Unfortunately my thoughts on the Centennial teams in the NCAA's this season rang true as all three teams dropped their opening round games. Thought Gettysburg might be able to get past NYU, but the lack of depth due injuries to Gillus and Briscoe definitely were noticeable for the Bullets. For F&M the outstanding careers of Nowaswiat and  Grauslys came to an end, but honestly I think Cortland was the better team. Hopkins unfortunately ran into a team in TCNJ that is playing with tremendous confidence and executed almost flawlessly in the last 5 minutes outscoring Hopkins 13-4 during that stretch to steal the game from the Blue Jays. Enjoyable season of Centennial conference basketball and congratulations to Gettysburg on their regular season and conference tournament championships.

Patrick - I am not putting myself in Coach Chandler's brain. I am commenting on the consistently embarrassing behavior (over many seasons) of a coach who routinely resorts to attempts to bully and intimidate, and the direct impact that behavior has on a few of his players every season who carry out similar behaviors. His behavior at the MAC Freedom championship game last weekend was beyond embarrassing. You are asking for evidence ... watch how several of his reserve players responded at the end of their amazing buzzer beater win in the semi-finals at Arcadia (sprinting to the opposing fans grabbing their crotches and flipping the fans off); watch how his reserve senior acts at the end of the championship game (getting in a Stevens player's face as he is simply holding the ball to let the clock run out, and then taking swings at multiple Stevens players); then watch Chandler's reaction to it and see how he not only tolerates it from his players, but appears to enjoy it. Feel free to sit on the sidelines of a Mis game (particularly one in which his team is losing) and watch and listen to the behavior of Coach Chandler and form your own opinion. You think other highly competitive and respected area coaches like Scott Coval at Desales, Marc Brown at NJCU, Don Friday at PSU Harrisburg, Bobby Hurley at Stevens, Justin Potts at Montclair, or Carl Danzing at Scranton would act like this? Not a chance. Coach Chandler can definitely do better.

Outstanding game in the NJAC final yesterday! Really as good as it gets in terms of competitiveness, high quality D3 basketball, and fantastic finishes. With their leader and top scorer Nick Koch in foul trouble all day, and fouling out with 3+ minutes left and TCNJ down 7, the Lions closed the game in an unbelievable fashion. Scored on each of their final 5 possessions and outscored Montclair State 11-2 during that span. David Alexandre and Matthew Solomon honestly just took matters into their own hands to take down a really good Montclair State team for the second time in a week. Good luck to both teams in the NCAAs. 

Congratulations to the Stevens Ducks who grabbed their fourth MAC Freedom conference tournament championship in their sixth season as a conference member. After losing a one point heartbreaker in the conference final one year ago, the Ducks would not be denied this year as they used a balanced scoring effort and key contributions from some of their more unsung players to push them past Misericordia. Credit also to the Stevens coaching staff who had a much more defensive oriented game plan for both the semi-final and final games than they had demonstrated over the course of this season. Defense always wins championships.

Unfortunately the end of the game was marred by some ugliness on the part of a Misericordia reserve senior player who decided he was going to disrupt the Stevens celebration by attempting to wrestle the ball from a Stevens player as the final seconds ticked off the clock and then take a swing at multiple Stevens players who objected to his behavior as the rest of his Misericordia teammates took the more sportsmanship route and walked back to their bench. Witnessing the game in person, and witnessing many Misericordia games over the years, this is sadly a direct reflection of Coach Willie Chandler and the embarrassing behavior he consistently demonstrates on the sidelines. The vast majority of his players play the right way, but Chandler confuses toughness with thug and bully type behavior, which every year trickles down to a couple of players on his teams. I understand he is a legend as a player at Misericordia, but as a mentor to young adults, he needs be better.

Credit to F&M and Hopkins for their current position in the NPI rankings, but watching them each many times this season I never really walk away from their games and say "now that is a great team". Will be interesting to see how the Centennial tournament plays out, but unfortunately I don't think any of the four teams left in the conference tournament are built to make any noise in the NCAAs this year.

Thank you for finding and posting a version of the last shot where you can actually see the shot go in. Sleeping Beauty working the camera at Arcadia on the live stream ... definitely fell under the category of D3 Problems!

Heck of a game and a heck of a sequence to end it.

