MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[wooscotsfan]

NCAC Standings thru 1/20 Results:

Wooster  8-0 (15-2)
Wittenberg 6-2 (14-3)
Ohio Wesleyan 5-3 (11-6)
Earlham 4-4 (6-11)
Hiram 4-4 (5-12)
Allegheny 3-5 (7-9)
Kenyon 3-5 (7-10)
Wabash 3-5 (6-11)
Denison 2-6 (3-13)
Oberlin 2-6 (3-14)

EDIT: to correct for final Hiram - Denison score

[wally_wabash]

I think that Denison/Hiram score is from the women's game today. 

http://www.denison.edu/athletics/wb/wb07/denw0120.html

[imderekpoe]

As others have said, the Scots put forth one of their best defensive efforts of the season today.  Actually both teams played very good defense as OWU smothered the Scots, particularly on the perimeter.  The Scots also worked the boards pretty well today, although they did give up some easy second-chance buckets.

I thought that Tim Vanvdervaart did not have his best game today, and maybe he just isn't back in the flow yet. He looked to be in a lot of pain leaving the court with an injury to his left wrist/forearm and I would guess that he'll be out for at least a few games.

Overall this wasn't the prettiest of wins, but they seldom are in Delaware. At the end of the day, though, the Scots now have a commanding lead and it will probably take a major upset for the Scots not to win the regular season championship again this year.

[wally_wabash]

Yeah you had the women's score.  Final from Hiram in four OTs:

Denison 117
Hiram 120

[woosterbooster]

Notes from OWU:

Before the women's game started, the OWU men's coach, Mike DeWitt, wandered down from the top of the stands and began a conversation with DC and I.  At first we didn't even know who he was, it just seemed like he was an OWU fan, talking about Wooster, his team, and the Rickey Arena.  Heckuva nice guy, and the best of luck to him and his team.

Yes, Wooster put up a very good defensive effort, but a fair amount of luck was also on their side.  OWU missed lots of decent, if not great, looks from the outside (and some underneath, too).  Had just a few more of these dropped, this game could easily have had a very different result.

For the first time that I can remember in a few years, Wooster had serious trouble dealing with pressure in the backcourt.  OWU did it well, but much of its success had more to do with poor Wooster decisions.  Hopefully this was a one-shot fluke and is over and done with.

Tim Vandervaart's injury just might be pretty serious.  He was hurting, and it looks to be either a broken wrist or a bad sprain.  If they don't have him, even the road game at Earlham begins to appear a little dangerous.  And Wittenberg looms on the horizon, just two weeks away.

The less said about Devin Fulk's newly shaved head the better.  It did glisten well in the lights, although it had a spooky green tinge to it.  Who's next? 

[David Collinge]

Vandervaart was clutching an ice bag to his wrist as he progressed down the handshake line.  We'll have to wait and see how bad it is.  When he sustained the injury, trying to take the charge but getting called for his 4th foul instead, he looked more annoyed than pained, but once he got to the bench he looked like he was in pain. 

Box Score

The defense by both teams was outstanding.  Wooster's defense has certainly improved since the Allegheny game.  They still gave up a little too much on the inside, where Rudegeair (6), Chojnacki (5), and Jean (3) were frequently in good position for offensive rebounds.  However, the Woo defenders did a good job getting a hand on the putbacks, as these three ended up with just 25 points combined despite those 14 offensive rebounds.  Besides the good defense, OWU was victimized both by some bad luck (shots rimming out) and some just plain poor shooting, primarily by Chojnacki who misfired badly on his 5 three-point attempts.  OWU ended up shooting a miserable 30.8% for the game, 12.5% from the arc.

On the other end, Wooster didn't shoot terribly well either, hitting just 40.4% (23.5% from deep), but except for Brandon Johnson's missed threes (0-6, ouch), they were the result of good perimeter defense by OWU and by good interior defense on Vandervaart and Will, both of whom need to be stronger finishers, IMHO.  But Tom Port had a great game, racking up a double-double as the game's top scorer (18) and rebounder (11).  Port scored his 1,500th career point in the first haf tonight; he's currently #5 on the Wooster all-time scoring list, and closing fast on his assistant coach Erich Riebe (1567, 1988-92).  Congratulations, Tom!   

(EDIT: as noted below,) Wooster Booster and I received a surprise pre-game visit from OWU head coach Mike DeWitt.  While waiting for the women's game to start (OWU 61, Witt 51), Coach DeWitt noticed my "W" seat cushions and came over for a chat.  He didn't know who we were (other than Wooster fans), and we didn't know who he was.  We were just chatting away like fans, talking about Kenyon's gym, OWU's wins over Witt this week and Woo last year, and so forth.  It was a very interesting chat, he's a very pleasant man.  I also had the honor of sitting next to a member of OWU's 1988 national championship team for the game.  He told me his name, but it was so loud in there (and my hearing is so bad) that I didn't catch it.  I'm going to assume that it was Scott Tedder, so it can be my D3 Brush With Greatness story of the week.    Whoever it was, he told me he had coached Devin Fulk in AAU ball, so maybe some lurker can figure it out and PM me with his name. 

[ScotsFan]

The less said about Devin Fulk's newly shaved head the better.  It did glisten well in the lights, although it had a spooky green tinge to it.  Who's next? 

Please tell me that this is not going to be a post-season trend like the head-bands.

[wooscotsfan]

Yeah you had the women's score.  Final from Hiram in four OTs:

Denison 117
Hiram 120

Sorry about the mistake and thanks for the catch Wally!  I have edited the final scores post and updated the post on the NCAC standings

[imderekpoe]

The less said about Devin Fulk's newly shaved head the better.  It did glisten well in the lights, although it had a spooky green tinge to it.  Who's next? 

Please tell me that this is not going to be a post-season trend like the head-bands.

As long as its an extended post-season, I don't care how they cut their hair!

[smedindy]

4 OTs! WOW!

[gotigers]

Yeah you had the women's score.  Final from Hiram in four OTs:

Denison 117
Hiram 120

so the denison hiram game...120 - 117 is that the highest scoring ncac game...if not...what is?




EDITED by dc to fix quote formatting

[David Collinge]

so the denison hiram game...120 - 117 is that the highest scoring ncac game...if not...what is?

Welcome to the NCAC room and D3Sports.com, gotigers! 

This game appears to me to be the highest scoring game of the season so far.  You can easily check for yourself using one of the many useful tools that D3Hoops.com has to offer:

Click here for composite NCAC results and schedule

As for whether it is the highest scoring NCAC game ever, that's a good question.  Maybe someone in here knows, or perhaps the league office will tell us in their weekly release on Monday.

[division3hoops]

Sources have told me that Tim Vandervaart's wrist is definitely broken.  This could possibly be a career ending injury.    It is such a shame when things like this happen at the end of a career.  Let's hope for a speedy recovery for Tim and that the rest of the Scots can hang in there...

[imderekpoe]

Yeah you had the women's score.  Final from Hiram in four OTs:

Denison 117
Hiram 120

so the denison hiram game...120 - 117 is that the highest scoring ncac game...if not...what is?




EDITED by dc to fix quote formatting

The NCAC website doesn't list records for just conference games, so the official conference record for the most points by 1 team and by 2 teams in a game occurred Nov 27, 2005 when the Scots beat Emory and Henry 150 - 101.  

[David Collinge]

Nice job Coach.  Another great coaching job!  Chase a feew more players away.