MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ScotsFan]

Wooscotsfan, you said it all.  This is a very different team than the one that lost at CMU just 11 days ago.  Albion next, and OWU knocked them off.  Things are looking good, and I'm very happy to be so surprised.

I totally agree.  I still wasn't sure on how I felt about this team even with their large margins of victory over a down Hanover team and, well, Oberlin.  But my reservations were subdued a bit with the pounding that Wooster delivered to the Bishops Saturday night. 

I was thinking after the OWU game that if Wooster were able to go back and play W&J and CMU now, I would guess we would see different results than what we originally saw.  The difference has been defense.  If the Scots continue to come out and play defense like they have the last 3 games, they will be tough to beat in the conference.  And then there's that little added bonus of Brandon Johnson's return for the Mose Hole!   8)

As for the rest of the NCAC, IMO, Kenyon looks to be asserting themselves as the team to challenge Wooster this year.  As derek mentioned, we should be able to get a better gauge on the Lords after their trip to OWU on Wednesday. 

And I would agree with DC about Witt as well.  Many of us, myself included, were writing Witt off last year after their slow start against a very tough non-conference schedule.  I remember questioning whether their streak of consecutive winning seasons might be in jeopardy.  And I have to admit, those thoughts have been creeping back into my head again this year.  But, this is Witt and I get the feeling Bill Brown will have his young team playing well come conference action.  And as DC noted, Witt's next 3 games are definitely winnable and should tell us a lot about where Witt's season is headed.

[all day quads]

a little late with the post....but Allegheny with a good start in conference with a road win @ Denison.  POY canidate George Raftis led the way wit 25 pts and 8 boards on 9-12 shooting.  The kids a beast and is the reason Allegheny will compete for the conference title this year.

As far as people saying that they dont have a winning record at 3-4, 2 of their loses came to D-II powerhouse Gannon and D-1 Youngstown St.

[wally_wabash]

I'm a little late arriving to the hoops party, but here I am...armed with a backlog of opinions...let's do it rapid fire style! 

- Re: Witt/Cedarville...I'm pretty staunchly opposed to playing games outside of the division because they don't count and it's a wasted opportunity for two teams to put a D-III (and preferably regional) game on the resumé.  The harm done is certainly less when we have 20 games to play around with as opposed to just 10 in football, I still think we should be looking to eliminate the non-divisionals from our schedules as much as possible. 

- My early feel for the NCAC tells me that Wooster, despite obviously not being what they were last year or in years prior, are the favorites.  This would have been a great year for somebody new to step up and take the crown, but unfortunately the only team that looks like a real challenger to the Scots is Kenyon and I'm not convinced that Kenyon is ready to break from their middle of the pack mold.  You know Bill Brown will have his guys primed for February as well. 

- My early feel for Wabash (who I ashamedly have not seen play yet...to be remedied this weekend at the Pete Thorn NAIA Invitational) is telling me that the LGs are a perimeter oriented team which makes me nervous.  In their last two games, both losses to decent teams on the road, Wabash shot themselves in the foot...maybe not an appropriate turn of phrase as Wabash couldn't shoot at all, particularly in the first half.  I'm not sure the LGs have the jump shooters to win games on a consistent basis from outside the paint.  Aaron Brock is going to draw everybody's attention in the paint...Brian Maloney and freshman Nick Curosh are going to have have some offensive presence in the post.   

- Bad for the LGs...turnovers.  Egads Wabash is not taking care of the ball at all this year.  Good for the LGs...free throws.  In particular the free throw shooting of Wes Smith which is way way way up over his numbers from a year ago.  Wesley converting his freebies is critical for a guy that will spend a lot of time at the line. 

- Allegheny is also on the watch list...they've got some beef parked in the painted area. 

I'm very much looking forward to January and getting the conference season going.  I think we'll have an interesting race even if we do end up with similar results...I believe the NCAC games will be a bit more competitive across the board than they have been recently. 

[David Collinge]

Congratulations to this week's NCAC Player of the Week, Kenyon sophomore guard J.T. Knight.  J.T.'s 20-10-5 performance against Wabash helped his team to a key early victory in the NCAC race.  Congratulations, J.T.!

