MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Willy Wonka]

I have a post on the WIAC board to the effect that Augsburg, on the strength of their outstanding performance in the second half last night, will challenge for the top of the MIAC. (I say that without much knowledge of the overall strength of the league.)

I also think RF will give the Tommies all they can handle Tuesday night--if the Falcons play up to their first half performance last night.

Assuming work doesn't pop up again, I'll be making the trek over to RF on Tuesday. I'm interested to see the Tommies play.

As for Bethel...we've never been able to tell anything about the team from its nonconference games. This may be the first year we CAN draw some conclusions about the Royals, and none of them are good.

The tourney "win" (everyone was a loser than night) might have been the most embarrassing thing a MIAC team has been involved in this decade — including Mac's winless season — and the loss the next day certainly doesn't help their cause. I don't care for the Royals much, but even I'm a little ashamed for them right now...

[Drake Palmer]

I have a post on the WIAC board to the effect that Augsburg, on the strength of their outstanding performance in the second half last night, will challenge for the top of the MIAC. (I say that without much knowledge of the overall strength of the league.)

I also think RF will give the Tommies all they can handle Tuesday night--if the Falcons play up to their first half performance last night.

Fred – in the MIAC preseason coaches' poll, Augsburg was picked to finish 6th, or the last playoff spot.   Opinions on the board vary quite a bit, but I believe the majority of posters (less a few rabid Hamline fans  ) would pick Augsburg to finish in a playoff spot ranging anywhere from 2nd to 6th.  One key addition was the return of 5th year senior guard, David Olson.  If they selected an MVP or All-Tourney team at Crown this weekend, I would think Olson would have been selected.  He was the leading scorer in both games & averaged a nice 20.5ppg.   Their backcourt is arguably one of the top 2 or 3 in the MIAC with All Conference PG Jon Cassens, Olson & Ben Flavin.  Depth in the frontcourt or lack of bulk & rebounding could be their undoing. All in all it sounds like a good game between Augsburg & UWRF.

If I'm a Tommie fan, the Tuesday night against River Falls would make me very nervous.  UST has a long bus trip back home from Ohio today & are coming off what I'm guessing would have been 2 emotionally draining games in the Wooster tourney.  But did you happen to catch the score of the UST & Wooster game in the final?  UST beat 9th ranked Wooster 84-53.  I don't know about anybody else, but I was pleasantly surprised & even shocked by that score.

So as a MIAC fan, I'm a little less worried about the UST UWRF game, but worried nonetheless.  These 2 teams seem to always play each other tough in a nailbiter, a topsy turvy OT game, or a mud wrassling type match with shooting % hovering in the teens.  I think last year's game was one of the mud wrassling types. In any event it should be a fun game – we might even get to see 2 high caliber PGs lock horns with Jontae K. & Tyler Nicolai. It could be worth the $2.00 in gas, 5 or 6 game ticket, bag of popcorn & a pop.

*****

247- That was Karmic payback for the night before.  

Seriously, I think it was a case of growing pains with the Bethel Royals.  They'll be competitive – but I still don't see how one of the coaches could have given them a first place vote.  Bethel had 4 years of excellence with Tim Madson, Cory Laugen & crew, so it's going to take some time for the new players to adjust.  Having said that, based on what I saw from their guard play last night, they'll need to accelerate the learning curve.  Teams such as Augsburg, UST, SJU & Carleton will be getting up in their faces.  

It'll will be interesting to see how they use newcomer Taylor Hall's talents.  The 6-7 forward is certainly a gifted player, but was not the physical presence I thought he might be in the paint.  The last 5 minutes of the game he wasn't even on the floor, but the season is still early. 6-5 Zac Mathson gets the player who most resembles the Cobbs' John Fraase award.  He's got a similar build & motor, & wears the same type of baggy t-shirt underneath his jersey.  Nice scrappy hustler.

[fredfalcon]

Drake P.--I agree that Olson would probably have been chosen MVP, but mainly because Augsburg won the tourney. He was not any more outstanding than JK. I also agree that the potential P.G. matchup Tuesday will be interesting. The Tommy win over Wooster gives more credence to the high ranking UST
has.

I did have a qualifier in my prediction that RF would play UST tough:  RF must duplicate their performance against Augsburg, their first half performance, that is.

Ben Flavin (all 18 pts. in the second half) was the Falcon killer last night, but strong play by their two post guys was also important.

[VOJ]

You gotta love a bitter Johnnie broadcaster posting the night after his football season ends with a resounding thud after he'd been ridiculing any who dared opine that the SJU bandwagon could be defeated  

WW...I never said we wouldn't  lose that game, go back and check my posts leading up to the Coe game...I spent more time ridiculing USTTDT about his man crush on the Tommies while being a Johnnies fan, allegedly.  I also went into Iowa board and asked about Coe and how Central had handled them so easily, just looking for more information on the team we were playing.  I had spoken to the coaches and I looked at all the info available and knew it would be tough but thought the Johnnies D, Joe Boyle back and home field would be enough, did not see 6 TO's coming and two converted into TD's immediately...

I was also coming off two great performances by the SJU bball team...a tough OT loss to SCSU and a win, Smitty's 700th vs the Dragons...so I was dissapointed about football not bitter and happy about basketball and a hockey win over the Tommies for SJU...those comments about observations regarding the all decade team I made were a seperate incident.

