MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[kiltedbryan]

Don't know if you're following this one, David.

Still close at John Carroll...67-65 JCU leads CMU with about 5 minutes left.

[David Collinge]

Woster has gotten a couple of very charitable calls lately, resulting in three made free throws for the Scots, who now lead by 1 with 4:00 left.

[kiltedbryan]

We're entering critical phase in the Capital Center...

4:10 to play with Hallowell going to the line, Wooster down 1.

Any team that can get a little 2 possession lead at this point might be able to force the other one to foul in a few minutes.  Possessions are critical right now...

FTs for Hallowell...good and good.  Wooster leads 66-65.  4 mins to go.

[David Collinge]

Despite Wooster's reputation for living and dying by the three-ball, they've only attempted 12 so far (making 6), while Capital has chucked up 20 of them (making 7).

[David Collinge]

Two minutes to go, one-point game.  Would you rather be the team with seven seniors, or the team with one?

[David Collinge]

Beautiful coast-to-coast drive by (sophomore) DJ Frazier gives Capital the lead.  Wickliffe is fed by Franks and draws the foul, but misses one of the FTs.  Cap 68-67, 1:15 left.  JCU up 4, :39 left.

[David Collinge]

After an offenisve rebound and reset, Wood draws the foul on Franks and goes to the line with :20 left.  Hits the first, and the second, Capital up 3, Wooster ball.  Balch answers with a straightaway three with 9.1 left, but Frazier wins it with a soft 8 foot runner at the horn, and the students mob the floor.  Capital is now 10-1 when trailing at the half.  Congratulations to the Cru.

JCU also wins their game at the buzzer.

[kiltedbryan]

That sounded like a wail of a game.  That was everything a second round game should be.  Wooster gave Capital everything they could handle, and vice versa.  Fantastic finish.

I'm proud of the Scots, and good luck to the Crusaders in the Sweet 16.

[fantastic50]

What a ride for the Scots in the last few weeks.  With a very young team, Wooster has won a lot of ballgames, and has done a lot of growing up.  The lone senior Marty Bidwell will be missed, and the rest of this group has a very bright future.  I'm proud of what this team has accomplished!

As for Capital, congrats to them on a great game; I wish them well against a Texas opponent in the next round.

[drt]

Congrats to Wooster on a season which has exceeded all expectations, unless you leave Steve Moore out of the equation, which you obviously can't .
I fear that this brief tournament run has solidified the foundation of a fearsome dynasty. 

[kiltedbryan]

I never did get the Wooster/WQKT broadcast to work tonight.  Anything interesting in the post-game show from Coach Moore?

[wooscotsfan]

Congratulations to senior Marty Bidwell on a great Wooster career!  Wooster won four NCAC championships during his 4 years and his leadership, strong defense and assists will be missed.

Wooster played a terrific game tonight but came up just short at the end.  The Scots exceeded all expectations this season with a team that had freshmen and sophomores scoring over 80% of the total points.

This NCAA tourney run was good experience for all of Wooster's young players and should serve the Scots well in the next couple of seasons.  Two guys in street clothes at the Cap Center tonight should make a big impact next year - Brandon Johnson and Gideon Mabeny.

Good luck to the remaining Ohio teams in the NCAA tourney - Capital and John Carroll.

[David Collinge]

It's always dangerous to project the end of one season onto the beginning of another, but Scots fans may be encouraged by how Bryan Wickliffe, Justin Hallowell, and Nathan Balch ended their seasons.  A night after hitting 8 for 9, including 3 of 4 from long range, Balch was again fearless tonight, nailing four of five treys including the clutch trey to tie the game with 9.1 seconds left.  He also used several baseline drives to create offense and get to the foul line, where he was 4 of 4.  Hallowell has added an inside game to go with his outside game.  He was the main focus of both Gettysburg's and Capital's defense, and they basically took away his three (he took just one tonight, and hit it), but he compensated with some very nice drives straight to the hoop.  He had 22 points on the weekend, hitting 6 of 11 shots (4 of 6 in the paint) and eight free throws.  He was also strong on the defensive glass, with 14 rebounds on the two games.  And Wickliffe, who had a very strong defensive year but was mostly MIA on offense, really stepped up his game in his hometown.  His weekend tally was 30 points on 11 for 18 shooting and 8 for 11 free throws, to which he added 12 rebounds and 3 blocks.  A lot of people have been hoping to see more inside game from Hallowell and more offense from Wickliffe, and both delivered this weekend, raising hopes that next year could be a special one.

