MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[David Collinge]

Wooster has now won five of the last six meetings between these two ancient rivals, and has closed to within four games in the all-time series (Witt leads 51-47).  The first meeting was 99 years and 2 days ago, when Wooster clocked Witt 59-12 at home.

[wooscotsfan]

Back from Timken where I watched Wooster rally from 11 points down to get the big win tonight!

Three Seniors and One Junior won this game for the Scots along with some great team defense down the stretch of the game.  Ian Franks 17, Nathan Balch 15 and Bryan Wickliffe 12 combined for 44 points by the Seniors and Junior Justin Hallowell added a big 14 points.

Wooster still trailed this game 54-49 with just over 3 minutes left.  In the last 3 minutes, Ian Franks scored 7 points and Justin Hallowell scored 7 points!  Granted 4 of those 14 points were on free throws when Witt had to foul at the very end of the game but the other 10 points were the game changers.  In fact, those 10 points were on a run that took a Wooster deficit at 49-54 and turned it into a Wooster lead of 59-54!

In the last 3 minutes, the Wooster team defense held Wittenberg to just 4 points as they finished with 58.  There was a critical 6 point swing in about 45 seconds when Hallowell hit the three pointer to tie it up 54-54 and after Witt failed to score, Franks had a traditional three point play.  Suddenly, Wooster led 57-54 and Witt could not recover.

Kudos to Wittenberg as they played tough defense all night and Cameron Walton with 4 three pointers led the Witt team who canned 8 three pointers total and nearly pulled the upset.

Great crowd tonight as Wooster nation numbered over 3,100 and it was a blackout as ScotsFan noted.

[wooscotsfan]

Here is the Wooster Daily Record story on the Scots big win: http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/4968517

[bufordscot]

Great crowd tonight as Wooster nation numbered over 3,100 and it was a blackout as ScotsFan noted.

It should also be noted that the Big Red rolled past Allegheny in front of 390 intimidating fans.

[goscots]

"We thought Wooster had more to lose than us and we had more to gain," Brown added. "But there's a long way to go and a lot of good teams everyone has to play yet."

Coach Brown is correct with this statement. If Wooster is to make it to the finals of the NCAC tournament (10 games in all) - in all likelyhood 5 of those games will be against the 3 W's. What are the odds they can run the table with that schedule?

Regardless - this is a special group of players. If they can make it to the Final Four the comparisons to 2003 & 2007 would be fun to read.

[wooscotsfan]

"We thought Wooster had more to lose than us and we had more to gain," Coach Brown added. "But there's a long way to go and a lot of good teams everyone has to play yet."

Very true.  There is a long way to go and Wooster needs to focus on one game at a time.

Next game is at Kenyon on Wednesday.  Wooster barely escaped Gambier last year with a narrow 66-65 win at the buzzer.

To beat the Lords, the Scots need to focus on slowing down Kodey Haddox who dropped 28 points on Witt and 23 points on OWU in recent games.

[David Collinge]

After a pretty shaky start to the season, Wittenberg has really pulled it together and is looking pretty good now.  I wonder what their record (and Pool C chances) would be if Cooper and McKee weren't football players?

[GoRed]

Great crowd tonight as Wooster nation numbered over 3,100 and it was a blackout as ScotsFan noted.

It should also be noted that the Big Red rolled past Allegheny in front of 390 intimidating fans.

I wouldn't say they rolled.  They did lead coast-to-coast, but had to hang on and make FT's at the end, which they did.  Four players in double figures, led by Hale with 28, in an unusually high scoring affair for the Big Red. 

It would be nice to see Dimonde get POW in the conference this week, as he also dropped 18 in the loss against Capital.  Ness from Allegheny had a great week too, pouring in 31 against us last night on impressive 14-16 shooting.  He should be a candidate this week as well since most of the usual high point producers were down a little in scoring.  It will be interesting to see who gets picked.

[imderekpoe]

Question for any Witt followers out there...  What has happened to Wittenberg's fan support?  I was shocked to see how few fans made the trip to Wooster this weekend.  It looked like there was just about nobody outside of parents, and I think I counted a total of 4 or 5 that looked like they might be students.  I know that their fans don't travel nearly as well as Wooster's do, but still I expected to see a lot more red in the stands.

[wally_wabash]

Question for any Witt followers out there...  What has happened to Wittenberg's fan support?  I was shocked to see how few fans made the trip to Wooster this weekend.  It looked like there was just about nobody outside of parents, and I think I counted a total of 4 or 5 that looked like they might be students.  I know that their fans don't travel nearly as well as Wooster's do, but still I expected to see a lot more red in the stands.

Let's look at it from the perspective of current Witt students.  Seniors at Witt right now have seen Witt lose 6 times in 8 tries to Wooster.  The've also seen Witt seasons end, with pretty middling records, in the quarterfinals of the league tournament...twice.  So they aren't beating Wooster, they aren't making the NCAA tournament, and their records haven't been all that great (in the experience of the current student body).  The buzz around Witt hoops probably just isn't as high as it was 5-6 years ago.

[Ryder16]

another couple observations about traveling students. remember students are poor, gas prices are up. Personally knowing some former Witt students, they commented they planned on making the trip to the conference tournament  in Wooster or Wabash and thus; seeing their team play 2 games when it mattered instead of driving 3 hours to watch them play one regular season game. Also, i think the school has something to do with the low student attendence because in the past i believe they brought busses of students up for the game ? maybe the bussing wasnt offered ? or some other events on campus effected the turnout ( frat pledging or some other non athletic event).

[imderekpoe]

I understand that students don't generally make too many road trips, and my point really wasn't intended to single out the small student turnout.  Overall, I've never seen such a small visiting crowd at Timken for a Witt game.  But perhaps many of the same factors that were mentioned apply to the non-student fans as well.

And certainly Wooster's students don't travel either.  I don't expect more than a dozen or so to make the trip to Springield in a few weeks.  But I do expect that overall we'll overflow the small area into which they try to cram all the Wooster supporters.  Esp if the Scots manage to remain undefeated until then.

[David Collinge]

I believe that Wittenberg has not been drawing well at home, either (relatively speaking; I'm sure they still outdraw Oberlin and Allegheny and so forth).  The enthusiasm that used to surround that program seems to have abated somewhat over the past several years of relative mediocrity (bearing in mind that, for Witt, anything short of outright dominance qualifies as "relative mediocrity.")  Pennstghs has been commenting on the small crowds and poor student turnout for at least a couple of years now. 

[smedindy]

Does it cost anything to get into a Witt game? Do students have to pay?

[pennstghs]

I feel that I"m obligated to make a response:

Yes, Witt's students don't travel and even at home games are very quiet. Last Wednesday i.e. big game vs Wabash, decent amoutn of students in attendance, barely a peep out of them the whole time. Very frustrating.

Saturday, there was greek life pledging I believe, however, I don't think the crowd that actually goes to the games would be affected by that, just a smaller turnout. However, I do expect a SELLOUT when wooster comes to Wittenberg. I probably will jinx by saying this but by looking at Witt's schedule prior to the rematch, they have at Ohio Wesleyan as a potential loss in my eyes. The overall pizzazz of the program has gone down and overall everywhere as well. Students do get in free, but 8 bucks for adults? A little steep.

I didnt' see or listen to the game Saturday but from what I can gather from it Wittenberg (by their own doing it appears) took Black and Sullivan out of the game and Witt did what they could to take Franks out of the game, so the game was decided by which team had a a more productive bench, which turned out to be Wooster. Witt should have won it appears, but we'll be ready for the rematch.