MBB: State University of New York Athletic Conference

[magicman]

Oneonta 82 North Carolina Wesleyan 77

Nice game from the Red Dragons against a quality opponent. I almost picked North Carolina Wesleyan to win this game based on who they've played, how good they were last year and who they had returning, but I never want to be right and pick a YAC team to lose. I also knew that if the Red Dragons could beat Williams, then they could beat this team. I was beginning to think I was wrong though, halfway through the first period. 

NCW was looking to put Oneonta away in the first half when they broke open a close game with a 21-5 run midway through the period. The Battling Bishops were down 9-7 with 13:25 remaining in the first half. Five minutes and 37 seconds later they were up 28-14 with 7:48 to play in the first half. Oneonta's Kevin Mackin started hitting some threes, Andres Rivera slammed a couple of dunks home, Dylan Trombley nailed another threeball, and the Red Dragons outscored NCW 21 to 13 to end the period and cut the deficit to just 6 points at the half.

The early part of the 2nd stanza was a back and forth that kept Oneonta trailing the Bishops by 5 to 8 points. They got as close as 3 points at 48 to 45 with 15 minutes to play but Wesleyan then opened up some daylight once again with a 10-0 run to put the Bishops ahead by 13 points at 58-45. And once again it was a 3 pointer by Mackin that started the Red Dragon comeback. Slowly over the next 6 minutes Oneonta cut into the lead and trailed by just 3 points at 66-63, after another three from Mackin, his 6th one of the game and a pair of Dylan Trombley free throws. The Bishops missed twice on their end and Oneonta finally caught them at 66, when Trombley nailed one from long distance. Wesleyan took a timeout to regroup, missed again on their possession, but Oneonta missed 4 shots in a row, after 3 straight offensive rebounds, and failed to grab the lead. Finally after another empty possession by Wesleyan, Sean Nolan was fouled and made 1 of 2 to give the Red Dragoons the lead for the first time since early in the game when they were ahead 9-7. Over the next few minutes the teams would trade baskets and the score would be tied twice but Oneonta never trailed again. They went up by 2 possessions with 1:07 left on a jumper by Mackin. After Wesleyan scored to cut the margin to two points a key play was on the inbounds pass by Oneonta. Wesleyan was trying to keep the ball away from Mackin so they could foul someone else but Coach Conover had a great play that freed up Rivera who broke for the basket and was wide open for a long pass and a dunk. The Red Dragons hit some free throws to get to the final score.  It was fairly close to my 78-75 prediction and with 42 seconds to go it was 77-72, so I had a chance at perfection. And that's always fun.

Oneonta
Kevin Mackin was the Red Dragons leading scorer with 23 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds. He was 6 of 14 from long distance.
Andres Rivera had 16 points, 6 rebounds and 2 steals. And 3 nice dunks that I saw.
Dylan Trombley had 14 points and 3 rebounds in 20 minutes off the bench. He was 3 for 6 from downtown.
Harrison Deegan had 13 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists.
Joseph Bull had 7 points, 8 rebounds and 5 assists.
Carson Jacobs was the games leading rebounder with 11 boards in 16 minutes of court time off the bench.
Sean Nolan had 9 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 25 minutes off the bench.

North Carolina Wesleyan
Damon McDowell was the game's high scorer with 25 points, 5 rebounds and 4 steals.
Aj Frye had 22 points and 4 rebounds.
Cameron Martin had 10 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assusts.

The Red Dragons were outshot by NCW 44.9% to 38.9% from the field. Both teams made 11 three pointers and Oneonta was the winner from the line making 15x27 to just 4x10 for NCW. Oneonta had 48 rebounds to 41 for NCW and also had less turnovers with 14 to 18 for the Bishops.


Oneonta improves to 4-3 overall (2-0 YAC) and will play Medgar Evers on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 PM for the Championship of the Dr. Carol V De Costa Tournament at Medgar Evers. The host school defeated D'Youville 119-113 in overtime.                  

