MBB: Northwest Conference

[blackhawks4]

Pacific and Willamette now have JV teams.  I couldn't find any mention of LF having one.  Didn't they used to have one?  Are they ramping up for another one?  Just a thought.  It would be nice to have a JV league in the NWC again.

Are we sure it's not their JV teams playing on Friday & Saturday nights??

[blackhawks4]

Is anybody else having a tough time live streaming these games?  Couldn't get the WMN-GF live stream until 2nd half.  Anyways, here's the feedback:

1. The GF announcer was FANTASTIC.  Clearly a hometown broadcaster (cheering for Fox), which he should be, but he was excellent.  I was very impressed
2.  Hard to think GF is going to maintain any type of composure when the head coach is giving chest bumps at half court during a timeout.  Really?  Act like you've been there before?  I think the chest bump left him woozy, because either he lost track of his math or forgot how long the shot clock was.  In a two possession game WMN drained the entire shot clock (game clock to :18) without GF fouling.   
3.  WMN just cannot continue to go 2-15 from 3 and 11-19 from the line.  It's hard to stay in a game, let alone win a game when you shoot like that.
4.  Evan Martin is a beast.  Does the guy miss?  Tochi Oti is slowly coming back from injury.  In my opinion, he is the best guard in the conference, and WMN needs him back firing on all cylinders.

I would expect both Eastern Wash. teams to perform at a higher level tomorrow night.
 

[blackhawks4]

Are we sure it's not their JV teams playing on Friday & Saturday nights??

...WMN shot 2-21 from the arc--and for the most part, they weren't bad looks.  Again, this will never happen again.

WMN has deserved this for a while now.  20% from 3, 50% from the line.  When you play with fire...

Impressed with how well prepared Pacific was.  Great livestream too.

[A Buc Forever]

Whitman tends to blow some unlikely games at some point every year.

So Blackhawk, am I a prophet now?

[(509)Rat]

I would expect both Eastern Wash. teams to perform at a higher level tomorrow night.

#halfprophet

UPS has 2 conference losses and they haven't made the E WA trip yet...still a lot of basketball left to play but they can't afford to keep dropping games to teams that don't start with Whit.

If this is Whitworth's worst team, and Whitman still can't get over the hump, how much longer does Bridgeland stay?

[A Buc Forever]

Where is Bridgeland going to go?  If a Bigger school is going to take anyone from the NWC it will be Logie at this point.

[D O.C.]

No idea how long LINFIELD has not had a JV team.
Yes, they had one. Saw them beat U of O frosh back when Bobby Moore (A. Rashad) was playing.

[(509)Rat]

No idea how long LINFIELD has not had a JV team.
Yes, they had one. Saw them beat U of O frosh back when Bobby Moore (A. Rashad) was playing.

And now they couldn't even beat A. Rashad by himself. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

[A Buc Forever]

Questions remaining?

1.  Will WW go 16-0?
2.  Will LF go 0-16?
3.  How many more meltdowns will WN have?

[(509)Rat]

1. Hopefully
2. Probably
3. Two

[Andy Jamison - Walla Walla Wildcat]

Linfield had a JV program thru the Doty era but dropped it starting last season.  It was a rare player who made the move from JV to Varsity at Linfield.  The JV team seemed to always be full of players who came to Linfield to play hoops but weren't recruited (or at least not that heavily) by Doty.  During my time at Linfield, 1990-1994, I can think of only a single player who played substantial minutes on the JV team and then later in his career had an important role on the Varsity - Jason DeVries.  By important I mean starting and or playing meaningful minutes off the bench.

The disadvantages of a JV program are all based on time and energy for the coaching staff - schedule games, travel to games, coach games, etc.  With basically only coach Doty it was too much when you consider his head coaching duties plus HHPA and teaching responsibilities.  If a coach only has to worry about coaching I can see devoting the energy to a JV program.  That isn't the case at Linfield.

Maybe down the road there will be money in the budget for a JV coach.  Right now they need to focus on developing their varsity players who are mostly in essence JV players right now (18-19 year old boys playing against men).

It would be great if all the local teams had JV programs for both basketball and football.  I love the idea of more playing opportunities in relatively meaningful games vs practice.

[blackhawks4]

I thought we walked down this bridge last year...let's not forget that WMN was the laughing stock of the NWC for as long as one can remember before his arrival, to the tune of 3-13, 1-15, last place, 5 win total type seasons. Let's not insinuate failure because WW hasn't been knocked off the helm yet.  Rome wasn't built in a day.

