MBB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[hasanova]

The EMU/GC game was competitive.  EMU led early 12-7, but Guilford went ahead 15-14 and never trailed after that.  It was tied a few times in the first half, but a Ben Strong basket with about 2 seconds to go gave GC a 33-30 halftime lead.  The Quakers jumped out quickly in the 2nd and led 40-30.  Poor FT shooting by GC (21 of 38, no surprise there) allowed the Royals to keep hanging around.  It was Guilford up 61-59 (I think) with about 7 minutes to go when GC went on a run and led 74-59.  Some good late 3-point shooting by EMU and missed FT's by the Quakers in the last few minutes contributed to the final 7-point margin.  Lentz fouled out with a few minutes to go, but had 13 points.  Other Royals were Sager 15, Parkes 13 and Whiting 11.  Strong had a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds, but the story was Jordan Snipes with 31 points (10/17 from the field, 4/7 on some very timely threes and 7/11 on FT's).  Good, supportive contingent on hand for the Royals.  A hard-fought, clean game by both teams.  BC in town tomorrow .... Go Quakers!  Safe travels for EMU to Emory.

[jeloesel]

Roanoke had no great problems systematically deconstructing Hampden-Sydney, 72-63.  It wasn't really that close, as Roanoke missed some free throws at the end and Matt Green made some threes.  The Maroon defense was much better than they showed against Guilford.  Although Kaase scored 20, most of those were off offensive rebounds.  Roanoke double teamed effectively on the half-court and the Tigers had trouble hitting threes.  Shrader had a very nice game with 21 points on 7-10 shooting.  However, the margin should have been much greater had Butler (1-7) and LaPorte (2-10) been on target a bit better.  A.J. Dowell performed well against his former teammates with 12 points in 20 minutes of play.  

Lynchburg next.  The Maroon need to stay focused on the job at hand.

[justafan02]

VWC 78    RMC 65  (I think that was final score)

[mybleedinghands]

Looks like I was wrong when i stated earlier that maybe we should start playing the freshmen and sophomores. One of the few times I'll admit i was made to sound like a dumba$$, but the upper classmen have officially made me sound like one, for now.

LC won 62-60 on a game winning mid range jumper by kwame safo with 1.3 seconds left on the clock. After going down 10 at the half, i wasn't looking too optimistic about the outcome. W&L went up by 14 with 17:50 to go in the second half, and i was beginning to be even less optimistic, but we slowly (and i do mean very slowly) chipped in on the lead and took the lead on the game winning jumper. Matt Sweeney has been taking the phrase "stepping up" to a new level since the departure of Pete Manos and has been making an extremly strong case for being worthy of all-odac status, averaging 18.2 points on 56.8% shooting overall (42/74) and 50% from 3 range (12/24). Greg Bienemann, Andy Albright, and Matt Sweeney receive my game ball. Bienemann dominated and finished with 20 points and 13 boards, a hell of a lot better game than what he had against us last year. This kid definitely has future all-odac first team written all over him. Andy had an amazing effor tand one of his best games of the year thus far, finishing with 15 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists (zero turnovers) and 4 steals helping him stay well on pace to take down ralph baker as the ODAC's career steals king. Matt Sweeney finished with 21 points on 9-13 shooting voerall and 3/6 from three range. He also chipped in with 3 boards and a steal and some good defnese to go along with the great opffensive performance.

Now we need to stay focued on the task at ahnd, which is trying to take down the Maroons on their home court. We can't get too excited over finally winning a second game and have a letdown against Roanoke, who just beat top 25 team in Hampden Sydney.

[jeloesel]

Roanoke doubles down on Kaase.  LaPorte played a very solid game on defense, pulling down 15 boards and blocking three shots--two on one sequence.

[mybleedinghands]

talk about a letdown for macon. after manhandling the tigers on the tigers home court, macon goes and gets (apparently) handled easily by vwc on their own home court. VWC is a good team, but I certainly wasnt expecting macon to lose at home to them. Looks like Wansley either played bad, or VWC hounded him on defense, either way 6 points on 2/7 shooting wont help his all-american or odac POY status.

[maroons6thman]

Defense, Defense, Defense.  Wow.  The intensity and activity on each defensive possession was quite impressive.  Curis Peery starts at center for Roanoke (perhaps they played against each other in high school?? Salem, C. Spring?) and impresses as he has the entire season from the floor - a solid 8 points, but it was the job he (and others) did against Kaase, pairing up with a second defender throughout the game, that made a big difference.  The doubling down on Kaase worked I thought very well, although as Jim noted he did get his 20...but it almost always came on time and caught Kaase seemingly further away from the basket than he wanted to be.  A few shots were forced (his shooting was 8 of 18) or kick it back out, and the rotation back out of the double teams were also impressive, as very few shots went uncontested.  Shooting for HSC for the game, 32.8%.  Roanoke ran their offense with patience similar to what I saw at times before the Christmas break, took good shots and stayed way away from silly ones.  The first of the bench guards (Shrader/Dowell - thank you, HSC, for letting him get away) played within the offense so well today - 33 points.   Also...........a REBOUNDING edge?  It goes RC's way, 40 to 38, with a hard working LaPorte leading the way with 15.  (His stat line, other than the shooting - 9 points, 15 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 blocks, 2 steals.)  Amazing.  This is the squad that lost to Guilford by 18?  To Wesleyan by 17?  That had trouble all season blocking out, rebounding, with defense?  Running the offense?  Most everything was tremendously improved, looked like a completely different team.  Quite a turnaround from previous games, looked like quite a bit of effort to return to fundamentals and to play with new intensity.  Hope it all continues....

