Obviously, today’s games are still going on, those that have started, but too much from last night to let go.
First of all, what should we make of Illinois Wesleyan’s struggles? This is an uber-talented team with seemingly so many weapons on the floor that it ought to be immune to having to survive a buzzer-beater attempt at Carthage. Even though Carthage is a deceiving 4-8 (check their schedule), a No. 1 team should be in a better position at the end of the game than breathing a sigh of relief.
I wonder if any voters still planning to vote IWU No. 1 after Wednesday’s home loss to North Central were affected. I was pretty sure after Wednesday there would probably be some who would vote for IWU (myself possibly among them) but now I have no idea. They just don’t seem to be playing well.
Question is, if not IWU, then who? This is one of the first times that I’ll be going into Monday with no idea who I’ll be voting No. 1.
On the women’s side, my No. 1 team survived the week but 13 other people had their No. 1 team lose (nine on Wash U and four on George Fox). Brandeis, which has five first-place votes, has no easy game today in facing Rochester. Randolph-Macon, which might have been a candidate, lost at Bridgewater in double overtime on Tuesday night, so they’re out of consideration for this week.
WPI losing isn’t necessarily a surprise, although it should be somewhat surprising that they lost at home. First home loss since March 2004. Losing at Springfield or Wheaton (Mass.) or crosstown rival Clark would have been more expected.
Wilmington’s men winning both games this week is a surprise — when the week started I was asked a couple of times about Wilmington and I told people I would feel comfortable voting for them if they won one of the two games this week (at Ohio Northern and at Baldwin-Walace), so gotta find room for them. And North Central. (Occidental was already on my ballot.) Before this week Wilmington had lost to the only OAC contender it had played, at John Carroll, so the jury was definitely still out.
As I write this, the men’s game on Sunday between Carnegie Mellon and NYU is going to overtime. That’s another team (NYU) that we might need to make room for.
Why didn’t York (Pa.) and Lincoln play at York’s tournament this past weekend? Because Messiah and Lebanon Valley couldn’t play each other, since they will play each other twice in MAC Commonwealth action. This brings up something that I have noticed more and more lately: There are too many tournaments and not enough teams to fill them. Too many schools want to guarantee themselves two extra home games. At any rate, ended up in a good win for a struggling Lebanon Valley squad yesterday afternoon. But don’t worry too much about Lincoln — the Lions have four losses but don’t forget they have 14 wins too, having played nearly three-quarters of their schedule already.
Oof, double overtime now for NYU/Carnegie Mellon men.
No. 13 Augustana seems to be holding serve as the second- … or third-best team in the CCIW after beating No. 16 Elmhurst at home. Since the CCIW has a tournament this year for the first time to determine its automatic bid, a lot of things can still happen, but with 18 Pool C bids to the NCAA Tournament this year, the CCIW figures to get at least one.
Friday night was the more interesting night for women’s games, with Rochester taking it to NYU. As usual, NYU ranked significantly higher in the coaches’ poll than in our poll, but even at No. 15, perhaps a little high considering who they had played so far:
Nov 18 New York University Brockport State (4-4) 73-53
Nov 19 New York University SUNY-Farmingdale (5-5) 64-60
Nov 26 New York University SUNY-Farmingdale (5-5) 82-52
Nov 27 New York University Alvernia (1-8) 82-52
Nov 30 Manhattanville (0-9) New York University 45-65
Dec 6 Mount St. Mary (8-2) New York University 49-55
Dec 9 New York University St. Joseph’s (L.I.) (9-4) 67-31
Dec 17 New York University Kings Point (6-3) 76-43
Jan 2 New York University Montclair State (6-5) 72-64
Above .500 Skyline teams might look good in the Quality of Wins rating but not to a national eye. If you’re trying to game the system I can see why you would choose this kind of schedule but not if you’re trying to prepare yourself for a tough conference or the NCAA Tournament.
Carnegie Mellon, with its top two scorers fouled out, pulls it out on the road on Sunday in the UAA, 89-85 in double overtime. That’s pretty good for a day when there are usually lots of upsets — the team that has to fly twice over the weekend and come back and play an early-afternoon game on Sunday has traditionally struggled in that league.
I throw the floor open for your observations from the weekend.
Admittedly, I’m a Wash U fan(which leads to all my thoughts being on the UAA Women), but I wonder if the 24 point loss by Chicago puts into question their excellent record at this point. Chicago had a great season last year and was definitely one of the favorites for the UAA title heading into this year, but will they be able to bounce back from this loss? Chicago also had an “advantage” with regards to when they played at Wash U, as Wash U was on Winter Break, so the crowd wasn’t what it normally is. Up until the Wash U game, Chicago had only played one team with a current record over .500(North Park at 7-6). Every UAA team has a record over .500 right now, so things are about to get much tougher for them very quickly. Will they be able to handle it?
Also, everyone has been talking about the UAA’s Fab Four (Chicago, Wash U, NYU, Brandeis), but I think we may need to add a 5th. The UAA has always been an extremely tough league to win on the road and Rochester won at NYU, something that is not done too often by anyone. As I write this, they’re only down 4 in Brandeis at the half. If they find a way to pull this game out, they’ll be in great shape early in the UAA season with two tough road wins. Even with a loss, I still think they’re back among the UAA elite.
If Brandeis holds on to win, to me, they are without a doubt, the #1 team in the nation next week. Of course, that could all change with their next three conference games (NYU, at Chicago, at Wash U). There are going to be no easy games for anyone in the UAA the rest of the season and I think a team with 3 losses could easily win the conference.
I have been watching Wilmington for a while after I knew I was going to catch some of them in person at ONU this week.
