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.

Welcome to our tenth birthday, unofficially. Although we’ve (mostly I’ve) only been running this site for eight years, the site was founded for the 1995-96 season by the Centennial Conference and Steve Ulrich. It was groundbreaking for its time as one of the few Web sites of any kind, let alone one covering Division III sports.

As the 1997-98 basketball season neared, I noticed the site was getting a little dusty. I was back in the sports information business at the time, moonlighting a few days a week as SID at Gallaudet when they were between people (Brett Marhanka and Steve Feit, for the insanely curious). I had spent two years running a basketball page covering the Capital Athletic Conference and was interested in doing more, so I asked Ulrich if he was interested in having someone take over.

Well, within a couple hours I had e-mail with attachments right and left, and a few days after that (before we were ready, actually), they threw a link over to us. The site has morphed several times since then into what you see now.

And although we don’t have a picture of it to show you, how many people remember the spinning basketball graphic that was on the original front page. Show of hands?

So here we are now, recording every result, running our own poll, broadcasting games. We have a good number of like-minded people who volunteer on the site, collecting info and the like. We went out and found some interns to help on the site this year, another step for us. We just passed the 12 million mark on the front page.

And all that on a site I thought would take a few hours a night, two or three nights a week. Silly me. I had no idea there were so many Division III fans out there. But we have all seen the strength in numbers.

Keep up the good work, fans.

We don’t have all the schedules in yet, so we’ll probably end up leaving some games off, but with 95% of the games in the system hopefully anything will be minor.

Here’s some of the games to keep an eye on this weekend, as games tip off Friday:

Tourney twosome: To call it a battle would be overstating it, but should be interesting to see the Texas-Dallas men, which pulled off three upsets to make the NCAA Tournament at 15-13 last year, go up against No. 1 Illinois Wesleyan on Friday night. Probably more like a rude awakening.

Plenty of 20: Baldwin-Wallace’s men open Friday with St. John Fisher on a neutral floor at Westminster (Pa.). B-W went 20-9, St. John Fisher 28-1.

Recipie for confusion: Aurora, from the same state as MacMurray, plays McMurry, from Texas, at Wheaton of Illinois’ tournament. Guarantee you at least one newspaper story or press release puts an A in McMurry.

Who are these guys? That’s the theme of the season for Christopher Newport, which opens the season with Southern Virginia. They also play St. Joseph of Vermont, Maryland Bible, Fisher College (not St. John Fisher, of course), Maine-Presque Isle and Keystone, plus they will play either Maryland Bible or Southern Virginia a second time since both are in their Thanksgiving tournament. Sorry. Only one turkey at that tournament, and it’s CNU’s schedule, with a whopping one in-region non-conference game, five games against non-Division III members and two more against provisional D-III members.

Opposite end of the spectrum: Couple of interesting games Friday at F&M’s tournament with Trinity (Conn.) facing Cortland State and F&M hosting what’s left of Gwynedd-Mercy after the end of Badou Gaye’s collegiate career.

Sleeper pick: St. Thomas against UW-Stout, which are less than two hours apart but meet at Wooster on Friday night..

Can you go home again? We’ll find out Sunday, as Randolph-Macon’s men’s coach Michael Rhoades gets set to perhaps face his alma mater. The All-American guard helped lead LVC to a national title and brings his team north to face either Arcadia or LVC.

In women’s action, those who felt Williams should have gotten preseason poll consideration will get to find out right away, as the Ephs play Southern Maine at Maine-Farmington’s tipoff tournament. Elsewhere in first-weekend women’s games:

Big bracket: Not the NCAA one, the tournament at Marymount, which has Gettysburg taking on Wesleyan, Trinity (Texas) against Gwynedd-Mercy, Elizabethtown at Marymount, and King’s at North Park. Whoever comes out 3-0 will have deserved it.

Getting defensive: No. 1 Millikin starts its quest for another Walnut and Bronze on Friday by opening with Webster. They also host UW-Eau Claire on Sunday.

Saturday’s no walk in the park: How about scheduling for Randolph-Macon’s women as the No. 2 Yellow Jackets host No. 12 Springfield on the second day of their tipoff classic?

Northeast notable: No. 8 Brandeis could end up with Bates on the second day of its tournament. Wonder what Bates will be like without Olivia Zurek and last year’s seniors.

Into the fire: Southwestern coach Pam Ruder, who came in from UW-Oshkosh this offseason, gets an early baptism Saturday with a game at No. 24 Hardin-Simmons.

Sunday on the air: If Eastern Connecticut and No. 3 Bowdoin meet Sunday afternoon in the finals of Eastern Connecticut’s tournament, we’ll be there and will broadcast it for you. There will be details out front.

Feel free to chime in with neat storylines, interesting games from the upcoming week, through next Sunday.

I’m as eager for the start of basketball as the rest of you, but to be honest, I could really use another week. We got really poor, in my opinion, help from schools on schedules this year, so we’re still catching up on those. Although we got the Top 25s out earlier than our target date, the preseason All-America teams were slower than usual. One of those is still on our plate.

I love Division III basketball, but why does tipoff have to overlap with the start of football playoffs? I can’t find enough time in the day to get everything done as it is, and now with three kids in the house I’m finding it harder and harder to get time to work on the sites.

I have a tech guy who is holding up the process, who can never make a deadline, and since I’m related to him I have to play nice. He has a to-do list that’s pretty long, which we may never get to. Some of the things have been on the list for more than a year.

And now I’m griping to you, the reader, which probably isn’t the best thing either. But I write to tell you this — although it looks like we might not be doing much on the site this time of year, it just isn’t true. What we’re doing is a bunch of behind-the-scenes work, getting the schedules (still) into the system, making sure score reporting works correctly. Dave McHugh is working on getting Hoopsville warmed up and ready to go, starting a week from now, almost a week to the minute from the time this post goes up. So I ask your patience. This isn’t the only job for any of us, and my full-time job has gotten a lot fuller in the past 12 months, as well as my house.

Stay tuned. We’ll get there.