MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[dahlby]

Whitworth over CLU 67-53.
Chapman vs Whitman at noon.

CLU takes on Whitworth tomorrow while Chapman takes on Whitworth.
Games are being played  in the Bay Area.

Live stats are available for all games.

[WoostAr]

Eyewitness report from Caltech.

Caltech lost 91-78 but not sure the game was really that close...they were down by 24 at one point and the subs for Stevens played a good bit in the second half. 

Caltech was out-energied tonight...came out flat and probably lost the game in the first 10 minutes.  They made a great effort at a comeback in the second half but they dug themselves into too deep of a hole.  Great play from Mike Edwards in the second half -- finished as the high scorer.  Bryan Joel looked strong...hitting 3's, limiting turnovers, looking much more confident. Todd Cramer was clearly still hindered by his shoulder (cut in a dive/foul into the bleachers in Vanguard game).  Here's hoping for a better showing tomorrow against Dallas.

Watched the first half of Dallas/Oxy...neither team appears to be all that deep which will make back to back games interesting for them tomorrow.  Dallas looks to have twe studs #22 and #30...30 in the post and 22 can shoot the three ball and drive to the hoop. 

[WoostAr]

Eyewitness report from from the Caltech game at Oxy:

Well, the first half of this game was about the ugliest half of basketball I've seen ever.  University of Dallas shot 28% from the field and Caltech shot 18%.  Caltech was getting good looks but nothing (I mean NOTHING) went in...Caltech succeeded in getting to the line a bit in the first half but only shot 41% from there.  Score at half time: 22-17.

Fortunately, the real Caltech team showed up in the second half: they moved the ball much better, they ratcheted up the defense, and they shot 57% for the half...in other words, they woke up.  Final score: 69-53.

Todd Cramer's shoulder looked much better...he played much more freely and he put up great numbers (16 pts, 12 reb, 7 asst and 2 steals).  Mike Edwards continued his hot streak scoring 21 points.  Bryan Joel played another great game.  I thought Runkel, Hogue and Boroson played some great Defense, but the refs thought they were fouling a lot............the refs called a LOT of fouls in this game.

If Caltech can string two of these halves where they get things moving together they could be scoring 90+ points  game which is exciting...let's hope they figure that out.

Watched a few minutes of the Oxy/Stevens Inst game...neither of these teams shot well either.  #22 for Stevens is a great player -- 20 points and 14 rebounds.  After he did so well at Pepperdine, I was shocked at how many little chippies Liebowitz missed...hurt? tired? bad day??

Out of the 4 teams today, Caltech had the best shooting percentage at 38%.....I'm going to go out on a limb and say that back to back games may have gotten to all of these teams.

[stag44]

Wells Classic Recap:

CMS and P-P both swept their games, each soundly defeating Dominican and squeaking by vs St. Olaf.

I caught some of the CMS-Dominican game online, and the Stags looked active and aggressive offensively. Jack Grodahl, a frosh from Portland, lit up the court in the second half knocking in 4 straight 3's and really putting the game out of reach. In what is seemingly turning routine, Blees got 20 and 8, but had an even more impressive 11, 11 and 8 vs St Olaf. Shows the growth in his game as his court vision has improved and has become a more willing passer.

The Stags really enter the toughest part of their non-conference schedule starting on Saturday. They play 4 games in 8 days, with 3 games against GSAC schools and the other against Chapman. This will really test their endurance and show what they are made of. They host The Masters College on Dec 3, then play @ San Diego Christian on Dec 5, play @ Chapman Dec 7 and then finish the stretch with their toughest game hosting Point Loma.

I think coming out of this stretch at 3-1 will be a huge week for the stags, and I'm obviously hoping for a 4-0 weekend. It will be difficult with finals around the corner and GSAC schools really getting ready for conference play, but I think the Stags will be up for the challenge.

In other SCIAC news, impressive start to the season from Cal Tech, CLU looks to be in good form playing competitive games with the top 2 teams from the NWC, and  Pomona looks to be back in the thick of it from their early season performances.

