MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 63  Grove City 52  

Wooster shot miserably tonight at 34% but offset that weakness by totally dominating the boards 48 to 29.

Scots were led tonight by Ian Franks with 12 points (11 boards), Bryan Wickliffe with 12 points and 15 boards, Nathan Balch with 11 points and Brandon Johnson with 9 points and 7 assists.

Grove City's top scorers were Brett Matson with 18 points and Andy O'Keefe with 10 points.

Wooster is now 24-5.  Next up is a very tough Wisconsin Whitewater team in the 2nd round!

GO SCOTS!

[wooscotsfan]

Wooster will have to play much better tomorrow night if they want to have a shot at beating UW Whitewater.

Three things that Wooster did tonight that will probably spell defeat if repeated tomorrow.

1.  Slow start - Scots only scored 7 points in the first 8 minutes of the game tonight
2.  Commit 14 turnovers
3.  Only shoot 34% from the floor

Wooster will also need to slow down UW Whitewater's top two players:  6'9" post Dustin Mitchell and their senior guard Dupree Fletcher who hit the winning shot tonight.

GO SCOTS!

[seinfeld]

Not very pretty tonight. When you shoot as bad as Wooster did, it obviously clouds how you judge them going forward, but man, I'm having a hard time figuring out how they are going to win tomorrow. Defiance played great, and Whitewater was mediocre for about 30 minutes, yet they still found a way to win. And as we saw with Anderson's win over St. Thomas, the HCAC put two pretty good teams in the tournament.

It mostly depends on if Whitewater is at full throttle from the start. They weren't against Defiance, and it allowed Defiance to get settled into the game. I think Wooster can get some good looks on offense, but not sure what they are going to do on defense. Mitchell is going to be almost impossible for any one Wooster player to guard because of his size. And Fletcher is going to have to be covered by Johnson. If Wooster was ever to show some zone or box-and-1, this would be the time to do it.

This is beating a dead horse, but Hallowell has to start making some shots. He can get open looks because of his height, but he simply isn't making them. At this point, you just have to assume this is what you are going to get from him. I think they have to consider playing Claytor more. He at least provides an offensive presence in the paint, which will make the defense have to respect Wooster's inside game more, leaving some more room for the guards. In the second half tonight, all Wooster was doing was shooting threes.

Fletcher is quite the character. At the end of the game, he was sticking his tongue out and flexing his muscles to the Defiance fans, which were the loudest visiting crowd I've heard in a while.

[ScotsFan]

Well.  Tonight's win was far from pretty, but at this time of the year, it's not how you win, just whether you win and all I care about right now is that the Scots survived to live another day!

This was one of the ugliest games I can remember being witness to.  I guess you have to credit both teams' defenses?  Although, much of the credit has to go to the Scots for leaving their shooter's touch at the gate.  Open 3's that have been automatic the last couple of weeks were rattling out.  I thought I was back in the first month of the season for a bit.    And as seinfeld touched on, I think we need to just accept that Hallowell isn't going to snap out of his sophomore slump and accept that it is what it is.  I just can't help hoping that he's suddenly going to break out to the Hallowell that won the national freshman of the year last season. 

All I can say for this game is thank god GCC actually played worse offensively than the Scots did tonight.  I couldn't believe when I heard the first half stats say that the Scots were shooting 31% from the floor?!    How does a team shoot 31% and still go into the locker rooms up 9 at the break??? 

And if there is a silver lining from this game it is the defense.  Wooster's defense is what won this game.  Sure, that Matson kid got 18 points.  But he only shot 5-18 from the floor to get those 18 points.  And O'Keefe, who came into the game averaging almost 18 ppg while shooting at nearly 68% (3rd in all of d3 BTW) was held to just 10 points on a miserable 3-9 shooting from the field!  Hats off to the Wooster defense for earning this win tonight!

Tomorrow is going to be a challenge vs. Whitewater.  But I will say, Defiance gave me hope that the mighty Warhawks can be beaten.   Wooster will have to play better on the offensive end of the floor to have a chance.  If Wooster can match what they did defensively tonight on the offensive end, I think they could have a fighting chance.  They're going to have to shoot a hell of a lot better than what they did tonight for that to happen though!

Fletcher is quite the character. At the end of the game, he was sticking his tongue out and flexing his muscles to the Defiance fans, which were the loudest visiting crowd I've heard in a while.

Yeah, I hope karma comes and bites Mr. Fletcher in the arse for his cocky antics he was pulling after that game tonight!  He can thank his lucky stars that Defiance choked that game away or he'd have been sulking on a long bus ride back to Wisconsin.  He had no business taunting the Defiance crowd like he did at the end of that game!

And speaking of loudest visiting crowds, is it safe to say that, based on the 7-10 Whitewater fans I noticed in attendance in that first game, WW's visiting crowd could be the quietest we've heard in a while?   

