MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ScotsFan]

what will wooster do to stop dan russ and the rest of the witt frontcourt?  my only suggestion would be to put in the woo assistant coach.  he's got good size and he is usually out on the floor for half the game anyway.

Um, well, FYI whoya, UW Stout had a set of 7' twins (the Nonemachers) playing for them so its not like Wooster hasn't proven that they can win against a team with a significant height advantage.

I will grant you this, the Nonemachers didn't seem to be at quite the same level as Borchers and Russ.  Or at least at the same level that Borchers and Russ seem to play at every time they see a Wooster jersey!   That being said, they were quality post players and they were seven footers! 

That Stout game reminds me a bit of what Wooster will be facing tonight.  Stout had a big presense inside, and they had guards that can shoot from the outside.  Having won that game should at least give Wooster some confidence that they can beat teams with height advantages like Witt will have over them.  I will say this, Wooster will have to shoot better than they did in the first matchup between these 2 rivals last year.  Witt held the Scots to under 30% for the only time in the 2000's.  Hopefully the heat is cranked up in Timken for the Scots tonight because they have to be hot from the outside to have a chance in this one!

[Kramer]

I like Wooster in the big game tonight.  It will be interesting to see who comes out on top with the two contrasting styles of play.  Witt's strong post play versus Wooster's strong perimeter play, should be fun.  At home, I just believe Wooster will be able to keep the pace of play to their advantage.
To further expand on Denison, I believe one of their biggest problems is the fact that the coach yanks a player every time they make a mistake.  The result is no sustitution pattern, the wrong combination of players on the floor most of the game, and a bunch of kids playing trying NOT to make a mistake.  It's like playing trying not to get hurt, what happens, injuries.  The other problem I see is that the players who have turned this program around over the last two years are spending way to much time on the bench watching games get out of hand.  The team doesn't seem to be having any fun or enjoying playing the game at all.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, are we gonna quibble over the definition of 'final few minutes'?!

If you're going to consider two-thirds of the second half "the final few minutes", Chuck, then, yes, we are gonna quibble.

Actually, I admit I had remembered the Illini run as a few minutes later than that (damn memory!); but I still contend that if IWU had shot FTs like they usually do, and if Cory Jones had been available (the run didn't happen 'til our front court was in foul trouble - give 'em 5 more fouls to play with...), the game might have gone all the way to the wire.

Yeah, and if the Illini had wings on their backs they could've flown up to the basket and negated that extra Titans big man. Even for a diehard you're leaning a little too heavily on dreamed-for "what ifs", Chuck. You play the game with the players you have available ... and how they perform at the free-throw line is all a part of the game. Perhaps you should start a "Counterfactuals" room in Posting Up where you can offer these arguments ... and where I can finally get an answer to the questions that have vexed me ever since they appeared in a Saturday Night Live skit back in the late seventies: What if Superman was a Nazi? And what if Napoleon had a B-52 at Waterloo?

OK, scratch Dee Brown - how about a d3 player being able to say he outplayed a Big 10 POY?

Now that is something he can legitimately use to bore his grandchildren. 

I will grant you this, the Nonemachers didn't seem to be at quite the same level as Borchers and Russ.  Or at least at the same level that Borchers and Russ seem to play at every time they see a Wooster jersey!   That being said, they were quality post players and they were seven footers!

You seem to be a lot higher on the Nonemacher brothers than are the people in the WIAC room, ScotsFan. So I looked up their stats. Jacob (the one who starts) averages 7.9 ppg and 5.3 rpg. These numbers will probably not increase much (if at all) as the year goes on, because UW-Stout will be playing mostly WIAC games from now on, so the competition gets tougher. His non-starting brother John averages 5.1 ppg and 3.3 rpg. "Quality post players" would seem to be a stretch to describe them, especially as compared to Wittenberg's Dan Russ (11.2/5.2) and Dane Borchers (8.0/5.8 ).

[ScotsFan]

You seem to be a lot higher on the Nonemacher brothers than are the people in the WIAC room, ScotsFan. So I looked up their stats. Jacob (the one who starts) averages 7.9 ppg and 5.3 rpg. These numbers will probably not increase much (if at all) as the year goes on, because UW-Stout will be playing mostly WIAC games from now on, so the competition gets tougher. His non-starting brother John averages 5.1 ppg and 3.3 rpg. "Quality post players" would seem to be a stretch to describe them, especially as compared to Wittenberg's Dan Russ (11.2/5.2) and Dane Borchers (8.0/5.8 ).

I did mention the fact that I didn't feel that the Nonemachers were on the same level as Witt's bigs, but at 7.9 ppg and 5.3 rpg, Jacob isn't that far off from Russ' #'s and they look pretty even to Borcher's #'s.  I didn't refer to them as great post players.  Personally, I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that they are quality bigs (especially Jacob N.), but, perhaps the more appropriate description would have been average to above average post players.