[OxyBob]

The Stags really enter the toughest part of their non-conference schedule starting on Saturday. They play 4 games in 8 days, with 3 games against GSAC schools and the other against Chapman. This will really test their endurance and show what they are made of. They host The Masters College on Dec 3, then play @ San Diego Christian on Dec 5, play @ Chapman Dec 7 and then finish the stretch with their toughest game hosting Point Loma.

The GSAC teams are always a challenge for SCIAC teams. That's a tough NAIA conference. Looking forward to the Stags' game against Point Loma and their all-GSAC guard Marek Klassen.

Chapman should be well-rested when they play CMS. Instead of a 2400-mile 11-hour round trip, the Panthers only had to make a 400-mile trip to Concord over the weekend to get worked over by Whitworth again.

Oxy is 2-3 after beating UDallas 72-65 and losing to Stevens 63-49 (or 63-50 if you look at the play-by-play). In the UDallas game, Oxy was down 5 at halftime but took the lead 44-42 at 13:40 and didn't give it up. In the Stevens game the Tigers led 26-25 at the half, and were up 6 at 18:00, but Stevens got the lead at 37-36 and led the rest of the way.

Oxy has West Coast Baptist at home tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m.

OxyBob

[oldchap]

Eyewitness from Diablo Valley College this weekend:

As I said before, I believe that the North West Conference is just a cut above us down South. Perhaps it's because the kids down here have some life after basketball (I'm being facetious of course...)

The Panthers came back empty handed from their trip up in the bay area.

In the game against Whitman, they just couldn't recover from a disastrous first 8 minutes, where they made only 3 baskets out of 11 attempts, some of them easy layups or wide open shots. It was 7-23 after David Michaels made a thunderous dunk, drawing the cheers from the Whitman fans. Down by 14 at the half, Chapman just couldn't come back from this deficit and ended up the game with a 77-64 loss, actually managing a 1 point win in the second half, on much better shooting. Probably what broke the Panthers back in this game were the career high 31 points by senior David Michaels. A Big shooting 3 for 4 from the 3-point line is uncommon and makes it that much harder to guard. He was hot that day and any time the Panthers would cut the deficit, he would respond with authority.

For the Panthers, Ricard finished the game with a career high 23 point, on 10-18 shooting, although he missed a few easy looks. Lin had 12 points. His deadly 3-point shooting was off that day, unfortunately. All others scored in the single digits. Let's note the excellent contribution off the bench by Freshman Jordan Young, who is turning out to be a great clutch shooter from 3-point land.

In the game against Whitworth, Chapman played great defense, keeping the Pirates at 58 points, but just didn't have any answer offensively in the post, against the "twin towers" Friedt and Loofburrow.  Ricard was 4 for 12 for a measly 8 points, although the unbalance of free throw shooting definitely points towards unbalanced refereeing (14 to 5?!). The refs called fouls they wouldn't call on the other side and missed several obvious ones in favor of Chapman. Having realized that, I think they tried to tilt the balance to the other side at the end of the game but at that point, it didn't matter much.

Without any offense inside, the Panthers couldn't manage good outside shooting either, with the usual sharp shooters like Lin and Avalos going 2 for 8 from the 3-point line. Just like against the Missionaries, the Pirates pretty much led from start to finish (the only Chapman lead was 4-3 a minute and a half into the game). I would like to acknowledge the excellent work of Colin Chadwick who had some key plays, went 3 for 6 shooting and managed 8 rebounds. The refs unfortunately didn't spare him and he could only play 24 minutes because of foul trouble.

Final Score: Pirates 58, Panthers 44

I will say that for all the gloom and doom of this weekend's two losses, I can see a team in rebuild mode that cares, works hard, is focused and doesn't give up. They show a lot of heart, intelligence and competitiveness. If this season doesn't turn out to be like the last two, the new members have a lot to look forward to in coming years because they are getting a lot of experience at a young age and are showing great skills and athleticism.

