WBB: Northwest Conference

Started by swiss, March 07, 2005, 12:40:48 AM

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Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

As we close in on the holiday break, many teams have made some significant moves in the early part of the season. Tonight on Hoopsville, Dave talks to teams who find themselves in good position before some time off, but can they keep up the momentum?

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Guests include (in order):
- Michelle Ferenz, Whitman women's coach
- Keith Mondillo, Gwynedd Mercy women's coach
- Jamie Benton, Johnson and Wales men's coach
- Page Moir, Roanoke men's coach

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BruinFan

Happy New Year everyone. Regular readers of this board likely know that the Northwest Conference has had a team in the national championship game 4 times during the last 7 years. What about this year?  I don't see it happening and have been uneasy about the George Fox high ranking most of the season.

The conference is still strong, just too much change to be confident a Final Four is in the bunch at this point. There is just one non-conference game left to be played and then conference play resumes on January 5. Normally no conference games are played prior to January, but this season one week of games took place in early December with all teams getting in 2 games.

Before I run through the conference, congratulations to Cal Lutheran on their honorary membership status in the NWC this year having played 6 NWC schools in non-conference and going 5-1 (3 of those games were played in the Northwest even). If Cal Lu wins the SCIAC, they will not be an easy out by any stretch in the first or second round of the national tournament.

After finishing everything that comes below the line I realize there is not much bang per word. So here is the short version and feel free to skip the rest.
George Fox, Whitman, and Whitworth are locks to make the conference tournament.
Puget Sound should finish 4th, but PLU could challenge.
Willamette continues to improve and Linfield will not be a push over.
The bottom will be made up of Pacific University and surprisingly Lewis and Clark.

In general, I believe that a historically strong conference will be even stronger top to bottom with the improvements of PLU, Willamette, and Linfield. The top teams will not have a night off, particularly on the road.
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Here are thoughts and observations for those interested for what may come in NWC play. The teams are presented in order of predicted finish by the coaches preseason poll along with current overall and conference records.

George Fox (11-0, 2-0): Replacing Codling (1st team all conf.) and Morris (2nd team all conf.) and Heckendorf was going to be daunting. Conference coaches likely did not know that another starter, Dummer, was choosing to not play basketball this year when they voted Fox to finish #1. However, Naluai and Frost have stepped into the starting line-up very nicely. Kaitlin Jamieson (6-2 sophomore) is showing lots of growth over last year and is going to continue to get better. Blizzard missed the start of the season, but is now back in her regular starting spot. Benner (1st team last year as a junior) could be MVP of the conference.

The Bruins started conference play with a 33-6 first quarter against Puget Sound. One of the best 10 minutes of basketball I have seen in a long time. They also struggled at Pacific the next day and had to overcome a 20+ point deficit at Claremont Mudd Scripps to win by one point. Depending on which version of the Bruins shows up most of the time, they could make February and March difficult for others.  Prediction: Coaches got it right despite my lack of confidence. Bruins are the favorite to win the NWC.

Whitman (9-1, 2-0):  Unfortunately they had a non-conference game canceled and I don't know if it will be rescheduled. The lost a lot of talent and leadership to graduation, but have plenty coming back with experience as starters or contributing off the bench. They only added a pair of first year players and are hoping that the injury bug that has plagued them in recent years has run its course. Given that Coach Ferenz is in her 15th season and the players know her system, they will be solid. I was puzzled by just the one point victory at home over Lewis and Clark. Prediction: Over the long haul, Whitman will clearly be in the hunt for the conference title. They should be getting more Top 25 attention as I believe that history merits the NWC always having two teams in the top 20.

Whitworth (7-4, 2-0): Helen Higgs is now in her 22nd season as the Pirate's head coach. The pirates lost 4 starters to graduation and have 8 or 9 new players. However, McConnell (1st team all-conf.) returns and will be a contender for MVP. Spokane is a tough road trip for everyone and Whitworth will be ready. Prediction: Pirates will finish in the top 4 and make the conference play-off.

Puget Sound (6-5, 1-1): UPS has 2 starters back from last year's strong 24-5 team. They are working to blend in 7 new first year players. Results have been inconsistent which comes with losing first and second team all conference players. Prediction: A likely 4th place finish, but in no way a lock. There are 2 or 3 other teams that may be ready to challenge for that spot.

Lewis and Clark (1-10, 0-2): Coaches likely did not know when the preseason voting was done that Sarah Anderson went down with a season ending injury. She was going to be a critical senior leader for this young team under 2nd year coach Asha Jordan. In addition, I'm not sure why Afolabi (sophomore) did not play most of the non-conference games. She is just working her way back into the rotation and has yet to start. I don't think they are going to have many nights like they did at Whitman and nearly steal a win against a good team. Prediction: Young team, injuries, young coach - my how quickly the Pioneers have fallen and will struggle to finish any better than last.

