MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[hopefan]

A very HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all of the SLIAC readers!!!!

Now that all the SLIAC teams have several games under their belts, let's do a one liner (or two liner) on each team... my thoughts....

Westminster... the loss of Jimmy Villabalos is a triple header (Tabb, O'Brien), but little brother Kobe Wands is picking up the slack (where was he last year?), and Westmin will still be competitive in the conference race.

Greenville...  so many new faces flowing into the system, they obviously get it... even more contributors this year than last, who is going to be the hot hand on any given night?   Anxious to see them!!

MacMurray... I got 99 problems, but...  Well one problem... Not to worry about the loss to Monmouth, but what is with Kendall Davis' stat line vs Central Christian?  He needs to meet expectations if Mac is going to take care of business...

Eureka... Shea Feehan yes, but don't consider this a one man team... things are looking good up north...

Spalding... Did the hurricane get as far north as Louisville and irreparably harm the Spalding team.. playing good competition doesn't justify 40 point losses.. why is Rylan Rowe not starting.. things need to get better quickly...

Webster... the many frosh have come much farther than expected, and Enrique Tankins is showing as a real leader... this team's inexperience will lose some games, but their talents will win some...an upset waiting to happen any night...

Principia... How far can five guys carry a team on any given night?  In the SLIAC, it very well may still be enough to get to the Conference tourney.. wish we'd see more balanced scoring, Davidson, Ross, Brennan Paulson are all capable of carrying more of the load...

Blackburn.. The surprise of the early season.. showing it can be done with Defense, disciplined offense, bench play... the two wins over CCIW teams is a real feather in the cap for the whole conference..

Iowa Wesleyan.. new names, tough to identify with this team on the outskirts of SLIAC geography... Brock Butler yes, but the rest of the guys are question marks... after being so competitive since joining the conference, this year could be ugly...

Fontbonne... I had my hopes up, but letting a team like Oakland city shoot 67% doesn't bode well... Jack Lake not producing like last year, is he OK?

In reality, this could very well be EIGHT teams competing for four Conference Tourney spots if Spalding can right their ship... hard to imagine Iowa Wez or Fontbonne being there, yet the separation may not be too much in those cases either...

[Greek Tragedy]

http://www.therolladailynews.com/article/20160513/SPORTS/160519372

Read up on Kobe earlier this year.

[Greek Tragedy]

BTW, did O'Brien or Tabbs show up on any other team?

[hopefan]

http://www.therolladailynews.com/article/20160513/SPORTS/160519372

Read up on Kobe earlier this year.

Thanks Greek, good info... I didn't realize he was at UMSL last year... didn't start, but appeared in all games for the D2 tritons, 16 minutes per game, 5 points per game... best bet he wanted to play with brother Carter and take on a bigger role this year.. it was a brave move considering Westmin was already loaded with guards, but with Jimmy Villabalos out with the back injury, the cream obviously rose to the top quickly....

[Greek Tragedy]

Just to amuse myself, and you, I added Wands to my fantasy team. I now have Feehan, Wands, Paulson, Long and Butler of my 12 players. I also have Goodman and Wands in my keeper league.

[WUPHF]

BTW, did O'Brien or Tabbs show up on any other team?

I did some searches on social media and did not see any evidence that they were even enrolled at another college or university but my search was not conclusive either way.

[hopefan]

Besides Webster playing Coe tonight at Webster's Tourney (following the Centre-Carthage matchup), the only other SLIAC team in action is Iowa Wesleyan, playing Nebraska Wesleyan at NWU's tourney... I don't expect this one to be close, but if NWU is runnin' this year, Brock Butler could put up some big numbers for the Fantasy gang!!!
Tomorrow, very interested to see how Eureka does against Monmouth (who disposed of MacMurray pretty easily), and how Greenville does travelling over to Buena Vista.. Buena was only put at 7th in the Iowa Conference, but handles Gustavus easily the other night....

[hopefan]

Disappointing night at Webster... two lopsided yawners... Carthage and Centre played like low level SLIAC teams in the opener for the first half, Carthage got it going in the 2nd half and blows out Centre... Centre shot just horribly the whole game...   Webster took a giant step backwards from what I'd seen earlier, awful defense letting Coe score far too many UNCONTESTED points around the basket, and offense that resorted to nothing but one on one moves as the shot clock wound down... Ettienne disappeared in this one, Tankins forced far too much.. only Josh Johnson's hot hand (with some questionable shot selection) kept Webster from finishing under 45 points for the night....  I will credit Coe with very solid defense that generally befuddled the inexperienced Gorlocks...  Gorlocks, a little movement WITH PURPOSE off the ball might help you get open...

