MBB: Northwest Conference

Started by The Show, March 06, 2005, 08:40:16 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

John Gleich

Quote from: playball on March 14, 2014, 07:37:16 PM
Quote from: (509)Rat on March 14, 2014, 06:38:28 PM
I just used Hope and Calvin as examples for the "bowl" style seating. I think it gives the court/arena more of a "big time" feel. Any new basketball facility at Whitworth doesn't need more than 2,500 seats. But you are absolutely right about filling seats being more important than a mostly empty palace like Van Noord. Here is the Fieldhouse during a playoff game. Currently they have to bring in temporary bleachers on the end caps when they expect the main bleachers to reach capacity. 



If Whitworth was able to make a gym of similar seating capacity and just utilize a smaller space better, that place would be rocking.  It gets loud and noisy already but imagine the same amount of fans at a WW game in a space scaled to Whitmans gym... It would be nuts!  I know many of you have never been here and sits fairly obscure but the best gym I've ever played in was in Grants Pass Oregon.  They had a bowl style but what was so unique about it was the floor sat 7 or 8 feet below where the bleachers were.  Both benches, scores table, and basketball court were sunk into the ground.  It was amazing


I've never played on a floor like that... but Univ of Minnesota is like that too. Talk about putting the game on center stage...

How large was Grants Pass? It seems like you'd need that in a pretty large arena.
UWSP Men's Basketball

National Champions: 2015, 2010, 2005, 2004

NCAA appearances: 2018, '15, '14, '13, '12, '11, '10, '09, '08, '07, '05, '04, '03, '00, 1997

WIAC/WSUC Champs: 2015, '14, '13, '11, '09, '07, '05, '03, '02, '01, '00, 1993, '92, '87, '86, '85, '84, '83, '82, '69, '61, '57, '48, '42, '37, '36, '35, '33, '18

Twitter: @JohnGleich

(509)Rat

#5941
Quote from: John Gleich on March 14, 2014, 08:58:24 PM
Quote from: playball on March 14, 2014, 07:37:16 PM
Quote from: (509)Rat on March 14, 2014, 06:38:28 PM
I just used Hope and Calvin as examples for the "bowl" style seating. I think it gives the court/arena more of a "big time" feel. Any new basketball facility at Whitworth doesn't need more than 2,500 seats. But you are absolutely right about filling seats being more important than a mostly empty palace like Van Noord. Here is the Fieldhouse during a playoff game. Currently they have to bring in temporary bleachers on the end caps when they expect the main bleachers to reach capacity. 



If Whitworth was able to make a gym of similar seating capacity and just utilize a smaller space better, that place would be rocking.  It gets loud and noisy already but imagine the same amount of fans at a WW game in a space scaled to Whitmans gym... It would be nuts!  I know many of you have never been here and sits fairly obscure but the best gym I've ever played in was in Grants Pass Oregon.  They had a bowl style but what was so unique about it was the floor sat 7 or 8 feet below where the bleachers were.  Both benches, scores table, and basketball court were sunk into the ground.  It was amazing


I've never played on a floor like that... but Univ of Minnesota is like that too. Talk about putting the game on center stage...

How large was Grants Pass? It seems like you'd need that in a pretty large arena.

Pretty sure he's talking about the high school gym, Grants Pass, OR.



Although the school has been remodeled and that may not be the exact same court playball played on.

(509)Rat

If blackhawks thinks Whitworth should be upset because they didn't win the whole thing...imagine his condemnation of UWSP!  :o

Bearcat Press

Quote from: (509)Rat on March 14, 2014, 09:58:31 PM
Pretty sure he's talking about the high school gym, Grants Pass, OR.



Although the school has been remodeled and that may not be the exact same court playball played on.

Go Cavemen!
"It's a slippery slope from the penthouse to the outhouse." - Mark Speckman

playball

Quote from: Bearcat Press on March 15, 2014, 02:35:51 AM
Quote from: (509)Rat on March 14, 2014, 09:58:31 PM
Pretty sure he's talking about the high school gym, Grants Pass, OR.



Although the school has been remodeled and that may not be the exact same court playball played on.
Go Cavemen!

I don't know how many it could hold, but it was cool!  And that is exactly how it was back in 2006 even.  Great atmosphere!

John Gleich

Quote from: playball on March 15, 2014, 11:15:13 AM
Quote from: Bearcat Press on March 15, 2014, 02:35:51 AM
Quote from: (509)Rat on March 14, 2014, 09:58:31 PM
Pretty sure he's talking about the high school gym, Grants Pass, OR.



Although the school has been remodeled and that may not be the exact same court playball played on.
Go Cavemen!

I don't know how many it could hold, but it was cool!  And that is exactly how it was back in 2006 even.  Great atmosphere!

