MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Retired Old Rat]

Mac up 65-61 over the Johnnies.

The Big Lebowski is not giving the time.

Update: 12 minutes left

[TommieHoops4Life]

69-65 Johnnies 7:05 left

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Baby eagles taking the Tommies to double over time??  What is all that about??  

Augs played a nearly-flawless slow-down game, especially in the first half, which frustrated the Ts. Cassens, Krumweide & Scott in particular handled the slow-down and the ball well. Solaja looked awfully tough in the paint and played well -and smart - with 4 fouls. Major props to Augs-- they played about as well as you can and not get a W.

[miacwatchmen]

Johnnies defeated the Scots tonight 97-76. The game was neck and neck throughout the second half until Tyler Westman buried 3 straight threes to break it open He finished with a game high 23.  Abe was held to 4 in the first half but he regularly beat the Johnnie defenders to the basket in the second half and ended up with 19 and 10 assists!Conboy had 21 and 8 while shooting 8-23!. C. Schafer goes for 16 and 10, Leiser had 20, Ohme had 10 pts 6 rebs and 4 assists. Brink went for 13 and 8 in 29 minutes. Scots shoot 31 three's and make.....8. Liddell goes 1-8 from beyond.  Johnnies destroy the Scots on the boards 47-26.

Milestone:

Jim Smith, after tonights victory, is now the 2nd most winningest coach in D-3 History with 667 career victories.

[Nites]

From HAM website:

The Knights shot 74.1 percent in the first half to take a 23-point halftime lead and go on to a 91-68 win over the Pipers Monday night in Northfield, Minn.

The Knights (8-13, 7-9 in the MIAC) made 20-of-27 shots in the first half, including 8-of-13 from three-point range.

Tommy Drake scored 23 points on 7-of-10 shooting to lead six Knights in double figures. Drake made all four of his shot attempts in the first half - three from beyond the arc.

Hamline (7-15, 5-12), who were back in the playoff picture after winning two straight games, was led by Chad Rich's 15 points. Sophomore Jon DeRock, the reigning MIAC Men's Basketball Player of the Week, was held to 10 points.

Carleton is not 91 points good unless they play a team with the poorest defense in the league.

PI - What's the story on Thrasher?  Tough to win without him and Foster.

[Nites]

Conboy had 21 and 8 while shooting 8-23!.

Yeah, but at 4-8, he was hot from the line!

[TommieHoops4Life]

Hamline officially takes over for St. Mary's as the program that's in turmoil in the MIAC. I caught the second half of the Knights/Pipers (when it was already a 23-pt Carleton lead), and that program is going nowhere in a hurry. They basically played four guards and a forward because they lack a true center (Foster?) and they were so far down that they had to resort to jacking up shots from everywhere. Judging from seeing them as they left the locker room after, the players are more than happy for this season to be over, and to try and wipe the slate clean for next winter.

Interesting note on Phillips. He hits a three with about 5 mins to play to get his 999th career point. With about 3 mins to play, Kalland sets up a play for him to get 1,000, he comes well short on a jumper and Kalland pulls him. He got his chance for it, didn't make it and will now have to wait. Knights get the easy W, and after Wednesday's action, it sets up a very interesting matchup against Olaf on Saturday. Not only are they city rivals, but they're both in contention for a playoff spot and possibly a chance to end each other's season.

Not one bit worried about UST going to 2 OT at Augsburg. I don't care who the opponent is, road games in the MIAC are never easy. It's good for the Tommies to win a close game toward the end of the regular season, because once the playoffs start, they will all be close and the big players will need to step up and make plays. As far as Schnettler is concerned, his quick release and ability to come off the screen and be ready to shoot before he gets the ball make him the deadliest perimeter shooter in the country. But if I had to answer the question that's been on here about him, I'd say that Neal Anderson was the best pure shooter I ever saw in my days at UST. I remember watching him in warmups one game my senior year, and I think he made 23 straight 3-pointers. It was absolutely ridiculous. I'd want him or Buri to take the huge shot, Schnettler next. But if I had to be third to those two, I wouldn't be complaining.

[Willy Wonka]

A 2OT game and the Tommies get 5 points and 2 rebounds off the bench? Are they more three-dimensional than we claimed to this point, even with Keating a no-show tonight? And how does Dwyer only get 21 of 50 minutes? Was he that bad or did he get hurt?

Ike is my repeat MVP winner if I'm a voter. Hopefully he and Schnettler decide to take a night off Wednesday against my Gusties.

Depending on how things shake out, GAC could play at Car on Sat to end the season and then play host Mon in the playoff opener. Who does a situation like that favor: the high seed or the low seed?

[Gregory Sager]

Maniac- if UST wins the confernece and the MIAC playoffs, can the MIAC get two teams into the NCAA and what are SJU's chances of make the NCAA playoffs?