[David Collinge]

Tonight's score:
Allegheny 89, Thiel 78

[ScotsFan]

As I was perusing this week's top 25, something caught my attention.  There are only 2 teams ranked in the top 25 from the GL Region!    There's Capital at #10 and CMU at #13 and that's it!  Not even any in the ORV section of the poll.  I must say, I can't recall when the GL Region was ever this poorly represented in the d3hoops poll.

We've just grown accustomed to seeing the traditional GL powers like Wooster, Witt, Hope and Calvin as well as the likes of JCU, B-WC and Ohio Northern and they are all missing from the poll so far this year.  It just seems strange for the GL Region to be so down this year.  After all, this region has had a representative in Salem every year dating back to 2000.  Could that streak be in jeopardy this year?

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Ohio Wesleyan 95  Kenyon 59

Wow, I didn't expect a complete blowout in this game and it was clearly over at halftime (52-25).  Kyle Holliday led the Bishops with 22 points and Brent Pleiman added 11 points.  The Lords only shot 38% from the floor and had 24 turnovers.

Here is the link to the game story: http://bishops.owu.edu/2008-09/mbb1210.html

[sac]

As I was perusing this week's top 25, something caught my attention.  There are only 2 teams ranked in the top 25 from the GL Region!    There's Capital at #10 and CMU at #13 and that's it!  Not even any in the ORV section of the poll.  I must say, I can't recall when the GL Region was ever this poorly represented in the d3hoops poll.

We've just grown accustomed to seeing the traditional GL powers like Wooster, Witt, Hope and Calvin as well as the likes of JCU, B-WC and Ohio Northern and they are all missing from the poll so far this year.  It just seems strange for the GL Region to be so down this year.  After all, this region has had a representative in Salem every year dating back to 2000.  Could that streak be in jeopardy this year?

Capital will give it a go.........No doubts about the GL having to go through at least a couple Midwest Region teams to get to Salem.

Forget what year, but it wasn't that long ago the GL Region only had 4 teams in the whole tournamant.

[David Collinge]

Tonight in the NCAC, a couple of real nailbiters :
Wittenberg 74, Denison 45
OWU 95, Kenyon 59
In non-conference action:
Hiram 66, Grove City 56
Kalamazoo 73, Oberlin 46
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the Pam Smith Center, Bill Brown tinkered with his lineup and produced a 50% shooting night which included 8 three-pointers, and Witt smoked the Big Red.  The Tigers led by 21 at the half on the strength of a +10 rebound advantage and 52% shooting (46% from the arc), while holding Denison to just 26% and 10 turnovers (33% and 20, by game's end).  Kevin Murray led three Tigers in double figures with 14, while DU's leading scorer, Chris Luther, could manage just 9 points.  Recap; box.

At Branch Rickey Arena, to coin a phrase, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  The Bishops played brilliantly right from the start, which neatly meshed with the "egregiously bad basketball" turned in by the Lords, resulting in a game that was pretty well decided in about 15 minutes of play.  This game was so one-sided that OWU's second half 26-0 run was not meaningful to the outcome.  Like the Witt/DU game, the relevant box score would be from the first half (won by OWU 52-25), but alackaday! neither school published a 1st half box.  For the evening, which ended for most varsity-level players at about the 10:00 point of the 2nd half, OWU shot 49% (56% in the 1st half) and drained 14 three-pointers (42%), many of them wide open as a result of superior ball movement (with some crappy defense thrown in).  Kenyon managed to shoot 41% in the first half, but due to a gaggle of turnovers (many forced, some unforced) they had 11 fewer chances at the hoop than their better-shooting rivals.  The Lords coughed the ball up 24 times on the evening, 15 of those being steals by the aggressive Bishops defense.  Kyle Holliday torched the nets for 22 points, draining five of seven attempts from the arc, in his 24 minutes, and was not whistled for a single personal foul (he had been averaging 4 per game and fouled out of his last two games.)  Bryan Yelvington had 13 for Kenyon, but the only Lords who played well were the end-of-the-bench guys who produced a game-ending 30-17 run over the final 11 minutes (that's right, math majors; the score had been 78-29.)  Recap; box.

[woosterbooster]

I absolutely don't know what to make of the OWU-Kenyon score.  Up here, Wooster made OWU look bad.  Is Kenyon really that much worse?  The Lords downed Wabash by 15; where does that put them in this mix? 

I've watched Kyle Holliday play for about eight years (seems that long).  He's a very physical player, to say the least.  For him to not once be whistled makes me wonder a bit, or a lot.

