MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[magicman]

SUNYAC improves to 13-6 on our non-conference log.

Massey's Ratings now show the SUNYAC to be the 10th toughest conference in the country as we've moved up 5 spots from our previous ranking of 15

Two of the biggest movers on the team rankings were New Paltz who jumped 122 places from #183 to #61. They are now the 2nd highest ranked SUNYAC team jumping over a number of other teams. Oneonta moved up 144 spots,  as they are now ranked 139 instead of 283.  Brockport and Geneseo moved up and didn't even play. Buffalo State is still ranked behind St. John Fisher as the results of their game hasn't been updated yet. That and the results from tonight will move the YAC up a bit more as they get factored in.

Don't know if we can hold onto that ranking as a conference with some traditionally weak teams coming up in the OOC schedules. Hopefully none of the cupcakes will pull an upset against a YAC team along the lines of Southern Vermont's shocking upset of Williams on opening night. That sent Williams tumbling in Massey's rankings  from #9 to #75.

Current Massey Ratings for SUNYAC Teams.  Note that these change daily sometimes except perhaps on weekends.  What I'm listing as of tonight could be different in the morning.

#21    Cortland

#61    New Paltz

#69    Plattsburgh State

#85    Geneseo State

#87    Brockport State

#121  Buffalo State

#139  Oneonta State

#152  Oswego State

#229  Fredonia State

#269  Potsdam State

Some other East Region Teams as a point of Reference:  Oh what to heck I did them all. That way I can see the movement by just coming back to this page since Massey's + or - isn't cumulative and only lasts a day or two. For instance: A week ago Plattsburgh was a +16 having moved even before they played a game, based on other teams playing exhibtion games that Massey was tracking. They were in the mid 80's when the ratings first came out. They moved to #68 down to #67 and now they are at #69 with a -2. Tomorrow they could be at 66 with a +3. By posting this rating of all the East teams I'll be able to have a better idea of the movement since the start of the season as time goes by. Right now some of these rankings are positively off the wall and will change drastically. I'll be surprised if Cortland can hang onto the top postion in the East. I think NYU might drop down as well. Other YAC teams will take a tumble as well. However a team like Buffalo State could move up I believe. It will be intersting to look at the changes a few weeks down the road and then a few weeks after that and so on.

#56     NYU
#65     Nazareth
#72     Hobart
#96     St. John Fisher
#124   Stevens Tech
#135   Ithaca             The Bombers ranking will be in the 160 to 170 range after tonight's loss to Oswego is factored in I'm guessing.
#138   Rochester
#143   Skidmore
#149   Hartwick
#159   Hilbert
#179   Clarkson
#188   Hamilton      They will rise after the win against higher ranked Oneonta
#190   RIT
#198   Medaille
#205   Morrisville State   They have already dropped considerably from the opening bell
#216   Sage
#228   Utica College
#246   St Lawrence
#277   Bard
#287   Alfred
#297   Union
#300   Vassar
#301   RPI
#304   Wells
#333   Elmira
#366   Keuka
#368   SUNYIT
#387   Cazenovia
#389   Cobleskill
#390   Houghton
#393   D'Youville

[magicman]

I must be getting old.   I never checked to see if my post about today's games was transmitted to this board without any problems. Apparently it wasn't, since I don't see it anywhere. There were 2 SUNYAC teams in action today and just this minute discovered that my write-up showing Geneseo State was hosting Morrisville State and that Fredonia was at Penn State-Behrend must be somewhere in never-never land.  That's what happens when you still have a dial up connection
 
Geneseo  defeats Morrisville State 89-82       I would have predicted this to be an 81-76 Geneseo victory.  I came close.


Fredonia loses 76-46 to Penn State-Behrend.   I had the Blue Devils on the short end of a 72-64 loss. Honest I did.

Details to follow.

[magicman]

Geneseo 89 #20 Morrisville State 82

Several regular posters on this board were well aware that the preseason ranking the Mustangs received was a bit lofty. It was basically due to their finish in last year's NCAA tournament. I'll be surprised if they stay in the rankings when the new ones come out and don't expect them to make another appearance the remainder of the year. That doesn't take away from the fact that they are a decent team but the loss of both starting forwards from last year's squad will make a difference and they will be hard pressed to come close to their success of a year ago. If they were in the SUNYAC conference this year I don't think they would finish any higher than 5th or 6th place, tops, but certainly capable of pulling off an upset down the road.

