MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Greek Tragedy]

Eagerly awaiting hopefan's report. Principia up 7 at half-time and get absolutely hammered in the 2nd. Goodman fouls out in 29 minutes. 13 turnovers by Goodman and Paulson. Ouch.

[hopefan]

Had to laugh - at half time, score was Spalding 30, Goodman and Paulson 30, rest of Prin 7. 2nd half Paulson went cold, in part due to tough defense by Markus Montgomery. Goodman forced a number of moves, picked up 2 offensive fouls, then got frustrated and fouled out with silly reach ins. Spalding was not very good but the 8 or 9 guys they used easily outran Prin in the second half. Prin's only real offense in the 2nd half came from Clark Davidson who managed to get lose around the basket several times. Robert Benningfeld showed some quicks and really led the 2nd half comeback, but played out of control on drives through traffic too often. Spalding coaches are pretty rough on the kids- doesn't look like theyre having much fun even ina win.

[hopefan]

Full conference schedule today.... I'll be going up to see Fontbonne at Mac... gotta check out Creal's unexpected Juggernaut!!!

A quick list of Hopefan's expectations...

Fontbonne at MacMurray... Fontbonne has the talent, but do they have the courage to win a game against a D3 opponent... very disappointing vs my expectations thusfar... Mac is the pleasant surprise of the early season...I'll go with Mac

Webster at Iowa Wesleyan.... why not stay with the home team???  Iowa Wesleyan in the shocker

Eureka at Spalding...  Eureka was so good and gutsy against Greenville... Spalding wasn't... long trip, but EC should win easy

Greenville at Principia.... Paulson and Goodman may have 80 between them... and Prin will still lose by 40... I expect a massacre...

Westminster at Blackburn...  Tough to figure... I like Westmin better, but they're not showing much... BC bounces back from horrible performance vs Mac, wins at home...

but..... Westmin/BC; Webster/IWU; Font/Mac  all can be looked at as Pickems

[hopefan]

Full conference schedule today.... I'll be going up to see Fontbonne at Mac... gotta check out Creal's unexpected Juggernaut!!!

A quick list of Hopefan's expectations...

Fontbonne at MacMurray... Fontbonne has the talent, but do they have the courage to win a game against a D3 opponent... very disappointing vs my expectations thusfar... Mac is the pleasant surprise of the early season...I'll go with Mac

Webster at Iowa Wesleyan.... why not stay with the home team???  Iowa Wesleyan in the shocker

Eureka at Spalding...  Eureka was so good and gutsy against Greenville... Spalding wasn't... long trip, but EC should win easy

Greenville at Principia.... Paulson and Goodman may have 80 between them... and Prin will still lose by 40... I expect a massacre...

Westminster at Blackburn...  Tough to figure... I like Westmin better, but they're not showing much... BC bounces back from horrible performance vs Mac, wins at home...

but..... Westmin/BC; Webster/IWU; Font/Mac  all can be looked at as Pickems

Typical SLIAC as hopefan goes 2 for 5 as Fontbonne, Webster, and Spalding win....

[hopefan]

Throw out the Greenville-Prin game, that lopsided score was expected.... beyond that, I'm really disappointed in Saturday's results.... at this level, lower level D3, few teams are really GOOD... to compete, you have to come ready to play every day... Wednesday's results were so indicative of parity in the conference, that anyone could beat anyone (again throw Greenville out of the mix), that it seems Mac, IWU, EC, Westmin came in to Saturday games resting on their Wednesday night performances, not ready to play.  Congrats to Webster, Fontbonne, Spalding, and Blackburn for taking advantage, particularly Blackburn and Spalding who I'm sure felt like they played at a subpar level on Wednesday and won easily on Saturday.
Particularly disappointing was Eurekas loss at Spalding... Spaldings best player, Dom Ellis goes ohhhh for the day, but Eureka still can't beat a team that looked BAD on Wednesday against Prin??? I just can't understand it. And Mac... how in the world did this team destroy BC, then look like they had no clue how to generate a good shot on Saturday???  Blackburn must be bad, right?  HECK NO... they easily beat conference NO 2 team Westminster...
readers, enjoy my rant!!!🤣🤣

[hopefan]

So who is my player of the week?

Well, I'm generally going to look for outstanding performance by someone on a team that wins... in this case everyone had two league games played. Unfortunately this rules out Luke Deline as Fontbonne lost to Webster.  Deline with big numbers in both games
Spalding, Greenville, and Webster start with 2 wins, and clearly the best week by a player on those teams was had by Robert Bendingfield of Spalding. Small, quick sophomore guard....
He goes for 22 points, 7 boards, 2 assts, 3 steals vs Prin
Comes back with 27 points, 9 boards, 5 assts vs Eureka
Clearly a great week for Bendingfield and Spalding. 

