MBB: Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference

[cjnick12]

NACC Tournament Matchups:

#1 CUC, #2 CUW and #3 St. Norbert get opening round byes (Green Knights' strong 1st year NACC performance continues).

#4 IL Tech vs. #13 Dominican
#5 Marian vs. #12 Aurora
#6 WLC vs. #11 MSOE (more fuel for this crosstown rivalry)
#7 Benedictine vs. #10 Lakeland
#8 Edgewood vs. #9 Rockford

(as if the regular season wasn't wild enough)

I think that any of the 1-9 seeds has a legitimate shot to win the tournament (which is crazy), but I'd put my money on CUW right now if I was forced to choose one team.

I agree having seen every team play on any given night any one of those 9 can beat the other.  WLC at 6 seed is dangerous.  My son plays at SNC so I am little biased towards them.  IF SNC rebounds their defense will make them tough to beat. I still like all the experience for CUW.

[WLCALUM83]

2/19 NACC Opening Round Finals:

#8 Edgewood 92, #9 Rockford 86
#5 Marian 76, #12 Aurora 75 OT
#4 IL Tech 70, #13 Dominican 58
#6 WLC 88, #11 MSOE 55
#7 Benedictine 87, #10 Lakeland 63


Quarterfinal Matchups:

#1 CUC vs. #8 Edgewood
#2 CUW vs. #7 Benedictine
#3 St. Norbert vs. #6 WLC
#4 IL Tech vs. #5 Marian

[WLCALUM83]

Tournament Schedule Update:

Due to icy conditions, the Men's games have been pushed back to tomorrow night.

St. Norbert will end up doing a double-dip at home, with the women playing Rockford at 6:00 pm and the men going against WLC at 8:00 pm.

[cjnick12]

Another great game between WLC and SNC last night.  All 3 games WLC got off to real slow starts offensively. Stiede made some really tough shots for WLC down the stretch.  SNC had a hard time containing the drives all 2nd half and then went with a 4 guard lineup instead of their normal 3 guards and 2 bigs. 
WLC was able to shut down Bolwerk most of the night.  He had 2 huge 3's late including one in OT as the shot clock expired.  Mike Payant had a huge night again against WLC going for 24 and 15.
SNC outscored WLC in OT 21-12

SNC is at CUW Friday
Marian is at CUC Friday

Marian might be the hottest team in the NACC.  They are a turnover away from being the 1 seed and outright conference champs

[RFMichigan]

SNC is at CUW Friday
Marian is at CUC Friday

Marian might be the hottest team in the NACC.  They are a turnover away from being the 1 seed and outright conference champs

All four semi-final teams are playing their best basketball down the stretch (Marian - won 6 of last 7 with the loss being by one point to Rockford; CUW - won 7 of last 8; CUC - won 7 of last 9 and 12-3 in 2022; St. Norbert - won 4 of last 5) which is probably what you'd expect at this point for teams remaining in the tournament.

I didn't realize that Marian was that close to winning the league, but the top nine were only separated by one game in the loss column so it makes sense. There are probably a LOT of NACC teams thinking to themselves, "If only we had done this ONE THING, we would have home court throughout the tournament."

Bolwerk's OT trey with the shot clock expiring was not only Top 10 worthy but also made me laugh and think, "WLC - this is just not your day".

CUW-St. Norbert is going to be very interesting. Although I am a CC-RF guy, I have to think that the CUW-St.Norbert winner will be favored to win the title regardless. Plus, if CUC goes down, the CUW-St.Norbert winner hosts the finals.

Good luck to you Green Knights!

[WLCALUM83]

2/25 Men's NACC Updates:

#5 Marian upset #1 CUC 52-49 (Sabers' Gouin's jumper with 1:47 remaining held up, Cougars missed on 3 potential game-tying 3 pointers after that.)

#2 CUW 88, #3 St. Norbert 79 13 seconds left

CUW vs. Marian for the NACC AQ

[RFMichigan]

CUW played a nice inside-outside game in the second half. vs. St. Norbert. They found themselves with many easy looks underneath and then canned open 3's to open up a second half lead that the Green Knights could not overcome.

CUC picked the wrong night to go cold. 2-20 from behind the arc kind of says it all. Brrrrrrr.

Concordia had a really fine season - the best they have had in at least 20 years? (Their archive only goes back 20 years, but I think it's longer than that.)

[cjnick12]

CUW played a nice inside-outside game in the second half. vs. St. Norbert. They found themselves with many easy looks underneath and then canned open 3's to open up a second half lead that the Green Knights could not overcome.

CUC picked the wrong night to go cold. 2-20 from behind the arc kind of says it all. Brrrrrrr.

Concordia had a really fine season - the best they have had in at least 20 years? (Their archive only goes back 20 years, but I think it's longer than that.)

Hoffman has been really good this year for CUW.  Shooting 48% from 3 is crazy.  The Keller injury did not look good and he came back for the 2nd half at about 50% but it gave them a huge spark and helped the offense run.

Marian vs CUW should be a good one.  Both teams can score. As a Marian Alum have to go with the Sabres

[WLCALUM83]

Final:  Marian 77, CUW 71 (First appearance for the Sabers in the NCAA Tournament since 2014, when they gave #1 UW-Stevens Point all they could handle before losing by 2 points)

Britton 28. and Gouin 24 pts respectively for the Sabers in today's win. Falcons got as close as 2 after trailing by as many as 14 early in the second half, but Marian was able to come up with an answer on every run.

Congrats to the Sabers!

[RFMichigan]

Congratulations to Marian! They had a nice run towards the end of the first half and made some clutch shots late in the game when CUW was mounting a comeback. I was impressed that Marian didn't get rattled (too much) in front of CUW's home crowd.

[cjnick12]

Hats off to Coach Diener.  When I saw them play SNC in December that team was going nowhere.  He got those kids to buy in on both sides of the court. 
Gouin is so good in the mid range. 

I thought they were in real trouble when both bigs had 4 fouls and Henderson fouled out.  Give little used freshman Ewer a ton of credit for being ready when called upon.

As a Sabre alum proud of the program tonight

[Just Bill]

Disappointing development at BenU

https://d3hoops.com/notables/2022/04/bunkenburg-out-at-benedictine

[Greek Tragedy]

Pretty hard to defend using that word...

[Pat Coleman]

Pretty hard to defend using that word...

Agreed.

[cubs]

Nice read on a couple of former Edgewood players who are now experiencing success in the NBA...

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/nba/bucks/2022/07/12/seth-cooper-and-chris-demarco-help-steve-kerr-coach-warriors/10014222002/?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot