MBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Ralph Turner]

Trinity 68, at Southwestern 64.

http://www.southwestern.edu/athletics/mbb_sched.html

This gives Southwestern a 4th In-Region loss.  Should Southwestern run the conference table to go 16-4 in the South Region pre-tourney, I believe that they will have to win the Tourney to get a bid, because even 18-5 in the South Region may not be good enough for a Pool C bid.

I think that Trinity can get a Pool C bid, with their "3-loss" South Region record, if they run the conference/regular season table and lose in the conference tourney.  Their best "non-Pool A"  South Region record would be as high as 18-3, and include a win over Howard Payne, a good candidate for the ASC Pool A.  That would also give them an advantage, if TU and HPU were competing for a Pool C bid.

[consultant]

Nice job by Millsaps tonight in a 59-56 win at Centre.
Link to box score below......

http://www.centre.edu/web/athletics/basketb_m/box_scores_05-06/cmb-mc56.htm

[Bob_Lotts]

You can through that "Tough to beat on top of the mountain" stuff right out the window!! Oglethorpe turned a 6 point half time lead in a 100-86 whipping of Sewanee on top of the mountain. The best part was how a group of OU students made the 2 hour trip north and took over the gym with a loud and constant chanting the entire game. They were dressed in crazy attire ranging from a Mr. T look alike to a guy wearing a womens dress coat with fur and everything....It was amazing how loud a group of kids can be in small gyms when they sycronize their cheers!! It was a real factor for OU who looked inspired in the 2nd half. Sewanee looked dazed and was constantly looking over to check out what the group was doing the entire game. They effectlivey 'took' over the crowd and it was almost like a home game for the Petrels.

My favorite chant was the two minute long chant " Our House" as most of the Sewanee student section walked out of the gym with more than 7 minutes remaining.....

A very fun atmosphere...

Go Petrels and Good luck in Kentucky!!

[frank_ezelle]

An interesting night in the SCAC when a couple of road teams get a win that ties them in the standings with the host team.  Trinity pulls back in a tie for 1st with their win at Southwestern and Millsaps pulls into a tie for 4th with Centre.  In addition, both winning teams clinch the tiebreaker over their opponent with the win.

While the top two teams are through with conference play for the weekend, Sunday will bring some interesting games for the remaining eight:

--Sewanee is 2-7 and next week they host the Indiana teams and then they finish the regular season in Texas.  Any reasonable shot they have of getting to Memphis has to include a win against Millsaps this Sunday.
--Millsaps had a big win last night and they did it with Edrick Montgomery only playing 20 minutes before fouling out.  A look at the box score shows that Centre shot under 40% which is hopefully a sign that the Millsaps defense is starting to click.  If Millsaps wins at Sewanee that would give them 6 wins with 8-2 Trinity and SW coming to Jackson next week.  For what's it's worth, Millsaps is two buckets away from being tied for 1st, having lost by 1 point to both OU and RHIT.
--Centre needs to pull out all of the stops for a win this Sunday.  On Thursday they were 5-3 and they had a solid chance to move to 7-3 and in the hunt for the SCAC title.  With a loss Sunday, they will be tied with or behind both Millsaps and OU in the standings and they will have lost the tiebreaker to both teams.
--OU came through big on a near must win game at Sewanee.  That snapped a 5-game SCAC losing streak and brought their record to 4-5.  Last night's win probably got OU into the SCAC Tournament and now they have the opportunity to move to the middle of the pack with a win on Sunday. 
--RHIT has a shot at first place in the SCAC if they win their last 4 games and finish 10-4.  With road games at Centre, Sewanee and DePauw on the horizon, will RHIT make the mistake of overlooking Hendrix on a sparsely attended Sunday afternoon game?  Can Hendrix repeat the road effort they had at Southwestern that had them leading going into the final 11 seconds?
--Hendrix will have their focus set by the result of their game this Sunday.  If they lose, they will then need to focus on staying ahead of Sewanee and Rhodes for the 8th spot in the conference.  If they win, they can focus on the middle of the pack teams and trying to climb the conference ladder.
--Rhodes needs to find a way to win at DePauw and that won't be easy.  Rhodes is at 2-8 with a road game to Hendrix and home games against Millsaps and OU.  They will still have a shot at 8th place regardless of the Sunday results but a loss would give them almost no margin for error for the remainder of the season.
--DePauw is playing for a good seed in the SCAC Tournament right now and they don't need to stumble and lose at home to the last place team.  With RHIT and a road game to Centre still on the schedule, DePauw runs the risk of dropping to a 7th or 8th seed if they get upset tomorrow. 

