MBB: St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ I neglected to look back at your predictions. Well done! Keep up the good work.

[y_jack_lok]

In the second set of conference games:

On Wednesday

Fontbonne over Blackburn by 5
Greenville over Eureka by 5

Tonight

Webster over Lyon by 6
Spalding over Pricipia by 10
MUW over Westminster by 15

[GU1999]

New year and a time to get locked in on SLIAC hoops. 

Admittedly its very early, but after four league games, it looks like this season will be a bit top heavy and the bottom looks abysmal.

Webster, Spalding, Lyon and GU look to be a clear top 4.  Fontbonne's record sits at 3-1 and could be a fringe top tier team, but they look to be a bit fraudulant after beating up some of those at the bottom of the league.  GU and Spalding have already played twice and split.  Webster beat Lyon in Stl.   

While, Prin and Blackburn look much worse than recent versions of themselves, the team that looks really rough this year has to be Westminster.  It is possible that their one win this year will be their December triumph against CalTech and CalTech may be the worst team in the country.  They currently sit at 0-12 and they are getting smashed nightly.  Averaging a mind-numbing -29.1/g highlighted by an 81 point loss to  Redlands (special shout out to CalTech G Noah Hicks for a truly unique 0/16 a/to ratio in that matchup).  The ghost of Henry Iba is tryly distressed by this team and their play.

As we know in the SLIAC anything is possible, but I would be stunned if the league champ is not one of the top 4 noted above and I would be floored if Westminster did not finish last.

[hopefan]

Westminster did not get mashed by Webster, did they?  Lost it in the last minute....

Must admit that Cal Tech's Noah Hicks performance vs Redlands leaves some room for improvement... let's call it a learning experience....

[GU1999]

Hope - glad to have the engagement on the SLIAC board!

The "smashed" remark was regarding CalTech.  They are 0-12 and the only team the Westmin has beaten.  While it is possible that Westmin loses out, I suspect they will probably pick off a SLIAC win or two, who knows maybe they will beat GU tomorrow.  Given what they have done so far it looks like a really down year for them. 

Still love their gym although I hope they have covered those dang windows at the top as the sun was blinding during late afternoon games back in the day.  Glad GU plays them at night.   

[GU1999]

Three games tonight:

Blackburn at Spalding
Big edge to Spalding in this one, especially coming off a very disappointing showing on Saturday.  They will not turn it over 40 times tonight.  Rather, they will control all aspects of this game and will stifel Blackburn.  Spalding 76 - Blackburn 49

Webster at Eureka
Eureka will play hard and will keep it close, but Webster will prove to be too much for the fighting Ronny Reagans. 
Webster 75 - Eureka 68

Greenville at Westminster
GU runs away with this one.  Last year the athleticism mismatch between these two squads led to two GU wins by an average of 33.5.  GU got more athletic and Westminster looks to have regressed. 

Greenville 133 - Westmin 95

 

[y_jack_lok]

Looks like Blackburn at Spalding has been postponed until tomorrow.

[y_jack_lok]

I just looked at the overall records of SLIAC men's teams. Lyon at 6-5 and Webster at 6-6 are the only teams without losing records. Massey has the SLIAC ranked #42 among all conferences and D3 Datacast has the SLIAC at #41. I'm guessing that with mostly conference games remaining throughout D3 those rankings are pretty much locked in for the season.

[GU1999]

I think that with last nights win at Westmin, GU has now joined the ranks of the even or better club at 6-6.
 

But, your point is spot on... it is a brutal league.  One which I don't think has ever won a NCAA tournament game. 

Some would think that such a reality would make it less than enjoyable.  That is WRONG.  There is still an automatic bid on the line and the kids play really hard.   

I did see that Massey had the bottom three Blackburn 372, Prin 373, Westmin 395 approaching absolute 0 in their rankings, but for context the zenith of the league checks in at, 280.      

[y_jack_lok]

I think that with last nights win at Westmin, GU has now joined the ranks of the even or better club at 6-6.

You are correct. When I checked the records before writing my post, GU was still showing at 5-6 (3-1 SLIAC). I didn't check to see if all last night's results were included.

Big game Saturday with GU coming to Webster.

[GU1999]

Always a battle between Barber and Bunch.

I think I like GU in this one.  Webster and GU tend to play games that are really physical with a lot of fouls called. Webster, surprisingly, is a worse FT shooting team than GU.  It will be very close, but I will give GU the nod by a few FTs. 

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ I commented on another board a week or so ago wondering how much emphasis coaches place on having their players practice free throws. It just seems that being successful at scoring uncontested points is worth putting some time and effort into getting good at.

[hopefan]

The SLIAC is pretty much same old same old, but the competition was so level, most any game was enjoyable.... Once Maryville left, I had no horse in the race.  It was so much fun just to pick the best game of any night and go see it.  No matter if it was far away up north at Eureka or Iowa Wez... or down at Spalding.... I could go!!! Here's trivia GU1999...I was likely the only SLIAC fan that travelled to see the initial Greenville at Grinnell game, system vs system.. A conversation with Coach Barber after the game unfortunately ended a very friendly relationship between the two of us..

[GU1999]

George is one of the nicest and most genuine people I know.  If you had an interaction which was anything less that preferred, I am sure he would want to repair it.  That said, typically, immediately after a particularly difficult loss... one where there were NCAA records set for fouls and free throws attempted, where his team did not react the way he would have preferred to the game conditions, and frankly had just got their doors blown off, its possible you may not have gotten the very best version of the losing coach even if you were approaching him in a upbeat and pleasant manner.  That said, reach out to him.  Mend the fence.  If you prefer, I could have him reach out to you.  He is a lovely person and would certainly not want any festering ill will.

And... I failed to remember that you were a big Maryville fan. 

One of my favorite playing days memories was from the 1998 conf tournament.  The gym was just so quiet when our little 6-SLIAC-win team knocked off the #1 seeded Maryville Juggernaut on their court in OT (91-89).  That Maryville team was loaded and only had lost one Regular season game.  And had easily had two of the best players in SLIAC history in Henry Shannon and John Jones.  And Henry, of course, is the best to ever do it in the SLIAC.  That said we went on to win all three games in that conference tournament by a total of 7 points.   (+4 in round 1, +2 in round 2, and +1 in the Championship game).  And yes, John Jones, caught a disgusting lob dunk over me that year... 

[GU1999]

My five winners today are...

Spalding
Greenville
Blackburn
MUW
Lyon