MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[magicman]

Buffalo State defeats Potsdam 105-61

[jdex]

New Paltz will win this one ......78-74 with seconds left .......80-74 final at Cortland!!!!!

Hawks unload from the field at 55 percent clip, sink 30x55fg, 10x21 3s. N. Paquette 21 points(5x9 3s) and 9 rebs, K. Donovan off the bench for 20 in 22 minutes. A. Seniuk with 13. M. Kelly counts 16 pts(6x11) for Cortland. TJ Hefele 10 pts(4x6). B. Estarfaa 9 pts(3x12fg). RDragons 28x63fg, 9x29 3s, 9x16ft

Paquette from the arc nailed his squad's first two shots and the Hawks were off to a 6-0 lead. Cortland came back for a brief lead, then chased the rest of the game. New Paltz certainly gained in confidence as the game went on. Shot very, very well. Didn't get to the line till late. Looked the sharper from the get-go. Cortland had that 'mail it in' look and paid a steep price. Gotta be ready in this conference!

NP Donovan from right up the road from Cortland ----- a Groton lad. Averaging eight points. Nice homecoming, particularly since Cortland buried NP earlier. Sweet trip south.

[All-Time]

Terrible weekend for the Oneonta Red Dragons. They need to go back to the drawing board and find their swagger.
Cortland misses out on a big chance to secure up 2nd place with Geneseo and loses to New Paltz.
Oswego avenges a horrible lose to Oneonta a few weeks ago and is starting to find their way.
Plattsburgh is ahead of the class here especially after that big win last night against Buffalo State with a Eli Bryant 3.
Buffalo State seems to be there in Talent but can't find that consistency they need each and every game.
Brockport's lose to Geneseo Friday night is another team that seems to have the talent but can't seem to bring it every night.
Geneseo with Ringen and Decker seem to find a way to beat teams that are more talented and athletic.
New Paltz, Fredonia and Potsdam bring up the rear but are not automatic outs as New Paltz and Fredonia have knocked off some of the better teams in the conference.

The Craziness of the SUNYAC is in full gear. Hold on to your seats its going to be a wild finish.

[Bengalsrule]

Terrible weekend for the Oneonta Red Dragons. They need to go back to the drawing board and find their swagger.
Cortland misses out on a big chance to secure up 2nd place with Geneseo and loses to New Paltz.
Oswego avenges a horrible lose to Oneonta a few weeks ago and is starting to find their way.
Plattsburgh is ahead of the class here especially after that big win last night against Buffalo State with a Eli Bryant 3.
Buffalo State seems to be there in Talent but can't find that consistency they need each and every game.
Brockport's lose to Geneseo Friday night is another team that seems to have the talent but can't seem to bring it every night.
Geneseo with Ringen and Decker seem to find a way to beat teams that are more talented and athletic.
New Paltz, Fredonia and Potsdam bring up the rear but are not automatic outs as New Paltz and Fredonia have knocked off some of the better teams in the conference.

The Craziness of the SUNYAC is in full gear. Hold on to your seats its going to be a wild finish.

That's about the best description I've seen on the SUNYAC.  Any given night someone can win...or lose. Thats what makes the 'Yac great.

[magicman]

Wooster is one of my favorite names. Thank you for indulging me in one of my usual non-sequiturs

So pg04,

How long have people been calling you Wooster? And is that Elmer Fudd talk for Rooster?

[Bengalsrule]

A win and a loss for the weekend. Not what we had hoped for, but we  will take it (Actually we have no choice but to take it). Gotta do better or we will be watching at home during the last week of Feb.  BUFF STATE championship year (2011) saw a BENGALS record at 13-5! 12-6 record was good for 2nd seed last year, 4th (8 losses) in 2014, 3rd seed  in 2013 and 11-7 was good for 2nd seed in 2012!  That's not surprising seeing how competitive the SUNYAC is. Can't afford any more losses!