 

[David Collinge]

I wouldn't spend too much time on the "comparative scores" game.  I watched the Wooster/OWU game on the web, and saw the Kenyon/OWU game in person, and these were two completely different OWU teams.  I've seen five or six OWU games this year, and these were easily their worst and then best performances, respectively.  I don't think it says much about Kenyon beyond "they're not quite there yet," although it will be interesting to see how well and quickly their bruised egos will recover.  There may be psychological barriers at play, too: Wooster is the one team that OWU can't seem to beat, while Kenyon hasn't beaten the Bishops in a dog's age.

It's not so much that Holliday was getting away with non-calls as that everyone was getting away with non-calls.  One of the keys to the game was that Kenyon did not take advantage of the free-for-all officiating by backing down their defenders in the post, while OWU did take advantage by playing right in the faces of the Kenyon guards (again, 15 steals!)

[ScotsFan]

I wouldn't spend too much time on the "comparative scores" game.  I watched the Wooster/OWU game on the web, and saw the Kenyon/OWU game in person, and these were two completely different OWU teams.  I've seen five or six OWU games this year, and these were easily their worst and then best performances, respectively. 

This score totally caught me by surprise.  Kenyon seemed poised to take the next step after their big win over Wabash last weekend, but instead they ended up tripping over themselves and falling flat on their faces.  And OWU did what they had to do to put that forgettable performance at Wooster behind them.

As far as making the argument that this was two completely different OWU teams, I think Wooster's defense had a lot to do with making OWU look like a completely different team.  I don't think it's being fair to Wooster's defensive effort they put forth to just chalk it up as OWU having an off night or playing their worst game of the season.

Statistically speaking, one could argue that the Bishop's game against Wheaton was their worst game of the season.  OWU shot only 35% in that game compared to just 37% vs. Wooster and they had only one fewer turnover against Wheaton than they did against Wooster.  What these stats tell me is that both Wheaton and Wooster shut OWU down with defense as opposed to OWU just having off nights...

Now, I'm not saying that OWU isn't capable of playing better.  I just feel that Wooster had a lot to do with OWU having an off night.  I am still expecting the Bishops to give Wooster all they can handle when they meet again in Delaware at the end of January as Coach Moore alluded to in his comments in the DR following Saturday's game:

Despite the good feeling in the Wooster locker room, Moore cautioned that Ohio Wesleyan will still be a team to reckon with.

"Things went well for us and it was not their night, but that's a good team," Moore said. "They'll give us a game the next time."

But I will also say this.  If Wooster can bring the same defensive performance they brought last Saturday, should we expect another 'off' night from the Bishops?

[woosterbooster]

I've been to two Wooster-at-OWU games and both times (a loss and a win) came away feeling Wooster got the short end of the officiating.  OWU (now, this is when they had RuddyGear, Jean, and that other big guy) was able to be very physical while Wooster was unable to lay a hand on anyone.  If that happens again this year, and I have no reason to expect things to change in that "inside-of-a-cello" that they call a gym, it will be a game.

[David Collinge]

As far as making the argument that this was two completely different OWU teams, I think Wooster's defense had a lot to do with making OWU look like a completely different team.  I don't think it's being fair to Wooster's defensive effort they put forth to just chalk it up as OWU having an off night or playing their worst game of the season.

I don't believe that's what I said.  I said that OWU's performance at Wooster was their worst of the games I've seen (I wasn't at Wheaton), and I stand by that.  It is possible for one team to play well and the other to play poorly in the same game, and for these to be independent.  (Last night's game was a perfect example of this.)  At Wooster, OWU missed open shots, made bad passes and foolish decisions, committed silly fouls, etc.  They also were stymied by an excellent defense.  Wooster won that game as much or more than OWU lost it.  But in my opinion OWU played a poor game.  From your quote, it sounds like Steve Moore might agree with me.

[David Collinge]

Last night:  Allegheny 84, Penn St.-New Kensington 42...PSUNK lost their first five games by an average of 38 ppg, then they stopped keeping track.  Still, a win is a win.
Tonight: Alma 76, Oberlin 51...Alma's first victory of the season.  Oberlin head coach Isaiah Cavaco: “We are in a bad funk right now.”
Also tonight, Wabash plays St. Joseph Calumet in the Pete Thorn Invitational.  I am hopeful that we'll get a report from a LG fan.