Pacific (5-6, 0-2): Another new coach to the conference. Jennifer Mountain is in her first year and has D1 head coaching experience (Santa Clara). Only 4 returning players on the entire roster and 1 starter back. Prediction: Other teams have improved and the Boxers will likely be in the bottom 3 this year.

Linfield (7-4, 0-2): First year coach Casey Bunn has her team playing hard. Even though they lost both games, they have the road trip to Whitworth and Whitman out of the way. Prediction: Have a shot at finishing 8-8 in conference, but unlikely to finish in the top 4.

Willamette (8-2, 1-1): Willamette has already won one more game than all of last year. I don't think they played great competition, but experience any success is the first step to beginning to win. Prediction: Willamette will have the biggest improvement in the conference win-loss record of anyone after going 2-14 last year. Still a longshot to contend for a conference play-off spot.

Pacific Lutheran (5-6, 1-1): PLU has matched last season's win total and is just one conference win away from equaling the total from 2014-15. They did not have any seniors last year and brought in 7 more first year players this year. They appear to be on the right track. Prediction: The Lutes will be in the hunt with Willamette for greatest increase in wins over last year. The coaches missed this one, as PLU will not only have a shot at a 8-8 conference record, but if everything falls into place could find themselves competing for a conference play-off spot going into the final weekend of the season.

BruinFan

Week #2 of NWC play
Big Winners:  Whitman wins by 3 at Whitworth - few teams win in Spokane these days. This sets up Whitman's game at George Fox on January 15. Whitman should be top 20 - only loss is to Cal Lutheran who should also be in the top 20. (Cal Lutheran's only D3 loss is at George Fox by 2).
Willamette nearly upsets UPS on the road (loses by 3), but then rebounds with 9 point home win against Linfield. Stakes their claim to being a factor this year and at 2-2 has equaled their conference win total from last year.

Not so good:
Pacific Lutheran 0-2 on the road is not unusual in this conference, but I thought they were ready to do better than losing by 14 at Linfield and then by 32 at George Fox.

Looking ahead - most significant games of week 3.
Friday, Jan. 15:  Whitman at George Fox (combined 24-1 between them); winner takes the early lead in the NWC
Whitworth at Willamette - Intriguing, this would be a big step for Willamette if they keep it close, or even win



mkt

Thanks for the preview and updates BruinFan!  Your evaluation of the NWC teams sounds plausible; I haven't seen any games since Whitman's non-conference win over Warner Pacific but I'm planning to see some games this weekend.  I usually pay little attention to D3 men's basketball, but with the Whitworth men ranked #1 by D3Hoops, I'm planning to see some of their games too.

BruinFan

Hey mkt - you are welcome. Great atmosphere Friday night as Whitman visited George Fox. Tenacious defense by Whitman created a slow start for George Fox. Whitman also was well prepared for the Bruin press. Eventually the George Fox 3-point shooting gave them a lift and grew the lead to the final margin of 66-50 to remain undefeated. I still believe Whitman is a top 20 team.

Congrats to Bruin's junior Kimberly Frost for a career high 17 points. A very quick guard who showed she can also hit the 3.

Mkt - Men's note - Willamette stayed with Whitworth most of the game tonight and had leads throughout, but lost in overtime.

Saturday Whitworth comes to George Fox with the women's game at 4 and the men at 6. For the men this will be the second #1 ranked d3hoops.com team to visit Miller Gym this season. Augustana came out in December and played Puget Sound, Lewis and Clark, and the Bruins.

mkt

Yup, no way that I was going to miss seeing the #2 womens team and the #1 mens team (according to D3Hoops' rankings) all in one gym in one night!

It was not surprising that the George Fox women won, and equally unsurprising that Whitworth did make them work for that win, despite being at their usual severe height disadvantage and despite KC McConnell having to spend the last 25 minutes or so of the game limping due to an injury (she appeared to be icing her right quadriceps, a little above the knee, during her times recovering on the bench).  But even with a gimpy leg she kept sinking baskets.

Thanks to the free online video coverage, I also watched most of Friday's Whitman women @ GFU game as well as the exciting overtime Whitworth men @ Willamette game.  But it's not nearly as good as seeing the games live.

Revelations to me:  Kaitlin Jamieson of course; this was the first time I'd seen her this season.  Granted her 27 points came against an undersized Whitworth team, but I don't think she could've had a game like that last year.  And Benner didn't have nearly as much success, especially in the first half where similarly to last year's final she didn't look comfortable on offense.  (She did however have 5 assists in the first half, which I hadn't realized until the PA announcer gave the first half stats.)

