MBB: University Athletic Association

[jaybird44]

Wash-U hangs in the UAA race with a 94-87 win at Rochester.  The Bears are one game behind Emory, Chicago, and NYU with 3 games to play.  The Case vs. Brandeis game has been moved to Monday.

Emory topped Chicago 85-82, and NYU defeated Carnegie Mellon 94-82 to create the 3-way tie atop the UAA.  Wash-U has its last 3 games at home...Bears need some Fieldhouse magic over the next two weekends.

[WUPHF]

Washington University is indeed going to need some Field House magic over the next two weekends.  Interestingly, the only conference losses that anyone on this team has experienced at home are NYU and Brandeis from two and three years ago.  Only five losses at home over the past three seasons with three of those losses in the postseason.

I did not get to watch the game against Rochester, but you gotta love that box score.  Luke Silverman-Lloyd scores a career high 22 points off 5-6 shooting from three point range.  He played 37 minutes which must be a career high as well.  Keep shooting!

Mitch Styczynski scored 14 points.  Matt Highsmith scores a career high 18 points thanks in part to his 6-6 shooting performance from the line.  A very good sign for sure. 

David Fatoki finishes with 11 assists along with 9 points while Nick Burt finishes with 21 points and 10 rebounds; quite a contrast from his 4 point, 3 rebound performance against Rochester a few weeks ago, but he has played incredibly well over the past six games.

From the press release: Palucki passed Paul Jackson (1984-88) and Jarriot Rook (1999-03) into 16th on the all-time scoring list with 1,175 points ... Palucki also moved into fifth place for career rebounds (697).

Palucki needs 42 points and 13 rebounds to move ahead of Sean Wallis and Troy Ruths.

[ADL70]

CWRU got a win at the Field House this year.

[WUPHF]

CWRU got a win at the Field House this year.

Past three seasons...I did not feel the need to mention the Case Western Reserve win in the current season because, well, it was in the current season.

[ADL70]

NBD, but that isn't what you wrote. 

[WUPHF]

NBD, but that isn't what you wrote.

OK, so I removed the semicolon and divided the sentence in to two and did not swing around to fix the first.  My mistake.  Two conference losses from past seasons. 0.666 home losses per season for the seniors.

[ADL70]

Spartans beat Brandeis to stay in the top five, a game behind the leaders and tied with Wash.

Of the three tied for first Emory would appear to have the easiest path, with games at CWRU and CMU and at home vs Roch.  Chicago hosts NYU, but goes to Wash.  NYU travels to both Chicago and Wash.

UAA tie breaker:

If a champion cannot be determined by won-loss percentage, co-champions shall be declared
and the representative to NCAA post-season competition determined by the following criteria,
applied to regularly-scheduled Association games:
1) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions;
2) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions and the
subsequent finishers until a representative is determined;
3) Best record in UAA road games;
4) If this process fails to determine a representative, the representative to NCAA post-season
competition shall be determined by a coin flip administered by the Executive Secretary.

[jaybird44]

The way things have gone this season, each team's path is fraught with danger.  Contenders have to come out sharp and not fall behind too far, because spoilers like Carnegie Mellon and Brandeis are more than talented enough to slap Ls on the backs of slumbering opponents.

Pressure-packed basketball...can't take a two-minute stretch off here and there to catch one's breath in games and expect no damage from that coasting.  Wash-U's path is challenging over the next two weekends, but at least the Bears are home for all three remaining games.  That might end up being a very valuable trump card, when the dust finally settles on the evening of February 28th.

[WUPHF]

Congratulations to Luke Silverman-Lloyd for making the D3hoops.com Team of the Week: http://d3hoops.com/awards/tow/2014-15/week12

[Gregory Sager]

UAA tie breaker:

If a champion cannot be determined by won-loss percentage, co-champions shall be declared
and the representative to NCAA post-season competition determined by the following criteria,
applied to regularly-scheduled Association games:
1) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions;
2) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions and the
subsequent finishers until a representative is determined;
3) Best record in UAA road games;
4) If this process fails to determine a representative, the representative to NCAA post-season
competition shall be determined by a coin flip administered by the Executive Secretary.

Tiebreaker #4 just doesn't seem right for the UAA. The league's executive secretary should call the respective team captains separately into his or her office to test them as to how many decimal points of pi each can recite.

[ADL70]

UAA tie breaker:

If a champion cannot be determined by won-loss percentage, co-champions shall be declared
and the representative to NCAA post-season competition determined by the following criteria,
applied to regularly-scheduled Association games:
1) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions;
2) Best record in head-to-head UAA competition between the co-champions and the
subsequent finishers until a representative is determined;
3) Best record in UAA road games;
4) If this process fails to determine a representative, the representative to NCAA post-season
competition shall be determined by a coin flip administered by the Executive Secretary.

Tiebreaker #4 just doesn't seem right for the UAA. The league's executive secretary should call the respective team captains separately into his or her office to test them as to how many decimal points of pi each can recite.

+k

Or an easier to administer tie breaker, team with highest GPA.

[WUPHF]

I asked every student I talked to today and though my sample is relatively small and included only one athlete who is not on the basketball team, no one I talked to knew Pi past 3.1415.

I think we would fare better on GPA.

[Gregory Sager]

I asked every student I talked to today and though my sample is relatively small and included only one athlete who is not on the basketball team, no one I talked to knew Pi past 3.1415.

I think we would fare better on GPA.

Yeah, but where's the fun in that?

[Mr. Ypsi]

I asked every student I talked to today and though my sample is relatively small and included only one athlete who is not on the basketball team, no one I talked to knew Pi past 3.1415.

I think we would fare better on GPA.

Yeah, but where's the fun in that?

And then we'd hear conspiracies about grade inflation for bballers!

(But it is true that you might not survive on pi: since it starts 3.14159, if you cut off at four decimal places it would be 3.1416.   You can easily google pi to 1,000,000 places, so just start studying! )

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I asked every student I talked to today and though my sample is relatively small and included only one athlete who is not on the basketball team, no one I talked to knew Pi past 3.1415.

I think we would fare better on GPA.

Wait, so I know one more place of pi than the average WUSTL student?  That makes me feel a lot better about myself today.