[snowbird]

Bob, I was at the Oglethorpe/Sewanee game. You gave a good pretty good account of how it went down. I was impressed(though frusterated)by the 'thorpe students. They were lively, loud & legal (by that I mean they were well behaved & everything was in good taste). I wonder if you happened to notice that the Sewanee cheering section is not allowed to sit on the bottom row. No need for the opponent to make an NBA trey or dunk to take our crowd out of the game when the administraton does it for them, but you must admit that we were well behaved also. In some games Sewanee looks like a solid 3rd/4th place team to me. Then there are games like last nigh.......oh well, I'm sure Ogelthorpe's defensive intensity had a lot to do with that. One more thing...as far as Sewanee being tough to beat on The Mountain...I talked to the owner of the Smoke House & he invited all visiting teams to drop by about an hour before each game.

[Sewanee#24]

This is my first post as I graduated in May and I played four years, obviously, at Sewanee.  Anyway, this season is typical of the past several Sewanee seasons: seasons that begin brightly and then fade as a blight of injuries sets in.  This season, Chris Eddy, the team's catalyst and best player, has played in just two games: in the first, he played five minutes before reinjuring his hamstring and, then in the Oglethorpe game, he had to be stretched and ride on the bike before reentering the game.  Furthermore, Ben Campbell injured his knee in Indiana and had to have his knee tightly taped and braced, which significantly reduced his mobility.  As it is, Sewanee is relying on a talented but very young group of players and ignoring the impact that a healthy Eddy and Campbell could have on this team is naive at best.

In my opinion, it is quite rash to say, after a single win, "You can [throw] that "Tough to beat on top of the mountain" stuff right out the window!!"  It was an anomaly and should be characterized as befits its nature.  An anomaly that was furthered helped by lingering injuries to, arguably, Sewanee's two best players.  Sewanee always plays well on the mountain and we will continue to do so.

That said, congratulations to the Oglethorpe team as winning on the road in the SCAC is tough under any circumstances and their lively contingent was a welcome addition to a Friday night game.

Speaking of lively crowds, I was especially entertained by the Sewanee crowd's chant of "Safety school" directed toward Oglethorpe's team and cheering section.

Anyway, I will be attending the last two home games, Alumni Game is Saturday, desperately hoping for the sweep that will, potentially, get us into the SCAC tournament at the time when Sewanee teams are typically playing their best.  Yea, Sewanee's right!

[SCACFollower21]

Speaking of lively crowds, I was especially entertained by the Sewanee crowd's chant of "Safety school" directed toward Oglethorpe's team and cheering section.

I was also at the game and I was impressed with the Oglethorpe Crowd and not impressed with our crowd the only thing we chanted was "Safety School" which I found funny and clever but we that was all we had and I was a little disapointed in our crowd

[frank_ezelle]

It is a pleasant surprise to see Millsaps sweep two road games this weekend.  I'll admit that I thought it was possible but I thought the odds were against it.  I'm glad to be wrong.

I'll also admit that I don't quite get the "Safety School" cheer.  In my limited SCAC travels from a few years back, I thought the DePauw students were the ones who came up with the best comments and cheers.  OU also had a great group of about 10 guys who were great fans and apparently the administration over there pulled the plug on them.  The OU guys were loud and rowdy but I didn't think they ever got out of line and I think the OU adminstration really screwed up in taking the fan support away from the team.

[Rose Basketball]

Rose-Hulman improved to 11-10 overall and 7-4 in the SCAC with a weekend sweep of Rhodes and Hendrix.

Rose-Hulman 90, Rhodes 66

Munchie Muskeyvalley scored 28 points and all five Engineer starters scored in double figures. Joey Daley lead the Lynx with 19.

Rose-Hulman 82, Hendrix 77

For the second straight game, Rose put all five starters in double figures lead by Brennan Dunville's career-high 23. Andrew King lead the Warriors with 18.

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/sports/mbasket.htm

[Ron Boerger]

I'll also admit that I don't quite get the "Safety School" cheer. 

I believe a "safety school" is the school of last resort, the one you apply to in case your preferred choices don't accept you (I'm not making that assertion, however).

