MBB: University Athletic Association

[hopefan]

Wash u starts out 0 - 9 vs NYU, but has since out scored them 17-3 behind 3 3 pointers from Aaron Thompson....

Yikes, now 28-12   on a 28 to 3 run by Wash U!!!!!!

[Hugenerd]

CMU in trouble, down 6 with under 4 to play.

[hopefan]

Wash U four for four on the road in two weekends, beating NYU 67-56

[Hugenerd]

Under 1:30 from Cleveland, Case up 5.  CMU hasnt played too well in the second half.

[Hugenerd]

45 s left.  CMU with the ball, down 3.  Case has made two turnovers in a row.

[Hugenerd]

Looks like CMU will drop this one on the road. Down 8 with a few seconds to go.

[Marty Peretz]

Wash.U struggled a bit today, but ultimately toughed it out and found a way to win. For a ten minute stretch in the second half, it appeared as if fatigue might catch up with the Bears, but Aaron Thompson took over down the stretch and ensured that Wash.U. would up its record to 17-1, 7-0 in the conference. I think that, had NYU won Friday night, today could possibly have been a different game, but the Violets looked similarly tired and didn't have enough in the tank to overcome Wash.U's early run (28-3 after starting the game down 9-0) and superior depth.

Not the prettiest game to watch at the Cole Center, as both teams put forward performances that at times looked lackluster. Then again, it's incredibly difficult to play 40 solid minutes considering the travel and the rigors of Friday night (the latter of which goes for both teams). Thompson proved why he is the front runner for UAA POY with his performance. He pretty much single handedly put the Bears on his back before an almost 50/50 WU/NYU crowd. Wash.U alums turned out in force and a number of families were in attendance which was nice to see.

And wow was Dylan Richter's alley-oop special. That kid is going to be a serious player.

NYU had some impressive play from their bigs and I think they will go 4-3 or 5-2 down the stretch. If they can beat Deis on the final day of the season, the tournament is an outside possibility, but ECAC play seems more likely. That loss to U of C is unfortunate because they are pretty solid.

As for next weekend...since it really is close to impossible to go undefeated in UAA play (has it ever been done?), I fear that the Judges might steal one on Sunday. Home court advantage at the Field House exists to a ten times greater extent on Fridays than it does on Sundays and Deis will likely be well rested. They also realize that they need one more marquee win and a 6-1 (maybe 5-2 if they beat WU on the road) record to close the season if they want to ensure themselves of a spot in the post season. Im not sure Wash.U. can play the way they did against NYU in the first 5 minutes and come away with a win, but I do think being at home will help to some degree even if it is a Sunday affair.

[David Collinge]

Case was up by 8 with 1:30 left, and before you could yawn and say "I've seen this all before," the lead was down to three and CMU had the ball.  But lo and behold, CMU fumbled the ball over the baseline, giving the ball back to Case with less than a minute left.  CMU, not trusting that the heretofore reliable basketball gods would smite Case once again, decided it was time to foul, and Case was able to seal the win from the line.  A very nice with for the RoughRiders of Case Tech.

[deiscanton]

[quote author=Marty Peretz link=topic=639.msg1025384#msg1025384 date=123352598

As for next weekend...since it really is close to impossible to go undefeated in UAA play (has it ever been done?)
[/quote]

Marty, of course it has been done!  Everybody knows about the Wash U dynasty consisting of Alia Fischer, Tasha Rodgers, et. al. on the women's side, but Wash U has gone undefeated in UAA play on the men's side too.

It happened last in the 2001-2002 season.

Courtesy of the UAA Website's archives season, here are the final standings of that season:

2001-2002 Men's UAA Standings

1.)  Wash U 14-0, 25-2
2.)  Rochester 12-2, 24-6
3.)  Chicago 10-4, 15-10
4.)  NYU 7-7, 14-11
5.)  Emory 4-10, 9-16
6.)  Brandeis 3-11, 8-17
      CMU    3-11, 9-16
      Case 3-11, 7-17

2001-2002 Player of the Year:  Derek Reich, Chicago
2001-2002 Rookie of the Year:  Seth Hauben, Rochester
2001-2002 Coaching Staff of Year:  Rochester

The NCAA Tournament was a field of 48 back then.  Wash U got the automatic bid, while Rochester got a Pool C bid.

