WBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[blazerguy]

My comment on the officiating was not meant to imply that the refs cost Bethel the game.  It was meant to imply that horrible calls both ways lead to the eventual end; be it Bethel being close when they should not have or Bethel losing when they should have won.  As a good coach should, Mr. Durbin spent a great deal of time influencing the refs on marginal calls.  The game did have one of the worst none calls (since the Nate Wright – Drew Pearson call in the NFC Championship) that I've seen.  With Bens up by one, and less then 4 seconds left, Bethel in-bounded the ball three quarters the length of the floor to Cotner who was essentially tackled without a call.

I almost hate to admit but I agree with you on most counts. I was at the game last night so I don't have to rely on opinions from the long lost past, or hearsay, or even the unbiased opinions of 5-10 knowledgable fans. The officiating stunk. Two officials especially stuck out, I wish I knew their names, one was a gray haired tall guy, the other was a very short cocky half balding guy. And yes, the third was Marty, and i would even venture to guess even the Bethel fans would agree that he was far and away the best of the three. The other two, lets call them Abbot and Costello, were horrible, BOTH ways. Yes the non-call with 3.9 seconds screamed for a call, the traveling on Anna late in the game that took away a basket was a laughable horrible call. Abbot and Costello were oblivious to the mugging Anna took under the basket all night. Bethel played a terrific game, solid shooting, excellent defense, and the play of their posts was unstoppable most of the night. Also their coach kept them in the game with a nice rotation and some very nice plays late in the game. Nikki Carter from CSB played a nice game and as pointed out earlier she also contributed 9 points, I think her offense is picking up as the year goes on. Jamie Goehner started, played solid under the basket although she was challenged with the two BIG posts from Bethel. Anna, Ariel, Judy, Darby and Alyssa also played their normal nice games. It was a great game, could have gone either way, Bethel is definately a very dangerous team down the stretch.

[James T. Kirk]

When watching the Bethel vs. St. Ben's game last night at one point I realized that five girls on the floor were from the high school Classic Lake conference.  In checking rosters of the MIAC teams I found the following;

Augsburg – Rosinta Stromquist, Cooper
Bethel – Heather Davis, Minnetonka & Betsy Stevens, Minnetonka
Carleton – Annie Isler, Hopkins & Anna Biewen, Edina
Gustavus – Vicky Peterson, Armstrong
Hamline – Ashlee Senser, Hopkins & Steph Jurewicz, St. Louis Park
St. Bens – Nikki Carter, Anna Heikenen, & Ariel Tauer, all from Edina
St. Catherine – Leslie Anderson, Minnetonka
St. Olaf – Christine Schwichtenberg, Hopkins, Danielle & Kristina Stoermer, Wayzata
St. Thomas – Leah Gause

Are there other high school conferences this well represented?  Maybe coaches should be spending a little more time recruiting this conference.  Any thoughts on this?

[gacbacker]

Not to mention several recent grads who were quite good.

Kelly Etzel, Wayzata, Gustavus
Kate Sandvig, Edina, Gustavus
Carrie Willis, Wayzata, Gustavus
Danni Hannon, St. Louis Park, St. Ben's
Ashley Brown, Edina, St. Ben's
Missy Pederson, Armstrong, St. Thomas

As for this year, most of the senior class is going D2 or D1

Abby Greene, Hopkins, U of Maine
Jillian Schurle, Hopkins, Princeton
Tiana Wilkinson, Hopkins, U of Mary
Krissy O'Toole, Wayzata, Northern State
Megan Shea, Armstrong, North Dakota State
Rachel Gunderson, Armstrong, Michigan St. (Not playing bball)

[LA RAMS]

I am totally pumped for tonight's GAC - Carleton tilt.  I just have a feeling this could be a really good one.  I've had a little more time to think about it since yesterday.  The Knights, save for the Concordia game, have been nails in their own crib and I think the young ones are finally getting it going.  Oken-Berg is already becoming a major factor taking a load off of Vig and she'll only get better.  I guess one of the keys for tonight's game is how well the Knights backcourt handles the GAC trapping-style "D" that has worked awfully well so far.  However, if Vadnais goes off like she has at times this year, look out.  Still, at the end, I say Knights by 3 in a classic.

