MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Li'l Giant]

Wow. Guess you can't mess with Earlham.

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 83  Earlham 81 OT

Wooster gets a close road win in overtime.  Great shot by Witucky to win it at the buzzer.  Scots were led today by Tim Vandervaart, James Cooper and Kyle Witucky.

Wooster is now 6-0 and will play Oberlin at home on 12/7.

GO SCOTS!!

[ScotsFan]

First of all, let me say...   WHEWWWW!

Wooster escapes with a win today by a very game Earlham squad.  Leron Henry of Earlham missed 1 out of 2 ft's with just over 6 seconds left that would have given the Quakers the lead.  Witucky then took the inbounds pass the length of the floor and hit the jumper for the 83-81 win!

I haven't heard the final #'s, but Vandervaart had 8 of Wooster's 10 points in OT alone.  Earlham played real well on the defensive end and forced the tempo to go their way and took away the transition points from Wooster for the most part.  Wooster didn't have success from beyond the arc as well.  To me, that was main reason they couldn't pull away today.  EC did a great job in taking away the outside shot from Wooster and forcing the Scots to penetrate and shoot on the move.  It didn't sound like Wooster had too many open looks all afternoon.  

Coach Moore is now 35-0 in his carreer against Earlham, and this one today had to be one of the closest.  I have to admit, I didn't see it being this close.  Hats off to the Quakers on a solid effort today.  Next up for Wooster, a home date with Oberlin before the big on next Saturday.  

[blindwatchmaker]

Congrats Wooster!  That was a great game.  Anyone find the final stats?  Seems like both teams had trouble shooting FT's.

Also- can anyone login for the Witt/Denison game?  Been trying and it doesn't seem to be up and running.

[wally_wabash]

Final from Chadwick:

Oberlin 59
Wabash 90

You can pretty much guess how this one went.  Wabash moves to 4-3 on the season, Yeomen drop to 0-7. 

[witt4ever]

Wittenberg 70
Denison 52

[waterboy]

Looks like a thriller in Richmond.  I'm curious to see the stats, which should become available once the Scot women wrap up their contest with the Quakers.  How ironic is it that Witucky was the topic of much discussion this week, and appropriately, nails the game-winner?

Allegheny opens NCAC play with a 77-68 victory over Kenyon.  No statistics as of yet.  Next up:  Westminster - Gators and Titans combined for an NCAC record 263 points last season, with Allegheny coming up on the short end 135-128.

[waterboy]

For those of you keeping track, Denison has been outscored by JUST 54 points against Woo and Witt.  If they keep it within 50 against Akron, then we were all way off in our predictions.

[wooscotsfan]

All the NCAC 12/3 Final Scores:

Wittenberg 70  Denison 52
Ohio Wesleyan 83  Hiram 58
Wabash 90  Oberlin 59
Allegheny 77  Kenyon 68
Wooster 83  Earlham 81  OT

[waterboy]

Numbers in from Meadville.  Gators used a 15-4 run midway in the first period to grab the lead from Kenyon and went into the locker room up by nine (43-34), which they held for the remainder.  Matt Majzlik led the way in scoring with 18, while McCloskey chipped in with 16, including 10-of-12 from the charity stripe, and a team-high five helpers.  Noteworthy, Jimmy Savage dropped 14 in his first start of the season and sophomore Ben Torsney put in 10 tallies.  Free throws look to be a key as Allegheny went 28-of-35 from the line (80%), while Kenyon was 18-of-28 (64.3%).

I wish there were more Lord posters on this board.  I'm curious as to why Matt Formato, Kenyon's leading scorer in each of the past two seasons, was limited to just 12 minutes and no points.  6'6" Bryan Yelvington, on the other hand, has emerged as the leading scorer and dropped a double-double on the Gators with 31 points and 10 rebounds.  He's also gone to the line 44 times in just six games, converting 38 attempts (86.4).

[imderekpoe]

Just back from Richmond...
The Scots have frequently had games against Earlham, mainly over there, that were much closer than expected.  In the past I had thought that most of those games were because Wooster didn't play very well.  Today, I'd give the credit to the Quakers.  I thought that was the best that I've seen them play.  They moved the ball well, played excellent defense - especially against the Scots perimeter - and worked back into the game each time the Scots looked to put it away.

Neither team shot FT very well - I think the Witucky and Vandervaart missed 2 shots each on back-to-back posessions in the 2nd half.  And a huge miss by Henry for Earlham at the end of OT, but they wouldn't have been there if not for the big 3 at the buzzer of regulation.

Vandervaart and Cooper were huge for the Scots.  Cooper did a great job of driving to the basket and making all kinds of off-balance shots.  Vandervaart had his way in the OT, especially in the first couple minues when (for some reason) Jewett wasn't in.  Also big props to the Scots D which shut down Jewett in the 2nd half.  He couldn't get an open look from outside and if he tried to post up always had someone all over him.

The only real negative about this game was the officiating.  Every year we complain about the quality, and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better.  At least they were pretty much equally incompetent at both ends of the court. 

An excellent win for the Scots, and here's to a much easier time on Wednesday before the big game next weekend!

BTW:  The stats are now posted:  http://athletics.wooster.edu/mb/boxes/2005-06/earlham.php

Go Scots!!

[billy_pilgrim]

Yeah, I'm reviewing the stats right now.

I guess I didn't realize that Wooster shot poorly at the foul line...I just remember that Witucky had the big miss at the end of regulation. Earlham was brutal...8-19. 8-19? That's worse than I anticipated.

It looks like Port was really held in check...who had the assignment of guarding him?

Earlham also didn't turn the ball over as much as I had thought. Listening, it seemed like Earlham had at least 12 in the first half.

Well, this kicked off a frustrating day for me...I needed an upset of Texas or USC to get my beloved Nittany Lions in the Rose Bowl. But, apparently conferences outside of the Big Ten don't have more than one quality team. Oh well.

One last thing, forget about Witucky for All-American..................I'm saying All-World 

[smedindy]

Looking at the Oberlin / Wabash stats (couldn't be there because it's the holidays and all) I wonder if the Yeomen could be o-fer the year.

They had one guy who shot lights out and it still was a game where bench clearing time was early.

[wooscotsfan]

cmhscotsfan -- thanks for the first hand game report.

A few comments on the Wooster - Earlham stats:

--Tom Port had a rough game (4 of 14 from the floor) but it was more than offset by Tim Vandervaart (10 of 13) and James Cooper (8 of 13).  These two plus Witucky's clutch play got Wooster the "W" today.

--Wooster shot 52.5% from the floor and still had to go to overtime to win this game!?  Why?

--Earlham shot nearly as well 51.7% from the floor and the Quakers shot an unbelievable 61% on three point shots (11 of 18 made)

--Not sure if Wooster played less than stellar defense or if Earlham just shot the lights out?  cmhscotsfan did say that Earlham played well and the stats confirm that.

--Two other negative stats for Wooster:  They got outrebounded by Earlham 36-30 and the Scots only made 14 of 22 free throws.

As someone once said: a sign of a good team is that they don't play their best game and they still get the victory! 

GO SCOTS!!

[billy_pilgrim]

As someone once said: a sign of a good team is that they don't play their best game and they still get the victory!

Wooster shot .7 percent below its season FG %, committed fewer turnovers than it had in any other game, and shot about .6 percent below its season average on free throws.

They may not have played their "best" game, but they certainly played "their" game.

Wooster was taken to the wall and needed a fade away, contested shot at the buzzer to escape with a win. Credit where it's due. Wooster's a national title contender, but Earlham certainly proved the gap has closed.