MBB: Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[CMSfan]

Well, decided to fight the traffic to go up and check out CMS in person tonight during their quasi SCIAC game tonight.
Maybe run into a CMS poster if any are at the game.

Shoot, didn't see this until now.  Tough night for your guys...ball was not bouncing their way.  Thanks for making the drive out to Claremont!

CMS won 68-56.  Here's the box: http://www.cmsathletics.org/sports/mbkb/2012-13/boxscores/20130109_grk6.xml

[dahlby]

Yep, CMS is for real! They pretty much controled the game throughput. And as their youngsters get more experienced, they should become a ranked team once again.
Some important stats:
53% fg's vs 37% for CU
rebounding edge of 39-21 (almost every CU shot was contested)
CMS was devasting in the paint.
6 blocked shots to 1 for CU.
CMS has 16 turnovers to 10 for CU. CMS made up for this with the other stats.
Chapman had a few good runs to keep the score respectable, but CMS did dominate each time CU had a run.

I enjoyed the atmosphere in Ducey.

Hopefully CU's women will have better luck tomorrow night againts CMS.

[OxyBob]

Without Montoya and Rice, it'll be up to the rest of the Tigers to pick up the slack. Good opportunity for Caltech to get a conference road win for the first time since I don't know when. Could be exciting!

Eyewitness report from Eagle Rock:

Oxy 78 Caltech 71

Oxy blew a 14-point halftime lead but held on to win. The Tigers played a strong 1st half, shooting 59.4% from the floor including 6-for-12 on 3s, and their full court press bothered and disrupted Caltech. Oxy led 33-30 at 4:20, scored 10 straight in less than a minute for a 43-30 lead, and led 49-35 at halftime. The Tigers still led by 14 at 58-44 at 13:15, but Caltech started chipping away. A 10-3 run cut the lead to 61-54. Oxy led 68-61 at 6:30, but CIT scored 7 straight and tied the game 68-all on Joel Bryan's 3-ball with 5 minutes to go. We have a ballgame! Chad Tanioka immediately answered with a layup for Oxy. CIT had several chances to re-tie or take the lead, but the Beavers couldn't knock one down, and the Tigers led the rest of the way.

Oxy: Eric Leider 18, Ryan Chong 17, Chad Tanioka 11, Sam Stapleton 10, Conrad Liebowitz 10 and 11 rebounds.

Caltech: Michael Edwards 20, Collin "Danny Ainge" Murphy 16, Alex Runkel 15.

Key stat: Free throws. CIT was 18-for-31 (58%) and Oxy was 10-for-19 (53%). Feel free to make your free throws. They're free.

Other SCIAC scores:

Cal Lutheran 57 Whittier 43. The Poets shot only 28.6% on 16-for-56. Speaking of FTs: CLU 13-for-13, WC 8-for-15.

Redlands 71 La Verne 60. ULV led 43-38 at halftime but went stone cold in the second half, shooting only 18.5% on 5-for-27. Redlands outscored the Leopards 16-2 over the last 9 minutes.

A full SCIAC schedule this Saturday, all games 7:00 p.m.:

La Verne (2-11, 1-4 SCIAC) @ Cal Lutheran (7-7, 3-2)   
Claremont (10-4, 6-0) @ Redlands (10-4, 5-0)
Whittier (5-9, 1-4) @ Caltech (1-13, 0-5)
Oxy (6-8, 1-4) @ Pomona (9-4, 4-1)

OxyBob

[CMSfan]

Redlands 86, Stags 80

Box: http://www.cmsathletics.org/sports/mbkb/2012-13/boxscores/20130112_nbv5.xml

Redlands played a solid all-around game and did a great job of making the Stags play a style of basketball that doesn't suit them well.  The game was neck-and-neck for 30 minutes, but Redlands had what I think was an eight point run to turn a one point lead into a nine point lead with less than 10 minutes to play and never looked back.

The Bulldogs brought a balanced and efficient scoring attack, with five guys in double figures and team shooting percentages of 53% overall, 59% on three-pointers, and 79% from the line.  Not many teams can win allowing their opponents to shoot like that, least of all CMS.  The 86 points from Redlands is 24 more than the Stags' season average of points allowed.  Redlands was very effective at balancing a fast pace with smart decisions and good shooting.

The Stags offense showed flashes of the precision they have displayed the past few games, but for the most part they looked complacent, settling for three pointers even though there was plenty of time on the shot clock.  They were 11 for 33 from behind the arc, and 25 for 56 overall...so 14 for 23 on FGs that weren't threes...too bad almost 60% of their shots were threes.  So, again, credit to Redlands for playing tough D and keeping the Stags on their heels.

Hopefully the Stags can get back to their winning ways on Wednesday vs. Cal Lu.

