MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[magicman]

Oneonta and Hartwick locked in a battle as the Red Dragons are up 40-39 with 13:50  left in the game.

Clarkson leads Potsdam 65-58 with 1:25  left in the game.

[magicman]

Plattsburgh opens up a 24 point lead at 58-34 midway through the 2nd period. Saints have closed the gap a bit but still trail 61-43 with 6:17 left to play.

[magicman]

Clarkson defeats Potsdam State by a final score of 67-61. Rishawd Hendricks leads the Bears with 18 points. Greg Torchon and Joe Estramonte both toss in 10 points.

Clarkson's John Coleman grabs game scoring honors with 21 on 8x15 shooting. Conrad Zampier had 15 points.

The Bears fall to 1-2 and will host Oneonta this Friday at 5:30 PM. New Paltz will be in town on Saturday at 2:00 PM

Clarkson moves to 6-0 and is off to their best start in school history, I think. They wind up 1st semester action when they host Elmira College on Friday Dec. 5th at 8:00 PM.

[magicman]

Hartwick looking like a winner over Oneonta as they lead the Red Dragons 65-55 with 1:49 left in the game.

[magicman]

Can't get any score on the Alfred-Fredonia game. Their webcast and live stats links ran into problems and they said they were unavailable tonight. Probably won't know anything until it goes final. 

[thebear]

Clarkson defeats Potsdam State by a final score of 67-61. Rishawd Hendricks leads the Bears with 18 points. Greg Torchon and Joe Estramonte both toss in 10 points.

Clarkson's John Coleman grabs game scoring honors with 21 on 8x15 shooting. Conrad Zampier had 15 points.

The Bears fall to 1-2 and will host Oneonta this Friday at 5:30 PM. New Paltz will be in town on Saturday at 2:00 PM

Clarkson moves to 6-0 and is off to their best start in school history, I think. They wind up 1st semester action when they host Elmira College on Friday Dec. 5th at 8:00 PM.

Clarkson may have problems with teams with a lot of size, but otherwise they are smart, well coached, have one of the best players in the region in John Coleman, and an underrated big in Felix Abongo, who is very athletic and powerful.  Massey says they could run the table, but we shall see.  If they get out to a 10-0 or 12-0 start, the votes will have to start coming.  Coleman plays under control, but explodes if need be, after being held to 5 in the first half, he had 7 in the first three minutes of the second.  He's also clutch from the line, and bigger than anyone quicker, and quicker than anyone bigger, at least at the East region D-III level.

[magicman]

Plattsburgh defeats St. Lawrence 71-49

The Cardinals took control of this game near the end of the 1st half and never let the Saints get back in the mix as they opened up a double digit lead early in the final period and just expanded it as they comfortably maintained control. Whenever the Saints would put together a couple of decent possessions to cut into the lead a bit, the Cardinals would just bury a couple of 3 pointers and the lead would be larger than before. Plattsburgh was 13x27 from behind the arc and 10x21 inside the line. They beat the Saints off the boards by a 41-25 margin but had 13 turnovers to only 6 for the Saints.

Ezra Hodgson led 3 Cardinals in double figures as the sharpshooting senior was 5x7 from the field and 2x3 rom long distance. Eddie Correa ended up with 11 points and 5 rebounds as he was 3x6 from behind the arc. Xavier Thomas only played 16 minutes but scored 10 points in 10 minutes of the 1st half. Shamoy McIntosh had 8 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds. Big Reggie Williams had 7 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks.



Plattsburgh improves to 4-1 on the year and will finally play a home game as they make their season debut for the home fans on Friday evening when they take on New Paltz at 5:30 PM. Oneonta will visit Memorial Hall on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 PM.         

[thebear]

Clarkson website says this is their best start since 1947-48 when they were a pre-NCAA team loaded with veterans from the Corps of Engineers.

[magicman]

Alfred defeats Fredonia 80-69.

The YAC goes 2-3 in tonight's games. I went 4-1 with my picks. My only loss was picking Oneonta and I let my heart override my knowledge on that one. Hartwick beat Eastern Conn. and Eastern Conn. beat Oneonta handily. Shoulda picked the Hawks but I wanted the Red Dragons to win one for the YAC. No more Mr. Nice Guy with these YAC teams.

[magicman]

2 games on tap for the SUNYAC tonight 12-3:

#7 Nazareth vs #2 Geneseo State at St John Fisher.

