MBB: Coast 2 Coast Athletic Conference

[mwgoonie]

Here's the link to the Fox 5 "Let Tony Try It" segment at UMW.


http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/Detail?contentId=1277381&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=5.2.1

[Matt Letourneau]

uhh, compelling...

[mwgoonie]

gotta be better than CUA's appearance on HBO a few years back.

[Matt Letourneau]

Ha. You got me there! (Though that was very unfair...)

The lameness of that piece wasn't MW's fault---it was all on Tony. 

Tonight's games:
York at Goucher
Gallaudet at Hood
Mary Washington at Marymount
St. Mary's at Catholic
Salisbury at Virginia Wesleyan


Well, first of all, Salisbury's probably going to get killed.  Good experience from them going down to play the #1 team in the country.   Unfortunately for them, though, VWU just lost--so they're going to want to take it out on somebody. 

Most interesting game is the MW-Marymount game.  You have to favor Mary Washington, but its a good indicator of how seriously Marymount will compete--they had a really, really bad loss to start with, then beat two bad teams.  This will be their first game against a good team.

Hood has look pretty strong, and should beat Gallaudet.  York might be down some from last year, and Goucher might be up a little--but not THAT much.   I'll be at the Catholic game--they've played very well and are gelling nicely.  They've played 4 games away from home so far, and beaten two good teams, but it will still be the first home game for the freshman.  I think Dwyer will have a good night.

[mwgoonie]

yeah, Tony was at Best Buy today and didnt know how to lift the rear door of a shipping trailor. i think the next time Tony should try the gym...rim shot, please....

[bisonpride]

Here's nice basketball-related article from Washington Post newspapers, "Coaching Is a Birthright For Thompson Brothers"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500585.html

By the way, John III's Georgetown beat Ronny's Ball State, 69-54 at Verizon Center last monday.

Virginia Wesleyan-Salisbury and Mary Washingtin-Marymount got to be interesting games of the night.

[unreallawns]

Salisbury has a tough one tonight at VWU.  With both teams coming off of losses, this should be a very competitive game.  I don't think SU will get blown out.  They have a good shot at winning the game if they don't hit a long stretch without scoring like they did against JHU.  Good luck SU.

[bisonpride]

From Frederick...

Gallaudet Bison - 64
@ Hood Blazers - 77

Halftime: Gallaudet led 37-32

The game was playing at famed Thomas Johnson High School Gym. More details later..

Any other scores around the conference??

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

York defeats Goucher at the SRC 69-55.

Goucher made several runs in the second half - cutting the lead to about 7... but York was able to withstand each run and put it back to double-digits rather easily.

One significant note... Goucher's James Russo broke the Goucher career record for three-pointers made. He hit three tonight to give him 192 for his career... that breaks Chad Beatens record of 191.

[ex_mu14]

Mary Washington defeats Marymount by 10 tonight.  When did Mary Washington get a new coach?

[bbsquared]

No new coach for Mary Wash. Coach was just serving a 1 game "hiatus" .

[njlincolnlion]

Salisbury lost to VA Wesleyan 73-64, and was a good game, that was closer than the score indicated. 

The Gulls take on York to begin conference play.

[Matt Letourneau]

Catholic defeated St. Mary's 67-62.  It was, shall we say, an interesting contest.  The first half was not too pretty.  Both teams played poorly.  SMC played mostly zone which Catholic was having trouble with.  They had a ton of open looks, particulary from 3, and shot 4-18 from outside the arc in the first half.

Second half was much, much better--6-13 from outside.  Scott Fumai led Catholic with 24 points, and Pat Dwyer had another double double.  Fumai played another great game, but Steven Papageorge was the hero tonight.  Catholic trailed until about 4-5 minutes left, and the game ended up 62-62 with 11.4 seconds left.  On the inbounds play, Catholic caught SMC napping by passing it from midcourt all the way in to Papageorge in the corner, who drained an open 3. 

For all of that, the unsung hero tonight for the Cardinals was Sean Stolzenthaler, who played outstanding defense on Tyson Lesense.  Sean only lost him twice the whole time he was out there, and ended up holding him to 15 points on 6-14 shooting--and most of that was not on Sean.

SMC is much better than they were last year.  The big difference is Alex Irmer, a transfer from Randolph Macon.  I was pretty taken aback by this statement by the SMC Coach that appeared in their local paper down there:

Irmer, a 6-8 center who transferred from Randolph-Macon, will help give St. Mary's the size it's been lacking. Despite not having played a regular season game yet, Seahawks second-year head coach Chris Harney thinks Irmer will be the best player in the league, if not all of Division III.

''He tries to take the backboard down every time he dunks the ball," Harney said. ''He is intimidating, to say the least. He's an intimidating presence on offense as well as defense and he brings a much-needed presence to the paint for our team."

That's kind of ridiculous.  Right now, he's neither the best player in the league (Fumai and McGowan are battling that out) or D3.  But he is a very good player.  He's got to learn how to defend without fouling--he picked up a bunch of early fouls.  And he monumentally blew a dunk (he did try to take down the backboard, he just didn't have the ball).  But he's got great size, a nice mid range jump shoot, a smooth foul shot, and even the one attempt from 3 he took, which he missed, was a good look and a nice shot that went in and out.  Very impressive and makes SMC a LOT better.   I would also be remiss if I didn't note Mike Smelkinson, a D2 transfer.  He's 5'5! But very quick, hustles, and can shoot the 3.

Well, hey, for Catholic, a win's a win.  Not the way they wanted to play, but at the same time, they once again showed a lot of poise, didn't get discouraged, fought hard and pulled it out in the end.  Next up is Goucher, at DuFour.

So Wood had an involunatry suspension? 

[mwgoonie]

Great game last night. Rather than break down the entire game and pour on praises for UMW (MWC), I will stay the best aspect of the team is their mental toughness. The main guys for the team have been here a while and are lead by Lee and Fitzgerald. in the past 4 games, they haven't made mistakes and their team first mentality show (all starters average between 10-14 ppg). Heck, they didn't even have Wood on the side last night and they didnt show any mental breakdowns.  So its a different story with a guy like Mike Lee, who as a FR, we thought would become a one man team and put up 25-28 ppg.

[kitchenrat]

I didn't get the chance to drive down to Towson last night, so I had to settle for the radio broadcast of the game. As the shooting percentage rises and the guys get used to playing with one another the team looks better. They shot 50% for the game last night and were paced by Brad Zerfing who put up 17 on 7-12 shooting. For of the five he missed were from three, and he took the ball to the hoop once he had established to the Gopher D that he would shoot from out there.

McGowan was blanketed all night so he had to settle for a double – double at 12 points 13 rebounds, but if that is how teams are going to play him he may start to see his assist totals jump.

Pat Kelly continues to play very well as he tallied 12 more points on 5-7 shooting and added 5 boards. Nate Lankford put together another good all around game, 10-6-4, and as he gets into the flow with these guys he could be the Kenny Fass on the floor for this team.

I am also very impressed with Nick Brady who was a scoring machine in high school. He put in 9 points in 19 minuets last night and picked up 4 boards – two of them on the offensive glass.

Saturday's game is huge for York, since Salisbury has become a real thorn in our side in the past few games. I'm sure the guys who got time last year would love to avenge the two 2 point losses a season ago.