The Blue Knights and Mustangs had a tight first half with 2 ties and 6 lead changes that ultimately saw Geneseo head into the break with a 42-39 advantage. Geneseo came out of the break on fire. 5:29 into the 2nd half, 4 of their 5 starters had scored 8, 5, 5,and 4 points for a 22-9 run to open up a 64-48 lead with 14:31 to go. Morrisville did come back and managed to cut the lead to single digits by the 10:29 mark. They slowly chipped away at the Blue Knights lead until a  3 pointer by the Mustangs made in 78-74 with 3;52 left to play. Geneseo's Matt Curry delivered a dagger however when he made a 3 pointer of his own with 1 second left on the shot clock to restore the lead to 7 points with 3:18 to go. The Knight's got it back to double digits at 88-77 and a 3 pointer at the buzzer by the Mustangs cut the margin to single digits.

Geneseo was led by Gordon Lyons with 22 pts and 9 rebounds. Andy Drescher scored 15 points, while James McKenna came off the bench with 14 pts, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 assists and 2 steals. Jordan Jones and Matt Curry both added 12 pts, with Jones grabbing 9 rebounds along with 4 assists. A solid team effort for Geneseo.

Blue Knights outshot the visitors from the field and from long distance but Mo'ville had the edge, percentage wise, at the foul line. The Mustangs also won the rebounding battle 48 to 34, which usually results in a W but Geneseo took good care of the ball and only had 5 turnovers to 14 for thr Mustangs. Both teams actually scored 67 points from the field. The game was won at the charity stripe. Geneseo  made 22 of 34 free throws (only 64.7%). The Mustangs shot 88.2% from the line but only had 17 attempts, making 15 of those.

The Mustangs were led by Jordan Prior with 23 pts and 6 boards. Brandon Hanks had 17pts pts and 8 rebounds while Tom Wilk added 13 pts along with 9 rebounds.

Geneseo will play their 2nd game of the season on Monday Nov. 25th when they visit Medaille.       

[magicman]

Fredonia 46  Penn State-Behrend 76.

This game was actually much closer than the score indicates for about 31 of the 40 minutes. Behrend hopped on the Blue Devils right out of the gate as they opened up with a 16-2 run and had a 21-6 lead with only 7 minutes gone in the half. Freds fought back though and twice closed to within 3 points at 26-23 and 29-26 but an 8-0 run to end the half put the Lions up 37-26 at the break. The Blue Devils came out of the locker room and actually played slightly better than the Lions through the first 7 minutes of the 2nd period. They were down 48-41 with 13:12 to go, but from that point on nothing good happened for The Blue Devils. They proceed to miss 13 of their final 14 shots (the only one they made was a dunk), shot 3 for 12 from the free throw line, had 3 turnovers, and were called for a technical foul that resulted in 2 free throws and a 3 pointer on the possession for the Lions. They were outscored 27-5 over the final 12 minutes of the game. The Lions aren't a bad team and did make the NCAA tournament last year (20-9 overall) as they beat Medaille to win the automatic bid from the AMCC conference. They lost a few players from that team but also returned 7 players from last year's rotation. It's never good to lose to a team from the low ranked AMCC conference (38th out of 44) but at least it was one of the better teams in that conference.

Fredonia was led by Tyrone Clark with 20 points on 7x13 shooting (3x7 3's, 3-6 ft). Ray Parris was next high scorer with 9 points. The Blue Devils shot 16x47 from the field (34%), 7x17 3's (41.2%) and 7x20 (35%) from the stripe.

Fredonia falls to 1-2 on the season and up next they will travel to Elmira to face the Soaring Eagles on Sunday Nov.23rd at 2:00 PM.

The SUNYAC is now 14-7 against non-conference opponents. That's a .666 win percentage. I'd like to keep that up. We need to win around 45 games out of the 68-70 non conference games we'll end up playing to maintain that win percentage.
   

[Bengalsrule]

SUNYAC 14...Rest of the country 7!

