MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wooscotsfan]

Great game by the Scots tonight as their defense was excellent holding Dickinson to only 36% from the floor.  As Seinfeld noted, Wooster completely shut down Dickinson's top scorer, Wixted, who was only 1 of 12 from the floor.

On the offensive end, Wooster was just quicker than Dickinson at almost every position and the Scots shot 53% from the floor.  Doug Thorpe with 19 points and Xavier Brown with 18 points sliced up the Dickinson defense with their quickness.  Kenny DeBoer was effective tonight with 11 points and Josh Claytor added 9 points.  I agree with Seinfeld that Jake Mays needs to be more aggressive on the offensive end if Wooster is going to keep advancing in the tournament.

How about Doug Thorpe's incredible 3 point shot from behind half court right before the half!    It made the halftime score 47-23 and the game was essentially over at that point.

Congrats to Ohio Wesleyan on a great season!  Cabrini looks like a tough opponent for Wooster next Saturday.

GO SCOTS!

[drt]

Wooster wins by 26 and we still have to hear the inevitable complaint that the refs suck? 
Really?  How classy.  What a gracious winner......
Go Scots!   

[smedindy]

You breathe on a Wooster player and to some people it's should be a capital offense. 

[woosterbooster]

Wooster wins by 26 and we still have to hear the inevitable complaint that the refs suck? 
Really?  How classy.  What a gracious winner......
Go Scots!

Yeah?  Tough.  Were you at the game?  The ref's sucked, period.  Dickinson got away with murder both inside and out.  The ref's allowed it to happen, and that's just the way it was. 

[woosterbooster]

Now if we can just get Mays to realize he doesn't need to shy away from contact on offense and stop losing the ball to guards. I have no idea about Cabrini's interior defense this year, but two years ago when these two teams met in the same round, Wooster abused them inside. Wickliffe went 10-for-11 from the field for 23 points, while Claytor came off the bench to go 5-for-5 and 15 points. But can Wooster's big men even take advantage of a weakness like this? To get at what I'm talking about with Mays, he has gone three straight games without attempting a foul shot, and if you take away a one-and-one he shot near the end of the Wittenberg game, he has gone about 100 minutes (of his playing time) since he actually drew a foul while trying to score. This is ridiculous from a guy who is 6'8" and plays around the basket. Instead of attacking the basket and forcing the defense to attempt to block his shot (and almost always foul him) he shies away from contact, even right under the basket, causing him to consistently miss shots he should either be making, or at least getting to the foul line.

This hasn't mattered the last two games, but it will matter next week.

I thought that last night was one of the best games that Mays has ever played.  Didn't get to the foul line?  You know why?  One of the officials has to have the balls to blow the whistle or it won't happen.  Mays was mauled underneath all night and those little punks just ignored it.

The officiating was a joke from the opening tipoff.  A fake toss gets both jumpers half in the air.  Then before they can even reset, it's tossed low, crooked, and right above the Dickinson player's head.  It should have been an obvious re-toss, but no, PLAY ON, Dickenson ball.  And it just went downhill from there.

This game was the same old story.  Wooster player's being held or pushed every time they went to the basket.  This is apparently totally legal, especially once a team is down 15-20 points.  At the other end, Dickenson's player's initiated the contact when driving and the fouls were called on Wooster.

Anybody doesn't like these posts?  Shove it.  This is the way it was, and too often the way it is.  DIII officials are absolutely lousy, they allow far, far, too much mayhem, and it always favors the team with the least skill that has no option except to turn the game into a brawl.

Congrats to the Wooster players for once again fighting through this.  It was one of the best first halves I've ever seen Wooster play.  Many, many players contributed with strong performances, and if this keeps up, Wooster will be tough to beat.     

[wooscotsfan]

More on next weekend's matchup between Wooster and Cabrini.   Two years ago in the Sweet 16, Wooster beat Cabrini by a 94-77 score on their way to knocking off #1 Whitworth and Wooster's eventual National Runnerup finish.

So, Cabrini may have a bit of revenge on their mind next Saturday.  Four Cabrini players, including two of their starters (Fran Rafferty, Jon Miller), were on the losing squad in 2011 and Cabrini's coach knows what to expect when they visit Timken.  Cabrini's star player from 2011, Corey Lemons, has graduated but they replaced him with another star guard in Aaron Walton-Moss who nearly had a triple double last night vs. Ohio Wesleyan.  Will Coach Moore defend Walton-Moss with Xavier Brown or Evan Pannell to start the game?

