MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Drake Palmer]

For bringing up valid points I get smited...nice

Am I wrong or has maniac not posted about the game...perhaps the strain of the loss was too much for the purple shades to take, therefore he can't see the keys...just kidding

Nice start to the awards Drake...I guess with the AD leaving Hamline every coaches job is safe?  The turnover there has been a little unnerving, tough to build a program when you have new coaches all the time...

I wouldn't worry about the +k. If you keep posting during the football season your Johnnie brothers will have you up in the hundreds by the time hoops season rolls around next year.

Yup you're right, I think Mose has been in mourning.  I'll admit it took me a bit of effort to step up to the keyboard on Saturday.  But I'm that way about all MIAC teams during post season play, not just the Tommies.     8)

My awards aren't much better tomorrow & all I get from you is a - "nice start on the awards."?    Tough crowd.

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

This is my favorite: Pastrami Jacks  A little outside the cities though.

Mine too.....always enough to another meal

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Am I wrong or has maniac not posted about the game...perhaps the strain of the loss was too much for the purple shades to take, therefore he can't see the keys...just kidding

Im back, after taking 3 days for mourning (having been educated by the Benedictine's I was taught this was proper respect. Maybe the new "turn to page 396 of your program" strain of OSB has changed that)

It was a fun weekend in the Shoe, despite the outcome. Hats off to BV, who clearly came to play both nights. When UST jumped out to a nice lead in the opening 5 mins, I smelled a blowload ala the 2007 MIAC title game. BV promptly substituted like a hockey team-- an entire set of 5-- and their shooting warmed up and their defense tightened. The result was a 28-3 run that had me clutching my stomach. But I give the Ts credit for battling back-- their rally down the stretch was something to see. I believe they forced turnovers on 4 if not 5 consecutive possessions and clearly had the Beavers rattled. Nice coaching job by BVU to calm the kids down. Viau's last shot was close to going in...if it had, I think they would have needed to bring in SWAT teams.

Viau has grown so much throughout the course of the season it is amazing. The performance he put on speaks for itself. If WW's appraisal that BJ was being "dorked" is anywhere near the mark, then I hope all the MIAC coaches 'dork' him next year. But the truth is, Viau is  (in the words of the esteemed DP) a baller. The kid plays with such intensity on defense and is so solid. For his size, he is an incredible rebounder (in 3 H2H matchups he has nearly double the boards of Moberg). Unfortunately, he was the only Tommie to consistently hit the boards with any success on Friday.

Back in Sept, I had little hope of the Toms making the MIAC playoffs. So it was a fantastic season, only the ending left a taste of bitterness. But I think that ending will provide incentive to work all the harder in the offseason.

VOJ-- I see there is d-3 playoff games in Collegeville this weekend....Collegeville PA, that is. 

[columbianmaffia]

drake...im diggin the awards...im happy my workout plan had such an impact

[columbianmaffia]

section high school playoffs start up tomorrow night...im lookin forward to watching some good games

some section play tomorrow night

@ Eastview High School

6pm Eastview vs Cottage Grove (i think)
and
8pm Lakeville North vs Rosemount

@ Burnsville High School

6pm Burnsville vs Lakeville South
and
8pm Apple Valley vs Eagan

[columbianmaffia]

and one thing to add to that last post...winners of tomorrow nights games advance to play at St. Olaf on Friday night

[Drake Palmer]

The Palmers - Day 2, Part 1  (Early edition. Busy day at work on Tuesday.  If anyone gets hacked, refer to the first post of the awards  )

GAMES AND PLAYS OF THE YEAR


COMEBACK GAME OF THE YEAR AWARD:

November 28, 2007: Mac @ GAC Mac: 82 - GAC 78:  Down by 12 points 68-56 with 8:43 in the 2nd half, the Little General, Abe Woldeslassie & TCon, Tom Conboy go absolutely insane.  Abe would score 23 and Conboy 16 points in the 2nd half.  Conboy finishes with 34 total points & Abe drains 33 points.