[OxyBob]

Saturday SCIAC scores:

Redlands 86, Stags 80

Redlands (6-0) is in first place by itself, with Claremont (6-1) and Pomona (5-1) behind UR.

Pomona 84 Oxy 59

Pomona led 23-8 at 12:15 of the first half, but the Tigers came back to 31-28 at 3:15. The Sagehens led 40-30 at halftime. In the second half, Pomona shot 49% and made 8 3-pointers, and steadily pulled away. Oxy: Conrad Liebowitz 10, Kris Montoya 10. Pomona: Kyle McAndrews 17, John Weiss 16, Michael Cohen 14.

La Verne 52 Cal Lutheran 51

CLU led 51-45 with 3 minutes left, but ULV scored the last 7 points and won the game. Eric Becker's jumper gave the Leopards the lead with 49 seconds to go. CLU's Collin Knudsen and Corey Quintana both missed in the last 10 seconds. ULV: Jake Vieth 19. CLU: Quintana 20, Jeremy Sulker-Hall 10.

Whittier 76 Caltech 66

WC led only 52-49 with 12:10 left, but Caltech go no closer. Whittier: Tyree Landrum 18, Aaron Fernandez 17, Chris Barnes-Williams 15, Jacob Porter 11, Phillip Thomas 10. Caltech: Mike Edwards 21, Kc Emezie 16, Alex Runkel 12 points and 18 rebounds, Bryan Joel 10.

Wednesday's SCIAC schedule:
Caltech  (1-14, 0-6 SCIAC) @ La Verne (3-11, 2-4)
Pomona (10-4, 5-1) @ Whittier (6-9, 2-4)
Cal Lutheran (7-8, 3-3) @ Claremont (10-5, 6-1)

Nonconference:
Redlands (11-4) @ Chapman (7-7)

Oxy is idle. The Tigers will host Whittier on the 19th.

OxyBob

[BBallJunkie81]

Basketball is a team sport, individual stats are fine, but I am far more interested on how the team, not individuals, perform with players in and out of the lineup.  Crunching SCIAC game data we can determine which players strengthen a team's performance. Here are players making the biggest impact on their teams as we head towards the home stretch this season:

• Brian Kuklok, Redlands - Redlands is on top of the standings and Kuklok is edging out his teammates Tristan Kirk and Josiah Brensdal as the biggest difference maker on the team.

• Shelby Lane, CMS - The 6'8 freshman is making quite an impact on his team.  His floor presence is huge defensively while still managing to improve the team's offensive output.  Remy Pinson, Kevin Sullivan and Cody Mivshek improve the offensive output for the team.

• Michael Cohen, Pomona-Pitzer - Cohen hasn't played in all the games, but the number crunching indicates he makes twice the difference as the second most significant contributor, Jake Klewer.

• Corey Quintana, Cal Lutheran - Another freshman center with a strong impact on his team's performance.  Quintana is edging out Michael Palmer and Jeremy Sulker-Hall who seems to make a significant defensive impact.

• Colin Zavrsnick, Chapman - The numbers indicate Zavrsnick makes a strong impact offensively and defensively for this team.  Taylor Hamasaki, Colin Chadwick and Jordan Young also make solid contributions when they are on the floor.

• Willie Mebane and Tyree Landrum, Whittier - Both these gentlemen are making significant impacts on the floor.  Mebane makes his team score better while Landrum, although a good scorer, adds a paint presence which makes the team defense stronger.

• Alex Wolpe, La Verne - Wolpe makes La Verne score better when he is on the floor while more than holding their own defensively.  Jourdan Simmonds also provides an offensive pop with no letdown on the defensive end.

• Sam Stapleton and Ty Cobb, Occidental - Oxy is struggling this year, but these two gentleman seem to improve their play while on the floor, especially on the defensive end.   Kris Montoya's presence provides an offensive boost.

• Collin Murphy, CalTech - Murphy is not getting the minutes some of his peers are getting, but his team's play, especially on the defensive end, improves the most when he is on the floor.  Michael Edwards provides the biggest offensive boost, but it is curtailed by a defensive letdown.

[dahlby]

Watched a close game at Hutton Gym in Orange tonight. Chapman handed Redlands their first SCIAC loss of the season by a close 74-69 score. The game wasn't decided until just around 6 seconds remained. Intense game the entire time. The difference was at the free throw line where Chapman had an edge of 31-37 to Redland's 19-22. Chapman had a 3 point halftime lead, that quickly vanished in the second half, as the lead changed several times. Both teams had around 14 turnovers.

Redlands is a good team, and forced Chapman to play one of its best performances of the year.