In the scenario you described, UST winning the regular season title & league tourney, chances could be very slim for the MIAC to qualify two teams for the NCAA tourney. However, one strong indicator of how our teams are doing will be this Wednesday 2/7/07 when the NCAA releases their first regional rankings.  Several of the reasons Carleton qualified for the NCAAs last year was because 1) they had a high regional ranking & 2) QOWI (Quality of Wins Index).  The NCAA looks at those criteria among 2-3 other factors when making their final tourney selections.

In D3, here's how the tourney breaks out:

There are 59 men's teams heading to the NCAA Tournament — 37 automatic bids (league winners), three Pool B bids which are set aside for teams not in those conferences, and 19 at-large bids for the teams remaining.

So out of 350+ men's D3 teams, you can see the competition can get pretty fierce for the remaining 19 spots.  These spots are filled by what the NCAA selection committee regards as the top 19 teams nationally.  Not necessarily "X" number of teams from each of the four regions, but arguably, the top remaining 19 teams after the automatic conference winners have been placed in the tourney field.

If he's not grieving too much from the loss of his Bears in the Super Bowl, our esteemed colleague Greg Sager of the CCIW board should be stopping by any day now to set us straight on any NCAA tourney discussions.  That, & start following the front page of the D3 hoops site.  In addition, there's usually a tourney message board that opens up in the next week or so that looks at the tourney from a national perspective.

I'm actually a Bills fan first and foremost, DP, although I was definitely rooting for the Bears. People across Chicagoland appear to be keeping warm during this arctic chill by burning Rex Grossman in effigy. I thought I saw some little girl toasting marshmallows over a roaring bonfire of navy blue #8 jerseys on the news last night.

St. John's has a stratospheric regional winning percentage of .895 (17-2). That's one of the top %s in all of D3. The MIAC is jam-packed with teams with losing regional records (seven out of your eleven teams are south of .500 in terms of regional record), and when you combine that with the fact that their only two non-conference regional games were against Minnesota-Morris (3-6 in region) you're looking at a pretty lackluster QOWI for the Johnnies. But SJU's regional winning percentage is so golden that it won't matter. The Johnnies could probably stumble two or three more times between now and Selection Sunday and it wouldn't make a difference. They're in like Flynn. Same goes for the Tommies and their sterling .909 regional winning percentage, should they happen to lose the MIAC tourney and need to get into the dance via the Pool C door.

To put this in perspective, keep in mind that of the 19 teams to get Pool C bids last season, the one with the lowest regional winning percentage (Illinois Wesleyan) had a .714 mark. That's how far above the minimum standards UST and SJU are at the moment.

In other words, barring some sort of catastrophic all-out collapse, you folks are looking at two MIAC teams in the big dance this March -- three, if some dark horse sneaks up and pilfers the MIAC tourney title from under the noses of the Johnnies and the Tommies.

[formercobber]

This is my first post after following this website for about 5 years.  Just one question: what's going on with my COBBERS??? 

Hopefully my boy JD can get on and fill me in!!!

Thanks.

[localcoach]

Nites - Tony Thrasher sustained an injury last week to his ankle I believe.  It sounds like he may be done for the rest of the season.   Tough way for him to finish what has been a superb sophomore campaign. 

[sumander]

Fins, Took a little while to get used to the new "monster" tires on the bandwagon. With some air pressure adjustments at half time they seemed to work just fine!   

Watchmen gave the Reader's Digest version of the game. Frank the Tank has a nice Game Story in the Times. Even that doesn't capture the flavor of the pivotal sequence in the game.

With the game still very much in doubt and the J's up 1 with 7:12 to go Westman curls off a screen near the top of the key and buries a 3! Hollander is called for a foul away from the ball which gives the ball back to the J's. Smith calls a 30 sec timeout. Out of the t.o. the J's run the very same play to set Westman up for another 3 and the J's are up 7. Lidell misses a long 3 at the other end. The johnnies come back and find Westman curling off a screen again for his third straight 3 and a 10 point lead!!! The last three was with 6:05 to go and took the wind out of Mac's sails. Mac pretty much was punching the clock after that. In the span of 1:07 Westman hits 3 consecutive threes, none of which were wide open looks.

It is amazing to me what a difference Abe makes to Mac. He sat once in the first half and once in the second half. They looked like lost sheep out there without Abe. They struggled in their half court offense. If Abe ever gets hurt or is in foul trouble MAC is in trouble. Conboy's game hasn't changed. Is he about the most one dimensional post in the MIAC? One dimensional being defined as only "playing" on one end of the floor.

J's out rebound the Scots 47-26, bench outscores the Scots 23-7! A hard fought win. It was nice to see the Johnnies display some killer instinct and deliver the knock out blow!