[magicman]

Dec. 29          Two games on tap today both in holiday tournaments.
   

Oneonta State  @  Medgar Evers  3:00 PM   Championship of the Dr. Carol V De Costa Tournament at Medga Evers

The Red Dragons just played the toughest team in this tournament, I believe, and now get to take on the host team. The Cougars from Medgar Evers are just 3-7 on the year but come into this contest on a 2 game winning streak. They also have their leading scorer back (29.8 ppg and 11.3 rpg) who has missed 6 of their 10 games. Another one of their top players  (11.2 ppg 12.8 rpg) has missed 4 games so it's hard to tell how good they may be with everybody healthy.

I remember a few years ago in 2011-12 when Oswego State, the year they were 18-0 in the YAC and went 26-4 overall, ventured down to Brooklyn, NY to play Medgar Evers in Cougars Cave. That was the Oswego State team with Laker greats Chad Burridge and Hayden Ward to name a few. Their only losses that year were an opening season loss at St Lawrence 66-62, a loss to Division I Texas Pan-American (who they almost beat) but ultimately fell 59-54 and a 2nd round game in the NCAA tournament, which was a loss to Eastern Connecticut in double overtime, 70-69. Their worst Division III loss of the year....you guessed it Medgar Evers... a team that was 8-6 at the time. The Cougars beat the Lakers 73-68. So you never know what you might be up against when you venture into the city.

Having said that, the Cougars just beat a team in overtime, D'Youville, that Fredonia also beat in overtime earlier this year. They also beat Staten Island who is no longer in Division III but has moved up to Diviision II. Yet they lost to a Hunter College team that is 1-8 and they lost to Hunter by 25 points. So your guess is as good as mine, as to which Cougar team takes the floor later today.

The oddsmakers have made Oneonta a 22 point favorite in this game. I think the Red Dragons should be able to handle this team without too much trouble. They lost to Massachustetts College and Williams beat that school by 30 points. And Oneonta beat Williams so I'll take Oneonta to win this one by a 97-70 final score.       




Cortland State  vs  Pitt-Bradford        6:00 PM       St. John Fisher Tournament @ Rochester, N.Y.

These Red Dragons are also playing a team that hasn't had much success this season. The Pitt-Bradford Panthers are 1-7 coming into this game and have lost 5 of those games by double digits. Their lone win is a victory over Fredonia State that this prestidigitator had forecast as a Blue Devil triumph. (still don't see how Fredonia could lose to these guys)

Cortland is coming off a successful trip to Florida where it went 2-0 in Miami. Cortland will play the winner of the St. John Fisher/SUNY Poly game if they defeat Pitt-Bradford.

I can't see Cortland having a problem winning this game and suspect Austin Grunder along with Eric Edwards will have big games. So do the oddsmakers as they have made the Red Dragons a huge 35 point favorite. They have given the Panthers a 1% chance of winning this game. I'm not sure that Cortland wins by 35 though as Coach Spanbauer will get everyone into the game. I think the final score will be something like Cortland 92 Pitt-Bradford 67. 

[magicman]

Oneonta leads Medgar Evers 49-41 at the half.

No live stats and lousy stream so will have to wait for a box score to see stats.

Red Dragons were down early 18-10 but came back to take the lead and led by 3 to 7 points for the last 8 minutes of the period.

[thebear]

Oneonta defeats Medgar Evers 108-83 in the championship of their tournament.  Evers broke out to an early lead by 8 with 13:36 left in the first half, Dragons clawed back to lead 49-41 at Half, then extended their lead to 31 with 5:41 before left in the 2nd Half. Harrison Deegan and Dylan Trombley led 5 Dragons in double figures with 16 points each. Top 8 players for the Dragons played all but 26 minutes so much for emptying the bench with a big lead. Joseph Bull had 14 rebounds and Deegan had 9 assists. Dragons now 5-3, Evers cougars drop to 3-8.

[magicman]

Oneonta 108 Medgar Evers 83

Just a few more stats to add to the bear's report.

