MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[OldUMACFAN]

scary thought: northwestern going postal from the arc and beating st. thomas this week.   think it might be a bit difficult to listen to AO for awhile?   

don't think we are going to have to worry about it.

Don't jinx us. I didn't think we'd have to worry about Carroll in 2007 but they went postal from the arc.

AGH!  NEVER mention that game again!   

UST's perimeter defense is much better than in 2007. No chance this happens. UST by 30.

LOL by 30.  NWern has some very good guards, Lecheler and Chitwood.  Anyways, UST wins but I think Nwern will hold it much closer than you think.  The problem is NWErn has no bigs..St wins 68 56..in a semi competitive game..

[Titan Q]

A look at probable starters for the 4 teams in the St. Thomas regional...

http://www.iwuhoops.com/

[Drake Palmer]

Courtesy of the CCIW board:

Here's a look at Efficiency ratings for the IWU pod at St. Thomas.

EFF ratings are points per 100 possessions.


Offense

St. Thomas	113.9
Northwestern	109.8
UW River Falls	108.4
Illinois Wesleyan	108.3

Offensively St. Thomas is among the top teams in the D3 tournament, the other 3 are right around or maybe slightly above average.

Defense

UW River Falls	95.0
St. Thomas	97.7
Northwestern	98.2
Illinois Wesleyan	99.4

Defensively all 4 teams appear to be in the average category when compared to the rest of the D3 field.

Combined

St. Thomas	216.1
UW River Falls	213.4
Northwestern	211.6
Illinois Wesleyan	208.9

These kinds of ratings are really only useful when you take into account schedule strength.  Masseyratings.com has its faults but its really all we have.

Schedule played ratings

UW River Falls	#2
St. Thomas	#4
Illinois Wesleyan	#53
Northwestern	#337

If the D3 tournament were a properly seeded national tournament with 4 regions like the D1 tournament.  I think St. Thomas would be a 2 seed somewhere, and UWRF probably 4 or 5.  IWU would figure to be around a 7, 8 or 9 seed and Northwestern would be in the 12, 13, 14 range.


While it looks like Northwestern can compete with these teams from an efficiency point of view, they have played no where near the difficult schedules the other 3 teams have faced.  St. Thomas should be a pretty solid favorite.  UWRF looks like a  favorite over IWU, with St. Thomas being the overall favorite.

Northwestern plays at a little faster pace than the other 3, with St. Thomas only a couple possessions behind.  IWU and UWRF play at nearly the same pace, so this shouldn't be a clash of styles.  The total difference from NW to IWU/UWRF is only 8 possessions per game or so.

[TheSuperfan]

Just as a MIAC (and Piper) plug, Carl Hipp has been nominated to be on the DIII NABC All-Star game. However, to get in for sure, he needs votes from the fans. If interested and want to support Hipp, go to www.d3hoops.com TODAY and vote for (Carl Hipp, Hamline) in the Reader's Poll in the middle of the page.  The top 2 fan picks qualify for the game.

IMO, it would be great to have a representative from the MIAC at the All-Star Game, so please give our big man a vote!

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Just as a MIAC (and Piper) plug, Carl Hipp has been nominated to be on the DIII NABC All-Star game. However, to get in for sure, he needs votes from the fans. If interested and want to support Hipp, go to www.d3hoops.com TODAY and vote for (Carl Hipp, Hamline) in the Reader's Poll in the middle of the page.  The top 2 fan picks qualify for the game.

IMO, it would be great to have a representative from the MIAC at the All-Star Game, so please give our big man a vote!

and there isnt a more deserving player or better representative of the MIAC than Mr Hipp. He got my vote...now if only this was like CHI and you could vote early and often 

[Drake Palmer]

Let's see if I can rile up any Tommie boosters hanging around the board. 

The following is what D3Hoops had to say about the "Augustana Bracket"

The best 8-9 game: UW-River Falls vs. Illinois Wesleyan. First off, this matchup is opposite the best 1-16 matchup in this bracket. Or 1-15, as it were. But we also have a whole three-team pod of 8-9 games in Texas. But I like UW-River Falls vs. Illinois Wesleyan because it's just a great matchup of runners-up in two of Division III's power conferences.

What do we make of this game? You could throw a blanket over the three Texas teams. That's two games that are complete and utter toss-ups.

Most likely to disappoint: St. Thomas. This might be a matter of me being too familiar with the Tommies but having seen them take commanding leads in a few home games against inferior teams and then cough those leads up, well, it's not a good indicator of NCAA Tournament success.

Surprise: Hanover, perhaps? I don't see a road team outside of Texas winning two games to advance, although the UWRF-IWU winner has potential, as you might gather from my St. Thomas pick above. Hanover could win the one, anyway, but that's a toss-up game to begin with.

Champion: Of the aforementioned big three teams in this quadrant, only one is playing better than it did at the beginning of the season. That's UW-Stevens Point. Even without Dan Tillema, I like the team's depth and the all-around package. Jerrel Harris has really stepped up his game over the course of the season at point guard to the point that nobody is talking about the team missing Jared Jenkins.

