MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Drake Palmer]

I apologize to anyone or specifically Bethel boosters, if my earlier post about the Bethel-UST game yesterday came across as flippant.  The game was definitely not a yawner.  I have a ton of respect for this year's Bethel squad, their talent, hustle & team approach to playing the game.  I also agree with Mose when he states that next year (07-08) they could very well be contending for the MIAC title.

Unfortunately for the Royals, yesterday they happened to run into a white-hot UST team.  The Ts took the smallest of openings at the 12-13 minute mark of the first half when they scratched & clawed their way into a slim 2-4 point lead.  They then leveraged a couple of big defensive stops & boards by Keating & Rosefelt, into some huge treys by Schnettler on the other end of the court.  Once he hit the 2nd trey, you could see the Tommies with an extra spring in their step & they proceeded to wash out the memory of the ugly win against Carleton a couple of days earlier.

Speaking of Schnettler.  One can argue the merits of who is the best overall 2G in the league - Madson, DeRock, Schnettler, Lieser, et al, & I'd nod my head & think, "yeah I see their point."  BUT when it comes to the simple, but deadly art of the "catch & shoot" I will argue this point to the end:  There is no one in the league – bar none, that does this any better than Bryan Schnettler!  SJU's Tyler Westman is real solid in this category, but Schnettler is the master.  Yesterday, Bethel's Steve Strom often had excellent defensive position on Schnettler, but in the blink of an eye - Schnettler's coming off a screen, squared up, feet set, and hands ready – "oops, shot's up & in." He has one of the quickest & most accurate releases of any player I've ever seen.

That being said, I'm still not sold who earns the MVP award.  If UST keeps playing like this, it looks like it might go to one of the "Tommy 3", but which one?

[Drake Palmer]

My post season playoff projections:

1)  UST (4-0) 19-1
2)  SJU (3-1) 17-3
3)  BET (4-1) 13-7
4)  GAC (2-3) 11-9
5)  CARL (3-2) 9-11
6)  STO (1-3) 8-12*

7)  SMU (2-2) 8-12
8.  MAC (1-4) 7-13
9)  Augs (1-4) 6-14
10) HAM (1-3) 6-14
11) CORD (1-4) 4-16

* Tiebreaker

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Speaking of Schnettler.  One can argue the merits of who is the best overall 2G in the league - Madson, DeRock, Schnettler, Lieser, et al, & I'd nod my head & think, "yeah I see their point."  BUT when it comes to the simple, but deadly art of the "catch & shoot" I will argue this point to the end:  There is no one in the league – bar none, that does this any better than Bryan Schnettler!  SJU's Tyler Westman is real solid in this category, but Schnettler is the master.  Yesterday, Bethel's Steve Strom often had excellent defensive position on Schnettler, but in the blink of an eye - Schnettler's coming off a screen, squared up, feet set, and hands ready – "oops, shot's up & in." He has one of the quickest & most accurate releases of any player I've ever seen.

I'll take that a step farther and say that Schnettler is THE premier three-point shooter to ever play in the MIAC. He needs 23 in the next four games to break the conference career record- and that will be in 20 games fewer than  P Russell. He already owns the UST career and single season records, again playing far fewer games in his career than Sparby. He should break the MIAC single-season record this week, needing 12 for that record. and is the only MIAC player to ever reach 100 treys in a season, an accomplishment he will achieve again this season. Not only does he put a ton of 3s in, but he does so a a nationally-ranked perentage, year after year.

The league has seen many great marskmen, but of all that I've seen (and I've seen a few  ), Schnettler is king of the hill.

He has an outisde chance at 100 3s in MIAC play this year (that would take 33 in his nest 4 games). To paraphrase Jim Smith, I dont care if you're playing the little sisters of the poor, averaging five a game is mind boggling.

Now to go watch Peyton destory Da Bears!!!!!!!!!

[UST_LBOW]

Bryan was downright nasty on Saturday, Strom was in his face, but when you're feeling it like that, nobody can stop you.  Ike caused some major problem for Bethel's bigs, they weren't used to getting the ball rammed down their throats.  You could see the difference when Ike wasn't in the game, Moberg actually scored a few buckets.  It could be the elbow to the nose that made him a little woozy.  He got clipped with a Dikembe/Ike elbow. 