Oneonta's Red Dragons won their game much the same way as Cortland did. They allowed the host team to grab an early lead and then caught fire to catch them and open up some daylight before the half. Down 18-10 after 6 and a half minutes of play, Oneonta used a 19-4 run over the next 6 minutes to go in front 29-22 with 6:21 remaining in the period.
They maintained that lead through the end of the half.

It didn't take them long to put the game away as they opened the 2nd half with another quick start and scored 12 straight points to open up a 20 point lead, 61-41, just 3 minutes into the period. The lead fluctuated between 14 and 24 points over the next 10 minutes and grew to as much as 31 points at 96-65.

Oneonta
Harrison Deegan just missed a triple double as he led the team with 16 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists. He added a pair of blocks as well.
Dylan Trombley also scored 16 points and just missed a double-double with 9 rebounds. He added 2 assists, 2 blocks and a steal.
Joseph Bull had a double-dpuble with 13 points and a game high 14 rebounds. He also had 4 assists and a steal.
Andres Rivera had 14 points,4 rebounds 2 steals and a block.
Sean Nolan had 12 points, 5 assists and 2 rebounds.
Kevin Mackin had 9 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists 1 steal and a block.
Frankie Williams had 9 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal in 16 minutes off the bench.
Ian Schultz scored 8 points, had 4 rebounds, an assist, a steal and a block in just 15 minutes of court time.
Freshman Jack Tucek scored his first points as a Red Dragon with 6 points and a rebound in 5 minutes off the bench.
Freshman Mason Flately also got his first points in an Oneonta uniform with 2 points, a rebound and 1 assist.

Oneonta outshot the Cougars 47% to 37% from the field and had 13 three pointers (38%) to just 5 for Medgar Evers (20%).
They outrebounded the Cougars 61 to 47 and had 12 turnovers to 13 for the Cougars.
Oneonta really passed the ball well in this game, constantly looking for the open shooter or the inside cutter as evidenced by their 29 assists and 13 made three pointers.

Medgar Evers
The Cougars were led by their top player, Jon Grimsley, who had 20 points to capture scoring honors for the game. He also had a team high 8 rebounds and 3 assists.
Jafet Thomas had 16 points and 7 rebounds.
Marcus Lewis had 10 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists.

The Cougars were probably as healthy as they have been all year with all of the best players seeing action in the game against Oneonta, which make the win all the more rewarding.


I had Oneonta winning this game by 27 points 97-70. Both teams scored a few more than my prediction, but again my margin of victory was almost perfect.

Oneonta improves to 5-3 overall (2-0 YAC) and is off until Tuesday January 7th when they travel to LaPlume, Pennslyvania to take on Keystone College at 7:00 PM

[magicman]

Cortland 98     Pitt-Bradford 73

As expected the Red Dragons won this one by a wide margin.  I had them winning by 25 points... 92-67. I was fairly close with my prediction and the margin of victory was exactly 25 points.

Pitt-Bradford didn't go quietly into the night, however, and managed to lead this contest for most of the first half. The Panthers even had an 8 point advantage midway through the first period and weren't playing like a 1-7 team. Cortland eventually took over the game and after trailing 22-14 at the halfway point of the stanza went on a 14-5 tear to give them a 28-27 lead. Jake DiSanto hit a three pointer, Austin Grunder had a hoop and harm, Brendan Fitzpatrick buried a three and after Grunder scored on a layup, Ryan Schmadel hit another three. There was 5:42 left in the period, the Red Dragons were heating up and there was enough time to establish a double digit lead by the break. Grunder scored 7 straight points, Schmadel then scored 5 straight with another long bomb followed by a layup. A.J. Lawton ended the half with yet another threeball and Cortland went into the break up 43-33.

Cortland started the 2nd half much like they ended the first half and 5 minutes into the period had doubled their lead to 21 points. It would reach 30 points at 77-47 with 10 minutes to play and the Red Dragons eased to the finish line.

