MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[magicman]

At halftime Geneseo leads Fredonia 30-28.  Blue Knights have led throughout the entire 1st half and at one point were up 18-8 with 10:29 to play. Fredonia with 8-0 spurt cuts it to 18-16 and teams in close quarters the rest of the way. Mike Hoy and Connor Fedge with 6 each for the Knights. Julius bryant with 7 for the Devils.

[magicman]

Geneseo creating some daylight against Fredonia as they lead 53-42 with 2:48 left to play.

[magicman]

Geneseo defeats Fredonia in the one that matters 60-49. Balanced effort from the Blue Knights as all nine players that saw action hit the scoreboard. Connor Fedge with 11, Thomas Decker with 10, Ryan Riefenhauser with 9, Mike Hoy with 8 and Gordon Lyons also with 8, lead the way. Knights with 22 field goals and 16 of them were assisted. Riefenhauer with 8 rebounds.

Fredonia only has 5 players score led by Julius Bryant has was the game's high scorer with 20 points and had a double double as he was also the rebounding leader in the game with 11. Leonard Smith added 10.

[magicman]

Semifinals are set for Friday night at Max Ziel Gym in Laker Hall.     The top four seeds all advance.

#3 Geneseo vs #2 Cortland   6:00 PM  (I'm guessing)

#4 Brockport  vs  #1 Oswego 8:00 PM (according to the Laker's website.)

[FranElia]

Oswego will now take Brockport if Geneseo beats Fredonia and Cortland will take on Geneseo.

If Fredonia wins then Oswego will play the Blue Devils and Cortland will get Brockport.

Just to clarify - SUNYAC basketball does not "re-seed" in the tournament after the quarterfinals. Hockey does, and basketball did at one point, but for the past few years, basketball uses a straight bracket. So once Cortland won, it knew it was going to face either Fredonia or Geneseo.

Of course, the top seeds all held, so that's now a moot point. Cortland vs. Geneseo at 6 p.m. and Oswego vs. Brockport at 8 p.m. Friday at Oswego. There is going to be video for both semifinals and the championship game, live stats for all three games, and Oswego radio for games they play in. Busy weekend in Oswego, especially on Saturday as women's hockey hosts a 1 p.m. ECAC West playoff game, basketball final is at 4 p.m., and men's hockey hosts a SUNYAC semifinal at 7 p.m.

[magicman]

Oswego' win over New Paltz tonight wasn't as easy as the Lakers hoped it would be. Oswego with early separation but let the Hawks back into the game after they sprinted out to a 29-14 lead with 9:41 left in the half. Once they got that lead, the Lakers had 5 turnovers and 6 misfires in 7 attempts, over the next 8 minutes so that with 1:42 left to play the Hawks had closed to 31-26. Ryan Sheridan then hit an old fashioned 3 point play to boost the lead back to 8 and they traded points to make it 36-28 at the half. Lakers came back out and again opened up a 16 point lead by scoring the first 8 points of the 2nd period. Still up 54-38 with 13:32 left they went 1 for 9 from the field over the next 7 minutes and allowed New Paltz to get right back in the game as the Hawks got it to 58-51. Right on cue though, Hayden Ward scored 5 straight points, Chad Burridge scored 4, and Ward scored  on another inside bucket to bump the lead back to 16, at 69-53 and the Hawks had run out of time. With only 3:23 left to play this game was in the books and a Hawk layup and meaningless 3 pointer by Matt Devine at the buzzer only made it look somewhat respectable. Lakers should have won this game by 25 but got a little sloppy with the lead and let the Hawks hang around.

Laker bigs came up big again. Ward was the game's high scorer and leading rebounder with 25 points and 16 boards. Burrridge was next with 15 points and Chris Gilke added 10. Sean Michele only had 6 points but they came on a pair of three pointers (out of 4 attempts), to continue his torrid shooting from behind the arc. I'm sure he still leads the nation in 3 point shooting percentage. He also added 5 rebounds and 5 assists.

Devine led the Hawks with 22 points and Nick Taldi dropped in 16. Senior Harris Wichard ended his career with the Hawks with 8 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists. I'm sure he was hoping his final game would have a better stat line but his career stats were pretty amazing for a guy that was barely 6 feet tall. He amassed 1512 points, and 510 rebounds along with 180 assists. His point total puts him in 5th place all time in the New Paltz record books. Even more amazing to me was his rebounding total (averaged 5.0 per game for his career) which puts him in 8th place all time for the Hawks. New Paltz will certainly miss his sharpshooting abilities next year.       

[magicman]

Oswego will now take Brockport if Geneseo beats Fredonia and Cortland will take on Geneseo.

If Fredonia wins then Oswego will play the Blue Devils and Cortland will get Brockport.

Just to clarify - SUNYAC basketball does not "re-seed" in the tournament after the quarterfinals. Hockey does, and basketball did at one point, but for the past few years, basketball uses a straight bracket. So once Cortland won, it knew it was going to face either Fredonia or Geneseo.

Of course, the top seeds all held, so that's now a moot point. Cortland vs. Geneseo at 6 p.m. and Oswego vs. Brockport at 8 p.m. Friday at Oswego. There is going to be video for both semifinals and the championship game, live stats for all three games, and Oswego radio for games they play in. Busy weekend in Oswego, especially on Saturday as women's hockey hosts a 1 p.m. ECAC West playoff game, basketball final is at 4 p.m., and men's hockey hosts a SUNYAC semifinal at 7 p.m.

