MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[jdex]

  Cortland drops 62-53 decision at Ithaca in tale of two halves. CSt in 31-21 first half control before outscored at one stage 25-9. IC gets 19 pts from S. Burton, 13 from T. Brown, 10 from S. Leahy. J. Bostic 13 rebs, 4 pts

  Brockport 91, Roberts Wesleyan 77
  Potsdam 92, St. Lawrence 86

[bombersquadron]

As Ithaca expected Cortland but up a great fight tonight. They came in and played very physical, pushed Ithaca around and slowed down the tempo of the game to limit Ithaca's offense. Cortland's bigs really beat up on Ithaca in the first half and were non-existent in the second half. Expected a better game from Niehoff and Miolan as i have seen them play before and they didn't play well tonight. Cortland is very young but talented and big, i think they will be a very good team next year if they get a PG.

[jdex]

 
 Plattsburgh takes Clarkson 77-63. In charge 31-26 and quickly gain second half ground. A. Williams 22 pts(5x17fg, 11x13ft), 6 reb, 5 assts; T. Gorham 16 pts, 9 rebs; K. Hunt 11 pts

  Geneseo cruises past Alfred 80-63. Takes 38-29 lead at break and finishes 53%fg. J. Kling 17 pts(5x9fg), 7 rebs, 3x5 3s, 7 rebs, 4 assts; J. Howe 15 pts, 8 rebs; S. Morton 12 pts, 8 reb; T. Kitson 10 pts(5x12fg)

   Oneonta downs Hartwick 80-69

   Brockport gets 34 pts(13x20fg), 14 rebs, 3 assts, 5 stls from B. Williams in 33'. Eagles 32x66fg, 9x21 3s and hold 43-32 intermission margin. M. Wilkes 17 pts(5 3s); A. Poles 13 pts(4x6 3s). Bport 19 assts

    Potsdam overcomes 38-37 St. Lawrence halftime edge and has six score double figures, lands 31x64fg, 25x33ft. D. Brown 18 pts(9x10ft) in 22'; A. Williams 14 pts(5x10fg), 4 assts, 8 rebs, 4 stls; S. Clement 13 pts(5x7fg); B. Graney 12 pts(3x5fg) in 20'; B. Siskavich 11 pts; T. Reinhardt 10 pts. SL also has six strike for double figure pts. led by J. Sharlow 15

[bombersquadron]

jdex, i see you are the main source of knowledge on the Sunyac board. Do you know much about Cortland, how come there are three seniors on the team who got zero minutes tonight and have not been a factor for them on the floor this entire season. Some of them saw playing time when Cortland went to the tourney a few years ago, what gives?

[jdex]

   First, a few figures on tonight's slip at IC. Cortlands go 22x63fg (2x14 3s) and 8x35 in 2nd half. IC puts down 11x26fg in second half AND 17x17ft(20x21 for the game). W. Coston 15 pts(6x13fg), 3 stls in 29' for Dragons. Only double digit pointman. MIAs: C. Niehoff 5 pts, 2 rebs in 26'; M. Lewis 5 pts(2x5fg) in 30' = loss.

    CStaters have five seniors, all with multi-season experience but only backcourters D. Fish and M. Schaller have seen regular play in past years. Fish handles the point well, but is not a scorer. Schaller spells Fish and is more of a scoring threat. Are a big reason why Cortland game-in, game-out has few turnovers.
     As for the other seniors: M. Jankiewicz, J. Sargent, Q. Merritt. Quite simply they have never progressed. Believe 6-5 swingman Jankiewicz started his first game at Ithaca as a frosh. His court time is sparser by the season. Sargent at 6-8 has forever been a project. Also saw duty as a frosh. Merritt? A small muscular forward who just hasn't fit into the scheme of things, we guess.
     Coach Span has gone young .......Niehoff had terrific soph late season in 06-07. Lewis returns as potent inside soph and joins powerful 6-8 soph Oliver who came on last season. Add greatly improved soph Coston, returning jr guard Miolan, frosh Evans in backcourt and 6-8 fr Milke up front. This Cortland team is very, very streaky (as in youthful). In previous games it's startly slowly and finished fast, just the opposite of IC contest .....
     Well, you asked ......

