MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[ScotsFan]

As was stated, Wooster was down 38-31 midway thru the 2nd half and then proceeded to go on a HUGE 17-1 run to put the game away!

Nice win over a very good NAIA opponent!

BTW, was it just me or did anyone else see #15 for Westmont as kind of a liability?  He was their point and he just seemed very stiff to me.  He turned the ball over at least 3 or 4 times alone during that run by the Scots including one where he was called for a 5 second violation by being guarded by just one man?  He didn't even have the where with all to call a freaking time out?  It was kind of amusing to watch... 

Also Titan Q, thanks for the info on both Westmont and AC.  Count me in with the crowd that doesn't know much about NAIA.  After reading your post, and watching much of the game, I wasn't too confident the Scots would pull that one out tonight.  Honestly, with the size advantage Westmont enjoyed, they had no business letting the Scots go on such a huge run like they did.  I can't figure out why they didn't feed their big man the ball more inside.  Oh well, it ended up costing them and benefiting the Scots with a nice win. 

[David Collinge]

The video never came on for me, and the crawl never stopped apologizing for the technical difficulties.

I blame myself.

[WoostAr]

Little bit of round about perspective.

Westmont has beaten Claremont McKenna and Pomona pitzer this year. Pomona took down st Thomas (I'm sure we're all familiar with them) and then Claremont took down Pomona. Both great NCAA teams.

For Wooster to beat them this year is quite an achievement.

Arizona Christian has played a couple softies out west that I'm familiar with (Bethesda and chapman).  They won those games handily. Tomorrow should be fun!

[ScotsFan]

AC is looking like they are going to be a very tough out for Wooster tonight.  They have size with a 6'10" center shooting 78% from the field.  And believe it or not, he's not their leading scorer.  In fact, he's not even averaging double digits in scoring.  In fact, AC has only ONE player averaging double digits in scoring and that is Talib Uqdah.  He is a sharp soothing guard Whois shooting over 50% from beyond the arc.

I think the Scots are going to have to play close to flawless to win tonight...

[woosterbooster]

The one consistent factor with this Wooster team of the last two-three seasons has been defense.  It's almost always good or very good, and sometimes it's excellent.  Last night, in the second half, it was the latter.  It wasn't just that Westmont cooled off, Wooster cooled them off.  The turnovers were forced turnovers, and often led directly to points.  That's a good thing, because Wooster's offense is still very dicey even against teams that are struggling.  (See Wabash, Giants, Little.)

Wooster has also been the recipient of some rather amazing good fortune.  Their opponents are shooting a whopping 59.4% from the line!  Eh?  Yep, true enough.  That includes the Little Giants' 6-18 and Westmont's 12-26.  Those are abysmal numbers even for middle schools.  Keep it up!

[wally_wabash]

I grew up around NAIA hoops.  The team from my hometown, Oregon Tech, has been a very good team over the last 15 or so years now having won three national championships since 2004 and having played for one more in 1998 or somewhere thereabouts.  My sense of NAIA vs. D3 is that bad D3s will probably get smacked around by even the bad NAIAs but the good-to-very-good D3s can play with just about anybody in NAIA.  During the Estelle/Latham/Tabor late 90s years at Wabash my sense was that Wabash vs. Oregon Tech would have been a very good game.  Not so much since then as Oregon Tech has continued to excel and Wabash hasn't acheived nearly as much as those teams in the late 90s (with the exception of the 10-11 and 11-12 LG squads which I think were very good teams that unfortunately just missed out on the tournament). 

For Wooster, if they are a top 5-ish D3 team (and the pollsters think they are), then they aren't out of their league in these games down in the desert despite all of the Holtzing happening here.  It's a very good challenge for sure, but we're not talking about crazy wicked upsets if Wooster completes the sweep.  The unfortunate thing is that, as has been alluded to, there aren't a whole lot of people that will recognize the quality of those wins.  Aside from upcoming games with Wittenberg, these are probably two of the better wins Wooster can get this season. 

