MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Li'l Giant]

Glad to see the LGs play a competitive game with IWU but 0-4 feels pretty bad. The next 4 games for Wabash are RHIT, Witt, Oberlin, and Wooster. Wabash's best case there seems to be 1-3, for a 1-7 start. Ouch.

[smedindy]

Yeah, the big question is how the LGs can come back from being 0-4, though the result tonight seems encouraging.

Good win for DPU. I can't believe I just said that...

[wooscotsfan]

At the Half:  Wooster 39  Marietta 37

Close game at Marietta with Wooster holding a narrow lead.  Scots being led by Doug Thorpe with 14 points and Xavier Brown also with 14 points.

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  #3 Wooster 81  #23 Marietta 78 

Huge road win for Wooster as they knock off a 4-0 Marietta team!

Scots were led tonight by Doug Thorpe with 21 points, Xavier Brown with 20 points, freshman Dan Fanelly with 10 points and Josh Kipfer also with 10 points.  Kenny DeBoer also made a critical driving layup with 20 seconds left in the game to put Wooster up by 4 points.

Wooster took good care of the ball with only 11 turnovers vs. 15 for the Pioneers.  Scots also made 85% of their free throws which was key in this tight game where the biggest lead all night was only 6 points.

GO SCOTS!

[woosterbooster]

Nice video, Marietta.  Early Black Friday on 1200 baud modems?  Worst image I've seen in a decade; blurry, artifacts all over.  Then, with seconds to go in the game, Marietta with the ball and down three, you GO OFF THE AIR?  Wow.

[David Collinge]

I'm still here, every once in a while.

Anyone notice that we have three top 25 teams this week? Wooster is at #3 (and just won at #23 Marietta), Wittenberg is #21, and DePauw is #25. OWU got 5 votes as well. Go us!

[sac]

Nice video, Marietta.  Early Black Friday on 1200 baud modems?  Worst image I've seen in a decade; blurry, artifacts all over.  Then, with seconds to go in the game, Marietta with the ball and down three, you GO OFF THE AIR?  Wow.

worked fine for me.  Are you saying you missed the final shot hit the backboard and rim out?

[sac]

Final:  #3 Wooster 81  #23 Marietta 78 

Huge road win for Wooster as they knock off a 4-0 Marietta team!

Really good finish with some clutch shots by both teams.  None bigger than Kenny DeBoer's layup with :20 left to put Wooster up 4.  Some great denial defense by Marietta kept the ball out of X. Brown's hands and in a little desperation DeBoer drove all the way out from beyond the 3 point line for the critical basket in traffic.

[woosterbooster]

Nice video, Marietta.  Early Black Friday on 1200 baud modems?  Worst image I've seen in a decade; blurry, artifacts all over.  Then, with seconds to go in the game, Marietta with the ball and down three, you GO OFF THE AIR?  Wow.

worked fine for me.  Are you saying you missed the final shot hit the backboard and rim out?

Yes.  With about five seconds to go in the game, after one three-point attempt had been blocked, the video stopped, the Marietta logo appeared, and the OFF AIR indicator came on.  Apparently that didn't happen to you?  Plus my stream quality was horrible all game long.

[woosterbooster]

A nice doubleheader coming up at Wooster on Saturday, December 6th.  The opponent is DePauw; first the women, then the men.  1 PM and 3 PM.  The Wooster women are off to a 5-0 start, for the first time since the Wright brothers had a bicycle shop in Dayton.  Their schedule has been weak, but that has never stopped them from losing before.  If they can stay within 15-20 points of DePauw, that will be quite an accomplishment.

[smedindy]

I'm still here, every once in a while.

Anyone notice that we have three top 25 teams this week? Wooster is at #3 (and just won at #23 Marietta), Wittenberg is #21, and DePauw is #25. OWU got 5 votes as well. Go us!

This is definitely a 'have' and 'have-not' season in the NCAC - may not have the middle muddle as in the past more like "the race to stay in the tournament".

[Urban For Prez]

After trailing at halftime, Wittenberg ended a three year drought against Otterbein, winning 77-97. Four starters scored 12+ points, with Zack Leahy leading the way with 18.  Scott Masin posted another double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds. The Tigers shot an efficient 62 percent from the field in the second half.

Wittenberg moves to 4-1 on the season, but Wabash is next for the Tigers. Wittenberg never seems to play very well at Chadwick, and it looks like Wabash may have turned a corner. 

[imderekpoe]

Wittenberg moves to 4-1 on the season, but Wabash is next for the Tigers. Wittenberg never seems to play very well at Chadwick, and it looks like Wabash may have turned a corner. 

I agree that Chadwick can be a tough place to play, but a lot of that has to do with the teams that the LG's have fielded and its not looking like this year's squad is there yet. I don't think that I'd look for them to pick up win #1 against Witt.

[wally_wabash]

Wittenberg moves to 4-1 on the season, but Wabash is next for the Tigers. Wittenberg never seems to play very well at Chadwick, and it looks like Wabash may have turned a corner. 

I agree that Chadwick can be a tough place to play, but a lot of that has to do with the teams that the LG's have fielded and its not looking like this year's squad is there yet. I don't think that I'd look for them to pick up win #1 against Witt.

Wabash fell 77-68 at RHIT last night to slip back to 0-5 for the season.  From what I've seen so far this year:
- Turnovers are even and not really out of control, blocks are high, rebounds aren't terrible given Wabash has missed 40 more shots than their opponents (-3.5 margin), steals are high, and despite a pretty significant disadvantage in FG%, the LGs are only making one less FG per game than their opponents.  So how do you get beat by 14.4 points per game?

- Holy moly Wabash is having a whale of a time defending without fouling.  Wabash opponents are shooting about 12 more foul shots per game than Wabash is and not surprisingly Wabash is getting outscored 24-11.8 every game at the foul line.  When you're not a great shooting team (and right now Wabash isn't), you just can't give away 12 points per game at the stripe.  A teeny bit of that discrepency is due to Wabash fouling late in a game a couiple of times, but in both of the games that I've watched start to finish (vs. RHIT and vs. Hanover) Wabash opponents were in the bonus very early in one or both halves.  Wabash is committing 26.4 fouls per game.  The next highest number in the conference is 21.4 fouls per game...five more fouls per game than anybody else in the league. 

I thought the offense looked a little more settled last night with Hodges back in the lineup and hopefully Wabash finds a little more efficiency on that end of the floor.  It's going to be tough for Wabash to find a lot of league wins shooting 40%.  0-5 stinks, but the good news is that they're still 0-0 in league play and have a chance to press the reset button a bit tomorrow night at home against Wittenberg and get to 1-0.  Here's hoping the LGs can build and improve and be relevant in February. 

[smedindy]

I think the kids need to learn how to defend. Hopefully the shots will fall for Wabash, but if they don't - you can always win by playing good defense.