[wooscotsfan]

Wooster Scots (24-5, 15-1 NCAC-1st) #17 in D3 Hoops Poll
Nathan Balch, 6'1" Jr. (11.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg)
Brandon Johnson, 6'2" Sr. (5.7 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 3.6 apg)
Ian Franks, 6'4" Jr. (17.2 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 3.3 apg)
Bryan Wickliffe, 6'5" Jr. (11.4 ppg, 7.4 rpg)
Justin Hallowell, 6'7" So. (9.4 ppg, 5.9 rpg)

Matt Fegan, 6'1" So. (6.3 ppg, 2.0 rpg)
Josh Claytor, 6'7" Fr. (5.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg)
Mike Evans, 6'5" So. (3.4 ppg, 1.3 rpg)
Jake Mays, 6'8" Fr. (2.9 ppg, 2.7 rpg)

UW-Whitewater Warhawks (23-5, 13-3 WIAC-1st) #8 in D3Hoops Poll
Nolan Free, 6'1" Fr. (6.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.0 apg)
Phil Negri, 6'3" Jr. (8.5 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 4.9 apg)
Alex Edmunds, 6'4" So. (7.5 ppg, 4.8 rpg)
Mike Bendall, 6'6" Sr. (10.1 ppg, 5.1 rpg)
Dustin Mitchell, 6'9" Sr. (18.2 ppg, 8.7 rpg)

Dupree Fletcher, 6'0" Sr. (13.7 ppg, 2.6 rpg)
DJ Dantzler, 6'0" Jr. (11.0 ppg, 1.9 rpg)
Chris Vines, 6'3" Jr. (4.8 ppg, 2.2 rpg)
Lucas Burns, 6'5" Fr. (3.0 ppg, 1.3 rpg)

Should be a great game tonight at Timken between two Top 20 teams!

[ScotsFan]

So, does the attendance crack 3 g's tonight at Timken?  Nearly 2700 turned out last night but that included a group of GCC students that outnumbered Woo's student section. 

I wonder if any more Whitewater fans will make the trek south today?  As I said earlier, I think I could count the total number of Whitewater fans on 2 hands.  I think Whitewaters cheerleaders outnumbered their fans in the stands.

Whatever the attendance ends up being, it should be a VERY partisan Wooster crowd tonight as I doubt we will see that many more WW fans show up tonight! 

[Jackets Backer]

Fletcher is quite the character. At the end of the game, he was sticking his tongue out and flexing his muscles to the Defiance fans, which were the loudest visiting crowd I've heard in a while.

Fletcher is a ... well I'm not going to say. He's a great player but his antics ruin anything he does on the court. Do you know he was booted out of Evansville for stealing laptops, transferred to a couple junior colleges and I believe had run-ins with the law at those places as well. He had a semester or so of eligibility left and is using it at Whitewater. I'd hope a D-I talent could ball in the D-3 ranks. He graduated high school in like 2004. Defiance had them on the ropes, just didn't finish the job. Whitewater has the talent to make a long run with two D-I transfers and the huge 6-9, 240 pound Mitchell. Will be interesting to see tonight if Woo can beat them since the Scots' bigs can lift Mitchell and Bendall out with the way they can shoot it.

[David Collinge]

If Wooster, John Carroll, and Wilmington (all playing top 10 opponents) all win tonight, the sectional would likely be at Wooster.

Who's with me?  O-H!!!  I-O!!!  O-H!!!  I-O!!!

[David Collinge]

Is it my computer, or is this video stream really terrible?

[David Collinge]

I think Justin Hallowell must lead all of D3 in deadball rebounds.  Hardly any made front-end free throws escape his clutches. 

[WooHoopsntrack01]

This could really really be interesting!  SCOTS up 68-57 with 4:30 to go.  AND, Guilford/JCU in a two point dog fight!!!! 

LETS GO OHIO!  LETS GO SCOTS!!!

[kiltedbryan]

Is there any more telling stat in this game right now than this:

FTs:  WW 10-22, Wooster 22-25

That's impressive for the Scots.  Exactly what you need to do in the tournament.

[sac]

Is there any more telling stat in this game right now than this:

FTs:  WW 10-22, Wooster 22-25

That's impressive for the Scots.  Exactly what you need to do in the tournament.

I was more NOT impressed with the 10-22. ..... 

[David Collinge]

I don't recognize these officials, but I'd guess they're Ohioans, and I think they're probably not used to a more physical Wisconsin-style game.  In the second half, they've been calling everything, and between that and the media timeouts, this game has very little flow.  Still, the overactive refs have been generally to Wooster's benefit, and as Bryan points out, they've used that benefit to good advantage.

[David Collinge]

Here we go again...
Whitewater gets seven points in the blink of an eye on a bucket-steal-bucket-steal-trey sequence.  Now they have the ball, down 4 with :47 left.

UPDATE:  But Whitewater can't seal the deal this time, as Wooster completes the 87-78 victory.  Go Scots!