Have to go with the Blue Knights to win this one over the Golden Flyers. The pointspread favors Geneseo by 4 points but I think they will win by a bit more. I see this one as a 74-67 win for the Knights.

#1 Rochester at #8 Brockport State

Hard to believe that last year's Wendy's Champion Brockport is this year's worst seed. The Golden Eagles are struggling as they search for the right lineup to put on the floor. They come into this game with a 1-3 record that could just as easily be 3-1 as their 3 losses are by a combined total of 10 points. Oddsmakers have made the Yellowjackets a slim 1 point favorite making this game a tossup. I think that Rochester is going to control the glass in this one and defenses will prevail. Rochester pulls away in the end for a 59-50 win.

OK I missed the boat here and didn't make those picks until hours after the games were over. I had went to Massey's games for Wednesday and looked at his matchups and there were no SUNYAC teams listed as having a game today. I totally forgot that the Wendy's College Classic was this week and never checked the D3hoops SUNYAC page. I was quite surprised when I discovered, while looking at the D3hoops scoreboard, that Brockport and Geneseo played on Wed. In reality I would have picked Geneseo to beat Nazareth but probably would have picked Brockport to beat Rochester.

Brockport was down by as many as 15 points in the 1st half but a bucket at the buzzer got them within 12 at 34-22 at the break. They slowly whittled the lead down in the 2nd period until they closed to within 4 points at 39-35 on a 3 pointer by Pat Modzelewski with 11:23 left to play. Port then wasted 4 straight possessions with 3 turnovers and a misfire. They did manage to get it back to a 4 point deficit with 6:16 remaining on a jumper by Clifton Lyerly. Once again the Eagles showed their youth as they committed 3 consecutive turnovers followed by a missed shot and then a foul. In the span of 2 minutes and 15 seconds the Yellowjackets had extended their lead to 13 points and this game was over. 

Modzelewski led all scorers with 15 points and Lylerly added 11. Brockport did get killed on the glass with only 31 rebounds to 53 for Rochester. The Yellowjackets had 28 2nd chance points and scored 17 points off of the 17 Port turnovers.

Rochester was led by Sam Borst-Smith with 14 points. Dylan Peretz controlled the glass as he had 20 boards and 10 points for a double-double.Jared Seltzer just missed a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds.

#1 Rochester will now meet the #4 seed Roberts Wesleyan on Friday evening at 6:00 PM at RIT in the 1st semifinal.

#8 Brockport will take on #5 Hobart in the loser's bracket at 8:00 PM at the University of Rochester.


#2 Geneseo was down at the half by a 27-25 score against the Golden Flyers. The Knights put together a strong 2nd half led by Gordon Lyons with 18 pts  and Andy Drescher with 15 to turn a 6 point deficit into an 11 point lead midway through the final period. The closest that Nazareth got after that was 5 points on 1 occasion. Lyons ended up with another double-double of 23 points and 15 rebounds to capture game honors in both of those categories. Lyons has played 4 games and has recorded a big double-double in every contest. For the year he's averaging 24.5 ppg with 14.8 rpg and 3.8 assists per game. Drescher had 19 points while Charlie Zaepfel and Kevin Crockett both scored 11 points. Geneseo outrebounded Nazareth by a 38-27 margin while the Golden Flyer only committed 11 turnovers to 18 for the Knights.

Nazareth was led by Maurice Mills with 22 points and 7 rebounds. Mitch Ford was the only other Nazareth player in double digits with 12 points.

#2 Geneseo will play #3 St John Fisher on Friday evening at 8:00 PM at RIT in the 2nd semifinal game

# 6 RIT will play #7 Nazareth in the Loser's brackett at 6:00 PM on Friday at Univ. of Rochester                 

[magicman]

Clarkson defeats Potsdam State by a final score of 67-61. Rishawd Hendricks leads the Bears with 18 points. Greg Torchon and Joe Estramonte both toss in 10 points.

Clarkson's John Coleman grabs game scoring honors with 21 on 8x15 shooting. Conrad Zampier had 15 points.

The Bears fall to 1-2 and will host Oneonta this Friday at 5:30 PM. New Paltz will be in town on Saturday at 2:00 PM

Clarkson moves to 6-0 and is off to their best start in school history, I think. They wind up 1st semester action when they host Elmira College on Friday Dec. 5th at 8:00 PM.

