MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

David Collinge · December 18, 2009, 06:05:35 PM

Wittenberg was on a roll when they played Capital, and probably brimming with self-confidence. Not so much lately. Should be interesting to see if the Tigers can get their mojo back.

GoRed · December 18, 2009, 06:20:15 PM

I find it interesting (if I read ONU's stats right) that their leading rebounder is their 5-11 guard!

Witt has been particularly strong on the O boards. If ONU's big guys play soft, Witt should take the game without too much trouble - especially if they can hit the long ball.

David Collinge · December 18, 2009, 10:09:59 PM

Complete Saturday schedule:
DePauw (6-2) at Earlham (3-6), 2pm -- no live coverage that I can find
Hiram (4-3) at Bluffton (0-9), 3pm -- Live Stats
Wittenberg (5-2) at Ohio Northern (5-4), 7:30pm -- Live Audio

David Collinge · December 19, 2009, 01:59:36 AM

Saw this interesting ranking posted in another thread, and thought I'd import it here. It purports to rank all colleges based on an average of academics (US News ranking, FWIW), athletics (Director's Cup ranking), and graduation rate. Three NCAC schools make the top 100 regardless of division (the top 58, actually: #38 Kenyon, #45 Wooster, and #58 Denison), while eight make the top 100 in D3 (all but Earlham and Hiram). Now, we could argue all day and all night about those US News rankings (but, please, let's not), so I'm not sure how much actual merit there is in this rating scheme. But I am quite proud to have called to my attention that Wooster ranks #1 regardless of classification in student-athlete graduation rate.

David Collinge · December 19, 2009, 02:59:54 PM

Live Stats and Live Audio for the Earlham/DePauw game, except that it seems that nobody turned the Live Stats on. DPU leads 35-33 14:55 2nd.

UPDATE/FINAL SCORE: DePauw 66, Earlham 55

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UPDATE: Hiram 31, Bluffton 31, half.

UPDATE: Hiram 51, Bluffton 45, 11:42 2nd. Eleven total fouls called in the game so far. Hiram outrebounding Bluffton 29-11, but Bluffton has hit 9 of 16 treys.
UPDATE: Hiram 59, Bluffton 59, 2:08 2nd. Reminder that Bluffton is 0-9. Shades of Franciscan last year.
UPDATE: Going to OT, tied at 62. Campbell and Roberts each miss huge free throws in the final 0:17.
UPDATE/FINAL SCORE: Hiram 71, Bluffton 64, OT.

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Cooper and McKee are back with the hoopin' Tigers, and McKee is immediately into the starting lineup.
UPDATE: ONU 36, Witt 31, half. ONU led by 2-4 pts for much of the half, and by 8 until a buzzer-beating three went in for Bigler (or maybe it was Hieber?) McKee already has 10.
UPDATE: I'm listening to the Witt game, but I'm watching the D1 volleyball championship, and I just want to inform you that Texas actually has a player named Destinee Hooker. Okay, back to hoops now.
UPDATE: Hill three gives Witt a 46-44 lead with about 10:00 to go, and as I type this, ONU retakes the lead on an old-fashioned three-point play. ONU has led virtually the whole game, but has never gotten any separation; largest lead was 8 as noted above.
UPDATE: Witt goes up by 4, 59-55, with 4:00-ish left; it's their largest lead tonight.
UPDATE: Witt leads 61-57, 1:35 left, Witt ball.
UPDATE/FINAL SCORE: Witt wins, 61-59. ONU got a rebound with maybe 0:08 left, but didn't take a timeout. They came down and launched a three, which missed and went out of bounds to the Tigers with 0:00.6 on the clock. Tony Meyer intercepted the inbounds pass at halfcourt, but his shot "just barely missed."

pennstghs · December 19, 2009, 09:06:34 PM

Wittenberg 61 Ohio Northern 59

Good first game of the season for Josh Mckee as he finishes with 12 points, Gregg Hill led the way for Witt with 13 points.

Good in-region victory as well. Hopefully they can keep it going Tuesday vs Otterbein

David Collinge · December 19, 2009, 09:25:14 PM

Just the one game for Sunday:

Wabash (4-4, 0-1) at Wooster (5-4, 2-0), 2pm -- Live Stats & Audio (Woo) -- Live Audio (Wab)

fantastic50 · December 20, 2009, 12:55:09 PM

Quote from: David Collinge on December 19, 2009, 01:59:36 AM
But I am quite proud to have called to my attention that Wooster ranks #1 regardless of classification in student-athlete graduation rate.

The same rankings showed Wooster at #205 in graduation rate last year, and #499 the year before that, so the methodology appears suspect. I think that student-athlete graduation rate data at the D-III level is still being collected only on an experimental basis by the NCAA.

David Collinge · December 20, 2009, 02:32:40 PM

I guess it's good Wabash vs. good Wooster, as they've combined for just five turnovers in the first half. Wooster leads 40-36. (I guess wooscotsfan is at the game?)

