MBB: Landmark Conference

[Matt Letourneau]

I think Patch won because he was a senior--not because he was either a better player last year, or because his stats were better.  He won because susdad's attitude about whose turn it is is prevalent.  Now, susdad thinks its JB's turn--only fair, right?

I said there's more than just stats--of course.  That's not a new statement from me either.  Yes, there's more than just stats--but that doesn't mean they don't tell the most clear story.  I mean, the most valuable guy from a hustle/intangible standpoint is often a guy who barely makes a dent in the stat sheet--and nobody is giving him POY.

JB was a good enough combo last year...but in not this year in my judgement.

OK Matt, I like and respect you as a poster, but this is getting to be a bit much. Yeah, we all hammer on JB as a gentle jab at you (well, except susiddad), but even when people bust his chops, they do so in a respectful manner. For you to keep harping that he should have been POY last year over Patch is, IMHO, disrespectful to Patch. Especially the "he won because he was a senior" comment. The stats argument was hashed out at the end of last season and Patch was a statistical leader in the conference as well. You're ignoring that fact. Patch was a hell of a player and, I believe, the coaches voted for him because of what they saw him lay down on their teams. Give them a little more credit than "they gave the warm fuzzy award to a senior."

I'm tired of the conversation in general so I agree with you there--as hoopit said, there are playoff games.  And it isn't like anyone's having a great disagreement about POY this year---I'm trying to be fair and objective about things, hence my comments about Jason.  BTW--I would strongly dispute your assertion that people have been all that respectful about Banzhaf--I had to come on here and defend his academic record at one point because somebody was making stupid allegations about that.  (I understand the difference between that and good natured ribbing, which I enjoy--this is afterall, supposed to be fun--and a lot of it is.)

Nevertheless, I did not intend to take anything away from Joel Patch, so I'm sorry if that's the impression I'm leaving.  He was a great player who had a tremendous year.   Obviously, if he hadn't had a great year, he wouldn't have even been a candidate for POY, so clearly the fact that he's was a senior was not the ONLY reason he won POY.

But I stand by my assertion that the fact he was a senior was the deciding factor.  An objective analysis of stats and which player meant more to his/her team last year had Banzhaf on top--he lead the league in points by a healthy margin, shot for a better percentage from the field, from 3 and from the FT line.  He had no help around him, was the only inside presence which means that everybody doubled him, but still came out on top in all those categories.  Patch's only edge over Jason was in defensive rebounding.  It was a close call, but if the situation had been reversed--if Patch had been a sophomore and Banzhaf a senior, I am virtually certain Banzhaf would have won POY over Patch.  

Feel free to disagree, but I suspect most of you know I'm right--that's just how things tend to play out.  

As for the games--I suppose there isn't much to say.  I hope Catholic play better.  They almost beat Scranton in the playoffs last year--and I think this Catholic team has more talent than that one, and this year's Scranton team isn't as good as last year's.   So there's no reason why the Cardinals can't win.    Catholic's played great defense all year--#2 in the league in ppg, #1 in opponent field goal percentage.  If they just have an average game shooting the ball, they've got a great chance.   Control the boards, play high intensity defense, and get some shots to fall.

[cold_case]

As for the games--I suppose there isn't much to say.  I hope Catholic play better.  They almost beat Scranton in the playoffs last year--and I think this Catholic team has more talent than that one, and this year's Scranton team isn't as good as last year's.   So there's no reason why the Cardinals can't win.    Catholic's played great defense all year--#2 in the league in ppg, #1 in opponent field goal percentage.  If they just have an average game shooting the ball, they've got a great chance.   Control the boards, play high intensity defense, and get some shots to fall.

So, what you're saying is that despite Catholic being more talented than a year ago when they almost beat Scranton, and Scranton not being as talented as last year, Catholic has to play near flawlessly to win this game.
You're talking out of both sides of  your pie hole.

[TheGrove]

I think Patch won because he was a senior--not because he was either a better player last year, or because his stats were better.  He won because susdad's attitude about whose turn it is is prevalent.  Now, susdad thinks its JB's turn--only fair, right?

