MBB: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[consultant]

Welcome aboard MajorAlum.  Not sure I know you.  I believe Millsaps will do well this year, and I am looking forward to getting a report on Friday's Wesley game. 

[frank_ezelle]

Looks like it is Millsaps people who were most interested in the Friday night results.  Like the others, I haven't found any stats for the Millsaps vs. Wesley game.  I still find it a little perplexing that Rhodes is writing up the stories for the women's basketball team this year but they haven't posted a word about the men's games.

The results from Friday in Memphis make this afternoon's games fairly interesting.  It will be interesting to see if Wesley bounces back against Rhodes or is Wesley a team that simply caught a few teams by surprise at the beginning and they won't be able to maintain that momentum.  And Dallas beat Rhodes by 12 and the Millsaps-Dallas result today will give some sort of comparitive score for Rhodes and Millsaps.

Just a note before going on to other things this Saturday morning.  I haven't looked at everyone else's schedule but it seems like Millsaps has a great schedule this season based on returning players and the opinion of the coaches:
1)  Millsaps opens up SCAC play at the start of December with the road trip to Southwestern and Trinity.  Both of those teams lost all 5 starters from last year so it seems like playing them on the road early in the year is an advantage.
2)  The coaches say DePauw and Centre are the 1st and 3rd best teams in the league and they also are a long way from the Millsaps campus.  They come to Millsaps this year but Millsaps doesn't go to DePauw or Centre.
3)  The coaches say Hendrix and Austin are the 9th and 10th teams in the league (I'm just reporting the results of the poll).  Millsaps goes to those two schools to play and those are the schools that don't come to Millsaps.  Those are two shorter trips against supposedly easier teams (again, I'm just reporting how the coaches voted).

[colincondi]

Frank,

I noticed an earlier poster mention Sandro Norris... is he playing this year?  If so, why hasn't he played yet?

[frank_ezelle]

Sandro is in school at Millsaps and I haven't mentioned that because apparently there are family situations that might lead to him transferring at the semester.  That's what I've heard--I don't know the details--and I don't think the details need to be discussed on a message board.

Until there is some certainly in the situation, I don't think they want to play Sandro and have him lose a year of eligibility for just a few games.  If Sandro does play then Millsaps becomes a bigger better team.  If he doesn't play then I think Millsaps will look to more minutes from Edwick Montgomery this year and some added help from freshman Chris Ingle at the center position.  They also look stronger at the forward positions with Chris Sanders, Russell Booth and Ross James all looking like they will be stronger this year at the 3 and 4 spots.

[DPU3619]

FDU-Florham?  Seriously?

[MajorAlum80]

I'm sure I have a few years on you consultant.  I do not get to a whole lot of games.

Millsaps loses today to University of Dallas 73-64.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but Millsaps has handled Dallas fairly easily in the last few years.  Edrick Montgomery with 28 on the night.  Rogan held to 2.  Majors outrebounded 43-26 while shooting 36 percent from the floor.  Millsaps hit 3-of-15 from 3-point range.  The Majors only had eight turnovers. 

http://millsaps.edu/athletic/basketball-m/mcm-1125.htm

[frank_ezelle]

A closer look at the Millsaps box score shows some freightening numbers.  Rodney only scoring 2 points in 31 minutes is hard to believe.  Oddly enough, his two points were the first bucket of the game and he was shut out the rest of the way.  Edrick Montgomery was 12-16 which isn't that unexpected and Allen Odum was 5-7 which is the type of shooting he is capable of, but the rest of the team was 6 of 40 from the field which comes out to 15% shooting. 

I've watched the Millsaps team enough to know that these guys are potentially very good shooters.  When I see numbers like this game and numbers like they had in the Belhaven game (30% from the field which broke down to 38% from 3-point range and 25% from 2-point range), I have to feel like guys just aren't concentrating on their shot.  I don't know if they are worried about getting shots blocked or worrying about maybe they should pass off to another guy or whatever else they might be thinking about, but these guys just need to trust in their abilities and put the ball in the hoop.

I did see that Rhodes beat Wesley so I think the results of the weekend show that right now Rhodes and Millsaps are two fairly even teams.

[spfan22]

Oglethorpe split games this weekend at the Emory Classic.  On Saturday, the petrels lost to a very tough Maryville team, who is ranked #23, by the score of 92-88.  On Sunday, the petrels beat a very scrappy lagrange team 87-83.  Ahmad Kareem Shaheed continued his strong play with games of 20 points on saturday and 24 points and 15 rebounds on Sunday.  Andrew Tulowitsky had 22 points in each of the two games.  The Petrels are now 3-1, and face Emory on Wednesday, who knocked off ranked Maryville on Sunday.  Should be a good game.

[warriorfan]

After a 20-2 run Saturday afternoon, Hendrix went on to beat Principia 90-50.  Coach Priest took advantage of the game and played everyone.  Freshman Cal Rose led all scorers with 23.  Sunday's game against Rhema was also successful.  At one time during the game, Hendrix led by 30.  Again, after obtaining a nice lead all players got a chance to show their skills.  This is the second time these two teams have met.  Hendrix beat Rhema at the Rhodes Classic in overtime.  Hendrix will play Rust College at Grove Gym Wednesday evening.

[frank_ezelle]

I may have written this in an earlier post, but I don't think any team in the SCAC will match the 12-2 league record posted by Trinity last year.  I just don't see anyone being able to go undefeated at home and also finishing 5-2 on the road this year (or 6-1 at home, 6-1 on the road, etc.).

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think 11-3 is almost a guarantee for a team to be the outright champions and 10-4 has a good shot at putting a team at the top of the SCAC this season.  It would probably be a co-championship deal at 10-4 and I think that's what we will probably see this season.  The SCAC seems to have gone the way of the NFL with parity being the key and not a lot of difference between the top teams and the ones that will finish up in the lower tier. 

[d3allstar]

FDU-Florham?  Seriously?

what do you mean??

[DPU3619]

FDU-Florham?  Seriously?

what do you mean??

I couldn't believe they lost.  If past records are any indication, FDU-Florham is not so good at basketball. 

I'm a little shocked at how it's going early in the season for 2-3 Trinity.  Although I guess FDU-F also beat Southwestern.

[d3bballfollower]

FDU- Florham did beat Southwestern...Caplan was 11-12 from the floor and had 26 for the pirates, but no one else stepped up and they just didn't have the defensive effort

SU did come back the next night and beat a very good Chicago team by 12 after shooting a blistering 85% in the second half inicluding 77% from beyond the arc

SU at 4-1 and Trinity at 2-3...I expect those records to be somewhat flip-flopped by the end of the year

[DPU3619]

Gotta say I was a tad bit surprised to see DePauw as the third team out in this week's Top 25.  I guess I was little surprised to see they had any votes at all to start the year after 15-13 last year.  However, they are the defending conference champs and are playing some darn good basketball right now. 

Fellow SCAC friends, Tony James is a name you should write down.  He's going to be a dandy of a ball player for Coach Fen for the next four years.  He and Mike Moore make a danged fine of a combo at the 1.  They've even played at the same time a little bit and looked pretty good.

Southwestern also had some votes, I believe.  Probably helped by them beating Chicago. 

[carlweathers]

There have been a number of Depauw freshmen that have started/played good minutes in the backcourt that have not become the next big thing.  Jon Owens, Joey Hanger, Robert Davis.  The first two had solid careers but not spectacular by any means and weren't even consistant starters as seniors.  Robert Davis disappeared.