Today's matchup... Centre vs Webster.... I expect Centre to bounce back against a different level of competition....Coe vs Carthage, Webster made Coe look way too good, Carthage should dominate...

Highlight of the night... with just a couple of minutes left in Carthage game, Carthage way up, a Carthage guard throws an errant entry pass into the big man in the middle.. Centre intercepts and everyone runs the other way.. Coach Bosco D fires whatever he has in his hand (FIRES, like a 95 MPH fastball) towards the scorers table... it richochets off the table over towards the foul line in several pieces, Asst Coach Stevie D shows he still has great quickness, scampers out behind the game action, picks up two or 3 pieces, and scampers back to the bench, totally unnoticed by the officials...  a PRICELESS memory!! (OK, it was probably just a pen)

Speaking, incidentally, of ugly (if I used that word for the two games), check out the other SLIAC score... in a battle of Wesleyans, Nebraska beats Iowa, 117-54....   Brock Butler finishes with 17, but after playing and contributing for 3 years on some pretty good Wez teams, this can't be much fun...

[Greek Tragedy]

Yeah, Iowa Wes hasn't lost a game by less than 20. The conference season can't come fast enough for them.

Coe is picked just 8th in the IIAC, but they just beat Webster by 17 and hammered Iowa Wes by 33.

[hopefan]

Hoping Coach Bunch is just testing the waters as the Gorlocks plod through nonconference... minutes are being dispersed in every which way direction, and it's my feeling that some of these kids are clearly JV level players AT THIS POINT IN TIME...  Hard to imagine he'll go with the same seemingly random distribution of minutes in conference games....

As for Iowa Wez, WOTS says the Australia contingent are no where near game ready (as the films showed), but one of them, Jarryd Fernandez, has worked his way in to the starting lineup..12 points, 5 rebounds, 6 turnovers in 29 minutes vs Nebraska Wez....   while the whole situation of bringing 4 kids in from Australia and one more from Spain, all with significant height, and having only one play any minutes, can be looked at with some sense of amusement, being a little more realistic, these guys are a long way from home, being gawked at and talked about on a small remote college campus... it can't be too easy... I hope the whole education process works out for them, hoops or not...

[iwumichigander]

Hoping Coach Bunch is just testing the waters as the Gorlocks plod through nonconference... minutes are being dispersed in every which way direction, and it's my feeling that some of these kids are clearly JV level players AT THIS POINT IN TIME...  Hard to imagine he'll go with the same seemingly random distribution of minutes in conference games....

As for Iowa Wez, WOTS says the Australia contingent are no where near game ready (as the films showed), but one of them, Jarryd Fernandez, has worked his way in to the starting lineup..12 points, 5 rebounds, 6 turnovers in 29 minutes vs Nebraska Wez....   while the whole situation of bringing 4 kids in from Australia and one more from Spain, all with significant height, and having only one play any minutes, can be looked at with some sense of amusement, being a little more realistic, these guys are a long way from home, being gawked at and talked about on a small remote college campus... it can't be too easy... I hope the whole education process works out for them, hoops or not...

those five will need to be in shape by the time they play Greenville and their "system"

[hopefan]

Hoping Coach Bunch is just testing the waters as the Gorlocks plod through nonconference... minutes are being dispersed in every which way direction, and it's my feeling that some of these kids are clearly JV level players AT THIS POINT IN TIME...  Hard to imagine he'll go with the same seemingly random distribution of minutes in conference games....

As for Iowa Wez, WOTS says the Australia contingent are no where near game ready (as the films showed), but one of them, Jarryd Fernandez, has worked his way in to the starting lineup..12 points, 5 rebounds, 6 turnovers in 29 minutes vs Nebraska Wez....   while the whole situation of bringing 4 kids in from Australia and one more from Spain, all with significant height, and having only one play any minutes, can be looked at with some sense of amusement, being a little more realistic, these guys are a long way from home, being gawked at and talked about on a small remote college campus... it can't be too easy... I hope the whole education process works out for them, hoops or not...

those five will need to be in shape by the time they play Greenville and their "system"

that one may have a Vegas line of Greenville -70   

[hopefan]

The SLIAC has a pretty good Saturday, going 3-3 vs D3 competition..