Cortland was missing big man Eric Edwards in this game and obviously he wasn't needed but hope he will be back soon.

Cortland
Austin Grunder had another double-double that gave him scoring and rebounding honors with 26 points and 12 rebounds.
Ben Walters had 23 points with 3 rebounds. He was 4x8 from long range.
Ryan Schmadel had 14 points and 4 rebounds. He was 4x10 from behind the arc.
Brendan Fitzpatrick  had 6 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists.


Pitt-Bradford
Alex Rodriguez led the Panthers with 15 points on 5x10 shooting.
Dylan Meyer had 12 points going 6x7 from the field.
Justin Kusiappouh had 9 points and a team leading 7 rebounds.

Cortland improves to 5-2 overall (1-1 YAC) and will play host St. John Fisher tomorrow for the Championship of the Woodcliff Hotel and Spa Tournament. Fisher defeated SUNY Poly Sunday evening by an 82-68 final score. The game will tip off at 3:00 PM.

[magicman]

Dec. 30     A single game scheduled for today and it should be a good one.   

Cortland State  at  St. John Fisher  3:00 PM     Championship of the St. John Fisher Tournament @ Rochester, N.Y.

Lots of red today as the Red Dragons and the Redbirds get it on in the championship game of St. John Fisher's annual Woodcliff Hotel and Spa Hoilday Tournament.

The last time Fisher beat Cortland was 13 years and 1 day ago on December 29th, 2006. The score was 82-76 and Cortland was having their worst season in the last 15 years (finished 10-16 overall, 6-10 YAC). Fisher's record then was 24-6. They went dancing that year and made the Sweet 16 winning those first two games in the comfort of their home court. They defeated my Plattsburgh Cardinals in that 2nd game 95-87 but the YAC got a measure of revenge when Brockport beat them the following week to make the Elite Eight. That one was also at Fisher's place.

Cortland got their revenge for that 2006 loss as Fisher has never beaten the Red Dragons since that day. They have played each other for the last 3 seasons and Cortland won last year...80-78, 2 years ago...70-69 and 3 years ago...79-69.
The Red Dragons will have their work cut out for them tonight. Two of those three wins have come on Fisher's court so that's the good news. The bad news is it looks like Cortkand will be without one of their main weapons... big man Eric Edwards who did not play last night in the win over Pitt-Bradford. He wasn't missed against those Panthers but will be tonight against the Cardinals.

Fisher returns 4 of the players that started last year's game against Cortland as well as others in last season's rotation. They were ranked in the D3hoops preseason poll because of what they had coming back, but haven't lived up to that ranking as they enter the game with just a 5-5 record. They dropped their opening game of the season to Union (4-3) and then beat a couple of teams from weaker conferences before losing a close game to Rochester (78-75). They followed that with wins over RIT (80-70) and Buffalo State (89-83) and then lost 3 in a row to a good Hobart team (66-59) a better Wooster team (81-80) and a so-so St Joe's (Maine) team (66-64). Their win last night against SUNY Poly is a game they should win by double figures and they did so 82-68. The point I'm trying to make here is that Fisher has been wildly inconsistent over their first 10 games. Not quite sure what piece of candy you're going to get tonight.

The 1 point loss to Wooster was probably their best game of the season. It was at the Panaggio Tournament, that Brockport hosted in Florida. Wooster went on to beat Brockport the next day in another nailbiter that went right down to the final shot. Yesterday Wooster, currently ranked #24 in the D3hoops Top 25, beat the #14 ranked team, Whitworth. So hanging with Wooster should give one a perspective of the talent that the Cardinals have on their roster.

Cortland starting a nice little winning streak, with 2 solid wins in Florida over the holidays, before last night's win over   Pitt-Bradford. I think they will need all hands on deck to get the W here, though.