Except I just mentioned it, of course.

They've got a point. I wonder if Pat is related to TH4L?

For more coverage...

[tommiegun]

Looking at the bracket, that makes sense.  The Tommies have a tough pod, the Texas bracket doesn't have any good teams so no one can disappoint, Augie has a fairly easy pod, and it wouldn't really be fair to call Stevens Point an underachiever when they are playing away from home.  That said, go Tommies, prove 'em wrong!

[hoopsup]

Carl Hipp was voted in to play in the NABC All-Star D3 game, congratulations to the Big Guy!  Carl is very well deserving of this award.  Nice work Carl!

[larry_u]

Having seen both UWSP and St Thomas play recently, I agree with Pat.  At least the last few weeks Point has been never letting their foot off the gas...they get that early 15 point lead and maintain it or expand it through the later parts of the game.

UST with the Hamline and Gustavus games either let their opponent up early and crawled back, or went up big and then saw their led shrink drastically in a short period of time.


I think UST has the talent to compete with Point assuming they both get there next weekend.  Its just whether they have that killer mentality that they will need to finish off the job.

[Drake Palmer]

Having seen both UWSP and St Thomas play recently, I agree with Pat.  At least the last few weeks Point has been never letting their foot off the gas...they get that early 15 point lead and maintain it or expand it through the later parts of the game.

UST with the Hamline and Gustavus games either let their opponent up early and crawled back, or went up big and then saw their led shrink drastically in a short period of time.


I think UST has the talent to compete with Point assuming they both get there next weekend.  Its just whether they have that killer mentality that they will need to finish off the job.

I would tend to agree with both assessments.  UST "should"    take of Northwestern & the real test will be tomorrow against IWU or UWRF.

[bigtime]

Ok. I'm not over the Carleton snub yet and want to say something before the games start tomorrow.
Somebody give one good explanation why IW is playing here instead of CAR?  

CAR was this year's Top-seed, conference title winners at 17-3, compared to IWU third place finish at 9-5.

It sounds like the word is that IWU resurged after some injuries this year.  The same situation was true about CAR at the start of the season.  They started 0-3 to open the season, mainly due to Jonker's knee injury and lack of playing time. Jonker was a beast once he worked past the injuries.  That St. Thomas loss should have been a CAR win, but he sprained his ankle at 4 mins in, went 0-6 for the game ,with 1 pt.  Different game if he was not hurt.  
 
But comparing both teams down the stretch (Jan/Feb),
   
   IWU  was  9-5 , with 1-1 in conference playoffs
   CAR  was 14-3,  with 0-1 in conference playoffs

Carleton was 11-1 late in the season until the last loss in the Semi-s. This looks stronger to me than IW's so called improved play.   It looks like Carleton had the edge on this team and should be playing in St. Paul.

It looks like the NCAA didn't do their homework or really don't know the competition level in the MIAC.

[buf]

Ok. I'm not over the Carleton snub yet and want to say something before the games start tomorrow.
Somebody give one good explanation why IW is playing here instead of CAR?  

CAR was this year's Top-seed, conference title winners at 17-3, compared to IWU third place finish at 9-5.

It sounds like the word is that IWU resurged after some injuries this year.  The same situation was true about CAR at the start of the season.  They started 0-3 to open the season, mainly due to Jonker's knee injury and lack of playing time. Jonker was a beast once he worked past the injuries.  That St. Thomas loss should have been a CAR win, but he sprained his ankle at 4 mins in, went 0-6 for the game ,with 1 pt.  Different game if he was not hurt.  
 
But comparing both teams down the stretch (Jan/Feb),
   
   IWU  was  9-5 , with 1-1 in conference playoffs
   CAR  was 14-3,  with 0-1 in conference playoffs

Carleton was 11-1 late in the season until the last loss in the Semi-s. This looks stronger to me than IW's so called improved play.   It looks like Carleton had the edge on this team and should be playing in St. Paul.

It looks like the NCAA didn't do their homework or really don't know the competition level in the MIAC.

Record down the stretch doesn't matter.  With that said, I also am not sure why Carleton got passed up based on the selection criteria.

IWU leading at the half, 44-38 over RF

[buf]

Uh-oh!  You MIACers better hope they turn things around in the 2nd half.  Otherwise, you will all have to feel the wrath of AO.

Half

NW 32
STU 30

[buf]

STU pulls away at the end to win 70-60.  Once STU turned up the pressure, Northwestern kept turning it over and over.

[AO]

Let me first say that this is exactly what Northwestern had in mind when deciding to switch from NAIA to NCAAD3.  Great basketball atmosphere and a great game to match it.  NWC even managed to bring a pretty good student section despite being on spring break.

As for the game, hats off to the the Tommies for bringing it from the tip.  They clearly didn't listen to the nonsense about being able to easily handle Northwestern as their hustle was probably the difference tonight. 

Best of luck to UST through the rest of the tourney.