MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Smitty Oom]

Great to see you back Drake! Just in time for some very exciting miac games. Tonight is a big slate of games. Hamline and Concordia both habeust wins over Mary's and MAC respectively. Augsburg goes to Collegeville for a battle of the second seed and important first round bye. Also, for St. John's a very important game to stay on the right side of the Pool C bubble. Then a battle for the ever important 4th seed and corresponding home game in the first round in the Skoglund center as the Royals try to pay their win over the johnnies with another solid win. Lastly, UST tries to continue the quests to 20-0 as they go down to St. Peter and try not to slip up.

If I get more time later I will provide a little more analysis on games with predictions, but wanted to get out there how important all these games are today!

[jamtod]

Man, if I'm the FY transfer from Oshkosh, do I really only want to play the last third of the season, 7-8 games, plus post season games?  Why not sit out, practice and return next year ready to kick some derriere? Or does he waste a year of eligibility, plus the added expense of tuition for a 5th year?   

I'm sure somebody else is an expert on this that can confirm, but I think he's already used the year of eligibility since he played at Oshkosh this year. Might as well get a chance somewhere else. It is weird that a dude can transfer mid-year and play for 2 different teams in the same year though.

Also add in that, unless he's an Engineering major, he probably doesn't need to go for a 5th year, even if he could preserve the eligibility.

[Smitty Oom]

Is Michael Hannon a fifth year senior? I wonder if he is pursuing a masters degree or an engineering degree like Jam mentioned.

[jamtod]

Is Michael Hannon a fifth year senior? I wonder if he is pursuing a masters degree or an engineering degree like Jam mentioned.

Finance. Graduated from CDH in 2014, so I believe that would make him a fifth year. Not sure about the masters side of things.

It's certainly not unheard of, but it's not a given in D3 if you are paying your own way.

[faunch]

Is Michael Hannon a fifth year senior? I wonder if he is pursuing a masters degree or an engineering degree like Jam mentioned.

Finance. Graduated from CDH in 2014, so I believe that would make him a fifth year. Not sure about the masters side of things.

It's certainly not unheard of, but it's not a given in D3 if you are paying your own way.

My understanding is that only undergrads are allowed to play in the MIAC.

[bball1122]

That's correct.  Once you've graduated, you can no longer compete (at least in basketball).   No grad students allowed.

[Smitty Oom]

Yeah I was curious if that is the case, feel like I have heard that rule before. Thanks for the info guys.

[faunch]

That's correct.  Once you've graduated, you can no longer compete (at least in basketball).   No grad students allowed.

I believe it's the case in all sports. I know of qb that was at UMD and was interested in SJU and U$T and was close to earning his undergraduate degree. He was about a year from graduation and had about 3 years of eligibility left. He ended up at UWEC.

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

An exciting night of MIAC hoops, with an OT, a near OT and no game decided by more than 9 points. Augsburg and Bethel officially locked up berths in the upcoming MIAC Playoffs, joining UST and SJU in the playoff field. Despite losing, St. Olaf clinched at worst a tie for sixth.

Congrats to Coach Abe & the Scots for a gritty hard-fought OT win over the Cobbers in the Leonard Center. Also a nice job by Hamline bouncing back from Saturday's thundering loss to beat SMU by three on a triple by the aptly named Trey Prince with 6 ticks left. The win keeps the Pipers playoff hopes (barely) alive. Bethel ground out a 73-64 win at St Olaf, moving the Royals into a tie for third with Augsburg. The Auggies fell by nine at Collegeville. And St. Thomas moved closer the its 13th MIAC title in 14 years. They stormed back from a 10-point deficit in the second half to defeat GAC 74-66 in a nearly empty Lund Center. UST rode the strength of its "Lake Connection" with four players whose home town is in the Lake Conference posting double-digit scoring, led by Ryan Lindbergh's 17 and Riley Miller's 13.  The win locked up a top-two finish for the Toms and assured them of a bye in the quarterfinals.

[Drake Palmer]

Mose - Based on the timing of your post, I gather you didn't make the drive down to St. Peter tonight for the basketball game.  Can't say that I blame you.  The ice on the side streets, sidewalks, and parking lots were treacherous.