I actually misread what he wrote.... I pictured it being more of a table than a pit (so it was 5 feet HIGHER than the bleachers, not the other way around).
UWSP Men's Basketball

National Champions: 2015, 2010, 2005, 2004

NCAA appearances: 2018, '15, '14, '13, '12, '11, '10, '09, '08, '07, '05, '04, '03, '00, 1997

WIAC/WSUC Champs: 2015, '14, '13, '11, '09, '07, '05, '03, '02, '01, '00, 1993, '92, '87, '86, '85, '84, '83, '82, '69, '61, '57, '48, '42, '37, '36, '35, '33, '18

Twitter: @JohnGleich

A Buc Forever

Congrats to Dustin

SPOKANE, Wash. – Dustin McConnell added one more post-season honor to his resume when he was named First Team All-West Region by D3hoops.com late Sunday night.

Click here for the entire D3hoops.com All-West Region Team.

McConnell, the 2014 Northwest Conference Player of the Year, becomes the 12th Pirate player in the last 13 years to make the D3hoops.com All-Region team. He helped lead the Pirates to a final record of 23-6 and an eighth straight trip to the NCAA Division III tournament.

McConnell led the Northwest Conference in assists per game (3.6) this season and ranked second in free throw percentage (83.9). He averaged 13.4 points and 3.7 rebounds per game for the Pirates throughout the year, 14.6 points per game in NWC contests. He was named NWC Player of the Week on Feb. 10 after he played all 80 minutes and averaged 21.0 points per game in a pair of wins at Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran.

McConnell turned his game up a notch in the post-season.  Over the course of four playoff games (NWC and NCAA tournaments) he averaged 16.8 points, 6.0 assists and 3.5 rebounds.

McConnell finished his Pirate career with 1,039 points to rank 22nd on Whitworth's career scoring list.

A Buc Forever

Congrats also to Sean Atkins and Daniel Zitani

Hard to put two players on the all-region team unless truly dominant, but Colt should have been there.


D3hoops.com 2014 men's All-West Region team
Players were nominated for these awards by the Sports Information Directors at the various schools.

Player of the Year: Tyler Tillema, G, UW-Stevens Point
Coach of the Year: Dan Kosmoski, St. Olaf
Rookie of the Year: Colby Taylor, F, Central

First team       
Pos.   Player   School   Yr.   Hometown
G   Tyler Tillema   UW-Stevens Point   Sr.   Randolph, Wis.
G   Dustin McConnell   Whitworth   Sr.   Clarkston, Wash.
G   Trevor Hass   UW-Stevens Point   Sr.   New London, Wis.
F   Matt Greenfield   Central   Sr.   Huxley, Iowa
C   Dan Kornbaum   Augsburg   Sr.   Little Falls, Minn.
Second team       
Pos.   Player   School   Yr.   Hometown
G   Tyler Gaffaney   Claremont-Mudd-Scripps   Sr.   Mill Valley, Calif.
G   KJ Evans   UW-Whitewater   Jr.   Beloit, Wis.
F   Sean Atkins   George Fox   Sr.   Longview, Wash.
F   John Androus   Luther   Sr.   Lindenhurst, Ill.
C   Chas Cross   UW-Platteville   Sr.   Winnebago, Ill.
Third team       
Pos.   Player   School   Yr.   Hometown
G   Ryan Milne   Colorado College   Sr.   Phoenix, Ariz.
G   Bryce Williams   Crown   So.   Mounds View, Minn.
F   Daniel Zitani   Pacific   Sr.   Oakland, Calif.
F   Galen Holzhueter   Martin Luther   Sr.   Mankato, Minn.
F   Taylor Hanson   Carleton   Sr.   St. Paul, Minn.

A Buc Forever

One more point with regard to why West Coast teams don't do well in the tournament--besides sending them to lower ranked team's home court, etc.  Amherst and Williams--both from the New England Small College Athletic Conference--are playing in the final 4.   Here are the final Top 25 rankings of each bracket:

9--Williams
10
13
14
15
17
20


7-Amherst
4
22
11
21


12--Whitworth
NR--Chapman
1
3
16
18
19
25

Midwest Bracket
2
5
6
8
23
24


Williams was the highest ranked team in their bracket--at #9!!!!
Amherst has a total of 5 ranked teams. One was #4--not as bad as the Williams bracket.
Whitworth's and Chapman's bracket had a total of 7 ranked teams including #1 and #3.  That is like 2 #1 seeds in the Div I tournament--Good luck advancing there.
The midwest Bracket had 4 teams that would be #1 or #2 seeds in a properly seeded tournament.

