MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[amh63]

Magicman.....glad that Plattsburgh gets to host!  Warm the bus sort of thing.  If Plattsburgh advances, there could be a chance that the sectionals will be in upper NY.  If Amherst wins their "pod".... Dislike that term...then they could be moved to Plattsburgh!!  I expect the Amherst women team to win their pod and get to host the sectionals in LeFrak. 
Yes, both Amherst and Tufts highly ranked women teams lost the hosting opportunities to their men teams for the first two rounds.
Surprising follow up is that Bowdoin gets to host a pod on the women side...my take.
Contrary to your analysis, I believe Amherst matches up well with both WPI and Cortland.  Wrt Cortland, Amherst can match the speed, athleticism and size of The Red Dragons.
What is the driving time between Cortland and Plattsburgh?  If Amherst is sent up to Your area, maybe I will make the trip up via Groton NY.

[Bengalsrule]

magic - I was just giving you a hard time... I suspect the issue might have been your video player? Not sure. Refresh might have cleared it up. No worries, maybe your computer realized it was going to be my mug on the screen again and refused to play the video in fear you would stroke out seeing me. LOL

As for Rochester v NYU... when you start to dive into their numbers, hard to argue Rochester should have stayed ahead of NYU. Just in out-of-conference, neither had great wins. If Rochester had one significant win out of conference, the conversation would have been different.

As for LBC - I was just adding my thoughts. I saw yours

I'm glad to see that someone gives "uncle" magic a hard time. For a minute I thought that it was only me!

[Bengalsrule]

And since "3" is the favorite number of SUNYAc ( 3 bids), I've got another prediction. I'm predicting that 3 members of Buff State team make ALL SUNYAC! And that it will be "3" juniors!

[magicman]

And since "3" is the favorite number of SUNYAc ( 3 bids), I've got another prediction. I'm predicting that 3 members of Buff State team make ALL SUNYAC! And that it will be "3" juniors!

You don't have any seniors on the team do you? I know I know, a couple.  So yeah, Lovell Smith and Nico McLean are the juniors along with Jordan Glover. Mike Henry's a sophomore. Jordan missed too many games I think. You came in 6th place. Not sure they will give you 3 spots. Especially with the talent that the YAC had this year.

So how many of my Cardinals will make the All SUNYAC teams? Kyle Richardson, Jonathon Patron, Ed Correa, Xavier Thomas, Eli Bryant are all deserving. I'm guessing we get 3 players (Patron may get Rookie of the Year and not make one of the teams) and the Coach of the Year award goes to Coach Curle. Losing your entire starting 5 and winning the regular season crown by 4 games along with being the top team in the East Region should be enough to get him that honor.    

[Bengalsrule]

And since "3" is the favorite number of SUNYAc ( 3 bids), I've got another prediction. I'm predicting that 3 members of Buff State team make ALL SUNYAC! And that it will be "3" juniors!

You don't have any seniors on the team do you? I know I know, a couple.  So yeah, Lovell Smith and Nico McLean are the juniors along with Jordan Glover. Mike Henry's a sophomore. Jordan missed too many games I think. You came in 6th place. Not sure they will give you 3 spots. Especially with the talent that the YAC had this year.

So how many of my Cardinals will make the All SUNYAC teams? Kyle Richardson, Jonathon Patron, Ed Correa, Xavier Thomas, Eli Bryant are all deserving. I'm guessing we get 3 players (Patron may get Rookie of the Year and not make one of the teams) and the Coach of the Year award goes to Coach Curle. Losing your entire starting 5 and winning the regular season crown by 4 games along with being the top team in the East Region should be enough to get him that honor.    

Curle (COY), Richardson (POY) and Patron (ROY) are  no brainers. And you are right...Mike Henry is a sophomore....so 2 juniors and a sophomore from BUFF STATE  (I'm betting)!!

[magicman]

SUNYAC awards have been released.

Player of the Year is Kyle Richardson and Rookie of the Year is Jon Patron...no surprises there.

I can't argue with any of the players selected for the 3 teams. There are so many good players in the conference this year (and every year) that it's hard to narrow the list down to 16 guys. I'm not limited like the SUNYAC office is. I made out most of my All Conference selections last night because I wanted to post them before the SUNYAC came out with their selections. I still had a bit of work left on my honorable mention list and was busy today at my store so I didn't get a chance to finish it. I'll post my selections later on, this evening, for what it's worth.       


