MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[magicman]

December 10th   1 game today which i didn't know about

St. Joseph's (Bklyn.) at  New Paltz State

The Hawks are a slim 2 point favorite in this game and even though their record is not as good as the Bears, I think they have played a tougher schedule. I'll take new Paltz to win this one by a 68-60 final score.

[magicman]

New Paltz defeats St. Joseph's (Bklyn.) 67-61.

[All-Time]

Went to Alumni weekend up at Oneonta on Saturday.
It was Great to see some of the Greats that played at Dewar arena.
Just to name a few, Hooks, Gillette, Coleman, Williams, Kolosky, McElroy, Kelly and Mager.
What was also special was Mackin scoring his 1000th point on Friday night.

Most of the guys above were recruited by Coach Medici who made the trip to see this former players.
It was a wonderful day and Coach Cam was a great host.

I did get to see Magicman's Bears play and I liked what I saw out of this group.
They were Gritty and played with a lot of Swagger.
The future is bright in North Country for the Bears.

Lets GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Bengalsrule]

Went to Alumni weekend up at Oneonta on Saturday.
It was Great to see some of the Greats that played at Dewar arena.
Just to name a few, Hooks, Gillette, Coleman, Williams, Kolosky, McElroy, Kelly and Mager.
What was also special was Mackin scoring his 1000th point on Friday night.

Most of the guys above were recruited by Coach Medici who made the trip to see this former players.
It was a wonderful day and Coach Cam was a great host.

I did get to see Magicman's Bears play and I liked what I saw out of this group.
They were Gritty and played with a lot of Swagger.
The future is bright in North Country for the Bears.

Lets GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Mager kid was especially tough.

[magicman]

Sounds like All-Time had a good time.

Always great to see the all the players come back for Alumni Weekend. You get to catch up on how they're doing and see what fine young men they turned out to be. Always a highlight of the basketball season.

The Bears are getting better no doubt about it. Coach Bechtel has them going in the right direction. Tough loss to the Red Dragons but encouraging to know they hung with them in Oneonta. Could be trouble when the Red Dragons hit the North Country.

Mager, McElroy and Kelly.....three of my favorite Red Dragons.    

[magicman]

Cortland's Austin Grunder was named to the D3hoops Team of the Week for the Games of Dec. 2-Dec. 8, 2019. Austin was also chosen as the SUNYAC Player of the Week for the week ending 12-8.

Here's the write up from the D3hoops front page:

Austin Grunder

Grunder averaged 28 points, 18 rebounds, two assists, and two blocks per game as Cortland split its opening two SUNYAC games. He scored 27 points on 10-of-18 shooting, grabbed 17 rebounds, and blocked two shots in a 75-66 win at Geneseo, Friday. The following afternoon he scored 29 points (10-20 FG, 9-10 FT), pulled down 18 rebounds, handed out four assists, and added three steals in an 86-73 loss at Brockport. Grunder currently leads the nation in rebounding.

Here's the link to the complete Team of the Week:     https://d3hoops.prestosports.com/awards/tow/2019-20/week4


Austin was also chosen as the SUNYAC Player of the Week for the week ending 12-8. The same write-up was on the SUNYAC website.

Congratulation to Austin on a great beginning to his Cortland career. Hope he continues to lead the nation in rebounding.

[magicman]

The latest D3hoops Top 25 came out on Monday and Oswego with 2 losses since the previous poll has dropped completely off the list. No SUNYAC schools are receiving any votes and the only East Region team mentioned is Rochester, with 15 points, in the #35 spot.

Since Hobart beat Rochester and Brockport beat both Hobart and last week's #25 Oswego State, I'm surprised that Brockport didn't get at least a few votes. Both Brockport and Hobart only have 1 loss like Rochester.   

[thebear]

The latest D3hoops Top 25 came out on Monday and Oswego with 2 losses since the previous poll has dropped completely off the list. No SUNYAC schools are receiving any votes and the only East Region team mentioned is Rochester, with 15 points, in the #35 spot.

Since Hobart beat Rochester and Brockport beat both Hobart and last week's #25 Oswego State, I'm surprised that Brockport didn't get at least a few votes. Both Brockport and Hobart only have 1 loss like Rochester.   

Brockport had a bad loss to Morrisville who is 3-4 with losses to bad teams, Oswego lost to a not very good SLU team, Agree that Hobart lost by a point at 'port and should probably be getting votes.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

The problem is if you start diving into it, it all unravels.

So Hobart loses to Brockport .. and Brokcport beat Rochester ... it creates a ridiculous comparison. Brockport has that loss to Morrisville that sticks out... as a result, their win over Rochester makes me less inclined to vote for Rochester. Since Hobart also lost to Brockport, I'm less inclined to vote for Hobart (even if it is a point) all because I'm certainly not voting for Morrisville.

