MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[frodotwo]

So do they reserve tickets if you call? I certainly don't want to drive 2-1/2 hrs to sneak in & sit on Tom's lap

[Just Bill]

So do they reserve tickets if you call? I certainly don't want to drive 2-1/2 hrs to sneak in & sit on Tom's lap

I don't think the 2,000 other fans in attendence would favor that situation either.

[Greek Tragedy]

So do they reserve tickets if you call? I certainly don't want to drive 2-1/2 hrs to sneak in & sit on Tom's lap

It would not be a good idea to sit on Uncle Rabbit's lap

[yet another Super Troopers reference]

[Greek Tragedy]

TICKET INFORMATION

I've been assured several times that plenty of tickets will be available.

Apparently, WW fans like walkup sales because the guy I talked to didn't think you needed to be at Williams Center any earlier than 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before the game to get a ticket.

If you want to get a ticket earlier, you can go to the University Center (near the library) and buy them there.

I'll be going early to get dinner, so maybe I'll stop by and see if tix are at the university center around the 5 pm time...

Anyone want me to get a ticket for them, send me a PM or email.  Also, include your phone number so I can call or text you with any other information.

[Pat Coleman]

... guess everyone went to the game.

[Greek Tragedy]

With Point starting the week #4 in the West Region and falling tonight, they are thrown into Pool C.  And, with everyone and their mother losing, like Amherst, Mass-Dartmouth, Buena Vista, Capital, Wooster and Washington U., among others, Point's chances of getting a Pool C bid now look in jeopardy, IMO.

[Greek Tragedy]

Point falls 75-71 to Whitewater tonight.

Several things killed Point tonight...

1.) Free throws.  It's hard to believe that they led the nation in free throw shooting the last two seasons and now it seems they can't make a shot.  Sure, they only went to the line 14 times, but they missed five big free throws.

2.)  Their inability to get a big rebound killed us.  The rebounding margin was only two (to my surprise), but Whitewater got 10 offensive rebounds and more often than not, they turned those into points.

3.)  We couldn't get a stop if our life depended on it.  We were so close several times down the stretch and all we needed to do is get a stop.  Koski had an open lane several times with the shot clock running down and it's unbelievable how easy it was to get a near-uncontested layup.

Though hard to admit, the better team won tonight.  Whitewater made the shots when they had to.  Point played great in stretches but couldn't get over the hump.  I did think the refs favored the home team a little, but hey, I'm a Pointer fan! lol :-)

With a lot of top seeds and highly regionally ranked teams falling tonight, it should really make Point nervous about getting a Pool C bid now.  It's going to be a long weekend waiting for Monday's selections to come out.

Off the top of my head, I want to say that Whitewater and St. Thomas were the only teams to take care of business in our region.  Occidental and Cal. Lutheran both lost in the SCIAC semis, while Buena Vista also feel in their conference tourney. 

West Region
1. UW-Whitewater  21-4  19-4 .492 .540 (WIAC):  Def. Stout 78-67 in WIAC quarters; Def. Superior 77-73 OT in WIAC semis; Plays Stevens Point in WIAC final on Sat.
2. St. Thomas  21-4  19-3 .499 .522 (MIAC):  Def. Bethel 69-68  in MIAC semis; plays Gustavus Adolphus in MIAC final on Sat. (?)
3. Occidental  20-4  13-3 .531 .527 (SCIAC):  Def. La Verne 67-57; LOST Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 66-62 in SCIAC semis.
4. UW-Stevens Point  20-5  18-5 .575 .525 (WIAC):  Def. La Crosse 74-66 OT in WIAC quarters; def. Eau Claire 88-65 in WIAC semis; plays at Whitewater in WIAC final on Sat.
5. Buena Vista  20-5  16-3 .496 .528 (IIAC):  Def. Dubuque 91-86 in IIAC semis; plays Loras in IIAC final.
6. Cal Lutheran  20-4  16-4 .498 .529 (SCIAC):  Def. Ponoma-Pitzer 70-51; LOST to Pomona-Pitzer 54-44 in SCIAC semis.
7. UW-Platteville  19-6  17-5 .526 .535 (WIAC):  LOST to Eau Claire 84-80 in WIAC quarters.
8. Loras  19-6  16-4 .518 .535 Def. Coe in 82-64 IIAC semis; plays Buena Vista in IIAC final.

