2012 Division III NCAA Tournament

[Just Bill]

Pretty amazing to have just two former champions left, and they happen to be the most recent former champions.

[Just Bill]

Breaking news from CNN.com:

The Associated Press reports that an Ohio baseball player pulled from the wreckage of an Atlanta bus crash that killed four of his teammates died this morning, raising the crash death toll to seven, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Please take a moment to think about Bluffton baseball as you attend the tournament games tonight.

[smedindy]

Lincoln in the final four wouldn't make me cringe - they took their lumps earlier in the year.

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 83  John Carroll 73

Great win for Wooster as they go to the ELITE EIGHT!    

Scots came up big in the 2nd half and their offensive production was too much for John Carroll.

Wooster was led by Tim Vandervaart with 16 points, Tom Port with 16 points, Brandon Johnson with 14 points, James Cooper with 13 points and Devin Fulk with 10 points.

John Carroll was led by Rudy Kirbus with 23 points, Brandon Mimes with 21 points (11 boards), Terry Walsh with 11 points and Pete Moran with 11 points.

Wooster is now 28-3      Next up is the St. John Fisher/Brockport winner.

GO SCOTS!

[gccfan]

I hope everyone is listening to the Guilford-Lincoln game.  It's heading into triple OT and both teams are exhausted.  Guilford's big center Ben Strong has 52 points already and hit the game-tying shot in double OT with 2.6 seconds left.  All I can say is WOW!

[Stout survivor]

The winner of that 3 ot game will have to ice bath and hydrate with all the other fun stuuf to be ready for tomorrow or else they might be playing themselves right out of the final four

[Matt Letourneau]

Sorry to hear that some of the Lincoln players walked off the court without shaking hands.

Surprising? No.  But...one hell of a game. 

[njlincolnlion]

Matt:

If all you got out of the game is that some Lincoln players didn't shake hands, then it really shows your disdain for Lincoln.  Now that you've got your wish, perhaps you'll have more time with your newborn infant. 

Now that you won't have Lincoln to kick around anymore, you'll have to find another team to bash.......perhaps Salisbury.

[njlincolnlion]

d-mac:

Great job announcing the VWC Sectional tonight.

[Matt Letourneau]

He did do a fantastic job.  A real pro.

Well, NJ, I only listened to the overtime. 

I got that it was one hell of a game, too.  Not really much else to say, other than wow.  Salisbury...nah? That's over.  I doubt they'll even be on a Catholic schedule again.  And they were what--.300 against Catholic in the last decade, if that? 

You know why I have a problem with Lincoln--nothing more than what happened.  You wouldn't forget it if it happened to your team, trust me.

Yeah, I did get my wish, I suppose.  I'm sure Lincoln is pretty disappointed, but honestly, they participated in one of the greatest games in D3 history and put up 128 points.  That's a pretty good way to go out of the league, if you're going to go out, don't you think?  Better than having some punk trying to reverse slam on you in a double digit game, at least. 

I'll even tell you flat out that I was wrong--I thought that if somebody could hang with them for 37 minutes or so, they'd be able to put them away.  I know Lincoln lost, but I still wasn't right--Guilford came back in regulation, but in OT Lincoln didn't seem to make the kind of mistakes I thought they would.  So there you go.  One factor in their ability to stay in it had to be their extreme depth.  At a certain point, I actually thought Guilford would fold just from pure fatigue--Lincoln was probably better conditioned for that kind of game because they go so deep, and well, they are not a stranger to putting up a ton of points.

Looks like an all ODAC group down there, barring an incredible comeback by Mississippi.  What a run that conference has had this year--even Hampden Sydney, who beat a good Hood team and then hung in there (to say the least) against VWC.

[njlincolnlion]

Congratulations to the Guilford Quakers and VWC Marlins advancing to the Elite 8 in what has become the ODAC Sectional.

Two totally different games tonight with game one a classic, and the second game a blowout.

Now that Lincoln is out, I'll still be around.  I'll be on the Track & Field Board tomorrow to see if the Lions can do some damage in the Indoor NCAA's.

I have to pull for Guilford to go all the way, so that Lincoln can say they lost to the eventual NCAA Champions again by one point.

Matt, good post and good luck to the Cardinals in the Landmark.  The Lions had a good run but came up a point short.

[Matt Letourneau]

Same here.   I think Lincoln is better suited to D2, and I bet they'll have some success.  At the last, they'll shake things up. 

Believe me, NJ, if everybody associated with Lincoln (on the court) was as classy as you, I'd never have a bad word to say.   I know you'd prefer it to be that way too.  Well, maybe there will be a lesson learned there somewhere.

But despite all that, congratulations on a fine, fine season. 

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

d-mac:

Great job announcing the VWC Sectional tonight.

He did do a fantastic job.  A real pro.

Thanks guys... I appreciate the kind words. That first game was hands down one of the best games I have seen... ever! To be able to call the game was not only an honor... but something I will never forget. I am just disappointed the second game didn't live up to its hype!

[David Collinge]

Currently, with 52% an overwhelming majority of the 65 voters in this poll believe that a team from a one-bid conference is going to win the whole thing.

However, out of the 16 remaining teams only 4.5 are from such conferences. (I have no idea what to do with Lincoln.  On the one hand they're the only independent in the tournament, but on the other, they don't actually have a conference to be the one-bid from.  It's a tough one.  I guess a Lincoln national championship would mean that everyone was wrong.)

Only Stevens Point, Carroll, St. John Fisher, and Wooster are still alive from one-bid conferences and only two of them actually have a shot at the title (they would have to eliminate each other).  The odds of the majority winning this pool are looking pretty slim right now.

[Unless of course you factor in that two of the best teams in the nation are still on track to make the final game, but whatever.]

Wooster is the only remaining one-bid-conference team in the draw. 

[MR. PAC]

How did the Guilford Lincoln game end. And how did Lincoln act after the lost.