MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ScotsFan]

Speaking of 1,000 point scorers, Ian Franks is on pace to break the milestone probably sometime in the NCAC tournament.  This is pretty impressive for him to go over 1,000 points as a junior considering he only scored 54 points as a frosh!    One can only imagine where he would land on the Scots' all-time scoring list had he not waited until his sophomore season to explode onto the scene.

[wally_wabash]

Your guide to Wednesday's NCAC action, including the much-discussed Denison/Kenyon Backyard Brawl:

Kenyon (2-6) at Denison (3-5), 6pm -- Live stats and audio -- Game 1 of a men/women doubleheader
Hiram (5-3) at Wooster (8-0), 7:30pm -- Live everything
Ohio Wesleyan (5-3) at Wabash (6-2), 7:30pm -- Live stats and audio
Oberlin (0-8) at Allegheny (5-3), ~8pm -- Live stats -- Game 2 of a women/men doubleheader
Wittenberg (5-3) at Earlham (1-7), ~8pm -- Live audio (Witt) -- Game 2 of a women/men doubleheader

And, in as much as my contribution counts as "coverage", I'll be tweeting from Chadwick tonight as the action happens. 

[wooscotsfan]

At the Half:  Wooster 26  Hiram 24

Scots are being led by Ian Franks by 12 points and Bryan Wickliffe with 4 points.

Hiram's top scorers are Chris Meyer with 6 points, Deon Milton with 5 points and Chris Roberts with 4 points.

8:50 Left:  Wooster 51  Hiram 36
5:31 Left:  Wooster 57  Hiram 39


At the Half:  Ohio Wesleyan 44  Wabash 34

13:52 Left:  OWU 57  Wabash 43
10:17 Left:  OWU 60  Wabash 47
4:07 Left:    OWU 68  Wabash 55
2:49 Left:    OWU 68  Wabash 61   Lil Giants on a run
1:17 Left:    OWU 68  Wabash 63
0:28 Left:    OWU 69  Wabash 65  Bishops missing FTs

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 67  Hiram 43

Wooster got hot in the 2nd half with both Nathan Balch and Justin Hallowell hitting multiple 3 pointers.  Scots were led by Ian Franks with 18 points, Nathan Balch with 16 points (4 three pointers in 2nd half) and Justin Hallowell with 12 points (4 three pointers in the game).  Bryan Wickliffe added 6 points and 10 boards.

Terriers were led in scoring by Chris Meyer with 10 points and Chris Roberts with 9 points.

Wooster is now 14-4, 9-0 NCAC   Next up is Denison at home on Saturday

GO SCOTS!

[pennstghs]

Wittenberg 39
Earlham 27

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Denison 81  Kenyon 66

Dimonde Hale with 25 points and Chris Luther with 17 points for the Big Red.  Dave Knapke had 18 for the Lords.


Final:  Ohio Wesleyan 73  Wabash 67

Bishops led by Tim Brady with 22 points, Marshall Morris with 15 points and Pat Pellerite with 11 points.  Little Giants led by Aaron Brock with 23 points, Chase Haltom with 12 points and Ben Burkett also with 12 points.

Final:  Wittenberg 88  Earlham 64

Tigers were led by Chris Sullivan with 20 points (6 three pointers!) and Mark Snyder with 12 points.  Quake was led by AJ Sutherlin with 16 points and Shane Heidt with 12 points.


Final:  Allegheny 81  Oberlin 66
Gators were led by George Raftis with 19 points and Charlie Jaicks with 16 points.  For the Yeomen, top scorers were Andrew Fox with 17 points and Marcus Johnson with 13 points.

[sac]

.....the belt is getting bored.

[wooscotsfan]

Current NCAC Standings with 1/27 Results:

1.  Wooster 9-0
2.  Wittenberg 6-3
2.  Wabash 6-3
2.  Ohio Wesleyan 6-3
2.  Allegheny 6-3
6.  Hiram 5-4
7.  Denison 4-5
8.  Kenyon 2-7
9.  Earlham 1-8
10. Oberlin 0-9

[wooscotsfan]

.....the belt is getting bored.

for 20 minutes this evening, several Terriers tried to bite the belt, then some Bagpiper threw them a bone and ran off with the belt!

[pennstghs]

good win by Wittenberg after a rough last week. After a disappointing week a big win versus anyone cools the moods.

Speaking of "disappointing," is there any team more disappointing this year than Kenyon? They started out the season with high hopes, and have struggled mightly. Yes a rivalry game and road loss to Denison isn't unexpected but as a whole I don't think anyone saw this coming.

