MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[earlhamalum]

Pennstghs- Are you reading the John Amaechi book?  I know Billy_Pilgrim picked up the book yesterday and started reading it today.  I guess he started out referring to the N.B.A.  as the N fuc%ing B.A. 

I too claim to be a fan of (1) Ohio team.  The Reds but I convince myself Cincy isn't totally part of Ohio.  So close to Indiana, and across the river from KY!  I know the cubs and the reds in the same division... but loving basketball and baseball Indianapolis doesn't have a MLB team and growing up in the late 80's they were not in the same division plus we use to have their farm team.  You think routing for 2 teams in the central I'd increase my chances of one of them winning it.

[diehardfan]

I didn't realize that DC had fathered a Wabash student... j/k

Not just a Wabash alum, but worse yet, a lawyer.  Oh honey, where did we go wrong? 

LOL... Lawyers aren't allowed to use Lawyer jokes, are they? 

Hey now.  As a fellow Cubs fan, I think there's about $300 million reasons for some optomism.  Maybe sweet Lou can light a fire under some of these guys which is something old wrist bands couldn't seem to figure out how to do.

BTW,  I'm also an Indians fan, so I'm cursed from both leagues?!?! 8)  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment?!

I think Orioles fans like me win some sorta glutton for punishment award. How many seasons hve YOUR teams gone without a winning season? I'm pretty sure the Orioles are coming up on 10 straight seasons. In fact, the last time we were good, didn't the Indians beat us in the playoffs? 1997 ring a bell? No pity from me.

[wally_wabash]

I didn't realize that DC had fathered a Wabash student... j/k

Not just a Wabash alum, but worse yet, a lawyer.  Oh honey, where did we go wrong? 

LOL... Lawyers aren't allowed to use Lawyer jokes, are they? 

I think they get to make those jokes because they are lawyers.  It's the rest of us that are treading on thin ice with lawyer humor.   

[sac]

I think Orioles fans like me win some sorta glutton for punishment award. How many seasons hve YOUR teams gone without a winning season? I'm pretty sure the Orioles are coming up on 10 straight seasons. In fact, the last time we were good, didn't the Indians beat us in the playoffs? 1997 ring a bell? No pity from me.

If I were a baseball nut, this is where I would point to the  Detroit Tigers past 15 years before last season. 

[David Collinge]

[David Collinge]

The NCAC men's Player of the Week is Wooster's Tom Port, who went for 21 and 14 in leading the conference champion Scots over Ohio Wesleyan.

http://www.northcoast.org/mb/mbpow.txt

Congratulations, Tom! 

[David Collinge]

By the way, Kenyon now stands at 10-15 on the season.  Their 10th win, against Oberlin a week ago, snapped a ten-year string of single-digit win campaigns.  The last Kenyon team to win 10 games was the 1995-96 team led by Jamie Harless and coached by Bill H. Brown in his final season (no, not that Bill Brown; he left Gambier in 1988.)  Matt Croci is the 4th head coach since then, and next season he has a decent chance to lead the Lords to their first winning season since going 20-9 in 1994-95.  Congratulations to Coach Croci and the Lords! 

[woosterbooster]

Not that I'd ever expect to see it happen as it's almost certainly against NCAA regulations, but it would be cool to have a post-season all-star game between the NCAC and OAC.  If I had to choose 12 guys to represent our league against the best of the thugs, I'd go like this, in alphabetical order:

Dane Borchers, Wittenberg
Ben Chojnacki, Ohio Wesleyan
James Cooper, Wooster
Greg Hill, Wittenberg
Dan Hodgkinson, Denison
Markous Jewett, Earlham
Brandon Johnson, Wooster
Tom Port, Wooster
Dustin Rudegeair, Ohio Wesleyan
Quinton Spencer, Oberlin
Tim Vandervaart, Wooster
Andrew Zimmer, Wabash

Just missing out would be Jesse Jean of Ohio Wesleyan.

[Pat Coleman]

It's legal for seniors to play a postseason game. A couple leagues do them -- the ODAC plays the USAC and the CUNYAC plays the Skyline (after the NJAC swept both men's and women's for about four years in a row).

