MBB: Northwest Conference

[etule]

PLU gets UPS at home for the first time in a while! L&C this Friday for PLU and that should be an interesting game! PLU better defensively than last year. That will win them a couple more games when their offense goes south like it did against Whitworth who was on fire. WW is very ,very good!

[NWCer]

I sure hope they get it together. It's been 2002 since someone other than Whitworth or UPS has won the conference championship. The last 8 years have had a lot of entertaining and important games between the two. Of course I'm still hoping Whitworth continues to be the better team 

Lewis and Clark was co-Champs with Whitworth in 2008.

[(509)Rat]

I knew someone would bring that up. I'm not counting it because A) they were only co-champs and B) they still got spanked by Whitworth in the conference tourney. It's kinda like saying Hawaii won the WAC championship this year in football...

Has anyone outside of Whitworth and UPS represented the NWC in the playoffs in the last 7-8 years?

[etule]

Most conferences are dominated by a couple teams with one coming out of no where once every few years. UPS and Whitworth have been loaded with talent . Both those schools recruit well and are well coached! The D3 level is not easy to recruit! Every year it seems Whitworth comes up with a new all league player that transfers in!
It is all good Whitworth knows how to win! It will make the league better in general. It is cool to see a NWC school ranked that high nationally. I hope they go to numer 1!

[NWCer]

You don't have to count it if you don't want to, that's fine.  They were co-Champs with Whitworth regardless. 

Don't follow WAC football.

Whitworth did win the conference tournament that year.

No, no other team besides UPS or Whitworth has represented the NWC in the NCAA's since Lewis and Clark Elite 8 run in 2002.

[(509)Rat]

If only Lewis and Clark's administration cared about athletics...

[TryMeTeam]

NWCer:

Further, because of a weird tiebreaker, WW got the game at home.  Had the tiebreaker gone the way it was suppose to, LC would have played at home, and that might have produced a different result, and I could have at least seen that game.

Rat:

Too late for that.  The players are saying this is almost surely Gaillard's last year, so they will have to start over with a new coach, probably the big assistant coach.  That will not bode well for the future of Pio basketball.

Kea:

Sorry, be a good fan all you can.  But there are no signs of UPS being anything but a lower tier finisher.  Playing WW tough is all good, but then losing to PLU was a game they could not afford to lose.  PLU is no slouch, but to be in the top tier they needed to win that game.  Maybe you see signs of a developing team, but the record and stats don't show that (how can Shelton go 1-10 from the field and 3 pts in 37 minutes against PLU?).  But, heh, I thought Wil was going to be good this year, so who knows?


PacU has been a surprise so far.  They have Linf on Fri and LC on Sat.  If they continue their win one and lose one each weekend so far, I would pick a win against Linf and losing to LC.  Linf will not finish in the playoffs this year and LC will. 

So has Linf, but for the opposite reason.  Wiser is having his typical all-conference year, but only Rosario and Anderson are supporting him, the only others averaging more than 8 points per game.  They are just not a very good team right now.

I gotta try again:

LC over PLU
Wil gets Whitman
PacU over Linf
GF squeaks by WW....okay, I'm kidding.  I am going to be at that game to see WW.

If you reverse that, except WW over GF, and you probably will do better than I did.

[Keandre]

If you look in the box score, UPS starting PG has not played the last 3 games and he sure would have helped to win at Whitman, Whitworth and PLU.  All 3 of those games ended in costly turnovers and guys unorganized at times. That happens when your starting PG misses a few games. When he gets back, things will for sure turn around.

[nwhoops1903]

Predictions:

WW over GF
PLU over LC
WIL over WHIT
PAC over LF

I think 3 games will be close.

[(509)Rat]

GF is playing about as good a half of basketball as they have all season. Shooting over 46% from 3 and 52% from the field. They don't look like a very physical team and the refs seem to be playing into that, lot of nit-picky fouls on both ends. I would be very surprised if they keep up the strong shooting...

Whitworth is up 39-37

[(509)Rat]

Whitworth wins 81-57. Whitworth didn't play a great game. They played an average game (in terms of shooting %, turnovers, rebound margin, etc). GF shot as well as they could in the first half, then played a turnover filled second half. Their shooting % dropped like a rock. Ended up being a good game for GF statistically though.

Whitworth had a lot more talent and was much more effective in the paint. GF would have had to shoot 60%+ from 3 just to make it a close game.

Whitworth gets another streaky team tomorrow night at Willamette. I would be surprised if Willamette stays within 20

[(509)Rat]

Whitworth up 32-27 at the half. Hayford has played more guys than I think I've ever seen so far

[John Gleich]

Whitworth up 32-27 at the half. Hayford has played more guys than I think I've ever seen so far

Any more updates rat?

[Bearcat Press]

Whitworth up 32-27 at the half. Hayford has played more guys than I think I've ever seen so far

Any more updates rat?

Whitworth wins 84-70.

[(509)Rat]

Another game where Whitworth was obviously the more talented team. Willamette had a good gameplan. They ran a lot of guys at Whitworth, played physical and got the Pirates in some foul trouble. They also didn't rely on the 3, which judging by the few they shot was a good thing. It never felt like a close game in the second half but the Bearkitties scored more points against Whitworth than any other team all season.

On an unrelated note. I was inches away from ending my own life after listening to the Willamette radio announcer. Unfortunately the video stream would always skip to "live" video and therefore couldn't sync Bob Castle with the video. Not only did this guy call the Pirates "Whitman" on 5 too many occasions, but he also was the single biggest homer I've ever listened to. Every Whitworth basket off a drive was a "travel" and any contact was an obvious "foul" on Whitworth. Capital tv or whatever it was called did a great job of showing some court side replays where it was clear that the announcer was completely wrong.

Long story short. Bob Castle is the best play-by-play guy in the NWC for any sport. Period.