MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[concordia of the north]

at the hamline/concordia game last night:

-Concordia is the best miac team i've seen this year, to be honest.  i've only seen hamline, aug, sju, and bethel, but Concordia puts personnel out there that are longer, more athletic, and just better.  their freshmen are ridiculous.

-Karl Olson is the pg solution.  he's strong and sees the floor well from half court and further.  he's strong enough to physically tolerate an aggressive double team while keeping his eyes up and protecting the ball.  For the life of me, I couldn't understand why Hamline continued to try their half court trap.  Olson would make nice 20 foot diagonal passes which led to layup after layup.  They just shredded the half court.

-Luke Linz does not miss from 6 feet and in.  no matter how off-balance or contested the shot is, he drains it.  This is not breaking news.

-this game was a very repeatable performance.  the Cobbers didn't do anything spectacular.  without checking the box score I'm assuming they had less than 5 three pointers.  their offense didn't rely on the sometimes fickle "Cobber" series of cuts and backdoor passes.  It was just straight up screens across the lane for post  ups, strong drives from the wing, and good post passing.

[Drake Palmer]

CON –I thought I spotted you down the bleachers.  I wasn't quite sure though with the rabbinical beard/north woods look & plaid shirt.    Looks like we shared similar viewpoints of the game.  I was pleasantly surprised by the Cobbs athleticism.  Sorta reminded me of a Gustie team – a bunch of tall, lanky, wings & forwards  All of the taller wings-- Olmscheid, Hagemeyer, Fraase et al looked fairly athletic & handled the ball fairly well.  If Olmscheid keeps developing he could be a real nice player since he's a lefty in the post.  I need to see a little more from Lien.

[concordia of the north]

hagermyer is going to improve quickly, I think.  because of the erik johnson debacle he hadn't played very much at all until after Christmas.  he seemed pretty competent to me last night.

this cobber team has the chance to be very scary at the end of the season.  you're talking about 5 or 6 freshmen and 1 or 2 sophomores playing tons of minutes. you can tell that guys like olmscheid and fraase are scorers, they are guys who want to create.  those kinds of players only get better with more experience and confidence. 

also, my beard is pastoral. both in that it resembles a picturesque rural lifestyle, and that it calms and provides consolation.

[sumander]

  because of the erik johnson debacle he hadn't played very much at all until after Christmas. 

CON, did I miss something specific about Johnson (i.e suspension) or was this a general comment about Johnson getting playing time over someone else?

I see he was not in the box score last night. When I saw him last year I thought he maybe shied away from the physical play but would end up providing some decent minutes for the team.

edit: I see he hasn't played since the STOLAf game on 12/3

[sumander]

Drake +k on the first quarter recap! Nice work.

Another way of summing up the first quarter of the season might be: The more thing's change, the more they stay the same! UST and GAC are atop the conference. 

[concordia of the north]

when he came in as a transfer student/player, he had less eligibility than concordia understood.  it actually ran out after the first semester of this year.  as such, he has not played since the Christmas break, and will not play college basketball in the future.

you can imagine their surprise...

[Drake Palmer]

  because of the erik johnson debacle he hadn't played very much at all until after Christmas. 

CON, did I miss something specific about Johnson (i.e suspension) or was this a general comment about Johnson getting playing time over someone else?

I see he was not in the box score last night. When I saw him last year I thought he maybe shied away from the physical play but would end up providing some decent minutes for the team.

edit: I see he hasn't played since the STOLAf game on 12/3

Yeah, I was typing a response myself..  See below-

CON- Why doesn't it surprise me that you're good at keeping your lips sealed regarding coming & goings on the Cobbs team?  There's been an entire list of unanswered questions this season.  –Brock Citterman, Anthony Boike, Eric Meischner, Gavin Ganab & now Erik Johnson. Since you brought it up its only fair – what happened? I noticed he wasn't on the bench for last night's game against Hamline & wasn't in the boxscore for the game against MAC.


Edit:  Phew, good answer.  Considering all the crap thats been happening in the F-M area lately, the lasthing you need is a player suspension etc. 

Hagemeyer could be nice.

[sumander]

when he came in as a transfer student/player, he had less eligibility than concordia understood.  it actually ran out after the first semester of this year.  as such, he has not played since the Christmas break, and will not play college basketball in the future.

you can imagine their surprise...

I can about imagine how Coach Siverson reacted to finding out that news! In the long run, it will probably work out better for the development of some of the youger guys!

[concordia of the north]

and, again, just to be clear and fair to johnson:  he wasn't suspended or anything like it.  His eligibility just ran out.

[sumander]

The whole eligibility thing must have been a fairly recent discovery? How does the eligibility issue work. Is it based on the number of semesters?

CORD certainly averted a potential disaster (i.e. forfeiting games for using an ineligible player).

[Chica yea false identification]

Drake-
  Cormier is out with a pinched nerve in his elbow.  Time will tell how long he's going to be out. He hurt it right before the break and it didn't bother him against loyola or olaf, but its pretty swollen and nasty lookin.  Hopefully he can be back back saturday against carleton. 

As far as the game against GAC..... from my point of view it would have been a different outcome if cormier had been playing. The cards were played well on offense, but on the defensive end is where they struggled.  I don't have the stats, but they seemed to give up way too many offensive rebounds and with Cormier in the line-up I feel a lot of those could have been his.  He is also able to stick with Wittwer, but with him out they had to resort to either Rohr, Carr, or Knights. 

Along with that, they didn't find the shooters and Kane had a big game from three point range. 

Season is still young however, and I look for this team to start picking things up starting on Saturday afternoon.

[columbianmaffia]

And back to basketball...

A little birdie tells me the Gusties have gone DEEP into their bag of tricks already this year to bring back an old friend. Can't wait to see the results

weird...after jaimie broback quit the gopher womens team i didnt expect her to play basketball ever again...much less on a D3 mens team 

[PTPer35]

Word on the street is Knights PG Sutherland will likely miss the remainder of the season with a broken shooting hand. Zorro will be out a stint with a concussion.

C-Mob, any chance you have some eligibility left and could play PG for CAR? You'd be tough to D up with those roller skates/spandex.

[VOJ]

That is some tough news for Carleton...I really thought they had a solid team but without Zorro and now their PG down...it does not look good for a very thin team

The J's struggled last night getting an offensive flow...Haugen was large off the bench and McMahon got them off to a great start...they worked hard and maybe were motivated by last years collapse in the final three minutes...they seem to make a play to keep the J's at bay every time SJU got close...they also took care of the bball...only 5 turnovers copared to the J's 15, might have been the most telling stat of the game, Kudos to the Oles.

Interesting game tomorrow night the J's playing at home facing Mac who has dropped their last two.  J's will have to do what other teams have done, hold down Abe...

I see I got smited for making the woodshed comment...I have called it like I see it all year with every team including the J's as I did above, I guess some people can't handle the truth...

[WXYZ]

I covered the Bethel vs. St. Thomas game last evening and was struck with how physical the game was. One player had to be led off the floor with what I believe was a large gash on his head. I just finished reading about the broken hand at Carleton and a rash of other injuries. I understand some teeth were lost at a game earlier in the week.

This is certainly not kinder gentler DIII basketball. As a new observer of the game i'm wondering if this is par for the course? Is every season like this?

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