MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[RO_24]

I'll be making the trip to Richmond tonight to watch the Beavers play, hopefully they can contain the big guy, with them being such a small team it will be tough for them I think.  Hopefully they prove me wrong and come out on top tonight and  continue the long demise for Earlham beating the Beav...Should be a good one though.

[earlhamalum]

RO_24-  Give me your thoughts on the game when you get back tonight.  No Teamline for Earlham in this game... I wonder if Bluffton has a radio/internet crew that will be making the trip to Richmond tonigh?

[Darryl Nester]

Earlhamalum: No broadcast crew from Bluffton -- most students are packing up to leave for Thanksgiving break.  (Or perhaps I should say, most have already left ...)

RO_24: See you this weekend.

[wally_wabash]

Halftime at Chadwick:
Hanover 39
Wabash 42

A lot of ebb and flow to this one...Wabash started hot and took a quick six point lead.  Hanover used the three point shot to get back and take a quick lead before Wabash responded with another run.  Wabash led most of the half and by as many as 8.  Hanover made a run late in the half to get as close as two points.  Freshman Aaron Brock is having a great game so far with double digit points in the first half.  Andrew Zimmer hobbled off the floor with about 5 minutes left in the half...we'll hope that he's going to be ok. 

Obviously, the LGs are doing much much better offensively tonight than they did this weekend.  We're set up for an entertaining second half. 

Hanover is 8-28 on 3 pt FGs at the half.  Hanover is living the "live by the 3, die by the 3" mantra tonight.

Injury update: Zimmer is back on the floor in the second half and scored two quick buckets to start the half...good news for Wabash.

[earlhamalum]

Half-time score 
EC 31  Bluffton 37

Bluffton hit a half-court shot to end the half.

[earlhamalum]

EC 54 
Bluffton 54

8 minutes left in the 2nd half

[wally_wabash]

It's raining threes for Hanover in the second half.  Panthers are up 7 with about 4 minutes to go.  Wabash is losing the turnover battle 23-3 at last check.  Ouch. 

[wally_wabash]

Final from Chadwick:

Hanover 90
Wabash 85

Turnovers killed the LGs tonight...I'll have more after House.   

[earlhamalum]

Not a good night for the NCAC... Final from Richmond  BC-81  EC-68.

From another source.  Earlham had a 6 point lead with 10 minutes to go in the 2nd half.  EC fell apart after the game was tied at 54 with 8 minutes to go.  Bluffton went on and out-scored earlham 14-3 in the next 4 minutes and that's all she wrote.

I was also told that Earlham in the last 10 minutes went back to "OLD EARLHAM WAYS"  aka One pass and shot.  *not all were "BAD SHOTS" just shots that they could of got at any point in the shot clock.

Not a start to the season that I was looking for, but hopefully they will gain valuable experience before the IMPORTANT part of the season starts... THE NCAC

[wally_wabash]

I wouldn't call it a bad night all around...Wabash led Hanover for a good deal of their game.  I had serious concerns that Wabash would be headed for a disastrous start and it really hasn't been that way.  Tonight Wabash got very solid games from Haltom (21 points, top scoring effort for Wabash tonight) and Aaron Brock.  Wabash shot well, limited Hanover to a respectable shooting percentage...now the LGs just need to start taking care of the ball.  Wabash lost a 5-point game to a pretty good Hanover team and turned the ball over 23 times (compared to just 4 for Hanover).  The TOs will come down and when they do I think Wabash could be a pretty solid team once we get around to January basketball. 

[woosterbooster]

That's a large turnover differential.  Wouldn't I love to see something like that in the boxscore of a Witt-Wooster football game!  Witt with the 23 turnovers, of course.

Not only does Wabash need to protect the ball better, but maybe a little more tenacious defense is in order, to force more turnovers from the opposition.  Seems if both of those issues improve, they'll be on the road to some wins.

Anybody notice that Oberlin lost by only TWO to BW?  Yikes.

[David Collinge]

Denison and Lake Erie battled in a tight game about 32 minutes, then LEC slowly pulled away and won by a score of 82-70.  I think this is one that Denison left on the table, for a number of reasons:

1) Poise.  LEC plays a very frenetic style.  On offense, they run on every possession and try for a quick shot.  If it's not there, they'll back it out and set up the offense, but they'll take advantage of a team that doesn't get back and get set.  DU did a good job of this in the first half, rendering Jajcen Harris (the preseason choice as AMCC POY) a non-factor, and holding LEC to just 38 points.  As the game wore on, however, more and more often LEC was able to find a man underneath the hoop with his guard out of position.  But the bigger problem was on offense.  LEC's style is a full-court ballhawking press, and it gave Denison fits all night.  Some of the Denison players (notably Dan Izzo and Karlin Tichenor, and to a lesser extent Pat Sullivan) could handle the pressure and find Hodgkinson (22 pts) or McMahon (14) for the easy hoop, primarily in the first half.  Other ballhandlers (nameless) were flustered by the press all night, and forced turnovers or bad shots.  One reserve in particular had major problems handling the pressure, and LEC took advantage by forcing the play to him and then forcing him to turn it over or at least not see the open man.  In the end, the turnover stats (17 for DU vs. 10 for LEC) don't adequately reflect how tough things were for DU ballhandlers.  The tell-all stat is shooting: DU hit 47% in the first half and just 38% in the second.  It is also worth noting that approximately half of DU's attempts were from beyond the arc (27 attempts, hitting just 8, vs. 34 two-point shots, making 18), whereas LEC only put up nine treys (all but one of them bricks) vs. 60 two-point attempts.

