MBB: Northwest Conference

[bucs77]

Whitworth should be ranked 16th still correct?    Just wondering why when you go to the scoreboard for saturday  they are not in with the ranked teams above all of the others

[Greek Tragedy]

As much as I enjoy reading all the paranoid rumblings that emanate from the left-coasters every year around this time, it's not as simple as being a matter of "respect" or lack thereof. The five primary criteria listed in the D3 men's basketball championship handbook that are used for selection and seeding purposes do not include "respect" among them. Those criteria are:

* regional winning percentage
* regional Quality of Wins Index
* in-region record against ranked teams
* in-region record head-to-head
* in-region record against common opponents

According to those criteria, Oxy is currently fifth in the West Region and Whitworth is currently sixth. That's a recipe for some fairly low seeding for both teams. Even if the Pirates join the Tigers in the D3 tourney field, neither will be seeded high enough to merit hosting a secondary-round game or games.

Sager fails to mention that respect is the 1st of 10 secondary criteria. lol  .  Obviously, I'm kidding.

Whitworth should be ranked 16th still correct?    Just wondering why when you go to the scoreboard for saturday  they are not in with the ranked teams above all of the others

Yeah, it's not a perfect system.  Have no worries, though the NCAA doesn't care that Whitworth is 16th in the d3hoops.com poll! 

[(509)Rat]

Whitworth is in!  The Bucs beat LC 69-62.  Jon Young had a great game.  Perfect from the free throw line which was big at the end of the game as it turned a two possesion game into a three possesion game with about 40 seconds left.  He also came up big from beyond the arc when he needed to.  LC did a great job of crashing the boards on the offensive side which is really what kept them in the game in the first half.  That midseason stretch of not having Jones hurt Whitworth but the healthy Whitworth team is the best in the conference and will hopefully represent the NWC well in the tourney.

[nwhoops1903]

My Pirates played some great D in the second half and held back a strong challenge from LC.  Great season for LC and they must be thinking next year looks very good, plus the hunger from losing tonight will be with them.

Young has been playing as good as he has ever played and just in time.  Williams continued my favorite stat of 0 fouls.  Symes opening dunk was huge.  Great job by the WW coaches to help turn up the D in the 2nd half and stifle LC shooters.  WW fans were pumped and that
FT % by LC goes straight to the 6th man!!  Great support Spokane.

As for the Tourney...5 criteria between Oxy and WW.  1,  head to head doesn't apply, in the next 4 WW leads in 3 of 4.  Come to Spokane Oxy!!  Its warm and sunny, I swear it is, really.

Actually, I think WW goes far no matter what.  They have poise and leadership.  Backcourt seniors = March wins.

[bucs77]

Again I agree with THAT!

[bbaddict]

Great job Whitworth in winning the automatic bid.  LC really did give them a run for their money.  I don't care what team you were cheering for, if you love basketball, you had to appreciate that final shot by LC's Joey Toboni from the other side of the court for a 3!  Made a 10 pt lead only 7, but wow, I don't think I've ever seen a cooler shot!   If their 3 point shots had been working like that all night, we'd be talking about a different outcome.  It's a shame that one of these teams had to be eliminated because they're both quite good.

LC will be a tough team next year -- they were this year without a single senior on their team.   They were really fun to watch this year & a serious threat to many teams.  Congrats on a great season!

At the risk of lowering my Karma even further, I just have to say that I think the NWC is under rated by other parts of the country that don't get to see our games.   So, here's to negative karma, just because I think WW can beat Oxy or other teams from those glorious midwest states that have such great travel accessibility and amenities.

And, as a side note, I can't believe anyone views the Pacific NW as nowhere!  You must be nuts!

[Gregory Sager]

And, as a side note, I can't believe anyone views the Pacific NW as nowhere!  You must be nuts!

It's not a matter of viewing the region itself as nowhere. It's more a matter of the Northwest Conference not having any D3 neighbors to the east until you cross the Minnesota-North Dakota border.

Don't let paranoia lead you to believe that geographical isolation equals disdain and dismissal in the minds of the rest of the country. It isn't true in terms of our society in general (everyone in the country is well aware of the prominence of Seattle and Portland within American culture), and it isn't true in terms of D3; everyone who has seen the NWC's tourney teams over the course of this decade has been impressed by them. I was impressed by those L&C teams earlier in the decade, and I know that the UWSP and Illinois Wesleyan fans were impressed by the UPS teams of the past few seasons.

[(509)Rat]

Thank you for the kind words about the NWC Sager.

The brackets are out.  Whitworth is playing at Washington U. against DePauw (this friday).  On saturday Whitworth (assuming they win friday) will play the winner of Washington U. and Fontbonne.  If all goes well for the first two rounds they will run into UW-Stevens point in the 3rd round (sweet 16)...yay.  Don't know much about DePauw other than they're from Indiana...guess its time to do a little research.

[bbaddict]

I don't think it's paranoia, Sager.  I think there's plenty of evidence to support the idea that men's teams in the West, particularly the NWC don't get the respect they deserve.  (One exception is Linfield football.) The Women's committee picked George Fox as a 1st round site.  And UPS women hosted soccer this year.  Ask the teams from Abilene, TX if that's geographically in sync.  It just ain't about geography!!

There's a lot of whining on other boards about teams that didn't get into Pool C.  Does anyone have a good reason why Guilford (51) is in and Lewis & Clark (50) isn't?  If we're using the numbers & ranking argument, it seems that they should have gotten a Pool C bid, at least over Guilford.