Thanks Fran, I did not know that.  Or maybe I did and just forgot. I guess I'm showing my age because I remember when they used to re-seed.

[Bengalsrule]

  Well....It was fun while it lasted! 16-2 record with a healthy Justin Mitchell in the line up and 2 - 6 without him! . Thank God he has 1 more year left!

  Best of luck to all 4 semi-finalists. I truly believe that Brockport has what it takes to pull off an upset Friday vs. Oswego ( as they did in the semi's last year). I look at the winner of that game to win the Championship game Sat.

P.s. 2 bids look better than 1 (with Oswego already locking up a seat at the dance)!

[thebear]

Like the Bears in 04-05, I think the Lakers are on a mission. 

They have 4 quality bigs, and a solid supporting cast.  Michele will keep anyone honest with his long range daggers.

If they sweep the SUNYAC, they will for sure host a pod, if not get a first round bye.

If chalk holds, the NY teams look like Oswego, Hartwick, Hobart, Medaille & Morrisville, would be easy for the Lakers with their huge (3,500 seat) gym to host as long as they are alive.  NYU might get an at large, but would be placed in the Atlantic region IMHO.

If both Oswego and Hartwick finish with 2 in region losses, Oswego beat Ithaca which handed Hartwick one of their two losses.  I'm pretty sure record vs. common opponents is a secondary criteria.  Lakers would go into tournament winners of 16 straight, while Hawks would only have 13 straight.

[magicman]

New Regional Rankings have been released and nothing has changed from last week. Here's the East Rankings:

The first record is in-region record followed by overall.

East Region
1 Hartwick 22-2 23-2
2 Oswego State 22-2 22-3
3 Hobart 20-4 21-4
4 New York U. 19-5 19-5
5 Medaille 22-2 23-2
6 Nazareth 17-6 17-8

Not showing on this list are the next 2 teams which are Stevens in 7th, 17-6 in Region Record, 19-6 overall and Cortland in 8th, 19-6 in region record, 19-6 overall.


Here's a link to the complete list of all regions;

http://www.d3blogs.com/d3hoops/category/ncaa-stuff/regional-rankings/

[magicman]

Bear,
NYU has a must win game coming up at Brandeis on Saturday. If they lose that game they will have lost 4 of their last 5 games and I'm not sure they get an at large bid with that finish. Nazareth or Stevens might be the beneficiary of an NYU loss if all the chalks hold service. If Hartwick, Oswego, Hobart, and Medaille all get Pool A bids and NYU loses, then the winner of the Stevens-Naz game on Friday night could be sitting at the table for the first round of Pool C bids. That wouldn't guarantee them a Pool C however because whoever the East representative is among (again assuming the chalks all win) Naz, NYU, Stevens or Cortland they won't stack up very well against the leading contenders from all the other regions. If the chalks all win it's conceivable that no East Region team gets a Pool C bid. It will probably be determined by how many chalks, not just in our region, but in all the other regions as well, suffer upsets and  steal a Pool C bid. With only 19 Pool C bids available if 4 or 5 chalks go down and take a Pool C bid the East's chances of getting another team to the Dance will diminish considerably. The Northeast region, will probably get 5 or 6 Pool C bids with all the strong teams they have this year. The West, Midwest, and South are sure to get multiple Pool C's as well. Our best chances of getting more teams in the NCAA's is having Oswego and Hartwick lose in the playoffs.   

[magicman]

Semifinals tonight in Oswego:

Geneseo State vs Cortland State 6:00 PM

Teams split regular season meetings with each winning on the other's homecourt. Cortland's loss came during the team's only 2 game losing streak of the year and happened after the long layoff over the holidays. Red Dragons only had 2 more losses the rest of the year and those were both to the Lakers. Geneseo hoping they came repeat that January upset. Oddsmakers have made the Red Dragons an 8 point favorite and I think that might be too much. This game should go down to the wire but I think that Cortland will move on. Final score Red Dragons 66 Blue Knights 61.

[magicman]

Cortland leads Geneseo 33-29 at the break. Jeremy Smith lighting up Max Ziel Gym as he has at least 19 points at the break. No livestats so info is limited, but Smith has been knocking down three pointers left and right.  Brian Manning with 8 points and Jesse Winter with 6. No other Cortland player has scored. Smith is 5 of 7 from 3 point range, Manning is 2x4 from downtown and Jesse Winter has made his only 3 point attempt. Cortland is 8x14 from beyond the arc.
Jordan Jones leads Geneseo with 8 points. Connor Fedge and Thomas Decker have 5 each. Blue Knights are 3x5 from 3 point range.

Livestats has now been activated and shows the halftime summary but I'm willing to bet they won't work throughout much of the 2nd half. Oswego has had a problem with their livestats for the past several weeks.

[magicman]

Cortland moves out to a 10 point lead 44-34 early in the 2nd half. Jeremy Smith with 2 more triples in this half and now has 7 for the game and needs 1 more to tie the SUNYAC tournament record for 3's in a game.

As predicted livestats are not working.

[magicman]

Ryan Riefenhauser leads the Blue Knights back as his layup has just completed a 10-0 Geneseo run to tie the game at 44. Riefenhauser has just been hit with an offensive foul, his 3rd personal of the game. Cortland has gone cold from the field missing their last 7 attempts. (I think)