MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[smedindy]

To me, it's the same as when Troy rang up over 200 points on a hapless and outclassed opponent back in the day. Worthless and useless.

[woosterbooster]

I thought Troy lost; at least they did in the movie.  Held their own in the first half but then got overwhelmed.  The Greeks had the horses, er, horse.

[David Collinge]

There is an ongoing discussion about this (edit: Grinnell, not 300) going on in the Daily Dose, and Grinnell's coach David Arsenault (Sr.) has participated.  You might be interested.  (If you're not a regular reader of the Daily Dose, you should be; there's some very interesting stuff discussed there, including two ongoing blogs by current players.)

[wally_wabash]

This is worse...if the end of your bench is scoring points in a blowout and the score gets way out of hand, so be it.  It happens...you can't very well tell the kid(s) who probably won't ever see the floor at any other time in the year to go out there and not compete.  But here you've got a kid playing 38 minutes against a team that has no chance and he's out there for the sole purpose of breaking some record?  That's just awful.  What is Coach Arsenault teaching these kids about sportsmanship? 

What's worse is that this story is getting mentioned in major outlets (SI.com, ESPN, etc.).  This is one of those "news of the weird" stories that aren't necessarily good for small college athletics, particulary if anybody reads the not-so-subtle clues about what Grinnell's on-court goals really are which are very much contrary to the competitive spirit we see at the vast majority of our games.  If this ah-noose wants to get his (and/or his kid's) name in the paper, go win a championship.  Do it the right way...this doesn't serve the game well at all. 

[sac]

When I browse through the NCAA records book every now and then, I pretty much ignore the Grinnell and Redlands records.  I've never thought much of the system in the first place, I saw it once or twice or some variation of it (Tri-State) and once was quite enough thanks.

Its fine for Grinnell, its a neat mathmatical formula way to play basketball, it got them a lot of publicity and probably a new gym, but for me its no better than watching a pick up game betwen Delta Chi and Moo Kappa Moo.

The best thing to ever happen to the MIAA might have been Tri-State dropping the system.

[Li'l Giant]

This kind of reminds me of when that guy in the NBA threw a shot up at his own hoop at the end of a game because he needed one more rebound to get a triple double.

[David Collinge]

The NCAC Player of the Week this week is Oberlin's Mike Loll.  Loll recorded 37 points and 16 rebounds this week, including a double-double in leading the Yeomen to their first victory of the season, against Earlham.  And as far as I know, he neither broke any NCAA records nor deliberately humiliated any of his opponents.     Congratulations, Mike!

[David Collinge]

New poll is out...Wooster moves up 2 spots to #23 but actually lost 29 votes (=approx. one spot on the average ballot.)  I would never complain about such a thing, but I think that for perhaps the first time in the history of the D3hoops.com poll, Wooster is underranked.

No votes for any other NCAC team, of course.  Capital stays at #15, gaining 44 points.  Hope moves to #8 and picks up one of the wildly dispersed #1 votes.  Calvin falls to #24, and St. Thomas drops out.

[David Collinge]

Thiel 59, Allegheny 55.  Box.

Thiel led by 7 at the half and 9 shortly thereafter, but Allegheny went on a 12-2 run to take the lead with 12:49 left.  It was nip and tuck from then on, with Thiel tying the game on a pair of free throws with 0:59 left.  'Gheny then missed three shots and committed three fouls, one of them a technical, leading to seven straight for the Tomcats, providing the final margin but for a Gator buzzer-beating trey.

'Gheny had three in double figures led by Charlie Jaicks' 13, but shot just 37.3% and were outrebounded 34-29.  The Gators also committed 22 turnovers, but forced 25 in what reads like a sloppy and perhaps chippy game.

Elsewhere, in a game of interest to the pick'em crew, #25 Rhode Island topped Trinity (Conn.) in a thriller, 70-68.  The Bantams missed a shot and two stickbacks in the closing seconds, any of which would have forced overtime.

[David Collinge]

Hiram leads Grove City 38-30 at the half at the Terrierdome.  GCC radio broadcast.