DP

PLAYS OF THE YEAR:


#4:  February 11, 2008 CORD @ GAC #2: GAC 51- 50 CORD

Senior captain Trevor Wittwer made a 15-foot turnaround jumper under heavy defensive pressure with:07 left in regulation play to help Gustavus claim an improbable 51-50 win over Concordia on Monday night in St. Peter.

"GAC game summary"

#3:  Bookend #1 - December 3, 2007 SMU @ MAC: MAC 72-70 SMU

...Abe Woldeslassie (Sr., Richfield, Minn. / St. Thomas Academy) scored the game-winning basket on a driving layup to the basket with just 1.6 seconds left, breaking a tie and giving Macalester an exciting 72-70 win over St. Mary's.

"MAC game summary"

#2:  Bookend #2 - December 5, 2007 UST @ MAC: MAC 72-70 UST

After beating St. Mary's 72-70 Monday night on a game-winning basket with 1.6 seconds left, Macalester scored the game-winner on a Jerry Kraus (So., Bucharest, Romania / Chaparral (Colo.) basket with 1.5 to go as the Scots toppled No. 22-ranked St. Thomas by an identical 72-70 tally.  Just as on Monday night, Abe Woldeslassie (Sr., Richfield, Minn. / St. Thomas Academy) set things up for the last shot. Instead of driving in for the game-winning layup with 1.6 to go as he did against St. Mary's, Woldeslassie drove in and dished his sixth assist of the night off to Kraus, who converted the winning hoop with 1.5 remaining.

"MAC game summary"

#1 February 23, 2008 AUG @ BET: BET 74-72 AUG.

Just after a controversial call (bad)    that will go down forever in MIAC basketball hoops lore...

When the Auggies visited the Royals Saturday, it was everything a season finale should be: one game, winner takes all and loser stays home. It came down to the final second, and Bethel's Tim Madson hit nothing but net with a rainbow from behind the arc, lifting the Royals to a 74-72 win...

...On Augsburg's ensuing possession, Cassens missed a shot. On the rebound, Solaja was called for interfering with the basket and the ball was awarded to Bethel.

Following the controversial call, Bethel's Tim Madson missed a shot, but teammate Jeff Reck scooped up the rebound. Bethel took a time out and the ensuing in-bound pass bounced off an Augsburg player's foot out of bounds.  The Auggies called time out and plotted their defensive ploy. Much in-bounded they ball to Madson, who dribbled towards the sideline. He pulled up and released a shot with a high, rainbow arc that drifted down through the hoop and net for three, with 0:0.8 left on the clock, winning the game and sending the Royals into the playoffs. 

"Rich Mies, College Sporting News Columnist"

The call aside, that was the sweetest, pressure packed play of the year.  Mad props Tim Madson!



Bonus coverage.  There's been a lot of grousing, primarily from the Gustie supporters about the physical nature of UST's defense.  Personally, I liken the Tommie defense to a bunch of young pickpockets & ruffians out of a Charles Dickens' novel, in a good way of course.    But here is verifiable proof that the rest of the league isn't above a little grabbing & groping themselves.  It's a wonder Brett Tuma could even play after that ahem ..manhandling. 

[Drake Palmer]

The Palmers - Day 2, final.

TOP DUNKS OF THE YEAR    

The "Honorable Mention Dunk"
SMU's Nick Carr vs. MAC #1.

Nick Carr with the vicious, one handed, tomahawk putback rebound dunk over Mac's Tom Conboy & OAS. Yes, I say OAS, because he was directly in line with basket, 15-20 away to witness the thunderous dunk with his own eyes.  Then the next day his best retort was to weakly diss Carr's tats.

My reply to OAS's disdainful acknowledgement of Carr's "sick" dunk:  "You're probably just hacked cuz he glared at you after he dunked on your boy."   

#5. - "The Kris Humphries"
- UST's Teddy Archer vs. St. .Olaf # 1.

