Incredibly half, yes half, of the OAC conference games this year were decided by less than 10 point margins, including 9 overtime games. Within the conference, this was as competitive of a league as you can probably find. The problem though is that the league really didn't do much outside the confines of its borders. Its always felt like this league should be better, should have a bigger presence on the D3 scene but for the most part they've fallen short of that level.
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Review and Preview
Against its neighborsvs NCAC 5-11
vs PAC 9-6
vs MIAA 2-3
vs HCAC 1-3
It wasn't a great year outside the conference for the OAC. Overall 36-31 which seems fine until you take out the gimme games against teams like OSU-Lima (2), Pitt-Titusville, Miami-Hamilton and Victory. As you can see the OAC doesn't look West very often for opponents, we can probably thank the original pioneers who crossed the Ohio River and determined they would educate people in the eastern half of the state, and reserve the western half for farming. All kidding aside, those are some long trips and OAC teams don't seem to leave the state much. The OAC loves them some PAC teams and with the PAC's recent expansion I would expect this to be the norm.
Vs the MIAA the OAC went 2-3, both of those wins came against Alma by John Carroll and Baldwin-Wallace. Hope beat Marietta while Trine and Albion both defeated Heidelberg. It would be nice to see these match-ups more often, but distance and time will always be a difficult thing to overcome.
Outside its neighbors the OAC did pretty well against D3 going 11-6. However, against NCAA D3 tournament teams the league was just an astonishing 2-11. Yikes!
In the NCAA:
Capital advanced to the 2nd round
Capital drew at large selection Randolph-Macon at the Wooster Regional and won 68-60 in maybe a mild upset. Wooster beat them the next night 92-79. Its now been 8 years since an OAC team advanced past the Sweet 16.
Here's a look at the teams bottom to top from last season's standings and my brief and probably wrong take on their 2013 outlook:
10. Heidelberg 7-18, 5-13
Conveniently, Heidelberg lists all 25 players in their program on varsity which makes sifting through the ashes of their season kind of difficult. Amazingly 23 of those players saw varsity action, 22 of them in more than just a couple games, and 15 different players cracked the starting 5. Nothing probably sums up their season better than that. The Student Princes were not very good, their two non-conference wins were over OSU-Lima and Waynesburg. The other 'berg' was competitive at times and suffered a few near misses, but mostly they spent the season staring up a double-digit deficits. Their season finally collapsed on them at the end when they dropped 7 of their last 8.
The good news is Heidelberg graduates fives Seniors and all but one of those guys were pretty small bit players in the teams scoring. Darian Capers is the only big loss but he missed half of last season and was their 2nd leading scorer. Returning though are All-OAC honorable mentions Nate Davis and Dane Givner, and of course 16 other players who saw some significant varsity action. Heidelberg wasn't that far from being around a .500 team last season, with so much returning its reasonable to think they can climb up the standings a little.
9. Muskingum 8-17, 5-13
Muskingum was probably the shortest team in the OAC with just 2 players 6-5 or taller. Unfortunately for them, they graduate 5 Seniors, 4 of them starters and the fifth contributed a lot. The Muskies season mirrored Heidelberg's quite a bit, a couple non-conference wins over not so good teams like OSU-Lima, Pitt-Titusville and Washington and Jefferson. In the OAC they muddled around winning a couple games against fellow bottom half teams, but then pulled of the shocker off the OAC season by beating John Carroll. They finished the season winning just two of their last nine.
I don't think the prognosis for next season is very bright in New Concord. The Muskies lose 2 players listed on the All-OAC team honorable mention and 3 other significant Seniors. What returns is a Senior to be who played in 9 games, and a host of last seasons Freshmen where it appears really only 1 made a big impact. With so little height, and being very young it looks like Muskingum might be here at the bottom to stay next season. Bonus knowledge: I've seen Muskingum's 2013 schedule and the non-con portion is pretty weak, they should get a couple wins, after that though its anybody's guess.
8. Otterbein 9-17, 6-12
Of the teams that finished in the bottom half of the OAC probably no one was as competitive or maybe as frustrating as Otterbein. The Cardinals suffered an amazing 11 losses by single digits. Compounding the frustration for their fans was probably also seeing the Cardinals beat future NCAC Champion Wittenberg over the Christmas Holidays...at Springfield. Senior Chris Davis led the league in rebounding and was joined on the All-OAC honorable mention team with Senior Brice Rausch. The Cardinals finished the season kind of strong, winning 4 of the their last 7 including a win over John Carroll. After the season, long time head coach Dick Reynolds retired.