La Verne topped Caltech 90-66
Whittier suprised Pomona 61-58
CMS took Cal Lu 69-65
OXY was idle.
I need to loook at the stats of the 2 close games....too bad I don't know how to tape delay the web streamed games, as I would have enjoyed watching the Whittier and CMS contests.

Game write-ups and box score for the Chapman game is available at "chapmanathletics.com"

[WoostAr]

BBALLJUNKIE...good stuff!...do you have all of this data crunched somewhere that's accessible?  Would love to take a gander at it.


Your take on Murphy jives completely with what I've observed.  The Edwards part doesn't jive with my observations, but I guess that's why statistics exist...can't really argue the point.



Caltech laid a complete egg last night...double dribbling and traveling and not inbounding the ball well (or to the right team) and so on....bright spot was the continued development of KC Emezie 8 of 14 from the field and he decided he would shoot 3's last night too...3 of 4 from distance w/ 5 rebounds and 2 steals.  Next game for the Beavers is CMS at home this saturday...Alumni night....is Elmquist allowed to suit up??

[BBallJunkie81]

Thanks WoostAr for the kind words.  Based on your comments regarding Edwards I crunched the latest data (last time I did it was a couple of games ago).  Here are the numbers for some of the CalTech players:

1) Murphy slows the game down and actually causes CalTech to score 2 ppg less when he is on the floor.  But, when he is on the floor CalTech decreases opposition scoring by 18ppg... a net positive of 16ppg!  Dr. Eslinger should find more PT for this young man.

2) Hogue does a nice job of increasing scoring by 4ppg and decreasing opposition scoring by 6ppg... a net of 10ppg.

3) Edwards increases scoring to the tune of 6.8ppg  and (contrary to my previous message) decreases opposition scoring by 1.6ppg... a net of 8.4ppg.

4) Runkel decreases CalTech scoring by 2.5ppg but also decreases opposition scoring by 10.4ppg for a net 7.9ppg.

5) Emezie increases scoring rate a bit more than Edwards (7.3 to 6.8 ppg) but opposition is scoring 3.9ppg more when he is on the floor for a net positive of 3.4ppg.

Crunching game data, these are the 5 CalTech players which make the team stronger when on the floor.

[WoostAr]

Great stuff...thanks for the info.

[WoostAr]

CMS at Caltech...CMS wins 69-65 in OT.

GREAT game tonight at Caltech.  CMS got out with a win by the skin of their teeth, they're a half court three at the end of the first half away from a loss.

KC Emezie came out strong...scoring 7 early, finishing with 13 points and five rebounds...Bryan Joel, Michael Edwards and Andrew Hogue all in double digits.

Alex Runkel did the iron man tonight playing every single minute until he fouled out in overtime...he battled 3 different CMS big men and lead Caltech to a 42-38 rebounding edge.

CMS shot 42% from the field and 38% from 3...missed a lot of free throws down the stretch, 46% from the line on the night. 

Was impressed by CMS freshman Nick Lund...6'8" with GREAT feet and some bulk...look for him to develop into a nightmare for other SCIAC teams.

[WoostAr]

Neglected to mention Alex Runkel also had 7 steals.

[cmsme]

And Caltech had more rebounds, steals and blocks than CMS!
I think hell will freeze over before you get that close again but way to go Caltech. Something good must be happening.

[dahlby]

cmsme,

Hell has not frozen over yet, but something good is happening at Caltech, as the Beavers took Chapman to the final minute of the game before dropping a 72-65 decision to the Panthers in Orange tonight.

Each time Chapman pulled away, Caltech would rally to bring the game back within a couple of points or tie.

Game stats and box score are at "chapmanathletics.com".

Chapman travels to Oxy Saturday to take on the Tigers in "quasi SCIAC action".

[CMSfan]

Stags 65, PP 58

Box: http://www.cmsathletics.org/sports/mbkb/2012-13/boxscores/20130123_j35o.xml

Awesome game at Ducey tonight (for us CMS fans). Jack Grodahl went nuts for a stretch in the first half, hitting seven straight shots for the Stags, including six threes. That put CMS up for good, though the Sagehens were pretty much always within 10.

Grodahl finished with 28 on the game, on 11-15 shooting, helping compensate for rough shooting nuts from Pinson and and Sullivan.  Cody Mivshek added 11 and Shelby Lane had 10 (including big dunks at the beginning and end of the game) to account for almost all of the Stags' scoring.  Mivshek and Jack Earley played great defense all game and seemed to be involved in most of the big plays.  Perhaps most importantly, CMS only turned the ball over 5 times in the game.  A great all-around effort from CMS coming off the scare in Pasadena on Saturday.

P-P got out of sync on offense a few times, but Kyle McAndrews did a valiant job of trying to keep them in the game and ended up with 22 in the game.

Rematch across the street in three weeks!