Clarkson may have problems with teams with a lot of size, but otherwise they are smart, well coached, have one of the best players in the region in John Coleman, and an underrated big in Felix Abongo, who is very athletic and powerful.  Massey says they could run the table, but we shall see.  If they get out to a 10-0 or 12-0 start, the votes will have to start coming.  Coleman plays under control, but explodes if need be, after being held to 5 in the first half, he had 7 in the first three minutes of the second.  He's also clutch from the line, and bigger than anyone quicker, and quicker than anyone bigger, at least at the East region D-III level.

Bear, I agree with you that Coleman and Abongo are both excelllent players. Just not sure if they have enough to make a run at the Liberty League title. I hope they do as I'd like to see them win it but I'm skeptical. Clarkson played Plattsburgh back on November 8th in a scrimmage and the Cardinals won that game by a 62-46 margin. The game was close in the first half but Plattsburgh built a sizable lead early in the 2nd period and the game was never close after that.

Hopefully Clarkson's new coach will toughen up their non conference schedule in the coming years. The past few years their non-conference portion as been very weak. Massey has them rated right now with a SOS of 362 out of 416 D3 teams. Once they get into conference play that SOS will improve and he projects it to climb to around 311 but that's still not very good. Plattsburgh, for comparison's sake,  has an SOS right now of 76 but will rise slightly once we get into conference play and is projected to be around 130. Curle will play anybody, anywhere, at any time. He's done that when his teams were loaded and when he's been in a full rebuilding mode.

Clarkson used to play us every year when Adam Stockwell was coaching there.  When Mark Gilbride took over after Stockwell went to Oswego, Clarkson no longer scheduled us after Gilbride's first 2 years there. Why wouldn't you continue to play a team that has a solid program like Plattsburgh has, that is only 90 minutes away, with an established North Country rivalry, that will only help your SOS? I never understood that move. Clarkson used to play Cortland, Oswego, Plattsburgh, Rochester, and Potsdam. Now only Potsdam remains on their schedule. Within two years of Gilbride's arrival, all the other schools were no longer playing Clarkson, having been replaced by Keuka, Elmira, Canton, and Paul Smiths, to name a few.  No wonder Gilbride's coaching resume states:

"Gilbride posted a record of 75-51 (.595) in five seasons with the Clarkson University Golden Knights in Potsdam, New York. He earned more victories in his first five seasons than any other basketball coach in Clarkson history. His winning percentage is the highest of any Clarkson basketball coach since 1936."    Easy to do against cupcakes.

In those 5 years, despite the 75-51 record, Clarkson only made the Liberty League playoffs one time, played in a single game and lost. Their league record was only 39-37 during that time.

I'd like to see a resumption of the Clarkson-Plattsburgh series. It would help both schools. I'd really like to see a true North Country tournament with Plattsburgh, Potsdam, Clarkson, and St. Lawrence meeting each year in November on a rotating basis. That would give one of the four schools bragging rights for the year as the North Country Champion.        

[thebear]

Unfortunately my Bears spoiled the Potsdam/Plattsburgh/Clarkson/SLU tournament, from 70-71 to 90-91, Plattsburgh was 2-37 and Clarkson was 1-37 vs. Potsdam, and SLU [15-29] won about 1/3 of their matchups.

Why start out the season with L's

[magicman]

All 10 SUNYAC teams in action today as conference play begins

New Paltz State at  Plattsburgh State   5:30 PM
      
Buffalo State  at     Cortland State        5:30 PM

Fredonia State  at  Oswego State        5:30 PM
   
Oneonta State  at  Potsdam State        5:30 PM

Geneseo  vs  St. John Fisher    at RIT      8:00 PM
Wendy's College Cassic SemiFinals

Brockport  vs  Hobart  at Univ. of Rochester  8:00 PM
Wendy's College Classic  Consolation Bracket       

[magicman]

In advance of Conference play it's time to predict my order of finish for the SUNYAC

1.   Plattsburgh State   After earning the runnerup position for the past two years I think the Cardinals have the horses to win it all this year. Tons of returning firepower with 9 different guys that can lead the team in scoring on any given night. (They actually did that last year) An NCAA Sweet 16 team from a year ago, the Cardinals will be looking for their 3rd straight trip to the Big Dance and 7th in the past 10 years, more than any other team in the East Region.

