MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Quandt was plenty loud on my only visit, last year when Platteville came to town.

[larry_u]

Quant was plenty loud when I was there for then 2nd round of the tournament in 2005.

Just make sure Carlton fans that you get to your seats early.   The guest assigned seating tends to turn into Pointer Fans seating fairly quickly...

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Going to their website here's an interesting quote from their head coach Tom Slyder in an article announcing their selection for the tourney:

No. 3 St. Thomas is a member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and will be making their fifth straight NCAA tournament appearance and 14th overall. The Tommies are 123-19 over the last five years – the best record in NCAA Div. III.

"They have a history of being good," said Slyder. 'They have been really good and they are in a league that has produced two NBA players in the last 10 years."

I see he's trying to get his players attention. Coach - you let us know who those 2 players might be.  Devean George and ?  

Technically, he's wrong on both counts. George played his final season in '98-99, which is 11 seasons ago. And I'd be curious to hear him expand on the other player the MIAC sent to the League. I mean, Adam Denny didn't sneak in there somehow, did he? 

No, Coach Slyder was obviously referring to Eric Joldersma.

No, he is obviously referencing that blond curlyhaired dude that played for GAC in 2002-03. That 'do hasnt been seen in MN recently 

[Just Bill]

I can do a more detailed analysis of this later... but this year's UWSP team is different than last year's.  Last year the team jacked a TON of 3's...  They averaged shooting just over 20 per game and 37% of their shots were 3's.

This year, Point is shooting 6 fewer 3's per game but still making them at basically the same percentage, and they're getting almost the identical number of shots per game (56.4).  This means Point is making 2.5 fewer 3's per game... but they're making more 2's, which means their overall shooting percentage has gone up from 48.3% to 50.3%.

This may seem minor... but it's added an additional point (75.5 vs 74.3) per game to SP's average.

Point is also better defensively this year.  They're a percentage point better on their defensive shooting percentage against 2 pointers (3's are pretty much the same) and that's equated to a 3 ppg improvement defensively as well (60.0 vs 62.9).

That 4 ppg can be key in the playoffs when these games really become possession-by-possession battles.

In my initial look at Carleton, they seem to rely more on the 3.  In fact, they have a higher percentage of their shots than Point did last year (37.5% for Carleton to 36.9% for SP in 08-09), and Point jacked it up a ton.  Car shoots a better 3 point percentage (39.4% for CAR vs. 37.4% for SP) than Point did last year too.

A big difference is that SP last year had more attempts per game (56.4 for 08-09 SP vs. 53.2).  That equated to 74.3 ppg for Point last year vs. 68.9 for Car this year.  Carleton thus likes to slow it down, which can certainly account for the fact that they weren't blown out at all this year and kept games that they lost close.  Of course, they were considerably better than some of the teams they played, so they were able to score earlier and to get a stop earlier, and thus THEY had some blowouts but that's the nature of the game for good teams.

Two potentially key points for the game could be free throw shooting and rebounding.

Carleton averages 1 rebound less than their opponents, while Point is +6.  Also, Car shoots free throws at a 61.3% clip.  SP has struggled down the stretch from the line, but their season average is 74.8%.  It will be interesting to see how this factors in... it may have a lot to do with where the officials are from and if they call the game tight or let the teams play.  By their averages, SP makes 13.49/18.04 of their FT's and Car makes 9.67/15.86, so SP gets there more and makes more of their points from the charity stripe.

SP basically has two speeds on offense, hyperspeed and methodical.  If they get a steal, they can get it and go but if they don't have something early, they'll work the defense until there is a breakdown.  That looks to me the same way Carleton runs their offense.

It gets very interesting when I look at attempts per game... Carleton allows 3 more attempts per game than they shoot themselves, while Point shoots 4 more attempts per game than their opponents. 


Essentially, I was trying to manually create a metric based on possessions per game... because it appeared that SP got more of them.

But there's a metric that's used to approximate Possessions per Game:

FGA-Off Reb + TO. + .475 x FTA

When you run that, SP comes out with 65.03 poss per game and Carleton with 65.00

So then, you can figure out points per 100 possessions and can do it offensively and defensively:

(Points/Possessions) x 100

SP comes out with 116.04 Points per 100 possessions on the offensive end
SP holds their opponents to 92.61 points per 100 possessions on the defensive end.

Car is 106.05/93.74.

Now, these are just approximations and they're averages of past results... they don't necessarily have any bearing on the future... but they can point to trends that very well could continue.

buf - Touche! I'm still a little surprised/disappointed the guy with the GAC flag didn't get decked on his way by your student section in 2003...

If I recall correctly, he didn't make it to the student section... though it may have been the second trip where he got decked by the guy who looked like Coach Bennett (and for good reason, it was his eldest son who did it!)

Did everyone catch that? This WASN'T the detailed analysis. This is the brief, quick and dirty analysis.  That's why we love PS on the WIAC board.

[John Gleich]

Did everyone catch that? This WASN'T the detailed analysis. This is the brief, quick and dirty analysis.  That's why we love PS on the WIAC board.

This was more free flowing, type as I see it analysis... It's more ideas than conclusions! 

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Did everyone catch that? This WASN'T the detailed analysis. This is the brief, quick and dirty analysis.  That's why we love PS on the WIAC board.

This was more free flowing, type as I see it analysis... It's more ideas than conclusions! 

