MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

WUPHF · February 21, 2021, 02:56:43 PM

I do regret saying that about Fontbonne.

No one ever uses an anonymous discussion board to complain about the work I do.

I am not sure why the coaches would read this but if they do, they know the team resembled a pick-up team with 5 individuals looking for their shot. Directionless indeed.

The coaches recruited the talent, but those guys need coaching.

hopefan · February 23, 2021, 08:56:32 PM

EC led by Ian Milsteadt and Chris Daniels combining for 54 points, beats Fontbonne 86-80..... Fontbonne cuts it to two in the last minute with a couple of 3 pointers, but EC big man Jaedon Banks clinches it with 4 for 4 from the the line in the last 30 seconds, his only points of the game!! Another very entertaining competitive SLIAC game....

WUPHF · February 24, 2021, 01:57:13 PM

I was very happy with Fontbonne last night, though I only watched 20 minutes or so. Anthony Jones also had a big game with 27 points including 4-8 from three.

GU1999 · February 24, 2021, 02:53:45 PM

GU kicks off SLIAC competition tonight v. Webster. Webster will be VERY ready GUs pressure despite losing key players from last season. Wayne Brown Jr. and Rodsen Ettienne return and will be a stabilizing factor for the Gorlocks. If Webster could dress their assistant coaches GU would likely get run out of the gym. It looks like Johnson, Clay and Hopp are helping Coach Bunch this year.

It will be most interesting to see if Greenville can bounce back after losing all seven of their non-con games. This was the most difficult non-con schedule in the country. The schedule featured four d1 teams, last years NAIA national champs, and the current #15 team in d3. Loaded for sure. Newcomers Kenneth Cooley, Romello Ball and Raplh Jalnaiz all will be plug and play SLIAC contributors. Cooley is a top of the league talent. His 31 against Illinois State was really impressive. He was able to score from 3 and at the rim at a very efficient pace (he was 12 for 17 from 2 point range). Ball and Jalnaiz are undersized, but are skilled. Ball is more of a penetrate and create type and Jalnaiz is more of a shoot first type. Rim protection will be a question. Chicago Simeon senior big man Justin Cross did not play many of the non-con games. If he plays 20 minutes GU will be much better off on the back line and rebounding. It looks like Marvin Bateman is not on the roster. A big loss. I expect returning guards, Dustin Bankowski and Kamron Vinsel to flourish against SLIAC level competition. Here is my wild card from GU. Henry Johnson. I love Henry's game. His ability to get paint touches will be a key to GUs success. He was great during the conference season in 2020. He struggled after his knee injury during the non-con, but am hopeful that he is back and ready contribute at the level he did during the 2020 conference season.

hopefan · February 24, 2021, 03:30:25 PM

Inexperienced Webster roster could have a very rough time dealing with GU pressure.. especially with it being the Gorlocks first game.....

GU1999 · February 24, 2021, 09:47:14 PM

Spot on Hopefan. WU with 20 turnovers in the first half.

GU1999 · February 24, 2021, 10:29:30 PM

Final
GU - 140
WU - 129

GU1999 · February 24, 2021, 11:00:39 PM

The newly branded Panther Sports Network ("PSN") was great.

hopefan · February 25, 2021, 05:41:53 AM

The announcers did a pretty decent job with names... but down here the video connection was extremely difficult to work with... did not want to connect with my wifi on my computer, but allowed me to watch on my phone with Verizon... I had no problems with wifi the night before with the Eureka game...

I'm now to the stage where I've had virtually no opportunity to see any of these players in person... tough to figure out who is who and the roles they are playing when watching solely on the internet, even worse on phone... I can kinda track who leading scorers are, but little else... rather depressing...

y_jack_lok · February 25, 2021, 09:52:55 AM

I watched much of the WU/GU game. Fun to have the teams back in action and getting a bit of a season. Neither team looked that polished to me. Certainly understandable for Webster given all the new faces and it being the first game. I don't know much about the Greenville roster, but it seemed to me that they also have a predominance of players who weren't there last season. Given that the Panthers have played seven games the outcome was no surprise. In his pre-game write up GU1999 didn't mention Greenville's leading scorer, Phillip Curtis. He and #4 Romello Ball were the two Panther players that I "noticed". Always hard for me to focus on individual players in a G'ville style game. But it was obvious that Etienne, Brown and Hughes were the experienced ones for Webster.