Cortland (Ugh) and Oswego (Ugh Ugh) are up next weekend for my beloved BENGALS!  Cortland has Brockport Tuesday and Oswego has Geneseo. Hopefully they will both play an epic 9/10 overtime game ( or longer    ).  Waiting another 6 days to cheer my boys on is a killer.  We are still alive though (everyone is). 1 game separates 6 teams in the win column! Top 6 teams all had D3 votes in the past 6 weeks! Talk about a balanced league!!!   

Go BENGALS!

[pg04]

Wooster is one of my favorite names. Thank you for indulging me in one of my usual non-sequiturs

So pg04,

How long have people been calling you Wooster? And is that Elmer Fudd talk for Rooster?

Just one of many aliases I have, ole magic one. 

[magicman]

Plattsburgh State 89  Fredonia 75

Plattsburgh completes a 2-0 western swing and gains a foothold on first place in the conference as they now hold a two and a half game lead over Geneseo. The Cardinals now have a 5 game homestand before ending the season with another trip to the western region of the state.

Plattsburgh took care of business on Saturday  against the Blue Devils in a very similar fashion to their last meeting in Plattsburgh on January 8th. The two teams jockeyed back and forth for the first few minutes and were tied at 9 apiece, 4 minutes into the game. A 16-4 burst put the Cards in front by double digits and they maintained a healthy margin for the remainder of the game. Kyle Richardson with 10 early points and Xavier Thomas with 6 points were the main contributors to the Cardinals early lead. The X-Man had a pair of dunks in that run while Richardson showed his versatitlity by scoring from long distance, and on inside moves.

By the time the halfway point of the period was reached the Cards had doubled up the Blue Devils score and led 30-15. Plattsburgh continued to expand their advantage as the coaching staff went to their bench and with 3 minutes to go in the half, Owen Mitchell's basket gave the Cards a 21 point advantage at 46-25. They coasted into the half up by a 50-30 score.

In the 2nd half the Blue Devils hung with the Cardinals and the lead stayed in double digits throughout the period but they did manage to get it down to 11 points with 7 minutes left to play. A 3 pointer by Ed Correa, a layup by Richardson, and another triple by Eli Bryant, boosted the lead back to 16. Seconds later Bryant stole the ball and fed Chris Middleton, who scored and was fouled. His 3 point play made it 76-57 with 4:54 to go, as the Cardinals ended any chance of a Fredonia comeback.

Jon Patron had a game high 22 points to lead Plattsburgh and just missed a double-double with 9 rebounds, also a game high. He was 9x12 from the field and 4x7 from the line.

Kyle Richardson completed another big weekend for Plattsburgh as he also just missed his 11th double-double. He had 20 points (8x15 fg, 1x3 3's, 3x4 ft) and tied the game high in rebounds with 9. For the weekend Richardson had 44 points...18x30 from the field, 2x5 from long range, and 6x7 from the line. He had 19 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists. Once again he is a leading candidate for the SUNYAC Player of the Week award. Once again he will probably be overlooked. By my count he should have at least 4 of those on his living room mantle, instead of the 1 he has.

Xavier Thomas had 13 points (6x13 fg, 1x4 ft), 4 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block. And 3 mighty dunks. I'm pretty sure he would lead the conference in dunks this year if that statistic was kept, which is pretty amazing since he's only 6'2" tall. But that's why he's the X-Man. Nobody in the YAC can jump higher.

Eli Bryant, yesterday's hero against Buffalo State, again came off the bench and added 11 points to the Plattsburgh total. He was 4x6 from the field and 3x3 from the line. He had 2 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

The Cardinals were a shade under 50% from the field hitting 34 of 69 shots. They were 6x18 from behind the arc and 15x21 from the line. All 3 of those stats were better than the Blue Devils and they only had 10 turnovers to 13 for Fredonia. The Blue Devils managed to corral 42 rebounds to 39 for Plattsburgh.

Ian Helps, as usual, was the leading scorer for Fredonia, as he matched the game high with 22 points. He also equaled the game high in rebounds as he grabbed 9 boards.