Quite surprised that Tom Curle didn't get Coach of the Year. Coach Spanbauer was also a good choice but Plattsburgh lost more through graduation than any team in the conference. To win the regular season crown with so many new faces was, in my opinion, a masterful job. I suppose giving the award to the Coach who wins the conference tournament may be the thing to do but I still value the complete season over a 2 or 3 game stretch. Plattsburgh finished so far in front of 7 strong teams and was undefeated on the road that I didn't even consider anyone else but Coach Curle.     

2015-16 SUNYAC Men's Basketball All-Conference Teams (PDF)
First Team            
Name   School   Position   Year   Hometown
Clifton Lyerly   Brockport   G/F   Jr.    Inwood, N.Y.
Blair Estarfaa   Cortland   G    Sr.    Buffalo, N.Y.
Justin Ringen   Geneseo   G   Jr.    Huntington, N.Y.
Brian Sortino   Oswego   G   Jr.    Fairport, N.Y.
Kyle Richardson   Plattsburgh   G   Sr.    Baldwin, N.Y.

Second Team            
Name   School   Position      Hometown
Lovell Smith   Buffalo State   G   Jr.    Buffalo, N.Y.
Ian Helps   Fredonia   F   So.    Bronx, N.Y.
John Decker   Geneseo   G   Jr.    Lincolndale, N.Y.
Mikey McElroy   Oneonta   F   Sr.    Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Edward Correa   Plattsburgh   G   Sr.    Bronx, N.Y.

Third Team            
Name   School   Position      Hometown
Devonn Gavin   Brockport   G   Jr.    Rochester, N.Y.
Michael Henry   Buffalo State   G   So.    Syracuse, N.Y.
Nico McLean   Buffalo State   G   Jr.    Buffalo, N.Y.
Lawrence Coleman   Oneonta   F   Jr.    Croton on the Hudson, N.Y.
Eli Bryant   Plattsburgh    G   So.    Staten Island, N.Y.


Player of the Year   Kyle Richardson, Plattsburgh      
Rookie of the Year   Jonathan Patron, Plattsburgh       
Coach of the Year   Tom Spanbauer, Cortland

Congratulations to everyone that was named to the  All Conference Awards List. All very deserving of these honors.       

[magicman]

The SUNYAC website has posted an article about Cortland State going to the NCAA tournament by winning the automatic bid. They posted  another article about Oswego State getting an at large bid to get into the NCAA tournament. Strangely, there is no mention of the regular season champs, Plattsburgh State, the #1 team in the East Region getting an NCAA bid. Plattsburgh not only is dancing like the others, they are the only team in the East Region to host. Pretty much everyone that follows D3 basketball knew the Cardinals were getting a bid two weeks ago when they ended the regular season with a 21-4 record. I was pretty sure we would host 2 weeks ago, even telling the parents of some of our players to make hotel reservations for this coming weekend. The NCAA thought highly enough of them, that they sent the regular season champs of 3 other conferences to Plattsburgh. Yet our own conference website can't acknowledge the Cardinals accomplishment.

Fran Elia, please talk to those people will you.

Here's the link to the SUNYAC website showing the recent headlines and the announcement of the All Conference awards:

http://www.sunyac.com/index.aspx?path=mbball&


EDIT: I now see a mention, in the middle of the All Conference awards, that Plattsburgh State is going to the NCAA tournament and will be hosting. The other teams that will be sent to Plattsburgh are Trinity College who will face Johnson and Wales College.

The Johnson and Wales Wildcats won both the regular season and tournament championship of the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC).

The Trinity College Bantams like Plattsburgh won the regular season of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) and  lost in the semifinals of the conference tournament. Trinity has already made a visit to Plattsburgh back on January 4th when they lost to the Cardinals by an 81-73 score.

Fitchburg State, the team Plattsburgh will meet, was the regular season and tournament champions of the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference(MASCAC)     
   

[magicman]

The latest D3hoops Top 25 poll came out recently and Plattsburgh State slipped 2 places to #23. Their vote total went from 149 down to 87.

Lancaster Bible moved up to #14, their highest placement of the year. They were stuck at #15 for the past several weeks. Their point total went from 260 up to 292. They leaped over Amherst this week which I never thought would happen.

In the Others Receiving Votes category NYU is #26 getting 22 points. Rochester another UAA school is #34 with 7 points. Cortland breaks into the poll getting 4 points, and coming in at #37.

The next poll will be the final poll and won't come out until the National Champion has been crowned.

