MBB: Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[Greek Tragedy]

Potential WIAC battles

River Falls and Whitewater can meet in the Sweet 16 and either could meet Oshkosh for a trip to the Final Four.

River Falls starts out with Bethel, hardly to be taken lightly. They tied St. Thomas for the MIAC title and beat St. John's (who beat St. Thomas) in the conference tourney.

Benedictine was semi-finalists last year. They lost 3 of their top 6, but are still very good. Wartburg won the IIAC as a 6th seed.

Not sure how River Falls, #1 in the Central region, gets Bethel.

Whitewater kicks things off against UMAC winner Northwestern. They won both the regular season and the conference tourney.

We all know about Augustana. They got a Pool C bid despite going 1-2 in the last week. They jumped Eau Claire, among others and lost to NCC in the CCIW tourney final.

The same can be said about St. Thomas. We are familiar with them as well. They won the National Championship last year, tied for 1st in the MIAC and fell in the semis of the conference tourney.

Oshkosh made history, basically, by becoming the 1st Pool C team with a .630 winning percentage and 10 losses. But, they are playing well, winning 5 of their last 6, I think, losing to River Falls in the WIAC Final.

Hope won the conference title again, but lost to Calvin in the tourney final. Hope gets to host and I heard that place is awesome to play in. It will be tough.  I believe Hope is hosting because the Washington U women are hosting and they have rights the 1st weekend. It could be a big break for Hope.

Washington U won the tough UAA that also includes Rochester and Emory.

Ripon is the little guy here, but they have scoring sensation Ty Sabin who can light up the joint, averaging over 30 pts a game. He single handidly won the MWC semifinal by scoring 50 and hitting the game winning 3 with 1 second left.

[ShineTime]

This is a shocker but to me this is a no brainer especially seeing the committee members must think like me based on what they did for whitewater.  It's pretty obvious that the higher powers believe the hawks have the ability to flip the switch in a hurry.  Their certainly not hurting for depth, athleticism, or talent.

[Smitty Oom]

Potential WIAC battles

River Falls and Whitewater can meet in the Sweet 16 and either could meet Oshkosh for a trip to the Final Four.

River Falls starts out with Bethel, hardly to be taken lightly. They tied St. Thomas for the MIAC title and beat St. John's (who beat St. Thomas) in the conference tourney.

Not sure how River Falls, #1 in the Central region, gets Bethel.

Bethel is a very talented basketball team. They play an entertaining, up beat tempo type of game. Their guards are lightning quick and very strong, although probably undersized. Contrary to what one would normally think, they rely mainly on driving to the hoop and posting up these shorter guards rather than shooting from the outside. These guards do a lot of the dirty work for them, including an "in your face" style of defense that pushes teams away from the basket and create turnovers. Will be fun to see how they matchup with one of the better teams in the nation, and if the Royals can control the tempo and fly around the gym in River Falls.

[AppletonRocks]

This is a shocker but to me this is a no brainer especially seeing the committee members must think like me based on what they did for whitewater.  It's pretty obvious that the higher powers believe the hawks have the ability to flip the switch in a hurry.  Their certainly not hurting for depth, athleticism, or talent.

Send us some reports from Salem, Shinetime.  Are they ready? 

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Just shared this on the MIAA board:

Did some comparison work on Hope vs. UWO.  Nice to find that they shared 5 common opponents this year, so I calculated stats between the two based solely on the games with those common opponents, which I've shared below. 

Hope - 7 games of data - 1 each with UW Stout, UWRF, UWLAX, and UWSP, and 3 games with Calvin
UWO - 10 games of data - 1 with Calvin, 2 each with UW Stout, UWLAX, and UWSP, and 3 games with UWRF

Offense	% 2pt	% 3pt	% FT
Hope	52.5	34.0	68.3
UWO	50.3	34.9	72.8
------
Defense	% 2pt	% 3pt
Hope	45.3	32.1
UWO	47.4	34.1
------
Rebounding	Team	Opp	Margin
Hope	31.4	38.1	-6.7
UWO	32.7	30.1	2.6
------
Scoring	Team	Opp	Margin
Hope	77.7	71.1	6.6
UWO	65.6	64.2	1.4
------
3 point shooting	Made/game
Hope	7.7
UWO	7.4
------
Ball Control	Blks/game	Stl/game	TO/Game
Hope	2.9	6.9	9.9
UWO	2.2	5.5	12.2
------
Assists	Per Game	A/TO
Hope	15.1	1.54
UWO	10.7	0.88
------
Vs. Opponents	Calvin	UWRF	UWSP
Hope	1 - 2	1 - 0	0 - 1
UWO	1 - 0	1 - 2	1 - 1
------
Vs. Opponents	UWLAX	UW Stout
Hope	1 - 0	1 - 0
UWO	1 - 1	1 - 1
------
Record vs common
Hope	4 - 3
UWO	5 - 5

[Gregory Sager]

Nice work, FDF!

[fredfalcon]

Dutchman--good analysis. I would add Massey ratings showing Osh at 9, Hope at 23. It looks like a tight game.

[UWSAlum]

WIAC announced the All-Conference teams today

Wasn't posted on WIAC page yet but wissports.net had the link

http://www.wissports.net/news_article/show/763298?referrer_id=519407

[AppletonRocks]

Thanks to Flying Dutch for the effort above.  Tulips for you +1 

[fredfalcon]

Bethel is a guard strong team as shown by 3 MIAC all conference selections, all guards:  Hall, Tussler, and Wojta in first, second, third team selections, respectively. Congrats to them.

[fredfalcon]

Wouldn't you think all "7 D1 level" WW players would be All Conference? I do think Andre Brown got screwed.

[badgerwarhawk]

Just home from vacation.  I see I've missed a lot.  Cool we got three teams in especially considering the Titans essentially laid new ground work.  Tough luck for the BluGolds.

I'm pleased with the number of our players recognized though Brown would have been a nice inclusion.  Hard to argue with the selections however.  They're all really nice players so Brown might have been the victim of numbers.  He's got two years yet.  He'll be on it before it's over. 

Hope has to have one of if not the best basketball facility in all of DIII.  I was told the founder of Amway is a Hope graduate and made a substantial donation to fund it.  It's really something and Oshkosh people are going to be impressed.  It has a definite arena feel about it. Not only that but Hope College and Holland, Mi. might be the only place in the country with heated sidewalks.  I was there one year for the women's final four and we had 6-8 inches of snow overnight.  The sidewalks around the facility were damp and bare.

Good luck to all three WIAC teams.   


P.S.  I've heard from a very reliable source that we have an additional 7 D1 level transfers coming next year. 

[Greek Tragedy]

Nice work, Dutch!  +1

[WUPHF]

Hope has to have one of if not the best basketball facility in all of DIII.  I was told the founder of Amway is a Hope graduate and made a substantial donation to fund it. 

I actually looked this up earlier in the week when trying to decide if I was going to Holland for the weekend.

Wikipedia says the founder was a Northwoods graduate.

Others in the family graduated from Calvin including the now famous Secretary of Education.

I cannot find a connection to Hope other than the donation.

[fredfalcon]

Which is a better gauge, regional rankings or top 25 rankings? I found 11 regionally unranked teams in the tourney. Obviously, their records got them in . And it looks like Massey rankings are a better gauge than d3 top 25. I'm filling out a d3 pickem bracket and I need help!