verne?  UCSC is actually winning a few games this year...maybe it's because they can actaully play a few home games this year...

Is CalTech going to get their first win tonight?