[woosterbooster]

I grew up around NAIA hoops.  The team from my hometown, Oregon Tech, has been a very good team over the last 15 or so years now having won three national championships since 2004 and having played for one more in 1998 or somewhere thereabouts.  My sense of NAIA vs. D3 is that bad D3s will probably get smacked around by even the bad NAIAs but the good-to-very-good D3s can play with just about anybody in NAIA.  During the Estelle/Latham/Tabor late 90s years at Wabash my sense was that Wabash vs. Oregon Tech would have been a very good game.  Not so much since then as Oregon Tech has continued to excel and Wabash hasn't acheived nearly as much as those teams in the late 90s (with the exception of the 10-11 and 11-12 LG squads which I think were very good teams that unfortunately just missed out on the tournament). 

For Wooster, if they are a top 5-ish D3 team (and the pollsters think they are), then they aren't out of their league in these games down in the desert despite all of the Holtzing happening here.  It's a very good challenge for sure, but we're not talking about crazy wicked upsets if Wooster completes the sweep.  The unfortunate thing is that, as has been alluded to, there aren't a whole lot of people that will recognize the quality of those wins.  Aside from upcoming games with Wittenberg, these are probably two of the better wins Wooster can get this season.

I completely agree with your assessment of NAIA teams vs DIII teams.  Not so sure I agree with the pollsters that now have Wooster second in the country.  I see them as more in the 8-12 range.  One big physical post player capable of scoring 10-12 a game would change my opinion, but they don't have that.

I see Arizona Christian as a 7-10 point favorite on their court.  Beating them would be an upset, but not above-the-fold in the Times.  Still, this might be the toughest match-up Wooster has all season, unless they're fortunate enough to reach the elite eight in the tournament.

[realist]

The video never came on for me, and the crawl never stopped apologizing for the technical difficulties.

I blame myself.

Don't beat yourself up too much.  I have learned over the past years when I encounter this type of difficulty to switch browsers.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but some of the streams don't like IE, and they really don't like some isp's like aol.  A word of caution is be careful when you log into these sites if they "advise/require" you to download a "program update".   

[David Collinge]

The video never came on for me, and the crawl never stopped apologizing for the technical difficulties.

I blame myself.

Don't beat yourself up too much.  I have learned over the past years when I encounter this type of difficulty to switch browsers.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but some of the streams don't like IE, and they really don't like some isp's like aol.  A word of caution is be careful when you log into these sites if they "advise/require" you to download a "program update".

Thanks. I took a different approach--when it failed to load, I quickly stopped caring. 

[ScotsFan]

I grew up around NAIA hoops.  The team from my hometown, Oregon Tech, has been a very good team over the last 15 or so years now having won three national championships since 2004 and having played for one more in 1998 or somewhere thereabouts.  My sense of NAIA vs. D3 is that bad D3s will probably get smacked around by even the bad NAIAs but the good-to-very-good D3s can play with just about anybody in NAIA.  During the Estelle/Latham/Tabor late 90s years at Wabash my sense was that Wabash vs. Oregon Tech would have been a very good game.  Not so much since then as Oregon Tech has continued to excel and Wabash hasn't acheived nearly as much as those teams in the late 90s (with the exception of the 10-11 and 11-12 LG squads which I think were very good teams that unfortunately just missed out on the tournament). 

For Wooster, if they are a top 5-ish D3 team (and the pollsters think they are), then they aren't out of their league in these games down in the desert despite all of the Holtzing happening here.  It's a very good challenge for sure, but we're not talking about crazy wicked upsets if Wooster completes the sweep.  The unfortunate thing is that, as has been alluded to, there aren't a whole lot of people that will recognize the quality of those wins.  Aside from upcoming games with Wittenberg, these are probably two of the better wins Wooster can get this season.

I completely agree with your assessment of NAIA teams vs DIII teams.  Not so sure I agree with the pollsters that now have Wooster second in the country.  I see them as more in the 8-12 range.  One big physical post player capable of scoring 10-12 a game would change my opinion, but they don't have that.

I see Arizona Christian as a 7-10 point favorite on their court.  Beating them would be an upset, but not above-the-fold in the Times.  Still, this might be the toughest match-up Wooster has all season, unless they're fortunate enough to reach the elite eight in the tournament.

Thanks for the added NAIA insight Wally.  I'm not trying to suggest that tonight's matchup is a David vs. Goliath type of matchup as I think Wooster is more than capable of playing with AC.  I just feel like it will take them playing one of their best games to date if they have any chance of winning this game.