UPDATE: ...but bad Wabash seems to have come out for the second half. Just 3 pts and 7 turnovers in the first 7 minutes, and Woo suddenly leads by 18, 57-39.
UPDATE: It was definitely good Wooster all day, though, as the Scots limit the turnovers to 7 for the afternoon while shooting around 50%. Wabash only threatened in the last few minutes of the first half; otherwise Wooster coasts to a 78-60 victory.

David Collinge · December 20, 2009, 03:36:00 PM

That wraps up conference play for the calendar year. Here's the current standings:

1. Wooster 3-0 (6-4)
2. Hiram 2-0 (5-3)
2. Denison 2-0 (2-7)
4. Allegheny 1-0 (4-2)
5. Wittenberg 1-1 (6-2)
5. Earlham 1-1 (3-7)
7. Wabash 0-2 (4-5)
7. Oberlin 0-2 (4-5)
7. Kenyon 0-2 (3-6)
7. Ohio Wesleyan 0-2 (2-5)

We've got two non-conference games left before the holiday break:
Monday: Anderson (8-1) at Earlham (3-7), 9pm (!) -- Live Stats and Audio
Tuesday: Otterbein (1-8) at Wittenberg (6-2), 7:30pm -- Live Stats and Audio

wooscotsfan · December 20, 2009, 05:50:22 PM

Final: Wooster 78 Wabash 60

Back from Wooster where I watched the Scots dismantle Wabash in the 2nd half. Wooster went on a 21-3 run to start the 2nd half and the outcome was never in doubt after that point (61-39).

Wooster took great care of the ball as David noted and they notched 15 assists with only 7 turnovers.

The Scots also outrebounded the Little Giants 34-28 so they ended up with 12 more shot attempts than Wabash.

Wooster pounded the ball down low today and Bryan Wickliffe (15 points) and frosh Josh Claytor (13 points) were very successful inside. Even Ian Franks (21 points) probably got about half of his points on drives in the lane where Wabash was vulnerable.

Scots looked good today and shot the ball well at ~49% compared to 45% for Wabash.

Nice NCAC win for Wooster as they now have 8 days off before the Mose Hole Tourney on December 29th.

GO SCOTS!

wally_wabash · December 21, 2009, 06:44:35 PM

Unfortunately I wasn't able to follow along with the Wabash/Wooster tilt on Sunday, but it looks like we wound up with Bad Wabash vs. Good Wooster which is never ever going to end well for Wabash.

I think the reality that we've all accepted for the NCAC this season is that the only team going to the NCAA tournament is going to be our tournament champion. With that in mind, it's going to be pretty hard for me to get too upset about this loss. There's only one game vs. Wooster that is going to really matter for any team in the NCAC this year, and that's the one that comes at Timken in late February. The story of Wabash basketball for the last couple of years has been wild inconsistency early with a steady build up through mid-January into the conference tournament. I had hopes that this group would have been able to start this season playing as well as they ended the last one and set themselves up to challenge Wooster for home court advantage and/or a Pool C. That hasn't happened, so there's just two things left to do now this season. 1) Beat Witt in Springfield (Wabash has never done that since joining the league and I'd love nothing more than to see these guys achieve that) and 2) win the conference tournament. Can they do it?? Stay tuned...

The write up on the game mentioned that Wes Smith left the game late with a concussion...I hope this isn't serious. Wes got hurt late in a game that was over against Oberlin last year and it really disrupted the middle of Wabash's season. I hope this isn't a repeat scenario.

David Collinge · December 21, 2009, 07:52:18 PM

I've added Live Stats and Audio link for tonight's Earlham game, above.

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The Live Stats people got bored and went home at halftime. (Although, I think it must have been interesting, since there's still one second left in the Live Stats version of the women's game, so that first half must have been very crazy, what with 20 players on the court.) :rimshot:
So anyway, Earlham couldn't do what Wittenberg couldn't do, losing to Anderson 80-58.

pennstghs · December 22, 2009, 06:43:07 PM

David, I think having Mckee and Cooper back will help Wittenberg tremendously, as shown by their performance Saturday. Mckee is the type of player that will put up around 10 points a game but his energy and tenacity will give Witt some extra energy.

Kind of disappointed with the Regional Rankings......Obviously Wittenberg's loss to Hiram is hurting more than they thought.

David Collinge · December 22, 2009, 08:20:51 PM

Dan Russ and Dane Borchers both dropped by for a brief halftime interview during the Witt/Ott game. Dan, it turns out, is now an assistant coach at the University of the Cumberlands, an NAIA school in Williamsburg, KY, where they evidently can't spell "Wittenberg." The Patriots are 10-3 so far this season. Congratulations & good luck to Dan, who is a guy that I believe has universal respect.

Witt led 31-24 at the half, by the way.