Does anybody wonder if it is time for Dickinson to move on from Coach Seretti? I am a heavy follower of Centennial Conference basketball and while I know he has had great success in the past, and he is a gentleman and a respected coach with a great knowledge of the game, he has not had a winning season since 17-18 and his teams just consistently underperform year after year. Many, many talented players at Dickinson over the past 7 to 8 seasons, and I can really only think of maybe five who actually developed under Coach Seretti during that time. A lot of inconsistency with lineups, playing time, focus, preparation and intensity levels of his teams ... which to me is typically a reflection of the coach. I know Dickinson has made very big strides in the overall performance of their athletic department in recent years, and honestly the one team that does not seem to be moving forward is men's basketball. Dickinson is an outstanding school, great facilities, great location, plays in a very strong conference, and has an amazing basketball alumni group (which includes a basketball specific endowment for both the men's and women's programs). A lot to like here, and a lot to attract high quality student athletes. I would like to see things turn around for the Red Devils and Coach Seretti (who is also an Assistant AD), but maybe a change at the top of the men's basketball program is something to be considered.

NJAC definitely down this year and very likely a one team league unless someone knocks off Montclair State in the conference tournament. Montclair State is terrific, but have played a relatively soft schedule with the conference being far less challenging this season. Montclair at Stockton in early Feb could be interesting. I'm sure Montclair has big goals this year after the disappointing home loss in the second round of the NCAAs last year. 

Always enjoy the Yeshiva broadcasts. As good as any in D3. Just for a little extra clarity, I will add an additional stat on Yeshiva's freshman guard Yair Dovrat ... he is 21 years old. Talented and tough player for sure, but like most of Yeshiva's Israel imports over the years, he gets an extra 3 years before starting his NCAA playing career.

Gettysburg with a nice win over F&M last night. Tough night for the Diplomats from the foul line where they reverted back to their form from previous seasons and shot 15 - 30 from the line ... ouch! First half of the game was honestly just bad basketball from both teams. Second half much better, particularly for the Bullets.

Wentworth moves out of the winless column with a big 89-56 win over Johnson and Wales

With Macon and UWL going down last night, maybe Jay Murray will find a way to move Trinity up to 7 or 8 on his ballot next week. 

Conference looks to be pretty wide open based on non-conference play. Misericordia off to a nice start but have played a very weak non-conference schedule to date, although they do have Randolph Macon and Hood both on the road coming up after Christmas. So more to learn about them but definitely like their commitment to defend and rebound. Arcadia, Stevens, Del Val and DeSales all trying to work through inconsistencies.

Loss of Nas Johnson in the fourth game has really impacted Arcadia. No idea of his status, but if he returns healthy, I think they have the edge going into conference play. Stevens has played by far the toughest non-conference schedule and has the top offense in the conference, but really needs to find a defensive identity (feels strange saying that as they have been among the top 10% of defensive teams in the country  for the last four years). Simply trying to outscore teams will not bring Stevens to the top of the conference. Del Val needs to find options outside of Redding and Herrin as teams seem to have figured out that if you contain just one of them, Del Val won't score enough to beat them. DeSales really needs to find their shooting stroke as their 3 point shooting is really poor, and outside of Thomas (who has been outstanding) they are very inconsistent. Looking forward to a competitive conference schedule and battle for the top four spots.

Looking at non-conference schedules for CC teams and it is interesting to see the approach of the teams in the league. You probably have the two most contrasting schedules in the country between Washington College and Dickinson. Washington College off to their best start (9-1) in ages, but their twelve non-conference opponents are a combined 35-83 including five one win teams and nearly all opponents in the bottom 25% of the NPI for probably the weakest non-conference schedule in the country. On the other hand you have Dickinson off to a 3-8 start but their twelve non-conference opponents are a combined 77-29 including four undefeated teams, six top 25 opponents and two outside the top 25 who are each 7-1. Giving Dickinson probably the hardest non-conference schedule in the country. It will be interesting to see how these two approaches play out as they move to conference play after the holidays.

A few D3 guys really playing some great ball in the Ireland Division One league ... Mike Wallace (McDaniel 22'/ Hood 23'), Umar Rashid (Case Western 25'), Jack Spellman (Stevens 25'). Also Jazere Noel (Rowan 24') playing great in the Ireland Super League.