I said there's more than just stats--of course.  That's not a new statement from me either.  Yes, there's more than just stats--but that doesn't mean they don't tell the most clear story.  I mean, the most valuable guy from a hustle/intangible standpoint is often a guy who barely makes a dent in the stat sheet--and nobody is giving him POY.

JB was a good enough combo last year...but in not this year in my judgement.

OK Matt, I like and respect you as a poster, but this is getting to be a bit much. Yeah, we all hammer on JB as a gentle jab at you (well, except susiddad), but even when people bust his chops, they do so in a respectful manner. For you to keep harping that he should have been POY last year over Patch is, IMHO, disrespectful to Patch. Especially the "he won because he was a senior" comment. The stats argument was hashed out at the end of last season and Patch was a statistical leader in the conference as well. You're ignoring that fact. Patch was a hell of a player and, I believe, the coaches voted for him because of what they saw him lay down on their teams. Give them a little more credit than "they gave the warm fuzzy award to a senior."

I'm tired of the conversation in general so I agree with you there--as hoopit said, there are playoff games.  And it isn't like anyone's having a great disagreement about POY this year---I'm trying to be fair and objective about things, hence my comments about Jason.  BTW--I would strongly dispute your assertion that people have been all that respectful about Banzhaf--I had to come on here and defend his academic record at one point because somebody was making stupid allegations about that.  (I understand the difference between that and good natured ribbing, which I enjoy--this is afterall, supposed to be fun--and a lot of it is.)

Nevertheless, I did not intend to take anything away from Joel Patch, so I'm sorry if that's the impression I'm leaving.  He was a great player who had a tremendous year.   Obviously, if he hadn't had a great year, he wouldn't have even been a candidate for POY, so clearly the fact that he's was a senior was not the ONLY reason he won POY.

But I stand by my assertion that the fact he was a senior was the deciding factor.  An objective analysis of stats and which player meant more to his/her team last year had Banzhaf on top--he lead the league in points by a healthy margin, shot for a better percentage from the field, from 3 and from the FT line.  He had no help around him, was the only inside presence which means that everybody doubled him, but still came out on top in all those categories.  Patch's only edge over Jason was in defensive rebounding.  It was a close call, but if the situation had been reversed--if Patch had been a sophomore and Banzhaf a senior, I am virtually certain Banzhaf would have won POY over Patch.  

Feel free to disagree, but I suspect most of you know I'm right--that's just how things tend to play out.  

As for the games--I suppose there isn't much to say.  I hope Catholic play better.  They almost beat Scranton in the playoffs last year--and I think this Catholic team has more talent than that one, and this year's Scranton team isn't as good as last year's.   So there's no reason why the Cardinals can't win.    Catholic's played great defense all year--#2 in the league in ppg, #1 in opponent field goal percentage.  If they just have an average game shooting the ball, they've got a great chance.   Control the boards, play high intensity defense, and get some shots to fall.

Well, if I have two players who are exactly the same stats-wise and one's a senior and the other's a sophomore, sure, I'd give it to the senior. But as you admitted, stats don't tell the whole story. I saw Patch and I saw Banzhaf (albeit only once) last year. Call it Crusader bias, but I think Patch meant more to his team -- and put more of a knife into other teams -- than Banzhaf did.

I'll agree to disagree, of course.

As for the playoffs, I'm with hoopit - it will be really interesting to see which SU team shows up. They may be tricky in that you never know who's going to blow up for them in a game - Burke, Spencer, Pannell, even Majors. That can be hard to prepare for. However, MM has clearly been able to before since they beat them twice.

SU went into the last two postseasons with the #1 target on their backs. Maybe this year they'll have a different outcome with the pressure off.

The local paper took a break from fawning over Bucknell to do a pretty decent preview for the SU men and women: http://www.dailyitem.com/0200_sports/local_story_054080003.html

[NEPAFAN]

Grove,

Scranton was the 1 seed last year. SU was the 2 seed.

[TheGrove]

Grove,

Scranton was the 1 seed last year. SU was the 2 seed.

Due to a coin flip, mais non?