[carletonsid]

Interesting story on the D3Hoops front page that involves some MIAC schools:

http://gazetteonline.com/blogs/diamonds-and-ice/2009/11/18/a-new-conference-for-cornell-coe-and-luther

Thoughts?

I can tell you this isn't happening. There was some chatter about this last spring, but it was just that--chatter. My sources in the IIAC tell me the new info (which really isn't new) is coming from the recently-fired Cornell football coach. Just doesn't make sense for Carleton to make all that extra travel, miss more class time and go to a less competitive conference when the Knights are holding their own, for the most part, in the MIAC.

[VOJ]

Interesting weekend for SJU as they travel to Oshkosh, Wi for a classic facing two WIAC teams...Eau Claire on Friday night and Oshkosh on Saturday afternoon...

After playing two tight games against DII teams last weekend SJU will be facing two of the upper division teams in the WIAC or are they middle of the road teams or lower?  Scouting reports please??  UWEC is 3-0 but really only one of the wins is quality @ Wartburg, while Oshkosh has split against neighbors St. Norbert's and Lawrence.

I know SJU wants to post some quality wins and continue to get experience for a young team...no seniors in the line up

[John Gleich]

Interesting weekend for SJU as they travel to Oshkosh, Wi for a classic facing two WIAC teams...Eau Claire on Friday night and Oshkosh on Saturday afternoon...

After playing two tight games against DII teams last weekend SJU will be facing two of the upper division teams in the WIAC or are they middle of the road teams or lower?  Scouting reports please??  UWEC is 3-0 but really only one of the wins is quality @ Wartburg, while Oshkosh has split against neighbors St. Norbert's and Lawrence.

I know SJU wants to post some quality wins and continue to get experience for a young team...no seniors in the line up

In terms of Oshkosh... they go as DJ Marsh goes.  They need someone (or several someones) to step up and play key rolls for them.  Their #24 preseason ranking is pretty funny... because they lost two all-conference players from last year's team and half of their scoring, rebounds, and assists returning came from one guy, Marsh.  But Marsh is really good and can take over games.  He's good enough to be able to beat ok teams (just beat Lawrence last week after losing the opener to St. Norbert.  SNC was the pick in the MWC this year and Lawrence isn't as good as they've been in years past).

EC is a bit of an enigma.  They were middle of the road last year and there seemed to be some turmoil in the program.  They lost their leading scorer and rebounder to graduation and then their second leading scorer quit the team earlier this year.  Things seemed up in the air... but then they drilled St. Scholastica by 40.  I know it's just St. Scholastica... but it seems like a team has to be somewhat together to be able to drub a team by that much.  Then they beat Concordia (WI) by 20.  Again, it's just Concordia (WI)... they were .500 last year, but they turned around and beat Bethany Lutheran (who?) by 20 themselves the next night (as an aside, Wartburg beat 'em by 42).  They (CUW) did beat D-II UW Parkside who, again, is not a world beater (picked 4th in the 5 team division of their 15 team conference)... but, all in all, if nothing else, it leads to interesting discussion (if not clear answers).  Wartburg looks like it was a good win (Wartburg is the preseason pick in the IIAC), but they're 1-2, with their other loss coming to Carleton, who is, from what I've read here, probably in the upper tier of the MIAC but won't contend for the title (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

If nothing else, it kind of gives us a gauge in terms of the conferences.  If Wartburg is tops in the IIAC, then this is a down year for Iowa.  The MWC doesn't have a really great team, and though Norbert is pretty good, they absolutely disintegrated lat the end of the year last year and couldn't make the NCAA tournament (started the year 17-1 and lost 5 of their last 7.  Ouch). 

The bottom line is neither of these teams are as good as Point.  They're both probably middle of the road WIAC teams, but I don't know where to slot them vs. La Crosse, River Falls, or Platteville.  They're probably both better than Superior and Stout and not as good as Point or Whitewater, but there's a pretty large discrepancy between those two groupings!

[PurpleReign]

It looks like coach Fritz is trying different lineups this evening currently have Healy, Kaiser, Nance, Peltier, and Pedretti in the game - his freshman and sophomores are getting a lot of playing time again.j

UST 54
WRF 46

[buf]

RF down 1 to UST with the ball 16sec left.

[buf]

UST escapes with a 72-71 win.  RF had 3 shots in the last 10sec to take the lead but missed all.

[PurpleReign]

Not a very strong finish by UST, let a 15 point slip away, and UST over RF 72-71.

[AO]

From what I could tell from tonight's Northwestern-MAC tilt (72-48 Northwestern), the Scots are improved but with St. Mary's showing improvement, they're going to have to schedule Crown more often to get into the win column.

[Gacman]

GAC pulls off another win in Storm lake 65-63. 3rd in a row down there and 4 out the last 5. The gusties started off 2-16 shooting but battled to only being down by two at half. Second half they came out a different team. The were up by as much as 13 I think with BU closing the gap at the end.

It looks like this is going to be another balanced scoring season for GAC with 9 players scoring and none scoring more than 10. Side note James Hill had 7 off the bench.

[Willy Wonka]

Hoping to get my blog back up and running later tonight, but I'll leave you with this prediction for now: Teddy Archer will NOT be starting by midseason and he will be completely out of the rotation by the postseason.

http://www.uwrf.edu/sports/MBasketball2009-2010/GAME4.HTM

[Gacman]

Wow........slow night. Any other scores from tonight?