[magicman]

   jdex, you are the best.  It sure is nice to know that when I want to find out a score, all I have to do is go online and you've got all the results. I don't know how you do it. And from what I gather you're down in Florida! I can't even get the Plattsburgh State scores half the time on the local tv station when they have the 11 oclock news. I went to the Plattsburgh St.-St. Lawrence game on Nov. 27th and came home to post the score but you, as usual, beat me to it. Plattsburgh has probably got the best team in school history this year (at least since the late 70's when Larry Parker and Ronnie Wright led the Cards to the final four) and they've only got 9 home games all year. It appears no one wanted to come here and face them this year.
    They play Oswego here this Friday and then we won't get to see them until Jan. 18th against SUNYIT. St. Lawrence is the only non-conference opponent  to visit Memorial Hall this year.
    Thanks again for all the time you spend keeping the SUNYAC fans up to date. If I can ever help you with any info on Plattsburgh let me know.
   On a side, note just found out that the Plattsburgh Men's and Women's hockey teams are both ranked No. 1 in the country. The Men's BB team was ranked No. 11 in the last poll. That's a lot of ones. 

[reelentless]

Jdex, any idea what's going on with Kevin Buono at Cortland?   I've seen him play in a league and believe he started at a DII last year.   When I heard he was going to Cortland I thought he'd have an immediate impact?   Hurt? Behind somebody?  He's certainly got the game to play at this level.

[jdex]

   
   Catching up ........Oneonta balance kayoes Hartwick. Five Dragons score 10 or better: E. Arrington 14 pts(8x10ft); R. Stokes 12 pts, 3 stls, 8 rebs; R. Morin 12 pts(4x5fg); B. Fisk 10 pts(3x5 3s), 4pf in 16'; reserve M. Lane 10 pts(3x3fg, 2x2 3s) in 20'. OSt 37-19 at half. Clip cords at 24x52fg, 5x13 3s, 27x36ft, 37-27 reb advantage. Wick's A.J. Beaulieu 31 pts on 12x19fg. Other Hawks 12x35fg.
       From Monday, Fredonia first win comes on B. Cooper 1-and-1ft makes at :04.9. Devils come from 7 back late in duel of coaching bros

      Magicman: Feel free to express re potent Cards anytime. While they're nat'lly ranked 11 by D3.com, Bports are 16th

       Relentless: Difficult to break in immediately under Span. A taskmaster of the first order. That said, couple of frosh (in particular backcourter R. Evans) have seen more time than soph transfer Buono. Yes, he started 25 games for Dominican and was No. 1 in assists. Briefly got in Sunday's game at Alfred. Saw same type of duty in two other outings. If he works and is a player, he plays has been our opinion over Span's span. His dad's CSt grad

[jdex]

     By the way, meant to mention Jan. 26 as date for  ......... Bport at the 'Burgh

[Cards7580]

"..(at least since the late 70's when Larry Parker and Ronnie Wright led the Cards to the final four)..."

That team took everyone by surprise with two superior talented players.  Larry Parker's almost 17 rebounds a game average and Ronnie Wright's  Earl Monroe 1-on-1 abilities.    Freshman Mike Green, Darryl Hutson and Tony Pettioni's excellent play as well as Tom Rice's rebounding.   They got hot at the right time and won all but 1 league game (Lost by 1 point to Oswego in Oswego.  FYI - Mike Deane's first lost as a head coach, Norm Law missed that game). 

The 1978-79 team with Dan Theiss at point, Paul Einsmann and Kevin Baldwin at forwards, Darryl Hutson, Tony Pettioni, Isiah Harris getting significant playing time, trasnfer Joe Porcelli from Brockport shooting and making threes before there was a three point line. we were 9-2 in league play and didn't go to the NCAA tournament only because of the screwed up tri-champions format.  They played Potsdam 2 times (geographic assignment of games) and lost but beat everyone else.  Potsdam lost to Albany and someone else, and Albany lost to Oneonta.   18-9 with two loses to Division II schools  NY Tech and ?.    Also we beat Division I University of Vermont for the first win of the season.  Even being outrebounded  something like 40 to 17 and Einsmann fouling out with 10 minutes to go.

Considering the number of years between then and now, the NOW team MAY BE the best team I have seen, but they will need to win everything before getting that title.  Watching this current team destroy Morrisville with even the end of the bench outscoring some Morrisville top players in the final 9 minutes, the chance of that looks to be possible.  The trip to California will be the "big" test.   It will be worth the trip up north to see the Brockport and Plattsburgh at Memorial Hall.   It will bring back memories of being Potsdam in 75-76 and Albany in 78-79. IN those games the gym was packed, people were watching broadcasts in filled building classrooms and the atmosphere was magnificent.   Having the best seat in the house and knowing the preparation that the players did before those games was a special deal. 

