MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[magicman]

Blake Schultz led the way for the Ephs with 20 pts. Troy Whittington with a huge game had 19 pts, 11 rebounds and 5 blocks. James Wang had 17 pts and Alex Rubin finished with 11.

Matt Moses led the Pointers and was the game's high scorer with 22 pts and 7 rebounds. Jared Jenkins had 17 pts, Dan Tillema scored 15 pts and Louis Hurd added 10 pts.

Williams can hold their head high as they completed a great season and all D3 fans were treated to a super championship game with 2 outstanding teams fighting it out to the end. Congratulations to both teams for their efforts. 

[Titan Q]

Congratulations to the Pointers.  That was a really impressive performance.  I thought Stevens Point was in big trouble down 9 (or whatever that Williams lead was), but the Pointers played with a lot of heart and a lot of discipline to get back in it.

A much deserved national championship.  Enjoy, Pointer fans!

[UWP SID]

Congratulations to UW-Stevens Point.

That makes the WIAC 9-1 all-time in NCAA III championship games!

[cubs]

Congrats Pointers and all their backers on here (Old School, Point Special, frodotwo, etc.)!!!

[bulk19]

Congrats to the Pointers - make more room in the trophy case, guys!

(The WIAC was well-represented this weekend in Salem - Stout's Julia Hirssig, the 2010 Jostens Trophy winner, was scheduled to be there. And of course, the Pointers. Oh, and I forgot, too - UWEC! Coach Semling, a former Blugold QB!  )

[Ralph Turner]

Congratulations to the Pointers!

That was quite a run in the second half to come from a 10-point deficit.

[buf]

Congrats to Point!

They just showed the score on TV (during state tourney).  They had it up for awhile, listing leading scorers, etc.  Semling has got to love that.

[chmarx]

Congratulations to Point on a great season.  You make us all proud.

[ephoops]

Congrats to UW-SP.

The Pointers put forth a great defensive effort over the last 10 minutes to win the National Championship.

Your '04 team had two great players that carried the load in the finals.  Today, it was a total team effort.  Moses is one tough SOB...

How about the two teams doing it again next March in Salem...

[ephoops]

30-1 ?  overrated-look at their schedule. can't do it against tougher competition. That's twice now, right?

Hey Sparky... 

Next time you crawl out from under your rock ask the players if they thought Williams is overrated...

UW-SP was the better team today... 

UW-SP is a classy team and a classy program...  Follow their example...

[nescac1]

Clearly the two best teams in the country went head-to-head today.  I think if these teams played ten times, Ephs would win between three and five times, they just got outplayed by a hair today by a really great TEAM.  WSP played a heck of game, playing tough and making the key shots when they mattered.  I was very impressed with their defense, especially their perimeter defense which gave the Ephs very few easy looks at three, very different story from the Guilford game.  The offense was also very impressive, not so much any one player (although a few had great games) as the way they worked as a unit.  I've never seen any team get so many clear, open looks against this edition of Williams, and it was a result of great, tough off-the-ball screening and ALWAYS making the extra pass, the Ephs definitely lost track of shooters at times due to all the sophisticated movement by WSP.  And when the guys were open, they just nailed every key shot.   Very disciplined and selfless team.  It hurts as an Eph fan to give up the big lead when a national title was in their grasp, but WSP earned it with clutch three's and free throws (usually, that's the Ephs' domain) and of course great, great defense.  One of these days we'll figure out how to knock off a WIAC team in Salem!  Congrats to the Pointers, hope to see you guys again one of these days and take another shot at it ...

[Greek Tragedy]

Thanks for the kind words, Williams fans.

What a great day to be a Pointer and what a great weekend of Final Four basketball.  People there, fans of teams or not, saw THREE great games.  The first game of the weekend was insane with no one stopping no one and the game going back and forth.  Williams was 16-28 from 3. 

I was excited to see this game because I wanted to see some stud guys and I did.  Sanborn is a monster.  Henson didn't have a great game for Guilford, but showed his shooting in the all-star game.  The trio of Wang, Schultz and Rubin for Williams in the semis was awesome to watch as they rained down 3s in a high scoring affair.