I was at the Webster game vs Centre.. what a turn-around for the Gorlocks after being taken apart by Coe....
How did this team of mostly freshmen beat the No 1 team in the SAA?
1) The Gorlocks dominated the boards.. despite not scoring much, forwards Tankins and Etienne have 8 and 7 rebounds respectively, AND stringbean center Nigel Wilcox pulls down 13... that's 28 boards for the 3 starting big men..Centre had only 24 the whole night.. final count 36-24 in favor of Webster..
2) Coach Bunch changes the player rotation, going mostly with 8 men, rather than 12 or 13 from the night before..
3) Nigel wilcox was virtually unstoppable with the ball down low, against defense taller than him, he uses a D3 sky hook flawlessly, usually from tough angles, and simply doesn't miss.. goes 9 for 12 (two of those misses were shots from near the foul line).. Enrique Tankins sees this happening and benefits dishing out 10 assists by throwing it into Wilcox!!
4) Two frosh guards come off the bench and are really responsible for the flow of the game in the 2nd half, knocking down critical perimeter shots...Christian Crespo goes 4-5 from 3 point range, 18 points, Elijah Macias 2-3 from 3 point range, 8 points..... Yes granted, these are two of the guys that I referred to as JV players in yesterday's writeup, but they sure upped their status yesterday!!!
5)  Wilcox and Etienne both go 2-2 in critical foul line situations as the game winds down.. I would not have bet on that as a witness to previous free throw attempts, but they made these!!
So almost as I said previously, inexperienced play is going to lead to some ugly losses this season for the Gorlocks (see vs Coe), but some good talent level will generate some unexpected wins when things get going (see Centre).

In one of the most bizarre endings to a game I've ever seen, Eureka beats Monmouth 97-96... Eureka makes two free throws to go up 97-93 with maybe 3 seconds on the clock, Monmouth rushes the ball down and takes a running 3 pointer from probably 35 feet... GOOD.. and the guy gets fouled!!! (All time dumb play no 1 by Eureka)... so Monmouth at the line with 1 second on the clock shooting one to tie.. swish.. BUT  (All time dumb play No 2 by Monmouth player).. a Monmouth player had stationed himself at top of the key and makes a run for any rebound on the foul shot... he enters the key area well before the free throw gets to the rim, the foul shot is ruled no good, and Eureka wins!!!  Shea Feehan finishes with 36 to please his fantasy league owners!!  And doesn't this make SLIAC prognosticaters  think long and hard after  seeing Monmouth rip MacMurray earlier...

Westminster keeps it a little closer with Knox than desired, winning 85-74... this was a 2 point game with 5 minutes left.. Kobe Wands gets 17, but 1 for 8 from 3 point land... Westmin shoots 22% from the arc... UGH... Big positive though is Westmin only 6 turnovers...and a 6'4" freshman, Steven Brandt gets 16 points off the bench... has Westmin found a replacement for Tabb/O'Brien???  That was supposed to be humorous... still, Brandt could be a big help if he can produce like that....

Greenville loses at Buena Vista..142-128.. the good news here is that Gville was down 30 and was able to cut the margin to 14.  They generated 31 turnovers from Buena, but Buena shot too well for Greenville to beat them... Johari Dix gets 42 for Greenville, only 3 3-pointers.. he's a penetrator, must have been successfully pushing the ball to the hoop...

Iowa Wesleyan Keeps it close with Carroll, losing 88-75... much better than the night before vs Neb wez... Iowa Wesleyan beaten badly on the boards, 40-25... Mitch Drey plays up to his potential, 23 points, 4 bounds 4 assists, a very good sign for IWU, Brock Butler also gets 23...

Fontbonne stays in the game with University of Dallas, loses 79-66... box score shows pretty even stats, but it looks like turnovers were the Griffs problem, 18, vs only 11 for Dallas...Luke DeLine gets 14 points, 29 minutes for Fontbonne, he'll be key as Conference gets underway...This was a 1point game with 5 minutes left!!!

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ I happened to watch much of the last 12+ minutes of the Fontbonne game. Down by 6 when I tuned in, went down by 10 then slowly came back to take a one point lead. Had several opportunities to extend the lead but couldn't convert.

[jaybird44]

If Coach Bunch can keep this freshmen band together over the next 2-3 years, his Gorloks could be a SLIAC champion and perhaps get past the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Perhaps a bit of hyperbole after watching just two of their games in the Lopata Classic.  But I like the very early returns of this team's performances.