With Oxy losing in the semis and Whitewater and St. Thomas getting Pool A bids, Point could move up to the #1 slot in the West Region, but they'll have wait their turn with a lot of others going down tonight.

[OshDude]

While we're waiting for our two teams to be scheduled, all-conference teams, anyone? Here's mine, in no particular order.

P. Miller (COY)

Goodwin (POY)
Beyer
Skemp
D. Hill
Marsh
Seckar-Anderson
Beamish
J. Smith
McKay
Webb/or almost any of the HM guys, really.

HM: Mane, M. Miller, Hicklin, P. Rortvedt, Hanson, Vernon, J. Johnson, Manor, Lohoff, Shea (about five others who deserve it as much as a few of these guys)

[badgerwarhawk]

Everyone here is familiar with WHITEWATER'S better players.  Players like Goodwin, Vernon, King, Perry, Koski, Kolinski and McKay get talked about regularly.  Lately a few of the lesser knowns like Negri,Hunter and Brezovar have made significant contributions to the team's success.  But one group of players never get talked about and only infrequently see the floor.  Yet it could be argued that their contributions are every bit as important.  That's the players lingering at the end of the bench and constituting the scout team in practice.  They practice hard every day mimicing the opponent's offense and defense preparing the guys we'll all talk about after it's over.  So here's to Justin Williams, Taylor Groth, Ryan Strauss, Justin Berry and Tom Anderson.  Thanks guys we couldn't have done it without you.   

[John Gleich]

Amen to that comment about the guys at the end of the bench BW.  So true!



re: last night... Props to WW.  They did what they needed to do to get the victory, played tough, played smart, and didn't beat themselves.

Saying that, though, last night was a missed opportunity for Point.  They had one of their best shooting displays last night, even WITHOUT the services of Pete Rortvedt for much of the night.

Come Monday, I think Point will still get a bid... they should be on top of the West region for teams as yet without a bid.  But I think Point has some things to work on to make this NCAA trip worthwhile.

Practice Monday should start off, for sure, with 5 things.

First off... Ballhandling and passing.  In Point's last two losses, they have killed themselves with unforced turnovers.  Last night didn't start very well... the first two times down the floor, the ball never got past the free throw line... before Point turned it over.  It led to a quick 7-0 lead by WW.  Point had 11 TO's, just one over their average, yes, but at least 4 of them were unforced and the majority were before Point even had a look at the basket.  Point shot 58.8% for the game, 68% in the first half!  AND THEY LOST!  Shooting like this, every possession matters, especially in a close game, and they just gave the ball away.

Secondly, Point should work on transition defense.  Whitewater is the top scoring offense in the country (EDIT) Conference, and this is due, in large part, to their athleticism.  Though the box score doesn't reflect it (due to the fact that many of these points were secondary break situations) WW got the ball and went, and simply beat Point down the floor. 

Third,  Point needs to work on defensive rebounding.  This is heart, effort, and positioning.  Kori Vernon and Billy Kolinske were men amongst boys out there, with 4 offensive rebounds apiece.  ... now, I know that Point has become rather effective at blocking shots of late... they're averaging over 3 blocks per game... and they DID get 4 blocks last night.  But look who they came from.  Two came from the smallest guy on the court, Khalif El-Amin.  These were NOT interior blocked shots.  Also, Matt Moses got a block.  Again, not in the interior.  Only one interior blocked shot for Point came from Jerome Wotachek (who played some meaningful minutes, but more as a perimeter player than an interior one... he was 3/3 from the field from 15+ feet, with no rebounds.  Nice line from an offensive standpoint, but you need for 6'8" guy to get some boards!) 

Here's a pretty telling stat...  for Point's bench guys, who played 32% of Point's total minutes, they got just 4 rebounds.  And these were by Matt Moses and Ross Rortvedt, the two smallest guys off the bench!  Compare this with 10 rebounds (8 from Kolinske) for 4 guys off the bench from Whitewater who played just 24% of the minutes.  OUCH.

And the thing was that Point would GET the stop they needed... and then give up the offensive rebound!  Whitewater got 10 second chance points.  Cut that even in half, and it's a completely different ball game.