Wash U got a first round bye, beat Maryville (TN) in the second round, and then lost in the Sweet 16 to DePauw.  Otterbein defeated DePauw the next day in the Elite 8 and went on to win the national championship.

Rochester made it to the Final Four, lost to Carthage in one national semifinal, and then lost in overtime to Elizabethtown in the Third Place Game.

[dblock]

Quite a furstrating weekend for NYU.

On Friday against the Maroons, NYU controlled the entire game until the last few minutes when it become a close one. Chicago ended up pulling out the 'W'. NYU outboarded and shot a high fg percentage but still managed to lose the game. Chicago played real tough Corning with 23, Kinsella with and Machones with 15. NYU had 4 in double digits including team captain John Mish with 15 and 10. Pretty bad loss.

Sunday brought Wash U to Coles. NYU came out firing wich mad for an early 10-1 lead. Then Wash turned it on via AT's jumper going on a mindnumbing 27-2 run. NYU fought back to be down 9 at half. The second half consisted of NYU cutting into the lead only for Wash to bury a treyball or convert an old fashioned 3pt play. Wallis' fadeaway threeball from the deepcorner off an airball extended the lead from 5 to 8 with 1:29 to go and it was a wrap from there. There's no such thing as a good loss but we can take positives from the game.

Here is my Mid-Season Report-

Wash U- Solid team. Everyone can stroke it really well. They run their offense weel, are chippy on defense and know to get the rock to AT. I think that their weakness is their post game and if they ever run into a BAD shooting night, it's going to be a rough game.

Brandeis- I think that Brandeis is man for man the most talented team in the UAA. I personally do not understand how they lose games. They simply shouldn't. Olson is a legit shooter, De Luca is a scoring threat whereever he is on the court, Hollins is a beast who should be dropping double doubles every night, Roberson can swish and dish, he reminds me of a young Graves-Fulgram, and the bench is deep. If they put it all together they could be beating teams by 20-30 on the regular.

CMU- I just have a hardtime thinking that CMU is a very good team. Granted they did put a 21 spot on us at home. CMU has shooters and if they are hitting you're in trouble. Decent bigs but suspect ball handlers.

Rochester- Stop Mike C. and you win the ball game.

Case- Anderson can shoot but literally that is all he can do. Wash U's AT can swish but he also puts it on the floor and scores, same for Mike C., Einwag etc... Steve Young is also a hit or a miss. I think the Case v NYU at Case is exactly what Case is. They can beat you on any night or they can completely fold and lose.

Emory- Scrappy. Nobody really stood out on Emory but they never quit and played really hard the entire game.

Chicago- Corning, Machones, Kinsella. Key to Chicago's performance. Keep them quiet and they aren't going to do much.

[Marty Peretz]

Anyone have first half all conference picks? Obviously just one half of conference play is complete, but surely people have thoughts.

Right now I'm watching to see who takes POY which, as of this moment, seems to be a clear race between Mike C and AT. Einwag would be my sleeper pick if he could somehow lead Carnegie to a 6-1 or 7-0 finish. It's too bad Mike C didn't play against Wash.U. the first time around because that could have gone a long way toward bolstering his case.

[Hugenerd]

CMU- I just have a hardtime thinking that CMU is a very good team. Granted they did put a 21 spot on us at home. CMU has shooters and if they are hitting you're in trouble. Decent bigs but suspect ball handlers.

CMU has ball handlers.  They have talent.  What their main problem is suspect decision making by everyone besides Einwag.  Einwag (and maybe Bouldin Johnson) are the only players who play within themselves.  Many of their other key players seem to try to do things that they arent capable of or shouldnt do for the better of the team.

[tommygun]

Going into the second half of league play and the UAA's pool C chances took a major hit yesterday.  Rochester loses to Emory and CMU loses to Case.  I still believe the UAA has four teams with realistic chances to make the tournament. 
However, they better start winning.  I think Rochester has to go 5-2 down the stretch.  The good news for them is they have five home games the second half of the season.  CMU probably has a little better situation as I think with wins over some of the better teams in the GL (Wooster, John Carroll, etc.) they will be in with 18 wins, so they only need 4-3, however they would be well served to win both games this weekend, (home for Emory and Case.)  Brandeis as I mentioned in my last post also needs at least 5-2 (that would give them 17 and I think that because of their really tough non-conference schedule that might be enough.  However, they have 5 road games so that is going to be easier said than done.  I also agree with the consensus that they are at worst the second best team in the league, so this will make their task a little easier as they will be playing this game with better players.