Go BUCS!  You're looking really good!

[UPSoundLogs]

Congrats to the Bucs for making the tourney! I hope they make some noise for the NWC!

Looks like we were all waaaaaaaaaay off with our predictions, instead of playing the SCIAC/Occidental like normal WW will be shipped out to play Depauw.  I think that's a positive, it allows both teams from the west(coast) to match up against other teams from around the country instead of playing each other and automatically eliminating one west(coast) representative early on.  However, for what it is worth, WW appears to have a much easier path than Occidental.  Good luck to both teams.  

Anyone have thoughts on the All NWC teams?  I'm a little shocked with some of the picks!  5 guys from UPS made a team...not that I'm complaining...I think that's great, they are all deserving I'm just a little suprised.  Also three WW first teamers? I'm all for BWillimas as POY(best player on the #1 team should get it) but I don't know about Symes AND JJ on the first team?   I'm glad to see Born's team record didn't hurt his individual status, he had a great year and deserves first team.  Obviously this is all debatable, just throwing some opinions out there.

I probably won't be posting too much anymore now that the Loggers are out of the equation, I'll be lurking though, I'm already looking forward to next year...and the UPS RE-takeover !

[bbaddict]

I agree with you UPSoundLogs about the All NWC team.  Seems like some really great players got left out.  I'm sure UPS & Whitworth are happy, but maybe at the expense of other guys who deserve to be there.  The All Conference team should be about individual stats, not how the team did.  Every year someone gets left out.

Really happy about B Williams as POY -- he's a true team player.  He recently received an award for 1000 points & 500 assists!  Wow!

And, if Hayford is Coach of the Year, does that include Wecker?  They're co-coaches!  I don't think Whitworth would be where they are without both of them!  Congrats!

[(509)Rat]

The All Conference team should be about individual stats, not how the team did.

The problem here is that it is your opinion, and every coach/SID/anyone who votes for all-conference, all-region, all-etc. has a different view on what qualifies someone as a first or second teamer.  Many people like bbaddict will say go purely off of stats, of course that would make born the POY, while others will argue that you have to look at where the top teams would be without certain players (I think thats how Symes and JJ got to be first teamers.  Look at WW w/ and w/0 JJ.  They never lost a game when he was healthy and dropped two to UPS and one to LC while he was out or just coming off of an injury.  Some voters will say that he is the second best player on the best team and that means he ought to be a first teamer (and he was obviously a very valuable peice to the best team in the conference).  Symes led Whitworth in scoring with 376 points...he scored the most points on the best team in the conference, some would argue that that qualifies as a first teamer.  I guess what I'm getting at is that we could pull out all of the statistics, logic, and reasoning and still not have a clear-cut 6 top players in the league (counting POY).  I personally would have kept Symes on the team and dropped JJ because he did get injured and had to sit out a few games...the only problem is I don't know who I'd replace him with.

[UPSoundLogs]

Overall, I think that the All NWC squads came out suprisingly well.  There was a lot of fairly even talent in the league this year and I believe there are several players that could actually  be interchangable on these teams.  When the talent is pretty close it comes down to team record, which obviously(with the exception of Born) ruled in this years picks.  I think the main thing is that the POY should always be the best player from the best team in league...something that has not been done correctly for the last several years.  Example: Pecht from 2nd place WW over Curtiss(all american) from the NWC champ and elite eight team...big time mistake... and Curtiss showed why in the NWC tourney championship with 28pts/14rbs/8assts(I don't mean to live in the past, just to prove a point).   

As for this year, COY should really have been the LC coach.  I think COY should be about a coach that is able to overacheive with the talent that he has and bring a team that was supposed to be bad/mediocre into the elite...just like LC.  Not taking anything away from WW, but they were expected to do well and had superior talent. 

In regards to the players this year, I don' think there are any major dissapointments...I think Faidley could have been higher(team record hurt him), Symes lower(first place team though), Krauel higher(already a lot of UPS representatives=no more room), and Bergerren lower(good team record helped).  Not a whole lot to complain about though in my opinion. 

Also, I don't agree with bbaddict that All conference picks should be all about stats.  Unless someone has overpowering statistics(Born) I think team success should weigh heavily.   

[(509)Rat]

Also, I don't agree with bbaddict that All conference picks should be all about stats.  Unless someone has overpowering statistics(Born) I think team success should weigh heavily

Case-in-point about what I said in my last post.

As for this year, COY should really have been the LC coach.  I think COY should be about a coach that is able to overacheive with the talent that he has and bring a team that was supposed to be bad/mediocre into the elite...just like LC.  Not taking anything away from WW, but they were expected to do well and had superior talent.

I agree with this.  The only reason I would now say Hayford was the right choice is that he is taking his team to the national tourney after outcoaching the LC coach last saturday...hindsight is always 20/20.

[bigfella]

If you watched the game Saturday, I don't think you can say Hayford out coached Gaillard.  9-22 from the freethrow line might be considered out coaching since if Hayford put the players on the line on purpose.  The game wasn't played particularly too well from either side.  it looked like LC got the shots they wanted, and got to the line when needed.  When you get 15 offensive rebounds leading to freethrows, you gotta be happy.  You can't make the freethrows for the players, though.

WW made plays when they needed them.  But, it wasn't a superior coaching job that got them there.  Sorry.