MBB: Centennial Conference

Started by swish, March 01, 2005, 04:51:33 PM

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ronk

Quote from: Gabriel on January 09, 2017, 09:04:28 AM
Tough loss for the UC Bears on Saturday.  JHU made 15 of 31 three point attempts (48.4 %) which the Bears could not match.  Did not look like bad defense, just hot shooting.  Ursinus came back from a 14 point second deficit to take a 75-72 lead on two Knowles free throws with 15 seconds to play.  JHU hit a three to tie it at 75 with 6 seconds to play.  Bears turned the ball over with 3 seconds to play and fouled Vasiliadis with 1.9 seconds left. He made both shots to make the final 77-75 JHU. 

Ursinus has had problems finishing games lately. Tough schedule this week at WC and Dickinson and home against Getty.  Go Bears!  Go Patriots!

That's why I prefer the foul rather than defending and allowing the possible tying 3-pter.

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Quote from: Reserved Seat on January 09, 2017, 09:50:12 AM
F&M/McDaniel game looked like a contest between two 1-3 teams.  Neither team is going to scare anyone.

Absolutely agree. McDaniel isn't that great a team this year. I have seen a lot of ugly games. I was actually surprised they played with or even better than F&M. I think it revealed that the Diplomats have far more problems than anyone wanted to admit this season. Sad, honestly. I was hoping Federici and the rest of the team would keep improving. If anything, they seem to have gone in the opposite direction.
Host of Hoopsville. USBWA Executive Board member. Broadcast Director for D3sports.com. Broadcaster for NCAA.com & several colleges. PA Announcer for Gophers & Brigade. Follow me on Twitter: @davemchugh or @d3hoopsville.

HoopGuru

Watched UC/JHU Saturday and agree it was a very tough loss.  As a UC supporter & alum, I was hoping games like this would go our way this year. Especially after being a very young team the past couple years and getting a lot of game experience you would hope they start to close out these type of games.  It was great to watch them fight and claw back into it.  I think that shows a lot about the team because JHU was shooting very well from 3. 

As for fouling/not fouling up 3 at the end of the game, I really think it depends on the situation and game.  In this case, 15 seconds was still quite a bit of time.  If you foul JHU with 8-10 seconds left, they are not necessarily forced to make the first FT and then miss the second.  They could try and make both free throws and then foul UC on the in-bounds pass. I believe UC was still in one and one at that point, so then it would depend on what UC does at the line; being up 1,2 or 3 and what JHU would need to do on that last possession with a handful of seconds left to get up the court.

With that being said, in this game, and how well JHU was shooting from 3, I probably would have tried to foul them before they got the 3 off with I think it was 6 seconds left to be exact and force them to make that decision to make both free throws or make the first and miss the second, and put it on your team to rebound and make free throws.  Hindsight is always 20/20 though.  I've seen games where the fouling has come back to haunt teams as well where the team gets the missed 2nd FT and makes a shot (didnt Swat tie Dickinson that way to force OT earlier this season?).

"Separation is in the preparation"

Warren Thompson

#5913
Quote from: Dave 'd-mac' McHugh on January 08, 2017, 08:28:13 PM
Quote from: Swat Fan #1 on January 08, 2017, 06:42:53 PM
Swarthmore is in first place and F&M is tied for last place: Proof the world has turned upside down.  :)
The most surprising move was Glenn. He yelled at Federici (which he had been doing much of the game) and when he got done, turned to his bench and took Federici out of the game. So F&M down six late played the rest of the minute (two possessions) without Federici. I think that tells a lot.
GRob's bellowing apparently wasn't very effective; perhaps he should instead try coaching by Twitter. "Tweeting," as we know, does make people pay attention.   ;)

CCD3Basketball

Conference play really gets back into full swing this week: 3 game weeks for everyone! This week could finally (maybe?) start to create a little separation amongst the league.

Swarthmore still looking like the team to beat, but Dickinson is starting to come around as well. Other than that, 5 teams sit either 3-2 or 2-3. It's a muddled mess! Some thoughts:

Even though F&M is sitting at 1-4, still think they have time to turn things around, but this week is crucial for them. Home games against the Mules and WAC and then a road game at Swat.

Watch out for Hopkins too, a pair of home games this week and then finish the week at Haverford. A 3-0 week for them could do wonders for them going forward. But, those 2 home games are against Dickinson and Swarthmore, so those will be tough, but luckily for them, those teams have to go to Goldfarb.

I think WAC could throw a wrench in some plans as well, with 2 home games against Ursinus and Dickinson this week. If they can use their press defense effectively and make some shots, the Bears and Red Devils could have some trouble. Plus, they've shown the ability in the past, even with less talented teams, to give F&M fits, so that could be tricky for the Dips too.

Enjoy the games everyone! These three game weeks are fun!
Broadcaster. Writer. Analyst. Fan. Voter. Centennial Conference focus, with an eye on D3 as a whole. D3 Basketball runs my life for over a quarter of the year and I have no problems with that. My wife feels differently about that last part.

D.B. Cooper

Reserved Seat. What are the issues with Tate, Owana And now Stoma. Are they injured or ill? Bizarre that they could win a game so easily with their 2nd and 3d leading scorers and leading rebounder not playing or contributing. Plus after watching Gettysburg look like death warmed over against Scranton I was wandering how they beat F&M or anybody else.  :-\

Hoopdog14

The Centennial Conference seems to be a mere shadow of its self.  F&M despite a 1-4 record pasted the Mules last night , 96-46.  F&M had  5 guys in double digit scoring, shooting 60%, 15 steals and a margin of +12  on the glass.  Mules had no player with more than 6 points shooting a miserable 32% and 21 turnovers.  F&M may short order of the zone defense the Mules have switched to this year to bury most of the line-up that cannot defend on the ball.  Seems McClary has mis-calculated the abilities of several players he thought were much better than advertised.  Without a couple of all conference players that have since graduated, it seems their abilities to score when the defensive focus isn't shifted away from them has been greatly reduced.

