MBB: Landmark Conference

[ronk]

POY - depends on whom one follows all season; Scranton fans can't believe anyone but Boken; however. we've only seen Fonville once this season; Catholic fans may feel vice versa.
Saturday's BIG game - Scranton @ Catholic; prize: avoiding a 4-hr trip Wed for the 1st round playoff game, assuming Susque wins Sat and Catholic Sun
  If Scranton wins with the above assumptions, then a tie for 2nd seed with 1st 2 tiebreakers unable to decide(head-to-head split and same record against each conference foe(splits with Susque and Juniata, double wins over Drew, split with MMA and doubles over everyone else)
  We need a Landmark tiebreaker expert to break the tie!!!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

I love the Landmark conference because they put their tiebreaking information and other stuff on their website - not hiding it like others do.

Anyway, you can find it here: http://landmarkconference.org/championships/tiebreakers

Here is how it reads:
1. Head-to-head record amongst all tied teams in contests that count toward the conference standings
2. Comparison of tied teams' records against remaining teams in conference standings in descending order (starting at No. 1)
3. Head-to-head results between and among all tied teams in all regular season contests (only if tied teams played the same amount of contests against other tied teams)
4. Head-to-head record against common non-conference opponents at same site
5. Head-to-head record against common non-conference opponents at different site
6. Road winning percentage in conference games (only if tied teams played the same number of away conference games)
7. Strength-of-schedule comparison, as it appears in the NCAA ranking process
8. NCAA Regional Rankings comparison, for the rankings available at the time of selection, with the highest ranked team earning the advantage (as long as all tied teams are ranked in the same region)
9. Coin flip (or similar random action)

So per that... I'll let you guys get into it. I honestly am not sure how they mean in rules 4 or 5... but I am also exhausted right now and need to get off my computer(s).

[CardsFan]

Rule #3 seems a little wordy (probably just me), but it seems like it could fall to #6 (road record in-conference). If Catholic and Scranton both end at 12-4, with Catholic losing to Scranton and beating MMA, Scranton finishes 6-2 on the road in Landmark and Catholic finishes 5-3 on the road. That ups the stakes a bit more.

[ronk]

 That's my analysis, also. Makes the game more meaningful than just a better record for Pool C considerations. This has 8 hours of bus ride implications.
Thanks, Dave for the tiebreaker info.

[NEPAFAN]

So regardless looking like a rematch in the first round b/w Scranton and Catholic?

[ronk]

So regardless looking like a rematch in the first round b/w Scranton and Catholic?

No, if Sus and Catholic win out, Catholic would get 1st seed by beating Scranton twice while Sus split with Scranton; in that case, it would be Scranton @ Susquehanna in the 1st round. And there are a couple of other possible scenarios, if they don't win out.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Catholic controls destiny now.  If they beat Merchant Marine, they get the #1 seed on tiebreakers.

[CardsFan]

In a high-stakes game, both teams played up to the occasion. I wasn't very optimistic at halftime. Scranton just did whatever they wanted offensively in the first half. Thankfully, Catholic was able to get Jay Howard into the game in the 2nd half and make a few defensive tweaks. No answer at all for Boken, he's unbelievable.

Catholic put a ton into this game today. It'll be interesting how much of a letdown there is tomorrow.

[ronk]

In a high-stakes game, both teams played up to the occasion. I wasn't very optimistic at halftime. Scranton just did whatever they wanted offensively in the first half. Thankfully, Catholic was able to get Jay Howard into the game in the 2nd half and make a few defensive tweaks. No answer at all for Boken, he's unbelievable.

Catholic put a ton into this game today. It'll be interesting how much of a letdown there is tomorrow.

If u don't win tomorrow, we get to do it again on Wed. Too bad the ref inserted himself into the game by T'ing up Vitkus for taunting after the dunk; 2 points when Scranton was up 3 and fouling him out. Vitkus wasn't blameless; he should't have given the ref the opportunity to make the game about himself instead of the players. 

[CardsFan]

In a high-stakes game, both teams played up to the occasion. I wasn't very optimistic at halftime. Scranton just did whatever they wanted offensively in the first half. Thankfully, Catholic was able to get Jay Howard into the game in the 2nd half and make a few defensive tweaks. No answer at all for Boken, he's unbelievable.

Catholic put a ton into this game today. It'll be interesting how much of a letdown there is tomorrow.

If u don't win tomorrow, we get to do it again on Wed. Too bad the ref inserted himself into the game by T'ing up Vitkus for taunting after the dunk; 2 points when Scranton was up 3 and fouling him out. Vitkus wasn't blameless; he should't have given the ref the opportunity to make the game about himself instead of the players.