So, could you summarize, in 5 words or less? (eg: three words---Carleton will win)

[Willy Wonka]

Quandt was plenty loud on my only visit, last year when Platteville came to town.

Quandt got loud thrice when I played there. Otherwise, the grandmas and grandpas in the stands were pretty content to eat their popcorn and/or sit on their hands. It DOES fill up early, though.

Out of curiosity, why don't the UWSP students fill the seats that are actually next to the court? It seems odd that they'd willingly take the seats in the far corner from the opposing team's bench...

[John Gleich]

Quandt was plenty loud on my only visit, last year when Platteville came to town.

Quandt got loud thrice when I played there. Otherwise, the grandmas and grandpas in the stands were pretty content to eat their popcorn and/or sit on their hands. It DOES fill up early, though.

Out of curiosity, why don't the UWSP students fill the seats that are actually next to the court? It seems odd that they'd willingly take the seats in the far corner from the opposing team's bench...

The seats behind the media table are for season ticket holders and they have first dibs for those seats... I don't think those are the ones you're talking about though. 

Are you talking about the ones that are right across from the opposing team's bench?  I think, historically, the students have sat near the band, which is behind the basket on the SP bench's side.  The students then are behind that same basket and then over in the section directly next to it (to the left of the media if you're in the stands looking at the court).

LINK

This section would be to the right of the view in the second picture and to the left of the view in the third. It's the upper right-hand corner of the first picture too.

Lots of families and other people from the community get to the games early and take the seats that you see  at the bottom of the third picture (opposite the opposing team's bench).  Many students get to the game right at the tip or late... and so they all just go to the section across from Point's bench, or to the balcony.


As I said, the Point students (and basically all the students in the WIAC, with the exception of Platteville, probably) aren't organized.  Few actually dress up (as in, dress up in Purple and Gold) for the games... most of them just wander in and sit on their hands, unless they're on the phone or texting.

I've wondered what it would take to get the students actually organized... Likely a student organization like the Orange Crush at the University of Illinois, I would imagine, but it would need somebody to lead it.  I don't live in the area any more (nor would my wife allow me to start it, probably) but there isn't the sense of community like you have at the private schools... the campuses are just too big and so many of the students are disconnected from the athletes.

You'd think it should be pretty easy to get a student population as big as Point's with a basketball program as good as Point's (and Whitewater, and ther other WIACs, etc) to get interested and involved...  but it just isn't the case.

Things do usually ramp up by February... but in the new year, the students are gone for 3 weeks and some years it just doesn't seem like they come back with any gusto.  And certainly not as much gusto as the Gusties!   

[huhoops]

I know UWSP is very solid, and this might be my MIAC bias talking, but I'm not sure that UWSP didn't come out on the worse end of that draw. CAR has been virtually flawless over the second half of the season and poses huge match up problems for 99% of the teams that they play. It's rare to find a D3 team with 2 big men who can match up with a 4/5 combo that can both shoot and post up very well. Not to mention the rarity of a team who has the bigs to match up with CAR and then an athlete who can match up with Sutherland. UWSP may very well be a team capable of doing that, but it's going to be a dog fight.

[columbianmaffia]

anyone know if there will be a live video feed over the internet of the game....i looked at the CAR website and didnt see anything

[John Gleich]

Point has not yet had live video for any of their basketball games (though they have experimented with it for hockey, so they're obviously considering it somewhat).  I read somewhere that the NCAA is going to have live video for the sectionals and D3Hoops is going to try to have vid at as many locations as possible.  SP is the closest pod to Minnesota and Pat... so (and this is purely a guess) there might be video from D3Hoops, even for the first pod.

[John Gleich]

Carthage, on the other hand, does have live video... if you can get it.  It was overloaded last weekend for the CCIW championship.  Not that this fact really has any relevance for you, but... 

[buf]

Point has not yet had live video for any of their basketball games (though they have experimented with it for hockey, so they're obviously considering it somewhat).  I read somewhere that the NCAA is going to have live video for the sectionals and D3Hoops is going to try to have vid at as many locations as possible.  SP is the closest pod to Minnesota and Pat... so (and this is purely a guess) there might be video from D3Hoops, even for the first pod.

The UWW/Point women's game at Berg this season had video.  I watched some of it.  However, that is the only game that I have ever know Point to videocast.

[carletonsid]

anyone know if there will be a live video feed over the internet of the game....i looked at the CAR website and didnt see anything

CM and others - We're working on getting video up and running at UWSP. At this point, I feel safe in saying we're fairly certain we can pull it off. Heck, we did it at Simpson for the women's NCAAs a couple of years back by plugging in an old Apple Airport Express box into the soccer coach's office and made an instant wireless network. We're thinking we can do it at UWSP as well, as they actually have one hardwired ethernet connection in the gym.

Once we know for sure we'll post it on our website.

[John Gleich]

anyone know if there will be a live video feed over the internet of the game....i looked at the CAR website and didnt see anything

CM and others - We're working on getting video up and running at UWSP. At this point, I feel safe in saying we're fairly certain we can pull it off. Heck, we did it at Simpson for the women's NCAAs a couple of years back by plugging in an old Apple Airport Express box into the soccer coach's office and made an instant wireless network. We're thinking we can do it at UWSP as well, as they actually have one hardwired ethernet connection in the gym.

Once we know for sure we'll post it on our website.

Awesome!