This is a big week for sorting out the top of the conference.  Muskie has Wilm and Ott at home this week.  ONU is at Ott on Tuesday.  That's a big game for who can lay claim to #2 in the conference right now.  If ONU wins they will have beaten both Muskie and Ott and lost to Mount by 2* in Alliance.  If Ott wins they will be 5-1 with their only loss being at Mount, but then they go right on the road to Muskie on Saturday.


* ONU hit an uncontested 3 at the buzzer so it was technically a 2 point game.

Looking at the current standings and in-conference results so far as an OAC fan and I'm jealous.  It certainly seems like there are 4 or 5 teams that have a legitimate chance to win the NCAC.  Even teams outside that group are competitive.  OWU beat JCU.  Oberlin beat DPU yesterday.  Should be a fun season to watch.

Up 24 midway through the 2nd half to up 5 in the final minute.  Freaking Wilmington, man.  It seems like every time they play them at some point Wilm has some avalanche run where they're pressing, Mount is turning it over and Wilm is making everything.  It just feeds on itself until Mount snaps out it and regains their footing (the Farrington and 1 today).

ONU took down Muskie 73-65 in Ada.  Fish were 3-19 from 3 and 12-21 on FT.  Ouch.

Pleasantly surprised to tune in to see Mount up 71-51 with 7 minutes left.  It's nice to hopefully not have to sweat one out against the Quakers.

Quote from: BillyRayJimBob on January 09, 2026, 09:41:46 PMThe Purple Raiders' free throw play has certainly been a marked improvement over the previous couple of years' performance ... certainly the difference within past several games of '24-25 season ... and their potential playoff invite.
Free throw shooting has been a "game winner" this year ... not necessarily at the end of the game, but throughout the course of the game ... Keeps you in it.

The team FT shooting is fantastic, but when it comes to tourney games, tight games your starting backcourt shoots around 90% and your 3rd ball handler (Weekly) is over 80% too.  A very welcome thing for us.

Yes, Wilm has given Mount fits the last few yrs when Mount was clearly better.  The most nervous I get is Wilm and at Ott because for some reason they don't seem to play great at the Rike Center.

After I congratulated Vaden on his single game block record I feel bad that I totally missed this, but Taylor set the single game steals record against Etta with 8.  IN 17 MINUTES!!  That's equally absurd.

Laurich got hurt in the first (second?) game and was done so I'd think that's a fairly easy medical red shirt?  If he wants it, of course.  They'll lose Moore who plays a lot of minutes, but overall they're set up for a nice season next year.  But like you said, let's not get ahead of ourselves and waste the fun of this season. 

OWU beats JCU 106-90 in UH.  I did not have JCU at 2-3 and Wooster at 1-4 on my uneducated preseason guess.

People who don't obsessively follow the program like some of us on here have no appreciation for the difference between Vaden now and Vaden a year or two years ago.  The fact that he's been developed into valuable bench player this year and is trending towards being a key player next year is crazy.  Hell of a job by the staff and Shaun for putting in the work.

I did not have a chance to watch the game yet, but I will wholeheartedly agree Flo sucks.  It's maddening to pay for the same stream that used to be free AND have it be so incompetently done that they're running commercials literally mid-fast break.  That happened 2 or 3 times last game including once where we missed the fast break for a commercial then they came back from commercial and it was the media timeout and we sat there and watched a stream of the players standing on the sideline waiting.  I hope at some point there's reasonably competent streams, but I'm not holding my breath.

Mount moved up to #5 in the freshly released D3hoops poll.  Calvin remains the only other regional team ranked dropping to #16.  JCU and Muskie are ORV.

Conference games tonight I am interested to see what happens in the Cap/Wilm game.  If Cap wins that starts pulling people back to the middle of the pack.  If Wilm wins Cap will drop to 1-4.  Berg/ONU should also be a good game.  Mount is on the road down on the river which always makes me a little nervous.

That's a good point.  Their record is misleading.  I think Muskie is better than JCU, Berg and RHIT so the margin against Olivet still surprises me.

I don't think they could have made a better hire than Kappas.  I would guess that if we were all making our wish list for coordinators his name would have been near the top.  Credit to Dartt for getting him back on campus because that's a big win.

Muskie bounced back to pick up a solid road win at Hope last weekend, but we can't gloss over that head scratching loss the day before to 3-8 Olivet.  I checked out the box score assuming the Fish turned it over 30 times or shot 9%.  Neither happened.  File it under the basketball season is long and unpredictable.

Mount sits at 4-0 currently.  With 12 games to go I don't see how they finish any worse than 14-2.  The OAC is not great this year.  And trust me I looked and JCU still being here wouldn't change much.  They're solid but not great.  I'm very curious how Moran does after this year.