After watching their 40 minute effort at ONU (who I regarded highly after their early season wins), I think they are the best team in the OAC. Back to back on the road wins v. ONU and BW was not what I was expecting this week, but after seeing how strong they are from the ONU game, I realized they had a real chance at BW…and sure enough, they did.
Now, BW is the only team to have beaten Wooster, who may end up getting a few first place votes this week. We might see Wilmington make the biggest leap in the poll in a long time…
From 0 votes to who knows where…
A thought…Princeton is overrated. I saw Bluffton play a half this week against Manchester and they were decent, but not a world-beater. Bluffton beats CMU behind some great shooting and lots of foul shots. NYU has a relatively weak schedule and brought CMU to the brink.
FYI – I only saw the last 20 minutes of Wilm/ONU, but I knew what happened in the first half, which made their 2nd half look real strong.
“We might see Wilmington make the biggest leap in the poll in a long time…”
FYI, I just posted a listing of some of the largest gains and falls in the last five years of the men’s polls in Posting Up (top 25 board.)
According to Allen:
Brandeis 60, Rochester 56
Brandeis was trailing for most of the second half, but comes from behind to win it.
Thus, I’d say Brandeis should be the #1 women’s team in the country.
How does beating Rochester prove Brandeis is better than it was last week?
Consider these factors:
1.) Rochester outrebounds Brandeis, 43-25, for the game, 25-9 on the offensive glass.
2.) Rochester made 20-62 (32.3%) from the field and 3-10 from 3 pt. range, while Brandeis made 19-44 (43.2%) from the field and 4-12 from 3 pt. land.
3.) Brandeis commits 20 turnovers, while Rochester commits 24 turnovers.
4.) Rochester had already won at NYU to start the weekend.
From these factors, you would think that Rochester would win this game, go 2-0 on the Boston/New York trip for the first time in years, and get into the top 25, while Brandeis would fall at least 10 places in the national poll.
However, add in this:
5.) Brandeis hits 18-25 (72%) from the charity stripe, while Rochester hits 13-20 (65%) from the charity stripe.
5.) Jaime Capra comes back from off the bench after missing the last 2 games due to shoulder problems, and sinks the free throw that seals the game.
6.) Caitlin Malcolm scores 22 pts., and hits 5-8 from the charity stripe after suffering a free throw shooting slump for the past 2 games.
Brandeis battled back from adverse conditions against the toughest opponent that Brandeis has faced since the Bates game and won a type of game that if Brandeis was the road team, Brandeis would have lost that game.
Maybe Brandeis is not better than they were last week, but 2-0 in the UAA is a very good start. Brandeis will need to work on their rebounding.
Before I go, I want to congratulate Amanda DeMartino on becoming Brandeis’a all-time career assist leader this weekend– she had 12 assists on the weekend, and passed Pam Vaughan (Brandeis ’90) for the assist lead on Friday. I also want to congratulate coach Carol Simon of Brandeis on her 250th win on Friday.
BTW, Alex Porter of Rochester can really rebound– she had 11 rebounds today against ‘Deis.
Big shootout in Brownwood TX on Thursday night.
McMurry Women (12-0/9-0) play at Howard Payne Women (2005 ASC Champion) (11-1/8-1). Game time at 5:30pm CST and both games will be carried on KZQQ via the McMurry web site.
McMurry Men, who are 7-2 in the ASC-West, follow for a game against HPU Men also, 7-2 in the ASC-West.
Neither school is back in session, but there is a good chance that quite a few Abilenians will make to 90 minute drive to the Brownwood “Mausoleum” for the game. That will definitely neutralize some of the HPU home court advantage.
(Pre-season favorite UMHB is also 7-2 in the ASC-West.)
I had a chance to talk to IWU head coach Scott Trost today after his staff watched the tape of last night’s nail biter at Carthage. I think his initial feeling after the game was that IWU must have played poor defense vs the Red Men (the 46% from the field Carthage shot is one of the highest totals of the year vs IWU), but after breaking down the game, they felt like Carthage simply made a ton of very tough shots. I think their staff went from thinking they may have played poorly to feeling very good about what happened last night. I’m not sure I’ve seen that many heavily guarded 18-19 footers made in a long time.
On offense IWU was outstanding last night. The only thing I can fault them for is missing 4 FT’s in the final 3:00. Otherwise that was just a typical CCIW road game against a talented and very inpired team that played real well. Carthage’s coach made it clear after the game that it was by far the best his team had executed all season long — and yes, this is a Carthage club that has played Hope, Calvin, Carroll, Lawrence, and Gustavus Adolphus, not to mention solid NAIA I’s Westmont and Concordia (Ca), so that record is a tad deceiving.
http://www.kenoshanews.com/articles/index.php?articleNum=4695
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2006/01/07/sports/103199.txt
The voters will have to make some tough decisions. I’m sure IWU will fall from #1 after the home loss to North Central (a great team, by the way), but the voters may want to keep a close eye on the Titans. As someone familiar with the type of talent and team it takes to win a national title, I honestly do not think there is a team out there with a better shot at a title than Illinois Wesleyan. It’s the best IWU team I’ve been around and I’ve been around some good ones.
Brandeis may not be better than they were last week, but they are
1: undefeated, and one of two teams in last week’s top 15 to still be undefeated
2: In my opinion, very likely to pick up Wash U’s #1 votes
What seems to be more impressive of the Clark upset of WPI yesterday is the fact that Clark was humiliated on their own homecourt the Thursday before by Wheaton. Maybe its what the Cougars needed to finally get into the swing of things or maybe WPI is not top ten worthy? Probably both.
TitanQ (Bob),
I agree IWU is a great team…I just think there are teams with a better shot to win the title, given the road they will have to Salem versus IWU’s.