MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Gacman]

GAC with near debacle 80-77 win.

[Drake Palmer]

As my Grandpa used to say - "unh, unh, unh."

St. Olaf 75- 68 Hamline.

[UMACFAN]

About Hamlnie, I guess like I have been saying they could be 5-0.  They very easily could be 0-5 coming into the St. Olaf game.  They need to stick with a 7 man rotation, and set up more iso plays for Ray and Hipp.

[gacbacker]

Not a good second half for the Gusties. Major problems at the free throw line until Grey and Wirtjes each knock down a pair in the final 20 seconds.

[miacsuperfan]

royals win by 18.  robertson was back but no hall or robinson.  

hambone finds a way to blow a big lead in northfield.  defense appears to be a dirty word in vipe vocabulary.  still some work to do there.
torrell carried the offensive load for oles.  free throw line was the difference in the game.  

[Drake Palmer]

GAC with near debacle 80-77 win.

Gustie fans are using the old John Thompson towel  from Georgetown days to wipe copious amounts of sweat off their foreheads!  

[UMACFAN]

royals win by 18.  robertson was back but no hall or robinson.  

hambone finds a way to blow a big lead in northfield.  defense appears to be a dirty word in vipe vocabulary.  still some work to do there.
torrell carried the offensive load for oles.  free throw line was the difference in the game.  

this.

[Buddo]

Crazy game in St. Peter... I was watching the live stats all game. SMU came back from a 20+ halftime deficit to cut the lead to as little as 1 point near the end of the game. According to the live updates, it looks like Holland had a chance to tie from 3 but missed with one second left. After thumping Bethel and nearly beating Gustavus, how dangerous is this SMU team?

[Gacman]

Crazy game in St. Peter... I was watching the live stats all game. SMU came back from a 20+ halftime deficit to cut the lead to as little as 1 point near the end of the game. According to the live updates, it looks like Holland had a chance to tie from 3 but missed with one second left. After thumping Bethel and nearly beating Gustavus, how dangerous is this SMU team?

I think they are dangerous for one main reason, and I feel that it's because they have a legitimate 3rd option who is a threat to score. Wright and Holland are great players but up until now, their supporting cast has been a joke. With the addition of Palmer, they now have someone else who can pick up the slack when one of their two big guns is having an off night like Holland had last night. Palmer dominated in the 2nd half last night and was a huge part of their comeback.

[VOJ]

Crazy game in St. Peter... I was watching the live stats all game. SMU came back from a 20+ halftime deficit to cut the lead to as little as 1 point near the end of the game. According to the live updates, it looks like Holland had a chance to tie from 3 but missed with one second left. After thumping Bethel and nearly beating Gustavus, how dangerous is this SMU team?

Depends on Holland Will Wright...if they are on, it could be a tough night for the other team...they are starting to really put it together, have to respect and salute them for fighting back from a major halftime deficit...interesting to get WW take on the near collapse...by the way Holland was 1 for 7 last night

Interesting that the Auggies got close and then could not muster enough offense down the stretch...They have talent and very good guards...but  did Grzesiak-Grimm get taken away or is he not enough of an offensive force down low yet?  Against UST you have to have some kind of force down low to get some easy baskets...

Torrell with a career night..was Jaryan held in check or did he recognize the hot hand??  Give him credit for 10 for 10 at the line...Stu Neville offsets the double double of Carl Hipp, only 14 TO's for the Pipes, which I think is an improvement over their last outing...

Bethel turns it up defensively to build a nice halftime lead, holds MAC to 35% shooting MAC fails to help themselves at the line with a 10 for 19 performance in the second half... Bethel won't always shoot 75% from beyond the arc but it helps...

Concordia defends their home floor and rebounds from a gut-tearing loss at St. Peter, gotta give them credit for having a short memory...Olson carries the load offensively for the Cobbs, Fraase was ice cold from the floor...I would have thought Sutherland would have been more of an offensive focus, especially playing 33 minutes, also the Knights must not have tried to create much because they didn't have many attempts from the line...

