MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[BigRedAlum]

CONGRATULATIONS TO DAN HODGKINSON ON BECOMING DENISON'S ALL TIME LEADING SCORER!!

CAREER  60% FGP
CAREER  75% FTP

Awesome numbers!!

He breaks the record that has stood for 37 years!!

And Denison won the game!!!

Way to go Dan. 
Way to go BIG RED!!!
Three more wins and punch a ticket to the tournament!!!

[gotigers]

CONGRATULATIONS TO DAN HODGKINSON ON BECOMING DENISON'S ALL TIME LEADING SCORER!!

CAREER  60% FGP
CAREER  75% FTP

Awesome numbers!!

He breaks the record that has stood for 37 years!!

And Denison won the game!!!

Way to go Dan. 
Way to go BIG RED!!!
Three more wins and punch a ticket to the tournament!!!

congrats to Dan Hodgkinson. i always love it when a record is broken. especially a record like the all time leading scorer. and those numbers....you can't get much better than that and not be cheating. i've never seen him play, to my knowledge, but he must be one heck of a player to get those numbers. congratulations. i'm rooting for denison to get those 3 wins now. it'd be a shame for him to break the rcord and not get in the tourney. but i wont root for them over witt. lol.

[David Collinge]

Congratulations from me to Dan as well.  I like the way Dan plays, and despite Denison's woeful record, I think he's a candidate for conference Player of the Year.  (Not trying to start a debate here...)

In the women's locker room down there, you'll find Denison's all-time leading rebounder and shot-blocker, and third-highest scorer, in the person of Kristen Sheffield.  You could make a pretty good argument that Denison currently is enjoying the presence of its best-ever women's and men's players at the same time.  Plus, the women's team is actually good (13-0 in conference, 19-3 overall, ranked #3 in the Great Lakes region.)

[jscwittfan]

Also Willie apparently im not the only one noticing that Wittenberg's attendance is kind of pathatic

from today's Springfield News Sun:

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/wittenberg/2007/02/07/snssp020807wittnotes.html

I wonder what "Internet chat boards" are being referred to . . . 

[tigerup07]

Anybody catch the slam at me? I read that and cringed... but at least I made the Springfield Newspaper during my time at Witt...
If you don't know, the line about the Pep Band is basically about me, since this year I'm a senior and I let go of the reins, trying to encourage the next set of youngin's to take over, and it never happened.

[pennstghs]

tigerup07 i think we all got referenced as jscwittfan pointed to by "internet discussion boards"--we're moving up in recognition guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[zu1414]

just curious...has a team ever finished first in a region and not met the seating requirements ?

glad to hear the Terriers played hard, which is to be expected. Moral victories won't get us a home game in the tourney though...

[earlhamalum]

Congrats to Dan, but my fav. denison basketball player to watch would be charlie DeLacey (sp?)  Anyone know where he was on the all-time scoring list??

Nice win for Earlham last night, and I want to take my hat off to Coach Justus with what he has been able to do with this team this year in the NCAC.  I look at Wabash's 17 man Roster (and they have a J.V. team) and to be able to beat a program like Wabash (after getting killed @Wabash) with the resources he has is remarkable to me.  Earlham barely has enough "Basketball players" to run practice and it's been like that for years and once again he has his team in position to finish 4th and HOST a tourney game!    Putting my hat back on.

OWU seems to be playing well as of late, and it will be a Tough task @ OWU this Saturday!

[pennstghs]

Earlhamalum-wow you seem to be getting more and more on my goodside-Charlie Delacey is an alumnus of the same high school as me. He is famous for a very good Greenon team that lost to Roger Bacon in the state finals back in the late 90's.

[David Collinge]

My admittedly limited exposure to the News-Sun over the years leads me to conclude that it must be a terrible paper.  Here's another misstatement, found at the bottom of the article pennstghs linked earlier today:

The top seed in the region at the end of the regular season gets hosting rights as long as they meet the NCAA's seating requirements of 2,500-plus, which Lake Erie does not.

That's just flat wrong.  First, the Handbook says nothing about seating capacity for first- and second-round games, and sets as a sectional-hosting threshold of 1,000 seats, not "2,500-plus."  It took about 1 minute of research to discover this. 

