MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ste24vie]

The Cards also doubledowned on Black forcing him to pass or take a bad shot and frustrated him all night. Frustration coaxed him into silly fouls and extra time on the bench.

[cave2bens]

Where's Josh McKee?  Or did I miss something?

Looking at the number of Tiger fouls, more likely that Brad McKinley migrated from field to gym 

Geseende Kersfees en 'n voorspoediga Nuwejaar from Botswana!

[David Collinge]

McKee started against Allegheny and Denison, but did not appear in the two more recent games.  I don't know if he's hurt or what the deal is.  (pennstghs?)  Fellow gridder Michael Cooper rejoined the team for the OWU game and also started at Ott.

[pennstghs]

DC- Mckee has had a bad virus for the past two weks, pneumonia I believe, so that's why he hasn't played much at all, missing hte past 2 games. I didn't hear Coach Brown's postgame Wednesday night on the radio, but hopefully he will be back Wednesday for their Holiday  Classic.

[David Collinge]

Thanks, p.  Happy Holidays to you and to all!

[David Collinge]

GoRed, or anyone else, do you know if Denison was able to get down to Daytona?  Both the Big Red men and women are playing in snowbird tournaments down there, starting tomorrow.  The DU website doesn't indicate any problems, but considering how rampant flight delays are back east, I thought I'd better check.  (The Kenyon women are snowbirding to Las Vegas as well, and I presume they're on schedule delayed a day.)  

[David Collinge]

Here's tomorrow's schedule, assuming that everything (except where noted) is still on:

OWU vs. Maryville (TN), 3pm (at Otterbein) -- video, audio?, and live stats
Allegheny at Centre, 7pm -- video and live stats
John Carroll at Wooster, 7:30pm -- video, audio, and live stats
Denison vs. Buena Vista, 8pm -- video and live stats, maybe
Oberlin at Bryant, postponed -- rescheduled for Weds.

[wooscotsfan]

Happy Holidays to all NCAC and D3Hoops Posters!
For Wooster fans, here is the brief scouting report on John Carroll:

Probable JCU Starters:
5'11" G Joey Meyer 12.6 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 39.5% on three pointers
6'1"  G Corey Shontz  12.1 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 5.9 apg
6'2"  G Michael Hartnett  12.0 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 59.6% on three pointers with 3.4 made per game
6'4"  F Maurice Haynes  15.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 55% field goal shooting
6'7" C  Conor Tilow  12.5 ppg, 5.o rpg, 52% field goal shooting

Key Reserves:
6'5" F Kyle Hubbard  12.1 ppg, 3.7 rpg
6'0" G Conor Sweeney  3.7 ppg, 1.5 rpg
6'8" C Kenny Janz  1.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg
Two other players, DeAndre Richardson and Ryan Angers, have played all 10 games to date so Coach Moran is still running the platoon full court press at times during games.

TURNOVERS will be the key stat in tomorrow's game.   If Wooster keeps the turnovers to less than 15, they will win this game, IMO.  Wooster lost last year's game at JCU solely because they had 26 turnovers compared to only 10 for JCU.

[wooscotsfan]

A little more info on the 7-3 John Carroll team - which JCU team will show up in Wooster tomorrow?

The great JCU squad that was ranked #18 in the D3Hoops preseason poll and notched 2 impressive road wins.  JCU beat #5 Carthage, a top CCIW team, that is now 7-3 on the season.  JCU also scored an impressive road win at Capital.  Cap is now 8-3 overall and #2 in the OAC standings with a 4-1 conference record.  JCU Guard Michael Hartnett made 9 of 11 three pointers at Cap to lead the road win.  OR....

The average JCU squad that lost at home to Ohio Northern, a team that Wooster beat by 14 points on a neutral floor.  JCU also lost at Otterbein in their last game.  OTT is now 4-5 overall and 1-3 in the OAC.

With Wooster's #1 ranking, JCU will be gunning for the upset so the Scots need to be ready for the full court press and take good care of the ball if they hope to get the win.  I plan on seeing a great game at Timken tomorrow.

GO SCOTS!

[Bash Brother 2000]

Let's go Little Giants tonight in Franklin, IN.  We're on a roll.  Keep it simple and protect the ball. 

