MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[BETHEL34]

Nites, I wouldn't say they got lucky??  They shoot like crap from down town and find away to pull out a 6 point victory against a very bad team.   I don't see how that is lucky?  Sure, they have a little, live by the three die by the three in them, but what team that has great three point shooters doesn't shoot them.  When playing a bad team, you are going to get a lot of open looks outside the arc.  And if you have great shooters, they are never going to pass up a wide open look from outside.  So sure, through these first four games for Bethel, they have put up around the 25 to 30 three's a game.  But they all have been against crappy teams with crappy defenses.  So of course they are going to put up a lot of threes.  But, I do believe once they start playing MIAC teams now, they will utilize the big men more, they will have to because they won't be getting the open looks from the outside like they have been so far.  My guess against Ham on Sat, they will put up around 20 3's.

[Nites]

Nites, I wouldn't say they got lucky??  They shoot like crap from down town and find away to pull out a 6 point victory against a very bad team.   I don't see how that is lucky?  Sure, they have a little, live by the three die by the three in them, but what team that has great three point shooters doesn't shoot them.

B34 - By "lucky" I only meant that they were fortunate that they were playing a bad team on a night when they couldn't get the 3's to drop.  I watched the Dallas Mavericks blow a 20 point 4th quarter lead to the Timberwolves the other night primarily because the Mavs settled for 3 pointers and outside J's when the T-Wolves went into a zone and the Mavs went ice cold, even missing a number of uncontested 3's.  The Mavs were 0-7 from 3 point land in the 4th quarter.  They finally woke up in the nick of time and went inside for a couple of buckets after the T-Wolves tied the score.  The Mavs were lucky/fortunate that their poor decisions (i.e., continuing to shoot the 3 after they went cold) didn't cost them the victory.

Like the Mavs, the Royals appear to be a skilled team.  But also, like the Mavs, they need to learn when to move off the 3 point line and utilize their other strengths.  I suspect that the Crown game was a good learning experience for Bethel.  There will be days that Bethel gets good outside looks against good teams as well.  If they can't knock those shots down on those days, they likely will need to look inside a little sooner as a 4-24 performance from outside the arc may result in a blowout.  I suspect that Bethel went inside down the stretch to put Crown away.  If so, that's a good thing. 

The Royals will be a fun team to follow this year.  I'll be interested to see how they fare once the conference season starts.

[Drake Palmer]

Sorry Bet34 - I have to agree with Nites as well, Bethel indeed was very lucky to pull out the win.  Crown isn't a very large team.  They have one nice, beefy post player that goes about 6-5 240, otherwise everyone else is around 6 feet.  My guess is that Crown knew that they couldn't match up with Bethel on size, and went zone after a few mismatches against Moberg in the middle.  Moberg scored 13 in the first half, but only had 3 points after the break for 16 total points.

Out on the wing it looks like Crown re-painted the 3-point line & renamed it the Arctic Circle,    because that was a frigid shooting exhibit the Royals put on last night.  3-16 on treys in the first half & 1-8 in the 2nd half for an ice like 16.7% 3 pt. %. The overall shooting % wasn't that much better as Bethel shot 35.6% from the field.

Just because you have an open look on the perimeter doesn't necessarily mean that's the best shot to take. You could have an easier, higher % open shot under the basket by one of your biggs, or a wing cutting through the lane for an easy lay up.  How do you think the Gusties have been so successful for these many years?

Fortunately for the Royals, they had Steve Strom who scored 10 of his 12 points after the break.  I'm guessing he was working out of the short corner against the Crown zone & slashing to the cup. Again, higher percentage shots.

Finally, I also disagree (respectfully of course  ) with your opinion that once conference play starts you'll start using your biggs more.  These non-conference games are what you should be using to set the tone & style of play for the season.  Traditionally the Royals have been a jump shooting team & to change that mindset doesn't happen over night.

[BETHEL34]

Point taken on it being a lucky win.  Against a better team, those stats will most always lead to a notch in the loss collum.  But if you look at the game log, Bethel only shot 1 three in the last 6 mins, and only 3 in the last 10 mins.  So they were able to change their strategy in the last 10 mins and  understood that they needed to get the points in the paint. 