I didn't even see what Vitkus got T'd up for, whether he said something or gestured. Coach Danzig didn't seem to put up too much of a fight with the refs about the call. I admit I'd be beside myself if a CUA player got a T for that at that point in an emotional game. I get refs trying to stamp out "taunting", but recognize the stakes of the moment. 

[saratoga]

I've been saying it for a long time but as each game gets bigger, Brenden steps up & meets the challenge head on.

Without a doubt, he is a FIRST TEAM All-American.

He scores, he rebounds, he gets assists & he makes everyone around him better.
And, on top of that, he's generally double teamed & has to play against kids taller & more physical game in & game out.

This is a kid that didn't score 100 points in HS & he's on the threshold of breaking the scoring record at Scranton that most fans & long time followers of the Royals said would never be broken.

He has made himself better each & every year, has developed a drop step that's unstoppable & is capable of scoring with the left or right hand.

I've been following the Royals for years & he is clearly in my Top 10 of all time Royal greats.

As for the Scranton coach not getting all over the ref for that putrid call...what else is new.
Not sure when or if I ever saw him defend one of his kids.

[San Juan]

Taunting l!!!!Worst officiating I ever seen.Start of the second half you saw everything change in Catholics way.Scranton had 2 fouls in 48 seconds and it was 7-2 after 4minutes into the game.The gentleman with the gray hair called 1 foul against Catholic and 8 against Scranton justified I guess and when I yelled to the refs about the fouls that hit Catholic with 4 straight hand checks should have been 40.

[ronk]

 Forgot to mention that Catholic celebrated at halftime the 15th anniversary of their NCAA title in 2001. Current GW coach Mike Lonergan was among the celebrants. It comes 1 week after Scranton had their 1st of 2 NCAA champions back for the 40th anniversary.

[CardsFan]

Forgot to mention that Catholic celebrated at halftime the 15th anniversary of their NCAA title in 2001. Current GW coach Mike Lonergan was among the celebrants. It comes 1 week after Scranton had their 1st of 2 NCAA champions back for the 40th anniversary.

Thanks for mentioning this. It was good to see a decent part of that 2001 team again. Not a bad showing, considering today was a make-up date due to the snow in January. The school should never miss a chance to celebrate that team.

[Matt Letourneau]

Taunting l!!!!Worst officiating I ever seen.Start of the second half you saw everything change in Catholics way.Scranton had 2 fouls in 48 seconds and it was 7-2 after 4minutes into the game.The gentleman with the gray hair called 1 foul against Catholic and 8 against Scranton justified I guess and when I yelled to the refs about the fouls that hit Catholic with 4 straight hand checks should have been 40.

Please.  The reason things changed in the 2nd half is because Catholic made a bunch of adjustments and started driving toward the basket.  In the first half Jay Howard was 2-5 with 6 points and 2 turnovers, and they were having a hard time getting him the ball in a position to score.  Catholic had 2 free throw attempts for the entire half.  They had 12 3 point attempts.   They were not going to win the game had that continued.   In the second half, they changed their approach and took it right to Scranton's bigs and started getting to the line.  None of those were especially close calls.  And then yes, the officials "evened things up" with a bunch of ticky tack stuff against Catholic and that was that.   There were a couple of block/charge calls that went against Catholic during that stretch too, one of which should have fouled out Vitkus because it would have been his 5th. 

It is unfortunate the taunting situation happened, and it certainly was a swing in the game, but it must have been pretty egregious because it wasn't exactly hotly disputed and there wasn't much debate about it.

The focus should be on the fact it was an excellent game, both squads gave it maximum effort and the game came down to a couple of possessions at the end.  One thing I cannot understand for the life of me is why Scranton doesn't rebound Boken's free throws.  Why do you to pull your players when you're down 1 and your guy is shooting to tie the game with :20 left, especially when that was his third miss of the game?  Instead, he does miss and Scranton doesn't even give themselves a chance to get the rebound.  For all of the other noise, Boken had 2 misses at the FT line in the last 2:16 which ended up being pretty significant.

Catholic obviously had a lot of trouble defending the post, and of course gave up a lot of size.  Austin Calling did a tremendous job coming off the bench and stabilizing the interior defense which was a game changer for Catholic in the 2nd half.  Offensively, I love what Louis Khouri brings to the table--he's a great shooter, but beyond that he is hustling on every play and trying to make something happened.  Nobody was working harder out there.

Its going to be tough tomorrow not to have a let down, but the stakes are still very high.