Cabrini was the National Runnerup last year so they are an experienced squad.  Both Wooster and Cabrini have very quick guards so this will be an interesting game next Saturday.  Wooster may have an edge with their big men but can they space the floor and exploit it without Cabrini double teaming and stealing the ball?

GO SCOTS!

[ScotsFan]

Great game by the Scots tonight as their defense was excellent holding Dickinson to only 36% from the floor.  As Seinfeld noted, Wooster completely shut down Dickinson's top scorer, Wixted, who was only 1 of 12 from the floor.

On the offensive end, Wooster was just quicker than Dickinson at almost every position and the Scots shot 53% from the floor.  Doug Thorpe with 19 points and Xavier Brown with 18 points sliced up the Dickinson defense with their quickness.  Kenny DeBoer was effective tonight with 11 points and Josh Claytor added 9 points.  I agree with Seinfeld that Jake Mays needs to be more aggressive on the offensive end if Wooster is going to keep advancing in the tournament.

How about Doug Thorpe's incredible 3 point shot from behind half court right before the half!    It made the halftime score 47-23 and the game was essentially over at that point.

Congrats to Ohio Wesleyan on a great season!  Cabrini looks like a tough opponent for Wooster next Saturday.

GO SCOTS!

You aren't kidding wsf.  Thorpe mentioned something about how he and Brown are possibly the toughest guard tandem in the country in post game comments after last weekend's win over Behrend, and he completely backed that statement up last night.  This quote from Coach Seretti summed it up:

"We're okay if just Thorpe or Brown's in the game, but you can't deny them both," he explained. "We don't have a guy that can stay in front of them 35 feet away from the basket. That's not a knock on our guys -- it's because they're really good players."

Too bad he couldn't get his wish to have just one of the two in the game at the same time... 

Defense was the story last night.  WB questioned whether Dickinson was the real deal because of how poorly Marietta played defense in their game last week.  Well, I think we saw what happens when Dickinson goes up against a team that plays defense.  Really impressed with how the Scots defended Dickinson's best player (Wixted) holding him to just 4 points and only one fg in 12 attempts!   

Now it's on to Cabrini.  The last time the Cavs came to Wooster I think they may have been a bit overwhelmed by the moment as they reminded me a lot of the Dickinson team we played last night as far as not having a lot of tournament experience.  Well, that won't be the case this year as Cabrini is a year removed from playing for the NC in Salem and they've already won both tournament games on the road this year.  Also, Cabrini has only lost twice in 2013 having won 17 of their last 18 games including a current 13 game winning streak.  Wooster has won their first two tournament games by an average of 22 points, but I don't expect things to be so easy next week.

Lastly, I wasn't sure about this drawn out format for the tournament this season, but Coach Moore is taking advantage of it.   As if it wasn't clear what a great coach he is, give him a week to prepare for an opponent and he is lethal.  Will we see more of the same as he now sets his sights on Cabrini?   

[kiltedbryan]

As expected, Wooster will be hosting this coming weekend for the rights to go to the quarterfinals in Salem. All the other hosts have been announced as well, here's the updated bracket:

http://static.psbin.com/f/7/5bfwfppwjzli3w/2013-mbb-bracket.pdf

[seinfeld]

This isn't really a response to Wooster Booster's comment on officiating. I think one of the plays he was referring to occurred when Dickinson's #3 threw the ball at DeBoer after DeBoer took a charge on him. The refs saw it, and talked with him, but didn't give out a technical.

But there were two absolutely horrendous calls near the end of the first half – one against each team – that were so bad it probably merits attention as to whether these officials (or at least one in particular) should work a playoff game anytime soon. In watching the replay of the game online, the charge call on DeBoer with about three minutes left in the first half was brutal. I think the whole crowd thought it was brutal at the time, and they were correct. In watching it again, the only person DeBoer made contact with as he took his shot was a guy who was turned sideways and moving. There was another player that was on the ground in the lane, but he fell on his own. He was covering Brown, who dished the ball to DeBoer from about the foul line. DeBoer even made the shot. The guy who called the foul couldn't have been more than three feet from the play.

Then shortly after that, the refs blew a call that helped lead to Thorpe's 50-foot three at the buzzer. Dickinson threw a length-of-the-court pass with two seconds left in the first half. It was knocked out of the air and out of bounds by Thorpe in front of Wooster's bench. I was on the other side of the floor and had no doubt that is what happened. Thorpe went so far as to be quoted in the paper the next day saying the same thing. Yet they gave the ball to Wooster (the ref who blew the charging call was the ref on the baseline behind where the ball went out of bounds and should have been in position to make the right call). Thorpe then hit his shot.