Capt. Kirk - I remember that Nate Wright - Drew Pearson no-call from that N.F.C. Playoff game.  Not so much because of how it affected the outcome of that game but rather because my team unexpectedly got to host the N.F.C. Championship game in the next round.  Thinking we were finally Super Bowl-bound, the white-hot Cowboys trashed my guys at home in the Coliseum 37-7.  To set the record straight, the ABSOLUTE WORST call I've ever seen happened the year before when we had to come up here to play the Vikes in the N.F.C. Championship game when, trailing 7-3 in the 2nd half we had the ball on the Vikes 6-inch line and scored a TD only to have it called back cause the ref said Tom Mack moved.  He DIDN'T move one bit.  Horrible, and we wound up losing yet another shot at the Big Show.     

[Ghost of MIAC Past]

I have yet to make a reference to THIS years MIAC refs being horrible CM.  It's true I've never been to a game THIS year.  I have been to games, at least 25 a year, the past three years in the MIAC.  So, I would say my comments are not based on HEARSAY, but actual knowledge.  I highly doubt that most of the refs have changed from the past three years to this year.  Therefore, my comments are not far off.

As for the Classic Lake Conference.  It's a very good conference, but easily not the best conference in the city.  The Lake with Lakeville, Eastview, Apple Valley, and company, has been the best conference for quite awhile.  Two of your current Gophers are from that conference

[Willy Wonka]

GAC up 30-15 with 5 minutes to play. Gusties are 7-11 from deep, including 4-5 by Vadnais, to start as the Carlies tried to play a zone defense. Apparently it's not working real well

[she_scores51]

Cardinals edge Bethel by 2 again! Was anyone at the game that could give us all some insight? Sounds like Ashley Luehmann shot the lights out...

[Willy Wonka]

Ugh! Sounds like the Gusties wet the bed in the second half - FOUR field goals after the break? And they still led with under 5 minutes to play? Free throws killed them it looks like - I listened to most of the first half, but then the feed cut out and I had to come into work.

Monahan with an unMVP-like 5-22 performance, but Vig tallied 19 and 13 to pace the resurgent Carlies. With the natural voting going to seniors who have been good and paid their dues, where does she fit in to this picture?

This makes the Bennie game even more crucial for the Gusties. After watching them the last few games, it seems they've once again become a 2-headed monster. They need more offensive threats or, as Carleton quickly picked up, they are fairly easy to stop.

[gacbacker]

The Gusties lost all confidence in themselves in the second half of a game that they should have won by 10-15 points. Not a single player played well in the second half. If one, one player had played well they probably would have pulled it out.

Monahan and Vadnais couldn't do it tonight for one of the first times all season and when that happened nobody else on the roster was there to step up.

This is the third time I've been to West Gym where the Gusties have had a huge first half and then lost it in the second half. I'm not willing to say Tammy out-adjusted us at halftime, but the Gusties needed to come with something other than the status quo in the second half.

The free throw shooting was maddening.

East coast - I disagree that the Lake has been better than the Classic Lake. First off the Gophers have two classic lake players as well in April Calhoun and Leslie Knight. The number of D1 players from the Classic Lake far outnumbers that of the Lake if you go back 6 or 7 years. I think the Classic Lake has been better top to bottom, while the Lake has had 3 state championships recently to just one for the CLC.

[peachbasket]

MEL FOR MVP
I know it was Mac, but she got it done in 21 minutes on 8-10 shooting, and in case you have forgotten, the Cobbers are on top of the league!!   

[peachbasket]

2/4/2006 (Saturday)
Saint Mary's @ Gustavus - gusties impose their pressure D against a below-average team and win by 15
Carleton @ Concordia - carls are playing better and have had tougher competition this week to  prepare them for this big game.  The Vig-Hageman match-up will be interesting.  We'll need to get our perimeter game going in order to handle the zone.  Annie comes to life and the Cobbs win by 8.
Bethel @ St. Olaf - the Christians need a win.  After dropping a heart-breaker to the bennies, and then sleep walking through SMU, their attention is here and pull out the close one, by 5
Saint Benedict @ St. Thomas - the tommies stink with the latest injury, bennies by 18
Hamline @ Macalester - the pipers need a gimme, here you go, hamline by 20
Augsburg @ St. Catherine - auggies flying high after their big win, they susrprise the katies by 11

[LA RAMS]

