MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[David Collinge]

Big schedule for Saturday, only Oberlin and Wittenberg are idle:

OWU at Calvin, 1pm -- video and live stats
Kenyon vs. Finlandia, 2pm (at Albion) -- Live stats
Denison vs. Hanover, 3pm (at U. of Chicago) -- Audio and live stats -- evidently this is at 3pm Central time
Hiram at Geneva, 3pm -- no live coverage
Franklin at Wabash, 3pm -- Audio
Pitt-Greensburg at Allegheny, 8pm -- Live stats
Bethany at Wooster, 8pm -- Audio and live stats

[David Collinge]

OWU continues their early-season struggles, falling at Calvin 87-60.  Bishops hit just 27% of their shots, and got outrebounded by 7--not a recipe for success.

Kenyon is a wire-to-wire winner today, dropping Finlandia 70-58.  Uros Valiljevik leads the Lords with a 15 pt., 10 reb. afternoon.

[KnightSlappy]

OWU continues their early-season struggles, falling at Calvin 87-60.  Bishops hit just 27% of their shots, and got outrebounded by 7--not a recipe for success.

So now after three games, their best shooting day was 33.9% in the opener against Albion. I saw them last night against Heidelberg and today against Calvin; it's gonna be a long year for the Bishops.

[David Collinge]

Geneva downs Hiram, 90-74, to capture the championship of their own Coaches vs. Cancer tournament.

Hanover disposes of Denison at Chicago, 64-54.  Jim Leffew pours in 18 on 8/11 shooting.  Larry Farmer rejoins the starting lineup, but has a quiet four point, five board, three assist game.

Wabash makes a statement, besting Franklin 96-55.

[David Collinge]

The Scots game will be broadcast on WKVX 960am, as there's a local H.S. football game on WQKT and it's still in the first half.  Unfortunately, the webstream is for the football game.  It appears that the college radio station, Woo91, will carry the Scots, as they carried the first game (NW Ohio 82, Miami-Middletown 78, which just ended by the way), but, and no offense intended, I'd rather get the WKVX/Mike Breckenridge stream.  If anyone knows if and how that might be possible, please pass it along.

[David Collinge]

The conference is out to a favorable 10-9 non-conference record so far, this season and Allegheny and Wooster both have double-digit halftime leads.  The Gators lead Pitt-Greensburg by 11, while the Scots are up 15 on Bethany (a team that defeated 'Gheny by a dozen on Monday.)

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

Greensburg got back into the game shortly after halftime, and the second half was mostly a back-and-forth affair.  In the end, however, the Gators were able to withstand the rally and escape with a 71-67 verdict.  James Ness tallied 22 points and ten boards before fouling out with a couple of minutes left; frosh guard D'Andre Corbin added 20 points.

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

Wooster won quite easily, using an all-frosh lineup to finish off a 79-52 thrashing.  As easy as shooting bison from a train, I suppose.  Nathan Balch had 21, including a beautiful-to-look-at 11-for-11 from the line, and Ian Franks added 18 points and a MVP plaque.  (Yes, he was the MVP of a one-game "tournament.")  The Scots dominated the glass 43-31 and outshot the Bison 41% (50% from deep) to 32%.     

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

So the conference moves out to a 12-9 record in non-conference action.  Bully!

[David Collinge]

Two games Sunday:

Catholic at Allegheny, 3pm -- Live stats
Denison at Chicago, 4pm -- Video and live stats

[wooscotsfan]

Back from Timken where I watched Wooster slice up the Bethany Bison.

This game was essentially over in the first 8 minutes of the opening half.  With ~12 minutes remaining in the first half, Wooster had a 24 to 4 lead and the Scots never looked back.

Bethany went on a mini run to start the 2nd half and cut the lead to 11 points briefly but they never got any closer and the Wooster freshmen got plenty of mop up playing time.  As David noted, Wooster shot 50% on three pointers and made 12 of them.  The only negative was 16 turnovers with many in the 2nd half as Bethany pressed a lot trying to get back into game.

Ian Franks and Nathan Balch both played well tonight and it was also good to see Justin Hallowell nail several three pointers.  Of the freshmen, Ryan Snyder and Jimmy Orie looked the most comfortable on the floor, IMO.

Scots are now 2-0.  Next up is a neutral site game vs. Ohio Northern next Saturday at the CMU tourney.

Interesting that John Carroll knocked off #5 Carthage in Wisconsin this afternoon.  The Wooster vs. JCU matchup in the Mose Hole tourney should be another great game.

GO SCOTS!

[GoRed]

I'm surprised that the Big Red had trouble again this year with Hanover.  If anyone out there was at the game I'd like to hear their thoughts.  From the box score it looks like Hale and Garabedian didn't get their usual minutes and it doesn't look like it was due to foul trouble.  It will be interesting to see the video of the Chicago game and how they manage against what appears to be a very tall team.

Leffew had a great game and showed just how much scoring potential there is on this team.  There is a lot of depth in shooting, but the shot clock seems to remain their enemy.  The ball needs to go up when the opening is there.

[David Collinge]

Catholic has little difficulty with Allegheny, dropping the Gators 72-53.  D'Andre Corbin's dozen led the Gator scoring; Donte Briscoe added 8 points and 9 boards. 

[David Collinge]

It will be interesting to see the video of the Chicago game ...

Yeah, it would have been, except that it turns out there was no video after all.  Not on my computer, anyway.  Which is a shame because this was a real barn-burner, as the Big Red pull out the 66-65 victory.  Mike Garabedian coolly sank five free throws (he was 7-for-7 for 12 points) on back-to-back possessions in the closing moments, providing the final margin as the Maroons misfired on three 3-pointers in the final minute.  Larry Farmer had his breakout game for the season, pouring in 29 points and grabbing 9 boards.  DU shot 48% on the evening, hitting an even 50% of their treys and a decisive 87% (13/15) of their free throws.

NCAC non-conference record: 13-10.

[Titan Q]

Mike Garabedian coolly sank five free throws

I was watching live stats too.  How do we know he wasn't nervous as heck and that he didn't clang the ball all over the rim on each FT before they fell??

[David Collinge]

Mike Garabedian coolly sank five free throws

I was watching live stats too.  How do we know he wasn't nervous as heck and that he didn't clang the ball all over the rim on each FT before they fell??

Because Mike Garabedian is....cool. 

[Titan Q]

Mike Garabedian coolly sank five free throws

I was watching live stats too.  How do we know he wasn't nervous as heck and that he didn't clang the ball all over the rim on each FT before they fell??

Because Mike Garabedian is....cool. 

Well, that name is pretty cool...so "coolly sank" it is!

[GoRed]

Very surprised and extremely pleased  .  Chicago beat Hanover by 18 two nights ago and Hanover took down the Big Red by 10 last night. 

Talked with someone who attended after the game and it sounds like Ghiloni shifted his philosophy after the Hanover game - sorry NCAC opponents, but no clues.  Mr. Farmer apparently attended and saw Junior play a huge game.  Nice game Larry!  Garabedian had 8 pts in the last 3 1/2 minutes after spending some time on the bench in foul trouble.  A Casey Stockton three kept it close with about 6 minutes to play too.  The Big Red held Chicago to just three points in the last 5 minutes.  Nice to see that both Illinois starters had a great homecoming victory.

Go Red!!  Case is the next UAA opponent on Tuesday.