Tomcats have to be just a little concerned, Ike, Keating and Schnettler play 48, 47 & 50 minutes. Big game at GAC on Wednesday. GAC shoots +60%  and outrebounds CORD 30 - 15!

[piperinsider]

I second Local as Thrasher is likely done for two weeks (rest of season) with ankle sprain.

This is just sad:

The 98-point outburst for the Knights, who averaged a paltry 55.3 points during their four-game losing streak, was the most the Knights scored since the second game of the 2000-01 season, a 100-91 victory over Oakland City College in Hawaii. It was Carleton's highest scoring output against a MIAC foe since the Knights outscored Bethel, 111-104, on Feb. 12, 1996.

This is also sad:
The Pipers' starting five (Wiener, Babcock, Kujolic, Brake, DeRock) combined to score 25 points on 9-for-29 shooting.

[Nites]

Nites - Tony Thrasher sustained an injury last week to his ankle I believe.  It sounds like he may be done for the rest of the season.   Tough way for him to finish what has been a superb sophomore campaign. 

Thanks, Local and PI.  That's too bad.  He has had a very nice year.

[Drake Palmer]

Sum – that little curl you described is the same play I saw the Johnnies run with Westman against MAC down here in the cities.  Westman runs a pop off a down screen near the right block & snakes up around the top of the key.  For all of their classroom intelligence it sounds like the Scots haven't made the on-court adjustments to defend that play.  JK Scots.  Westman & the Js execute that play very nicely. (Although a team could cheat & send Westman's defender through the middle & force him back to his right).  I was listening to that sequence you described on the radio & knew that my chances of picking off Watch in the YNOT last night was slipping down the drain! Drat!   

You're also right about the Tommies' game last night.  If anyone else was at the game last night who can post, please chime in.  How does Keating only put up 5 shots in 47 minutes of play?  I listened to the last 3-4 minutes of regulation, along with the 2 OTS & I couldn't figure it out.  One of Keating's shots came on a putback of an offensive rebound, & the other shot sounded like a desperation heave of a trey he launched at the end of the 1st OT.  Otherwise, 3 shots??

Also what's up with the revolving door at PG again?  Dwyer looked very solid on Saturday in the game against Bethel & Tuma did a nice job of spelling him in relief, but Dwyer was definitely the starter.  Yet in last night's game, Tuma is playing pretty much both of the OT sessions.  Any explanations?  You hate to see an injury or lack of confidence in your starting PG as you're heading down the stretch drive of the season. 

I've seen the Dawgs or Baby Eagles as BET34 called them, play about half a dozen times this year & I never would have expected them to play the Tommies this close last night.  Tough loss, but good building block game for the Dawgs.

**************************************************

...
St. John's has a stratospheric regional winning percentage of .895 (17-2). That's one of the top %s in all of D3. The MIAC is jam-packed with teams with losing regional records (seven out of your eleven teams are south of .500 in terms of regional record), and when you combine that with the fact that their only two non-conference regional games were against Minnesota-Morris (3-6 in region) you're looking at a pretty lackluster QOWI for the Johnnies. But SJU's regional winning percentage is so golden that it won't matter.  (Nice line Greg!) The Johnnies could probably stumble two or three more times between now and Selection Sunday and it wouldn't make a difference. They're in like Flynn. Same goes for the Tommies and their sterling .909 regional winning percentage, should they happen to lose the MIAC tourney and need to get into the dance via the Pool C door.

To put this in perspective, keep in mind that of the 19 teams to get Pool C bids last season, the one with the lowest regional winning percentage (Illinois Wesleyan) had a .714 mark. That's how far above the minimum standards UST and SJU are at the moment.

In other words, barring some sort of catastrophic all-out collapse, you folks are looking at two MIAC teams in the big dance this March -- three, if some dark horse sneaks up and pilfers the MIAC tourney title from under the noses of the Johnnies and the Tommies.

Good news from the D3hoops Posting Sensei – Greg Sager! If Sensei Sager (not to be confused with Sensei Bryan Schnettler  ) sez we have a good shot, it's good. Now it sounds like we very well could get two teams, possibly 3 teams in the big dance – are you listening BG, BET34?   If that's the case, let's hope our teams are solid representatives of the league once they make the tourney.  Otherwise, I can just hear the whining from the CCIW, WIAC & others, "sheesh, all of our good teams keep beating each other up & we end up cannibalizing our regional rankings", etc. ad nauseum.
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TH4L – obviously the Pipes are in a rapid, downward spiral, but what are you hearing about the Redbirds?  I spoke with some people close to the SMU team, & they indicated that other than the unfortunate losses of Sapp & Alex Washington, the team was doing ok for a fairly young team & newer coach.