[David Collinge]

Well, lookie who's tied for second place all of a sudden...

Yeah, Kenyon's been a big disappointment, but we knew all along that they were going to struggle unless and until someone stepped up to help the Brothers K (Knight and Knapke), and that has not happened.  Both of the Ks are having excellent seasons, but it just ain't enough.  They've very young, and maybe the experience the frosh and sophs are getting this year will help them give JT a hand next year.  Maybe.

[wally_wabash]

That was a tough way to end the streak.  OWU started very strong in the first half.  The Bishop guards were able to drive into the paint, often along the baseline, which was forcing Wabash post defenders to choose between picking up the dribbler or letting him go.  The downside to that choice is that it leads to a layup either way.  So the Wabash defense couldn't force OWU to try something different...on offense, Wabash took a LOT of poor shots in the first 10 minutes or so.  A lot of hurried, long distance shots...they weren't even bothering to challenge OWU inside early.  End result, Wabash is down 29-13, OWU has all the confidence in the world, and the road back into the game was uphill.  At a significant grade.  

Credit to the LGs for coming back in the second half...of the second half.  Two more minutes and Wabash may have been able to get over the hump.  But these games don't last two more minutes.  

So it was bound to happen...hoops seasons are long and it's hard to be at your best every night.  Usual strengths for this year's Wabash team (good shot selection, high FG%, high FT%) were weaknesses tonight.  Couple that with OWU having played a fantastic game and it was just too much for Wabash tonight.  

Wabash had four players in double figures: Brock (23 and 15....another monster game for the senior), Burkett and Haltom (12 points), and Smith (11 points...OWU did a good job of forcing the ball out of Smith's hand tonight).  Haltom did go over 1,000 career points tonight.  Congrats to Chase.  

And with that loss it's pretty safe to say game, set, match to Wooster.  I think we could have believed scenarios where Wooster may lose two of their last eight, but not three.  And certainly not three of their last seven.  It will be interesting now to see which of the four teams jammed at 6-3 will wind up on the road in the quarterfinals.  

[ScotsFan]

Wooster may be struggling to find their shot of late, but one area they are NOT struggling is on the defensive end of the floor!  For the 4th straight game and the 5th in their last 6 games, the Scots defense holds their opponent under 60!

Tonight, it was Wooster's defense by far that won this game.  When the Scots couldn't get anything to fall early in the game, it was their defense that kept Hiram from getting into any rhythm of their own.  And once the offense did finally get going to the tune of 41 points in the 2nd half, the Scots clamped down even more defensively holding Hiram to just 19! 

With Wooster's win coupled with Wabash's loss, I think I might be able to hear the fat lady starting to warm up.  As Wally said, it is highly inconceivable to think that Wooster would drop 3 of their last 8 and now 3 of their last 7.  Wooster hasn't won 5 straight conference championships without knowing how to finish down the stretch.

[imderekpoe]

As ScotsFan mentions, the Wooster defense was excellent last night for the entire game.  Hiram could never get anything going and had almost no open shots all night.  Chris Roberts in particular could not shake his defenders, usually Brandon Johnson or Matt Fegan.

I think that special mention should be given to Jake Mays.  He ended up with extended minutes last night, due to a minor injury to Josh Claytor, and he really stepped up his game. He was able to avoid the foul trouble that he's had in many games, played great defense and contributed a couple of nice buckets as well.

And for the first time in - well, I can't remember when - the Scots played zone for 3 or 4 posessions at the end of the game!  This coincided with Gideon Mabeny entering the game, so I'm guessing that the purpose is to keep him under the basket.

The last couple of games, we've seen glimpses of the Scots' team that we were expecting this year.  They still need to be more consistent and it would be nice to see a strong start, but hopefully they'll continue to improve and be ready for an extended post-season.

[ScotsFan]

The last couple of games, we've seen glimpses of the Scots' team that we were expecting this year.  They still need to be more consistent and it would be nice to see a strong start, but hopefully they'll continue to improve and be ready for an extended post-season.

I was thinking the same think derek.  We are at least getting glimpses of what we were expecting from this Scots team this season.  That is a start right?    Like you said though.  It would be nice to see them come out firing instead of continuing to struggle to get going for the first 10 minutes or so of every game.  But, it looks as though things are headed in the right direction!

Also, wrt Claytor.  He had a mild groin pull and Moore said he was available if the need arose where Wick or Mays got into early foul trouble.  But, Tom Love was pretty insistent that the best thing for Josh was to sit out.  And fortunately for the Scots it worked out just great as Wick and Mays were both able to stay out of foul trouble and Wooster was able to win comfortably without Claytor's services.