I think Kimberly Frost was generally under-noticed and under-appreciated last year, but people are surely noticing her now.  I can see her being around 2nd team all-conference next season, maybe even 1st team.  In the meantime she continues to harass ball-handlers all over the court on defense, and blow by defenders on offense using her tremendous speed.  I still think that she is the fastest player in the conference (one of the very few areas where I disagree with d3wbbfan's judgement last year that Naluai was the fastest player on the Bruins -- BTW we haven't seen a post fro d3wbban for quite awhile, which is a shame).

Torregano adds some nice 3-point shooting but also shows good driving ability too.

Even with that added offensive punch, I see a lot of similarities between last year's team and this year's team.  They are clearly a top team, mainly on the strength of their defense.  Their rebounding advantage over their opponents was small last year and based on their box scores so far this season it's even smaller now.  Their offense still appears to be prone to go stagnant with a lack of motion where they have to rely on a 1-on-1 move from Naluai to get a shot off.  So, like last year, a top team but not without weaknesses.

Other teams:  Faith Emerson provided some badly needed quality play from a big; looking at last year's stats I see that she did play a good number of minutes but I didn't have much memory of her play:  my canonical image of Whitworth's recent strong teams is the way they'd play with just about every one of their players being between 5'7" and 5'9".  Cebula and Quinnett look like they can provide some badly needed height but they need to gain more experience.  Whitworth has some other promising-looking young players, but many of them are 5'4" or 5'5" so they won't help in the height department.  As usual with Whitworth and the NWC for that matter they are scrappy and hustling and athletic.  At one point freshman Sidney Riggs was chasing an errant ball out of bounds that was headed straight for the table where the scorekeepers and other observers were; she managed to dive for the ball but to do so in the air so that she ended up sailing atop the table instead of crashing straight into it.

Whitman's Hailey McDonald looks much improved on offense.  Her defense has always been superlative but if her boxscore said she went 0-2 with 1 or 2 turnovers, I used to consider that one of her better offensive games because the small number of events meant she hadn't hurt her team's offense too much.  But even just watching her online against GFU I could she that she's taking on many more offensive responsibilities this year, and doing all right; her box scores show the same thing.

As for the men's game, I watch very little men's college basketball so I can't evaluate them very well.  Whitworth certainly dismantled GFU.  I was expecting to see a little more height on Whitworth's roster (their starting center is 6'10" but he is the one starter who doesn't score very  much and he plays less than 17 minutes per game).  But their starting forwards, Jurlina and Valle, are multi-skilled.

The one thing that I saw online Friday night that was missing Saturday night:  the student section.  Friday online we could see that the students were wearing what can best be described as tinfoil hats.  One of them had a Boba Fett helmet which was presumably made of aluminum foil on top of cardboard, quite a good piece of work.

BruinFan

mkt - I enjoyed the description of your first person observations from Saturday at George Fox. I was there as well and glad you could make it. I wish the students would come out in force every game. Friday's student sections were bolstered by a special promotion that encouraged the students to attend.

BruinFan

Showout to D3 alum Scott Rueck, former head coach of George Fox University, where he won a national title in 2009 and over 275 games before moving to Oregon State.

His Oregon State Beaver team beat Stanford tonight for the first time since 2001. The Beavers are ranked and have made the national tournament the last two years. Scott has built a program that was at the bottom when he took over in 2010 to where they won the Pac-12 conference last year in his 5th season.

BruinFan

Week 3 of NWC Play
Congrats to Pacific University with 2 road wins this week, defeating UPS by 8 in overtime and then PLU by 9. Quite a way to get in the win column after starting 0-4 in conference. Willamette may have lost both games at home, but still much improved over the past as the scores were respectable 11 point deficits to both Whitworth and Whitman.
Lewis and Clark got a win on the road by the narrowest of margins, 1 point, at Linfield. UPS responded to the home loss to Pacific by drubbing Linfield by 23 on Saturday.

For the Bruins, both games against the Whits started slow due to tough defense and some success against the press. Eventually George Fox took control in and managed to keep it near double digits through the second half. For the second game in a row, a Bruin had a career high, this time it was 6-3 sophomore Kaitlin Jamieson going for 27 points against Whitworth.

Week 4 preview
For the top 3 teams, GF, Whitman, and WW, I don't anticipate any losses - they all should take care of business. Pacific returns home and has an opportunity to build on their 2 road wins with games against Lewis & Clark and Linfield. If they do that they reach the half-way point of the conference at 4-4. UPS has a big challenge on the road at the Whits and may find themselves at 4-4, but not near as happy about it as Pacific if that were to happen.

mkt

Quote from: BruinFan on January 17, 2016, 11:14:32 PM
Showout to D3 alum Scott Rueck, former head coach of George Fox University, where he won a national title in 2009 and over 275 games before moving to Oregon State.