[Rose Basketball]

As the conference season winds to a close, some important games sit in sight for us this coming weekend. 

The biggest games could affect the top of the standings as both Trinity and Southwestern take to the road at Ogelthorpe and Millsaps, two teams who are a combined 14-5 on their respective home floors.  Rose-Hulman will look to take advantage of a potential loss by the leaders when they too take to the road for a pair against Sewanee and Centre. Those two losses to Rhodes and Hendrix to start the conference season may have cost the Engineers a legit shot at a conference title. Well that, and the two L's suffered at home against Southwestern and Trinity.

DePauw, winners of three straight and playing good basketball as of late, faces the same two-game road trip at Rose-Hulman. A weekend sweep for the Tigers could put them into the Top 4 seeds for the SCAC Tournament at the end of the month.

Rhodes and Hendrix will battle in a VERY important Saturday contest, as both clubs are looking for a victory to gain an advantage at the final spot in the tournament. With three teams sitting at least two games back in the loss column, each game takes on that extra added importance.

[frank_ezelle]

With two weeks to go there are a variety of scenarios that could happen but the most likely is that you can divide the SCAC into 3 sections:

1) Trinity and Southwestern certainly have control of their destiny.  With road games to Millsaps and OU and home games with Centre and Sewanee, the very worst you would expect is that they finish at 10-4.  Only Millsaps, RHIT and Centre can reach a 10-4 mark and that would take some outstanding playing to win the remainer of their games.  TU and SW as the 1 and 2 seeds seems fairly certain.

2)  RHIT, Centre, DePauw and Millsaps are in a pack that will most likely finish 3-6 in the conference.  RHIT has 7 wins but their remaining games are on the road (Centre, Sewanee and DePauw).  DePauw is a game back with 6 wins but they have the advantage of the home game with RHIT.  Centre has 6 wins and the advantage of hosting RHIT and DePauw but they finish the season on the road in Texas.  Millsaps has the easier road trip remaining (but no road trip is easy), going to Rhodes and Hendrix but their home games are against TU and SW.  I'm not sure if anyone has an advantage in this group of 4.

3)  Barring some unusual results, it looks like the 7 & 8 spots will come from OU, Hendrix, Rhodes and Sewanee.  OU could squeeze in a little higher but things would have to fall perfect for them.  OU and Hendrix are the favorites in this group with Rhodes ready to crash the party.  OU has 4 wins and the same schedule as Millsaps.  Hendrix has 3 wins and 3 home games remaining.  A home win over Rhodes would just about clinch a tournament spot.  On the other hand, a Rhodes win over Hendrix would leave the two teams tied and Rhodes would hold the tiebreaker.  With the schedule they have left, it seems unlikely that Sewanee can reach 4 SCAC wins this season and I think it will take 4 wins to get into the tournament.

SO, while admitting that two weekends is plenty of time for major changes, it looks to me like the SCAC Tournament first round is shaping up to have the Texas teams open up with OU and Hendrix and Millsaps, RHIT, Centre and DePauw matched up some way or another that is just about impossible to predict at this point.  I think that would be a great opening day of basketball and I hope people will make an effort to support the tournament this year.

[Fan of the Game]

Frank,

I'm with you.  Let's support these true student-athletes for the rest of the regular season games and then have a big turnout in Memphis.  These young men deserve all of our support.  I plan to make as many games in Memphis as possible.  This has been a great year for SCAC basketball.  Who knows, maybe our conference qualifier(s) will  surprise some teams in the NCAA tournament this year.  Go SCAC!!!

[Ron Boerger]

Trinity is ranked #2 in the initial South Region rankings ... Southwestern is at #7.

South
1. Mississippi College 17-1 19-1
2. Trinity (Texas) 12-2 16-5
3. Virginia Wesleyan 18-3 19-3
4. Fisk 9-2 14-7
5. Howard Payne 15-3 16-3
6. Randolph-Macon 14-5 17-5
7. Southwestern 12-4 16-5
8. Maryville (Tenn.) 13-5 17-5

[Sewanee#24]

I haven't seen either of the Indiana teams this year.  So, I was wondering what anyone thought of the chances of Sewanee getting a win or two this weekend? 

Also, is there a particular team (outside of Southwestern and/or Trinity) that seem especially dangerous in the SCAC tournament?