And good point about Wooster's defensive prowess over the past few seasons WooBoo.  No question it was Wooster's defense that keyed that run last night and if they hope to win tonight, they may need to bring that defensive intensity for the full 40 minutes.

Oh, and I also agree with WooBoo's take on Wooster's ranking.  I see them about where they were to start the season in the 8-10 range.  But to be fair, Wooster has played one of the toughest non-conference schedules out there which includes wins over 2 teams currently ranked in the top 25 and 3 wins over teams receiving votes in the top 25.  And one could argue that Westmont may have been the best team Wooster has beaten thus far as well so that win should not be diminished because of the fact that they are NAIA.  So you certainly can't argue that the Scots haven't earned their ranking at least.  And if Wooster somehow finds a way to pull off the upset tonight, I may just start buying into their lofty ranking...

[ScotsFan]

Don't beat yourself up too much.  I have learned over the past years when I encounter this type of difficulty to switch browsers.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, but some of the streams don't like IE, and they really don't like some isp's like aol.  A word of caution is be careful when you log into these sites if they "advise/require" you to download a "program update".

Agreed about the switching browsers.  I rarely use IE anymore when trying to stream live video.  IE just seems like too much of a PITA when trying to stream videos, especially live ones.  Most of the time I'm on Safari and it seems to work fine.  Lately, if I'm motivated enough, I hook up our USB adaptor to our MacBook and watch the streams on the flat screen.  Or if I'm not motivated, I'll just watch it on our iPad. 

[sac]

AC is looking like they are going to be a very tough out for Wooster tonight.  They have size with a 6'10" center shooting 78% from the field.  And believe it or not, he's not their leading scorer.  In fact, he's not even averaging double digits in scoring.  In fact, AC has only ONE player averaging double digits in scoring and that is Talib Uqdah.  He is a sharp soothing guard Whois shooting over 50% from beyond the arc.

I think the Scots are going to have to play close to flawless to win tonight...

Talib Uqdah is 31 years old, he graduated high school in 2000
http://www.acufirestorm.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=564&path=mbball

[smedindy]

I grew up around NAIA hoops.  The team from my hometown, Oregon Tech, has been a very good team over the last 15 or so years now having won three national championships since 2004 and having played for one more in 1998 or somewhere thereabouts.  My sense of NAIA vs. D3 is that bad D3s will probably get smacked around by even the bad NAIAs but the good-to-very-good D3s can play with just about anybody in NAIA.  During the Estelle/Latham/Tabor late 90s years at Wabash my sense was that Wabash vs. Oregon Tech would have been a very good game.  Not so much since then as Oregon Tech has continued to excel and Wabash hasn't acheived nearly as much as those teams in the late 90s (with the exception of the 10-11 and 11-12 LG squads which I think were very good teams that unfortunately just missed out on the tournament). 

For Wooster, if they are a top 5-ish D3 team (and the pollsters think they are), then they aren't out of their league in these games down in the desert despite all of the Holtzing happening here.  It's a very good challenge for sure, but we're not talking about crazy wicked upsets if Wooster completes the sweep.  The unfortunate thing is that, as has been alluded to, there aren't a whole lot of people that will recognize the quality of those wins.  Aside from upcoming games with Wittenberg, these are probably two of the better wins Wooster can get this season.

I think it depends on if they are NAIA-I or NAIA-2. Westmont is NAIA-1 as is Arizona Christian.

Currently, D-3 as a whole are 10-12 vs. NAIA-1 and 42-43 vs. NAIA-2. It's tracked on the D3 vs. D1/D2/NAIA/NCCAA board.

[David Collinge]

Talib Uqdah is 31 years old, he graduated high school in 2000
http://www.acufirestorm.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=564&path=mbball

What an interesting dude. I bet his biography is fascinating. More power to him.

[David Collinge]

Arizona Christian beat Spring Arbor (5-8) last night by 10. Spring Arbor, a frequent opponent of Hope and Calvin (but not this year, for whatever reason), lost at Albion in November, 51-50. The Britons stand at 5-3 (about to be 6-3 when they finish murdering Earlham tonight) including a five-point loss at Kenyon.

Which is another way of saying, meh.