Here's the link to the Top 25 poll:
http://www.d3hoops.com/top25/men/2015-16/week12

[jdex]

Was not totally shocked TSpan was voted the top coach. We did believe he would be a serious contender, but that T. Curle would prevail.

Tis true Cortland had several returning players, though only B. Estarfaa was much of a factor the previous season when L. Herron was the main focus. Then-frosh pivotman J. Prendergast was expected to figure prominently this winter, but was injured and never played. TSpan at season's start had roster of 18 players -- all of them decent though mostly inexperienced. Then 6-10 Z. Lydon went down after four games.

Mixing and matching lineups was a task, and this team didn't find itself till late. But obviously came on like gangbusters. C. Joseph has been a project, but was force fed because of his size in an area that was needed. He delivered at times. Senior TJ Hefele got more and more minutes and turned into a leader at the point. Then there was senior transfer JP Reagan, a starter and major contributor at RIT before returning to his hometown to finish his career. He gradually fit in to the degree that he was the go-to guy. Others played extremely valuable roles when needed.

TSpan in his 21st season and we think turned in one of his best coaching efforts. Don't think Cortland was favored, at least by some, in any game they played against Buff St, Brockport, Oneonta, Oswego, yet won 9 of 10 games vs. that quartet. Played two tight games with Geneseo. And lost big twice to Plattsburgh, which CSt did not match up with well at all IMO.

Somewhat surprised at the selection of B. Estarfaa to the first team.

Don't know for sure, but isn't the voting done prior to the conference tournament. Seems the awards were announced at the same time as the tourney finals in the past. Of course, am sure all precincts have to have reported.

[Pat Coleman]

magic - I was just giving you a hard time... I suspect the issue might have been your video player? Not sure. Refresh might have cleared it up. No worries, maybe your computer realized it was going to be my mug on the screen again and refused to play the video in fear you would stroke out seeing me. LOL

As for Rochester v NYU... when you start to dive into their numbers, hard to argue Rochester should have stayed ahead of NYU. Just in out-of-conference, neither had great wins. If Rochester had one significant win out of conference, the conversation would have been different.

As for LBC - I was just adding my thoughts. I saw yours

I heard from other people who had trouble with the NCAA's video player as well. Something about permissions and updating a plug-in.

[FranElia]

Somewhat surprised at the selection of B. Estarfaa to the first team.

Don't know for sure, but isn't the voting done prior to the conference tournament. Seems the awards were announced at the same time as the tourney finals in the past. Of course, am sure all precincts have to have reported.

The all-conference voting is done prior to the tournament, but I believe the top awards (POY, ROY, COY) are voted upon after the tournament ends.

[magicman]

Here's the SUNYAC All Conference Teams if I was passing out the awards.

Player of the Year: Kyle Richardson 
Kyle had 12 double-doubles, more than anyone else and just missed 8 others by 1 or 2 rebounds. Led the SUNYAC in rebounding with 10.3 per game and was 3rd in scoring with 19.7 ppg. He was also 4th in field goal percentage, 3rd in blocks per game, 7th in total steals, 8th in steals per game, 9th in minutes per game, and 11th in free throw percentage.   

Rookie of the Year:  Jon Patron of Plattsburgh State. Also named him to my 3rd team. If the POTY can be named to a team then so can the ROTY if deserving and Jon was certainly deserving. In fact I could argue that I placed him too low. He averaged over 14 ppg, (15th) 7.3 rpg (4th) and totaled 369 points (13th). He was 2nd in the conference in field goal percentage at 55.1%. His future over the next 3 years is bright. The possibility exists that he could finish his career at Plattsburgh as the leading scorer in the school's history.     
                             

Coach of the Year:  Tom Curle Plattsburgh State.
Leading the Cardinals to the #1 team in the East Region and first place in the regular season after losing 5 starters is my reason for giving him the nod over Coach Spanbauer. If you had polled the coaches at the beginning of the year and asked them who the favorites were to win the conference I think Oswego, Cortland and Brockport would have popped up before Plattsburgh. The Cardinals may have been as low as 6th place if their was a pecking order released at that time. Winning the regular season in somewhat of a runaway was beyond my wildest dreams.