[Gregory Sager]

I think Orioles fans like me win some sorta glutton for punishment award. How many seasons hve YOUR teams gone without a winning season? I'm pretty sure the Orioles are coming up on 10 straight seasons. In fact, the last time we were good, didn't the Indians beat us in the playoffs? 1997 ring a bell? No pity from me.

If I were a baseball nut, this is where I would point to the  Detroit Tigers past 15 years before last season. 

The last time my favorite team won a pennant, the Motion Picture Daily Fame Poll had just named Bing Crosby "Top Male Vocalist" for the ninth straight year, and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still radioactive.

The last time my favorite team won the World Series, Henry Ford had started production of the Model T less than a month earlier; the Titanic was still a blueprint on the shop table in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast; and the United States was abuzz over whether William H. Taft or William Jennings Bryan would win the upcoming presidential election.

Checkmate.

Next topic?

[ScotsFan]

I think Orioles fans like me win some sorta glutton for punishment award. How many seasons hve YOUR teams gone without a winning season? I'm pretty sure the Orioles are coming up on 10 straight seasons. In fact, the last time we were good, didn't the Indians beat us in the playoffs? 1997 ring a bell? No pity from me.

If I were a baseball nut, this is where I would point to the  Detroit Tigers past 15 years before last season. 

The last time my favorite team won a pennant, the Motion Picture Daily Fame Poll had just named Bing Crosby "Top Male Vocalist" for the ninth straight year, and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still radioactive.

The last time my favorite team won the World Series, Henry Ford had started production of the Model T less than a month earlier; the Titanic was still a blueprint on the shop table in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast; and the United States was abuzz over whether William H. Taft or William Jennings Bryan would win the upcoming presidential election.

Checkmate.

Next topic?

Well, seeing as how Greg has gone over the futilities of the Cubs to win championships over the years, allow me to further elaborate on the futilities of my other favorite team, the Indians.  No World Series championships since 1948!  Yes we Indians fans have had the enjoyment of winning 2 pennants in the 90's but they were the 1st such pennants since 1954!  And they were also followed up with 2 painful losses in the WS culminating with the '97 one you so generously recalled for us DHF where the Indians were a measily 2 outs away from winning it all over the sooooooooooooo undeserving Florida Marlins and the roof came crashing down.

I would take all the winning seasons of the Cubs and Indians combined for just ONE World Series in my lifetime.  Although, 2003 gave me some inclination that I'm never going to see one at Wrigley and it was those damned Florida Marlins again.   What is it with that franchise and my favorite teams anyways!!!

Can you tell, I can't wait for spring and baseball to get here??? 8)

Rants over, back to hoops!

[wally_wabash]

I think Orioles fans like me win some sorta glutton for punishment award. How many seasons hve YOUR teams gone without a winning season? I'm pretty sure the Orioles are coming up on 10 straight seasons. In fact, the last time we were good, didn't the Indians beat us in the playoffs? 1997 ring a bell? No pity from me.

If I were a baseball nut, this is where I would point to the  Detroit Tigers past 15 years before last season. 

The last time my favorite team won a pennant, the Motion Picture Daily Fame Poll had just named Bing Crosby "Top Male Vocalist" for the ninth straight year, and the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still radioactive.

The last time my favorite team won the World Series, Henry Ford had started production of the Model T less than a month earlier; the Titanic was still a blueprint on the shop table in the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast; and the United States was abuzz over whether William H. Taft or William Jennings Bryan would win the upcoming presidential election.

Checkmate.

Next topic?

Well, seeing as how Greg has gone over the futilities of the Cubs to win championships over the years, allow me to further elaborate on the futilities of my other favorite team, the Indians.  No World Series championships since 1948!  Yes we Indians fans have had the enjoyment of winning 2 pennants in the 90's but they were the 1st such pennants since 1954!  And they were also followed up with 2 painful losses in the WS culminating with the '97 one you so generously recalled for us DHF where the Indians were a measily 2 outs away from winning it all over the sooooooooooooo undeserving Florida Marlins and the roof came crashing down.

I would take all the winning seasons of the Cubs and Indians combined for just ONE World Series in my lifetime.  Although, 2003 gave me some inclination that I'm never going to see one at Wrigley and it was those damned Florida Marlins again.   What is it with that franchise and my favorite teams anyways!!!

