MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[sac]

Earlham 79, OWU 73

"Just throwing it all away.........throwing it all away"
"Is there nothing that I can say, to make you change your mind?"
"I watch the world go round and round.........and seen mine turning upside down."
"Throwing it all way"..................................

[David Collinge]

Witt goes to the half with a 36-35 lead.  Witt has hit an unreal 8 of 12 from the arc, and two of the misses were blocked.  Two of the makes were NBA-length, beat-the-shot-clock desperation shots.  You've just got to tip your cap and be thankful that you're only down one after a shooting performance like that.  Barabino and Cooper with 13 apiece.

[sac]

Anyone think Witt can continue shooting 67% from three?

Witt 36 Woo 35.......Witt 8-12 from 3, video quality is excellent.

[wally_wabash]

They did it at Wabash earlier this year.  The answer is yes.  Yes they can keep shooting 3s like that. 

[David Collinge]

Cooper has two early threes in the second half.  He's got 22 now on 8/10 shooting (5/7 from the arc.)  You know, he's a pretty good player.  He might even be good enough to play varsity on a CCIW team! 

[jscwittfan]

Wooster's live stats feed seems to have stopped updating, but the video tells me it's 57-56 Wooster in the 2nd half.

[David Collinge]

Wooster's live stats feed seems to have stopped updating, but the video tells me it's 57-56 Wooster in the 2nd half.

Generic Wooster/Wittenberg Score Update Form^TM
Approved for use at any time within the first 38:30 of any Woo/Witt game

{One team} leads {the other team} by {a few points}.

Ho-hum.  It never really gets interesting until there's 90 seconds left. 

[David Collinge]

Wooster 64-59, 1:07 left, Scots ball after a tieup.  (From the video, which I think is significantly delayed.)

Johnson misses, Hill (I think) hits a layup, timeout Witt.  :47.1 if I heard correctly.

My web connection, which has acid reflux, burped, so I've switched to radio.  Wooster leads by 5, 66-61, with 13.8 seconds left, and I think they have the ball.

Cooper fouled, goes to the line, misses the first but Will gets the rebound.  Fulk is fouled and will shoot.

He also misses, but Nowicki misses the three and Wooster holds on for the win, 66-61.

[nicevilledave]

Interesting numbers for bean counters:  If the linked Feb 16 Springfield NewSun article has accurate numbers, then for the last ten games, including tonight, Witt and Woo have split 5 and 5, but Wooster is up in total points scored 744 to 743. 

Unfortunately for either squad, the "annual" third game looms in the NCAC tourney.

[David Collinge]

So once again, the greatest rivalry in college sports is reenacted, with the two dominant superpowers squaring off in a battle that went right to the wall before it was decided.  And once again the underdogs came up just that short.  Ah, there's nothing like life in the NCAC.

Of course, I'm talking about swimming and diving, where the Kenyon Lords and Ladies again emerged from the pool as NCAC champs: Men 1633 to Denison's 1598, and Women 1630 to Denison's 1558.  Each Kenyon team has now won 23 of the 24 championships in NCAC history.  Championship page.  Now on to dominate the nationals!

And back to your regularly scheduled programming...

[wally_wabash]

Unfortunately for either squad, the "annual" third game looms in the NCAC tourney.

That's anything but a mortal lock this year...there are 2-3 pretty good teams that are very capable of beating Wooter or Witt in the semis.  

So once again, the greatest rivalry in college sports is reenacted, with the two dominant superpowers squaring off in a battle that went right to the wall before it was decided.  And once again the underdogs came up just that short.  Ah, there's nothing like life in the NCAC.

Of course, I'm talking about swimming and diving, where the Kenyon Lords and Ladies again emerged from the pool as NCAC champs: Men 1633 to Denison's 1598, and Women 1630 to Denison's 1558.  Each Kenyon team has now won 23 of the 24 championships in NCAC history.  Championship page.  Now on to dominate the nationals!

Also noteworthy from Canton, the Little Giant swimmers crossed the 1,000 point mark for the first time since joining the NCAC.  This has been a goal for the Wabash swimming and diving team for some time and it's great that they were able to acheive that goal.   

[David Collinge]

Anyone think Witt can continue shooting 67% from three?

Witt was 0 for 6 from the arc in the second.  They ended up 8/18, while Wooster was 7/17, so the advantage was negated.  Shooting was about even, both inside and out, and rebounds were about even.  Statistically, the game was won from at the line, where Wooster scored 11 (of 16) to Witt's 7 (of eight).  Stat of the game, however: Wooster had just 4 turnovers on the evening.

Box score.

Wooster clinches at least a tie for the conference title.

[wooscotsfan]

Just back from a sold out Timken gymn (3,300) where I watched Wooster essentially win the NCAC regular season crown with a sweet win over Wittenberg.

Difference in this game was Wooster's second half defense as they gave Witt no open looks in the 2nd half.  Tigers were 0 of 6 on three pointers in the 2nd half as David noted and Witt only scored 25 points in the 2nd half.  Several times the shot clock ran down and Witt was forced to take off balance shots.

Wooster was led by James Cooper who was 9 of 14 from the floor including 5 three pointers (5 of 7!).  Evan Will played the game of his career with 8 points, 12 boards, 5 assists and 5 blocks.  He was all over the floor with his hustle.  Brandon Johnson had 12 points including a great drive through Witt's defense to score a layup with ~3 minutes left and give the Scots a 6 point lead that the Tigers could not overcome.

Wooster actually outrebounded Witt by a 31-30 count and took better care of the ball (only 4 turnovers vs 9 for Witt).  As a result, Wooster got 55 shots in the game to only 51 for Witt and that was a big factor.

Wooster is now 20-3, 13-1 NCAC  Next up is Allegheny on 2/20.

[smedindy]

Earlham's victims this year:

Lake Erie (16-6)
Case (7-14, but 7-4 non conference)
Kenyon (8-5 NCAC, 10-12 overall with a stout non conference schedule)
OWU (15-7 overall, and just whizzed their "C" bid chance down their leg).

Kenyon's Earlham's losses include:

Manchester (4-19) (seemingly back to the Manchester I remember back in the 80's)
Hiram (7-15) (lost to Case by 17)
Oberlin (TWICE) (4-19)
Denison (2-20)

What the....

[wooscotsfan]

All the 2/16 NCAC Final Scores:

Earlham 79  Ohio Wesleyan 73
Kenyon 88  Allegheny 77
Hiram 89  Denison 81
Wooster 66  Wittenberg 61
Wabash 97  Oberlin 73


So, here are the updated NCAC standings:

Wooster 13-1
Wittenberg 11-3
Ohio Wesleyan 10-4
Wabash 9-5
Kenyon 9-5
Allegheny 6-8
Hiram 5-9
Oberlin 3-11
Denison 2-12
Earlham 2-12