MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[jdex]

Cortland also loses asst coach Bill Williams to retirement. Interesting tale is he. Local playing whiz out of Homer, he became playing force at CSt -- as in All-Conf. against the likes of Buff St's Randy Smith. Coached and taught HS ranks. Returned to CSt as head coach in '80s when terrific team featured T. Spanbauer. Then an administrator. Joined CSt faculty and also took on added asst coach duties for Span. Bill -- hardnosed, stubborn, soft spoken, valued big man tutor. Will be missed ....

[scooterman]

The Eagles are hosting the ECAC's with Ithaca, Hobart and RPI. That's a nice little tourney for them. Congrats to Coach Dunne and his staff for making the midget men an exciting group. Good luck this weekend!!!

[with age came?]

Magic must be in heaven!!! If Plattsburgh plays to potential - very good chance to go to the sweet sixteen and perhaps beyond!!  Also going out on a limb- I think that the ECAC winner comes out of the liberty league. My bet is on Hobart.

[magicman]

Magic must be in heaven!!! If Plattsburgh plays to potential - very good chance to go to the sweet sixteen and perhaps beyond!!  Also going out on a limb- I think that the ECAC winner comes out of the liberty league. My bet is on Hobart.

With age,
You got that right!! I can't believe our good fortune on being named the host. I think that anyone of the 4 teams in this pod can win 2 games and get to the sweet 16 but I like the Cardinals chances. Nazareth, with their victory over St. John Fisher this past weekend will be coming in with a ton of confidence. Medaille has basicallly the same team back that gave a highly ranked John Carroll a too close for comfort game in last year's 1st round and beat this year's John Carroll team that wasn't much different from last year's version. SUNYIT, as I know you remember, won a 1st round game against a decent Elms team last year and gave SLU a battle in the 2nd round before losing 90-80. They have 2 good players in Dave Golembiowski and Diloo Brown. Golembiowski, only a junior just went over the career 1500 point mark and Brown a senior hit the career 1000 point mark the day after Golembiowski got his milestone. Hopefully the Cardinals can take care of business, but if they do advance, #2 ranked Williams lies in wait and that game for sure will be played in Williamstown, Mass. My only feeling there is that the 2 SUNYAC schools that have played Williams, Cortland and New Paltz both took the Ephs right down to the wire and New Paltz had a chance to win at the buzzer. Right now we need to be focused on SUNYIT and take it 1 game at a time. Thanks for your encouragement throughout the year.

Oh and the ECAC's will be hard to predict. Any one of these teams can win it. I'll have to give it some thought and try and pick a winner. I know who scooterman thinks win win though. I heard he's picking Ithaca.    

[magicman]

The SUNYAC All Conference teams were released on Monday March 1st. I don't know the entire list of honorees because the SUNYAC website isn't showing a thing about it. Several teams have posted the players from their schools that made the list so I'll give you what I know and fill in as the details become available. Apparently the massive budget problems that New York State has encountered has affected the ability of the SUNYAC athletic offices to update the  official SUNYAC athletic site. It's pretty sad that the site is showing statistics of games through Feb 22nd and yet there are mistakes in team's records, team's averages, and team's winning streaks to name a few that I've found. I even pointed the errors out to them over a week ago but no one has bothered to correct them. If they can notify the schools about the All Conference selections, why can't they take a few minutes and post it on the website and keep it up to date.

jdex or bear any thoughts as to why the website can't be maintained in a timely manner? Well enough venting for one night, here's what I know. I've update this and now have listed the entire list of All Conference selections. SUNYAC site finally displayed the list late Tuesday afternoon.


SUNYAC Player of the Year is senior Forward Brian Beckford of Oneonta St.

SUNYAC Coach of the Year is Tom Curle of Plattsburgh St This was the 3rd time  Coach Curle has recieved this award in his 7 seven seasons at Plattsburgh.

SUNYAC Rookie of the Year freshman Jake Simmons Buffalo St.

SUNYAC First Team All Conference:

Chris Ruiz junior forward  Plattsburgh St. This marks the 2nd straight year that Chris has been named to the 1st team.

Errol Daniyan junior forward  Plattsburgh St.

Jermaine Johnson junior guard  Brockport St.

Dustin Marshall junior guard  Cortland St.

Brian Beckford senior forward Oneonta St.


Second Team All Conference:

Steve Thomas junior guard  Plattsburgh St.

