MBB: Midwest Conference

[WahooThunder]

Hats off to Lawrence for a great performance tonight.  It was one of those games where it was a shame somebody had to lose.  I must admit the Vikings were tougher than I thought they would be and Kroeger in particular is one heck of a player.

[The Roop]

OK, it's time to take the poll down as people keep voting for Lawrence to lose in the 1st round after the game is over. Kinda silly to do that folks.     

[Greek Tragedy]

LU goes down in OT (game story)

HERE is the boxscore.

Great first game in Whitewater tonight, at least as a semi-neutral observer.  Lawrence came out and controlled most of the first half (I missed about 8 minutes due to traffic) and was up as many as 11 in the first half.  However, Wheaton chipped away and cut it to one at the intermission, 34-33.  Because of m "connections" (lol), I got the boxscore for the first half and it amazed me that LU was up one, but was outrebounded 17 to 8!  Weile had 8 pts and 8 rebs at the break, while Page and Kroeger had 9 each and Hurley and Rosenblatt had 6 apiece for LU.  Kent Raymond had a very pedestrian 4 pts, but also had 4 boards and 4 assists.  Nothing special in my book, at least.

Niether team held a double digit lead in the 2nd half with LU holding the lead for the better part of the 2nd 20-minutes.  Wheaton tied it when Raymond hit a midrange jumper with about 5 seconds to go.  Hurley's runner from near the 3-pt line didn't fall and we went into overtime. 

Wheaton took over from there and never gave up the lead after getting the tip off and scoring.  Overall, it was obvious that Weile was unstoppable.  Page and Hurley could do nothing to prevent him from scoring.  He went for 28 and 11.  Raymond didn't really impress me, but he hit the big shot at the end of regulation and he was seemingly at the line every possesion in OT.  23 and 10, along with 6 dimes is a pretty good stat line, but his first half was 2-9 and no free throws.  In the 2nd half and OT, he was 2-7 and 14-14 from the line.  Panner also had a "quiet" night, going for 22 pts.

Kroeger stood out as he led 4 Vikings in double figures.  Hurley and Page combined for 31 pts and 10 boards, but it was the interior defense that was lacking.

Two things that killed Lawrence was rebounding (-17) and giving up 14 offensive rebounds.  Another thing that stood out was their poor free throw shooting.  They were 17-26, but the timing of those misses hurt as well.  Instead of gaining confidence by hitting TWO free throws to tie the game, several times, LU would miss one of them and they'd still be down.  Wheaton would then come down and make it a 3-pt game.  Tough to miss FTs in a game like this.

Great efforts by the LU players, but Wheaton was just too big for them and THEY hit their FTs when it counted the most.  27-31 is pretty good.

I heard Wheaton had already beaten Loras this year, but they really took it to Whitewater tonight, look for a great battle on Saturday.

[The Roop]

I heard Wheaton had already beaten Loras this year, but they really took it to Whitewater tonight, look for a great battle on Saturday.

No disrespect to Loras, because they are in a tough conference, but did Whitewater come out swinging or did they play like they had a bye ??

I've been there several times for tournament games and, regardless of the coach at the time, they always played like they were handed those games by the seeding alone. I've also seen them tear teams up in later rounds when they hosted those. I guess I will never understand why a school with an enrollment of 10,000+ can't fill a 2200 seat gym for the tournament.

Elite 8 game vs. LeMoyne-Owen in the 80s.......... Had "Will Call" tickets through some connections at Beloit College. Got there and it wasn't even close to full. No, it's not the D1 Elite 8, but how do you not sell out for a game like that ??

Too many parties to live up to the John Belushi/Animal House legend perhaps...........

[usee]

Kent Raymond stunk it up as far as actually making real shots goes, not free throws.

That is some real sour grapes for a first post. If you are going to be that narrow and bitter, you are better off not posting at all.

[Greek Tragedy]

I guess I will never understand why a school with an enrollment of 10,000+ can't fill a 2200 seat gym for the tournament.

Lack of experience hurt Whitewater.  As I said in the WIAC board, no one besides Goodwin and McKay looked like they wanted to shoot.  No player aside from those two took more than 5 shots.  I was really surprised they didn't take a time out after White's 3-pt. shot...I don't think anyone knew what to do.

As for attendence, also mentioned in WIAC board, it was a big crowd and the student section was full and standing the whole time, but the Loras crowd was still louder.  Two years ago amazed me as people were buying tickets right before the game.  At Point, I took a day off just to stand in line at the beginning of the week (Tuesday) for the weekend's games.  The two sectional games were split as they cleared out the gym after the Carroll-Hope game and we still sold out Quandt.  There was still plenty of room on the ends at Whitewater this weekend.  Drinking is apparently more important.

[The Roop]

Hey Tom. Did you know that all 4 sectional hosts are still alive in the tournament................

[The Roop]

OK. I guess that's only funny if you read other boards.

[sac]

I thought it was funny.

[Greek Tragedy]

I thought it was funny.

You read other boards. 

[fcnews]

With All Region voting going on, any posts regarding players from your conference would be helpful. Thanks.