[Bengalsrule]

Did you know?  Last year on this date the Sunyac record was 11-9 in OOC games?
Currently 3 more wins and 2 less loses at the same point this year(14-7). I believe the 'Yac can have 30 OOC wins before Jan 10th!

[hawkball]

Happy basketball season everyone. Nice to see everyone back in full posting action.

Hawks have home opener vs. Vassar College tonight. Looking forward to seeing them live after the great Cali trip. Very different team this year without Devine and Taylor - but from what little I've seen - I like the way box scores have looked. Rejniak seems to have recruited depth over a single superstar...some intriguing freshman to keep an eye on - Andrew Seniuk and Kewan Beebe.

Great to have shooter Nick Taldi back and Sowah is looking to have his breakout year.

Don't see last year's ROY on the roster...wondering where big man Devino McCrae is? Wondering how the Hawks will fare without McCrae under the boards.

Vassar went 1-1 on opening weekend and have a new coach...we won by a fairly large margin last year but gotta watch out for sophomore Mrlik...he's avg. 20.5 ppg.

Looks like this is the only game in the 'YAC tonight...Go Hawks - Go SUNYAC!

[Bengalsrule]

Happy basketball season everyone. Nice to see everyone back in full posting action.
Don't see last year's ROY on the roster...wondering where big man Devino McCrae is? Wondering how the Hawks will fare without McCrae under the boards.

Damn Hawk. I was hoping that you could tell us what happened to devino McCrae?!?!

Welcome back. We haven't heard from you since Feb 12th. Hope to see you more often this season!

[magicman]

Tonight has just the 1 game on tap.

Vassar College at New Paltz State  6:00 PM

New Paltz has won 4 straight games in this series while the Brewers had back to back wins in 2006 and 2007. The Hawks have only 1 starter back from last year's team that defeated Vassar 74-58 and those 4 starters combined for 46 of the Hawks' points in that game.
Vassar returns 7 of the top 8 guys from last year's rotation plus they regain the services of Johnny Mrlik who led the team in scoring during the 2011-12 season with 322 points. Mrlik, a 6'4" guard/forward, missed last season but is currently leading the team in scoring once again with a 20.5 average through the first 2 games. Apparently he wasn't in school last year as he is only listed as a sophomore on this year's roster. On paper they should win this game because of their experience but the Hawks appear to have reloaded and are sporting what looks like a solid 9 man rotation. I have to think the quality of the opponents that New Paltz faced on their 2-0 California trip is somewhat better than the 2 New England teams that the Brewers faced last weekend. A 65-62 loss to Clark was followed up by a win over Roger Williams by a 71-61 margin. Roger Williams has a Massey rating of #392, near the bottom of the D3 ladder. They may be the weakest team Vassar will play all year. The point spread has the Hawks favored by 13 points, however a rivalry game can bring out the best in the dogs, so you can't count the Brewers out of this one. Just look at last year when last place Vassar beat St Lawrence twice to keep the Saints out of the Liberty League playoffs. Just the same I like the Hawks at home and see them winning by a 76-67 score. 

[magicman]

New Paltz on the short end of a 31-28 halftime score against Vassar College. Hawks have taken over 50% of their shots from behind the arc and have only made 2 of 14 attempts.  Vassar has attempted 17 shots from downtown (out of 24 attempts from the field) and  hit 7 of them. That's the story of this game so far. Taylor Sowah with 9 points leads the Hawks., and Kevin Roach has 6. Erikson Wasyl scores 9 for the Brewers. Johnny Mrlik andCurtis Smith both have 6 points.

[magicman]

Well, I could see it happening but hoped that it wouldn't. Vassar College took it to the Hawks tonight in Hawk Center and came away with a 73-61 win that was a bit of payback after 4 straight losses to the boys from the YAC. Unfortunately for New Paltz they fell behind early in the 2nd half and though they stayed close, could never gain the lead.  Then with the Brewers in the lead 46-44 with 11:28 to play, Vassar got a triple from Erikson Wasyl, a jumper from Luka Ladan, another triple from Johnny Mrlik, 2 free throws from Andrew Adkins, and a layup by Mrlik to boost the margin to 58-44 with 7:43 left to play. Victory cigars were set ablaze as this game was over. The closest New Paltz could get was 10 points and they were down 73-58 when the Hawks' Joe Tino hit a triple at the buzzer to narrow the final margin to the 12 point MOV.

