MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[sac]

I can honestly say that when Wabash joined this league a few years ago, I never ever envisioned them in last place.

You and me both, sac.  But, last place today isn't last place at the end of the season.  And really, the writing was on the wall for this kind of a season.  No starting experience, just one senior...one of the two key juniors left for a semester abroad...It's disappointing for sure, but not entirely surprising.  I'm only going to be truly disappointed with this season if the team stops playing hard, which I don't think has happened. 

Wabash has still only played one conference game at home.  Earlham, Oberlin, Denison, and Kenyon still have to come to C'ville.  Let's let this thing play out.  The standings will shuffle some before this thing is over. 

Even still, seeing Wabash behind perennial bottom campers Oberlin and Hiram even at this relatively early stage just doesn't look right.

[wooscotsfan]

Here is the Wooster Daily Record link on the Wabash win.  Note the focus by Coach Moore and the Scots on playing better defense:

http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/1477492

If Wooster can sustain tough defense like they did yesterday, the Scots may have a very successful season.  

[imderekpoe]

Here is the Wooster Daily Record link on the Wabash win.  Note the focus by Coach Moore and the Scots on playing better defense:

http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/1477492

If Wooster can sustain tough defense like they did yesterday, the Scots may have a very successful season.  

Perhaps the improved defense was due to some new strategies suggested by yesterday's honorary coach!   

[wooscotsfan]

Perhaps the improved defense was due to some new strategies suggested by yesterday's honorary coach!   

LOL - since we know that honorary coaches have only one job and that is to listen while occasionally giving a Scots player a high five.   At any rate, a very good source tells me that the word "defense" was used extensively by the Wooster coaching staff yesterday!  

To put it another way, I don't think that the Wooster coaches were very happy that the Scots gave up 87 points to Allegheny on Wednesday.

[smedindy]

This was expected to be a tough season, especially when it was known that Simkus was going to spend the second semester in Spain. It meant that Brock and Root and Haltom and the rest of the kiddie corps would have to grow up quickly.

There is talent - they need to learn how to play college basketball. I say they will make the NCAC tourney, but they need to get on the stick and play hard.

[WoosterFAN]

I think with the hard schedule early in the year, Coach Moore probably did not ride the guys as much. Plus it is easier to get up for a defensive stop vs WITT or ONU than Allegheny or Denison.  Just calling them as I see 'em. no offense

Now that we are in the dog days of the NCAC season, Coach Moore is definitely going to narrow the team's focus and no one coaches D like Coach!!

[pennstghs]

VERY VERY interesting game wednesday night in Delaware as Witt takes on OWU coming off a disappointing looking-ahead showing at Earlham Saturday. This game could gauge how each team may fare later on in the season, but its reasonable these two teams could be playing to play Wooster in the conference tourney final later on as well.

Big matchup is whether the Bishops have an answer or matchup defensively for Gregg Hill and whether Witt can contain Rudegair and Chojnacki. Thoughts anyone?

[David Collinge]

The NCAC men's basketball page says it better than I could: [EDIT: well, at least I could point out that this is the NCAC Men's Player of the Week Award! ]

January 14, 2007

Denison's Dan Hodgkinson (Lake Forest, IL/Lake Forest), a 6-6, senior
post, paced Denison in victories over Oberlin, 75-48, and Allegheny,
87-67. The wins were the first two consecutive victories for the Big Red
this season and also snapped a 10-game losing skid. Hodgkinson scored 27
points and had four rebounds and a block against the Yeomen and returned
with 16 points, seven rebounds and two blocks versus Allegheny. He leads
the NCAC in scoring at 19.8 points per game and is just 152 points away
from becoming Denison's all-time leading scorer. If he keeps at his
current pace, Hodgkinson will pass Charlie Claggett on Feb. 10 at
Allegheny.

Congratulations to Dan! 

Here's a list of those who have won this award this season; it might be useful for those thinking of post-season awards:
11/20: Bryan Yelvington, F, Kenyon (soph.)
11/27: Tim Vandervaart, C, Wooster (sr.)
12/4: Dane Borchers, P, Wittenberg (sr.)
12/11: Ryan Hollihan, F, Allegheny (soph.)
1/2: Markous Jewett, F, Earlham (sr.)
1/7: Mike Staley, G, Hiram (fr.)
1/14: Dan Hodgkinson, P, Denison (sr.)

[TigerFan_1973]

VERY VERY interesting game wednesday night in Delaware as Witt takes on OWU coming off a disappointing looking-ahead showing at Earlham Saturday.

And then OWU plays Wooster on Saturday.  What a week!

[TigerFan_1973]

There seems to be a broken link to the NCAC Standings.

When I click on it, I keep getting the schedule/results.

How would I report the broken link, or have I just done so?