So, no disrespect intended for Cortland's outstanding coach who did a great job grabbing the 2nd seed in the final weeks of the season and then won the SUNYAC championship. I can understand why he was chosen, as the winner of the Conference Tournament, many times gets that honor.  Coach Curle was the beneficiary of the same thing a few years ago ( 2006-07) when his team won the Conference Tournament as the #2 seed. Coach Spanbauer did an exceptional job with the injuries he had to deal with and as our friend jdex stated, 9 of 10 against Brockport, Buff State, Oneonta and Oswego is impressive. 

My First Team

Clifton Lyerly         Brockport State   Junior
Mike Henry           Buffalo State         Sophomore
Justin Ringen        Geneseo State      Junior
Brian Sortino        Oswego State        Junior
Kyle Richardson    Plattsburgh State  Senior

My Second Team

Lovell Smith          Buffalo State        Junior
Ian Helps              Fredonia State      Sophomore
John Decker          Geneseo State     Junior
Mikey McElroy       Oneonta State      Senior
Ed Correa              Plattsburgh State   Senior


My Third Team

Nico McLean            Buffalo State        Junior
Hamed Shamseldin Brockport State    Sophomore
Blair Estarfaa          Cortland State       Senior
Jon Patron               Plattsburgh State  Freshman
Eli Bryant                Plattsburgh State  Sophomore


My Fourth Team

Devonn Gavin           Brockport State      Junior
JP Reagan                Cortland State        Senior
Lawrence Coleman   Oneonta State        Junior
Alex Rawa                Oswego State         Senior
Xavier Thomas         Plattsburgh State    Senior

I chose 4 teams because I can. Even that is not enough to name all the outstanding players the SUNYAC had this year.The following list is comprised of players who could just as easily made one of these teams. There's just not enough spots to go around. In alphabetical order by school my honorable mentions are:


Levi Pace                  Brockport State         Junior
Jordan Glover           Buffalo State             Junior
Kevin Marmolejos     Buffalo State             Senior
Carrell Joseph          Cortland State           Sophomore
TJ Hefele                  Cortland State           Senior
Kevin Crockett         Geneseo State           Sophomore         
RJ Rosa                    New Paltz State         Senior
Jack Dignan              Oneonta State           Senior
Jackson Zuvic           Oneonta State           Senior
Kyle Covley              Oswego State            Senior
Joe Estramonte        Potsdam State           Senior

I was happy to see that most of my selections were very close to what the coaches chose as their selections. We had a few differences, but again we're splitting hairs sometimes with a 1st team or a 3rd team placement. I watched Brian Sortino take over a game and Justin Ringen do the same on several occasions. They could just have easily been named as POTY. I watched Carrell Joseph make big time shots again and again last weekend. Kyle Covely, Kevin Marmalejos, and others on this list have also done it all year. There are never enough awards to go around. So yeah I've named a lot of guys here..more than the conference does...but that's my prerogative.       

I watched an awful lot of SUNYAC basketball this year (and every year) and all of these student athletes were worth the price of admission. I'll miss seeing a lot of them next year but our conference is in good hands with all the talent that will be returning. The hard part is waiting 8 more months for next season to begin. Can't we have a SUNYAC D League that starts on April 1st. At least we have the excitement of 3 teams in the Dance and hopefully we can do a little lot of damage. Friday night can't come soon enough. I'm so lucky to be able to watch a few NCAA games live and in person.    

[jdex]

Magic, no arguments here on your lineup! Right On, IMO!

[magicman]

Magic, no arguments here on your lineup! Right On, IMO!

Thank you jdex. Coming from a respected, knowledgeable person as yourself, makes me feel that I wasn't drinking too much CARDINAL RED kool aid. It's especially welcome knowing you're a long time Cortland booster.      

[magicman]

magic - I was just giving you a hard time... I suspect the issue might have been your video player? Not sure. Refresh might have cleared it up. No worries, maybe your computer realized it was going to be my mug on the screen again and refused to play the video in fear you would stroke out seeing me. LOL

As for Rochester v NYU... when you start to dive into their numbers, hard to argue Rochester should have stayed ahead of NYU. Just in out-of-conference, neither had great wins. If Rochester had one significant win out of conference, the conversation would have been different.

As for LBC - I was just adding my thoughts. I saw yours

I heard from other people who had trouble with the NCAA's video player as well. Something about permissions and updating a plug-in.

Thanks for letting me know about that Pat. I kept closing my link and bringing up another fresh page but each time the NCAA page came up there was nothing there but a black screen with the NCAA logo on it. Same thing for the women's show a few hours later. Glad to know it wasn't just me. Crazy because I haven't had any trouble bringing up countless webcasts of D3 games all season long.