MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[smedindy]

Wow! I was wondering why the phalanx of Wooster posters weren't in here gloating about leads, etc.

[fantastic50]

Ugly, ugly ballgame tonight ... clearly both teams are down a bit.  About 20 turnovers by the Scots and woeful shooting by both teams.  Given the score, you might think that the defense was great, but it wasn't all that solid, either, as a lot of open shots were missed.  It was a very physical game, and there were a lot of fouls called, so there was very little flow to it.  After watching both teams struggle, I think the league is wide open this year.

[Wabash2011]

Wooster gym turned lucky for Witt, beat Wabash last year the similar buzzer beater at Wooster in tourney.  Have not seen 3 balls being chucked at that rate since Louie Dampier with the Kentucky Colonels!  Both teams launching them like they were on sale!

[smedindy]

Wow. An ABA reference! When talking about Dampier from way down town...BANG! don't forget about Darel Carrier, his running mate in the early days.

Of course, my favorite weird 3-point slinger in the ABA was the immortal Les Selvage of the 1967 Anaheim Amigos, who once took 26 three-pointers in a game. Yikes!

[Wabash2011]

Wow. An ABA reference! When talking about Dampier from way down town...BANG! don't forget about Darel Carrier, his running mate in the early days.

Of course, my favorite weird 3-point slinger in the ABA was the immortal Les Selvage of the 1967 Anaheim Amigos, who once took 26 three-pointers in a game. Yikes!

Shot ball in the driveway pretending to be Louie, Dan Isael and Artis Gilmore....Indiana boy but followed the Colonels as a kid.

Anyway, the 3s were out of control in the Witt Wooster Contest tonight.  Can't wait until Saturday with the Scots coming in

[pennstghs]

In all honesty, Witt needed this win a lot more than Wooster. Witt needed a win/confidence booster/whatever you want to phrase it after having two setbacks against top teams. Hopefully a momentum booster for them.

Another oddity of the Wednesday matchup since I wasn't there, didn't watch online and only listened to the last 5 minutes or so, but how much did a quieter atmosphere comparative to a Saturday night crowd affect play? I doub tmuch at all, but both teams now have LONG trips Saturday to avoid let-downs.

[wooscotsfan]

Back from Timken where I watched Wooster play an ugly, sloppy game that resulted in a loss.

Congratulations to Wittenberg on an important conference road victory.  They showed good effort tonight.

As fantastic50 noted, neither team played particularly well but Wooster committed a total of 19 turnovers and about half of them had nothing to do with Wittenberg's defense.  The Scots carried the ball several times, tried dumb passes and generally treated the basketball like a hot potato.  The 19th turnover was the nail in the coffin giving the ball back to Wittenberg with 27 seconds left which the Tigers converted into the winning basket.

Wittenberg only had 10 turnovers so they got off 60 shots compared to only 54 for the Scots.  The Tigers shot a lower percentage from the floor than Wooster and still won the game.  Wooster also missed 4 free throws (only shot 63% from the charity stripe) and 2 of them were critical misses in the last 3 minutes of the game.  Scots only had 6 assists tonight which shows that they need to improve their offense.

I think Wooster needs to feed the ball into the post more which Wittenberg did repeatedly tonight.  The Tigers two big men (Brandt and Black) were 2 of their top scorers tonight.  By comparision, Josh Claytor and Jake Mays only got 6 shots combined tonight and they made 3 of them.

Through 6 games, Jake Mays is Wooster's best FG shooter at 68% but he has only attempted 19 shots in the 6 games because the rest of the team doesn't feed him the ball in the post enough.  Mays has performed well and also deserves more playing time IMO.

Hope the Scots can rebound on Saturday though they will have a tough challenge at Wabash.

GO SCOTS!

[seinfeld]

It is hard to swallow a loss where you outrebound Wittenberg by 16 and your point guard had more rebounds than any Tiger frontcourt player. Really sloppy turnovers cost the Scots the game. As great as Brown is, and he is great, he still makes four or five really bad decisions during the game. But since he is the best freshman I have ever seen at Wooster (last 20 years) and maybe in the NCAC in the last decade or more, that can obviously be overlooked. What Wooster needs is more contributions from Snyder and DeBoer, who were not very good tonight. And they have to start playing Mays more. I was pleasantly surprised by how well Claytor played, but Mays is just a better player, period. He is certainly much more of a weapon on offense. If you knew nothing about any of the players before tonight's game, you'd come away thinking Mays is the equal of Black. There is no question he is more of a force on defense. There is no reason Mays should be playing 10 minutes in this game. None. And while this hasn't been Wooster's style in recent years, they have to get the ball inside more. They aren't going to get passing lanes for shooters if all they are relying on is Brown breaking everyone down off the dribble. Heck, if nothing else, being able to run the offense through the post every once in a while will take some pressure of Brown, who may actually possess the ball more than Ian Franks did last year, which I thought would never be possible.

Now it all depends on what happens Saturday. A win at Wabash and you can move past this. If not, then this game is really going to stick, because Wittenberg still isn't playing very well and Wooster let it get away.

By the way, I just watched the video of the last shot. Leahy had inside position on Brown, and when the shot didn't draw iron, there was nothing Brown could have done except push him to the ground. As it was, Leahy pushed off a little bit with his left arm and Brown fell, turning it into an uncontested layup at the buzzer.

[David Collinge]

There were other games in the conference tonight...

