MBB: Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference

[coebball70]

Don't get me wrong, all I'm saying is the Spartans should run the table in the NAC.
I don't see a team that will come within 10 points of them on a bad night.  They will also be ranked somewhere between 15th and 8th by February 15th.  But....will they be ready for a run in the tournament?  I hope so.....but I doubt it due to strength of schedule.

[wizbegs1304]

Northern Athletics Conference Standings (thru December 25th, 2006)

NAC Overall Team
4-1  6-4       Wisconsin Lutheran
3-1  8-1       Aurora
3-1  3-3       Lakeland
3-1  4-5       Benedictine
3-1  3-4       Edgewood
2-1  4-4       Marian
2-2  4-5       Dominican
1-2  1-6       Concordia-Wisconsin
1-3  1-7       Rockford
1-5  2-8       Concordia Chicago
0-5  3-6       Maranatha
0-0  8-2       M.S.O.E.

What is everyone's thoughts on the season so far? Lot of games to be played yet, but what are your takes.

[WLCALUM83]

The closest thing to a surprise to this point, IMHO, is probably Marian, with WLC coming in a bit further down. Most frustrated team in terms of "should have won" in-conference games goes to Concordia-Chicago. If 2 of their better players don't foul out, they beat WLC at home, case in point. CUW knocked them off by 3 pts. earlier as well.

Not to knock my own team, but--barring the unforeseen--given WLC has to play Lakeland and Benedictine twice yet, I'd expect the Warriors to slip some, but still remain in the thick of the conference playoff hunt right to the end. Dominican may move up a little as well.

[WLCALUM83]

Props to Edgewood's C Averkamp on making d3hoops.com's Team of the Week!  8) 8) 8)

[WLCALUM83]

12/27 final:  Edgewood 72, Colorado College 57 (per Edgewood site.) 

[WLCALUM83]

12-28 final:  Edgewood 72, Baldwin-Wallace 64. Per B-W site. (That may put the Eagles in the Cactus Jam Championship Game.)

[bufan]

Some very simple logic. 

Northwestern beat Wheaton by 2 and DePaul by 10.....Wheaton beats DePaul by 8....DePaul beat Kansas by 7.......Wheaton beats Kansas by 15.......Kansas beats Florida by 2......Wheaton beats Florida by 17

[Greek Tragedy]

12-28 final:  Edgewood 72, Baldwin-Wallace 64. Per B-W site. (That may put the Eagles in the Cactus Jam Championship Game.)

Now that's impressive.

[WLCALUM83]

12/29 Finals:  Occidental 90, WLC 63. 
                      UW-Eau Claire 73, Marian 54. (Blugolds 7-18 from 3 pt range, outshout Marian altogether per Blugold post-game account).
                      Wabash over Lakeland.
                      Cornell 88, Benedictine 82 (2 OT's) 
                      Transylvania/Rockford and MSOE/Bethany, KS yet to come in.

[WLCALUM83]

The  12/29 "rout of the day" award goes to:

Transylvania:  Transy 77, Rockford 33. (Per Transy site-Regents shot 15% in the first half.) 

Per OxyBob's report on the SCIAC board--MSOE lost to Bethany, KS. (Thanks for posting that, OxyBob).

Maybe Oxy and Transy ought to duke it out sometime. . .   (ba dumm bumm.)   

[WLCALUM83]

12/30 Finals:  Lakeland 81, Alma 68. (Per Alma site, Rogers 29 pts. Muskies simply outshot Scots all around).
                       Simpson 69, Edgewood 50.
                       Benedictine beats Coe by 1 point in OT.
                       Marian 72, Finlandia 52 (Marian site) (per box score, Sabers had a ton of 2nd chance pts.)
                       MSOE lost a close one to Cal Lutheran (CLU site).

                       NathCon men go 3-2 on the day.
                       

[WLCALUM83]

12/31 Finals:  WLC 117, Cal Tech 57. 

                       Rockford College 52, Westminster (Utah) 51. (per Regent web site).

[Mac Attack]

Rockford College loses by 44, then bounces back and wins by one the next night! My hat's off to any coach and team who can make that happen. How good is a NAIA Division 1 team compared to teams in the NAC?

[WLCALUM83]

The Rockford College web-site account of their victory over Westminster indicates that the Westminster sqaud was 22nd Ranked in NAIA Div I going into that game. Also, the Regents tightened up the D and came out of the gate much better on offense than they did against Transy.

Bethany, KS knocked off NathCon provisional member MSOE (and the Raiders had an 8-2 record going into that game).

Another case in point, in a different region, NAIA Westmont (CA) gave ASC member Mississippi College a good run for its' money before losing by less than 10 points the other night.

At this point, NathCon record vs. NAIA for this season so far from what this poster could gather is 3-1. (MSOE 1-1, Aurora 1-0, Rockford 1-0.) Vs. NCCAA, NathCon is 4-2 (MBBC 2-1, WLC and Benedictine both 1-0, and Concordia, WI 0-1).

In "Multi-Region Topics" check out "D3 vs. D2/D1/NCCAA/NAIA/other" (or something like that) where another poster "Rhodes Scholar" is keeping track of all men's NCAA Div III vs. Non-Div III opponents for this season. 

[Pat Coleman]

Might not be a very accurate ranking. Westminster is now 8-7. Hardly great.

The thing about the NAIA divisions is that they are not very large. There are fewer than 100 teams total in NAIA Division I -- 88 listed on the NAIA site, in fact. A top 25 of NAIA Division I would be like if we ranked a Top 80 or so of D-III.

The top 5 or so in NAIA Division I are normally considered unwinnable games for D-IIIs. But the rest, ehh, not so much.