MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[acgator98]

Sad news from Meadville.  Shockingly, Rob Clune has not been renewed for the upcoming season.  An extremely disappointing and unpopular decision by the AD as all current and former Gators strongly support Rob. 

[David Collinge]

Sad news from Meadville.  Shockingly, Rob Clune has not been renewed for the upcoming season.  An extremely disappointing and unpopular decision by the AD as all current and former Gators strongly support Rob. 

[smedindy]

Sad news from Meadville.  Shockingly, Rob Clune has not been renewed for the upcoming season.  An extremely disappointing and unpopular decision by the AD as all current and former Gators strongly support Rob. 

Now waiiiit a minute...

This is the same guy that I touted for the silver medal in Coach Of The Year, right?

The Gators won 8 of 9 near the end of the season. Last year the finished strong and upset a 2 seed in the NCAC tourney. Gheny's always been competitive, if not successful.

[acgator98]

Same guy.  Obviously, her decision wasn't based on wins & losses.

[David Collinge]

Same guy.  Obviously, her decision wasn't based on wins & losses.

Makes you wonder what it was based on.  I'd like to think that she's hoping to find a coach that can push Allegheny over the final hump and challenge Wooster for supremacy, although I'm not convinced that Rob Clune wasn't that guy.  I certainly hope--and expect--that there's no untold story here.

In the meantime, good luck to him.  The mind reels with lists of schools who'd be better off with Rob Clune than with the guy they've got now.

[hasanova]

I think it's safe to say that no team in D3 would not be an underdog playing Guilford on Guilford's court.  That's no disrespect to Wooster.

Lone, possible, shocking, curious exception on a bad day might be Eastern Mennonite.

Just because they won by 27 doesn't mean they weren't the underdog going in!

All this is true.  I was at the GC/EMU game and that was simply a different effort from Guilford than I've seen the other 16 times I've been to a GC game.  I have reason to believe the Quakers just weren't 100% healthy that night.

[acgator98]

Rob is a stand-up guy, his integrity was never in question here.  Unfortunately, by all accounts, it was simply an AD with a axe to grind.  With her decision, the she has effectively now alienated over 20+ years of Gator basketball alums, dating back to the late 80s, whose common bond to the program was either Coach Ness or Coach Clune.  As I said befire, no one can comprehend why this decision was made.  

[David Collinge]

Thanks for the news and background, gator.  I suppose this is the wrong moment to ask if you'd consider sticking around and being the advocate for the Gators in here, something (I think) we sorely need.  Despite your current level of discontent, I hope you'll be here next year and help keep us up to date on what's probably the hardest NCAC team to follow from a distance. 

[ScotsFan]

Sad news from Meadville.  Shockingly, Rob Clune has not been renewed for the upcoming season.  An extremely disappointing and unpopular decision by the AD as all current and former Gators strongly support Rob. 

Shockingly seems like a pretty good description!   

Firing a guy that was a serious candidate for NCAC Coach of the year?   

At least he got to send off all of his seniors on the team this year.

Question.  If Clune is named COY, does Mitchell still have the stones to not renew Clune's contract?

Best of luck to Coach Clune and his family.  As acgator mentioned, he was a stand-up coach.  I'm sure it won't take long for him to land another coaching postition.

[acgator98]

As a former player and coach,  I was always reluctant to get involved with this forum, believing that it was not in the best interest of the team to share any of my knowledge with the public.  It's not the case these days, so I feel more comfortable returning to this board in the future.

http://www.meadvilletribune.com/sports/local_story_068002235.htm

[ScotsFan]

Well, for the 3rd game in a row, Bryan Wickliffe gets to go head to head with a conference POY!  He took on O'Keefe who was the PAC player of the year in the first round of the tournament.   Then he had to follow that up with going up against the 6'9" WIAC player of the year on Saturday in the 2nd round of the tournament.  And now, Wick's reward is to go up against the ODAC POY.  Sanborn will be yet another challenge for Wick, but I'm betting that Wick is relishing the opportunity to go up against another big that should have their way against the smaller Wooster big.  I just can't get over how improved Wick has become this year compared to where he was even last year!  Especially on the defensive end of the floor.  Night and day improvement IMO!  Keep it up Wick!

As for the other matchups in Friday's game, Guilford doesn't appear to be that big outside of Sanborn.  I'm just going by the stats, but it looks as though Guilford goes with a 3 guard starting lineup with Sanborn at center and then they have their 2nd tallest guy in the starting lineup listed as a 6'4" F.  And then, looking at the bench, it appears that their biggest guys coming off the bench are forwards listed at 6'4" and 6'2" with their other 2 predominant subs being guards?  Is it just me, or does Wooster appear to match up rather favorably with this team outside of Sanborn?

It also appears to me that Guilford seems to be a 3 headed monster with Sanborn leading the way in scoring (19 ppg) followed closely by their 2 guards in Henson and Bonner (18 and 15 respectively).  Those 3 players account for 52 of Guilfords 81 ppg average!  And from there, the scoring drops off significantly as reserve guard Pittman is the team's 4th leading scorer at just under 7 ppg.

One stat that stood out to me was how many 3's their two star guards make.  Henson has 88 treys while Bonner has 68.  While that is a lot of made 3-pointers, what's more telling is how many attempts they put up.  Henson has a whopping 237 attempts meaning he's shooting just 37% from deep.  I guess that would fall under the category of a streaky shooter?  Bonner is a bit more accurate as he's shooting at 44% from deep.  But to me, it seems that this team loves the inside out game.  Get the ball down low to Sanborn and when the defense collapses he kicks it out to an open guard waiting to launch it from deep.  Kind of reminds me of Witt this season.

One thing Wooster does have going for it is that going up against a talented big man will be nothing new for them.  If anything, Wooster couldn't have asked for 2 better games to prepare them for what they will be facing with Sanborn and Guilford on Friday.  

I don't know what it is, but I just like the way Wooster matches up with this team.  If Wooster continues to play the high level of defense they have been playing, the Scots will be tough to beat.  I also don't think Wooster can afford an off night shooting.  With Sanborn's presense in the middle, it's going to make it tough for Franks to get anything inside, so when he drives and dishes it out, those guys on the outside are going to HAVE to knock down their shots.  If Wooster's shooters are on, I like our chances.

[ScotsFan]

As a former player and coach,  I was always reluctant to get involved with this forum, believing that it was not in the best interest of the team to share any of my knowledge with the public.  It's not the case these days, so I feel more comfortable returning to this board in the future.

http://www.meadvilletribune.com/sports/local_story_068002235.htm

FYI, your link for that article doesn't seem to work.  This link should work:

Meadville Tribune Story

[sludge]

Well, for the 3rd game in a row, Bryan Wickliffe gets to go head to head with a conference POY!  
...
One thing Wooster does have going for it is that going up against a talented big man will be nothing new for them.  If anything, Wooster couldn't have asked for 2 better games to prepare them for what they will be facing with Sanborn and Guilford on Friday.  
...
If Wooster's shooters are on, I like our chances.

Bryan Wickliffe is about to face a serious national POY candidate.  This will be something different than what he has seen.

The advantage that I forsee for Guilford in the paint goes beyond "just" Sanborn.  When you are done pushing him around (good luck), you've got fine tough forwards and swingmen to deal with, and after them, you've got the guards.  For Guilford, everyone scores in the paint.  And absolutely everyone rebounds.

I am still concerned about your talent and your shooters, though.

[ScotsFan]

Bryan Wickliffe is about to face a serious national POY candidate.  This will be something different than what he has seen.

He went toe to toe against the WIAC Player of the Year last Saturday.  I know the ODAC is a very good league, but we're talking about the POY from arguably the toughest conference in the country.  I'd hardly consider Mitchell from Whitewater chopped liver?!  Unless Sanborn is Shaquile O'niel, I wouldn't go as far as to say that Sanborn will be something drastically different than the two talented bigs he faced over the weekend?!

The advantage that I forsee for Guilford in the paint goes beyond "just" Sanborn.  When you are done pushing him around (good luck), you've got fine tough forwards and swingmen to deal with, and after them, you've got the guards.  For Guilford, everyone scores in the paint.  And absolutely everyone rebounds.

I am still concerned about your talent and your shooters, though.

Everyone scores in the paint?  Because it looks like most of your scoring is done by 3 guys as I touched on above.  And of those 3, two of them seem to like to do most of their scoring beyond the arc. 

And Guilford may be a good rebounding team.  I never said anything to the contrary.  I was just basing my observation by the fact that Guilford's tallest players based on minutes played after Sanborn are 6'4", 6'4" and 6'2" and all of your guards or 'swingmen' as you want to call them are all between 6'-6'2".  By comparison, Wooster's starting lineup goes 6'5", 6'7" on the inside. And our 3 guard lineup goes 6'4", 6'2" and 6'1".  And our two smaller guards have the ability to jump out of the gym.  Not to mention, Wooster has even more height coming off the bench with available subs coming in at 6'7", 6'5" and 6'8".  Obviously Guilford can rebound as they are a +12 in that category while averaging 43 rpg.  Of course, having a guy on your team that snags 15 rpg by himself doesn't hurt that statistic.    On the other hand, Wooster's leading rebounder is averaging just over 7rpg of the more than 37 rpg Wooster has been averaging.  So, I think it could be argued that 'absolutely everyone' rebounds for Wooster as well...

Look, I'm not saying I don't think Guilford is very good.  It's going to take one of Wooster's best efforts to win this game.  I was just stating my opinion that I feel, on paper, that Wooster appears to match up very well with Guilford.  And as evidenced by Wooster's win over a very good Whitewater team, the Scots are capable of beating anyone on any given night! 

[ArmingtonCave]

The key to the Scots winning, as always is limiting turnovers and shooting the three.  If we start out cold shooting we are in trouble.  Franks, Balch and Fagan have to be on top of their shots, Johnson has got to dribble the ball closer to his body (that drives me nuts sometimes) and Hallowell and Wick need to block out on rebounds.   I like our chances as we aren't scared of anyone and beat Witt and Wabash in very hostile gyms.