MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

UST opens strongm batters Oxy 82-61 behind 17 from Peter Leslie. Zach Reideman chips in a dozen as 12 guys scored....balanced offense, spread-out scoring:

http://www.oxyathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2011-12/boxscores/20111118_bwy5.xml

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Eyewitness report from Eagle Rock...

St. Thomas 82 Oxy 61

Nice crowd on a Friday night. UST led from start to finish. Peter Leslie hit 4 straight 3-balls to open the game for the Tommies. Oxy hung in there and trailed 36-27 at the half. UST opened the second half on a 12-3 run and it was 48-30 and game over.

St. Thomas is deep, and is like a machine with interchangeable parts. They didn't do anything spectacular. The Tommies ran a disciplined high-low offense, they moved the ball well, got open shots, and wore Oxy down. For the game UST shot 48% and was 9-for-19 on 3s. Leslie scored 17, Zach Riedeman was off the bench for 12, 3 guys scored 8, 2 guys had 7. You get the picture.

For Oxy, Jack Hanley had 22 on 6-for-18 and 10-for-10 FTs, and Sam Stapleton scored 16. The Tigers missed a lot of open 3s and were only 2-for-14 for the game. They're going to have to do a better job on the offensive boards; UST outrebounded them in the front court 13-7, and hard-working Jake Copithorne had 4 of the 7.

The game was called close. Quite a few fouls that weren't fouls called on both sides. DeShun McCoy got the worst of it. He had a couple of clean blocks that were called fouls, and fouled out in only 17 minutes of play.

St. Thomas is at Pomona tonight. Oxy's at Pacifica in beautiful Moreno Valley on the 23rd.

OxyBob

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

congrats to St Thomas' Ben Sathre on winning the individual champiionship!  He is just the second UST runner to win the title and the 2nd MIAC runner to ever win it (Carleton had a 2-time winner in the 1970s when it was not an MIAC member)

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

ok, so its a 1 man board 

The defending national champs won their 14th in a row, and return home from SoCal 2-0 after a thirlling 82-79 2 OT win over Pomona-Pizer:
http://pe.pomona.edu/sports/mbkb/2011-12/boxscores/20111119_ig7s.xml

[carletonsid]

Just making sure you're up on the latest D3 Hoops news.

Grinnell player break D-III scoring record

Thoughts? I guess one knows when you play Grinnell that it likes to put up large numbers. I've met Coach Arseneault the elder as our golf teams have played against each other and he's a very nice man, but does anyone disagree with this tactic? I'm not sure how I feel. Great deal for the kid, but feeding your best player possession after possession when you're up by 50 seems to be pouring it on a bit. Have to think any number of MIAC studs could do something similar if his coach allowed against lower-level D3 opponents, but what's the point?

[John Gleich]

Just making sure you're up on the latest D3 Hoops news.

Grinnell player break D-III scoring record

Thoughts? I guess one knows when you play Grinnell that it likes to put up large numbers. I've met Coach Arseneault the elder as our golf teams have played against each other and he's a very nice man, but does anyone disagree with this tactic? I'm not sure how I feel. Great deal for the kid, but feeding your best player possession after possession when you're up by 50 seems to be pouring it on a bit. Have to think any number of MIAC studs could do something similar if his coach allowed against lower-level D3 opponents, but what's the point?

You're spot on.  Titan Q reported on the MWC page that he was at a golf outing a few weeks ago, and there was a Grinnell alum there who said that Coach A told some boosters at a local event something to the effect that "It's been a long time since we set an individual record, so we're going to try to have a guy score 100 points in our first game."

For a program that is allegedly running the system under the guise of maximum participation, that sure doesn't seem to be what they were trying to do here!  There were 8 players who played less than 10 minutes in a 50 point game and 5 who played 6 minutes or less!

I was a part of a lot of one-sided games in my career (always on the good end) and even though we were up a lot, we tried our best to help our opponents keep their dignity.  That certainly doesn't appear to have been the case for Grinnell...

[papahoops]

I see Bethel gave UWRF a surprisingly good battle last night losing 65-62. Based on the results of that game, I have either overestimated the strength of UWRF's squad or not given Bethel enough credit. As Drake noted in an earlier game, I noticed another unimpressive stat line for Chris Palmer (11 min, 2 points, 2 boards). Did the weakr front court talent he played with at SMU make him look that much better?? I suspect his performance has dropped off for whatever reason, as the player we saw last year should command more than 11 minutes on a team only beating Bethel by 3 With 2 personal fouls in 11 minutes, Mose will be pleased to see Palmer must still be playing an aggressive style

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Papa- I was at friday night's double header at BU. A few observations:

(1) UWRF has a lot of talented players but does not pay well together. Could be early season adjustment, could be a lack of cohesiveness, could just be a bad night. I'll see more on Tuesday.

(2) Greg Gorton does a good job with a bunch of small Iowans at Loras. His team did everything well vs UWRF, except their shooting was horribly inaccurate. Good shots just wouldnt fall for them. If they had, Loras would have upset UWRF.

