MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Pat Coleman]

Dec 12    Pete Thorn Tournament
(Marian, St. Joseph's - Calumet, IU-SE)
Dec 13    Pete Thorn Tournament
(Marian, St. Joseph's - Calumet, IU-SE)

Wow. Wabash couldn't find any D3 teams to come to Crawfordsville for that tournament?

At least no Canadian schools in this tournament this year.

[Shooting Star]

I'm new to Ohio.  I'm interested in knowing more about Denison Basketball.

[David Collinge]

I'm new to Ohio.  I'm interested in knowing more about Denison Basketball.

The Denison men's program has fallen on hard times in recent years.  They have struggled to get more than one or two all-conference caliber players onto the roster, and then struggled to keep them healthy.  The results can be seen by their recent records.  However, the Big Red are consistently a hard-working, defense-oriented bunch who play the game "the right way," and usually can be counted upon to pull off a shocker somewhere along the line.  They're definitely worth the price of admission.

The real story in Granville is the women's team, four-time defending NCAC tournament champions and the prohibitive pre-season favorite in the NCAC this season.  This is a team that actually could make some national noise this season, a rarity for NCAC women's hoops.

[David Collinge]

Speaking of Denison, the Big Red welcome a new assistant coach this season.  David Muchnick, a 2005 SUNY-Geneseo graduate, comes to Granville from Cortland St. where he was an assistant for the past three seasons.  Muchnick will also helm the golf program for DU.  He replaces DU alum and former Wooster assistant Kyle Pottkotter in both capacities; Kyle has moved on to Otterbein College where he will serve as an assistant to the legendary Cardinal coach Dick Reynolds.  I offer my congratulations and best wishes to both of these coaches on their new positions.

[smedindy]

Dec 12    Pete Thorn Tournament
(Marian, St. Joseph's - Calumet, IU-SE)
Dec 13    Pete Thorn Tournament
(Marian, St. Joseph's - Calumet, IU-SE)

Wow. Wabash couldn't find any D3 teams to come to Crawfordsville for that tournament?

Sometimes it's not about D3, it's about getting ready for the conference season. And since the tourney is right near finals, it may be tougher to get some schools to come a long way for it.

Marian's always been excellent competition, though last year they went 3-20 after a 4-0 start. (OUCH!) But usually, they're a tough team with a good pedigree.

Calumet College of St. Joseph's was 18-13 last year and 22-8 in 06-07.

IU - SE was 24-9 last year and made the NAIA National tournament. They had no seniors and one junior last season.  Besides, they're the Grenadiers, and that's a cool nickname.

Also cool is that they are coached by Wiley Brown, who some of us remember from his days being a starter with those great Louisville teams with Darrell Griffith and the McCray brothers. (Scooter is an assistant coach) Oh, and the fact he had an artificial thumb. (And he played two years in the NFL, which is also cool.)

[woosterbooster]

Marian's always been excellent competition, though last year they went 3-20 after a 4-0 start. (OUCH!)

OK, don't be bringin' that weak Indiana math in here.  You may be able to sneak that stuff past your fellow Hoosiers, but here in Ohio we know better.  Well, some of us do.   Unless of course Marian had a win reversed after the fact?

[Gregory Sager]

Sometimes it's not about D3, it's about getting ready for the conference season. And since the tourney is right near finals, it may be tougher to get some schools to come a long way for it.

Marian's always been excellent competition, though last year they went 3-20 after a 4-0 start. (OUCH!) But usually, they're a tough team with a good pedigree.

Calumet College of St. Joseph's was 18-13 last year and 22-8 in 06-07.

IU - SE was 24-9 last year and made the NAIA National tournament. They had no seniors and one junior last season.

I wasn't casting any aspersions regarding the talent level of those teams. Indeed, it's very possible that this NAIA trio represents a better field for Wabash in strict basketball terms than would any three midwestern D3 teams picked at random from within hailing distance of Crawfordsville. And the "close to finals" rationale is certainly plausible, although it begs the question as to whether or not those NAIA schools would have similar academic concerns.

I was simply remarking about this field because it flies in the face of the ongoing push by D3 to de-NAIAify, to coin a term, the schedules of D3 member schools as much as possible.

Besides, they're the Grenadiers, and that's a cool nickname.

I wonder if IUS players wear big bearskin hats on the court to make themselves look taller.

[smedindy]

Marian's always been excellent competition, though last year they went 3-20 after a 4-0 start. (OUCH!)

OK, don't be bringin' that weak Indiana math in here.  You may be able to sneak that stuff past your fellow Hoosiers, but here in Ohio we know better.  Well, some of us do.   Unless of course Marian had a win reversed after the fact?

I meant they finished 7-20 last year. Started 4-0. Won their last game, too. So they had a 2-20 stretch actually. Ick.

