MBB: Landmark Conference

[CardsFan]

Nice bounce-back effort from CUA yesterday downing Moravian 96-79. CUA made a change to their starting five, going with three guards instead of another big. I don't know if that was specific for yesterday to counter Moravian's full-court pressure, but it worked. CUA kept things simple and kept the ball in the hands of their best players, with Jay Howard and Bryson Fonville scoring 25 and 28 respectively.

Moravian has a young team and a couple of their freshmen, Oneil Holder, Jake McGee, and Jimmy Murray, seem like they could be pretty good. Coach Potts has brought a distinctive style with him, full-court pressure and lots of 3's. If they can figure out a way to consistently keep up their pressure without fouling they should force a lot of turnovers. They have been sending all of their opponents to the FT line a lot so far.

[ronk]

Both the men & women are home next Sunday vs. MMA.
Guarantee the women outdraw the men.
So far, Danzig's freshman class (2 players), have yet to play beyond a few garbage minutes.
Not boding well for the next several years of Royal mens basketball that's for sure.
He might just want to start recruiting one of these years instead of waiting for the Tom Bicknell's & Brenden Boken's of the world to arrive unannounced & unrecruited.

Or have more boys.

[NEPAFAN]

Both the men & women are home next Sunday vs. MMA.
Guarantee the women outdraw the men.
So far, Danzig's freshman class (2 players), have yet to play beyond a few garbage minutes.
Not boding well for the next several years of Royal mens basketball that's for sure.
He might just want to start recruiting one of these years instead of waiting for the Tom Bicknell's & Brenden Boken's of the world to arrive unannounced & unrecruited.

Or have more boys.

Yes, at this point the Royals need 1 or 2 more scoring threats and seems ripe for a player like Sean Cummings who can take the ball to the basket and score. A shame he left the program. Not sure why the Freshman get no looks at all.

[NEPAFAN]

Stole this from another board...


And let's see D3 vs non conference D3:

1   UAA      38   14   0.731
2   NESCAC      40   19   0.678
3   LEC      31   16   0.660
4   MIAC      27   14   0.659
5   Landmark      27   16   0.628

[San Juan]

Yes very subtle Nepafan.Proof again Danzig boy plays another 35 minutes against Juniata and gives you absolutely nothing but he still starts every game maybe 2 rebounds but wow.Marcus had a bad game he sat his ass most of the 2nd half god forbid Carl sits his kid!Enough is enough

[ronk]

 4 Landmark teams(Susque, Scranton, Catholic, Juniata) getting votes in latest poll; didn't include Drew who's undefeated in conference play. Catholic wins easily tonight against a decent team(St. Vincent).
  Susque plays #15 Trinity(CT) Friday on a neutral court.
  When the full conference schedule resumes Jan 2, the teams will play 4 games in 8 days; 4 teams will have a bye during this stretch but one of those(Juniata) will play a non-conference game on its bye date. It will be a rough physical period but Scranton, at least, will be on intersession.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The last Around the Region column before the new year features Susquehanna.  http://www.d3hoops.com/columns/around-the-region/mid-atlantic/2015-16/susquehanna-fast-start

[ronk]

The last Around the Region column before the new year features Susquehanna.  http://www.d3hoops.com/columns/around-the-region/mid-atlantic/2015-16/susquehanna-fast-start

In a discussion of the strength of the conference this season, Susque coach Marcinek mentions Drew missing their best player. I knew he(Mike Klinger) was missing from the boxscores but thought maybe he had graduated. May indicate a 6-way battle for playoff spots when he returns.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

The last Around the Region column before the new year features Susquehanna.  http://www.d3hoops.com/columns/around-the-region/mid-atlantic/2015-16/susquehanna-fast-start

In a discussion of the strength of the conference this season, Susque coach Marcinek mentions Drew missing their best player. I knew he(Mike Klinger) was missing from the boxscores but thought maybe he had graduated. May indicate a 6-way battle for playoff spots when he returns.

Last year there were only three teams that mattered; this year the conference will be at least six deep.

[CardsFan]

Definitely good signs from Drew so far. Klinger has played a total of 16 minutes all season and they seem to be without two other starters from last year who were both listed as juniors.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Not that it is a major event or anything, but had to share the craziness at Goucher tonight...

Hood led the Gophers 32-15 with 5:30 left in the first half. By halftime it was 34-31 Hood. By the time 16 minutes more of basketball had been played since the 5:30 mark, Goucher had gone on a 43-11 run and I think extended it to 51-15 before Hood finally regathered themselves... finishing on a 23-12 (17-4) run, but the deficit was too much and the Gophers won 78-70. That allows the team to match their win total from last season (4).

The game wasn't the best officiated, but Hood was looking for calls all over the place and got sidetracked focusing on the calls and not the game. One of their players actually got a tech for hitting a shot where he thought he was fouled (maybe he was) and gave the ref his opinions.

Goucher is at least playing like a team. I haven't seen this kind of team mentality in a very long time. However, they have a mental block, I guess, when it comes to conference games. I will be interested to see how they overcome that.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

There are many teams right now asking everyone, have you noticed us? Big wins, great starts, record beginnings. Tonight on Hoopsville, Dave talks to those who are off to tremendous starts which may not have been noticed... yet.

Hoopsville hits the air at 7pm ET - tune in here: www.d3hoops.com/hoopsville/archives/2015-16/dec10

Guests include (in order):
- Mike Moran, No. 11 John Carroll men's coach
- Greg Curley, Juniata men's coach
- Margaret White, Ursinus women's coach
- Cindy Holbrook, UW-River Falls women's coach
- Tim Grosz, Northwestern (Minn.) men's coach

This is the last Thursday edition of Hoopsville before the holiday break (also due to D3football.com coverage of Gagliardi Trophy and Stagg Bowl next week). The Thursday edition of the show will return January 7, 2016.

Don't forget you can always interact with us:
Website: www.d3hoopsville.com
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AND our podcast as been approved for iTunes!!! Just search for it or follow it via this link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hoopsville/id1059517087

[CardsFan]

CUA finished up their pre-holiday schedule last night with a wire-to-wire win at Dickinson 81-71. Big games from Fonville (28 pts.) and Stanford (20 pts.) led the way. CUA had to navigate some tough minutes in the 2nd half while Fonville sat with 4 fouls and Dickinson cut the lead to 6 with almost 12 minutes to play, but they were able to steady themselves and eventually go on a game-clinching 13-0 run.

Since the loss to Susquehanna, the increased effort on the defensive end has been noticeable. Far from perfect, but things are looking much brighter than they were a week ago.

[ronk]

 In addition to Catholic's win over Dickinson, Susque defeats #15 Trinity and Moravian also wins boosting Landmark's nonconference record to 5-1 this week.

[saratoga]

Should be another huge crowd at the Long Center Sunday to see the Royals play MMA...especially since finals end today & all the students will have left for home.
Not sure who does the Royals scheduling but NEPA is correct, it's horrible.
Any semblance of even a flicker of rivalry with Kings/Wilkes is obviously long gone as witnessed by the crowd of about 103 fans that watched those games held at Marywood when, you guessed it, all schools were on Thanksgiving break.
Then there are these wonderful start times of 3:00 & 5:00 for tournament games when the kids are on semester break.
Why are they not at 5 & 7 so people that work might be able to attend since the students aren't going to be there?
Also, whatever happened to 7:00 starts for Saturday games.
I think it should be pretty obvious to the Royal head coach that 2:00 start times draw about 1/3 of what they'd get for an evening game on the weekend.
if this is a Landmark conference policy, it's time to adjust.