[thebear]

Ah Yes - remember it well. 

I think that a lot of Ronny Wright's development was in large part courtesy of Deane, who taught him how to play in control and run a jailbreak fast break.  Mike was still playing at a very high (near NBA/ABA) level in those days, used to routinely score 40+ in semipro games, and really helped Wright's development.

Parker was indeed a specimen, probably the best rebounder inch for inch in the history of D-III hoops.  Stats were padded a bit in those days before deadball and team rebounds, but the man could sky.

78-79 was the year Potsdam made their first trip to the final four, and lost a close one (66-62) to North Park (during their three title run).  Potsdam was 22-7, 2 of the losses were to D-II, LeMoyne and Hartwick. 

Potsdam won the Regionals beating a heavily favored Stony Brook squad at SB, then reversed an earlier loss to arch-rival St. Lawrence in the regional finals.  Conference losses were at Albany, at Oneonta, teams only played once except for closest geographic rival.

'78-79 Potsdam team was lead by eventual 1st team AA's Ed Jachim & Derrick Rowland, who lead Bears to the nat'l title in '80-81.

The two games vs. Plattsburgh were not particularly close that year, Bears won 65-53 in 'burgh, then 80-63 at Potsdam.

One other factoid - The '74-75 team was the only Plattsburgh team to ever beat (77-75) Jerry Welsh.  His career record from '70-91 vs Cards was 37-1.

'Burgh is indeed talented, but SUNYAC is very tough this year.  'port, Geneseo, both forces to be reckoned with, 'burgh has to play them back to back.  Buff State, Potsdam, Oswego, Cortland all capable of testing any team on their schedule. 

Remember last year, when an underachieving Potsdam team took Cards to 2OT, and Bears had a wide open layup opportunity in the final second before losing by a point.

Takes luck, skill, avoiding injuries, and often a healthy dose of home court to make a deep run into the D-III playoffs.  If 'burgh were to advance & host SUNYAC's or NCAA's, would they move games back to Stafford given seating capacity of Memorial Hall?

Bears & 'burgh are scheduled 1/29 in Potsdam and 2/9 in 'burgh.  Hope to see ya there.

[Cards7580]

"...Parker was indeed a specimen, probably the best rebounder inch for inch in the history of D-III hoops.  Stats were padded a bit in those days before deadball and team rebounds, but the man could sky..."

No rebounding stats were ever "padded" for Larry and dead ball and team rebounds were being recorded.  In fact, if anything
they were scruitinized even more.  Back in those days most away games stats were coming from the home team and not Plattsburgh scorers.(74-75). Especially in the NCAA games.  Every award Larry got he earned. His body used to be bruised up pretty bad by mid season. In his senior year he was MVP of the SUNYAC only playing part of the season.  Some thug from Cortland sent Larry to the hospital by fracturing Larry's eye socket with an elbow. The jerk didn't help him up, didn't find out his condition after the game nothing.  Larry missed our last seven games and I think the last 3 conference games and was on a pace to get big numbers again.

I agree, Mike Deane's influence was alive and well that year and in following years. The Police League games in Plattsburgh were fantastic games with Mike, Larry, Ronnie, Einsmann, Baldwin, Drew Skornberg from St Lawrence, Ted Bence from Potsdam and many other North country seniors.   The Albany team "Patricks" used to hire some CBA players and players like Larry Fogel from Canisus, the Lee brothers (Jim and Mike) from Syracuse.  Warren Premus from UVM showed up a couple of years. Hal Cowan from Syracuse played one year.

The most enjoyable part was watching Mike Deane and Ted Bence eat younger opponents alive with give and gos and behind the back passes.


"The two games vs. Plattsburgh were not particularly close that year, Bears won 65-53 in 'burgh, then 80-63 at Potsdam.

the 65-53 win was aided by a certain man who seemed to always be assigned to Potsdam games, Bob Hollenbeck.  It always amazed me how Larry, Ronnie,  Kevin Baldwin and Paul Einsmann could play other games with 3 fouls in the whole game, but when we played Potsdam, any one of them would have 2 before 8 minutes left in the 1st half.  It's over and done with, and I have fond memories of yelling back at Mr. Welch and telling him to sit down and shut up.  They could have beat us without any help, real or otherwise.