...TH4L - Nice recap of the Tommie - Ole game, so I'll just add a few additional comments.  You're absolutely right about Teddy Archer's dunk.  Plus, it had ripple effects throughout the rest of the game.   As for the dunk itself, technically it was just ok - say a 7 or 8 on a 10 point scale, but the post dunk reaction – off the chain!

Unlike Kris Humphries' infamous dunk in which he flexed one bicep & pointed at it with his other hand in front of the camera, Teddy went for the double bicep flex!  You could tell Archer wasn't certain what to do for a half a second, thought about it, and then he ran in front of the Ole student section with a smirk on his face & pulled off the double flex!...

#4 - "The Bookends"
UST's bookend dunks by Joe Scott & BJ Viau over Bethel February, 2008:

But the bookend dunks, now those were nice.  In the closing minute of the game Bethel turns the ball over, Scott picks it up, goes up & throws down a one-handed NBA-like tomahawk dunk with a Bethel defender draped all over him. Not to be outdone, Viau gets a steal & goes in for a tomahawk with his left hand!  At the end of the season, I'll refer to those dunks as the Bookend Dunks. 

#3 - "The Seal & Slam"
- Augsburg's Femi Solaja @ Bethel #2: February, 2008

Following a trey by Cassens to open up the scoring, the next time down the court, Solaja gets a tremendous seal on Moberg & motions to Cassens for the lob pass.  Cassens accurately throws up the lob pass - Femi turns, takes one step & throws down a sensational one handed dunk!  (I didn't even think he had it in him anymore) The refs blindly turn their back on Solaja & he proceeds to hang from the rim, swings his legs back & forth, all the while mugging to the Augsburg fans, while the Augsburg fans are bellowing their support!

In the meantime, the Bethel fans are beside themselves screaming at the refs trying to get their attention, begging them to call a technical on Solaja.  I'm rolling around on the bleacher laughing my butt off while the Bethel fans are looking at me like I've lost my mind.  Good humor highlight of the day. 

#2  "The Halvorsen high step-Drop step dunk"
UST's Anders Halvorsen dunk over SJU 1/21/08

...The highlight assist of the night came on this play:  McCoy was being closely guarded with the ball in the baseline corner. Out of the corner of his eye he sees FY Anders Halvorsen coming weak-side across the lane, McCoy passes Halvorsen the ball & Halvorsen drop steps, turns & sends home a 2-handed dunk! Absolutely, positively one of the dunk highlight plays of the year!

#1 - A Viau from Above – The Dunk of the Year.
B.J. Viau 2nd UST GAC game

Tommie B.J Viau blocked a shot on one end, hustles down the court, gets a lead pass from a teammate, & proceeds to throw down a vicious tomahawk dunk on the other end of the floor.  Even Kel, Shocker, Gacbacker & Willy were on their feet. (at least I think they were  )  Due to a lack of resources, I'm not able to portray that particular Viau dunk, but thanks to modern technology &  MN Photonet & WXYZ, I'm able to show a reasonable facsimile of his dunk from the Bethel UST game several weeks earlier.

Unsolicited testimonial & endorsement from a rival fan - Willy Wonka:

"That sequence of block/dunk by Viau was pretty nasty. As a Gustie fan, I appreciated his two fouls in five seconds that sent him to the bench right afterwards just as much."

DUNK OF THE YEAR:
A VIAU From ABOVE

[Gregory Sager]

BTW,  what is this ridiculous banter about triple cheeseburgers and the like???   Isn't this a board about MIAC basketball?

you're out of your element, donny

Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!

There's gotta be some kind of connection to the Vietnam war here...maybe not a literal sense, but figuratively. (or something like that)

I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this ****ing CMob could eat a tripple burger!