(3) Bethel is very, very bad. It shocks me how far the once-proud pgram has sunk. It was just 5 seasons ago that the Royals were a perennial power in the MIAC. They sruggled every step of the way against a very small, soft Bethany Lutheran team. The first OT was a 1-1 thriller. Taylor Hall tried played every position, looked outmatched in nearly all of them. I think his best postion was "sitting".  The Royals used to pack the house for home games, yet the gym was 2/3 full at most. The Bethany bench players served as cheerleaders and made as much noise as the BU student section. Even the program (one sheet with th rosters on one side) reflected the decline of the once-mighty Royals-- they listed the opponent as "Bethel Lutheran College" (not Bethany)

[HarryDH]

I was also in attendance on Friday night over at Bethel and can concur with your assessment.  As a Bethel alum who watched many exciting games in that gym during the early 2000's it is very frustrating to watch the deteriorating skill.  There appears to be no discernible offense being played on a consistent basis.  It's give the ball to Bah or Hall and pray they can break their guy down.  No one moves, there are very few screens being set, and overall poor play.  Hall should be able to provide great offense and defense based on size and athleticism, but it doesn't appear he cares much about being out there.  It is quite unfortunate.

As far as UWRF goes I heard that Palmer doesn't have a great grasp of the offense which is much of the reason he isn't playing many minutes.  He was definitely their best shooter off the bench Friday night, but the shots didn't always come in what you might expect to be the rhythm of the offense.  He just knocked down a couple threes standing at the wing.  They could use him getting in sync, because from what I saw he's definitely more offensively talented than several of the guys that were getting more minutes.

[Falcons04]

I was at Bethel as well on Friday, and as a UWRF fan, I am hoping that the lack of cohesiveness is an early season adjustment that can be attributed to losing a 4 year starter at point guard.

In regard to Chris Palmer, I would agree with the comments on his grasp of the offense......although that is just my own observation.  There were several times in Friday's game where the Falcons coach was yelling plays to him from the bench and a few times he looked confused with his positioning/responsibilities.  There were also a number of times I saw him shaking his head in what looked to be frustration.  Not sure if that's him being tough on himself or just not quite being in sync yet.  Based on his scoring so far in limited minutes, I'm hoping he can fit in and pick up playing time as the year goes on. 

Tuesday night in RF against UST should be a good indicator of how the Falcons stack up.  I'm interested to hear from MIAC posters who might be there on their assessment of this year's team. 

[stormyfuture]

I'll be at the game tomorrow night, and looking forward to an exciting game

[fredfalcon]

On the basis of Chris Palmer's stats a year ago, people would assumed that he could easily move into the starting lineup and continue where he left off. But now I see that he has a tough challenge in moving into a new team/league. The Falcons return, essentially, 5 starters, four from last year and one from two years ago, and were a 20-8 team which lost to UST by 5 at St. Thomas.

In the early part of the season, he coach has to go with those he knows can get the job done. To judge CP on his performance vs. Bethel is to look with too narrow a perspective. The night before he had 16 pts. in 14 minutes.

If CP has patience, learns the offense better, and elevates his D, he'll increase his minutes. One situation he should always be in is on the court late, when the other team is fouling and playing from behind. He already is the best free thrower on the team, but was not in at the end in either game at Bethel. I think he finished as the best free thrower in the MIAC last year.

[Drake Palmer]

Fellas - cmon, where are the posts??  I've been busy as a dog & was hoping to see something to break up the drudgery of work but nothing, nada, zippo?   Sad. 

Interesting games on tap tonight

Hamline @ UW Eau Claire
UST @ UW River Falls (a match up of top 25 teams)
UW Stevens Point @ SJU
Bethel @ Buena Vista
Concordia @ MN Moorhead

And in the sympathy games

Augsburg @ North Central Bible (Mpls version) (MC Polta  - don't hurt them)
Macalester @ Northwestern (cmon Scots, prove me wrong)

I was originally planning on getting over to River Falls tonight, but this work thing is telling me to get some more work done.  Hopefully, we'll be able to catch the game on the net or someone will be able to provide a detailed summary of the game.

It will also be interesting to see how the Point-Johnnie game plays out.

I'll be by my computer waiting for updates or posts later tonight. 

[carletonsid]

Fellas - cmon, where are the posts??  I've been busy as a dog & was hoping to see something to break up the drudgery of work but nothing, nada, zippo?   Sad. 

Interesting games on tap tonight

Hamline @ UW Eau Claire
UST @ UW River Falls (a match up of top 25 teams)
UW Stevens Point @ SJU
Bethel @ Buena Vista
Concordia @ MN Moorhead

And in the sympathy games

Augsburg @ North Central Bible (Mpls version) (MC Polta  - don't hurt them)
Macalester @ Northwestern (cmon Scots, prove me wrong)

I was originally planning on getting over to River Falls tonight, but this work thing is telling me to get some more work done.  Hopefully, we'll be able to catch the game on the net or someone will be able to provide a detailed summary of the game.

It will also be interesting to see how the Point-Johnnie game plays out.

I'll be by my computer waiting for updates or posts later tonight. 

Yeah, I agree. Was hoping someone would chime in on the Oles' loss down at Luther last night. Tough in-region loss to sustain. Looked like Neville battled foul trouble and the Oles didn't get much production outside of Fong.

Knights headed to Chicago today. Hoping for some improvement over Game 1.

[miacsuperfan]

wow, crazy night in the miac/wiac/iiac.   ust gets drubbed at u-rf, hamline's bench outscores it's starters in losing by two to uw-eau claire on the road, the royals dominate the beavers at buena vista for virtually the entire game and get a nice win on the road, and the home johnnies dump nationally ranked uw-sp in a great game in the woods.       other than the egg laid by the toms, not a bad night at the office!!