Michael Grimes senior forward  Oneonta St. This was Mike's 2nd straight year on the All Conference 2nd team.

Chad Burridge sophomore forward Oswego St. Chad was last year's Rookie of the Year winner.

Shareef Taylor sophomore guard New Paltz St.

Brad Cooper senior guard Fredonia St.



Honorable Mention:

Carl Munnerlyn junior guard  Plattsburgh St.

Brandon Simpson senior forward Geneseo St.

Jake Simmons freshman guard Buffalo St.

Antonio Samedi  senior forward/center Buffalo St

Jayquan Anderson sohomore forward New Paltz St.

The five awards handed out to Plattsburgh are the most ever in one season in school history. 2 years ago when the Cardinals ran the table in the SUNYAC Anthony Williams was Player of the Year and was named along with Travis Gorham to the 1st team. Khylan Hunt was named to the 2nd team and Coach Curle was the Coach of the Year as well.

I realize it's tough to get 2 players from the same school on the 1st team and 3 from the same school is almost unheard of but a strong case could be made for Steve Thomas to have been a first teamer as well. His scoring average of 17.0 points per game is 4th in the conference. He is 2nd in the conference in free throw percentage sinking 145 out of 187 attempt for a .775 clip and made 50  more from the stripe than the next closest player. Only 6'2" the athletic Thomas was the Cardinals' 2nd leading rebounder and ranked in the top 10 in the conference with 6.6 boards per game. I'd say that next year 1st team honors will come his way except Ruiz, Daniyan, and Munnerlyn are all coming back. Maybe 3 on the 1st team won't be unheard of after all.  

[jdex]

Spent some time ourselves last night trying to locate All-YAC squads, and like you, Magic, drew plenty of blanks. Almost posted same info you discovered. Believe conference publicist out of Fredonia office receives a pittance for his/her services. Of course, they count on SUNYAC school info folks for figures. Some schools better than others at providing such data. But some schools put more emphasis($$) on p.r. than others. So we don't fault YAC Central too much. BUT to not have all-conference squads listed is annoying to say the least! Hey, Fran, care to post? Of course we speak of Cortland's nonpareil F. Elia.

Totally agree Pburgh could have had three first teamers. Corts D. Marshall bit of a surprise. Wasn't a starter throughout first half of season. Came on like gangbusters, but still ..... Now that's something for a diehard RDragon follower to say!

[magicman]

jdex,
Thanks for your thoughts regarding SUNYAC Central. Still nothing listed as of 2 PM today. While I was on the site I took a stroll down memory lane looking at past SUNYAC greats. It's amazing how many typos and spelling errors there were on names of people I knew personally. I can't imagine how many there might be overall. One player in particular Ted Bence from Potsdam State was named AC honorable mention in 72-73 and he's listed as Ted Berce. The next year he was 1st team  AC and he was listed as Ted Pence. So much for getting it right.
And yes some schools do a decent job of providing scores and news releases in a timely manner while other apparently could care less. Cortland, Brockport, Buffalo St and Plattsburgh, are 4 of the best. SID's Fran Elia at Cortland and Patrick Stewart at Plattsburgh do a fine job of getting the scores, statistics and news releases posted as soon as possible. Brockport and Buff St. are good at that as well. Usually those schools have live stats and live audio or live webcasts so the fans can follow their teams on the road when the schools play in those locations.
I did see a Potsdam at Oswego game online that was good quality but it doesn't happen often enough at some schools and never at others. At the very least live stats should be something that all schools could and should make an effort to have available.

I did find a bunch more of the All Conference honorees today and I updated the post that I listed them on. I now have 5--1st team players, 4--2nd teamers and 5--honorable mentions as well as the Coach of the Year, Player of the Year, and Rookie of the year. Nothing from Potsdam or Fredonia websites. Any news from Potsdam, Bear?  

SUNYAC site posted the All Conference selections late this afternoon. All included in my above post.  

[Gregory Sager]

Oneonta State sets an unusual D3 record this year: Longest time span between tourney appearances. This will be the second trip to the dance for the Red Dragons ... but their first was all the way back in 1977, when they made it all the way to the national championship game before succumbing to Wittenberg.

[thebear]

As you probably know, our SID passed away unexpectedly last November.  Our grad asst has been nobly trying to cover since that time, but a huge task.