[wabco]

Bash Brother ... Franklin game is tomorrow night, December 29 at 7:30 PM at Franklin.  Franklin always seems to have "soccer-esk" hooligan type fans (whether football or basketball) ... suspect there is some corralation with SAT scores.  In any event ... close enough to Indy ... hope we have a bunch of supporters to help out the start of Phase II of the season ...

and then there is Woo on Saturday, Jan 8.  The students are not back yet.  Should be a great game ... Wabash will need our "A" game and our "A" fan support.  Urge all (Woo and Wabash) who want to see a (hopefully) highly contested event  between two fine teams lead/guided by two great coaches. Be there or be square!  (I do not know if there is video.  Hope so.)

[ScotsFan]

Thanks for the preview of the JCU game wsf. 

I wonder who is going to get the assignment on Hartnett.  He looks like he doesn't look to do much outside of shooting 3's.  Of his 39 made fg's on the season, 34 of them are from deep.  And his 3-point fg % is actually higher than his overall shooting percentage.

As wsf said, this looks like a case as to which JCU team will show up.  Although, looking over JCU's stats, it appears that the main problem the Blue Streaks have is having slow starts out of the gate.  JCU has been down at the half in 4 of their 7 wins.  And in 3 of those 4 games, JCU was down double digits!  And in 2 of their 3 losses, JCU actually outscored their opponents in the 2nd half to nearly come back to win those games as well.  Obviously, this is a result of their agressive full court pressure style of defense that eventually wears teams down.  The question is, will they be able to wear a Wooster team down that is not only fairly deep, but also should be fairly well conditioned as well?

I think there are a couple of keys for Wooster to come away with a win tonight.  First is to get off to a fast start.  As shown above, JCU doesn't appear to be a fast starter and they have found themselves in big holes at the half in many of their games this season.  And second is for the Scots to not have an in game letup.  Wooster has had problems this season letting teams back into games at times and most notably late in the 1st half after building substantial leads.  Bethany was able to cut a 20 point deficit down to 11 early in the 2nd half of their game before Wooster went on for the easy win.  Wooster squandered a 12 point lead and allowed Hiram back to within 4 at the half of that game and the Pups actually came back to lead that game early in the 2nd before Wooster once again took control to win easily.  At Allegheny Wooster led by 8 in the first half before letting the Gators come back and tie it at halftime.  And even in the blowout win over Anderson, the Scots led in the 1st half of that game by as many as 12 before settling on just a 6 point lead at the half.  So, IMO, Wooster will not only need to get out to a fast start, but maintain that start throughout the game and try not to allow JCU back in it by having letdowns on the offensive end of the floor. 

And as wsf noted, turnovers will also be a key when discussing JCU as your opponent.  Wooster can't afford to have another 26 turnover performance like they did at JCU last season.  Wooster is averaging just over 12 to's per game and I agree with wsf in that, if they can limit that number to around 15-16 they should be ok.

Should be a good game tonight at Timken.  Hopefully Wooster can build off of their last 2 impressive wins on the road with an impressive win in the friendly confines tonight. 

[woosterbooster]

This JCU team will almost certainly to be like all JCU teams of recent vintage.  Their game plan isn't only to exert pressure on the other team's players, but to do the same to the referees.  At least the latter part will succeed.  JCU will commit so many fouls that only a small percentage will be called because the officials will not only be overwhelmed but will want to move the game along.  Moreover, the refs, in their desire to appear fair on the surface, will call more fouls on JCU's opponent than should be.  This will produce numbers, on the scoreboard and stat sheet, that imply that the game was officiated correctly but that will not have been the case.  I assure you that this will be the way it is tonight, as it is against all of John Carroll's opponents.  It'll be ugly, physical, basketball, the kind of game that removes all the art from a beautiful sport.

[wally_wabash]

This JCU team will almost certainly to be like all JCU teams of recent vintage.  Their game plan isn't only to exert pressure on the other team's players, but to do the same to the referees.  At least the latter part will succeed.  JCU will commit so many fouls that only a small percentage will be called because the officials will not only be overwhelmed but will want to move the game along.  Moreover, the refs, in their desire to appear fair on the surface, will call more fouls on JCU's opponent than should be.  This will produce numbers, on the scoreboard and stat sheet, that imply that the game was officiated correctly but that will not have been the case.  I assure you that this will be the way it is tonight, as it is against all of John Carroll's opponents.  It'll be ugly, physical, basketball, the kind of game that removes all the art from a beautiful sport.

This, in its entirety, is garbage.

[woosterbooster]

Such a predictable response; you really didn't need to waste your time writing it.