MBB: MAC Freedom League

[jabstep08]

MACfan08,

I think that Del Val has a couple transfers from Widener but the prize of the group maybe point guard James Jones. I really dont know anyone else. I think that its kinda funny since the previous coach is gone how the new coach is getting players into the school. I heard that he has cleaned house and is keeping 4 guys from last years team. I hope he does well

[G-manWU]

JabStep, quite interesting in regards to the DVC situation. No matter what, I hope the administration at least gets the guy a decent office- the room that I believe was the basketball HQ last seaosn at DelVal was not the mind of place a good coach deserves to work from.

I haven't heard much on other teams, but I know Coach Rickrode is very, very optimistic about his group of incoming players, so we will see how it all plays out.

[BJ - DSU SID]

For those interested the Morning Call (local newspaper in Allentown area) did a story on DeSales' version of Midnight Madness which was held on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning this week.

You can access all the links (story and video) from the DeSales athletics web site at this link - http://athletics.desales.edu/news/2008/10/16/MBB_1016081557.aspx?path=mbball.

As far as the rumors/speculation of the DeSales roster, transfers, etc...well my hope is to have our roster up within in the next few weeks complete with player bios, etc...so I'll let you guys continue to speculate until the official information comes out in a few weeks.

Back to the Fall sports for me.

[MACfan08]

Glad to see the desales faithfull are still pulling for their team after one of their best classes goes through empty handed losing 3 of 3 to King's 2 at home and 1 on the road.  Hopefully the student support will get that out of the minds of the players and coaches on this years team.

Now in other talk was looking at some different websites today and notices that on October 18th I was looking at some different rosters and one thing caught my eye from the 18th till now.  King's lost a player in Chris Hacker. He played last year started actually and was suppose to serve a 9 game suspension.  Now I notice he is no longer on the roster but was when it first came out so what is going on in Wilkes-Barre.

So this weekend should be the start to some scrimmages so where are teams going or who is hosting some scrimmages this weekend?

[jabstep08]

Macfan08,

Two games will be played on sat. Del Val at Catholic University and Alvernia vs Harcum JC.

[bill]

FDU is scrimmaging Baruch this weekend...

[lefty2]

Baruch Obama?

[chargers]

Wilkes is scrimmaging Mansfield on Sun

[MACfan08]

So after 3 weeks of practice teams finally hit the hardwood against someone else and see where they stand. So does anyone have any word on how teams did this weekend?

[jabstep08]

just took at del vals roster for the up coming year, was wondering if anyone had any thoughts

[bill]

Well, the pre-season poll is out....


1.  Wilkes 72 pts. (7), 2.  DeSales 64 pts. (2), 3.  Alvernia 54 pts., 4.  Misericordia 52 pts., 5.  King's 45 pts., 6.  Manhattanville 37 pts., 7.  Eastern 34 pts., 8.  FDU-Florham 27 pts., 9.  Delaware Valley 20 pts.

FDU opens the season with William Paterson at home....

[Coach K]

Hello to everyone,

First of all, welcome back to D3 college hoops!

A couple questions... first of all, why did the MAC decide to go with 9 teams in the Freedom and 7 in the Commonwealth. Wouldn't it have been better to go back to 8 and 8, or is that eventually in the works?

Secondly, who does Wilkes have coming back that they are the preseason favorite? They have Kresge back, but I believe Gould graduated, and I wasn't terribly impressed by them. Were they just young overall last year? I think the road to the title still runs through DeSales this season.

Alvernia, Eastern and Miseri from the old PAC will be tough. The league as a whole seems improved. Any thoughts?

[old ends]

Well coach k we will try this-- DeRojas - rookies of the year, Kline, Gulla, and Ruby. Maybe the fact that they have 7 other players, beside the one's mentioned, that have playing time. They do look very strong this year,

[G-manWU]

Hello again everyone- I hope all is well sicne my last post.

Coach K, good to see you on here. In case you missed my intro post a few months ago, I worked for the program at Wilkes for each of the last four seasons during my undergrad years.

In terms of the number of teams on each side in the MAC, some of those things have boiled down to the preferences and locations of each school. For example, Misericordia is just down the road from both Wilkes and King's, so it makes perfect sense for them to be in the Freedom. On the flipside, with Alvernia and Albright being so close to eachg other, some sources have told me that one or both of those schools did not want to compete against each other in a conference format, so perhaps other feelings ran into the mix in that case.

On the current Wilkes squad, I know all of the returning players quite well and first and foremost, they are a great group of student-athletes who are fantastic people both on and off the court. Matt Gould exemplified that mold and his presence will greatly missed, but the remaining players have a great deal of potential and in many cases have shown great improvement to build up to this point. Nearly all the returning players have been key role-players for the last few seasons and are capeable of putitng up very good numbers. Another boost for the Colonels will be the return of Guy Fasciana, who missed almost all of last season due to injury.

Looking around the league, we all know that the conference title is earned and not awarded, and the team that is left standing at the end will have earned their way to that point. DeSales has some outstanding talent returning and winning in Billera Hall is no easy task, and the Bulldogs will no doubt be in the mix for the title. Still, every team starts off the year 0-0 in the win-loss records, so anyone and everyone still has a shot

[ColonelJohn4Life]

The leaves have fallen... and it's good to be back.

DeRojas, Gulla, and Ruby at G
Kline and Kresge at 6'5", if you're playing a quicker team.
Start my guy John DeFeo if you're playing a bigger team.
Gabriel and Fasciana off the bench.

There's 8 guys who have experience, assuming nothing out of the Freshmen.

And, as an aside, Coach K, no idea about the logic of 9 Freedom & 7 Commonwealth.  Maybe they're anticipating losing a team here, and gaining a team there?