MBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Don't forget, final three-plus hours to enter the D3hoops.com bracket challenge.

You have extra time for the women's bracket, since the first game isn't until 4 p.m. ET on Friday.

http://www.d3hoops.com/pickem/

[pbrooks3]

Eastern Mennonite wrapped things up late with a 63-53 win over Centre to send the Colonels packing. Centre played solid defense and Coach Mason mixed his defenses to confuse or slow EMU as much as possible. EMU is a fine basketball team that appeared to be a bit tight tonight, but their athletic wings took advantage of opportunities in the 2nd half to score when Centre went absolutely cold.  Credit EMU for some good defense, too. However, the Colonels had many decent looks which they couldn't convert, especially in the final 10 minutes of the game. I think Centre went a stretch in the 2nd half where they didn't score a basket for 6 minutes.  35% shooting and 18 turnovers hurt Centre tonight. Danny Noll finished his Colonel career tonight with a nice 17 point effort. Congratulations to Centre on representing the SCAC well in a difficult venue against a top 10 team. Good luck to EMU - may you go deep in the tourney.

[frank_ezelle]

pbrooks3,

If I haven't done it already this season, let me thank you for all the posts on the SCAC this season.  It must have felt very lonely at times.  Between the Millsaps photos of basketball/dance team/cheerleaders, the photos taken for friends and family during the Christmas season, and trying to catch up on things after a busy fall season, I just couldn't find the time or energy to do much on the D3 board this season. 

Congratulations to the Centre team on their SCAC Championship and it's a shame that they drew such a tough opponent in the first round.  I guess all the teams are tough at this point of the season. 

Now I guess it is time for the board regulars to move over to the baseball action.  It sounds like the East half is ready to make some noise this year with Rhodes, Oglethorpe, and Birmingham already off to fast starts.  The West is turning into the typical dogfight.  Millsaps has built a little cushion here at the start, one that could be padded with two wins over Austin this weekend or it might totally vanish with a couple of Roo victories.  It should be some good baseball and it is being webcast by Millsaps so I hope a few board readers will check out the games.

[frank_ezelle]

pbrooks, you are probably the only one still here and the only non-Millsaps person who would be interested in these photos from the Centre-Millsaps game at the SCAC Tournament:

http://gomajors.smugmug.com/MC2009-10/MB2009-10/MBB022610/11438967_uQUJY#804277529_yzTmK

For any sports photographers who might be interested, this set of photos was taken with the new Canon Mark IV.  The settings were 1/800 shutter speed, 2.8 f-stop, and an ISO of 10,000.  Almost all were taken with a Canon 70-200 2.8L IS lens.  Also, the Mark IV has 4 settings for JPEG photos:  L, M1, M2, and S.  Naturally that stands for large, medium 1, medium 2, and small.  All of these photos were taken with the medium 2 setting.  I presume that the quality would have been better at the L or M1 settings, but my volume of photos makes it impractical for me to use the larger file sizes.

[brave heart]

I am still here and am very impressed with the quality of photos.That venue would be very difficult to get the quality that you have achieved.I viewed your go majors smug mug pics and found Depauw vs Millsaps and really enjoyed your sequence pictures (esp how it ended "sorry") Thanks and hope to see some more from you next year!!

[frank_ezelle]

Well, if I had artistic control over my photos, I would have changed the ending of that DePauw at Millsaps game. 

When I'm taking the photos at Millsaps, naturally I concentrate on getting photos of the Millsaps players.  However, when I'm editing the photos I do attempt to crop the photos so that I include good images of players on the opposing team.  I've even been known to delete a decent photo when it would be particularly embarrassing to an opposing player. 

I've always figured that the vast majority of SCAC athletes are quality young men and women, so why not treat all the players from all the teams with the respect that they deserve.

[pbrooks3]

Well, if I had artistic control over my photos, I would have changed the ending of that DePauw at Millsaps game. 

When I'm taking the photos at Millsaps, naturally I concentrate on getting photos of the Millsaps players.  However, when I'm editing the photos I do attempt to crop the photos so that I include good images of players on the opposing team.  I've even been known to delete a decent photo when it would be particularly embarrassing to an opposing player. 

I've always figured that the vast majority of SCAC athletes are quality young men and women, so why not treat all the players from all the teams with the respect that they deserve.

Thank you, Frank.  I had got an inquiry from one of the Centre players about photos, and had pointed him to your website and the excellent work you do.  You've got several excellent shots of this particular young man from the Centre-Millsaps encounter.  I will direct him again to look through your picture gallery.

[Ron Boerger]

A huge "huzzah" for the job coach Brad Stevens, DPU '99, has done with the Butler Bulldogs.

[scottiedoug]

It is great for D3 basketball, not to mention DePauw, and indicates that it is real basketball that D3 plays (not that anyone reading this does not already know that....).

[tarheelfan]

Thad McCracken is the new head coach at Hendrix.

http://www.hendrix.edu/athletics/news.aspx?id=46861

[hendrixfan]

Thad McCracken is the new head coach at Hendrix.

http://www.hendrix.edu/athletics/news.aspx?id=46861

This is big news for HC at a crucial time.  Priest took over a program that was awful.  He and McCracken recruited hard and brought in a talented group that took the Warriors to a level they had not been in a while.
Unfortunately, there has been a mass exodus of good players in the past 2-3 years.  Priest was never seen on campus and had no PR skills with fans, parents, players, students, faculty, referees, or boosters.

This is a great timing for this move.  Priest can exit with the program at a higher level than it was when he arrived, and McCracken will work hard in recruiting and coaching to make HC a winner.

Good luck to Coach Priest and his family.

[Ron Boerger]

Priest was just announced as the new HC at Kenyon:

http://athletics.kenyon.edu/x35141.xml

He'll try to do there what he did at Hendrix, turn around a struggling program.  The Lords were 6-19 and have not had much success recently.  16 wins last year (16-11 overall) were the most in 15 seasons.

[Ron Boerger]

Active offseason in the SCAC

Rhodes hires DeGeorge to take over Men's Basketball Program

Mike DeGeorge has been named Rhodes Head Men's Basketball Coach. Coach DeGeorge most recently served as the Head Basketball Coach at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he transformed the Cornell program from three wins in 2005-06 to 21 wins in 2008-09.

[...]

[pbrooks3]

Very pleased to see Thad McCracken back in Mens Basketball @ Hendrix. He will definitely head the program in the right direction. He was the best thing Coach Priest had going as far as bringing decent players into the program. Priest's move to Kenyon is good for him as well getting him close to his roots. He'll have a big challenge competing in another tough conference. Hopefully he can pick up another fine assistant like McCracken to aid in the effort to move Kenyon's program along.

Rhodes appears to have picked up an established, proven coach in Mike DeGeorge. He's helped to turn two Midwest programs into winners.  It's a bit of a mixed deal for him following a legend in Hilgeman but he'll be granted plenty of time to move Rhodes along given some of their tough SCAC seasons of late.

Always healthy to see some change in the SCAC.

[brave heart]

   NOT AT ALL HAPPY WITH DEPAUW'S DECISION TO LEAVE THE SCAC.