Fourth, Point needs to take pride again in their free throw shooting.  I don't know what has happened.  I don't know if they collectively need to see a pshrink, get hypnotized, shed the demons...  I DO know that each and every one of those guys should take some time, every day, apart from practice and relax, sit back, and visualize the perfect free throw.  Before you go to bed, before you picture hitting the last shot to win the national championship, visual being down 1 in that same game, with a 1 and 1 situation, and knock down two perfect free throws to win.  This is mental, not physical.  This team was the best in the country, in ALL college basketball last year.  They set the D-III record.  Sure, they don't have Jon Krull.  But as a team, they shot BETTER than Jon... at an 83% clip.  Free throw shooting is mental, not physical.  Everybody can do it.  6 of this year's guys were above 80% last year, with two above 90%.  This year, it's just two above 80%.

Finally, Point needs to work on ball screens.  Platteville killed us with is last Saturday, and Whitewater won last night because we couldn't defend it.  Time and time and time again, WW guards turned the corner and either got a layup or dumped to a wide open post when the help slid over.  I understand how difficult it is.  It's been around since guys have been able to dribble the basketball, and if it didn't work, then teams would stop doing it.  But it does work if a defense isn't ready for it, doesn't communicate, and/or doesn't execute a gameplan for defending it.

One of the biggest things that Whitewater was doing was overloading one side and then dribbling AWAY from it with a ball screen at the top of the key.  That puts a whole bunch of defenders guarding a man, but largely air, on the now weak-side.  Those guys need to drop into the lane and allow the weakside defender guarding the post on the weakside block to step up and help if the guy receiving the ballscreen is able to turn the corner.  But the biggest responsibility falls on the defender of the screener.  They need to communicate.  Yell, scream, let your teammate know that a screen is coming.  And then either hedge and MAKE the ballhandler go wide and not simply turn the corner, or get skinny and give your defender room to get behind you as you pinch the screener to cut the screener off from the roll.  But Point didn't do either.  They were behind the defender, but all the ballhandler did was go a bit wider, and they still had a wide open driving lane.

Even bigger a loss than the game last night may have been the loss of Rortvedt (maybe).  He rolled his ankle pretty bad and I have no idea if his services will be available come next week if Point gets a bid.  He may not have been much of an offensive presence last night, but in the 21 minutes he was in there, he scored 5 much-needed second half points and got 9 huge rebounds.  He's such a competitor, I expect he'll try and play if he's at all able.

Good luck to UWW!  There could well be a 4th meeting between these two teams later in the NCAA's!

[Greek Tragedy]

Here's mine.

As BW said, I think...top three vote getters get POTY consideration and then those get voted on again for POTY.

Miller (COTY)

Skemp gets it.
Goodwin
Beyer

Marsh
Hicklin
Hill
Seckar-Anderson
Webb
J. Smith
Shea

[John Gleich]

For those WIACer's who are online... Hoopsville is on right now (link on the front page).  Coach Paul Combs will be on the show later (not sure when yet, but they've got a bunch of interviews over the next three hours!

[Z71Warhawk]

Everyone here is familiar with WHITEWATER'S better players.  Players like Goodwin, Vernon, King, Perry, Koski, Kolinski and McKay get talked about regularly.  Lately a few of the lesser knowns like Negri,Hunter and Brezovar have made significant contributions to the team's success.  But one group of players never get talked about and only infrequently see the floor.  Yet it could be argued that their contributions are every bit as important.  That's the players lingering at the end of the bench and constituting the scout team in practice.  They practice hard every day mimicing the opponent's offense and defense preparing the guys we'll all talk about after it's over.  So here's to Justin Williams, Taylor Groth, Ryan Strauss, Justin Berry and Tom Anderson.  Thanks guys we couldn't have done it without you.   

So true BW....

[cubs]

Finally, Point needs to work on ball screens. 

Ding, ding, ding!!!!!

How do you think Oshkosh managed to knock off Point twice this season?  Look at the shooting lines for both Miller and Schrimpf in those games.

[badgerwarhawk]

My ten:  (no particular order except POY)

Dan Beyer, EC  (POY) (Senior, 1st in scoring, 3rd in rebounding, 10th in assists)
Matt Goodwin, WW
Jeff Skemp, PL
Dwight Hill, SUP
Tony Mane, LAX
Steve Hicklin, SP
DJ Marsh, OSH
Myles McKay, WW
Rob Perry, WW