MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[SliacChamp]

Webster down 13 at half. Giving up 39 points to a 4 win Principia team. Rough roads ahead for Webster. Who will step up in the second half.......

[Denny McKinney]

PC started working the clock way to early. Loss all flow.A W for WU. And, got away from the dribble drive stuff. Glad Coach went back to the motion. PC did a very good job against WU press. Till they quit attacking the bAsket when they broke it.

[SliacChamp]

Want to say a good comeback win for Webster but they should have never been in that position. Hunter Ward was a spark in the 2nd half for Webster along with their defense. That type of intensity was fun to watch. Aaron griffin another double double but Justin Ball took it too him. On to Iowa.

[y_jack_lok]

Sometimes basketball games are really exhausting to watch. I can't imagine what it's like to be the coach.

I'm curious about something: with Webster up by 2 and Prin with the ball with 19 seconds to play and Webster with three fouls to give, why does Webster not use those fouls? Prin missed a last second three. They made no real effort to get the ball inside and hope for hoop and/or a foul. I guess the defense did its job.

[Denny McKinney]

Can someone at the game comment on WU's 25 FT's compared to PCs 6.

[hopefan]

It was SO difficult not to root for the underdog Prin team last night... they played so well for 30 minutes, but the short bench eventually led to them running out of gas... if they had one more player, or if Conner Savoye hadn't been injured late in the first half, or if, as Denny pointed out, the free throws hadn't been so lopsided... there would have been ANOTHER SLIAC shattering upset... but kudos to Webster for gutting it out and coming back from a double digit deficit to win the game when Larry Patterson's 3 point shot at the buzzer was off line...  the free throw differential was indeed pretty inexplicable... I thought both teams played aggressively, went to the basket, rebounded tough... but there didn't seem to be calls that consistently riled the Principia bench or their group of fans.. unfortunately the free throw disparity was the major factor that won it for the Gorlocks...  Hunter Ward didn't play in the first half as a penalty from Coach Bunch for the Technical Ward picked up in the Blackburn game (pretty selective discipline however, as Bunch passed over the Westmin and Mac games to administer the penalty at the Prin game).. Ward and Odjo along with Griffin led the charge to the win, but there were key contributions from just about everyone - a real team effort that was a big positive...

It is going to be a pleasure to watch Prin's three youngsters, Justin Ball (soph), Jeff Ross (Fr), and Parker Davidson (Fr), play over the next several years.. hopefully another couple of recruits can come in and complete the picture... and there MAY be a major roster announcement for Prin in the future that would be huge.. keeping my fingers crossed

[y_jack_lok]

Can someone at the game comment on WU's 25 FT's compared to PCs 6.

You mean, can someone comment on the officiating? I normally don't, but I don't think there were a lot of situations in which a call could have gone one way or the other and almost always went against Prin. I also don't think there were many situations in which I thought Webster fouled but didn't get whistled for it. Finally, a number of the fouls called on Prin were with Webster players in the act of shooting, mostly around the hoop, so those always lead to free throws. The 19 fouls called on Prin the entire game is not an exorbitant number. If those had all been away from the hoop in non-shooting situations Webster would have had a lot fewer free throws. Maybe hopefan saw it differently. It's really not something I was thinking about during the game. Seemed like a normally officiated game to me -- meaning I never know why officials do or don't call a foul in a certain situation. As for the lack of fouls called on Webster, I disagree a bit with hopefan about Prin aggressively going to the basket -- at least in the course of running their offense. They did a lot more of that in transition. And Webster played a lot of man defense, so the usual lack of fouling due to playing zone does not explain the few fouls called on Webster.

[hopefan]

Yjack... I'm in agreement with you.. calls didn't seem to affect the flow of the game, no one seemed to be getting a raw deal.... it's just the way it went....

[hopefan]

Two HUGE games today.. Eureka at Mac, Fontbonne at Greenville.... a double upset night, with the visitors winning, would just be fantastic for the standings... Fontbonne and Eureka not quite in do-or die situations, but wins would certainly help themselves as well as Spalding and Webster....

Regardless of what happens tonight, all SLIAC eyes will be on Louisville on Saturday when Mac travels to Spalding...

[Denny McKinney]

The Penalty for a T is now like a MLB suspension for a pitcher. Appeal it. Get your next start. Then serve your time on your off days. What was the purpose of sitting him at all last nite?

[WU FAN]

To comment on Ward's sitting there were good reasons why it waited until last night.  Simply wasn't Coach Bunch waiting until an opponent he wasn't worried about.  If you want more info than that you need to ask him yourself.

As for Prin I'm very impressed by their new young players.  They've got 2 guys who were the best players on the court last night.  Ball is a man amongst children.  Would've been fun to see him try and match up against a healthy Kevin Miller.  If Prin can get a couple more simply average players, they don't even have to be good just average, they'll be competitive at the top of the conference.  Unfortunately there simply aren't enough guys to spread the minutes around to right now and they get worn out plus having foul trouble by the end of the game.

Finally the fouls may have looked lopsided on paper but it was a fairly called game and I don't think anyone wanted to argue that was in attendance.  The Gorloks simply did a better job of getting inside and drawing fouls while the Panthers had no success is drawing them.  I think some of it simply comes down to discipline of the players.  That's part of the issue with playing so many young and inexperienced players like Prin is at the moment.

[Denny McKinney]

Point taken WUFan. I didn't see the T. Probably a Sliac Cheap one. The one half is probably a team rule.

[hopefan]

I'm at GC.    Will post some scores.  Could be fun getting home.  Snowing hard over here.

[Denny McKinney]

Safe Travels Sir. Thanks for updates.

[hopefan]

GC 15 fu 5. At 10  mins.    BAD bball