A strange game last night to say the least over at West Gymnasium.  Vadnais simply shot the lights out in the 1st half and the Knights looked totally disoriented and out of synch.  Just a completely different ballgame in the second half as the Knights kept chipping away at the Gusties and finally got ahead to stay late.  Not that the Knights shot the ball that well by any stretch but they were able to make the most out of the opportunities they had.  Just a few thoughts here on both teams.  First, for the Knights, they have GOT to do a better job of guarding the perimeter.  In perhaps all but one or two of their losses so far they have been done in by 3-point shooting.  A great comeback for the Knights to be sure but they can't make a living the way they've been going at it so far.  For the Gusties, they've got to come out in the second half with a sense of urgency.  Both Monahan and the little lefty were strangely quiet in the second half and still they could have salted the thing away with decent shooting from the charity stripe.  If I'm Mickey I have that team shooting FT's in practice today until they're downright bored doing it.

Meanwhile, over in Tommieland.............

WHOOOOOSH!.  From all accounts I heard that flush was audible down I-35 all the way down to Kansas City.  Suffice to say, this team is circling the drain quickly.  Even though I'm assuming here that CSB took care of St. Kate's last night UST is in some dire straights now with the Bennies coming into their crib this weekend.  Maybe it would be just as easy to say it is OVER!

SMU downing Bethel - AGAIN - last night?  OVERRATED (clap clap clap clap clap!). 

[Ghost of MIAC Past]

Gacbacker, state champs are state champs.  When you are winning the state title, you are probably coming from the best conference.  The classic does have two players on the gophers, but  only one of them will ever play significant minutes.  Leslie Knight should never have gone to the U.  She's a tweener that doesn't fit their system.  The Lake kids are the cornerstones of their posts.  Also, Edina and Hopkins are the only teams that would scare me out of the Classic.  Lakeville, Eastview, Apple Valley, even Eagan, have been better lately.  Minnetonka and Eden Prairie are not bad either, but Edina has done nothing post season wise.

As for BU being OVERRATED, we estabilished that awhile ago LA.  Don't toot your own horn.  I even said that BU has had trouble with SMU the last three years.  It shouldn't have been a major surprise.  A surprise yes, but not a look at how great I am because I predicted BU to be bad type of surprise.  They do have the 2nd best offense in the league, and when they play D, they CAN beat any one.  Has your Knights beat the Cobbers yet?  No, but BU has.  So I guess the Knights are over rated too, huh?  Especially since so many people picked them to end up in the top three. 

But hey, what do I know? 

[Willy Wonka]

What were the officials like at Carleton? Granted, we've beaten this subject into the ground, but - according to an official who had no kin involved in the game - they were especially terrible last night.

Bad calls or missed calls are one thing that I think we've all come to handle, or at least deal with. Late calls are something else. Apparently Terrible Tammy was at her worst last night, wanting every call. Anytime anything questionable happened, she'd jump up and start yelling at the refs. On numerous occasions the refs seemed to be cowed into calling VERY late calls based on her reactions. If that's true, that's unexcusable, never mind how badly the Gusties pissed away the win.

[Collegeville Magic]

I don't know if anybody else has had this experience when playing St. Kate's this year, but please tell me how the female version of Gilbert Gottfried ended up giving birth to a Wildcat player.  It sounded like the AFLAC duck got stuck on repeat behind their bench, spewing the following phrases nonstop:

A. (St. Kate's has the ball) "Get it inside, get it inside!!!"
B.  (a shot is taken by either team) "Rebound, rebound, rebound!!!"
C.  (St. Ben's has the ball) "Block it, block a shot, block a shot!!!"

In any case, the Blazers did what they should have done to CSC.  Heikenen had 18 points in 19 minutes, and everybody else chipped in nicely.  The story of the year on the CSB squad has been the emergence of Jaime Goehner.  After missing her first year with a knee injury, and then stuck on the bench last year behind Kim Johnson, Tara Schloe, and Ellie Boone, she has come into her own, and it couldn't happen to a nicer kid!

From a Blazer fan's perspective, it was an added bonus to see the other results pop up last night.  Ugsberg's first win over UST in 41 tries, dating back to 85 or so?  Bethel choking at home against the Cards?  Oles over Pipers?  Weird night.  I'm just glad CSB avoided the upset bug last night.

Anybody who thinks that the conference race (for any one of the top 6 spots) is over isn't paying attention.

Go Blazers!!!!!