[oldchap]

Chapman should be well-rested when they play CMS. Instead of a 2400-mile 11-hour round trip, the Panthers only had to make a 400-mile trip to Concord over the weekend to get worked over by Whitworth again.

I'm sure the Panthers would have gladly traded a leisurely plane ride to the Midwest against a grueling 18-hour bus ride.

[dahlby]

Caltech wins again at West Coast Baptist.
Redlands, Pomona, UCSC and Chapman all win at the Redlands Tourney.

[WoostAr]

Caltech with another win!...beat west coast baptist 95-79....I only saw the last ten minutes streamed online, but my guess is they were FINALLY clicking for two halves.

The portion of the game I watched was fast paced and sloppy...west coast baptist's offense was blitzing down the court, jacking a shot and repeat....Caltech was getting great shots and knocking them down.

High scorers Bryan Joel and Mike Edwards each with 22.

By the by...Mike Edwards was averaging 20.8 points a game going into tonight (and he beat that average tonight), but he's not credited with top conference scorer on the SCIAC website...in fact he's somehow not even on the list....what's up with that???  http://www.thesciac.org/sports/mbkb/2011-12/stats/confldrs.htm ....is there some rule I'm unaware of???

[goldsoundz]

Watched the most of the Caltech @ West Coast Baptist game online.  The stream came on with about 3 minutes to go in the first half.  The announcers mentioned Caltech was hot early and jumped into the lead, but the game was back and forth for most of the 1st half.  The box score isn't up yet, but from what I recall:

Caltech was just the better team.  WCB was down ~10 at halftime after Bryan Joel got hot and knocked down 4 first half threes. ending with 16 first half points.  Caltech started the 2nd half on a 5-0 run to extend the lead.  WCB cut the lead to single digits a few times, but Caltech always had a response.  Todd Cramer and Mike Edwards carried the team in the 2nd half.  Cramer still looked rusty shooting after the shoulder injury, but he was killing on the boards and had some impressive assists.  Wouldn't be surprised if we had another near triple-double.  Also the freshman Andrew Hogue looked solid shooting from outside and finishing inside.

Caltech could have hit 100 tonight if they made some more free throws.  They give up 79 but a lot of that is the result of an uptempo game and WCB piling on 3's at the end trying to cut the lead.  They've got some very winnable games with Macalaster (0-4), Hamline (1-3), and UC Santa Cruz (2-3) coming up before playing Chapman at home. 

[WoostAr]

I know everyone probably has enough info on Caltech's game last night, but I can't resist.

Box score came out:  Cramer with a 19 pt, 9 rebound, 9 assist, and 4 steal night.

[OxyBob]

Nice win for Claremont over The Master's last night. From the TMC web site:

Claremont is better known for its academics but on Saturday evening the NCAA Division III Stags showed they could perform out of the classroom, too, as they built a 20-point halftime and then held off The Master's College 71-65 to hand the Mustangs their first loss (6-1) of the 2011-12 season.

The host Stags built their large, first-half lead on the strength of 56% shooting from the field, including a 5-10 showing from behind the arc.  Meanwhile, the Mustangs managed just 35% accuracy and were just 2-9 from three-point range en route to a 41-21 halftime deficit.

They turned things around significantly in the second half but fell just short of a dramatic comeback.  Hitting 57% of their shots over the final 20 minutes, highlighted by a 7-12 display from long range, the Mustangs got back into the game but weren't able to rally all the way back as the Stags (5-25, 20% in the second half) iced the win at the free throw line, going 18-21 in the second half.

For CMS, Cody Mivshek scored 21, Chris Blees had 14 plus 11 rebs, Tyler Gaffaney scored 13, and Mani Maceira had 10.

Claremont (6-0) plays another GSAC team, San Diego Christian, tomorrow night in El Cajon.

Redlands won the Lee Fulmer Tournament with a 67-54 victory over Pomona. Chapman beat UCSC for third place, and La Verne won the consolation game over Arizona Christian University.

Oxy played an Alumni game yesterday. Hopefully this year's team won.

