MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[David Collinge]

Oh by the way, Wabash defeated Marian last night, 66-51.

[David Collinge]

Wednesday:
Cincinnati Christian (who?) at Wooster
Earlham (who?) at Denison
Hiram vs. Otterbein at Geneva

CCU/COW, 7:30pm -- Audio and live stats
EC/DU, 7:30pm -- Audio and live stats
Hiram/Ott, 6:00pm -- no live coverage that I can locate -- this is probably due to the fact that this game is scheduled for Friday -- d'oh!

-------------------------------

Both Wooster and Denison are out to double-digit leads early in their games.
Now both lead by 20 or more as the halftimes approach.

[David Collinge]

Wooster is cruising, up 60-36 at the half.  Nathan Balch already has 20 points in 17 minutes.  Nobody else played more than 12 minutes as Steve Moore is substituting liberally, using 11 Scots in the half.  Wooster is hitting 59% overall and 57% from the arc, and owns the boards by a 29-12 count.  The Scots have 15 assists (on 22 buckets) vs. 5 turnovers.  It seems and sounds like they're doing pretty much everything right so far.

Denison is thumping Earlham at the half by a 50-29 count.  Larry Farmer, who did not start tonight or on Monday (GoRed--?), already has a double-double, with 13 pts. (6/8 from the floor) and 10 boards.  Dimonde Hale started cold, missing four of his first five shots, but picked it up to finish the half with 13 points on 6/11 shooting.  Denison hit 60% of their first-half shots; Earlham (10/28) didn't.

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 103  Cincinnati Christian 78

Wooster opens with an easy win over Cincy Christian.  Scots were led tonight by Nathan Balch with 27 points, Matt Fegan with 19 points, Bryan Wickliffe with 14 points (8 boards) and Ian Franks with 12 points.

Wooster shot 51% from the floor compared to only 39% for Cincy Christian.  Scots also shot 47% on three pointers and made 14 three pointers led by Fegan with 5 and Balch with 3.  Wooster won the battle of the boards by a 50 to 33 count while both teams had only 11 turnovers.

Next up is Bethany at home on Saturday in the Al Van Wie tourney.

GO SCOTS!

[David Collinge]

Wooster coasts to the 103-78 win.  Balch ended up with 27, and Matt Fegan added 19.  The Scots had 28 assists, but this new "live stats" program won't tell me who had them individually.  Wooster ended up hitting about half of their shots (51% overall, 47% arc, 57% line) and had a helpful +17 on the boards.  It sounds like Wooster may have lost touted frosh Scott Purcell with a potentially serious knee injury, and has already lost Mike Evans for two weeks minimum with a broken hand.  (Cross-posted with wsf.)

Denison also coasts, winning 79-58.  Hale took one-third of the Big Red's shots, making a dozen for 28 points.  Farmer ended up with 16-and-13, as Denison was +13 on the glass.  Denison shot less frequently than Wooster, but with similar accuracy: 48% overall, 40% arc, 77% line.

[wooscotsfan]

David - position your cursor over a player's name and his individual stats appear in a popup box.

Of the 28 assists for Wooster:  Franks had 6, Hallowell -6, Balch -3, Fegan -3, Warnes -3, Claytor -2 and several others with 1 each.

[woosterbooster]

Wooster beats Cin---- but you already knew that.

So, just my normal random remarks:

1. A very light crowd for the home opener, even considering the opponent.  The contest had the feel of an exhibition rather than a regular season game.  The weather was fine, so it's not that.  I wonder if the construction, which forces a longer walk to the north end of the building to enter, was a factor.

2. A third injury that happened late was to Matt Fegan's ankle; hopefully it's not serious.

3. Wooster definitely had it's outside shooting touch back tonight, at least early.

4. Nothing else to report, and being in a benevolent mood, I'll refrain from mentioning that the officials were in mid-season form.  Oops.

[David Collinge]

2. A third injury that happened late was to Matt Fegan's ankle; hopefully it's not serious.

Steve Moore indicated that it was a mild sprain, not serious.

Thanks for the tip, wsf.  Technology still baffles me.

[smedindy]

888 (which sounds a bit...um...fishy...not that the Amidon / Fendley / Harris Wabash attendance algorithm was exact...heh...) at a non-conference game in November against a team that struggles in the NAIA that really no one has heard of? Not a bad crowd really. I think many programs would take a crowd of 900 for ANY game!

Well, if they could hold 900 in their gym...