2.   Geneseo State    The Knights will be right in the thick of the hunt because the presence of Gordon Lyons is enough of a difference maker. Mr. Double-Double (my new name for Mr. Lyons) is a D3hoops Preseason 2nd team All American. If his first 4 games are any indication he should be on the first team by year's end. The Knights also have a number of returnees from last year's NCAA team that will provide Lyons with the support he needs. Several close losses both by 2 points have me concerned, especially a loss to Morrisville, a team that Potsdam beat to open the season. This team should really be 4-0 right now instead of 2-2. 

3.  Oswego State   The Lakers have the talent to win it all with Brian Sortino leading the way. Erratic play in early non conference games has been puzzling though as they have lost to teams they were clearly better than. If they don't figure out those problems they will tumble down the ladder as there are teams with talent just below them.

4.  Cortland State  The Red Dragons weren't a team that I had in mind for this position when the season opened on November 15th. They have impressed me though and Coach Spanbauer usually gets the most out of his lineup. Cortland was in a rebuilding mode last year after losing so many players the year before but they still managed to go 14-12. Those players have more experience  now and I think they will win the close games that they let slip away last year.

5.   Buffalo State  The Bengals get this spot but will be hard pressed to keep it especially after they open the season on the road against Cortland and Oswego. They may end up in last place right off the bat and have to work their way back up the standings and it's entirely possible they could be 2-5 after 7 SUNYAC games. That kind of deficit could hurt the confidence needed to make a strong finish. However Oneonta and Brockport haven't made enough of an impression on me so far to put one of them in this slot. Rod Epps and Chris Thompson should provide the Bengals with a solid 1-2 punch but they both need to be on the same page, share the ball and get others involved with the offense.

6.  Oneonta State  They opened the season with the big win at Williams but came down to earth with 3 straight losses. They could have won a couple of those games but didn't come through in crunch time, much like they have done in the past few years. They need to finish the game strong and would seem to have the firepower to do so with Zac Mager back and the return of point guard Frankie Kelly. Could even challenge for the top spot in the conference but will need a consistency that's been lacking. Could even miss the playoffs as the final 3 playoff spots will have 4 fairly even teams battling for them.

7.  Brockport State  I thought the Golden Eagles would be near the top of the standings when the season started. They lost a lot of talent but had some good young players last year that figured to move right into a starring role. They have opened up with a 1-4 record and 3 of those losses were games they could have won. Coach Dunne's teams always get better as the year progresses and it won't surprise me if they make the playoffs and climb over several teams I've placed above them       

8.  New Paltz State  The Hawks along with Potsdam and Fredonia all finished with 3-15 records in conference play last year. I expect the same thing will occur this year and it's possible they may all go 2-16. So the pecking order at the bottom is a three way tie for 8th place once again. New Paltz will be hard pressed to equal its 6 wins of last year.

8.  Potsdam State  The Bears have went 5-20 in 3 of the past 5 years. They lost 2 games to the snowstorm that hit western NY so will only have 23 regular season games unless they find a couple than can be squeezed into their schedule. A very real chance they may end up with a 3-20 record this year. The need some hidden talent to manifest itself from some of the newcomers. I hope I'm wrong but Mr. Massey projects them with that 3-20 record.

8.  Fredonia State  Just as the 2 teams directly above them the Blue Devils will struggle to reach the 6 win total they had last season. With a 23 game schedule unless they make up the game with Medaille  they are projected to finish with a 1-22 record. They are currently ranked #373 by Massey out of 416 teams and that may be the lowest ranking a SUNYAC team has ever had.

So I have Plattsburgh and Geneseo getting the top 2 seeds for the YAC playoffs with my Cardinals hosting this year. That will help make up for the fact that Plattsburgh only has 10 home games out of their 25 regular season contests.

If my picks hold form then #3 Oswego will host #6 Oneonta  and #4 Cortland will host #5 Buffalo State.

I really think that 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th place is a crap shoot and you could roll the dice to come up with those spots. One of those teams will be left out to dry but anyone of them could be the 4th seed and anyone of them could miss the playoffs altogether.   

Time for the fun to begin in earnest. Good luck to all the teams and I hope we can get through the season without any injuries.               

[magicman]

Unfortunately my Bears spoiled the Potsdam/Plattsburgh/Clarkson/SLU tournament, from 70-71 to 90-91, Plattsburgh was 2-37 and Clarkson was 1-37 vs. Potsdam, and SLU [15-29] won about 1/3 of their matchups.

Why start out the season with L's

Ancient History.   And they were my Bears back than as well.