Thanks.

[Pat Coleman]

You're talking about the page on our site?

Scroll down. The standings are there too.

[TigerFan_1973]

You're talking about the page on our site?

Scroll down. The standings are there too.

Thanks, Pat.  I thought it was all scores.  Here's an explanation of the problem.

Underneath this:
Scoreboard/Schedule
2006-2007 Men's Basketball Schedule
(* Conference; • Region; # Postseason. Home games in bold)
Game times have not been verified and may have changed, or may not correspond to your time zone. Please verify with the school before making plans to attend a game based on these times.

There is a link that says:
NCAC Standings

Since it keeps coming back to the same place, I thought it was broken.  Is it supposed to go to the standings lower on the page?

Thanks.

[TigerFan_1973]

I'm looking forward to seeing the poll when it comes out.

This is an interesting situation.  Last week ONU was 4 and Wooster was 5.  Since ONU lost, it will be interesting to see how ONU and Wooster rank, given that Wooster lost to ONU.

TigerFan_73

[David Collinge]

I'm looking forward to seeing the poll when it comes out.

This is an interesting situation.  Last week ONU was 4 and Wooster was 5.  Since ONU lost, it will be interesting to see how ONU and Wooster rank, given that Wooster lost to ONU.

TigerFan_73

I think you saw that scenario play out last week.  Coming into that poll, ONU was #2 and Wooster was #4, 64 points behind ONU (64 points=about 2.5 places on the average ballot).  ONU lost at home to Capital by 11 (and won at Muskingum by 12), while Wooster won their only game by 29 over Denison.  In the subsequent poll, ONU fell to #4 and pushed Wooster down a spot to #5, with Wooster losing 28 points (i.e. just over one position per ballot).  My years of poll-watching tell me that what happened was that voters felt like they had to drop ONU, but that they had to keep ONU ahead of Wooster because of the still-fresh head-to-head result; thus Wooster loses points in week where they blasted their only opponent.  However, ONU ended up with a margin over Wooster of just one point. 

Now this week ONU splits another pair of games, winning at Wilmington by 1 and losing at JCU by 2, while Wooster wins twice over inferior competition (a bit of a struggle with Allegheny, and a massacre of Wabash).  I think the voters will have no trouble sliding ONU behind Wooster, with Wooster moving up to #4.  In fact, I think most voters will have Wooster written in somewhere in the top 5 or 6 before even considering where to put ONU.  They'll remember that the Wooster/ONU result was not decisive, and was instead a back-and-forth game all night, with ONU's final margin of 7 being their largest of the game.  In other words, a "forgiveable" loss to some extent.

This week's conundrum will be what to do about ONU vis-a-vis Wittenberg, a team the PBs beat by 17 in December.  The drop I expect ONU to take will put them in a position where the average voter will have to decide if they should keep them above Witt based on that Dec. victory.  I think that's what will happen, but mostly because Witt's recent results (OT at Kenyon, 11-point win at Earlham) don't inspire much confidence that Witt has improved since their loss to ONU.  I think many of the voters will be reluctant to push Witt up too high until they see how the Tigers do at OWU on Wednesday.  Furthermore, no matter how it all shakes out, ONU will still have two victories over top 10 teams, while Wittenberg is 0-2 against the top 10.  I think that'll be enough to keep the Polar Bears slightly ahead of the Tigers in the new poll.  But the PBs are definitely on probation! 

When all is said and done this week, I expect the top 10 to shake out this way:

1. UW-Stevens Point
2. Amherst
3. St. Thomas
4. Wooster
5. Va. Wesleyan...spots 3-5 very close
6. Mississippi College
7. Ohio Northern
8. Wittenberg
9. Whitworth...spots 6-9 very close
10. Elmhurst
11. Hope...spots 10-11 very close

Just one poll-watcher's opinion, and I hasten to point out that I don't have a very good track record with predictions like this! 

[Pat Coleman]

You're talking about the page on our site?

Scroll down. The standings are there too.

Thanks, Pat.  I thought it was all scores.  Here's an explanation of the problem.

Underneath this:
Scoreboard/Schedule
2006-2007 Men's Basketball Schedule
(* Conference; • Region; # Postseason. Home games in bold)
Game times have not been verified and may have changed, or may not correspond to your time zone. Please verify with the school before making plans to attend a game based on these times.

There is a link that says:
NCAC Standings

Since it keeps coming back to the same place, I thought it was broken.  Is it supposed to go to the standings lower on the page?

Thanks.

Well, I asked our tech person sometime in December to make the standings the primary component of the standings page but he did not do it. I'll ask again.

But in the meanwhile, just scroll down. If a link brings you back to the page it might behoove you to look at the whole page. The scroll bar is a wonderful thing.