MBB: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Schwami]

Interesting note from last night's Kentucky - Vanderbilt game.  The 41 point margin of defeat is the sixth worst in Kentucky basketball history.

The third worst defeat for Kentucky remains its 47 point loss to Wabash on January 6, 1925, by the score of 57-10. 

[ScotsFan]

I wanted to hear form you guys about the schedules of the teams, where they rank, and how our teams would far in the tourament.  Do you guys think that the scheduling these teams do hurt them when it comes to tournament time and how they far if they make the tournament?

Welcome to the board Hooper.  I hope I wasn't one of the ones calling you a dirty player.

With regards to your question, there really isn't a lot that NCAC teams can do outside of making their non-conference schedule as difficult as possible.  Until we seed some consistent improvement from the mid to lower tier teams in the league, this will not change.  Wooster has tried hard to beef up their non-conference schedule in recent years and I think it has paid off as evidenced by their 2 trips to Salem in the last 4 years.  Wittenberg has also scheduled some tougher competition for their non-conference schedule and you can't argue with their post-season success either.  Really, Wooster and Wittenberg are the only two teams worth discussing since no other conference team has qualified for the NCAA Tournament in recent memory.  All in all, it's mostly the NCAC itself that brings the strengths of schedules of all of it's members down.  And overall, I wouldn't say that it plays too big of a factor in how much post season success is or isn't achieved.

[wally_wabash]

We're getting ready for tip at Chadwick.  Right off the bat I have to say that if things go south for the LGs tonight, I've got nobody to blame but myself.  I forgot to swap my trusty SF Giants hat with the traditional game night Wabash hat.  Hopefully the LGs will be able to pick me up here. 

Starting lineups are on the floor and we're about to put the ball in the air.  Go Wabash!

19:22 - Simkus scores the first basket after rebounding a Wes Smith miss.  Worth noting that Wes has his left wrist and thumb pretty heavily taped.  Already I can tell that he'd rather  not use that hand for anything tonight.  Back to the action and Zimmer scores after another Wabash offensive rebound.  4-0 Wabash. 

17:32 - Simkus scores again in the paint.  Already Wabash is dominating the paint harder than Congress dominated McNamee today.  Zimmer hits a three pointer and Wabash is up 9-0.  Timeout for Coach Justus. 

15:00 - Tristan Gregory gets Earlham on the board with a driving basket.  He also drew a foul on Brock on made the free throw.  11-3 Wabash. 

11:29 - Zimmer scores on a putback from another Wes Smith miss.  We're at 18-6 here.  I love Wesley's game, but looking ahead to his bright future here, he'll have to really improve his finishing skills.  And before we save the post Haltom buries a three pointer.  21-6 Wabash. 

10:18 - Haltom gets another three.  I'm not sure why Earlham thinks they can lay off of  him...the three pointer si about 80% of his game.  Timeout Quakers.  24-6 is the score. 

Wabash has a 16-4 rebounding advantage halfway through the first period.  Wow. 

7:40 - After a pretty good rest, Mac brings the starters back in.  The score is 24-10.  Earlham has looked really unorganized to this point in the game. 

5:03 - Zimmer scores after another offensive rebound.  Wabash is out their largest lead of the game at 31-13.

1:43 - Haltom squashes an Earlham mini-run with his third three pointer of the game.  Wabash leads 38-22. 

0:30 - Steal, runout, and a nice dunk for Terrell Berry.   Simkus answers with a basket just before the buzzer sounds.  Wabash goes to the break with a 40-24 lead. 

Halftime stats you say?  You got it.  Wabash is being led by Zimmer's 14 points.  Simkus has 10 in the first half as well and Haltom has 9.  Zimmer and Simkus have 6 and 7 boards, respectively, so double double-doubles is a possibility here tonight.   

Earlham is being led in scoring by Tristan Gregory's 9 points.  Terrell Brown has added 7.  Gregory is just 2-10 shooting tonight...he's having a tough time getting any clean looks with Wes Smith guarding him. 

Wabash is shooting 50% from the floor (17-34) while Earlham is struggling along here at 30.8% (8-26).  Wabash is dominating the glass with a 23-13 rebound advantage (this was something like 17-3 at one point). 

In my astute opinion, Earlham has some adjustments to make at halftime.  We're back to action in about 4 minutes. 

[ScotsFan]

Under 10 minutes to go in the 1st half in Granville:

Wooster - 14
Denison -  13

And no that isn't a typo?!

[ScotsFan]

At the half in Granville:

Wooster - 39
Denison - 28

Wooster actually trailed at the 7:30 mark of the 1st half 16-14!  But then James Cooper took over with a three point barrage hitting on 4 treys for the half and I believe he has 16 points.  At one point Wooster outscored Denison 22-7 and built their largest lead of 13 points.  Give Denison credit for not going away... yet.