DP, I understand that passing up an open three for a better shot later in the clock is vital to winning a lot of the time.  I just was trying to point out that 1, playing a bad team you get a lot of open looks, especially if they are in a zone.  And 2, Bethel hasn't had an inside presence like this in a long time.  Sure, we had Jacobs a couple yrs back, and then Robertson before him.  But we never have had the size of two big men like Moberg and Cook that can both be dominant inside the paint. 

As I agree that your non-conference games are where you set the tone and style for you team.  I also disagree (also respectfully ) that they will look and play exactly the same against conference apponents.  Bethel hasn't played a team yet that can compare to an upper half miac squad.  They won't be able to run and gun and get wide open 3's like they have been doing in these first four games.  A lot of times with a young team, like Bethel has this year, the defense of the opposing team dictates a lot of how you play the game.  Sure Bethel will always look to push the ball as fast as they can this year, but playing in the MIAC they will be forced to use more of their half court set and pound it down low.

Call it wishful thinking if you like.   But I think Bethel's bigs this year are going to be used more then they have ever been used in the pass.  And the type of ball you will see from them durring the conference season, most of the time will not be the run and gun shoot up any shot you see type offense.

[Willy Wonka]

You guys will LOVE Dave Campbell's column calling for Monson's head in tomorrow's paper.

[d3bballfollower]

Bet34- I agree with you that Bethel will try to pound it into their bigs more during MIAC play I still think that how Madson, Laugen, Strom, etc play will be how the Royals play...Meadowcroft and Moberg will get theirs, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Bethel putting up 30-35 3's in a game, especially against a team like Hamline or a team like UST that has a significant post presence, but is weaker on the perimeter...I hope for BU's sake though that they don't have another 4-24 shooting night because they won't survive against the top 8 teams in the MIAC probably...if Bethel shoots 30+ percent from 3 in a game they will probably win just because of the number of 3's they take...Meadowcroft, Moberg and Cook will be able to get you 30-40 a night and if the guards are hitting the jumpers Bethel will be very hard to beat

[d3bballfollower]

let the games begin...

[d3bballfollower]

UST 87 SMU 43...Keating with 26, 13 and 5 Ike with 16 and Schnettler with 19

Gustavus 77 Mac 72...Mac was up by 7 at half and led the entire game until the gusties took the lead with 2 minutes to play...great game

[TommieHoops4Life]

Keating had 26, 13 and 5 in just 26 minutes! How does that taste WW??

[Nites]

Johnnies 85, Concordia 79.

All 3 home teams win tonight.

[sjuforlife]

I was going to talk about the SJU game quickly but reading what tommieshoops4life just said i had to quickly laugh my head off and respond to that.  Keating put up numbers like that in a 44 POINTWIN against a team that is not half as good as them and he is trying to talk smack?? hahaha  keating will not average half thos numbers when the end of the year comes...13pts, 7 boards, 2 blocks, and i gurentee it.

Im going to wait to post more about the SJU game after others comment and i can see the box score but, I will already say that the Johnnies will go absolutely no where this year if coach smith continues to be the worst coach in the MIAC like he showed tonight!!!!! ( i can explain later if anyone cares )

[columbianmaffia]

I LIKE IT!! TH4L GETTIN ALL UP IN WILLYWONKA'S CHOCOLATE FACTORY!!

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Keating had 26, 13 and 5 in just 26 minutes! How does that taste WW??

When Keatnig came out, he had 3 pts and 1 board LESS than the entire SMU team.  He played an incredible game, on both ends of the court,

[Nites]

I see that the Gusties worked to get Olson more involved this game.  He got to shoot 3 times tonight in 33 minutes.     He did manage to stay off the boards again so he didn't get hurt - 0 rebounds for the second consecutive game.     He now has 1 rebound in his last 97 minutes on the court.  That's impressive!  His last rebound came at 12:05 of the first half of the Buena Vista game, 3 games ago.   

[columbianmaffia]

go gopher 90-68 loss
monson sucks
maturi blows
that makes it very windy