Big week for UST, looking to finish strong.

[sumander]

Fins, Time to get the bandwagon rolling again! We have home games with Mac and Auggie Tech this week! Need to get things tuned up so it's set to go for the rematch with the Tom's on the 17th!

[sju56321]

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?

[columbianmaffia]

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?

i personally think if they both make it to the championship game and its not a blow out they will both be in

[bethelguy]

I agree with MM on Schnettler and would take it yet another step forward saying that I bet there isn't a better SG in D3 right now.  Nobody gets his shot off that quick and retains the accuracy that he does.  Most of the game on Saturday he was unguardable, it didn't matter who was guarding him or what the defensive positioning was he was unguardable.

He is 4th in the nation for 3's per game and 11th for 3 pnt FG% (while taking 40+ more shots than anybody in top 10).  And these numbers do not include his 7/9 from behind the line on Saturday.

Nobody ranked ahead of him for 3's made per game shoot anywhere near his % and nobody with greater % make as many per game as he does.  Statistically it would be hard to argue there is a better SG in the country. 

[Drake Palmer]

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.

[miacwatchmen]

Oh no Bethelguy displays the hated red "X" for a picture. 

[bethelguy]

I disagree with Drake - Currently I think they are considered a lock as a Pool C (pabegg's complex ranking system on the Pool C message board has them as #1 for Pool C right now). 

The question does assume they lose 2 more games which will negatively affect their QOWI and RegRecord, but their QOWI and RR currently are very good.  Their overall record is questionable but that factor does not weigh as heavily QOWI and RRec/RegRank.  3 of their losses do not count regionally (D2 loss to SCSU, Ursinus in MidAt and PennSt-Ber from the Great Lakes). 

QOWI of 10.555 right now is very good and even with 2 losses (assuming both are to UST) SJU gets in.  But if they drop one before UST or lose to Bethel in the tournament they move to the top of the dreaded bubble.

[sumander]

Drake & Bethelguy, Thanks for the info on the tourney. My personal thoughts are the J's need to beat the Tom's one more time whether it's in the reg season or the playoffs to get in! That may not be true.

Drake, I am a little surprised with your final standings, GAC only going 2-3 in their last 5 games!

[Drake Palmer]

I disagree with Drake - Currently I think they are considered a lock as a Pool C (pabegg's complex ranking system on the Pool C message board has them as #1 for Pool C right now). 

The question does assume they lose 2 more games which will negatively affect their QOWI and RegRecord, but their QOWI and RR currently are very good.  Their overall record is questionable but that factor does not weigh as heavily QOWI and RRec/RegRank.  3 of their losses do not count regionally (D2 loss to SCSU, Ursinus in MidAt and PennSt-Ber from the Great Lakes). 

QOWI of 10.555 right now is very good and even with 2 losses (assuming both are to UST) SJU gets in.  But if they drop one before UST or lose to Bethel in the tournament they move to the top of the dreaded bubble.

BG - I looked at his post & even "PaBegg" says "let's see how things look after the real rankings come out on Wednesday."

Secondly, I was basing my answer on the scenario that SJU5321 provided - SJU losing both the regular season title & conference tourney championship.  If they lose the regular season rematch with the Tommies & then lose in the conference tourney final, their ranking drops a ton.  

I'll check with you on Thursday   

And Watch- BG's avatar has been like that forever.  I don't think he particularly cares.  

[Drake Palmer]

Drake, I am a little surprised with your final standings, GAC only going 2-3 in their last 5 games!

Sum - just a SWAG on my part. The Gusties have games remaining with the Cobbs, Tommies, Pipes, Oles & Carlies.  Earlier in the year, I would have said they would go 4-1, but now I don't know where this team is at.  And I'm not so sure they know either.  I think they were up huge on SMU on Saturday & let them come back & make a game of it.

[sumander]

Drake, I am a little surprised with your final standings, GAC only going 2-3 in their last 5 games!

Sum - just a SWAG on my part. The Gusties have got remaining games with the Cobbs, Tommies, Pipes, Oles & Carlies.  Earlier in the year, I would have said they would go 4-1, but now I don't know where they're at.  And I'm not so sure they know either.  I think they were up huge on SMU on Saturday & let them come back & make a game of it.

Sounds like they took a page out of the Johnnies playbook!