The man who sets the point spread isn't even aware of the fact that Eric Edwards will most likely miss this game and already has the Red Dragons listed as a 4 point underdog. I'm not sure Cortland would win this game even with Edwards, but I can't see them doing so without him. But I'm a homer and and want to root like hell for Cortland today so I'll take the Red Dragons to pull off the mild upset, here and win a tight one 75-73.             

[All-Time]

Looks like my boys at Oneonta have their Swagger Back.

A lot of teams in the running for the Chip.
Conference play will be as wild as ever in the SUNYAC.
This will separate the Men from the Boys.
Looking forward to seeing which teams will come up BIG.


Wanted to wish all my Guys a Happy Healthy Prosperous New Year.

Enjoy 

[scooterman]

A Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to all the SUNY teams and all the YAC posters!!!! Go Eagles!!!

[magicman]

Cortland leads St. John Fisher 52-42 at the half.

Fisher jumped out to an early 5 point lead and stayed in front for the first 7 minutes until Cortland finally caught them at 16-16 on a three pointer by Austin Grunder with 12:24 left in the period. The Cardinals went back in front by 8 points at 31-23 but 8 straight points by the Red Dragons' Jake Disanto followed by a 3 from Ryan Schmadel and another one from Brendan Fitzpatrick gave the Red Dragons their first lead at 37-36.  Cortland then jumped in front by double figures as they ended the final 6 mintues of the half on a 15-6 run.

Austin Grunder leads Cortland with 15 points and 3 rebounds. Jake DiSanto has 11 points and Ryan Schmadel has 9.

Sammy Robinson leads the Cardinals with 12 points and Mark Valeriani has 9.

[magicman]

Cortland 102       St. John Fisher 78

Details to follow

[magicman]

Cortland State 102       St. John Fisher 78

Nice win by the Red Dragons and by a margin of victory I wouldn't have guessed if I had 10 guesses. I had Cortland winning  this game 75-73. I was close on the Fisher score but for the Red Dragons to hit the century mark and more, without their 2nd leading scorer and rebounder, Eric Edwards, against one of their tougher opponents was surprising.
It marked the 2nd straight year Cortland has won the St John Fisher tournament.

Not sure why Fisher played a zone but the 3 point shooters from Cortland were loving it, as they made a season high 16 shots from downtown, at a season best 59.3% (16x27).  Brendan Fitzpatrick (4x5), Ryan Schmadel  (4x7), Ben Walters (4x8) and Jake DiSanto (3x3) led the way with the long range bombing. Fisher went 10x27 from deep and that accounts for 18 of the 26 points they lost by. Cortland was 12x15 (80%) from the line to 4x6 from Fisher and there's the rest of the MOV. The Red Dragons shot 37x59 from the field, another season high of 62.7%. Fisher had one of their best shooting night of the season hitting 32 of 62 shots  for 51.6% but the red hot Dragons made it a wasted effort.

After catching the Cardinals from an 8 point first half deficit and zipping by them to take a 10 point halftime lead, Cortland maintained their advantage from the first period and stretched it to 15 points at 63-48 after 4 minutes of play in the 2nd stanza. Fisher made a slight move to get back into the game, when 2 back to back threes from Sean Williams cut the deficit to single digits at 70-61 with 11:49 to play. The Red Dragons didn't waste any time to apply the finishing touches. A 10-4 burst built the lead back to 15 at 80-65 and Cortland slowly built the lead to the final 26 point margin.


Austin Grunder continues his stellar play and would probably get a Player of the Week award for his back to back games of yesterday and today except they occur in two different weeks if the SUNYAC uses the same accounting method over the holidays as they've been using which is a Monday through Sunday week. He could still win it for this coming week with a good outing on Friday January 4th against Cabrini. I'm thinking Harrison Deegan from Oneonta State may get the award this week for his MVP award at the Medar Evers tournament that those Red Dragons won over the weekend.

Cortland
Austin Grunder was the game's high scorer and rebounder as he had another double-double. He tossed in 25 points and grabbed 10 boards. He added 2 blocks and 1 assist.

Ben Walters had 20 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists. He was 4x8 from downtown and 4x4 from the line.