Hiram 83, Oberlin 73
OWU 96, Kenyon 65 ... zowie
CWRU 73, Allegheny 57

NCAC non-conference record stands at 30-20. Our next crack at Case Western Reserve comes on Friday when the Spartans host a Kenyon team that will be licking its significant wounds.

Updated conference standings:

OWU 2-0
Wittenberg 2-0
DePauw 1-0
Wabash 1-0
Denison 1-1
Hiram 1-1
Wooster 1-1
Allegheny 0-1
Oberlin 0-2
Kenyon 0-3

[ScotsFan]

Well, as I said, I wasn't able to attend last night's game and after watching the replay last night, it made me glad I stayed home because it looked as though Wooster forgot to show up as well. 

What I saw last night was a team that seemed to forget this game was a rivalry game.  They seemed unfocused and almost uninterested.  They were slow, lacksadaisical, and were being outhustled by Witt on just about EVERY loose ball.  Witt came to play last night and fully deserved that win on Wooster's home court.  And outside of Brown (who had another outstanding game), I really would have a hard time picking out a Wooster player that stood out to me?!

As seinfeld noted, Brown did have some moments last night where he reminded us all that he is still just a freshman, but the good far exceeded the bad as has been the case most of the season with him.  He did have some costly turnovers (7 total) including the last one that resulted in Witt getting off their buzzer beater and he did have 2 costly missed ft's.  But he also came through to lead the team in points and was the ONLY Scot to reach double figures in points last night?!  To me, this is more alarming than the number of turnovers Brown had.  He was basically trying to take everything on all by himself  in last night's game and that is a lot to ask for from a true freshman playing in his first rivalry game.

Now Wooster has to remove this loss from the memory banks and move on in a hurry as things won't get any easier in their next game at Wabash.  They need to forget about this loss and move on to the next task at hand and that is going to C'ville and coming away with a win.  A win at Wabash would go a long way in erasing the pain of last night's loss to Witt and would go a long way to keep Wooster on track to win their 8th NCAC title in a row.

[smedindy]

The weekend in the NCAC. Last big bunch of games before the holiday break.

Friday, Dec. 9

Kenyon (2-5) @ Case Western Reserve (5-2) - The Spartans are 4-1 against the NCAC and probably will go 5-1. The Lords were run over by OWU and now face travel to Cleveland. The good news is that after this game, Keynon has a 10-day break before facing Earlham.

Saturday, Dec. 10

Non-Conference

Oberlin (3-5) @ Alma (2-5) - From the records, this may seem to be a pillow fight, but Alma played John Carroll pretty tough (before giving Spalding its first win the next day so go figure...) and Oberlin has definitely improved over last year. The Yeomen could sneak away with a win here.

Denison (3-4) @ Kalamazoo (2-3) - The Hornets upset Bluffton, while Denison had Wabash down but wasn't able to finish off the Little Giants. The Big Red needs to learn to finish, and this will be a good test to see if they can.

Conference

Wittenberg (2-0, 3-2) @ Allegheny (0-1, 2-7) - It doesn't get any easier for the Gators. After their win against Elmira, they've lost four in a row to stout competition. Make it five. The Tigers may have some let down over their big win against Wooster, but not enough of one to fall to Allegheny.

Ohio Wesleyan (2-0, 7-1) @ DePauw (1-0, 5-2) - This is an intriguing early season match-up. The new Tigers face a top-level NCAC team that seems to be firing on all cylinders. A win for either team will be welcome, as it could determine a home-court game for the NCAC tourney when all is said and done. I know there's a lot of season, left, but every game counts!

Wooster (1-1, 5-1) @ Wabash (1-0, 7-0) - Hoo-boy, the NCAC really has loaded its early season slate. This could be an ugly game. The LG's have won with defense, rebounding, and streaky offense. They're a blue collar team. The Scots lost an ugly game against Witt, and probably don't want to get into another slugfest. The team that controls the pace and style of play will prevail.

Sunday, Dec. 11

Denison (3-4) @ Albion (3-2) - The Big Red decides to make it a Michigan weekend as they drive across state to face the Britons. (Well, maybe the drove across state after the Kalamazoo game...) Albion's three wins are against a horrid Franciscan team, a bad Heidelberg and North Central. Both teams will be off of back-to-backs since Albion will be playing host to Carthage whilst the Big Red is across state.

[David Collinge]

Case maintains their conference lead by...wait, what's that you say? They left the conference? Oh, too bad for them.

Case Western Reserve 84, Kenyon 67.

NCAC non-con record falls to 30-21.

[smedindy]

No discussion from the Wooster folks on the big game Saturday? Or is everyone just anxious...

[Wabash2011]

No discussion from the Wooster folks on the big game Saturday? Or is everyone just anxious...

I'm Not feeling the usual love for the game that we normally get from Wooster Rooters.

[sac]

Sunday, Dec. 11

Denison (3-4) @ Albion (3-2) - The Big Red decides to make it a Michigan weekend as they drive across state to face the Britons. (Well, maybe the drove across state after the Kalamazoo game...) Albion's three wins are against a horrid Franciscan team, a bad Heidelberg and North Central. Both teams will be off of back-to-backs since Albion will be playing host to Carthage whilst the Big Red is across state.

Kzoo and Albion are about 45 minutes apart on I-94.  Denison could stay in the same hotel over both nights and not be bothered. 

Live video feed for the Kzoo/Denison game.  http://kzoo.edu/sports/video.html
live stats http://kzoo.edu/sports/live/xlive.htm

Albion should have live video for Sunday, but the link is not up on the miaa.org site just yet.