But now on to what matter now, which is Cabrini. First, I wonder when the last time (if ever) the last two Div. III runner-ups have met in the NCAA Tournament? Not quite as noteworthy as the last two national champions, but interesting nonetheless.

Again, this is coming completely from the dark, as I've not seen Cabrini play at all. But with Aaron Walton-Moss, it reminds me somewhat of the 2010 tournament game against Wis.-Whitewater and the 2011 game against Whitworth. In both those games, former Div. I players or guys who were recruited by Div. I schools (and respectable ones at that) led their teams into Wooster.

In 2010, it was Whitewater's Dupree Fletcher, who has kicked out of a couple Div. I programs (including Valparaiso). He went for 20 points, but it took 18 shots and he committed five turnovers. The man marking him was Brandon Johnson, and he did about as well as you could do to slow him down.

In 2011, it was Div. III National Player of the Year Michael Taylor (and Montana transfer). He went for 25 points, but it took 20 shots, and he committed seven turnovers. Marking him was Justin Warnes.

The question is, who marks Walton-Moss, and can they be the kind of stopper that Johnson and Warnes were? I'm guessing some combination of Pannell and Brown will mark him. I know Cabrini has other guys that can score, but based on what we saw against OWU, and considering his seemingly Div. I basketball talent, Walton-Moss is the key.

And to get a sense of how highly thought of Walton-Moss was in high school, check out the names of other guards he competed with at an AAU Super Showcase. His coach also called him the best player in New Jersey.

http://www.slamonline.com/online/college-hs/high-school/2009/07/the-name-game/

[ScotsFan]

does anyone know the capacity of ohio wesleyan's gym? I was going to go yesterday but I decided not too since it was so late. Good thing from watching on the web it looked sold out. Standing room on the west side of the gym. Nice to see the turnout there. If I go next week  I better look in to buying tickets early. Naturally I am assuming OWU will host next week. We all know what assumption is the mother of though.

Hey dave, just wondering if you were able to make it to Delaware to see the OWU/Cabrini game and if so, if you could share some firsthand insight on what we can expect from the Cavs when they come to Timken on Saturday?

[ScotsFan]

seinfeld,

Is Walton-Moss a DI transfer as well?  Didn't Cabrini have a DI transfer the last time they came to Timken?

The BIG difference between the last two times the Scots have faced a talented offensive player is that they've had a defensive stopper to put on them in Johnson and Warnes.  This year, Pannell might be as close to one as the Scots have.  I do agree that I think you will see defense by committee on Walton-Moss.  Also, I don't think it's a big deal if W-M goes off.  The key will be to make sure that no one else from Cabrini goes off as well.  Fran Rafferty actually worries me more as he's second on their team in scoring but shooting over 50% from 3-point range and he's 6'4" so he could be a tough matchup for us as well.  He had 19 last Saturday vs. OWU...

[seinfeld]

Agreed ScotsFan. They don't seem to be relient on one player like the other two schools I mentioned, although he seems to have the talent to be that. He techically never went Div. I, but it had to do with his grades, not his skills. Sounds like he was probably going to LaSalle if he was eligible.

He must be doing something right. He only played half a season as a freshman, but was still the D3hoops.com Freshman of the Year. And he was named his conference's player of the year this year despite not playing until the last game of December.

[bufordscot]

Agreed ScotsFan. They don't seem to be relient on one player like the other two schools I mentioned, although he seems to have the talent to be that. He techically never went Div. I, but it had to do with his grades, not his skills. Sounds like he was probably going to LaSalle if he was eligible.

He must be doing something right. He only played half a season as a freshman, but was still the D3hoops.com Freshman of the Year. And he was named his conference's player of the year this year despite not playing until the last game of December.

Call me naïve.  He had the skills but not the grades to go Div. 1.  Not the D3 I know.

[woosterbooster]

This from the Princeton Review:

The average SAT score for an incoming Cabrini student is a combined Math and Verbal score of 935.

Unbelievable.  I just don't know what to say, except that other websites also indicate that this school must be a total joke.  Here's the link to the webpage:

http://www.princetonreview.com/schools/college/CollegeBasics.aspx?iid=1023826

[WoostAr]

Don't be too quick to judge:

"Within 10 months of graduation, 97 percent of Cabrini graduates are employed or in graduate school."

If they're doing that with students that have low SAT scores, they must be doing something right in their education process.



Cabrini coach comments from last match-up against wooster.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ST1V67MPTI