OxyBob

[WoostAr]

Pomona Pitzer's Michael Cohen made D3hoops team of the week for this past week.

http://d3hoops.com/awards/tow/2011-12/week2

[oldchap]

Eyewitness from Redlands for the Lee Fulmer tournament:

The Chapman team couldn't make a repeat of last year's tournament win. They finished third with a 2-1 record, losing a close game by 1 point to Pomona-Pitzer, who eventually lost to Redlands in the finals.

In their first game, the Panthers played La Verne for the second time this season and as a matter of fact, it was a carbon copy of their first meeting. The first half saw neither team take a clear advantage, with Chapman pulling a laborious 6 point advantage in the end and the Leopards staying in the game with a stellar 6 for 8 shooting from downtown. Then, La Verne fell behind by as much as 23 points when they went on a scoring drought for the first 7 minutes of the second half. That was too much to recover and the game was over at that point. Ricard had his first double-double of his career on 8 of 11 field goals. Kudos to Hamazaki, our second point guard who was almost perfect from the field and finished in double digits for the first time.

I will have a hard time talking about the second game, especially in view of the other performance the Sagehens mustered in the finals. I am tempted to say that they had the perfect game against the Panthers, shooting better than 68% overall and hitting 6 of 8 3-pointers. OK, the Panthers had a dismal showing in defense, not being aggressive enough and letting them off the hook on too many open shots, but still, PP made their shots!!  The Panthers had a really good offense going too, making 13 of 24 from beyond the arc otherwise the game would have been a massacre. But the refs weren't calling anything, which clearly favored the team with the more aggressive defense. As proof, fouls per team was 12 and 13 FOR THE ENTIRE GAME!! Sometimes, you get that many in one half. To be fair, the score really doesn't reflect the reality of the game. The Panthers never led and they barely dug themselves out of a 14 point deficit. But the last 3 minutes of the game were entirely for the Panthers. PP was clearly spent and had the game gone into overtime, I bet doughnuts for dollars that the Panthers would have pulled away with a win.

Lin was sharp in this game with 5 of 9 3-pointers, one of which brought Chapman within 2, 10 second before the end. He finished with 19. Another of our sharp shooter, Freshman Jordan Young made 5 of 7 3-pointers and had 16 points in the contest.

The Sagehens have a very good team this year: they are quick, they run the floor, they move the ball with ease, they are smart and they are deadly from the outside (in a good day...) Not really a physical team, just well coached and disciplined. Knowing that the biggest threat was going to come from under the basket, they played a collapsing zone defense which really frustrated our Bigs. And it's not until the guards started hitting their outside shots, that the game started opening up down low. By then it was too late.

Now, I didn't watch the finals against Redlands, but looking at the stats, I can't believe that it was the same team that showed up the following night. Against Redlands, they shot 33% overall and 19% from 3-point range!! OK, you can say it's all about defense and I will be the first one to admit that the Panthers have a lot of work to do in this area, but the difference points to another reality.

Chapman also played UC Santa Cruz for the third place. In this contest, the Panthers struggled to mount any kind of decent run in the first half, even falling behind by as much as 8 points midway through. But good player rotation and excellent contribution by most, finally gave Chapman a comfortable lead which they didn't relinquish until the end.

UC Santa Cruz is improving every year and this time is no exception. Brent Jacobs blocked 5 shots during the contest and generally was a pest for our Bigs around the basket, whether in offense or defense. Samuel Allen went perfect from the field, both in shots and free throws, for an excellent 18 point performance in only 18 minutes of play.

For the Panthers, 4 players were in double digits. Special mention to Nick Dragovich who is playing strong games around the basket. He fights for every ball, isn't afraid of banging around guys much bigger than him, rebounds really well for his size and overall instills energy into the team every time he is on the floor.

[cmsme]

CMS Peope:  Game tonight (Dec 5) is at 7:30, according to San Diego Christian website. They also have live stats link at bottom of basketball home page.   http://www.sdcc.edu/livestats/xlive.htm



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Hawks Basketball on LiveStats, click here. 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------