Dante Williams had 13 points with 6 rebounds and Brandon Hodge added 11 points with 3 rebounds.

The Cardinals up their overall record to 15-3 and lead the YAC with a 10-1 mark. They will return to action on Friday at 7:30 when they host the Oneonta Red Dragons.

Fredonia drops to 6-12 overall and 5-7 in the conference. They are now in 8th place behind a trio of teams that have 5-5 or 6-6 records. They will travel to central NY this weekend to take on Oswego at 7:30 on Friday and Cortland on Saturday. 

   

[magicman]

The latest East Regional Rankings from KnightSlappy. I had to make a slight adjustment to the D3 record for a number of teams as they were slightly off from his rankings. Not sure why. For instance he has Plattsburgh with a D3 record of 14-3 and an overall record of 15-3. Plattsburgh has not played anyone outside of D3 so their D3 record and overall record are the same. This was the case for 8 YAC schools and 2 Liberty League schools.

The first set of Regional Rankings will come out on Wednesday February 10th. The East Region will only have the Top 6 teams released but I will put up a link that will show all the East Region teams.   

The column vRRO is a team's record versus Regionally Ranked Opponents. Since there have been no regional rankings it is presently 0-0 for all teams. Once the teams are ranked then there will be won-lost log in that column. As an example, if these were the rankings on Feb. 10th, Plattsburgh's vRRO column would be how they fared against the top 6 teams, because only 6 teams are ranked in the East Region. Since Plattsburgh has beaten Oneonta,  Geneseo , Buffalo State twice, and Oswego they would have a 5-0 mark in the vRRO column. Oneonta woud be 2-3 (losses to Buff State, Oswego and Plattsburgh...wins against Oswego and Geneseo). If, in subsequent weeks, a team drops out of the top 6 spots and is not regionally ranked, the game you played against them would still be considered a game against a regionally ranked opponent.   

So according to these rankings if the NCAA tournament was to start tomorrow and the at large bids were awarded based on these rankings the East Region would have Plattsburgh State, Nazareth, St. Lawrence, and Lancaster Bible as the winners of the 4 East Region conferences (Pool A) and would get automatic bids. KnightSlappy has those 4 teams with a Pool A because they all are currently in 1st place in their respective conferences.

The schools with a number of 19 or below under the "status" row would be in line to get a Pool C bid as an At Large entrant into the NCAA tournament.  So #7 Oneonta, #8 Geneseo, #13 Rochester and #19 Buffalo State would currently get a bid. I wish I could say that will happen later this month but I'm pretty sure it won't. The rankings for the rest of the East Region and the entire country can be found here:

http://detroitjockcity.com/division-iii-mens-basketball-regional-rankings-data/

I don't believe for one minute that the Northeast Region, which is currently showing Tufts as the only Pool C,  at large team, will wind up with only 1 at large bid. They usually get anywhere from 3 to 5. This year will be no different probably. The Central Region with 5 teams and the East Region with 4 teams are the 2 that are leading right now. I expect the East Region to have a significant drop off by selection Monday.

Last year Plattsburgh State was ranked 2nd in the East Region behind St.John Fisher. When Fisher won the automatic bid from the Empire 8 Conference that left Plattsburgh as the top team in the East to receive a Pool C at large bid. For 19 selection rounds we were the team at the table from our region and for 19 rounds we were passed over which meant no team from the East Region got an at large entry into the NCAA tournament last year. Nothing is guaranteed.

Remember these aren't official in any way, shape, or form. They represent a concerned individual's best attempt at ranking the teams. KnightSlappy does a great job and gives us something to look at until the real rankings come out.

Enjoy!!
 