But the more important and misleading error is where he says that the region's top seed "gets hosting rights."  There are no such things as "hosting rights," not for the top seed or anyone else.  Being the top-ranked regional teams gets you into a pay toilet (if you have a dime), and nothing else.  It doesn't even guarantee that you earn a berth in the tournament, much less the "right" to host. 

Here is what the men's handbook actually says about hosting:

Site Selection
The Championships Committee has prioritized the following site-selection criteria for all championships:
1. Quality and availability of the facility and other necessary accommodations;
2. Geographical location (which may include such factors as rotation of sites, weather, accessibility and transportation costs);
3. Seeding; and
4. Attendance history and revenue potential, which shall be considered necessary to assure fiscal responsibility.
In addition, the men's basketball committee requires each host to videotape all contests at its site, with the intent to make available to each team a copy of the contest in which it participated. The committee also prefers sites that will not host conflicting events during the championship practice and competition. Sites will also be evaluated as to the availability of appropriate practice times for all competing teams. To host first-round, second-round or sectional contests, a regulation court as defined in 2007 NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Rules and Interpretations must be used. To host sectional competition, arena seating for at least 1,000 spectators is required.
An evaluation will be made of institutional facilities to determine if they are acceptable for championship play. Selection of host sites will be based partly upon the quality of the playing facility. A facility evaluation form must be completed online with a deadline of February 16. Instructions on accessing and completing the online facility evaluation will be mailed to the directors of athletics of all eligible Division III institutions sponsoring men's basketball. The facility evaluation is one of the tools used in determining site selection.

As you can see, far from there being any sort of automatic "hosting rights," a school has to apply to be a host site--and I can recall more than one instance when a higher-seeded team did not host because they failed to apply.  Seeding is only the third of the four "prioritized...criteria" in the site-selection process.

So, in response to zu1414, I don't know if anyone with an arena as small at Lake Erie's has ever finished the season as the top-ranked team in our region (I doubt it, but it could easily have happened in other regons), but it is not terribly important if they are.  Being #1 in the region is not a guarantee of hosting, and having a 750-seat gym is not an automatic bar to hosting in the first two rounds.

[David Collinge]

Congrats to Dan, but my fav. denison basketball player to watch would be charlie DeLacey (sp?)  Anyone know where he was on the all-time scoring list??

Charlie DeLacey is ninth on Denison's all-time scoring list with 1,318 points.  He was a co-captain and the MVP of the 2001-02 team.

[wally_wabash]

The top seed in the region at the end of the regular season gets hosting rights as long as they meet the NCAA's seating requirements of 2,500-plus, which Lake Erie does not.

That's just flat wrong. 

Why would he bother to fact-check that statement?  Based on the first half of the article we can gather that nobody in the greater Springfield area cares about Witt hoops anyway.     

[earlhamalum]

Thanks David  and kudos i mean karma to you!  I know all-time records can be skewd.  I know Earlham use to be in the NAIA and played at least 30+ games a year giving the avg. 4 year player at least 16 more games a career!!!  Kind of hard for Earlham players now to top that unless they make it to the conference FINALS all 4 years.  I don't see Bluffton and Franklin College changing with Wittenberg and Wooster in the near future!

P.S.  Golf Clap 4 u  Wally_W

[zu1414]

Charlie was a great player, just think how many more points he would have put up if he hit from the charity stripe at a higher percentage?

something sounded off about that, thanks for clearing it up David!

[jscwittfan]

My admittedly limited exposure to the News-Sun over the years leads me to conclude that it must be a terrible paper. 

This is, in fact, a true statement.  The News-Sun sucks.

And, I find it funny that they complain about attendance.  While it is a problem that needs addressed, they do nothing to make it better - Witt is lucky to get anything more than a game recap in the paper unless it's Wooster week, tournament time, or, in special occasions, week-long coverage of the trip to the Final Four last year (and the women are lucky if they get anything more than a box score).  They are just as much to blame as anybody.

Maybe the folks at the SNS who cite "Internet discussion boards" as sources will see this and fix their errant ways.