Hiram 55-47, 12:26.  It's raining threes at both ends of the Doghouse.  Grove City has a very nice radio broadcast, one of the best I've heard.
Pups' lead down to 60-57, 7:50.
Hiram 62-60, 4:08 left.  Broadcaster says this was a double OT game each of the last two years.
Grove briefly got a one-point lead, but Hiram regained it.  Now Hiram leads by 2 with 0:43 left, GCC ball.  Layup good, and Hiram plays for the last shot, tied at 67.  Terriers see a fire hydrant and call timeout, 0:28.4 remaining.
McDevitt misses in the paint, rebound knocked out and GCC gets the call, 0:04.4 left.
Shot rims out, and it's overtime once again.
End to end action in the OT, Hiram by 1 with 3:00 left, 74-73.
Tied at 76, and Hiram has the ball with 0:22 left, timeout.
Pfouts with the layup with 0:03 remaining gives the Pups the lead...and the 78-76 win!

He's ripping through the stats like he has to go to the restroom...
Hiram with 4 in double figures, led by McDevitt's 16 on 4 3's; Pfouts had 7 in the overtime.  Hiram won the rebound battle by 6 and shot 42% or thereabouts.

[wally_wabash]

For interested parties...

Anderson 69, Earlham 62

[David Collinge]

Yeomen fever....catch it!

Oberlin wins back to back road games, dumping the hapless Alma Scots 62-57.  The game recap on the Alma website (entitled "Scots battle hard; fall 62-57") is a magnificient work of spindoctory.*  Two favorite parts:

Despite shooting only 7-30 from the field and 2 of 17 from the three point line in the second half, the Scots stayed in the game with pure effort[.]

and

The Scots played an uptempo, exciting style and used a 14 man rotation to stay fresh. The strategy had the desired effects as the Scots looked energized and scrappy and played with outstanding effort.

Exciting, fresh, scrappy, filled with pure effort...but still winless. 

Three Yeomen reached double figures, led by the exciting Jordan Beard with 16 and the energized Mike Loll with 15, whose outstanding effort also had the desired effect of a team-leading 6 rebounds.

*EDIT:  Not to be outdone, the Oberlin.edu recap is entitled "Yeomen Extend Road Win Streak."  Not so much "extend" as "establish," but why split hairs?  

[kiltedbryan]

I was on the Oberlin bandwagon for this game.  I'm somewhat disturbed that picking Oberlin to win is the first pick I've gotten right in this week's Pick'em.

Go Yeomen, indeed!

[sac]

I posted this on the MIAA board, thought you might like to see it, I'm calling this my "morbid curiosity" game of the season.

Oberlin 62 Alma 57

At tip off there were 64 souls in Cappaert Gymnasium, not counting the 2 teams and the unnecessary "Event Staff" of about a dozen or so.  More trickled in as the game went along, including one Kevin VandeStreak (Calvin coach) who wandered in around halftime, spent the 2nd half jotting a few notes on legal pad (not many) and left with about 2 minutes to go.

Sure I'd like to say it was a pretty game, but it wasn't, I'm shocked the turnover totals were so low in the boxscore, perhaps that button wasn't working on the stats program.  The shooting was dreadfull at times (see Alma 2nd half), and I would say an awful lot of shots were uncontested.

What often happens when you put two teams of equal talent and ability on the floor is you end up with a very close competitive ballgame.  Both teams played with a great deal of enthusiasm and desire to win, I give them the credit there.   The benches were really into the game on both sides. Oberlin was just as excited to win as Alma was down after the loss.

I really think the game turned at the end of the first half when Alma was leading by 9 and had just gone on a long 23-8 run to lead 35-26, then Oberlin hits a 3 at the buzzer to cut it to 6.  At the start of the 2nd, Alma missed their first seven shots, while Oberlin made a couple and just 3 minutes into the half it was tied.  All the momentum had swung to Oberlin, from that point on the Yeoman seemed to have a little more energy, a little more desire.

With about 8 minutes to go it was a 1 point game, in crunch time the Yeoman had the more fluid offense, and I see at least 5 different players scored down the stretch while Alma seemed to be really trying to get the ball in only 1 or 2 guys hands.

Fittingly Oberlin missed a bunch of FT's while Alma missed a bunch of 3's in the late stages.  It lacked drama but the Yeoman did enough to get the W.

Interesting game, I think Alma really missed Sam Machuta their 6-8 (ish) center who was in street clothes for no visible reason.  It would have been fun to see him bang in the paint with Gian Chiu, the 6-9(ish) center for Oberlin.  Neither team seemed to be to interested in banging the ball down low, although everything was either a 3 or a layup as far as I can recall.

Competitive game, interesting Friday evening I guess.

[smedindy]

As a stats purist, I think Alma needs to change a rebound and a steal from #40 to #4, since it's hard to get a rebound and a steal when you don't play. Unless the time / space continuum melted during this classic matchup.