Reg.   Rank   Team                Conf      WP           SOS          RPI    Rank    Pool  Status D3   vRRO  OVR      
EA   1   Plattsburgh State SUNYAC     0.824     0.556     0.623      15       A       C       15-3  0-0   15-3      
EA   2   SUNY Oneonta       SUNYAC   0.625     0.607     0.611      20       C       7        11-6  0-0  11-6      
EA   3   SUNY Geneseo       SUNYAC   0.800     0.546     0.609      21        C       8       13-3   0-0 13-4         
EA   4   Rochester               UAA          0.706     0.569     0.603      27      C       13       12-5   0-0 12-6      
EA   5   Buffalo State       SUNYAC      0.688      0.565     0.596      33       C       19      11-6  0-0 12-7          
EA   6   Oswego State       SUNYAC    0.688      0.552     0.586     44        C        27       12-5 0-0  12-5      
ea   7   Brockport               SUNYAC   0.563      0.579      0.575      59       C      3 9      10-7  0-0 17-0


Edit: 4:04 PM  I emailed KnightSlappy about the D3 vs overall records and he made all the corrections.

[with age came?]

Magicman you have to be "flying"  your beloved Cardinals have cracked the top 25!!  Congratulations!!

[Bengalsrule]

Magicman you have to be "flying"  your beloved Cardinals have cracked the top 25!!  Congratulations!!

Congrats indeed to the Cards!   Good to see the Yac getting some recognition!

[magicman]

Magicman you have to be "flying"  your beloved Cardinals have cracked the top 25!!  Congratulations!!

I didn't think at the start of the season that a Top 25 ranking at any point of the season was possible. I knew we had a good recruiting class as I watched them playing pickup games during September and October before practices began. But the Cardinals lost more of their rotation players than any team in the conference, including 4 of their starters. I was hoping that we could grab a playoff berth in the YAC tournament and maybe, by late February, the team would come together and win 3 games in a row to get the automatic bid. I thought the only way we might go dancing this year was if that happened. I really thought if we were lucky we might be 17-10 or 18-9 after the playoffs and that wouldn't get us an at large bid. So the automatic bid as the conference champs was our only hope. I began to think we had something special about 3 weeks ago when we ran our record to 9-2 and were 4-0 in the YAC.

Still a long way to go and the basketball gods giveth and taketh away, but I am flying a bit higher than I was a few weeks ago. The #24 spot in the Top 25 ranking is nice and if you remember, I thought we should have been receiving votes ahead of other teams in the conference a month ago, when we weren't mentioned at all. But better to be ranked later in the year and hopefully at the end, than early in the year and never again. Now our record is such, that if we can take care of business for the most part, we may have the opportunity to gain an at large bid if we don't win the conference tournament. We're certainly looking better at this point of the season than I ever thought we would look.

The success of our team has to be attributed to 3 things:

1. Excellent leadership from our 3 seniors, Kyle Richardson, Eddie Correa and Xavier Thomas. They have been instrumental in leading this team by example. Richardson has put together a Player of the Year season. Correa's 3 point shooting has been a huge weapon in leading so many Cardinal comebacks. And the X-Man's high flying repertoire of dunks, blocks, and rebounds above the rim, have fired up the team on numerous occasions. His lock down defense has been pretty solid as well.

2. The maturation and integration of all the new players into the Cardinals system. Most notably, sophomore transfer Eli Bryant and freshman Jon Patron. The 3 seniors all average double figures and Patron has now edged his way up to become the 2nd leading scorer on the team with a 13.7 ppg behind Richardson's 19.9 ppg. He is also the 2nd leading rebounder on the team with 6.9 rpg, again, trailing only Richardson who is grabbing 11.0 rpg and is ranked 18th in the nation. Bryant has steadily watched his points per game total climb and he is now just a shade shy of double digits with a 9.7 ppg average. His 3 point shooting has become a weapon as well and he has the best percentage from long distance of anyone on the team. His dagger from 4 feet beyond the arc on Friday against Buffalo State may well end up as the most exciting shot of the Cardinals season. (Although I hope we have a few more of those) In addition to these 2 new players there have been solid contributions from 4 other first year players that have enabled the Cardinals to not just rebuild but reload.

