MBB: Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Rose Basketball]

For the second game in a row, the HCAC's top ranked scoring offense will go up against the league's top ranked scoring defense.

Bluffton comes in averaging an incredible 92.5 points per game, while Rose-Hulman is holding opponents to only 60.0 ppg in 3 contests.

[RO_24]

It will be interesting to see how those two battle tomorrow.  Bluffton can get it and go, but the thing that worries me with their offense, is that they have possessions where they just completely bog down, and will not get a shot off or a horrible one...I'm hoping they can jump out to a quick lead and take RHIT out of their slowdown kind of game.  Be a good game, Rose has an internet broadcast correct?  I will not be making the 4 hour trip from Columbus  for this one....

[Rose Basketball]

It will be interesting to see how those two battle tomorrow.  Bluffton can get it and go, but the thing that worries me with their offense, is that they have possessions where they just completely bog down, and will not get a shot off or a horrible one...I'm hoping they can jump out to a quick lead and take RHIT out of their slowdown kind of game.  Be a good game, Rose has an internet broadcast correct?  I will not be making the 4 hour trip from Columbus  for this one....

Yes, they do. However, you will need WinAmp to listen.

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/sports/radiopage.html

[HCAC-TU]

The freshman Parton from Transy has been playing very well on their Jr. Varsity level, shoots the ball well and plays hard from what I hear.  Transy's guard play is shaky, they start a soph. at Point and the 2 guard has yet to be claimed, a sophomore and 2 freshman (including parton now) have been battling for time, but none of them shining through.

Interesting to see how they do against a tough Manchester team at home for TU.  TU, as good as theyve been the last few seasons, they are only 2-8 or 3-7 against MC in the 5 seasons in the conference.

[Rose Basketball]

Halftime

Bluffton 28, Rose-Hulman 25.

*Mike Anthony, Eric Schwieterman, and Colt Cunningham with 6 points each for BU.

*Rose-Hulman is lead by Jared Moore's 8 points.

[Darryl Nester]

Rose Basketball might not be in the mood to post the final for the BU-RHIT contest, which went to the Beavers, 54-49.

Elsewhere, MSJ beat AU by 3, DC beat Hanover by 9, and TU outscored MC by 12 in the second OT period.

Rose -- any comment on the lopsided free throw stats?  (The fouls were pretty even -- 16 for the Beavers, 19 for RHIT, but Bluffton was 20 of 24, RHIT was 6 of 8.)

[fcnews]

Does anyone have a scouting report on RHIT. Fontbonne travels their tommorrow evening and it be nice to know alittle bit about them.
Thanks in advance!

[Rose Basketball]

Rose Basketball might not be in the mood to post the final for the BU-RHIT contest, which went to the Beavers, 54-49.

Elsewhere, MSJ beat AU by 3, DC beat Hanover by 9, and TU outscored MC by 12 in the second OT period.

Rose -- any comment on the lopsided free throw stats?  (The fouls were pretty even -- 16 for the Beavers, 19 for RHIT, but Bluffton was 20 of 24, RHIT was 6 of 8.)

Thanks for posting the final, Darryl. I had to leave home for a bit, and wasn't around last night to post.

Rose, for the second consecutive game, did not play that well. Though, they just ran into a better team. I knew it would be a low-scoring affair. The Engineers are going to keep teams to low point totals. They are very good defensively, for the most part, but offensively, they are STRUGGLING mightily right now. Until they learn to put the ball in the basket, they are going to have problems.

[RO_24]

yea from the sounds and looks of it, neither team could put the ball in the hole...Must not be a shooters friendly type of gym.  Either way, good W for the Beavers and now a nice break for them before traveling to Carnegie Mellon here on the 20th...

As we have been talking about the HCAC touney, I was told by what he called himself a "reliable" source, was the reasoning behind 4 teams is that in the past since the conference has began, no team below a #4 seed has ever won the tournament, therefore, making the decision to changing the format to a 4-team field.  Either way, I still think it's ridiculous, and in D3 when your playing for the love anyway, it will be hard to do if you have no shot at the end.  Thanks though to my "reliable" source,  for this info, tough loss. 

[Darryl Nester]

Rose BB: I thought perhaps you were watching the game, and so might have been able to shed some light on those FT numbers.  Thanks for the halftime update; sounds like it was an interesting game.  I look forward to seeing the Engineers in Bluffton.

fcnews:  I don't know how much more of a scouting report we can give beyond what you can glean from Rose BB's comments above.  Only four HCAC schools have played RHIT so far, and three of those schools don't have regular representation in this room.  (When I saw you had posted, I thought at first that we had finally been joined by someone from Franklin.)  Meanwhile, Rod and I had to settle for a long-distance report on the game, so we cannot supply with anything more than you can learn from the box score.

[Rose Basketball]

Rose BB: I thought perhaps you were watching the game, and so might have been able to shed some light on those FT numbers.  Thanks for the halftime update; sounds like it was an interesting game.  I look forward to seeing the Engineers in Bluffton.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make this game. I was there last Wednesday night when Rose fell to Franklin. That contest was the most frustrated I have been in quite some time from watching Rose-Hulman the past 4 years. They absolutely shot themselves in the foot.

What's so disappointing about this Engineer team, is that they are better than they have shown so far. I know people say this all the time about their teams, but I truly believe Rose could very well be 4-0 in the conference. At the very least, 3-1. They lost to Hanover 72-71, in a game where they led 71-70 with 7 seconds left. Against Franklin, they committed 20 turnovers and gave up 20 offensive rebounds and still only lost 58-50. Against Bluffton, they basically ran into a better club. However, both of Rose's leading scorers (Brian Bibb and Jason Bednarko) were held to a combined 11 points. That had a lot to do with Bluffton's defense, of course.

The bottom line is, this Rose-Hulman team is much better than the 8th place prediction that was placed upon them in the pre-season, and will be competitive all the way through the conference season. It's just very hard to watch them lose games and not go down playing their best ballgames.

[Rose Basketball]

Rose-Hulman 80, Fontbonne 78.

Brian Bibb (RHIT) 31 points, 16 rebounds, 4-5 3-pt. FG
Jason Bednarko (RHIT) 16 pts., 3-5 3-pt. FG

Brian Fogerty (FC) 21 pts.
Trevor White (FC) 15 pts.
Joshua Branch (FC) 15 pts.
Cartez Parker (FC) 14 pts.

Rose-Hulman (4-4)
Fontbonne (2-5)

[Darryl Nester]

Rose-Hulman 80, Fontbonne 78.

Congrats on the Engineers for putting up a season-high 80 points.  Looks like Bibb and Bednarko had the range from outside tonight.

[Rose Basketball]

Rose-Hulman 80, Fontbonne 78.

Congrats on the Engineers for putting up a season-high 80 points.  Looks like Bibb and Bednarko had the range from outside tonight.

Obviously, a victory is always nice. Especially, for an Engineer club that had dropped three straight.

However, the way the 2nd half played out was less than inspiring. After a Brian Bibb basket to start the 2nd half, Rose-Hulman led 46-27, after leading by as many as 21 in the 1st half. They allowed WAY to many three's this evening, and allowed Fontbonne to get back in the game.

They were surprisingly below-average defensively this evening. Fontbonne had 14 3-pt. FG.

[fcnews]

Rose Basketball - Fontbonne had trouble defensively because starting PF 6'8 Justin Storandt did not make the trip due to a final exam. Also, FU started 3 freshmen and 2 sophmores, against a much more experienced RHIT.