Vassar was led by the guy I was afraid of Johnny Mrlik, who claimed scoring honors by tossing in 21 pts,  and also was the game's top rebounder with 9 rebounds. I should probably mention that he led everyone with 7 assists as well. He also had 1 block, 2 steals and played nearly the entire game as he logged 38 minutes. He was 7x16 from the field with 4 three pointers. Looks like the Hawks just had no answer for him. He did get lots of help though as 3 other players had double figures. Wasyl had 16 pts, Curtis Smith had 15 pts and Ladan scored 13 pts  with 5 boards. Big difference in this game was the 3 point shooting as the Brewers went 13 x28 while the Hawks were only 7x20.

New Paltz was led by Taylor Sowah with 15 pts and Nick Taldi with 14 pts. Taldi had 4 of the Hawks 7 triples, while Taylor and Kevin Roach (8 pts) each hauled down 7 rebounds.

Hawks were outshot, and had 11 turnovers to 8 for the Brewers. Hawks had 33 rebounds to 30 for Vassar. New Paltz only managed 9 assists in the game while Vassar had 16.

Vassar improves to 2-1 and will host Western Connecticut next Tuesday Nov.26th at 7:00 PM

New Paltz, now 2-1, will need a quick refresher course in run and gun, as Delaware Valley comes to Hawk Center on Saturday Nov 23rd at 4:00 PM. The Aggies are averaging over 95 ppg and already own a pair of wins against perennial New Jersey Athletic Conference powers, Rowan 102-94 and Ramapo 92-83.   Good luck with that one Hawks.

The YAC is now 14-8 but this loss against a Massey ranked  #300 team will hurt the Hawks and the conference 's SOS. Hopefully Vassar continues to surprise and moves up the pecking order in the Liberty League.   

[magicman]

Did you know?  Last year on this date the Sunyac record was 11-9 in OOC games?
Currently 3 more wins and 2 less loses at the same point this year(14-7). I believe the 'Yac can have 30 OOC wins before Jan 10th!

Jinx

[magicman]

The Massey Ratings were updated overnight and the top 13 teams in the East Region are:

#20   Cortland State

#41   Plattsburgh State

#42   Hobart

#47   NYU

#58   Nazareth

#76 Geneseo State

#88  Brockport State

#91  St. John Fisher

#94  Oswego State

#110 Stevens Tech

#117 Buffalo State

#119 Skidmore

#124 New Paltz




Massey still shows a number of teams with no games played, such as Buffalo State and St. John Fisher. Not sure why some teams W-L records aren't being updated. The Bengals have moved up 15 spots from their initial ranking, going from #132 to #117 and should move up even further once their schedule is updated. Geneseo which started the season at #105 and had moved to #85 before even playing a game, played on Wednesday night for the 1st time. The win over Medaille boosted them another 9 spots as they now check in at #76. So their game is updated very quickly, yet Buffalo State has played 2 games before Geneseo even took the floor and they are still listed with a 0-0 W-L record, and so is St. John Fisher.   

Of note:

Seven of the top 13 teams are from the YAC. 

Vassar's win over New Paltz last night vaulted the Brewers from #300 to #181.They started the season at #354 and have gained 173 spots since then. New Paltz fell from #61 to #124. That is still 59 placements better than they opened the season with (#183) but a drop of 63 spots because of the loss to Vassar. Amazing what 1 loss to a low ranked team can do and vice versa

[Bengalsrule]

Magicman.   Who do we need to see at Massey about the neglect that they have been showing my beloved BENGALS? Do ur thing puhleeeese!!!

[hawkball]

Hawks looked pretty unimpressive last night. No defense against the screen - hence all the 3ptrs and absolutely no ball movement.

Nothing from Sowah or Andrew Joseph last night...need starters to step-up if we're going to compete! Vassar seems completely reenergized with new coach - they could be very good in their conference.

Heard at the game last night McCrae is out this season due to family issues...sure missed him last night!

Have Delaware Valley this weekend - haven't done much to scout them - but they were another NCAA team. Hopefully Hawks can step up to the challenge!

Tough to see those Massey ratings drop. Oh well! It's still early!