[cold_case]

I believe TheGrove is right.

[NEPAFAN]

Thought it was common opponent? Coin flip? What kind of rule is that?

[hoopit123]

there are all kinds of crazy tiebreakers. i believe it goes a little something like this:

1. head to head
2. how each team did against the other playoff teams, starting with the highest
    i.e. last year, usmma was 3rd seed. i believe both scr. and SU split with them as well, which moved it down to the 4th seed Catholic for comparison.

now, im not sure of the order here, but next its either:
coin toss, or
point differential, that comes next.

i dont recall how it panned out last year??  did both SU and Scr. split with both usmma and CUA? if so, then it must have moved down to the two 'wild card' tie breakers.

[Matt Letourneau]

As for the games--I suppose there isn't much to say.  I hope Catholic play better.  They almost beat Scranton in the playoffs last year--and I think this Catholic team has more talent than that one, and this year's Scranton team isn't as good as last year's.   So there's no reason why the Cardinals can't win.    Catholic's played great defense all year--#2 in the league in ppg, #1 in opponent field goal percentage.  If they just have an average game shooting the ball, they've got a great chance.   Control the boards, play high intensity defense, and get some shots to fall.

So, what you're saying is that despite Catholic being more talented than a year ago when they almost beat Scranton, and Scranton not being as talented as last year, Catholic has to play near flawlessly to win this game.
You're talking out of both sides of  your pie hole.

Where did you get that I said Catholic had to play flawlessly?  I said they had to play great defense and control the boards (not a stretch considering that they are the #2 defensive team and #1 rebounding team in the league), and that they have to have an average game shooting the ball.  

They average from the field this year is 44%.  In the two games against Scranton this year, they shot 36% both times.  They were also 6-24 and 3-16 from 3 in those games (34%).

So I'm saying that if they simply play an average offensive game against Scranton--rather than a considerably below average game--they've got a good shot.

I know for sure that as far as the second game is concerned, they missed a handful of wide open 3's--had they made even 2 of them they may have won.  But they were having an awful shooting night and it didn't seem to have much to do with the defense.

We'll see.

Grove--indeed we will.  My final rebuttal--in this case, there were not two players with the same stats.  One had better stats than the other, by a significant margin in some of the categories.  Not only that, in the two head to head games, JB totally dominated Patch--he lit him up for 26 and 23 points.  Sooo...clearly something else was a factor.  I guess the argument comes down to the fact that you think it was all intangibles and not that he was a senior, whereas I think it was mostly because he was a senior.

[TheGrove]

point differential, then coin toss. At least that's what I gathered from the 3/4 seed situation with the SU and Juniata women's teams this year.

[ronk]

  Scraton beat MMA twice last year, winning the tie-breaker.

[hoopit123]

its time for this discussion to pass on, but you just keep lighting the fuse with statements out in left-field.

banzhaf and patch were totally different players playing different positions.  how did JB dominate JP?  last i checked JB sat in the post, i've watched a lot of SU games while JP was here and i could probably recall post-up situations of his on my two hands.  patch was a slashing guard more or less, JB is, well, we've been there.  Cosgrove kid was the SU center, maybe he got dominated.

again, your argument is full of 'hearsay', if you will--little theories in your own mind that really never played out in reality.
it's time to stop making excuses...he didnt win POY last year, he wont this year, and if i was a betting man, he wont next year as well as ashworth will still be keeping him company.   OH! and they'll both be seniors so thank god some dominant sophomore wont get hosed because of his class-year!

[NEPAFAN]

#3 Catholic at #2 Scranton, 7:30 p.m.

18-7, 7-4 Road                      17-8, 11-2 home


Live Stats:

http://academic.scranton.edu/department/athletics/xlive.htm

Audio:

http://playlist.wusr.scranton.edu/


Looking for a big game from Eli Londo in what could be his last game ever at the John Long Center.

[TheGrove]

Today's the day! Good luck to all the Landmark teams, and travel safely!

[saratoga]

Grove: Agreed. Hard to believe the season is just about over for 3 teams. Seems like it was only a few short weeks ago the season & discussion about JB began.