[GoRed]

Larry Farmer, who did not start tonight or on Monday (GoRed--?),

I heard Larry sat out the preseason contests due to a minor injury.  It looks like Ghiloni's starting him slowly and preserving him and some of the other starters early on to make sure they last the season.  Injuries hurt them last year with Leffew out all season and Garabedian sitting out several games.  I think Bob's making sure he doesn't push the horses too hard in the early part of the season unless he has to.  They will need a full tank of gas when the conference season gets underway.  I actually like the idea of bringing a stronger player off the bench to change the tempo - forcing the defense to adjust early and keeping them off balance.   

Tonight's result was encouraging to see on top of a strong second half against Marietta Monday.  They outplayed a taller team using speed and passing and I like the mix of slashing to the basket with Hale and Farmer and a host of outside options with Stockton, Garabedian, Tiberi and Leffew all able to drain the long shot.  The shift in offensive sets away from the traditional Denison offense will be refreshing if they stay with it.

[ScotsFan]

It sounds like Wooster may have lost touted frosh Scott Purcell with a potentially serious knee injury, and has already lost Mike Evans for two weeks minimum with a broken hand.

It sounds as if Purcell had this same injury in high school and may have re-injured it.  Moore said they won't know much until the MRI is done.

Tough way for a young man to start his college career... 


As for the game, I liked that Wooster only committed 11 turnovers.  This was clearly a point of emphasis by Coach Moore this offseason and to only commit 11 turnovers against a team that likes to press and force turnovers is a promissing sign.

One thing I didn't like was 56% at the line.  Looks like some extra work at the charity stripe is in order.

David, you had mentioned your vote for 'Wooster player other than Franks' was for Wick.  While I liked what I saw from him last night, Nate Balch may just be that 'other' player if he continues to play like he did last night!  I know it's just one game, but he usually doesn't start playing like he played last night until the post-season!  I think last night just made everyone take notice that if your objective is slowing down Franks, that will not be enough if Wooster continues to get perfomances like what we saw from both Balch and Fegan!

Lastly, is it just me or is Ryan Snyder a clone of Nate Balch?  Apparently it's not just me as I was watching the replay of the game on Clear Picture and the play-by-play guy mistakingly called out Balch as having gone cold from the outside when it was in fact Snyder!     Overall, I think this freshman class has the potential to be another very good class if they can stick it out!   

[woosterbooster]

I see Wooster as a very balanced team, and as long as no one cares about individual numbers, they have the ability to go far.

I don't think you can say enough about Matt Fegan.  When I first watched him as a frosh, struggling to get the ball up court against pressure, my opinion was that if he had any future at all at Wooster it was at the shooting guard position.  But this guy came back his sophomore year having totally reinvented himself athletically.  He was faster, stronger, and an improved ballhandler.  It was clear that he always had the basketball intellect, and this season you can see that he's combined that with experience and is confidently running the offense.  He'll never be quick, but he's quicker than he was, and nobody's going to easily take the ball away from him anymore.  And the kid shoots it like the legendary Devin Fulk.

As for Wickliffe, I can't recall any other Scot in recent memory that has made such steady improvement in his game from year to year.  This guy is an undersized post player with decent but not great athletic ability who gives everything he has on every play.  As a freshman he got pushed around.  Now he does the pushing.  His moves are plain vanilla but he finishes strong and the ball goes in the hoop.  And nobody hits the floor more often than this guy.  He'll be very much missed when this season is finished.

Nathan Balch's game is old school at its best.  Of course he can shoot the three, with the ability to square up and get it off on a dime.  But he can shoot on the run with a mixture of mid-range jumpers and floating bank shots.  He does all of this while moving without the ball, something that he's learned well over the last couple of years.  Moreover, he's a solid defender, gets out on the break, and is the team's best free throw shooter. Balch's position, too, will be a huge hole to fill next year.

[David Collinge]

No love for Chris "the Truth" Roberts in the poll...

Tonight's slate:
OWU vs. Heidelberg, 5:30pm at Calvin -- looks like live video, audio, and stats, via Calvin, even though the Knights are not playing
Hiram vs. Otterbein (for real this time), 6pm at Geneva -- no live coverage as far as I am aware
Kenyon at Albion, 8pm -- Audio (Albion) and live stats
Earlham at Wabash, 8pm -- live audio

[ziggy]

Tonight's slate:
OWU vs. Heidelberg, 5:30pm at Calvin -- looks like live video, audio, and stats, via Calvin, even though the Knights are not playing

Some in-the-house coverage of OWU/Heidelberg via the pre-eminent Calvin basketball blog on the internet: http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/2010/11/tip-off-tournament-live-blog-day-1.html

The Calvin feed will not have an audio broadcast, just the video stream with arena noise.

[David Collinge]

Heidelberg nips OWU, 58-57
Hiram goes overtime to down Otterbein 74-63
Albion overhauls Kenyon, 72-66
Wabash 73, Earlham 58