WW will NOT go undefeated--they drop 2 out of their next 5.

Linfield gets a win.

UPS is better than they've shown.

WMN can't possibly get worse, can they?? Is it even possible to shoot 40% from the line and 10% from three??

[A Buc Forever]

I thought we walked down this bridge last year...let's not forget that WMN was the laughing stock of the NWC for as long as one can remember before his arrival, to the tune of 3-13, 1-15, last place, 5 win total type seasons. Let's not insinuate failure because WW hasn't been knocked off the helm yet.  Rome wasn't built in a day.

WW will NOT go undefeated--they drop 2 out of their next 5.

Linfield gets a win.

UPS is better than they've shown.

WMN can't possibly get worse, can they?? Is it even possible to shoot 40% from the line and 10% from three??

No one is insinuating failure with regard to WM. However I don't see Bridgeland getting offered a better job than Whitman in the near future unless he starts going to the NCAA tournament.

Whitworth may not go undefeated, but at this point they're the only team that has a chance.

Whitworth plays four of their next five games at home I don't see them dropping two.

UPS is probably my Second favorite team in the conference. I hope they are better than their record but your record usually reflects how you are.

Whitman will shoot worse when they face Whitworth defense. 😄

Rat is the prophet not Blachhawk.

[(509)Rat]

Has Bridgeland needed a "better" offer to leave in the past? Had he stayed anywhere longer than 5 years prior to Whitman? Despite the money the University has put into the program, can he get good players to voluntarily go to Walla Walla to attend Whitman? (Hint: one kinda sucks and the other really sucks)

Rome wasn't built in a day

Bridgeland has never stayed anywhere long enough to build Ritzville, let alone Rome

Don't anyone forget I was right about Lunt too...too bad all of our UPS friends left about the same time Bridgeland's recruits did. UPS' team and presence on this board really took a hit that year.

[Gregory Sager]

Linfield had a JV program thru the Doty era but dropped it starting last season.  It was a rare player who made the move from JV to Varsity at Linfield.  The JV team seemed to always be full of players who came to Linfield to play hoops but weren't recruited (or at least not that heavily) by Doty.  During my time at Linfield, 1990-1994, I can think of only a single player who played substantial minutes on the JV team and then later in his career had an important role on the Varsity - Jason DeVries.  By important I mean starting and or playing meaningful minutes off the bench.

The disadvantages of a JV program are all based on time and energy for the coaching staff - schedule games, travel to games, coach games, etc.  With basically only coach Doty it was too much when you consider his head coaching duties plus HHPA and teaching responsibilities.  If a coach only has to worry about coaching I can see devoting the energy to a JV program.  That isn't the case at Linfield.

Maybe down the road there will be money in the budget for a JV coach.  Right now they need to focus on developing their varsity players who are mostly in essence JV players right now (18-19 year old boys playing against men).

It would be great if all the local teams had JV programs for both basketball and football.  I love the idea of more playing opportunities in relatively meaningful games vs practice.

I think that there's three basic reasons to have a JV program. In random order, they are:

1) Exposure and participation. Having a JV team is an added way to get your school's name out there, which is especially important for recruiting purposes. It also gets more student-athletes involved, which is: a) good for a coach who is required by his school's administration to meet a recruiting quota; and b) a way to create more goodwill in-house for the program.

2) Player development. If your program maintains a solid tier of juniors and seniors who grab the lion's share of varsity playing time every season, a JV team allows you to develop your freshmen and sophomores by giving them game experience against their underclassmen peers.

3) Juco scouting. By scheduling your JV team to play jucos instead of just playing other JV teams from four-year schools, you get a chance to evaluate juco players firsthand, expose them to your school and program, and keep relationships going with juco coaches.

Not every school operates a JV team for all three of those reasons. Heck, a JV team in one sport may operate for a different reason or reasons than a JV team from another sport at the same school. And there can be a wide variation within leagues as to why member schools have JV teams. To use my own league, the CCIW, as an example, Illinois Wesleyan and Augustana have always used their JV teams for reason #2, as their junior varsities basically function as feeder teams for their varsities. But North Park has used its JV team for reason #3, since jucos are thick on the ground in Chicagoland and NPU has always had a strong transfer element within the program. Like Linfield, NPU has rarely used the JV team for developmental purposes. In fact, at North Park it's more common for a varsity player to be sent down to the JV (often at his own request), in order to get more playing time because his varsity minutes have diminished, than it is for a player to begin at the JV level and work his way up. That was true in the national championship days as well as in the more recent era in which NPU has struggled.