"Takes luck, skill, avoiding injuries, and often a healthy dose of home court to make a deep run into the D-III playoffs.  If 'burgh were to advance & host SUNYAC's or NCAA's, would they move games back to Stafford given seating capacity of Memorial Hall?"

If St John Fisher can host NCAA rounds in their tiny little elementary school gym, Memorial Hall is just fine. And as far as Home Court goes, with only 9 home games I doubt that will make much of a difference.  We never had a "home advantage" when I was a student.  Bob Garrow went out of his way to be fair even though he was a Plattsburgh alumnus.  And if any school knows "Home Cooking" better it is Potsdam     Actually I take that back, Norwich Academy had more of an edge.  They used to have the opponents locker room near the outside door. And the one window in the room was cracked open because "it was broken"  yeah right.  And with 100's of cadets screaming all night long it was not an easy place to play.  You really had to be on your game against future military commanders. They had one big kid, Kevin something?  He gave us fits, but had little talent to help him.

[thebear]

Cards 7580 +k.

The Deane/Bence tandem on out of bounds plays & the pick & roll was a thing of beauty.  Blink & ya missed it.  People forget that they were playing when college hoops was only two divisions, college & university.  Conference was a real monster back then, NBA star Randy Smith, Norm Bounds, the Gilliam & Pannaggio Brothers, and top college division coaches as well, Welsh, Roy Chipman, Paul Evans, Rollie Massimino, Bill Musselman to name a few.

I think you meant Canton native (now Dr.) Hal Cohen, son of longtime (33years) Potsdam assistant Stan Cohen.

I agree, Bob Garrow was a very fair ref, and a gentleman, a real class act.  Then there was Wally .  I think in those days, the refs and coaches were probably too close in some ways, many of them worked at the same place, or had gone to school together.  Too often they could be seen socializing after the game.

I used to keep stats in that era.  As I've said, Parker was the best rebounder inch for inch that I've seen, but things were a lot looser, no Statcrew, and the shots/rebounds reconciliation was just coming out at that time.  Often the only time "official" stats were published were in NCAA games, each team did their own thing.  The only stat you could take to the bank back then was points, everything else at the D-III level could be manipulated.

[Cards7580]

"...Often the only time "official" stats were published were in NCAA games, each team did their own thing.  The only stat you could take to the bank back then was points, everything else at the D-III level could be manipulated...."

And I WAS the official book keeper and statistician for Plattsburgh during those years, and I CAN TELL YOU that NOT ONE rebound was "padded" for Larry.  Not ONE assist was "padded" for Dan Theiss.  I read the NCAA guidelines and followed them to the letter for exactly the situation you just accused ME about. What was done by other schools, I cannot speak about. But for you to ASSUME that statistics were "padded" at Plattsburgh without being "in the know" is pretty lame. 

So in what games did I "pad" the rebounds?  I would really like to know?

I will take my honesty to the any bank you want.  However Potsdam might have "crossed those lines" in those days I can only go by my observations of court-side personnel. If "padding" did go on there, it wouldn't surprise me much after observing  how Jerry Welsh would openly recruiting players outside of the PBA tournament.  It's amazing what he pulled out of his trunk.  I can't speak of who might have cheated or bent the rules in the coaching staff, but MY work was by the book.  Believe me, I had many a player dispute numbers with me, and I always won. Nothing was added to make a player "happy".  And as far as rebounds go, if I missed who it was, it was counted as a team rebound or deadball.

One real big reason why WE all took our jobs seriously is because at one game during a season before I got there the manager used to pre-enter the names into the score book. One game, in a hurry and just wrote the numbers next to names and forgot one player was not going to play. Somehow the numbers were off by one.  The error wasn't caught until the first substitution by Plattsbugh.  When the error was discovered, the opponent was awarded one technical for each mis-match (I think the number was 8 or 9).  So after that EVERY game the players had to our scorers their uniform number before it was written in the book. 

I apologise to the Cohen family for messing up their name.  Mr. Cohen was always a sportsman and gentleman to me.

[thebear]

Point taken.  I had retired by the '75-76 season, and was in grad school.  Not accusing you of padding anything.  Also not questioning anyone's honesty, just that everything was done by hand, and not as accurate as today's numbers.

As for allegations regarding Coach Welsh, I would say that a school's lifetime record of 1-37 against a coach of an arch rival would generate all shape and manner of jealousy.