[David Collinge]

Folks, I've opened up a new board for in-game updates of tonight's Witt @ Woo game:
http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=4130.0

Please post your in-game comments over there so this board can remain relatively devoted to the general conference.  I figure that nobody's going to want to see a post like "Wxx 53, Wxx 47, 8:58 remaining, Nnnn just hit a trey" much beyond Tuesday, so there's no need to make those interested in general NCAC topics wade through a couple of pages of updates to find their topic.    

[wally_wabash]

NCAC scores in the books so far today...

Hiram 68, Oberlin 57
OWU 76, Allegheny 61
Earlham 86, Kenyon 80

[GoBigRed]

Final from Granville

Buffton 76
Denison 53

Let me just share a few things I was scratching my head about as I watched this game. I'll start with the good news:

Denison's gym looks nice, I had committed to the bleachers before I noticed that the seats behind the benches were individual seats, now I know for next time.

And the bad news:

Denison has arguably the best post player in the conference, but they ran this 5 out running around thing for most of the game and the big guy couldn't play his game (I think he almost hit a 3). I'm looking at the box score, and again, 11 guys play 10 minutes or more. The complete lack of continuity is probably why they turned the ball over 26 times (watchng it I thought they had 40). That Hern kid didnt even start, he mustve been late to a practice or something. I guess Ghiloni thinks this is gym class and everyone needs to play, by doing this they're going to lose by 20 every single game, he might as well literally play everybody.

Its bad, folks. I just dont understand what goings on. They've got a week before their next game, and unless they cut the rotation in half and get the big kid on the block, Wabash is gonna kill 'em   

[Kramer]

GoBigRed - Believe it or not Hern wasn't late or something.  Just another lineup change - seems to be differnt every game.  This team is really down, all the fun has been taken out of the game.  The offensive philosophy is awful, why would you have your post player starting at the top of the key in nearly every possession?  They do the same thing every time down court, just once I'd like to see them spread the floor so they have some room to operate.

[DarkSide-D]

Woo wins 86-83!  Thanks to David Collinge for setting up the Woo-Witt game board. 

If anyone downloaded the Live Video stream, I would be interested in seeing how it turned out.

[DarkSide-D]

Listening to Coach Moore's post-game interview, it's amazing how calm he sounds.  I know he was probably going nuts on the bench

[waterboy]

Wow.  That's all I have to say.

Well, not all entirely.  It pretty much played out as everyone thought.  Witt dominated on the inside, Woo on the outside.  After going down big in the first quarter (20-6), Wooster came back with a huge run to end the half, but Witt held on by one at the break (41-40).

It was back and forth the entire second half.  It came down to the wire and lucky for Woo, James Cooper knows how to handle pressure.  He scored each of the last seven, including the go-ahead trey from way out with 4.1 on the clock.  I tip my hat to the Scots.

I would also like to congratulate Dan Russ on a well played game.  He was as dominant as ever on the glass and in the paint, scoring big buckets time and time again.  There was a little scare late in the second when he blocked one of Port's layups and went down with what appeared to be an ankle sprain.  He limped off the court and came back a couple minutes later, however, retaped and ready to go.  He scored as soon as he went in and later hit the game-tying bucket at 83 all, setting up Coop's dramatics. 

Well played by all.

[MoneyBallSTL]

CONGRATS WOO!!! We were planning on watching the live video feed, however, were not prepared to pay the 10 dollar fee, haha. The audio was amazing though!! Another instant classic. THE TRUE QUESTION IS: WHEN IS ESPN GONNA TELEVISE THIS RIVALRY???[/b] They put on high school games, Grinnell, Trick Shot Pool, i mean it's ridiculous, this is one of the best rivalries in ALL of collegiate athletics, period. Now that they have ESPNU, this should be one of their staples. Anyway, congrats to the entire Wooster program on another huge clutch win, and to CoopDawg for the trey to win it. Hopefully I'll be able to attend at least one of the next battles this season. As for the Illinois Wesleyan vs. Wash U game...it was a "wash" as IWU won by 27. Wooster was definitely the place to be tonight!! Take care to all in Ohio...The one.....The only....Moneyball.

[David Collinge]

Here's the box score.

[smedindy]

When you lose by 23 I don't think the rotation enters tht much into it.

Wabash has done the five-in, five-out at times over the past few years, especially when they were younger and it did develop the younger players and gave them fresh legs. But it's not a philosophy for everyone, for sure.

It's great to have a Denison perspective, though, for a change!

[wooscotsfan]

Just got back from Timken where I saw an incredible game tonight!      Witt shot 52% from the floor and 22 of 23 from the charity stripe and lost this game.  The difference was Wooster forcing 15 Tiger turnovers and the Scots also made 11 three pointers to win this big game.

Great performances tonight by Tom Port with 25 points, James Cooper with 21 points including the winning three pointer (NBA range) and Tim Vandervaart with 10 points.

Dan Russ had a great game for Witt with his 33 points but Wooster negated the Witt big men by making the 11 three point shots compared to only 3 three pointers for the Tigers.

Wooster gains the early edge in the NCAC race.    Next up is Westminster on December 18th.

GO SCOTS!!