MBB: Northwest Conference

[LogShow]

WW having trouble with S Cruz seems out of character.  Other posters here imply they are not playing well right now, but it is early. 

UPS is on track for that 2-7 pre-league record.  If they do contend in conference, it will be a surprising  turnaround to me.

So you are saying that UPS won't contend, simply because they could have a 2-7 non-conference record.  Even if we are playing tough competition, and held our own against UWSP?  
Yet you say that WW, who got dominated by Point and barely beat Santa Cruz, was out of character will be fine.

How does that work?

[D O.C.]

Ducking in from Post Patterns I notice Mr. NAIA Menefee hit 16 of 16 free throws for Evergreen St. Fouling him did not help, I see.

[Gregory Sager]

Mentioning a blown kicking call after a 22-point beatdown? That's like sitting in a lifeboat after the Titanic went down and griping about the fact that the galley had run out of pudding for dessert that night.

What kind of pudding?

OxyBob

Butterscotch, of course. All the swells -- Astor, Guggenheim, Straus, the Countess of Rothes -- always insisted upon butterscotch.

So, I have been trying to figure out what the first weekend of games mean, and I think I figured it out.  Like all pre-league games, they mean nothing!

Not so. The losses to UWSP by Whitworth and Puget Sound, for instance, are in-region games. They may come into play should either NWC team be in the hunt for a Pool C berth come season's end. Even if Whitworth or Puget Sound makes it into the dance regardless of the loss to UWSP, it could affect seeding.

[nwhoops1903]

Mentioning a blown kicking call after a 22-point beatdown? That's like sitting in a lifeboat after the Titanic went down and griping about the fact that the galley had run out of pudding for dessert that night.

That call was made against Stevens Point...I was suggesting that even a ref was in PreCONFERENCE form.  You omitted the "doesn't matter" in the very next 2 words.  -1 karma for being a smart___ agitator and kicking a fan when he's down.  Stay classy Hall of Famer.

[nwhoops1903]

Logshow,

I was at the games in Tacoma this weekend.  The reports of UPS first to bottom feeder drop are exaggerated.  They looked strong.  Their intensity and style will always make them a formidable opponent.

Me, former players, other fans, the WW coaches and anyone else who loves this proud program were discouraged by what they saw.  WW teams are always a solid unit.  That group was not solid.  When I stop and think about it though most of Hayford's teams have been bad coming out of the gate.  I can only remember a few opening weekend successes for the Bucs and that was when we had loads of experience coming back. I think the offense takes time to digest and Nakamura and Jurich were obviously a huge part of their efficiency.  We will see.  I don't think you will hear much boasting from any of us for awhile.

So, here is how it works.  Bridgeland, Hayford and Gaillard get the benefit of the doubt that their teams will develop because they have a track record of success. I will only speak for WW and not the other two schools (will we ever have a Whitman poster?) but our teams always have peaked.  I think this team will be good as there is plenty of talent.  Lunt had a great year last year with three seniors that Bridgeland recruited. Most of the UPS posters understand this.  His other two teams fizzled the second half of the season.  He needs to prove it.  I give him big time credit for 16-0 last year, but he did lose 2 of their last 3 games when the big time games came.  So the jury is still out on Lunt.  He certainly inherited a better situation than Lowery did at Pacific or Bridgeland at Whitman.  Let's see....

TMT...you are right...it all means nothing till we see how the coaches use the games to make their teams conference ready.  Maybe the best team performance is LC being competitive with those players out.  I hope the cafeteria issues at LC are not significant as that would be a black eye on a proud conference of academic schools.  Some of the guys who played at WW in the 90's told me there was funny business with the cafeteria back when they played and were recruited by LC.  This is D3 right?

Happy Thanksgiving to All

[NWCer]

Nwhoops1903,

So there may be some history of the cafeteria thing with LC?  That sheds a completely different light on everything.

I think it's early, every team will be better than they were this weekend, and when the dust settles I still think Whitworth and UPS will be 2 of the final 4 standing...   
Give me a few more performances from Whitman, Linfield, my Boxers, and see what happens with this LC thing before I give the other 2.

Good luck in tomorrow's games for all the NWC teams.

[Gregory Sager]

Mentioning a blown kicking call after a 22-point beatdown? That's like sitting in a lifeboat after the Titanic went down and griping about the fact that the galley had run out of pudding for dessert that night.

That call was made against Stevens Point...I was suggesting that even a ref was in PreCONFERENCE form.  You omitted the "doesn't matter" in the very next 2 words. 