3. Coach Tom Curle with assistants Cameron Conover and John Konowitz have done an outstanding job getting these veterans and youngsters to become a cohesive unit. They seem to be able to get it done when crunch time rolls around. To have played 7 conference road games at this point, and be 7-0 in those games is a testament to the fine job the coaches have done. Now with 5 of their 7 remaining games taking place in the friendly confines of Memorial Hall, the Cardinals really do hold their destiny in their own hands. Curle has to be the leading candidate at this point for another Coach of the Year award.

Go Cardinals...Break the Stone!         

[amh63]

See that someone else beat me to congrat the Cardinals rise to the top!   Not hard these days. Can even see my back yard plants a bit....too much moving snow around.
Anyway, maybe if Plattsburgh wins the YAC and goes to the big dance....and Amherst does the same, just maybe the Catdinals and the Jeffs will meet in the post season.  Long way to go yet.
Question to you magic1.....where does " break the stone"  come from?

[magicman]

The new D3hops Top 25 poll has been released. Here is the link:

http://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2015-16/week8

Nice to see my Cardinals crack the Top 25 and enter at the #24 spot. I told a few people on Sunday that I expected it to happen after we had another 2-0 weekend on the road. Especially after a lot of teams in front of us from last weeks poll lost 1 or 2 games.

Plattsburgh's rise has been rapid once they entered the polls. The Cardinals did not get a single point through the first 6 polls (preseason and weeks 1 through 5)and had to watch as 11 other schools from the East Region were either ranked or got votes. Finally in week 6, after running their winning streak to 7 games and beating the 4th team in their past 5 games that had been mentioned in the polls, the Cardinals got their first points of the season. They went 1-1 in the next week and lost a few points but another 2-0 week has them gaining 29 points and cracking the Top 25.

It is a tenuous ranking that could only last a short time since a single defeat is all it takes to have the voters climb on the back of another team that may be heating up next week. In order to stay in the Top 25 the Cardinals will need one more solid week and then they can afford to lose a game and still not fall out of the rankings. I'm hoping they have a good homestand to improve their position.

Lancaster Bible continues to move up in the standings as they remain undefeated, gain 91 points, and climb to the #15 spot up 3 from last week. 

NYU has fallen out of favor and dropped down into the others receiving votes category. They lost 84 points and are now in the Others Receiving Votes at #28. They are only 4-3 in a UAA conference that is not as strong as they usually are this year. I can see them falling even further.

No other team in the East Region is getting a mention this week.

[magicman]

This is a quote from a post I made after the Plattsburgh State-Fredonia game on Saturday. My wishful thinking has become a reality.

Kyle Richardson completed another big weekend for Plattsburgh as he also just missed his 11th double-double. He had 20 points (8x15 fg, 1x3 3's, 3x4 ft) and tied the game high in rebounds with 9. For the weekend Richardson had 44 points...18x30 from the field, 2x5 from long range, and 6x7 from the line. He had 19 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists. Once again he is a leading candidate for the SUNYAC Player of the Week award. Once again he will probably be overlooked. By my count he should have at least 4 of those on his living room mantle, instead of the 1 he has.

The SUNYAC powers that be, have made the correct choice on Monday, as they've named Kyle Richardson as the SUNYAC Player of the Week for the week ending January 31st. Here's the write up from the SUNYAC website.

Kyle Richardson, Plattsburgh
Baldwin, N.Y. / Baldwin HS

"Kyle Richardson shot a combined 60-percent (18-for-30) from the field and averaged 22.0 points and 9.5 rebounds per game in two victories for Plattsburgh State over the weekend. The senior posted his league-best 10th double-double of the season with a game-high 24 points and 10 rebounds in Friday night's 94-92 win at Buffalo State, with 20 of his points coming in the second half. Saturday afternoon against Fredonia saw Richardson register his ninth 20-plus point effort on the year, as he poured in 22 points while grabbing nine boards."

Actually they made a slight error as Kyle only had 20 points against Fredonia, not 22. I gave them all the info they needed back on Saturday.

Hope they won't rescind his POTW award now that I corrected them.

Great job Kyle. I'd like to see a couple more, though.