I removed Oswego because as good as I thought they had been, losing twice in one week isn't good enough right now. Not with so much parity across the country in DIII. And a loss to Brockport.

I may overlook these losses if the teams show later in the season it may have been a one-off type game, but right now, early in the poll, I just decided to cut my losses and move on.

I hope that made sense. I've rewritten this four times and I think I'm starting to confuse myself ... another reason I cut my losses and moved on when I voted.

[magicman]

Dec. 13                    One game scheduled for today as the Bears take on the host school

Potsdam State  at  York (N.Y.)        5:30 PM   Game 1 of the York College Invitational.

The Bears are hoping to get leading scorer Jayquan Thomas back for today's game. Also missing is 2nd leading scorer Brandon Segar Jr. who will probably not be in uniform today.

York College is 3-5 overall but has a couple of wins that are interesting. They defeated SUNY-Maritime 83-70. Maritime defeated New Paltz 94-80 on November 23rd. That result would indicate that York should beat New Paltz by double digits, which is what Potsdam did last weekend, downing the Hawks 83-70.  York also owns a win over Old Westbury just 3 days ago by a 77-70 score. Old Westbury defeated DeSales last week by an 81-76 score. DeSales was the winner of the Oneonta State tip off tournament back on the 15th and 16th of November. DeSales beat Alvernia for the title and Alvernia had beaten Oneonta the day before 71-70. So York beat the team that beat the winner of Oneonta's tournament, who beat the team that beat Oneonta. Have you got that???      Sure sounds like York should be competitve here against the Bears.

The oddsmakers have made Potsdam a 14 point favorite over the home team Cardinals. I'm hoping that York is the only Cardinal team the Bears get the W against this season. I'll take the Bears in this one but I think it'll be a little closer than the experts prediction. Potsdam 78 York 70.     

[thebear]

Potsdam 31 York [NY] 31 at Halftime.  Bears had several major players in foul trouble, York went on a 13-0 run to lead 28-19 with 3:00 left, Bears staged a comeback to tie on a Dante Viskovich Trey with :07.  No live stats, video only shows scores at timeouts. :-(

[magicman]

Potsdam 31 York [NY] 31 at Halftime.  Bears had several major players in foul trouble, York went on a 13-0 run to lead 28-19 with 3:00 left, Bears staged a comeback to tie on a Dante Viskovich Trey with :07.  No live stats, video only shows scores at timeouts. :-(

Sad that schools can't give live stats for the fans of the road team and others who can't make the game. No on screen scoreboard or announcers  is also frustrating. I imagine we'll be lucky if there is a box score available after the game as well. Probably have to wait until the Potsdam SID posts the results on the Potsdam website.

[magicman]

Apparently it's overtime as YorKand Potsdam appear to be tied at 71.

Worst broadcast I've ever seen. Half the time the camera doesn't even show you the action as it doesn't focus on where the ball is. Instead of showing the area around the basket we're left looking at the center court or end court area. Had no idea what the score was the entire 2nd half until there were 19 seconds left in the game.

[magicman]

Looks like Potsdam State defeated York 88-84 in overtime. Hard to tell since Potsdam had two foul shots with 2 seconds on the clock but the camera guy didn't show the basket so it was hard to tell if Potsdam made any of those final 2 free throws. I thought he missed them both but I could be wrong.

The score of this game should have been Potsdam 73   York 71 as the Bears made a basket with just 1 or 2 seconds left in regulation but one of the refs called the Potsdam player, who made the pass to the scoring player, for an offensive foul and the basket wasn't counted. That would have made the score much closer to my 78-70 prediction. I didn't figure there would be an overtime in this one.

Glad to see the Bears pull this one out with both their top two scorers missing the game. Tomorrow they will face either           SUNY-Purchase or Gwynedd Mercy.


Checking out the box score for this game. Refs kept their whistles firmly between their lips as they whisltled the 2 teams for 64 fouls between them.   

[magicman]

Dec. 14                         Just one game on tap for today           

Potsdam  vs  SUNY-Purchase   3:00 PM        @ at York (NY)  Championship game of the York College Invitational.

The Bears fought back from deficits several times yesterday to defeat the host team 88-84 in overtime and advance to play Purchase for the championship. The Panthers defeated Gwynedd Mercy 80-73.

Purchase has already played 1 SUNYAC team this year and that was back on November 15th when they lost to Cortland on a last second 3 pointer 87-86. They have a bad loss to Sage College, another bad loss by 25 points to Neumann College but lately have ripped off 4 wins in a row. Most impressive was a 21 point beatdown of Hamilton College 97-76 just last week.
If that Purchase team shows up I think the Bears are on the short end of the score.

The experts have made Potsdam a 5 point favorite in this game. I think if the Bears were at full strength that might be the case. Missing their top two scorers, however doesn't lead me to believe they'll win this game. I sure hope they do but think they come up short. Purchase wins a close one 76-72.