You did not suggest that the ref was in "preconference form" in that post. You may have intended it that way, but your post did not carry that meaning. This is what you said:

Maybe the impossibly perfect shooting, maybe the first game jitters, maybe the HS ref who T'd up WW in warmups for a rim touch and later called a ball off the thigh a kick, doesn't matter.

There are three things listed in there that are offered as explanations for UWSP's beatdown of Whitworth. The "first game jitters" reference, which you claim is in reference to the refs (or a ref), is set apart from the reference to the ref by a comma. Since the first clause, referring to "the impossibly perfect shooting," is clearly not about the ref, there is therefore no implication that the second clause is about the ref, either. Rather, I read it the way that it still seems pretty clear to me was your intention: The "first game jitters" reference is to the Whitworth team rather than the ref who made the blown kick call, an inference further reinforced by the fact that you said this about the Pirates two sentences earlier:

WW played together for the first time and it showed.

As I said, you may have intended to say that the ref had first-game jitters, but your statement does not match that.

Yes, I didn't include the "doesn't matter" in the quote. I did not draw the inference from your post that you were blaming the refs entirely for the rout, nor did I say as much in my Titanic post. What mentioning the refs does do to your post, though, is to dilute the "doesn't matter" and the rest of what otherwise might've been read as a "man up and accept the fact that Whitworth has a long way to go before it's a Final Four caliber team" post. That's my whole point: Invoking bad reffing is inevitably seen as excuse-making, unless it's a close game that hinged upon a controversial call or two. And UWSP vs. Whitworth clearly wasn't that. In short, mentioning bad calls by the refs in a 22-point loss is just begging for mockery.

-1 karma for being a smart___ agitator and kicking a fan when he's down.  Stay classy Hall of Famer.

I was not "kicking a fan when he's down." I was pointing out the utter folly of making Final Four predictions* for your team before it's even played a single game.

First of all, just to set the record straight, I bear no animus towards Whitworth. I have no rooting interest within the NWC. In fact, I'm an admirer of Coach Hayford and I have a lot of respect for what he's done with the Whitworth program over the years.

Reaching the Final Four is an incredibly difficult task; only a tiny handful of schools in D3 even have the potential to get that far, and among those that do there's a certain amount of luck involved as well as administrative aspects beyond the reach of the program (i.e., seeding, hosting, and bracket location). Almost every Final Four team has to eke out a close win or two in March just to get to Salem (Wash U being no exception). And it goes without saying that the NWC has never had a team reach the Final Four, and it resides within a region whose road to the Final Four is traditionally the most brutal of all (as was discussed in this room a couple of weeks ago), which makes such a prediction even more presumptuous. In short, I was not kicking a fan when he's down. Your fellow Pirates fan brought it upon himself.

Do you know any other movie quotes besides that one from Anchorman, by the way?

* They aren't folly this year if you're a Wash U fan, but that's an extremely rare exception to the rule.

[nwhoops1903]

Invoking bad reffing is inevitably seen as excuse-making, unless it's a close game that hinged upon a controversial call or two. And UWSP vs. Whitworth clearly wasn't that. In short, mentioning bad calls by the refs in a 22-point loss is just begging for mockery.

I was not "kicking a fan when he's down." I was pointing out the utter folly of making Final Four predictions* for your team before it's even played a single game.Do you know any other movie quotes besides that one from Anchorman, by the way?

Sager you are correct about mentioning ref's, thanks, lesson learned. 

You are wrong about ME making a Final Four prediction, find the post cause I can't.  I know EVERY quote in Anchorman, but since your forum reputation is as a hovering D3 know it all/stirrer of pot, you get the "stay classy".  Maybe some day we will be friends and we can go shopping for suits together.  I am glad you admire WW program and Coach Hayford, so do I. 

[PSfan]

Oh, my...were the Pirates really down to the Slugs with 2:30 to play?  Gracious! 
Here's my prediction: Whitman is going to kill Whitworth.  The Pirates looked to me to be
precisely the kind of team that the Bridge system just blows up. 

[LogShow]

This board is hot this year...I like it!!

[TryMeTeam]

Got a line while out of town and a few minutes.

Gotta start with PS fan:  I don't see how anything that happened this weekend can lead you to believe WW will be killed by Whitm.  Did you not see that Whitm lost reasonably large to a team (Wil-Jess) that a very undermanned LC team took into overtime just before they beat a "powerful" Port Bible team that had them down big in the first half?  I put Whitm as my 2nd place team earlier, but I am more worried about them than WW at this point.  Last and certainly not least, Whitm goes down and beats the "powerful" CalTech by 15 points, tied at the half.  But you were probably taking a shot at WW, not saying Whitm is gonna be good.

Sager (aka Classy):  You are right about the seedings.  I was referring (and didn't say so in my post) to the NWC race rather than all impacts. 