[wally_wabash]

Handy link to the livestats gets you +karma...sarcasm or not.  

I think they just gave the Wooster score here but it was totally unintelligible.  Chadwick has the acoustics of a steam tunnel.  

Alright, let's play ball.  Second half is underway....now.

18:06 - Kind of a sluggish start here.  Earlham opened with a three pointer, Wesley answered with a runner in the lane.  Zimmer is shooting free throws now which he split.  Wabash leads 43-27. 

16:03 - Gregory finally got himself free and drilled an open three pointer.  Maybe it's just me but some of the energy has been sapped out of this game.  Score is at 47-32. 

14:41 - Simkus nabs his 10th rebound and has his double-double.  Zimmer hits a three pointer on the offensive end for Wabash.  53-32 and Justus gets a timeout.  Zimmer is up to 20 points for the game tonight. 

9:10 - This game is getting a little sloppy as lopsided games tend to do.  Wabash is leading 63-42 after a pair of Zimmer free throws.  Zimmer comes out after his foul shots and Wabash is starter-free on the floor right now. 

6:18 - Mac is bringing Smithj, Simkus, and Brock back in the game here just to make sure this thing doesn't get uncomfortable.  Wabash leads 67-48. 

5:29 - Rooks and Zimmer are back so Wabash has the starting five on the floor.  And Smith gets a driviing layup to break a bit of a drought for the LGs.  69-48 is the score. 

4:25 - Mac takes the starters out during an Earlham timeout.  Good call there...nothing good can come of leaving the starting five out there at this point.  71-48 is the tally.  Make it 73-48 after an Evan Arnold layup. 

2:48 - And now Mac has gone all the way to the end of the bench.  These guys are going to get almost three good minutes here. 

1:27 - This is unfortunate...Terrell Brown hits a three pointer in front of Earlham's bench and stepped back right onto the foot of a teammate on the bench.  The ankle rolled and Brown has to come out of the game.  I hope he'll be alright. 

And we're all done.  Wabash wins comfortably 83-61.  This was a nice bounce back win after a tough week last week.  Wabash will host Oberlin for Senior Day on Saturday afternoon. 

[jscwittfan]

3 and change to go in Springfield:

OWU 61
Witt 63

Live stats here

[ECHOOPER]

Nicely done wally, like how you do that.  Scots fan it wasn't you, it was a bishop fan(i.e. a father of a player).  The thing that is hurting Earlham this year is their youth, and their lack of scoring besides Tristan and Welsh on some, they do not have much scoring.  But hopefully next year these guys will be a year older and a year of experience in the conference.  Hopefully they can play the three W's like the teams I played on beating Wabash a few times, taking Wooster to the final buzzer, and playing Witt strong, besides the 47 point defeat.

[Mr. Ypsi]

OWU by 4 w/ 20 seconds left - and at the line.

[jscwittfan]

OWU by 2 w/5 secs left . . . gotta restart...

[Mr. Ypsi]

OWU by 3, time-out, 5 seconds, Witt ball.

[Mr. Ypsi]

OWU wins 72-69.

[wooscotsfan]

Final:  Wooster 82  Denison 64

Wooster was paced by James Cooper with 16 points, Evan Will with 13 points, Bryan Wickliffe with 12 points and Devin Fulk with 10 points.

Larry Farmer and Chris Eberst led the Big Red each with 13 points.

Wooster didn't shoot particularly well tonight but they outrebounded Denison 45 to 29 and had 5 less turnovers so they had far more offensive looks.

Wooster is now 19-3, 12-1 NCAC.   Next up is Witt on Saturday at Timken!

GO SCOTS!

[wooscotsfan]

All the NCAC 2/13 Final Scores:

Kenyon 78  Oberlin 56
Allegheny 80  Hiram 76
Wooster 82  Denison 64
Ohio Wesleyan 72  Wittenberg 69
Wabash 83  Earlham 61

So, the top 5 in the standings are:
Wooster 12-1
Wittenberg 11-2
Ohio Wesleyan 10-3
Wabash 8-5
Kenyon 8-5

[pennstghs]

Wittenberg 69 Ohio Wesleyan 72 - overall it was a very competitive game and you could tell that both teams wanted a win badly, it just came down to OWU making the plays throughout the game when the "opportunity" was there and Witt making some bad judgements throughout. However, shoot me down with negative karma and berating for saying this. I don't think the outcome would have been significantly different but the officiating was TERRIBLE in this game. Several plays that were called or not called had a huge impact on the outcome of this game. Rudegair is a great flopper, a loose ball that was being fumbled turning into a OWU timeout even though they never had the ball, a terrible blocking foul at the end of the game that resulted in OWU going ahead-those plays are examples of plays that changed the game.

Regardless, Witt had their chances to win or take control and didn't, but this game only puts fuel and fire into the minds of Witt so expect them to be out for blood Saturday night regardless.....