This weekend is slow by our normal standards.

There are 102 games on Saturday as opposed to last week’s 178. That means we “only” have 202 games…on the men’s side. There are 149 more on the women’s side.

Even with the reduced schedule, I find the Saturday slate pretty daunting. It’s such a long list of games. If you’re going to try to follow the national scene, which ones are the most interesting? And can you catch any of them on the internet?

So I figured I’d try to make a small contribution to the D3hoops world by compiling a list of interesting games that are projected to be broadcast over the internet. If you’ve never listened to games over the web, you’d be surprised how it can draw you in. To borrow a phrase from a too familiar spot, you’re hundreds of miles away, but you feel like you’re right at center court.

So think of this as your “TV Guide” for the weekend in Division III. Minus the crossword puzzle and 30 pages of ads for commemorative dishes.

Please feel free to post corrections or additions. We always enjoy learning about new broadcasts that are out there. Just include the links to broadcasts if you’re mentioning new ones.

*Update: Calvin lost to Cornerstone this evening and will apparently play Aquinas College tomorrow at 12 PM. Hope will play Cornerstone, so we won’t get an early match-up of those MIAA rivals.*

Women: No. 7 Capital vs. Wittenberg
Saturday @ 3 PM EST
Broadcast on Stretchcast (Wittenberg)
Click here to listen

Wittenberg isn’t in the OAC, but it might as well be since they play Baldwin-Wallace, Capital and Wilmington over the span of nine days. The Lady Tigers were picked second in the preseason in the NCAC behind Kenyon. The Crusaders will try to pick up a key early in-region win before bruising OAC play begins.

Men: No. 25 Catholic vs. Scranton
Saturday @ 4 PM EST
Broadcast on WUSR FM (Scranton)
Click here to listen

Two of the Mid-Atlantic region’s more storied programs battle in an early test for both teams. Does CUA belong in the Top 25? Is Scranton now the class of the MAC Freedom? This should provide answers. You can also hear the women’s teams play at 2 PM on this stream. Dean Corwin on the call.

Men: No. 20 UW-Platteville vs. Loras
Saturday @ 4 PM EST
Broadcast on WDBQ (Loras)
Click here to listen

Second verse, same as the first? Loras opened the season with a win against a ranked WIAC team, UW-Whitewater, on a neutral court. This time they’ll stay in their own city to play the Pioneers at Dubuque’s Mississippi River Challenge.

Men: No. 3 Wooster vs. Methodist
Saturday @ 7 PM EST
Broadcast on Quicktime by Wooster Radio (WQKT or WKVX)
Click here to listen

The Scots passed their first test by beating UW-Stout last week. They get another down south in Methodist, the defending USA South Athletic Conference champs. The Monarchs fell to Sewanee in Double OT last weekend, but they are the USAC preseason favorites.

Men: No. 10 Wittenberg vs. Transylvania
Sunday @ 3 PM EST
Broadcast on Stretchcast by Wittenberg
Click here to listen

Last season TU pushed Wooster on their home floor before falling 80-74. The Pioneers return a fair amount and could hop into the Top 25 if they find a way to beat the Tigers in Kentucky. This game finishes a challenging trio for Wittenberg who plays Rochester, Capital and Transylvania before December.

Women: No. 5 Scranton vs. Johns Hopkins
Sunday @ 3 PM EST
Broadcast on WUSR FM (Scranton)
Click here to listen

Johns Hopkins finished third in the Centennial preseason poll, but the margin between the Jays and the top two teams (McDaniel and Dickinson) is very thin. What about the margin between the Centennial’s best team and the MAC Freedom’s? We’ll know after Scranton visits Baltimore this Sunday.

Men: Hamilton vs. Brockport State
Sunday @ 7 PM EST
Broadcast on 89.1 FM (Brockport) via Teamline
Click here to listen

For several years Hamilton had been the top dog in the UCAA, precursor to the Liberty League. Until Potsdam’s recent run, Brockport could make the same claim in the SUNYAC. Both are trying to recapture their prestige this year, but first they square off in Clinton, New York in a rare Sunday night game.