Was disappointed that Curtis Pierce from Potsdam did not receive all SUNYAC mention.  While Simmons was a scoring phenom, Pierce was quite the all-around player, 6th in the conference in scoring, 8th in rebounding, and 3rd in FG% (.623) in the 18 conference games. Glaring omission in my opinion, but a price that's paid for being in the cellar.

Thought it was unusual that Cooper took a second team spot despite missing the second half.  HM perhaps, but AC should be based on a full season's performance.

Also thought, based on my analysis that Daniyan should have been POY, but perhaps his supporting cast was taken into consideration.

Noticed the mispelling of Ted' Bence's name (twice) as well. 

He & Mike Deane were a thing of beauty on the out of bounds play, and on the fast break the Bears featured back in that era.  Continued their show for many years in the PBA after college.

dex - thought the Cortland women got abused by the NCAA committee.  Ithaca hosting, yet Corts beat ithaca at Ithaca, and Corts have to go to Rochester and play Jackets in the opener.

[jdex]

Bear,

Ya got that right!! CSt women totally dissed .... Maybe a bit more incentive now ....Shall see. And yes, Cooper 2nd team? Wow!

[scooterman]

Magic--How did you know? One of my very good coaching buddies is the assistant their, Coach Burton. I wish them well but I hope it is 2nd place behind my beloved Eagles!!! I think playing at home will give them the advantage they need to bring home their second ECAC championship in the past three years. I would have prefered NCAA tournament but will accept this. At least they are still playing--by the represent the SUNY's well Plattsburgh. Good luck

[magicman]

Magic--How did you know? One of my very good coaching buddies is the assistant their, Coach Burton. I wish them well but I hope it is 2nd place behind my beloved Eagles!!! I think playing at home will give them the advantage they need to bring home their second ECAC championship in the past three years. I would have prefered NCAA tournament but will accept this. At least they are still playing--by the represent the SUNY's well Plattsburgh. Good luck

Well scooterman, why do you think I'm called the magicman? I can prestidigitate with the best of them.

[magicman]

As you probably know, our SID passed away unexpectedly last November.  Our grad asst has been nobly trying to cover since that time, but a huge task.

Was disappointed that Curtis Pierce from Potsdam did not receive all SUNYAC mention.  While Simmons was a scoring phenom, Pierce was quite the all-around player, 6th in the conference in scoring, 8th in rebounding, and 3rd in FG% (.623) in the 18 conference games. Glaring omission in my opinion, but a price that's paid for being in the cellar.

Thought it was unusual that Cooper took a second team spot despite missing the second half.  HM perhaps, but AC should be based on a full season's performance.

Also thought, based on my analysis that Daniyan should have been POY, but perhaps his supporting cast was taken into consideration.

Noticed the mispelling of Ted' Bence's name (twice) as well. 

He & Mike Deane were a thing of beauty on the out of bounds play, and on the fast break the Bears featured back in that era.  Continued their show for many years in the PBA after college.

dex - thought the Cortland women got abused by the NCAA committee.  Ithaca hosting, yet Corts beat ithaca at Ithaca, and Corts have to go to Rochester and play Jackets in the opener.

bear,
I did not know you lost your SID. That would explain the reason the Potsdam website wasn't up to par as in the past. Sorry to hear that.

Totally agee that Cooper on the 2nd team was a gift. Think HM  would have been a gift. Tough to miss half of your senior year with an injury but he only played in 6 conference games and 12 overall. SUNYAC says on the stats page "To be ranked a player must appear in at least 75% of their team's games." He played in less than 50% and only a third of the conference games. So I guess you can't be ranked (and he wasn't) but you can be all conference.

Pierce was certainly deserving of a mention as his numbers and all around game suggest. But last place team, he's a freshman, easy to put him on the back burner. Walker was no slouch either. Easy to see why he was heavily recruited. With those 2 back next year and the addition of a few bigs that can contribute right away, things will be better.

Daniyan, Ruiz or Thomas, pick your poison. I've watched the progression of these players over the past three years (longer in the case of Thomas as he's a local product) and its been a pleasure to watch. In fact bear you were one of the first to comment 2 years ago about Ruiz and Daniyan after their first trip to Potsdam as freshman. Your quote was "these two will have Coach Curle's program in lights for years to come. How right you were! With the addition of Thomas and redshirt transfer Carl Munnerlyn, (injured last year) this year, The Cardinals have one of their best teams in Plattsburgh history. I actually thought Thomas might win POY honors because in addition to all his statistics he had a number of game winning baskets and several others that were the key basket. Ireally thought one of them would win it though. Especially after we beat Oneonta 3 times. In the 3 games against Oneonta, Thomas had 67 pts and 17 rebounds, Ruiz had 53 pts and 17 rebounds, Daniyan had 39 pts and 21 rebounds. Oneonta's Beckford The POY had 38 points and 24 rebounds in those 3 games. Go figure!