GU1999 · February 25, 2021, 10:40:05 AM

YJack - Great point. Both GU bigs played very well. Curtis and Jelks both had their best games of the season. I know this will surprise no one, but when they were matched up in the post during the first 7 games they were nearly invisible. Rebounding and around the basket points are very hard when giving up 6+ inches. I have to say I was delighted with their performance. It actually makes me feel better about the fact that I did not see Justin Cross in the game. Even with the increase in performance last night Curtis is now up to 8.8 ppg and Jelks is up to 4.1ppg. They looked very SLIAC ready to me.

As for the performance of the team. I viewed the game very differently. GU look very organized to my eye. Pressure was focused. 33 turnovers is the over the goal of 32. They shot it well. GU will take a slash of 51.4/35/88.9 every night. They moved the ball very well and had a ton of uncontested looks both at the basket and for corner 3s. This is great because typically zone teams do a bit better against the Georges version of the system.

Two nitpicking points:
- too many fouls (the 2nd half was better)
- too many second half turnovers (10)

Interesting aside. 8 of the 11 players for GU are SLIAC play newcomers. So, I think one could argue that Webster actually had the experience advantage in this one. Undoubtedly, having a 7 game preseason helped the GU newcomers.

y_jack_lok · February 25, 2021, 10:59:26 AM

^^^ Yep, maybe Webster did have a wee bit more experience. As to the question of how the teams looked, perhaps I'm the one lacking experience this season. This is normally conference tournament time and I've watched 50 or more games in person and online.

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh · February 25, 2021, 11:54:26 AM

Quote from: hopefan on February 25, 2021, 05:41:53 AM
The announcers did a pretty decent job with names... but down here the video connection was extremely difficult to work with... did not want to connect with my wifi on my computer, but allowed me to watch on my phone with Verizon... I had no problems with wifi the night before with the Eureka game...

I'm now to the stage where I've had virtually no opportunity to see any of these players in person... tough to figure out who is who and the roles they are playing when watching solely on the internet, even worse on phone... I can kinda track who leading scorers are, but little else... rather depressing...

Unfortunately, these problems almost 90% of the time are on the user end. Not that you did anything wrong, but there could have been a problem with your internet connection or computer last night.

I say this coming from the experience of running webstreams and consulting. The entire world of webstreaming has removed the chances of issues like you describe being on the producing end. If that was the case, no one would be able to watch and there would be overall problems - I don't think that is the case as several of us tuned in last night with no issues. And now webstreaming has allowed variable rates of speed so it can adjust on the user end based on whatever device or connection you may have. If there are issues, then there may be something up on the user end - and that happens to me from time to time (need to reboot/refresh a router or troubleshoot; with kids at home from time to time for school, I am constantly changing issues).

That all said, I do see Greensboro is on College TV Ticket (Eureka uses YouTube). To be blunt, I've not been a fan of this group. I do think they are more limited and when schools sign on they simply see a cheaper option despite not realizing the next cheapest may be the best option.

Long rambling idea to say that I always suggest users double-check their connection(s) - cellphone being very temperamental - and if they think that isn't the case, send a kind email to the school in question just mentioning there were some issues, that you checked your side and it doesn't seem to be it, and you wanted the school to just be aware (too many times these type of emails, especially from parents, are accusatory or mean and I would like to avoid that in my advice). The school can then discuss it with their streaming provider.

Oh, and usually there are help contact information for providers like College TV Ticket if you ever need to reach out to them.

Just trying to help you for the future.

y_jack_lok · February 25, 2021, 05:32:44 PM

^^^ Regarding last night's WU/GU broadcast, which was just fine in all respects as far as I'm concerned, the audio did go out late in the game. I checked to make sure it wasn't my speakers and it wasn't.

hopefan · February 26, 2021, 10:44:10 AM

I agree with you all.. the age of my laptop (ancient at 5 years old?) and the wifi service received are likely the major cause of my problems with the Greenville game... still the Eureka feeds from Tuesday night and the Illinois College game (vs Eureka) last night presented no problems at all... I'll keep pluggin' away!!!!