Point's game was crazy.  We were up 38-19 at the break, but a solid RMC team wouldn't go down without a fight and cut it to 8 with 3 minutes to go.  Man, I was sweating bullets.  The Dawgs were able to pull it out though.

The all-star game game was fun as well.  Sanborn and Henson went crazy and also got to see the likes of Braswell, Montgomery and Co. play pickup ball with not too much defense.  It was also good to see some "local" products like Dustin Mitchell, Jon Hoch (Carroll) and Rick Bowen doing the coaching.

Lastly, and obviously the best, was a super Final pitting two great teams.  I thought Point was dead in the water when they went down by 10 with 11 minutes to go. At that time, Point just couldn't stop anything Williams was doing.  Louis Hurd had no answer for Whittington.  He was a monster inside.  I think Point played man-to-man even down low because of the outside shooting threats of Rubin, Schultz and Wang.  I guess they'd rather give up the two than the 3.

Great move by Semling to go small when we were down because at the time the only shooters on the floor were Moses and Jenkins.  Hoelzel and Krull didn't look to take too many shots and Harris wasn't on target too much, so Semling's five guys were Moses, Jenkins, Harris, Dan Tillema and Hurd.  The latter two came up with some huge buckets. 

Williams has an awesome team.  I will not argue that at all.  They have three studs in Wang, Schultz and Whittington.  They were 21-38 from the field, while we "held" Rubin to just 11 points on 3-5 shooting (though all three fgs were 3s.  he was 6-12 from behind the arc in the semis).  Their offense is just awesome and their defense was actually pretty good too.  Yeah, we shot 49% (as did they), but we sure had to work for them. Williams offense really clicked and we had problems stopping their drives (staying one on one, previously mentioned, not much "help defense") and, of course, Whittington.

Anyway, awesome weekend, especially since we came out on top.  No game was a dud and it was basically down to the wire in all three tourney games, and even the all-star game that went into overtime (3 minute overtime!)...

[Greek Tragedy]

Moses won the Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four, but Jared Jenkins could've easily won it was well.

He had a great game in the semis 17 pts, 4 rebs, 3 asts and 2 blks on 6-11 shooting.  Moses had a less than stellar game going for just 2-8 for 11 points.

Moses had 22 pts and 7 boards in the final while Jenkins went for 17 pts and just 1 reb.  He was also 3 for 3 from 3-pt land and "won" the hustle board with 3 assists, 2 blks, and 2 steals.  Moses also had 3 assists.

I'm not saying Moses didn't deserve it, because he did, but I just wanted to give some love to Jenkins as well!    Can they have co-MOP??? 

Man, I can't wait to watch the game when I get home. (I'm at a hotel in Ohio!)

[BBGUY]

All American team- No Moses?  Not even on the 4th team? Yes, DJ Marsh is a good player but on a very, very weak team.  They maybe won 10-11 games this year but none against WWater or SPoint. Moses has demonstrated strong ability and should have received some recognition. . In fact, I believe Moses threw in around 33 points against Oshkosh this year in Oshkosh! I think one of the factors in the selection should be how a player integrates themselves within a winning team. Those two guys from Williams certainly demonstrate this ability. If it wasn't for Moses showing his All American ability in the playoffs Point may not have made it all the way.

[magicman]

D3Hoops announced this year's All American Teams prior to Saturday's National Championship Game.

D.J. Marsh UW-Oshkosh was named to the Second Team

Dustin Mitchell  UW-Whitewater was named to the Fourth team

Kind of strange that no one from the National Champion Pointers was on the list. I guess when you play well as a TEAM and no one puts up gaudy numbers it kind of hurts the chances of being selected for individual awards. Still thought that Matt Moses could have found a spot somewhere here. I'm sure if the Stevens Point players had a choice they would rather hoist the Walnut and Bronze than be named to one of these teams. And Moses receiving the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four over 3 other All Americans who played in the Final Four is enough vindication.     

No surprise for the Player of the Year honors as junior guard Steve Djurickovic of Carthage College won that award.


Here is the link to see the complete list:

http://www.d3hoops.com/all-american/menallam10.htm