Logshow:  I really don't think there was any funny business about the LC scandal at all.  From what Biddy said, the players worked in the food service area and were paid in meals.  Doing a job and getting paid for it in meals doesn't sound like much of a recruiting tool.  Sounds like the same thing as work-study to me.  I don't see how that is a NCAA violation, but I don't know all of the details.

1903:  Yeah, it was a friend of 89Pirate who made the final four prediction, but 89 got all the heat for that one.

UPS loses to StM by 2:  Well that is certainly progress.  I figured this one to be a blowout but it looks like UPS hung tough.  Now I'm thinking 3-6.  NW might be a W, too.

Fox beating Corban:  Maybe Fox is better than predications.  Maybe Corban is down this year.  Maybe both.

PLU hanging with ESU:  See above.

Interesting games this weekend.  Maybe they will shed more light.

[NWCer]

Hey TMT, glad you could find a connection, there is obviously something there (The LC thing), they wouldn't have been suspended for nothing.  You just don't suspend all your top players (minus Hollins) if they simply worked in the food service area and were paid in meals.  The word I keep coming back to, interesting.......

But as mentioned earlier, for the conference's sake, I hope everything is ok, would be a black eye to Gailord, Lewis and Clark, and the whole conference. 

My Boxers dropped another one last night, it was Northwest Christian's 8th straight win, I got out to the game, I've seen that one and the Corban one.  Two different type of games.  Scoring galore against Corban, smashmouth against Northwest Christian.  I don't remember Northwest Christian being that good when I saw them several years ago, they're big, athletic, their guard was very good, and they were playing like veterans all over the floor.  My Boxers battled but after it was tied with about 10 minutes to go they couldn't get them down the stretch.  Ross Bartlett was amazing, young Bartlett looked rusty but did some good things, and I like the transfer kid from Yakima Valley.  You usually don't say this about a team that starts 1-3, but I agree with TMT that they could be in a battle for a playoff spot.

[Gregory Sager]

You are wrong about ME making a Final Four prediction, find the post cause I can't.

For crying out loud, nwhoops1903, read the posts before you respond to them, willya? I did not accuse you of making a Final Four prediction. The "your" in this quote:

I was not "kicking a fan when he's down." I was pointing out the utter folly of making Final Four predictions* for your team before it's even played a single game.

... is clearly a generic "your" addressed to D3 fans in general, not a direct reference to you. Why else would it have an asterisk attached to it saying that it doesn't apply to Wash U fans this season? That would make no sense at all if it was specifically addressed to you in the first place. Furthermore, I repeated the "kicking a fan when he's down" reference towards the end of the post:

In short, I was not kicking a fan when he's down. Your fellow Pirates fan brought it upon himself.

Unless you're a multiple-personality poster who goes by the name of 89Pirate as well as nwhoops1903, this is plainly not addressed to you. It was 89Pirate who "brought it upon himself," just as I said originally:

Don't know where the Whitworth fans are TMT but their team has been picked to dominate......

http://www.nwcsports.com/sports/mbkb/2009-10/news/poll

We are out here, silently waiting the games to begin.

I have word from an inside source (not a coach or player) that the Bucs should be a Final Four team ! ! !  I would love a trip to VA ! ! !

I'm dying to read 89Pirate's thoughts about tonight's 101-79 loss to UW-Stevens Point, a game in which UWSP was up by 37 points in the second half before Coach Semling called off the dogs.

Yeah, it's only one game, but a comment like that is going to bite you on the butt when your team gets run out of the gym in its first game of the season.

Sheesh!

[nwhoops1903]

Mr. Sager, "He who adds water to the dirt in which he stands gets mud on his feet."  You clearly are entitled to defend your needless and/or needling post(s).  Such posts are your calling card and are enjoyed by the NWC regs.  Keep up the good stuff and good luck with not letting go.

That call was made against Stevens Point...I was suggesting that even a ref was in PreCONFERENCE form.  You omitted the "doesn't matter" in the very next 2 words.  -1 karma for being a smart___ agitator and kicking a fan when he's down.  Stay classy Hall of Famer.

I really had no idea that this little 2 liner was so rich and compelling.  Reminds me of a fashion show for cats I once watched.

Please have a nice Thanksgiving and while you're at it, put your asterick in the pudding dish.  This is clearly a generic "your" addressed to asterick users on the forums who don't realize that 60% of the time, astericks work every time.

[Gregory Sager]

Ah, the old "you're right and I'm wrong, so I'll just set the argument aside and insult you" post. It makes for tasty pre-turkey-dinner reading!

By the way, it's "asterisk," not "asterick." You might want to stick with "little star" if that's too difficult to remember.