Robinson is a smart guy and figured out the weaknesses of the Mules and this outing may be the fire that lights F&Ms season.  With most teams struggling the season will be quite interesting and the winners at this point is anybody's guess.

Polly Math

I hate to jump on the "Conference is down!" bandwagon, since when posters say that it usually means "[the team I follow in the] Conference is down!" -- but looking around there seems to be a significant fall off from 2-3 years ago when the Centennial had 3 teams nationally ranked.   The problem is a lack of talented bigs.  4 years ago we had Gyokchian, Salandra and Moune (F&M); Wixted and Collins (Dickinson); Bugarinovic and McEntire (JH); Zurn (Gettysburg); Hargrove (Muhlenberg); Goldberg (Haverford); Ward (Ursinus); Pupelis (McDaniel) -- and I am probably forgetting some guys.  Some of these guys were better than others, but they were all at least pretty good D3 bigs -- and some were a lot more than that.  Today the best big in the conference looks like Walsh at Swat, and while he is a nice player I would put him in the middle of the pack of the guys mentioned above.   It's too bad, because the overall level of guardplay in the conference is actually better than it was.  Swat, JH, Ursinus all have multiple guys who can shoot out the lights, F&M has Federici, and Dickinson doesn't shoot well but has the best on ball defensive guards in the league.  Maybe things will improve next year.  If you know of a 6'7" or taller kid who can play with his back to the basket,  please pass his name to the program of your choice!

Team First

There is so much parity relative to just a few years ago across D3 that I think it's hard to make a blanket statement that the Centennial is down. Where are the quality bigs nationally? I've seen some great 6'7" guys (like Daly at CNU) but he's quite a bit different than a Moune, Wixted or a Hargrove. I've heard that Marietta has a good big but they've already lost 4 games. There's no doubt that without the presence of a dominant big, the risk of getting beaten by a hot team or one playing particularly well that night increases. Does McDaniel taking Swat to OT on Swat's home court mean that Swat is overrated? How about F&M last night? How did they turn it around so fast? Or did the Mules just not show up? Maybe this year it's just more important for a team to play well, execute on both ends, to earn a victory than in years past when a quality big could make up for poor execution with rim protection and dominant rebounding on defense or an easy stick-back on offense. On any given night a solid CC team playing well can battle with a solid team playing well from another conference. Maybe this year it's just much more about who is playing consistently well- which at this point in the season appears to be Swat.

ronk

#5919
Quote from: D.B. Cooper on January 10, 2017, 11:43:42 PM
Reserved Seat. What are the issues with Tate, Owana And now Stoma. Are they injured or ill? Bizarre that they could win a game so easily with their 2nd and 3d leading scorers and leading rebounder not playing or contributing. Plus after watching Gettysburg look like death warmed over against Scranton I was wandering how they beat F&M or anybody else. :-\

I had been an admirer of Coach Petrie's offense since they hosted the NCAA tourney 1st weekend 7? years ago when Scranton was also there. There was a considerable dropoff in ability the other night from that tourney season. And,G-burg started the game with shot clock violations on their 1st 2 possessions- never have seen that before.

Reserved Seat

Tate, Owana, and Stoma are all injured.  Tate injured his ankle against Albright in early December, and it's still not healing.  Owana, also, injured his ankle and tried to play on it but seemed to aggravate it again against McDaniel.  Stoma's injury has not been reported, but it appears he may be out for significant time.  With McGrath and Slyka add speed to the line in, but give up a lot in height.  Muhlenberg seemed rattled by F&M's defense and were not ready for the new line-up they were facing.  With the 3 starters out, F&M's depth now  becomes a concern.  The Mules' defense could not react to the new ball movement shown by F&M.

NEPAFAN

Quote from: ronk on January 11, 2017, 05:28:55 PM
Quote from: D.B. Cooper on January 10, 2017, 11:43:42 PM
Reserved Seat. What are the issues with Tate, Owana And now Stoma. Are they injured or ill? Bizarre that they could win a game so easily with their 2nd and 3d leading scorers and leading rebounder not playing or contributing. Plus after watching Gettysburg look like death warmed over against Scranton I was wandering how they beat F&M or anybody else. :-\

I had been an admirer of Coach Petrie's offense since they hosted the NCAA tourney 1st weekend 7? years ago when Scranton was also there. There was a considerable dropoff in ability the other night from that tourney season.


Helluva visual. What does death warmed over look like?
A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.
Vince Lombardi


centfan

Polly Math... I agree that the conference lacks bigs. I would put Liddic (Muhlenberg), Permutt (Haverford) in there as well. Zurn and Goldberg were two of my favorite players in the Conference. (Goldberg was a 5'10" point guard).

HoopGuru

I don't think it's necessarily lack of bigs as to why conference is down. The game of basketball is changing. If you look at points/possession, throwing into the post and playing back to basket trying to score is under 1pt/posession. Th post is just a low percentage area to shoot from. I do think having skilled bigs is very important, but not in their ability to score back to basket. I think the game has changed and will continue to change from this. They need to defend the rim with pick and rolls, run the floor, finish at the rim and be able to pass out of doubles. D3 teams can get away with bigs who play hard and focus in these areas. They don't need guys who run down to the post, throw it in and go to work. Those days have passed. Inefficient basketball
"Separation is in the preparation"