Snow coming down in suburban Washington, D.C. is rare enough, but to see it before Christmas is unusual indeed. It’s a nice backdrop here, with the children nestled snugly in their beds and all quiet. So from our house to yours, have a happy Thanksgiving.

To those of you traveling this weekend, whether to holiday gatherings or ballgames, drive safely.

Busy Tuesday night as we head into the holiday. By the way, first Team of the Week posted. That’s the longest-running feature on this site, by the way, since the 1997-98 season, when we took over Division III Basketball Online.

This is what the season is going to be like for Lincoln. Too much traveling to be consistent from night to night. A couple people raised comparisons to Savannah Art & Design (which left the NCAA a couple years back) and that seems to be a reasonable model.

Pretty good night for Wittenberg considering Dan Russ didn’t score through the first 25 minutes.

Kudos to D-III coaching alumnus Pat Flannery (was Lebanon Valley, where he won a national title, now at Bucknell) for his team’s upset of Syracuse. In other D-I news, Lafayette needed a 21-7 run to put away Alvernia, 86-80.

The Springfield men lost to Tufts 72-71. That means they’re 0-3, with the three losses by one, two and three points.

The Eastern Connecticut women bounced back nicely from their pasting at the hands of No. 3 Bowdoin, knocking off No. 13 Emmanuel 65-55.

Light schedule tomorrow: No. 22 DePauw at Fontbonne highlights the women’s schedule, and Carleton travels to No. 22 Aurora on the men’s side, with Carthage playing Concordia-Irvine, an NAIA power, in Hawaii. Plus La Sierra plays at Cal Baptist. If two teams play a game and nobody reports the score, does it make a sound?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Lincoln is 3-0. Not necessarily a surprise, since this is a good team, but somewhat surprising based on tonight’s competition, a Division II Sweet 16 team. Good start for the Lions but believe it or not, we haven’t even carved the turkey and they already have just four home games left! They have two brutal road trips over the holidays.

Dominican is 3-0. Definitely a surprise. Not a surprise that they started 2-0, considering they opened at home against SLIAC teams, but the upset of Aurora was a shocker, especially on the road. I saw the two play last year and Aurora won by 24. Aurora led by six with three minutes remaining, but Dominican closed on an 11-1 run. All-American Larry Welton was held to 4-for-18 shooting. The Spartans had started 2-0 against teams that were strong last year (McMurry and Wheaton, Ill.) but who are expected to be down in 2005-06.

Other shadows of their former selves:

Elsewhere: Insert your own shooting joke here (Rhodes men 109, Messenger 22) … Immaculata nearly had a storybook finish in their first-ever men’s home game, won by Eastern 71-70 on a buzzer-beater. … Macalester men surprisingly competitive against UW-Stout (64-55) considering they are missing two of their top guards. … D-I Tennessee State beating Fisk (72-63) is news, since it doesn’t happen every year.

Today’s case of “basketball crush” is courtesy of double-entered scores, the bane of our existence during tournament weekends, but one that we’ll live with. Better to see a score twice than not at all. Anyway, as we wade through the muddle of numbers, here’s what jumped out at us…

I’m sure Gordon Mann will share his thoughts, but I’ll steal one that he mentioned to me on Saturday night. It was a good weekend to be a basketball player in Ohio. Seven Ohio Athletic Conference men’s teams went 2-0 this weekend, notably Baldwin-Wallace, which upset St. John Fisher and outscored Westminster, and Wilmington, which got a buzzer-beater to win Anderson’s tournament). Wooster and Wittenberg also scored nice wins this weekend, with the Scots upending “Super-Sleeper” UW-Stout, and the Tigers topping Tufts and 2005 finalist Rochester.

On the women’s side, the OAC scored two nice Top 25 upsets, with Ohio Northern shocking St. Benedict (the most surprising score of the weekend) and Otterbein topping Washington & Jefferson. Five OAC teams went 2-0 this weekend (as did 3 Buckeye state teams in the NCAC), and one that didn’t, Mount Union, got Suzy Venet her first win at her alma mater by beating 2005 NCAA participant Westminster after losing to fellow Ohio mates Case Western (also 2-0).