I understand travel is a concern on the west coast, but then why do two New England Small College Athletic Conference teams get sent to two different brackets.  If you are going to try to split two good teams from one conference, then Steven's Point and White Water Should have been split.


madzillagd

There's a long list of reasons why you can point to the West Coast teams not fairing well but I think the bottom line is the talent level of the West Coast conferences is lower than a lot of conferences that do well in the tournament, therefore it's a tougher jump to make.  D3 basketball on the West Coast is nothing like D3 basketball in New England.  Think about this - there are 5 D2 schools in Massachusetts but there are 45 D3 schools.  That's pretty amazing when you think about we've got a couple dozen total D3 schools on the West Coast split between the SCIAC & NWC with a few Inds - basically half of what Mass has.  There is so much more talent on the West Coast that goes to D2 schools, JC programs, etc. and never even consider going to D3 schools. I think that's the biggest hurdle to get over when it comes to consistently competing at a national level.

As for the brackets, it's been discussed many times before in different posts but it's simply a numbers/cost game for the NCAA.  You mentioned Amherst/Williams not being in the same bracket but keep in mind that Bowdoin also made the tournament from the NESCAC and they were in the same bracket as Amherst.  I'm not disagreeing at all the that Midwest/West side of things always has more higher ranked schools it seems smashed together early in the tournament but that's mostly geography at play.  With that being said, you have to look at those ranked teams and see which ones were technically upsets and which were not.  UWSP & UWWW might have been in the same bracket but they never faced each other so what difference did it make?  Whitworth may have been in a tough bracket but they lost to a team that was lower ranked than they were, so do they have anything to complain about?  The four teams left standing are the 4 teams that beat the teams that were ranked lower than they were - the only 'upset' was IWU beating St. Norbert and that was 5/6 match up on the #6's floor. 


A Buc Forever

Have to disagree madzillagd.

Yes, WW and UWSP lost to lower ranked teams, but  with WW it was 12 vs 16.  Steven's Point had a bad night.  Still, the roads to the final 4 are not comparable.  I live in a area that sends a lot of talent to the East Coast School--Blake Shultz and Brian Baskauskas are two examples.  Top players at their schools at the time (Amherst and Williams).  Not head and shoulders better than the best players in the NWC or SCIAC. I doubt that the NESCAC is so much better than the NWC that they deserve 3 teams and we get 1. 

Williams Non-League:
Southern Vt.
Salem St.   
St. Joseph's (VT)   
Wesleyan (Conn.)   
Curry   
MCLA   
RPI   
Springfield   
Washington College
Washington and Lee   
Hampden-Sydney   
Trinity (Conn.)      

The schedules are not comparable to Whitman--they played #'s 1 and 2.  Of course WM is going to have more losses.  Even worse was Bowdoin getting in.   They lost in the quarterfinals of their conference tournament AND the were 19-6.  The had no ranked teams in their non-conference schedule.  Do you really think they deserved a bid over Whitman?

I get tired of the NESCAC getting a bunch of teams in the tournament each year after playing soft non-league schedules and then getting cake walk paths to the final 4 and then being declared the strongest conference in the country, etc.  It is a self-fulfilling prophesy--with the set up the way it is, they should get 1 or 2 teams in the final 4 every year. 

Gregory Sager

Quote from: A Buc Forever on March 18, 2014, 08:31:34 PM
Have to disagree madzillagd.

Yes, WW and UWSP lost to lower ranked teams, but  with WW it was 12 vs 16.  Steven's Point had a bad night.

UW-Stevens Point had three bad nights in this tourney, ABF, which should tell you something. The Pointers barely eked out a win over unheralded Marian from the lower-tier NACC in the first round at UWSP, 66-64. The Sabres actually had a chance to hit a buzzer-beater that would've brought about the biggest upset in D3 tourney history. The next night, the homestanding Pointers again struggled in beating a Central team that, like Marian, wasn't receiving any d3hoops.com Top 25 votes and which also came from a dark-horse conference (the IIAC). The Pointers won by five, 76-71.

UWSP clearly peaked in the WIAC tourney championship win over UWW, and went straight downhill from there. My guess is that the Pointers will take a similar slide in the final poll due to how poorly they played in all three tourney games, not just in the loss to Emory. Therefore, I'm with madzilla on this one: UWSP has nothing to complain about with regard to this season's bracket structure.

"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." -- George Orwell

A Buc Forever

Before the tournament started which 2 brackets would you want to be in?

Who would you pick between Whitman and Bowdoin?  Which one played the harder non-league schedule?

Do you really think the reffing had nothing to do with Whitworth's loss?

Whitworth has only lost 1 NCAA tournament game at home.   If they got more games in the later rounds my guess is that they would have made the final 4 a few times.

(509)Rat

$$ aside, the DI committee would have put Whitman in if they were running the d3 tourney. OOC SOS got Lousivile a 4 seed after all...

gordonmann

Minor quibble with ABF's post: Trinity (Conn.) is in Williams' conference.