Endher Gonzalez had 14 points and 8 rebounds, both career highs in a Cortland uniform, I believe.

Brendan Fitzpatrick also had 14 points and only took 5 shots, all from downtown and made 4 of them. He had a game high 7 assists and added 5 rebounds and a block.

Jake DiSanto came off the bench to score 13 points with 2 rebounds and 1 assists in just 11 minutes of court time. Jake was 5x6 from the field, and 3x3 from long distance.

Ryan Schmadel had 12 points, 4 assists, 2 rebounds and a steal. He was 4-7 from the field which were all shots from behind the arc.

Cortland outshot the host team and won the battle of the boards 33-21, not a lot of rebounds available when you shoot as well as these teams did today. Fisher did win the turnover stat...barely...10-9.

St. John Fisher
Sean Williams led the Cardinals with 18 points 6 assists and 3 rebounds.

Sammy Robinson had 15 points, 2 blocks and was 3x5 from long distance.

Matt Asenjo had 13 points,  a team high 5 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 assists.

Cortland improves to 6-2 (1-1 YAC) and will be back in action when they host the Cabrini University Cavaliers from the Atlantic East Conference on Saturday January 4th at 2:00 PM.

St. John Fisher falls to 5-6 (0-0 E8) overall and heads into Empire 8 conference play with some problems to solve, as they look to get back on track after 4 losses in their last 5 games.

[magicman]

Nice to see both Red Dragon teams bring home some hardware over the weekend and today.

Both teams appear to be rounding into conference form as Oneonta has now won 4 in a row and is on a collision course for a big game against their Dragon cousins when they invade Cortland in two weeks on January 14th.

Cortland has is also on a 4 game winning streak. They have found some additional scoring options and have covered the loss of one of their primary players quite nicely so far. Hope they aren't without his services much longer.

[magicman]

Jan. 3        Just a single game on the schedule today    

Alfred  at  Brockport State        5:00 PM

The Golden Eagles take on the Alfred Saxons for just the 2nd time in the last 40+ years. Last year the teams played on Jan 4th and Brockport won that matchup by an 84-76 final score. That was an Alfred team that won the Empire 8 regular season, the E8 tournament and a first round NCAA tournament game on their way to a 24-5 record (which I believe was the best in school history).

This year's edition of Saxon Warriors isn't quite as talented as they come into tonight's game with a 5-4 record. They lost their top 3 scorers from last season to graduation and their points per game has dropped from 83 down to 70. They already own a victory over the SUNYAC as they defeated Geneseo 58-52 back in November. They also beat Westfield State  in their opening game this year and Westfield State was good enough to defeat #20 Amherst and give them their first loss of the season. So the Golden Eagles will need to take care of business tonight or the Saxon invaders could leave town with  another solid win.

Brockport is coming off a two week layoff after their narrow loss in Florida to #24 Wooster. They need to focus on the game at hand and not be looking ahead to upcoming conference play. They have all their weapons back and are ready to make a run at a SUNYAC title.

The oddsmakers have favored the Golden Eagles to win this game by an 8 point margin. I think they should win by a few more. I'll take Brockport to win 85-73.       

[magicman]

Brockport 34  Alfred 43    halftime


Brockport started the game by scoring the first 11 points. Alfred scored the next 10. The Saxons finally caught the Golden Eagles at 23-23 and then went right on by.

Brockport not playing well at all after the initial 4 minutes of play. They already have 13 turnovers. The offense became a long 3 point attempt (which they went 1x10) or a dribbler trying to penetrate and missing. Officials calling a tight game with 31 fouls in the first half.

Brockport led by  Jahidi Wallace with 9 points and 5 rebounds. Justin Summers with 9 points also.  Tyree Grimsley with 8 points and 3 boards/

Alfred led by Sam Dagon with 11 points and 2 rebounds. Mike Schmidt with 9 points and 4 rebounds. Adam Enders with 7 points and 3 boards.