[papahoops]

Nice win over a quality Augsburg team by the Tommies last night. The Joe Scott that received pre-season all american notice was definitely "back". I had expressed concerns about UST's rotation in recent games, but Fritz definitely tightened it up last night, giving only 7 players 10+ minutes. The UST defense was the lead story of the night. Auggies made a nice run to get within 2 and then UST just shut them down. Teddy Archer drives many crazy with his inconsistency, but he played a heck of a defensive game last night, and Fritz rewarded him with 20+ minutes. Eicher and Pedretti also were key factors with strong interior defense. I really like Pedretti's development to date, and based on what I have seen would take him over any other FY player if I was picking a team.

UST pulls off the nice win despite poor shooting performance by Nicolai (although he hit a few key shots in crunch time and still ended up with 10) and and another head scratching "sub-par" (to be kind) performance by Halvorsen (resulting in 8 minutes of PT). It appears those who took me to the woodshed on the board for my preseason prediction concerning the emergence of his offensive skills were correct in doing so  It looks like my pre-season undefeated conference season prediction for UST is all I still have in play. I wasn't feeling too confident on this one after the past few games, but last night' performance was encouraging in that regard .

[Drake Palmer]

Pops  - Good summary of the game.  Defense & timely shooting won this game for UST.  Teddy Archer finally played the type of game he began to display 2 years ago when he served notice that he had the potential to be a premier defender in this league.  

At the 8 minute mark of the 2nd half the UST kicked it up another level.  Joe Scott hit a jumper to make it 60-56 & then the defense went to work, sandwiched around a couple of miscues by Augsburg guards. Four Augsburg turnovers/UST steals resulted in a costly 11-0 run that pushed the game out of the reach of the Dawgs.  Archer & "old school" Sam Eicher with the funky hook shot, were right in the middle of this run –hitting the boards, getting steals, or feeding each other for layups.   I think Archer scored all 6 of his points during this streak.  For the Tommies sake, it's good to see ol' "bad, swaggering" Teddy out on the court.

It still would be nice to see Tyler Nicolai get his teammates involved, especially when he's not scoring. 0 assists last night to go along with the assist bagel against St. Olaf.  For the season he has 4 assists in 3 league games. He's too good of a player to put up those types of numbers & it will come back to haunt the Tommies later on in the season if this doesn't change.

Augsburg is going to be a tough out this season.  I still think they'll finish in the top 2 or 3 in the final league standings. They've got the shooters, athletic, quick & good coaching staff, but are a bit undersized.  As Marcus Brumm starts to make the transition from football to basketball he'll make the Dawgs that much more dangerous.  He adds a bit of size & quickness to the frontcourt to balance out Andy Grezsiak-Grimm or Cory Polta.  He had a highlight reel offensive rebound when he soared up over 2 UST defenders, grabbed the ball with one hand & tipped the ball back in for the basket. I was impressed & I only saw it on the webcast!

The battle of the city & country Lutherans between Augsburg & Gustavus on Wednesday night could be the league spotlight game of the night.

***
Tap, tap, tap, fingers tapping on the desk....

Ok, where are the Hamline posters? Mebbe PI was right & when he posted the legendary Denny Green meltdown he was referring to his fellow Hamline boosters.  "The Pipers' fans are who we thought they were."

Posting rule #769 – Man Up. Within reason, posters can talk smack all they want, but when you lose you got to come back to the board & take your lumps. I hate admitting I'm wrong as much as anybody, but we've all had to.  So get over it.    

[Willy Wonka]

Crazy game in St. Peter... I was watching the live stats all game. SMU came back from a 20+ halftime deficit to cut the lead to as little as 1 point near the end of the game. According to the live updates, it looks like Holland had a chance to tie from 3 but missed with one second left. After thumping Bethel and nearly beating Gustavus, how dangerous is this SMU team?