[smedindy]

I wasn't casting any aspersions regarding the talent level of those teams. Indeed, it's very possible that this NAIA trio represents a better field for Wabash in strict basketball terms than would any three midwestern D3 teams picked at random from within hailing distance of Crawfordsville. And the "close to finals" rationale is certainly plausible, although it begs the question as to whether or not those NAIA schools would have similar academic concerns.

I was simply remarking about this field because it flies in the face of the ongoing push by D3 to de-NAIAify, to coin a term, the schedules of D3 member schools as much as possible.

For these three schools, it's a Friday bus ride, one night in a hotel, then home Saturday night. Not that bad.

Yeah, I know they want to de-NAIAfy D-3, but looking at the Indiana landscape - 'Bash already plays Hanover, Franklin, DePauw, Earlham, and Rose-Hulman, leaving Anderson, Trine and Manchester. It's not always easy to entice a MIAA, OAC or CCIW school to C'ville in mid-December.

But it's better than IU-Kokomo!

[woosterbooster]

I always loved those "K" names.  Kokomo, Kankakee, Keokuk, Kewanee.  Small midwestern towns with rich minor league baseball heritage.

[Schwami]

While driving home from work this evening, I was captivated by a story on NPR about a recent college graduate, whose family and socio-economic background was such that becoming a college graduate seemed to be a long shot at best.  As the story continued, I learned that the subject of the feature, named Jesse, had recently graduated from Ohio Wesleyan.  "That's cool!" I thought, and I now continued to listen with increased interest.  Then I learned that he was a basketball player.  I had missed the beginning of the story, but it then dawned on me that it was a feature about Jesse Jean.

Ohio Wesleyan can be very proud of this recent graduate, and fellow NCACers can be proud of Ohio Wesleyan.

I'll try to find a link to the NPR story and post it here.

Here's the link.  This may be old news in part, since NPR previously aired stories about Jesse Jean in 2002 and 2004.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93850513

[wooscotsfan]

Wooster has posted two items on their website - the first is the report on their trip to Italy where they won 2 of the 4 games played and visited some great sites.  Here is the link:  http://athletics.wooster.edu/mb/news/2007-08/italy.php

The second item is the 2008-2009 schedule confirming that there is only one game that will played in Hawaii: http://athletics.wooster.edu/mb/schedule.php

Wooster will play Washington & Jefferson in their first round game of the Al Van Wie Tipoff tournament and Thiel is the first round opponent for the Scots in the Mose Hole tournament.

[David Collinge]

One of the teams Wooster faced on this trip also took on Kenyon during the Lords' preseason trip last year.  Kenyon beat Amici del Campetto 73-54, while Wooster dispatched them 85-47.  It's interesting to note that Matt Croci complimented ADC as "the best team we played (in Italy)" whereas Steve Moore described them as "weaker competition than we expected."  I wonder who's on the NCAC portion of ADC's schedule for next season?

[ScotsFan]

One of the teams Wooster faced on this trip also took on Kenyon during the Lords' preseason trip last year.  Kenyon beat Amici del Campetto 73-54, while Wooster dispatched them 85-47.  It's interesting to note that Matt Croci complimented ADC as "the best team we played (in Italy)" whereas Steve Moore described them as "weaker competition than we expected."   I wonder who's on the NCAC portion of ADC's schedule for next season?

I wonder who Kenyon's other opponents were???  Judging by the fact that Wooster lost twice during this trip, it's hard to argue that Coach Moore's description of ADC is more applicable.  Also when considering that one of the teams to defeat the Scots also defeated a DI school just before they defeated Wooster. 

I guess what it ultimately boils down to is different strokes for different folks... 

[David Collinge]

Wooster head coach Steve Moore will enter the 2008-09 season with 577 victories as a head coach, 490 of them at Wooster. 
> He will very likely reach the 500 victory plateau at Wooster during the season--it could conceivably be as early as at the Mose Hole (with a 10-0 or 10-1 start), which would be nice, or else during conference action in January. 
> With another outstanding season, the overall 600 victory mark is also within reach; if it happens, it would be around tournament time.  If I've counted correctly, there are just four active D3 coaches with 600+ career wins (Glenn Robinson of F&M, Jim Smith of St. John's, Dick Reynolds of Otterbein, and Glenn Van Wieren of Hope) with three more on the verge (Dick Whitmore of Colby [590], David Hixon of Amherst [577], and Moore).  To say the least, this is an elite group, and with a very good but achievable 23+ win season, Steve can join them. 
>> As an aside, everyone on that list has at least 4 more years of head coaching experience than Steve does.  This will be Steve's 28th season as a head coach, as compared to Hixon (32), Van Wieren (32), Reynolds (37), Robinson (38), Whitmore (38), and Smith (45).

Just a couple of things to watch for as the season unfolds.