MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[David Collinge]

Kyle Witucky has now played in 106 games for Wooster (starting them all, I believe.)  As far as game appearances go, that's not even top 15 at Wooster...yet.  The all-time leader for the Scots is Blake Mealer, who appeared in 121 games in his career ending last season.  If he continues his games played streak, Kyle would tie that record 3 games into Wooster's postseason, which many of us assume will be the NCAC championship game.  Kyle could play in as many as 127 games, if the Scots reach Salem.  I'm not sure how that stacks up nationally;  it's probably pretty high, but I'd guess that the record is probably held by a recent Williams player, perhaps Crotty.

UPDATE:  not Crotty or any other Eph.  Crotty played in 120 games, starting them all, which is tops for Williams, but Blake's got him by one game.  I'll keep looking...

[WooMix]

Thank you very much Mr. DC.  Big fan of trivia I am.  Wait I will to see if he gets to the record.  That said, I'd like to take this oppotunity to congratulate my Fighting Scots for winning the tournament at Washington & Jefferson.  I'm just surprised that they made Cooper the MVP. 15 and 17 aren't exactly MVP numbers but ummm ...?

[Pat Coleman]

According to the NCAA record book the record is indeed held by Crotty, but at 122 games. But my experience with this record is either the NCAA isn't getting all the updates in or schools are not informing the NCAA of records in this category. The person listed in the book before Crotty was not the person who held the record -- at least two record-setters were unrecorded.

[David Collinge]

Hmmm.  Well, the Williams website is pretty specific on the point.  This is from the story on Crotty's hiring by the Boston Celtics, taken from their website:

"At Williams Crotty was a two-time All-American and was named to the NCAA All-Tournament team in both 2003 and 2004. He started every game of his four-year career and set an Eph record for games started and played, 120. [...] Crotty's Class of 2004 is the winningest class at Williams with an overall mark of 104-16 (.867)."

104+16=120.  So I'm guessing 120 is the right number for Crotty. 

I couldn't find "games played" in the record book I downloaded (from ncaa.org), but I haven't tried hard yet.  If they have Michael Crotty at 122, do they have Blake Mealer at 121, some other number, or not at all?  I wonder if Mealer's 121 is in fact the record?  [UPDATE: found it.  It says in its entirety "Games Played--Career: 122--Michael Crotty, Williams, 2001-04"  Swell.  Thanks, NCAA.]

UPDATE:  UW-Stevens Point says that Jason Kalsow played in 121 games in his brilliant career.
UWSP record book

[Gregory Sager]

North Park's Michael Thomas and Jim Clausen played in 121 games for the Vikings from the 1977-78 season thru the 1980-81 season. Thomas started every game of his four-year career as a Viking (Clausen was the first big man off the bench as a freshman and then a starter for the next three years), and for the first three of those years North Park played 31 games and won national titles. Their senior season North Park was eliminated in the regionals, so they played 28 games.

D3 teams were allowed to play 26 regular-season games back then, as opposed to the current 25. Of course, the CCIW did not have a postseason conference tournament to pad the games-played totals.

[David Collinge]

Yeah, I thought of North Park, as the record is probably held by someone on a team that made several deep tourney runs.  That says "North Park" to me.  But neither North Park's nor the CCIW's website had a "games played" part of their record books.  Thanks for the assist. 

[David Collinge]

While looking at the D3 record book, I came across this interesting item:

POINTS SCORED WITH NO TIME ELAPSING
Game
24—Rob Rittgers, UC San Diego vs. Menlo, Jan. 16,
1988 (made 24 consecutive free throws due to 12
bench technical fouls)

I bet that was a fun game, huh?

[Mr. Ypsi]

While looking at the D3 record book, I came across this interesting item:

POINTS SCORED WITH NO TIME ELAPSING
Game
24—Rob Rittgers, UC San Diego vs. Menlo, Jan. 16,
1988 (made 24 consecutive free throws due to 12
bench technical fouls)

I bet that was a fun game, huh?

Nice find!

And (belated!) congrats to Rob Rittgers for making all 24 - any note on his game totals for FTs?  Must have been CLOSE to a record.

And what in tarnation could Menlo have done to get 12 bench technicals?!  Even Indiana didn't get that for the 'Malice at the Palace' riot!

[David Collinge]

Here's another fun game from the record book:

FEWEST POINTS ALLOWED
6—Dickinson (15) vs. Muhlenberg, Feb. 3, 1982
FEWEST POINTS ALLOWED IN A HALF
0—Dickinson (2) vs. Muhlenberg (first), Feb. 3, 1982
FEWEST FIELD GOALS
3—Muhlenberg vs. Dickinson, Feb. 3, 1982 (11 attempts)
FEWEST FIELD-GOAL ATTEMPTS
11—Muhlenberg vs. Dickinson, Feb. 3, 1982 (3 made)

Ypsi, Rob Rittgers went 30/30 from the stripe that day, which gave him three more entries in the record book (most FTs attempted, most FTs made, best FT %).

[Mr. Ypsi]

David, great stuff!

Were you able to track down what could possibly lead to 12 bench technicals?!

[Pat Coleman]

I don't know if I read this somewhere or just always assumed it was for some sort of brawl where 12 people left the bench.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Pat,

Sounds plausible, but unless it was a mugging rather than a brawl (or UCSD had a much shorter bench or a much worse FT shooter!), why the disparity?  I was thinking more along the lines of the whole Menlo bench chanting F*** Y** at a ref!  I[E]nquiring minds want to know!

BTW, had a chance to check your email?  Let me know if there is NOT a message from me there.

[wally_wabash]

The NCAA record book can be spotty...I've noticed in the football records book (which has a nice photo of some kid wearing a #7 Wooster jersey on page 2  ) that Jake Knott's career yardage numbers are absent from the all-divisons lists.  By my count he should be 19th in total career yardage, 28th in career passing yardage, and 9th in career touchdown passes.  Then again, I don't know how many other people's stats the NCAA is missing...

At least we know where our players stand in the books.   

[David Collinge]

121 games in a career is a pretty big number.  Even if the NCAA record book can't be trusted (and, obviously, it can't), we ought to be able to intuit who might be a candidate to have 121+ games.  To beat it you'd need to play every game all four years, and average more than 30 games per year (which, these days, means 5+ postseason games per season for all four years.)  The single-season record appears to be 34 ('90 EauClaire and '04 Stevens Point), so to get to 121 you'd need to be talking about a team with sustained excellence.  We've covered Williams, North Park, Wooster, and Stevens Point.  I just looked up Platteville, and their record is 118 (T.J. Van Wie, 1898-93, and Ernie Peavy, 1991-95).  I'm sure there are other candidates (Rochester comes to mind), but it's too late to chase this hare any further tonight.

[Pat Coleman]

Catholic's Pat Maloney and Tim Judge played in all 121 possible games of their four-year careers, which is how the error came to my notice.