And I not only watched the Deane and Bence show when they were at Potsdam, but got to see it for many years in the PBA in Plattsburgh. It was always one of the highlights of the year when Deane and his PBA recruits rolled into the Burgh. Usually Sienna players or UVM standouts along with Larry Parker from Plattsburgh St., Joe Cardany,(Union's finest) and Drew Skonberg from SLU. Sad to see it discontinued several years ago. When Mike stopped playing it just faded away, as he was the main draw. Speaking of which he had a tough year at Wagner this year. Hopefully they'll rebound as well as his alma mater.

Need you and Dex to root for the Cards big time this weekend. I'm the defending champ in the NCAA Tournament Fantasy League over on the Multi Regional board and I went out on a limb when we had our draft the past couple days. Supposed to have a 5 man team but rules were bent and guys wanted to draft more players which I was against. We ended up with 6 man teams and as the players from all the top teams got gobbled up in the first 4 rounds of the draft I took Ruiz and Thomas as my last two picks. I'm thinking they win the 1st game against SUNYIT and the 2nd game against the Naz/Medaille winner. After that will probably come Williams in Williamstown. We may not win that game but if my guys play in 3 games they could give me 20-30 points each per game and I would be happy with that. But we really need to take care of business this weekend. Bear are you interested in coming over to take in a game? You could stay at my house overnight if you want. Tickets don't go on sale until 2 hours before the 1st game Friday night and I'll be there early to pick some up. Let me know and I'll get you one. My treat. You too jdex if you want to fly up.

[thebear]

Magic - thanx for all the great info.

Actually stuck here this weekend. 

Have to take the wifey to Burlington on Monday to see the good docs there. Will wave on the way across the lake.

Will be interesting to see if Naz makes any noise.  They have ex Bear Greg Lothridge 6-11, who transferred after last season when Kelso beat him out for the top job.  He has had his moments - several double doubles, but struggles against athletic slashers, which 'burg has in quantity.

By the way, Deane got the axe yesterday at Wagner, says he still wants to coach.

Link here.

http://www.silive.com/colleges/index.ssf/2010/03/deane_not_ready_to_give_up_coa.html

Good Luck this weekend.

[magicman]

bear
Thanks for the news on Mike, I didn't know. I usually go to the Wagner and Siena websites every few days to see how they fared in their games but hadn't had a chance since last week what with the conference tourney over here and the NCAA draw. Tonight was my night to catch up. I can't say I'm shocked but think Wagner is the loser in this situation. Mike is and has been a terrific coach at the many stops in his coaching career. It actually may be the proverbial blessing in disguise, because he might end up at a college that puts more into the program than Wagner seemed to. Would love nothing better than to see him take one more program to the big dance for the home run. Glad to see he won his final game there the other night to end the season on a winning note. You have to be doing something right to win 437 games as a college coach without the hint of of a recruiting scandal and as Tom Brennan said," one of the best x's and o's guys out there." I keep hoping McCaffery at Siena gets snatched by a bigger school and Mike gets his old job back. Especially with the venue the Saints now have to play in. This could be the year that might happen what with Siena's success in the MAAC. A nice win in the NCAA's and McCaffery might get some offers he can't refuse. By the way, you may already know this, but Edwin Ubilles, Siena's super 6'6" swingman is former Cardinals great, Anthony Williams' half brother. Anthony is still here in Plattsburgh doing grad work and is an assistant for Coach Curle.

Sounds like a trip to Fletcher Allen on Monday. Just routine I hope. And you'll only be a mile or so from my store as you get on Cumberland Head road. I'm open till 5:00 PM on Monday so stop by and say hello if you have a moment on your way back through. 77 Margaret St  downtown P'burgh. You could even sample the fare at a local eatery and Kiki could give Wally a review for his Food for Thought  

I knew Lothridge was at Naz and figured I'd get to see him this weekend. Might not be against the Card's though as Medaille could very well win that game. Looking forward to seeing Jostens Finalist Cory McAdam from Naz play as well. Over 1800 career pts and probable Empire 8 POY.