MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[imderekpoe]

IWU has really hit a rough stretch...

So I'm guessing that the top 4 teams will remain the same in this week's ranking, but the order will be scrambled a bit.  Maybe Witt, Albion, Wooster, Hope?  If everyone holds the course, Feb 4 could be the biggest day recently in DIII hoops non-tournament play.  Wooster at Witt and Albion at Hope!

[Mr. Ypsi]

I suspect that Lawrence will go past Hope, and have NO CLUE as to the order of Albion, Witt, and Woo.  Before today I would have predicted that Albion would jump to the top of the pile, but with them narrowly beating a so-so Alma team, while Witt killed (admittedly terrible) Hiram and Woo beat up on very respectable Wabash (IN Crawfordsville), it may be dart-board time.

I'm sure that Albion, Witt, and Woo are the top three (in whatever order).  I'll guess Lawrence 4th and Hope 5th, but it gets real dicey after that.  While I'm not sure IWU deserves to stay as high as 6th, what is the alternative?  They decisively beat Puget Sound head-to-head, Amherst lost again, York looks very good but their schedule is not even half what IWU's has been, Hampden-Sydney lost twice this week and will be praying to even STAY in the poll, new Cinderella North Central lost - perhaps they will fall behind Augustana, but I'm not sure who else.

[sac]

By Feb 4 I think we get the first Great Lakes Regional Poll as well.

I'm sure the top 4 in the Region will be squaring off that day.

Probably #1 Albion, #2 Witt, #3 Woo, #4 Hope

Would it shock anyone if these were the first or second round pairings in the dance? 

[David Collinge]

I'm guessing that the combination of Wooter's big win at Wabash and Albion's close game at Alma, and the fact that Wooster has a 38-point lead on Albion in this week's poll, will keep the Scots north of the Britons in the poll.  My guess would be
1. Witt
2. Woo
3. Albion
4. Lawrence
(fairly big gap)
then in 5-9, in some order
Augustana, Hope, IWU, Puget Sound, York

By Feb 4 I think we get the first Great Lakes Regional Poll as well.

I'm sure the top 4 in the Region will be squaring off that day.

Probably #1 Albion, #2 Witt, #3 Woo, #4 Hope

Well, maybe, but if there were a region poll taken today, based on the criteria the NCAA uses, I'm pretty sure that Carnegie Mellon would be #1.

[WooMix]

This coming week's poll is going to be very interesting.  For the top three teams, I wud agree with DC but I am really not sure about having Lawrence ahead of Hope.  My top five teams are:

1. Witt
2. Woo
3. Albion
4. Hope
5. Lawrence

[wooscotsfan]

NCAC Standings (thru today's games)

6-0  Wooster (14-1)
5-1  Wittenberg (14-1)
5-1  Ohio Wesleyan (10-5)
4-2  Wabash (10-5)
4-2  Earlham (7-8)
2-4  Denison (6-9)
2-4  Kenyon (5-10)
1-5  Allegheny (5-9)
1-5  Hiram (3-12)
0-6  Oberlin (0-14)

[kiltedbryan]

Anyone else find it funny that the league standings is a mirror-image of itself?  That is, one team is 6-0, one 0-6, two teams are 5-1, two are 1-5 and so on.  Sorry, just a random observation.

[imderekpoe]

I realized that the Scots had a good 2nd half yesterday, but I didn're realize how good.  According to The Daily Record this morning, the Scots scored 66 points on 33 posessions!  Not too shabby!

http://www.the-daily-record.com/article.php?pathToFile=/articles//sports/&file=_sports3.txt&article=1&tD=

[earlhamalum]

Looks like the Earlham VS. Wabash is going to be a BIG game for both teams.  Games like these can come back and bite you when the final NCAC Tourny starts.  Those tie breakers at the end of the season gets a little tricky, for final standings in the NCAC.

It always amazes me in RANKINGS.  I see two teams with the same record.  Looks like Wooster and Wittenberg are both (14-1).  I wonder who the better team is.  *OH WAIT they played eachother already and WOOSTER won.  So to me, that means Wooster is the better team and should be ranked Higher than WIttenberg.  It's true you know it TRUE!

[ScotsFan]

I'm just wondering if COOPER for WOOSTER had 4 fouls, would the NCAC Ref's call 5 on him with 3 minutes to go in a tight game?  This is twice in a row getting in foul trouble and doesn't get the Respect he deserves. 

Why wouldn't they???  Besides, it looks like Miller drew his fair share of fouls as well.  From the stats, 16 of his 28 points came from the charity stripe!  Tom Port got rung up for his 3rd and 4th fouls in the 1st 3 minutes of the 2nd half yesterday, and I believe it was still only a 6-8 point game at that point.  I think that is about as rediculous a statement as I have read in here for a while.  What, are the NCAC officials scared to call fouls on Cooper???  That's just silly.

[smedindy]

Earlhamalum -

It all depends on who lost last.

[Vanilla24COW]

I agree Smed, even though it will look kind of funny that Witt will be ranked #1 in the poll but in the NCAC standings they are in 2nd. Polls really do not mean anything anyways as we all know, its what is taken care of on the court and personally I would rather not be ranked #1 as a loss at #1 is a guaranteed way to end up on the front page of D3hoops for the wrong reasons!! Congrats to the Scots on an impressive win at Chadwick which is in my opinion probably the toughest place to play in the NCAC with Witt a close second.

[MoneyBallSTL]

 A noteworthy fact about the poor officiating at Wabash...one of the refs (Scott McLoughlin) just "happened" to be one of the same refs who allowed one of the worst officiating blunders in history to occur last season at Albion. Conspiracy??? Could very well be since he called 4 or maybe all of the 5 fouls on Port, most of which were of the "ticky-tack" variety. :

[David Collinge]

A noteworthy fact about the poor officiating at Wabash...one of the refs (Scott McLoughlin) just "happened" to be one of the same refs who allowed one of the worst officiating blunders in history to occur last season at Albion.

Oh, boy.  Do we really want to start THAT again? 

[smedindy]

Port's fouls were definitely NOT ticky tack. He deserved them and should have received a "T" for his actions.

The refs weren't great - they were inconsistent - yet Port's fould were all justified. He's no saint and he proved it Saturday.