2) Rebounding.  Again, the stats deceive; the margin was just 36-35 in favor of LEC.  That's a little surprising; I guess DU must have had a healthy advantage in the first half, because in the second half they were doing a miserable job of boxing out and were victimized by the more athletic Storm for second and sometimes third attempts. 

3) Scoring.  I guess I'm spoiled watching Wooster so often; I'm accustomed to having five players on the court who are all scoring threats.  Not so for Denison.  Option One is, of course, Hodgkinson, and they did well to get the ball to him in the first half, when he had 12.  In the second he tallied 10 more, but he had to work like an ox on the boards to get those shots.  Similarly, Shea McMahon was able to get open inside and outside in his 12-point first half, but was completely shut down (2 pts.) in the second.  There were always one or two DU players on the floor who were either unable to unwilling to shoot.  Pat Sullivan did a pretty good job handling the defensive pressure, but in 28 minutes of ballhandling he only took two shots (missed them both.)  Forty-four of the 61 total attempts came from four players who were rarely on the court at the same time--Hodgkinson, McMahon, Izzo, and Tichenor.  These four combined for 18 second-half points (10 by Hodgkinson), when LEC turned a 3-point halftime deficit into a 12-point win.

4) Referreeing.  No, I'm not complaining.  It was Denison's misfortune that they had a let-'em-play crew tonight.  LEC's style on both ends could have been referreed at a foul-a-minute pace, but this crew only whistled them for 12 fouls.  LEC did a much better job of adjusting to the swallowed whistle than Denison.  LEC stepped up the pressure, slapping at the ball constantly, banging Hodgkinson around like a rag doll, and crashing the offensive boards, all practically without penalty.  Denison, by contrast, didn't change their style noticeably, which was a particular problem since several players seemed to be almost afraid of being whistled. 

5) Quickness.  Virtually every loose ball ended up in LEC hands all night long.  I don't think they were outhustled so much as "out-quicked" (ugh, did I just use that non-word?) 

Even with all of these problems, Denison led throughout the first half and for about the first 5 minutes of the second half, when LEC slowly began to pull away.  Even after LEC had built a seven point cushion, DU's John Ward hit back-to-back threes to cut the margin to one with about 8:30 left.  That's when all of these problems really came home to roost, with LEC scoring 18 of the game's final 25.

Denison's starting 5 were seniors Hodgkinson and Izzo, junior Brian Elder, and sophomores Shea McMahon and Pat Sullivan.  The rotation is nine deep, all upperclassmen (two more juniors, two more sophomores), but typically only one guard is on the floor at a time.  That probably wouldn't have been my choice against the press.

[wally_wabash]

Not only does Wabash need to protect the ball better, but maybe a little more tenacious defense is in order, to force more turnovers from the opposition.  Seems if both of those issues improve, they'll be on the road to some wins.

I think it's a matter of youth and inexperience right now.  We saw a lot of this same sort of thing when last year's seniors at Wabash came in and played a boatload of minutes in their first full year at the varsity level ('03-'04).  The difference between that group and this, IMO, is that this group of freshmen look like they have more ability to score the basketball than the previous group.  That group started 1-5 in the '03-'04 season and it was turnovers and poor shooting that killed Wabash in the early portion of the schedule.  This year, with similar inexperience, the shooting has started a little better, but the turnovers remain.  The turnovers will drop drastically as these kids get experience. 

As I listened to the game tonight I couldn't help but think that Hanover beat Wabash by forcing turnovers and banging open three pointers...except they didn't shoot three pointers that well, they just shot enough to win.  Scary to think what might happen when we play a team (cough, Wooster, cough) that can shoot the ball. 

[David Collinge]

The Oberlin/B-WC score you saw must have been the halftime score (B-WC by 2).  The final score was B-WC 81, Oberlin 66.  Still that's a pretty good showing for the Yeomen on the home court of the nation's #6 team.    Oberlin press release and box score.

Elsewhere,
Allegheny defeated Penn St.-Behrend 66-65 (Release)
Ohio Wesleyan knocked off Washington & Jefferson 90-64 (Release)
Note that OWU beat Penn St.-Behrend by 20, and 'Gheny beat W&J by 6, over the weekend.

Here's the press release and box score from Denison.

[ScotsFan]

Arujo may be a good test for the Scots interior game, but it looks like he's got the build of a D-III 7-footer as opposed to the D-I type.  He's listed as only 245 lbs - the same as Elam for the Scots.  I think that its the wide-bodies (Tori Davis comes to mind) that tend play a more physical game that generally give the Scots problems, whereas they can usually handle the tall-skinnys pretty well (except for that Russ kid!).

I don't know if I'd necessarily classify Tori Davis as a widebody.  I would definately say that about his brother, but Tori is only 6'3" and 195.  The problem Tori causes for everyone is his quick jumping ability.  Plus the fact that he jumps out of the gym and that helps him play a lot taller than he acutally is.  That's not to say that he still didn't give the Scots fits.