[The Roop]

If only we went by D1 criteria............. LU fans would actually have a beef. Once you see how it works out you know it would never happen this way but I've seeded a 64 team field; awarding byes to the top 5 (with no geographic restrictions) as we only have 59 in D3. I've only done 1 complete Sectional as I spent more time on it than is probably healthy.

40 teams were ranked or received votes in the latest poll. Teams not mentioned will be designated as UNK as I'm not going to guess what order they would be in or who they might be.

UW-Whitewater, bye. Hosts 2nd round game vs. winner of Rhode Island College @Whitworth.

@Lawrence vs. UNK
St. Thomas vs. UNK

@UMass-Darmouth vs. UNK
UW-Platteville vs. UNK

@Plattsburg St. vs. UNK
Heidelberg vs. Albion

Assuming the higher seeds always win, this weekends games would be as follows:

@UW-Whitewater vs. Lawrence
Plattsburg St. vs. UMass-Dartmouth

Of the 4 teams in this scenario, only 1 remains in the actual tournament; Plattsburg St. and they are hosting. I guess that's why they play the games.

[LU_nut]

Been busy with other things, but need to weigh in on the LU loss to Wheaton.

First off,  Mr. Ypsi:  you were right on and Old School Tom, your game recap was also right on.

Kroeger was a stud.   At the end of Regulation, he had outscored Raymond 23-10.  He showed why he was conference POY.   I am not saying he is a better all around player than Raymond, but he sure was for 40 minutes.  While I never jumped in, I thought the discussion on the board that he might not be the best player in the league was a bunch of hooey.   When you look at shooting percentages as well as overall games, I think this game confirmed he was this years best player.

LUs biggest shortcoming all year was post defense.   In previous years, more effort(and ability) was put forth to deny post position.   The year LU made a lot of average to above average post players (Domincan game....Monmouth game, etc) look like all americans.   In Wheaton, the ran into a very good post player and got absolutely eaten up.   Wheaton is a three man team.  LU did do some doubling down, but should have done more.     Obviously, the double could not come from Raymond or Pinner(sp?) guys as they were both real players.   That still left two other guys to double.   I am always hesitant to blame the coach because unless you are in the huddle, you do not know what he has told the players.

The offensive rebounds that LU gave up were unbelievable and depressing.    This team had a real chance to make the final 8 and gave it up on the boards.
With a little stronger rebounding, the game may well have been over in the first half when the lead was 11 and should have been higher.

Offensively, the team played pretty darn well.   Wheaton played good D.  Kroeger played great.  Rosey hit some huge 3s which is typical of him.  Kadison was solid.
Hurley played a solid game offensively.  He has turned into a very good passer over his career and hit Page with several open layups.    Free throw shooting was not great........very rare for Kroeger to miss 3 and tough position for Hurley when he went 1-2 with 19 seconds to go.   When the pass went to him, my thought was get the ball to Kroeger or Rosey.

The number of FTs that Wheaton shot was incredible.   I do not blame the refs.   It was just in part a reflection of LU inability to block out and get a darn rebound.

Overall:  very good season by LU.   Great coaching adjustments.  Well earned first team honors for Hurley and Kroeger.   Great and underappreciated career for Rosenblatt.......usually a 50% 3 point shooter who tends to take them when needed most and very hard nosed defender.  Kadison made a huge step forward and should have been in my humble opinion HM all conference.   Page created a second low post option and shot a great percentage.   Huge contributions by second five and Dekker in particular.  He gave them the consistent bench scorering they always had in the great 3 year run but lacked last year.

Next year:  Much promise with Kroeger and Kadision making up a great back court.
Easy to see Dekker and Applegren step right in.    The challenge:    Hurley and Rosey are going to be missed for both the obvious and less obvious reasons.   Hurley created a lot of shots for people and was by far the best rebounder on the team.   This year's post defensive problem could get much worse as Hurley is lost and as Wendel also graduates.    Still, an awful lot of offensive talent returning.


Thanks to LU for a very entertaining season.    Would love to have seen a final 8 run.   Congrats to Coach DePagter on the season.  Good luck on the recruiting trail.


LU_Nut

[Greek Tragedy]

A REASON WHY GRINNELL DOESN'T FAIR WELL IN THE NCAAs??

Any roster limit is a conference or school rule. There is no Division III rule regarding maximum regular-season roster size in any sport.

The key here, of course, is regular season.  There IS a roster limit for the NCAA tournament (15 in the case of men's basketball) which does need to be taken into account... I know that, though there may be as many as 20 on the roster (as allowed by the WIAC), Point never dresses any more than 15, which means that any team that Point steps out on the floor is "NCAA tournament" eligible, if you will.  Contrast this with, say, Grinnell, who, due to their style of play, routinely dresses at LEAST 20 players, with nearly all, if not absolutely all of them play.   Now, for as much has been said about why Grinnell and not having great success in the NCAA tournament, I'd look to this as a very viable reason...  they're having to cut down on the number of players they have available, and it's much more difficult for 15 players to play at that frenetic pace than it would be for 22 players.  ... this is one argument as to a possible reason that they've had success against programs who aren't prepared for it, too (though if somebody doesn't know by NOW what they're getting into by playing GC, then they're not trying very hard...).

[Pat Coleman]

Yep, I chose my words carefully.