MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wally_wabash]

Witt up 29-18 at half.

Tight game for the first 13-15 minutes, then Wabash got pretty sloppy and Witt ended on a nice run to push the lead out to double digits.  Wabash is struggling hanging on to the ball (nothing new), is in some foul trouble, and is just 1-6 on free throws (mony of which were front ends of 1-and-1's). 

Not an impossible task, but Wabash has to play much more sound in the second half. 

[jscwittfan]

It's clearly a night of runs in the NCAC.  Allegheny jumps out to an 11-0 start against Hiram (it's 40-20 now with 5 minutes left), and Ohio Wesleyan has jumped out to a 17-0 start on Oberlin (its now 34-12 with 6 remaining).  Ouch.

42-32 Witt about midway through the 2nd half.

[wooscotsfan]

~8:00 minutes left:  Wooster 75  Kenyon 42

[pennstghs]

50 Wittenberg Wabash 39 with under 10 to go

sounds like wabash is making a lot of young mistakes concerning costly turnovers and also sounds like they are mired in foul trouble

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 89  Kenyon 54

Wooster stretched out the lead in the second half and cleared their bench with ~6 minutes left in the game.    Scots made 14 three pointers tonight.

Wooster was led tonight by James Cooper with 20 points, Tom Port with 15 points, Brandon Johnson with 14 points and Devin Fulk with 10 points.

Very good to hear today that Vandervaart might have a chance to play in the post season for the Scots.  Best wishes to Tim for a speedy recovery!

Kenyon was led tonight by Brian Yelvington with 20 points and Korey Haddox with 15.

Wooster is now 16-2, 9-0 NCAC     Next game at Earlham on Saturday.

GO SCOTS!!

[WoosterFAN]

Ok, Great WIN for the SCOTS tonite.  Good to see the combination of hot shooting and solid tuff defense.  I have a couple of questions.  I listened to only some of the broadcast and of course I am off campus in Memphis.

(1) Where is Dex Battista...only 3 minutes tonite?  Elam and Melick getting more minutes than the 6'8" much publized recruit.  Is he more a project?  What is the deal?

(2) Why did Elam shoot 2 three's.  End of shot clock situations.  He is 6'6" 240 lbs and should be in the lane.  Is the three pointer a legit part of his game?  Just wondering.

We need to get post play worked out before Wittenberg comes to town in a couple of weeks!!

Go SCOTS!!

[jscwittfan]

64-51 Witt wins at Wabash.

[wally_wabash]

Final from C'ville:

Witt 64
Wabash 51

Witt didn't play a great game tonight, but Wabash just made too many mistakes (turnovers and missed free throws particularly) to beat a good team.  Such is the life of a young basketball team.  Oberlin visits Wabash on Saturday. 

[imderekpoe]

Ok, Great WIN for the SCOTS tonite.  Good to see the combination of hot shooting and solid tuff defense.  I have a couple of questions.  I listened to only some of the broadcast and of course I am off campus in Memphis.

(1) Where is Dex Battista...only 3 minutes tonite?  Elam and Melick getting more minutes than the 6'8" much publized recruit.  Is he more a project?  What is the deal?

(2) Why did Elam shoot 2 three's.  End of shot clock situations.  He is 6'6" 240 lbs and should be in the lane.  Is the three pointer a legit part of his game?  Just wondering.

We need to get post play worked out before Wittenberg comes to town in a couple of weeks!!

Go SCOTS!!

(1) Thus far there's no evidence that Battista is going to have a big impact with the Scots.  He's been a bit tentative and doesn't have the size and strength of Elam or Melick.

(2) Elam can shoot the 3-ball.  He was 2-4 from downtown coming into tonight's game, but took several 3's in the pre-season exhibition games, and hit a pretty good percentage of them.  However, with Vandervaart being out of action I'd rather see him work on his post-up game for now. They've got plenty of options from outside and need him underneath.

[ScotsFan]

Elam reminds me a lot of Bryan Nelson.  Nelson could stroke it from downtown pretty regularly as well.  I agree with cmhscots in that with Vandervaart out, I would rather see him concentrating on developing more of his inside game than lofting 3's.  I was impressed, however,  with how well he played on the defensive end of the floor tonight.  That was what impressed me the most in his game tonight.

As for the game itself, I like this defensive trend being put forth by the Scots.  For the 3rd game in a row Wooster holds their opponent to under 35% from the floor and it was the 4th game in a row they held their opponent to under 40%!  Also, Wooster held Kenyon in check from 3-point range holding them to just 20%.  The Lords came into the night shooting 35% from beyond the arc.  I'm very pleased to see this trend continuing.  Let's hope it keeps up!!!

[jscwittfan]

(1) Where is Dex Battista...only 3 minutes tonite?  Elam and Melick getting more minutes than the 6'8" much publized recruit.  Is he more a project?  What is the deal?

(1) Thus far there's no evidence that Battista is going to have a big impact with the Scots.  He's been a bit tentative and doesn't have the size and strength of Elam or Melick.

I would agree.  I saw Dex play for Wooster's JV team here at Wittenberg, and I was not impressed at all.  Maybe it's just having to adjust to the college game, but he looked, as cmhscots suggested, tentative - maybe even a little soft - and didn't have the greatest looking shot in the world either.  I'm sure that given some time to adjust he would be a decent player, but who knows how long that could take.



Solid win on the road for Witt tonight.  22 for Borchers and 21 for Gregg Hill.  If Witt can get that type of production from those two guys at the same time every night, this could still be a dangerous team.

[billy_pilgrim]

Earlham wins like its 754th straight game at (the new and improved) Livingston Gymansium, beating Dension 80-60.

Jewett had 24 and 6, Henry added 18.

Nice to see Neil Collins back, adding 10 points. Neil missed the last couple games (including the loss at Wabash) because of a death in the family. Having a point guard makes a big difference...as does playing a team that never plays defense.

The NCAC's softest star had 20 to lead the Big Red.

[David Collinge]

I'd say that Battista is the last big (well, tall; he's not big at all) man on the depth chart, behind Vandervaart, Will, Bidwell, Melick, Elam, Hershberger, and Tenenini.  He played extensively in the JV game today, and I didn't see anything. 

Elam's two threes were both early in the shot clock, like 30+ seconds.  I don't know why he took them, but they were decent-looking shots, and the game was pretty much out of hand anyway.  He spent most of the playing time in the paint.

Wooster played excellent defense tonight and put the game away very early.

[smedindy]

That was an ugly game. Both teams played sluggish in the first half, but Witt got it going behind Borchers and Hill later on. Wabash just couldn't shoot well at all, but Witt will do that to you. The foul issues were mainly fouls at the end of the game, but the refs were inconsistent, both ways. The same type of contact on one end drew a foul on the other end. Ick.

Borchers had a solid game, 22 pts, 8 boards, 3 blocks 2 steals. Hill gave the LG guards problems all night penetrating to the hoop. He had 21 points.

I wasn't that impressed with the way Witt handled the ball. They had just 7 assists (and I gave them a gift one, maybe) and seemed they just stood and waited for Hill or Borchers to get the ball and make a move. I think they're going to have issues later on in the year.

Wabash also needs to hit its free throws. 7-15 isn't going to cut it.

The good news is that Wabash crashed the boards hard.

[wooscotsfan]

All the 1/24 NCAC Final Scores:

Hiram 82  Allegheny 81  (Pups rally from 22 point deficit to get win)
Ohio Wesleyan 96  Oberlin 59
Wittenberg 64  Wabash 51
Earlham 80  Denison 60
Wooster 89  Kenyon 54