[VOJ]

The Palmers: Day 1, part 2

The MIAC DONALD TRUMP AWARD aka THE MEN'S HAIR CLUB AWARD

Sam Paulson – GAC: Helmet head
Dan Schmidtknecht – GAC: English sheepdog
Alex McCoy- UST:  Barry White meets Bob Marley
Lonnie Robinson – UST:  reprising the role of Daniel Day-Lewis's rival in the "Last of the Mohicans"
Cody Dyshaw- CORD:  Cueball D.
Dan Cormier – SMU:  Gone but not forgotten

MIAC ALL TATS AWARDS

Nick, Nick, & Nick at Nite.  That would be Nick Carr at SMU, Nick Carroll @ Hamline & Nick Otterson @ Bethel.

THE PALMER PYLTHs (Players you love to hate) AWARDS

Kyle Townswick – SJU:  Young freshman shows plenty of promise & unafraid to mix it up on the court.  See Mose's comments earlier.

Matt Christiansen - STO:  A pesky, in your face, t-shirt wearing on ball defender

Jeremy Sutherland – CARL:  Much like Townswick, shows much promise for the next couple of years.

Zach Johnson – CARL:  Co-captain, The Goose

Teddy Archer – UST: Co-captain, Basketball as performance art.

CAVEAT: These awards are intended to poke good-natured fun at the recipients and are not intentionally malevolent or malicious by design.

Drake was in a bit of a hurry last night upon further review...Townswick would have made your all hair team as well, but he shaved alot of it off...I really liked Lonnies cut...

I like Sutherland...I think his inclusion on this team is a bit of an injustice...you nailed the co-captains however...

I commend you for putting in the time on the awards...your in-depth watching of the conference is enthusiasm for DIII hoops at its finest or its a scary view of your potential non basketball months...

[Willy Wonka]

MM - Are you seriously trying to tell me BV was guarding Viau as everyone else did throughout the year? Go watch the film and come back with the proper answer.

Understand, I'm not calling him a bad player — he's quite good, actually. But his jumper is clearly the worst part of his game and I thought it was fairly obvious that BV's game plan threw the Tommies for a loop.

[piperinsider]

+k to Drake. Although he is wearing Mose's purple blinders - four of the top five dunks from UST?

[Drake Palmer]

+k to Drake. Although he is wearing Mose's purple blinders - four of the top five dunks from UST?

PI - I saw every team in the MIAC play at least twice this season & and there were games when I wouldn't even see one dunk, let alone anything resembling a noteworthy dunk.  How many games did you see this year?    If someone else wants to come up with a list be my guest.  Obviously I like UST,  but from my personal observations, they easily exceeded any other MIAC team for the most dunks this season.

Edit:  Clarification -  The descriptions of these dunks are from previous posts of mine from various games that I watched this season.  The only other "noteworthy" dunk that I commented on which I left out of the awards was a dunk by Rob Lang from Bethel.  In the exciting last regular season game against Augsburg, Lang got out on a fast break & threw down a nice, one handed flush.  The dunk was certainly solid enough, & came at a critical juncture during the game, but it wasn't anything you couldn't see at the Y over noon hour. 

[PTPer35]

I don't think its been discussed on this board, but Rosett's dunk at St. Mary's is definitely top 3.

Following a press break, Johnson and Rosett had a 2 on 1 with Rosett already down by the basket on the left side, parallel to the baseline. Cormier came at ZJ who bounced it to Rosett as he was already stepping toward the basket. Cormier flips around quick as Rosett is taking off and tries to go up with him and BOOM. Rosett crams it with two hands and does a pull up on the rim to avoid landing on Cormier.

I forgot about that until Drake's list...I'll try to get a picture or something.

[columbianmaffia]

BTW,  what is this ridiculous banter about triple cheeseburgers and the like???   Isn't this a board about MIAC basketball?

you're out of your element, donny

Dude, the Chinaman is not the issue here!

There's gotta be some kind of connection to the Vietnam war here...maybe not a literal sense, but figuratively. (or something like that)

I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this ****ing CMob could eat a tripple burger!

i feel like im in a mcdonalds commercial cuz im lovin it  +k