I ended up doing like you, and watched from the comforts of home, and I did the MIAC version of the March Madness whip around, and toggled webcasts between SJU-AUG, Bethel -STO, and UST – GAC.

The Johnnies' size & a solid game from David Stokman (24 pts) finally put away the pesky Augsburg team in the second half as they won 82-71.  Interestingly, at various points in the first half the Jays had 6-8 Lucas Walford guarding Augsburg 6-3 Booker Coplin.  Walford did a credible job, but Coplin still went off for 37pts!

The Bethel – St Olaf game, and UST – Gustavus games both had similar outcomes as the road team won.  Bethel was up by four at halftime against STO, but the Oles got out to a 4-6 pt lead midway through the second half, only to have some timely 3 pointers by the Royals chase the Oles down, eventually reclaim the lead, and win the game, 73-64.  I said this the other day, but the Royals look like a team starting to peak at the right time. Based on a handful of games, I would say Bethel's team MVP must be Granger Kinglund. And Hudson Urbanus must be starting to gather some coaches' attention as a potential MIAC Sixth Man of the Year award. He had another strong showing and ended up with 18 pts, 7-8 FGA, 4-5 3FGA, 3 rebs, 2 assists. Just the name alone should garner some attention. 

Down in St. Peter, the Tommies had a 4 pt lead at halftime over Gustavus, but the Gusties stormed quickly out of the gates, went on a big run and were up 55-43 with 10:12 left in the second half.  I then started to watch this game more closely to see if Gustavus could spring the upset, but slowly the UST baby-faced killers 2.0 went on their own run.  UST ended up outscoring Gustavus 31-11 over the last 9 minutes of the game!  Gustavus last led 60-59 at the 5:27 mark, and then the youngsters started to make their move. Mose, you were impressed with the Lake conference connection, but I was favorably impressed with their youth. During crunch time they had 2 FY, Riley Miller and Anders Nelson, 2 SO, Burt Hedstrom & Ryan Lindberg, and 1 SR, Michael Hannon on the floor.  Solid, swarming defense, a couple of big treys from Miller & Lindberg, a nice reverse left-handed layup from Nelson, and clutch FT shooting down the stretch sealed a 74-66 win. This win came despite being pounded on the glass. Gusties had 41 rebs to 24 rebs by the Tommies.

[jamtod]

All I can add is some notes from the boxscore as I was celebrating one child's birthday and taking another to urgent care tonight for pink eye.
Connor Bair played 22 minutes, so hopefully healthy? Not a huge scoring impact with 5 points.
And the new transfer big guy didn't see the floor.

[txg]

Statistic: last year St. Olaf had assists on about 67% of their field goals.  This year it is about 50%.

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

DP- I wasn't so much impressed by the fact that those four young guns hail from Lake Conference communities as I was pointing out the the oddity of a MIAC program with 4 strong players from the same HS conference, particularly a league that sends a lot of grads to play D1 or D2, Also, UST's three deepest runs ever in the NCAAs have all come with a Lake Conference boy at the point- Nicolai, DeBerg and Schaeffer. Add to that the fact that they are all first or second years (as you sagely point out) and the future looks sweet at Cretin & Summit.  [interesting anomaly-- UST has only 1 Cretin grad(5th year senor Michael Hannon) on the roster and 0 on the JV. I cant recall there being this few Raiders on a UST roster in decades]

Jam--Bair seemed fine, just not overly effective and the Tommies struggled in the paint all night, as Drake pointed out via the rebound margin. (credit to the GAC defense on that). Rader isn't a part of the 10-man rotation at this point, but I expect big things from him the next 3 years as well.

Question of the week--- Can Concordia bounce back from losing to Mac and knock of SJ2 Wednesday? Not likely, but if they don't pull that off, I don't see the Cobbers grabbing the 6th seat at the banquet table.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Here are the first rankings for the men this season: https://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2019/02/men-regional-rankings-first

[jamtod]

Just witnessed the live stream of Stokman knocking down a 3 with 1 second to go for the Johnnies to win by 1 at Concordia. I was nearly prepared to see SJU drop another.