One final comment on the Scots.  Yes, they exceeded the expectations most of us had for this team.  As Coach Moore says, they faced a great deal of adversity and even tragedy and overcame it to produce a fantastic season.  It was a heck of a run, and they should be proud--and we should be proud of them.  But take a moment to look at tonight's box score.  Wooster shot 51.1% and held Capital to 40.4%.  They were 7 of 13 (54%) from the arc, and 17 of 22 (77%) from the free throw line.  They were outrebounded by just two boards against a bigger, stronger team, and had 30 points in the paint to Cap's 24.  This is not the box score of a team that lost, except that they did, in fact, lose, somehow.  The game-changing stat was that Capital had 14 offensive rebounds leading to 17 second-chance points (vs. 5 and 7, respectively, for the Scots), but even that is misleading, as a number of those second-chance points came from long rebounds and offensive resets.  In other words, the stats suggest that Capital was dominant on the offensive glass, but the game didn't really feel that way (to me, at least.)  Wooster played a terrific game at both ends of the floor, and still came up one runner short against a very good team.  I don't know if it's tougher to lose a game that stats say you should have won, or if there's some solace in knowing that you went down with your best game and were beaten by a better team. 

So congratulations to the Scots, and best of luck to the Crusaders.  The last two teams to knock the Scots out of the NCAAs went on to win the Walnut and Bronze, so maybe Capital is just starting a magical playoff run!

[ScotsFan]

All I have to say is that was one heck of a basketball game tonight down in Bexley!  Even though the Scots came up on the short end tonight, this was one of those games where you hated to see anyone lose.  I thought both of these teams played at a really high level throughout the entire game as the closeness throughout the game attests. 

Two minutes to go, one-point game.  Would you rather be the team with seven seniors, or the team with one?

Well, it depends on how you are looking at things.  I choose to look at it from a future perspective and I would rather be the team with just one senior.  Cap has a major rebuilding project on their hands after this season.  Meanwhile, Wooster with just one senior nearly knocked off Cap and their 7 seniors on their home floor!  And I really can't fault Wooster's youth as the reason they lost this game.  I think it was just the fact that Cap seems to be in one of these games on about a weekly basis and they continue to pull wins out of their arses...

It would have been nice to see Wooster continue their post season run a little further, but it is comforting to know that not only will everyone be back except Bidwell.  But there is the addition of Brandon Johnson and the 7 footer Mabeny!  The future indeed looks bright up on the hill!!!  8)

Congrats to Capital in doing what seems to be routine and that is winning in the clutch this season.  Good luck the rest of the way!  Could very well be an all OAC elite 8 matchup.  More than we can say for the WIAC after tonight...   

Lastly, I just wanted to congratulate the Scots and thank them for giving us fans yet another successful season.  A 5th straight outright NCAC regular season title.  A conference tournament title.  Advancing to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament.  Picking up yet another milestone for Coach Steve Moore.  And all the while doing it with an extremely young and relatively inexperienced team that didn't fold when things started off a bit shaky at the beginning of the year.  Instead, they really came together as a team and showed a lot of growth and improvement and have us all (well all of us Wooster supporters that is  ) very excited about what the future holds for this group of talented players!

And I also wanted to give a shout out to the Wooster fans!  If we didn't outnumber the Cap supporters in their OWN GYM, it was pretty damn close to being an even split!  And Cap can thank their lucky stars that they had such an early spring break, because without their students, it would have been about 2-1 in Wooster's favor.  I'll bet that there were close to 1000 Wooster fans in attendance tonight.  The best part was when the Cap students would start their 'Let's go Cap' chant and the Wooster contingent would drown them out with our 'Let's go Scots' chant!  8)  That's got to make the players feel good when they walk out as the visitors and see that they have more fans in the stands than the home team does!

BTW, did that Cap mascot freak anyone else out???  My daughters were scared of it...    That face reminded me of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall when his eyes were popping out of his head from being outside of the controlled atmosphere on Mars...    Freaky looking crusader dude... 

[wally_wabash]

Two minutes to go, one-point game.  Would you rather be the team with seven seniors, or the team with one?

Well, it depends on how you are looking at things.  I choose to look at it from a future perspective and I would rather be the team with just one senior.  Cap has a major rebuilding project on their hands after this season. 

Rebuilding next year or not, Capital has a shot at the ultimate prize right now.  If the cost of winning a championship is a few years of mediocrity, I'm paying that cost in a cocaine heartbeat.  Championships never, ever go away.  If I get to see Wabash win a national championship, any amount of suffering I may have endured before and after said championship will have been 100% worth it.