Can you tell, I can't wait for spring and baseball to get here??? 8)

Rants over, back to hoops!

Losing is part of what makes being a Cubs fans special.  Take a look at the Red Sox.  For what seemed like millennia, the misery of Red Sox Fan was almost endearing to the rest of us outside of New England.  They had their curses and their Bill Buckners and their Bucky Dents and their Aaron Boones and it was heart wrenching.  Then they finally won it all....and immediately turned into (drumroll) the Yankees [/shudder].  The Red Sox winning the Series gave the world Fever Pitch.  Think about that....Fever Pitch. 

If the Cubs win, especially now after they've gone and spent about $87 quadrillion, they lose their broad appeal as the loveable losers and turn into Yankees Midwest.  Do you really want that?   

[David Collinge]

Pat has caculated the top 200 QoWIs nationwide and posted the result in a couple of the multi-region rooms.  Here's the GL teams extracted from that list, FYI.  I have added the in-region win %, which can be found here.

OK, these passed a great deal of scrutiny tonight. Through Sunday's games:

Rank   Points   Team
11   10.600   Lake Erie (.950)
20   10.318   John Carroll (.727)
21   10.316   Wooster (.895)
31   10.100   Ohio Northern (.700)
38   9.950   Wittenberg (.800)
47   9.765   Hope (.824)
60   9.500   Capital (.667)
65   9.450   Baldwin-Wallace (.700)
72   9.316   Westminster (Pa.) (.842)
75   9.261   Otterbein (.609)
82   9.174   Penn State-Behrend
115   8.619   Ohio Wesleyan (.739)
116   8.619   Carnegie Mellon (.524)
118   8.588   Calvin (.647)
132   8.435   Heidelberg (.522)
135   8.400   Bethany (.700)
148   8.188   Tri-State (.625)
159   8.083   Wilmington (.500)
164   8.000   Muskingum (.478)
166   7.944   Albion (.556)
197   7.591   Mount Union (.364)

Based on this, I'd expect Wednesday's regional rankings to be

1. Lake Erie
2. Wooster
3. JCU
4. Hope
5. Wittenberg
6. Ohio Northern

[pennstghs]

My  boredom at school set in so i browsed around and found the Final Four preview show from last year's set of Hoopsville broadcasts. In it they discussed the depth of the Great Lakes Region and how competiveness in the early rounds of the tournament groom the emerging team as a viable choice for Champion come Saturday night. I would add that this year this is also the case as we have seen Great Lakes teams battle against each other, especially in the OAC.

Also, as mentioned before, there are some eery paralells in the Allegheny loss and last year's Wabash loss to conclude conference play in which Wittenberg shot horridly and may have just gotten their bad game out of the way before tournament time and start another run? If they can win Friday and Saturday at Wooster i believe their QOWI should allow them to host yet again for the first and second round games

I don't think any team is in g reat position to garner one of the first round byes, although if Wooster wins impressively and some other regional teams fall who knows, but i think we'll see the traditional 4 team brackets this next week in our region.

[David Collinge]

a reminder...

Tuesday game information:

At Springfield:
5:30 women's quarterfinal #7 Earlham at #2 Wittenberg
7:45 men's quarterfinal #7 Hiram at #2 Wittenberg

At Meadville:
5:30 women's quarterfinal #6 Wooster at #3 Allegheny
7:30 men's quarterfinal #5 Wabash at #4 Allegheny

At Wooster:
7:30 men's quarterfinal #8 Earlham at #1 Wooster

At Delaware:
7:30 men's quarterfinal #6 Kenyon at #3 Ohio Wesleyan

At Granville:
7:30 women's quarterfinal #8 Oberlin at #1 Denison

At Gambier:
7:30 women's quarterfinal #5 Ohio Wesleyan at #4 Kenyon

There will be live audio and/or video available for some of these games, and LiveStats for others.  Click here for more information. 

Meadville is definitely the place to be tonight, but it's just too far away.  I probably won't decide until it's actually time to leave, but I think I'm headed to Gambier tonight.  I expect a great game between the Bishops and the Ladies on the suddenly mournful Kenyon campus.