Depends on Holland Will Wright...if they are on, it could be a tough night for the other team...they are starting to really put it together, have to respect and salute them for fighting back from a major halftime deficit...interesting to get WW take on the near collapse...by the way Holland was 1 for 7 last night

Well, I wasn't there so I can't give any specific feedback...but I can pull some box score tidbits for you.

• SMU shot 68% in the second half. That smells like disaster to me when you play a better team, such as Augsburg tomorrow.

• Since I sang the praises of Paulson, backup Paul Blacklock has actually outplayed him. The sophomore post went for 10 pts, 4 rebs and 3 blocks last night in just 14 minutes. I know the staff is pretty high on him, so his minutes are something that might be worth watching.

• The Gustie bench scored 41 points last night. I'm guessing that's the most at GAC since a certain redhead was still a reserve.

• Palmer is good. He's much, much more polished than the UST freshman center and should easily earn the mythical title of Freshman of the Year.

• Off nights for Holland and Nicolai against solid competition. Interesting to note Holland and WW's minutes were both a season-low last night at 27 and 30.

[Nites]

Posting rule #769 – Man Up. Within reason, posters can talk smack all they want, but when you lose you got to come back to the board & take your lumps. I hate admitting I'm wrong as much as anybody, but we've all had to.  So get over it.    

 +k         

WW - apparently your man VS didn't like you dogging him so he responded last night.      

[UMACFAN]

Pops  - Good summary of the game.  Defense & timely shooting won this game for UST.  Teddy Archer finally played the type of game he began to display 2 years ago when he served notice that he had the potential to be a premier defender in this league.  

At the 8 minute mark of the 2nd half the UST kicked it up another level.  Joe Scott hit a jumper to make it 60-56 & then the defense went to work, sandwiched around a couple of miscues by Augsburg guards. Four Augsburg turnovers/UST steals resulted in a costly 11-0 run that pushed the game out of the reach of the Dawgs.  Archer & "old school" Sam Eicher with the funky hook shot, were right in the middle of this run –hitting the boards, getting steals, or feeding each other for layups.   I think Archer scored all 6 of his points during this streak.  For the Tommies sake, it's good to see ol' "bad, swaggering" Teddy out on the court.

It still would be nice to see Tyler Nicolai get his teammates involved, especially when he's not scoring. 0 assists last night to go along with the assist bagel against St. Olaf.  For the season he has 4 assists in 3 league games. He's too good of a player to put up those types of numbers & it will come back to haunt the Tommies later on in the season if this doesn't change.

Augsburg is going to be a tough out this season.  I still think they'll finish in the top 2 or 3 in the final league standings. They've got the shooters, athletic, quick & good coaching staff, but are a bit undersized.  As Marcus Brumm starts to make the transition from football to basketball he'll make the Dawgs that much more dangerous.  He adds a bit of size & quickness to the frontcourt to balance out Andy Grezsiak-Grimm or Cory Polta.  He had a highlight reel offensive rebound when he soared up over 2 UST defenders, grabbed the ball with one hand & tipped the ball back in for the basket. I was impressed & I only saw it on the webcast!

The battle of the city & country Lutherans between Augsburg & Gustavus on Wednesday night could be the league spotlight game of the night.

***
Tap, tap, tap, fingers tapping on the desk....

Ok, where are the Hamline posters? Mebbe PI was right & when he posted the legendary Denny Green meltdown he was referring to his fellow Hamline boosters. "The Pipers' fans are who we thought they were."

Posting rule #769 – Man Up. Within reason, posters can talk smack all they want, but when you lose you got to come back to the board & take your lumps. I hate admitting I'm wrong as much as anybody, but we've all had to.  So get over it.    

I still think Hamline can finish top 2-4 pretty easily, if they play a bit of D and limit their TO's.  They have the best 1-2 punch in the conference (Brown and Hipp), however they need to find that third man to step up.  Also, Coach needs to stick with a set rotation ... Stop giving opportunities to players that do not deserve to be on the court.  Time will tell, but I have a feeling Drake will be swallowing some of his words.