Finally I think you guys are being a little hard on CMU.  I have zero vested interest in this.  I am not and have never been affiliated with any team in the league.  That said by looking at the last few years at their team page, they have beaten NYU 6 out of 9 over the last 5 years and and 8 out of 13 over the last 7.  NYU has not swept both games in the season over this span, and I think CMU would be a fairly substantial favorite in the game later this year at CMU which if they win would be 7 out of 10, which is fairly one-sided. 

[tommygun]

I accidentally hit the enter key, I was going to finish by saying CMU has lost this year to Wash (the defending national champ,) at Brandeis who everyone, including me, thinks is really good, at Richard Stockton who I didn't look at how they are right now, but I know they have been ranked in the top 25 a good chunk of the season, and they're only not so great loss is at Case who has been beating everybody by about 20 at some point over the last couple of weekends on the Sunday game.  I'm not sure how much better you want them to be.  It seems like their results compare fairly favorably with everyone else's, (save Wash,) so if we're going to pick on them, what about Rochester, Brandeis, and NYU, who we seem to want to say are better than them, but seem to be every bit, if not more, inconsistent and in certainly in NYU's  case can't come close to the quality of wins that CMU has produced, (Wooster, JCU, Catholic, Rochester, NYU, etc.)

Again, I don't give a whit if CMU beats NYU, Rochester, or Brandeis, or vice versa, however it seems dblock and hugenerd are taking pot shots at them which the evidence doesn't seem to back up, actually quite the contrary.

Anyway you guys are certainly entitled to your opinion, however, I think their are teams that have a lot bigger problems and a lot more explaining to do than CMU.  I'm not sure how good you want them to be.

[Hugenerd]

I'm not sure how much better you want them to be. 

I want them to play up to their potential.  They should not be losing to Case Western at this point in the season if they are a top 25 team.

Again, I don't give a whit if CMU beats NYU, Rochester, or Brandeis, or vice versa, however it seems dblock and hugenerd are taking pot shots at them which the evidence doesn't seem to back up, actually quite the contrary.

I am not taking pot shots at CMU, I was making an observation from watching them play (while it appears that your opinion is based on merely looking at their record).  I am a former CMU basketball player so I have no reason to take shots at them.  If you you look back at this board I have been a very strong supporter over the years (and I still am).  I just have higher expectations than most.  If you read my post, all I said is that they have all the talent, some of their players just seem to force things that they dont need to.  For example, some players may be better at distributing the ball but in some games try to take too many shots, which hurts the team, or other players may try to do it themselves too much when the team would be better off if they played within the offense.  From the 5 or so games I have seen them play (I saw them at Brandeis in person, and I have seen 4 or 5 games online on the CMU video), I feel very confident in my opinion.  CMU plays well when everyone is doing what they are supposed to do. 

If you want to make some uninformed conclusion from looking at their overall record, saying "I'm not sure how much better you want them to be." Well then I guess that is your right, but it doesnt make it sound like you know very much about basketball.  That sounds like a comment my wife would make, and she doesnt know anything about basketball. 

CMU should not lose to Case, and if they had played together as a team they shouldnt have lost at Brandeis either.  In that game, CMU had ample oppurtunities to make plays, but some players made poor decisions, such as taking shots they should not have or trying to go 1 on 2 or 1 on 3 through the lane.  If they had played even slightly better, they should be sitting at 16-2, an almost lock for the NCAAs, rather than at 14-4, where they have a real chance at not making the tournament with 3 or 4 more losses.  I also disagree with you that they make the tourney easily at 18-7.  You are listing these quality wins, but you are not taking into account that Rochester, NYU, and Wooster are not likely NCAA teams (JCU and Catholic are in similar positions as CMU with 4 or 5 losses). So, although they may be quality wins, they arent necessarily wins against tournament teams.  They probably have a decent chance at making it at 19-6, but I think with the status of the UAA (they arent the top ranked league in the country like the last couple years, Massey has them as 5th), they really need to finish 2nd in the conference to lock up a bid.  Brandeis has very little room for error because of their out of conference losses and NYU has no chance unless they end up with a winning record in conference  (that means they would have to win out or maybe have one loss the rest of the way, which they have no chance of doing). Rochester has also been hurt by their injuries, at 13-5 they need to be almost perfect from here on out to have a good shot (but they are in a better position than NYU at 13-5).