His Oregon State Beaver team beat Stanford tonight for the first time since 2001. The Beavers are ranked and have made the national tournament the last two years. Scott has built a program that was at the bottom when he took over in 2010 to where they won the Pac-12 conference last year in his 5th season.

Indeed I made sure to go see this game too.  Oregon State spent the first 3 1/2 quarters sleepwalking (BTW I do like the switch to quarters instead of halves and I especially like the move to 2-shot bonus FTs instead of the silly 1-and-1 which has afflicted college basketball for decades, encouraging -- no demanding -- teams to deliberately foul instead of playing real defense). 

Anyway, Stanford didn't look at the top of their game either but they were out-performing the Beavers most of the game.  But eventually OSU played the way they are capable of and with a raucous crowd behind them simply blew past the Cardinal to win going away.

It does seem that a lot of top coaches got their start at the D3 college (or even high school) level.  I presume there are other NWC coaches besides Rueck who have made the jump to D1?  The D3 conference that I'm the most familiar with, southern California's SCIAC, had Sue Semrau coaching at Occidental College before she went to Wisconsin IIRC and she's been at Florida State for several years.  On the men's side, a coach at Pomona-Pitzer famously made the jump directly to the NBA:  Gregg Popovich.

BruinFan

mkt - glad you were able to make it to Gill. I had to settle for listening to the radio call online. I attended the Tennessee game (along with more than 8000 others for 2nd largest crowd ever) which was similar in the come back attempt displayed against Stanford, but fell just short.

I don't know too much about coaches making it to D1. The other George Fox connection is in baseball where Pat Casey was the coach of the Bruins and he has won I believe 2 national championships with Oregon State.

The former Whitworth men's basketball coach is now the coach at Eastern Washington. Looking in both directions the new Pacific University women's basketball coach was the head coach at D1 Santa Clara for about 6 years.

BruinFan

Just for fun I took an early look at all the conferences in the West region.

Wow - there is some real fine teams at the top of each conference. Once we get to regional rankings, it will be splitting hairs to pull these teams apart, but maybe a 2-3 more weeks of conference play will make the difference more obvious. Here is a very preliminary look at my regional rankings.

1) George Fox (NWC - not because I am a Bruin, but because they are only undefeated team in the West)
2) St. Thomas (MIAC - has a win over St. Mary's)
3) St. Mary's (MIAC - solid resume)
4) Luther (IIAC)
5) California Lutheran (SCIAC - has a win over Whitman and other NWC teams; GF only D3 loss)
6) Whitman (NWC)
7) Wartburg (IIAC)
8) UW-Superior (UMAC - finished 1st last year in the WIAC and currently undefeated in new conference)

My guess is you could put these 8 teams together in a double elimination tournament and there would be many close games.

BruinFan

Week 4 of NWC play
Big Winner: Puget Sound gets 2 wins on the road at Whitman and Whitworth! UPS finishes the first half strong and serves notice they will be a factor.

Road wins: Always big to win on the road. Linfield bounced back from a loss at GFU and beat Pacific by 6. Willamette did the same with a win at Lewis and Clark.

Week 5 preview
The UPS wins last week sets up the game of the week on Saturday when George Fox travels to Tacoma. The first time they played, GFU was nearly flawless in starting out the game 30-5.  A win by the Bruins gives them a commanding lead in the standings and a win by UPS keeps the conference championship up for grabs.
The next most interesting part of the schedule is to see what Willamette does at PLU and then hosts Pacific. Willamette is just one win away from 4 conference wins for the first time since the 2004-05 season.

mkt

Thanks as usual for the update!  I'm looking forward to seeing more NWC action this weekend because the "Whits" are in Portland tonight and tomorrow.  Given their losses to UPS, they may not be looking quite as powerful as they were before, but they're still in the running for ... let's face it, second best team in the conference barring some fluke or collapse by GFU.  But it's a strong conference so second place is no slouch.

BruinFan

Quote from: mkt on January 29, 2016, 08:22:18 PM
Thanks as usual for the update!  I'm looking forward to seeing more NWC action this weekend because the "Whits" are in Portland tonight and tomorrow.  Given their losses to UPS, they may not be looking quite as powerful as they were before, but they're still in the running for ... let's face it, second best team in the conference barring some fluke or collapse by GFU.  But it's a strong conference so second place is no slouch.

Given the upset win by Linfield over Whitworth tonight, I'm beginning to think that the conference has compressed a bit this year for teams 2 through 9 with a gap between George Fox and everyone else. Maybe not quite as strong overall, but very competitive and still one of the top conferences in the country.