[hopefan]

Really liked what I saw from 2 Fontbonne frosh yesterday

Carter Ottwell...aggressive point guard, can go to the basket, nice size

And...Ian Cochrane...6'7"...Mobil around the basket, aggressive, knows what to do...Fontbonne has a really nice Freshman class... hopefully will make Coach Thornhill smile a little more than he does.

Noah Coddington soph 6'7" who showed great promise last season out this year with significant knee injury.

[hopefan]

Woohoo.    SLIAC.org agrees with me regarding the selection of Robert Bendingfield as SLIAC Player of the Week!!!

[hopefan]

SLIAC fans take note:

Webster comes out to the suburbs tonight, Tuesday 12/4, to play at Missouri Baptist at 7:30

Mo Bap (NAIA - D1) is ..... 10-0 !!!!!

A great chance for Webster to put a giant feather in its SLIAC cap...  There is always a chance.....

Realistically, the SLiAC steps up the competition level this week, and results will likely be ugly...conference play resumes Saturday..
During the week:

Webster vs Missouri Baptist
Fontbonne vs Eastern Illinois
MacMurray vs Augustana
Spalding vs Thomas More
Blackburn vs McKendree
Principia vs Wash U

Will any of our teams come within 20?   not so sure....
I'll give Greenville women credit... they lost to Wash U women last night by only 16....

[ecreddevils]

SLIAC fans take note:

Webster comes out to the suburbs tonight, Tuesday 12/4, to play at Missouri Baptist at 7:30

Mo Bap (NAIA - D1) is ..... 10-0 !!!!!

A great chance for Webster to put a giant feather in its SLIAC cap...  There is always a chance.....

Realistically, the SLiAC steps up the competition level this week, and results will likely be ugly...conference play resumes Saturday..
During the week:

Webster vs Missouri Baptist
Fontbonne vs Eastern Illinois
MacMurray vs Augustana
Spalding vs Thomas More
Blackburn vs McKendree
Principia vs Wash U

Will any of our teams come within 20?   not so sure....
I'll give Greenville women credit... they lost to Wash U women last night by only 16....

Agree Webster has a chance.  I'll take the under on any other team staying within 20.  Spalding might have an outside chance?

[Greek Tragedy]

My apologies for being quiet so far this year. My frustrations have mounted with the poor play of some of the players, fantasy-wise, of course. I don't have the 5 or 6 SLIAC guys on my team like I did last year. I started with 4, but traded Bennington and Paulson for Wheaton's Francis and just recently dumped Goodman after two poor games, including a sub 25-fantasy point performance against Greenville. I only have Hank Thomas worthy of a roster spot.

On the non-fantasy side, it is definitely frustrating to see teams do well one game and then completely tank the next. It doesn't bold well for any team with NCAA tournament aspirations.

[WUPHF]

No SLIAC story is more frustrating than Westminster in my opinion.

This team was so close to a signature win over Simpson and instead 2-5.

[hopefan]

Incredible 1st half by the Gorlocks up 39-34 at half over Mo Bap... limiting Mo Bap to one shot with great defensive rebounding... Tankins Ettienne Clay taking it to them.

Alas, as often happens in these games, the shots stop falling for the underdogs, the bigger team exerts their superiority, and gradually pulls away in the 2nd half.
And wow did Mo Bap shoot from the perimeter in the 2nd half!!!

Still a super job by Webster .....

[hopefan]

Fontbonne loses big to E Illinois. Ok

But...  Luke Deline doesn't play?   Uhoh.   

[hopefan]

A small addendum to my Webster - Mo Bap writeup, after seeing the boxscore..

Mo Bap goes 9 for 13 from 3's in the 2nd half, after going 3 for 9 in the first..
Webster shoots 31% from the field in 2nd half, after shooting 51% in first

Extreme positive for Webster is that they gave Mo Bap only 5 offensive rebounds in the game, 2 in the first half, though being outsized around the basket...

A name I didn't mention before... Frosh Aron Hopp is just going to be excellent for Webster... an engine that doesn't stop, capable of scoring, already learning to take care of the ball...

If Johnson and Wilcox have reasonable shooting days, this game would have been VERY close...they got their shots, just weren't falling
Personally still shudder as Johnson too loose with the ball... too many turnovers for the guy that controls the ball... beginning to think Hopp should have the ball, let Johnson move without it to get more open looks..

AND Ettienne to the basket... extremely strong, but we only see it 2 or 3 times per game... why not more often?

Enrique Tankins showed 1st Team All SLIAC Quality last night....