The folks in the WIAC like to point to their non-conference record in proclaiming themselves as the best Division III conference in the country, and justifiably so, but based on what we saw this weekend, the OAC’s not doing too shabby.

Elsewhere, a couple of quick-hitter thoughts…

* Trinity worked some New England magic to squeak out two tough wins at the Franklin & Marshall tourney (preseason All-American) Tyler Rhoten averaged 27 points over two games) Nearby neighbor Springfield couldn’t quite do the same in Virginia where it suffered narrow losses to Roanoke and Hampden-Sydney.

* We had a “super-sleeper squeaker” (try saying that fast) with afforementioned UW-Stout edging St. Thomas by a point in its season opener. I feel pretty good about both of those choices, based on the conversations I’ve had with the folks out west.

* On the women’s side, we had a fair share of upsets. I saw Randolph-Macon and Springfield twice each last season and I must say that Springfield’s win was surprising to me. I didn’t think the Pride would have an answer for RMC’s height or for Megan Silva, but apparently they did. If they weren’t already, the Pride should be HEAVY favorites to win the NEWMAC this season, with an unbeaten league mark not out of the question. RMC should remember that Scranton lost its opener to a New England team last season (Williams) then didn’t lose again until reaching the national semis.

* The Bowdoin women’s team dropped the hammer on another opponent, crushing Eastern Connecticut by 30 points in the second half of its second win of the season on Sunday. They suckered another broadcaster in the process, as while on play-by-play, I IM’d site publisher Pat Coleman at halftime that ECSU had a realistic shot at an upset. That was before Bowdoin came out with its pressure defense. It’s amazing the impact that has on opponents, not only in forcing turnovers, but even how just the threat of pressure can cause a team to rush its possessions and shots (I think we’ll be writing about this at some point), as the young host Warriors did.

A half dozen non Top-25 scores of note:
Men’s
Grinnell 136, Cornell 112 (Perhaps ESPN should come back to Darby),
Lincoln 68, Richard Stockton 63 (Best comeback of weekend, rallied from 19 down with 9 min left. Lincoln is 2-0 for first time since 1994)
Mary Washington 64, Southwestern 50 (good matchup of teams on the top 25 bubble)
Mcneese State 68, Mary Hardin-Baylor 63 (MHB got a few “super-sleeper” votes for good reason)
Women’s
Wesleyan 59, King’s 52 (A Monarch rarity: an 0-2 start for their new coach before a win Sunday)
Carroll 71, UW-Oshkosh 58 (Tough welcomes for new coaches is a theme this weekend, as you’ll see in our next note)

* Lastly, those final scores aren’t typos, particurly CCNY’s 118-6 loss to Endicott on Sunday. A rough welcome to the head coaching ranks to Jamees Wright of CCNYwould be putting it mildly as the Lady Beavers found themselves on the wrong end of a “basketball crush.”

I’ll give Wright credit for going through the handshake line of Endicott players, setting a good example for a team of eight freshmen and two sophomores. One neutral onlooker sitting near us felt that the Gulls went overboard in the manner in which they scored and defended. Based on what I saw in the second half (prior to Bowdoin-ECSU), I’d agree some, but at the same time, I’ll say this in the interest of presenting both sides of the issue: Endicott played its starters for only one-third of the game (as Eastern Connecticut did when it beat CCNY by 91 the night before) and while I’m FULLY against the idea of “running up the score,” I also don’t like the idea of telling a college team not to try to score, to allow the game to be “respectable.”

Perhaps I’m wimping out on this one, but while I felt bad for the CCNY players and coaches, I’m not going to be as critical of their opposition as I’m guessing some of our readers are likely to be.

I’m not sure what the circumstances were that led to CCNY being in such a mismatched position by playing in this tournament, but hopefully whoever scheduled the games on their end will look for a better match for its opening weekend next year.