[Matt Barnhart (kid)]

Crazy day in the ODAC.

I went 5-1 to start the week (pick 'em wise), but went 1-4 today.  Yuck.

[Matt Barnhart (kid)]

New poll posted.


Previous Question: What was more attention-grabbing from Wednesday night's action?

VWC's Adair hitting 14-of-17 FGs in the double-OT win - 7 (33.3%)
Guilford drubbing Roanoke by 18 points - 2 (9.5%)
H-SC losing (at home) to R-MC by 15 points - 10 (47.6%)
W&L and EMU combining for 81 free throw attempts - 2 (9.5%)
   
Total Votes: 21

[jeloesel]

The Roanoke Times carried a story about Roanoke's win over Hampden-Sydney featuring A.J. Dowell, who switched to the winning side. 

http://www.roanoke.com/sports/college/wb/48493

That's a nice human interest storyline for the story, but the bigger story on offense was Ben Shrader, who broke out of his recent shooting slump.  There was little the Tigers could do to stop him, although they tried.

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[jeloesel]

Looks like I was wrong when i stated earlier that maybe we should start playing the freshmen and sophomores. One of the few times I'll admit i was made to sound like a dumba$$, but the upper classmen have officially made me sound like one, for now.

Oh Scottie.  Whether or not you like to admit it, IMHO you sound like a dumba$$ much of the time here on the ODAC board.  I would vote you First Team All-Amercian on the Dumba$$ Team, give you an Olympic gold medal for your outstanding dumba$$ performance, and present you with a Life-Time Achievement Emmy for your dumbo posts.   

That being said, any ideas why coach Swickwrath decide to ignore your perceptive advice and went ahead with his own game plan?   

[mybleedinghands]

Oh Scottie.  Whether or not you like to admit it, IMHO you sound like a dumba$$ much of the time here on the ODAC board.  I would vote you First Team All-Amercian on the Dumba$$ Team, give you an Olympic gold medal for your outstanding dumba$$ performance, and present you with a Life-Time Achievement Emmy for your dumbo posts.   

As the famous Napoleon Dynamite would say: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[eagleslam]

Wow.  After executing the gameplan so well against H-SC, beating a team whose manager said we had no chance and wore the good luck suit, and playing well against VWC, the Eagles lose to the Wasps.  Clay Michael had 27 points and 12 rebounds.  The Eagles shot 57.4% and the Wasps shot 28.4%.  BC was 20-27 (74.1%) and E&H was 10-16 (62.5%) from the line.  One guess as to which team was 0-2 from the arc and which was 17-79 (21.5%).  But it wasn't even the three point shooting that doomed the Eagles.  BC had 31 turnovers to E&H's 18.  I knew going into this game that a young team like the Eagles were susceptible to a bunch of turnovers due to the style of play.  The loss is not a total shock because of that, but it is a surprise.  I didn't think that many would be committed.  Only time will tell, and I hope I am wrong, but this may end up being a game that comes back to haunt this team.

[jeloesel]

As Maroons6thman noted, Peery played a good game.  He put a couple of nice moves on Kaase.  I expect we'll see a lot more of Peery this season.

[mybleedinghands]

Wow.  After executing the gameplan so well against H-SC, beating a team whose manager said we had no chance and wore the good luck suit, and playing well against VWC, the Eagles lose to the Wasps.  Clay Michael had 27 points and 12 rebounds.  The Eagles shot 57.4% and the Wasps shot 28.4%.  BC was 20-27 (74.1%) and E&H was 10-16 (62.5%) from the line.  One guess as to which team was 0-2 from the arc and which was 17-79 (21.5%).  But it wasn't even the three point shooting that doomed the Eagles.  BC had 31 turnovers to E&H's 18.  I knew going into this game that a young team like the Eagles were susceptible to a bunch of turnovers due to the style of play.  The loss is not a total shock because of that, but it is a surprise.  I didn't think that many would be committed.  Only time will tell, and I hope I am wrong, but this may end up being a game that comes back to haunt this team.

Nice way to "quote" me out of context. I said you guys had no chance IF we played as well as we did agianst VWC and EMU. See the quote below [and notice your lack of reading comprehension skills]:

No offense to BC, but if we play the way we have the past 2 games and correct some mistakes,  BC doesn't stand a chance on our home court. IF (key word being IF here!) we do that, BC better hope we are still rather tired from yesterday and my outfit from the past 2 games disappears!