2013 begins a new era in Westerville as Otterbein hired former Edgewood coach Todd Adrian. The Cardinals lose 2 outstanding Sr's in Davis and Rausch along with 2 other significant contributors. Adrian will have five returning Seniors with varying levels of experience to lean on. When teams go through coaching changes the turnover can be unpredictable, given that and combined with the graduation losses its difficult to see Otterbein doing much more than what they did last year.
7. Mt. Union 11-15, 7-11
Mount Union's season can almost be split up into 5 sections of equal length and alternating success. Two losing streaks of 6 and 5 games prevented Mount from racking up a winning season for the first time since 2005. Mount has been neither terrible nor good during this stretch and have pretty much been this, a slightly below .500 team in the middle of the OAC. Like everyone else in this league the Purple Raiders played many close games, 13 decided by single digits coming away with the victory in 5.
Mount loses 3 Seniors to graduation, the biggest loss being the leagues leading scorer Jimmy Wood. For the most part though, Mount returns most of its minutes and besides Wood, most of its scoring. OAC Fr. of the year Nate Jacubec will highlight what should be a season of optimism for second year coach Mike Fuline. Finding points to replace Wood's will be the trick in year two. It's hard to say which side of .500 Mount will fall next season, history would say the low side but with so many close results its easy to think they have a shot at a winning season.
6. Ohio Northern 14-14, 8-10
ONU's season started out strong as the Polar Bears opened the year 6-2, a 2-7 stretch in January did in their season. Amazingly, 13 of ONU's 14 losses were by single digits and 8 of those by 5 points or less. In other words, this team wasn't that far from having a really good season and challenging for the top 3 or 4 positions in the standings. They went 4-1 against John Carroll and Marietta. ONU will lose 4 Seniors to graduation including second leading scorer and 6-9 C Scott Schnelle, but return 10 of their top 12 in minutes played. The Polar Bears finished the season with a strong tournament run, losing in the conference semi-finals to Capital. After the season head coach John Rhodes resigned to take a D1 assistant coaching position at Duquesne.
ONU made perhaps the most intriguing hire of the year when they pulled Kevin Byrne away from MIT after his very successful stint at that school. The Ohio native will have what looks to be a pretty solid core group of players returning including 7 underclassmen who all played significant minutes last season. The Polar Bears will lack some height but it sure looks like they're set up to push for the top quarter of the league, unless the coaching change is more disruptive than anticipated. 2012 was ONU's first year finishing out of the top 4 in at least a decade, but no titles. I might expect ONU to be back in that top 4 next season.
5. Wilmington 15-13, 10-8
Wilmington has been a nice feel good story. A program that was pretty dreadful for most of its history with only a handful of winning seasons until 2006 when they burst on the OAC scene with a 20 win season just 2 years removed from winning 1 whole game. Last season the Quakers were one of the few OAC squads that played a challenging out of conference schedule, unfortunately they went 2-4, but they bounced back from a 10-16 2011 season to reclaim a place among the OAC's top 5. The Quakers made it all the way to the OAC Tournament final where they lost a close one 79-74 to Capital.
Wilmington will lose leading scorer Antonio Bowman and a couple other contributing Seniors but will return the bulk of its scoring and minutes played, including Malcolm Heard who landed on the All-OAC first team as a Sophomore. These guys were right in the OAC mix for the title until a couple late season losses to ONU and Otterbein derailed their chances. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see this team right in the mix again next season.
4. Baldwin-Wallace 16-10, 11-7
Two single-digit losses at JCU and Capital followed by a 2 point loss to Mount Union in early January probably kept the Yellowjackets from claiming the OAC title. This team was pretty consistent most of the year, losing all but 1 of its conference games by single-digits and 5 road losses.
The bad news for the rest of the OAC is BW returns All-OAC second team performers Kyle Payne and Paul Krakowiak. The really bad news is they're both only Juniors to be and they lose just 1 Senior. Of all the OAC teams this one seems to return the most and looks poised to seriously challenge for the OAC title in 2013.
Oddity: BW has an assistant named Jon Carroll.
3. Marietta 17-9, 12-6
I can't imagine too many programs had a more frustrating season than Marietta. Coming off a 27-4 season with an OAC Championship, trip to the Sweet 16 and everyone returning, much was expected of Marietta in 2012. A series of injuries including a big one to All-American Trevor Halter kept the Pioneers from reaching their full potential. The Pioneers were 4-4 in the OAC at one point and rallied to be tied at the top going into the seasons final day. It took a 3 point shot with 6 seconds remaining in the regular seasons final game by John Carroll to knock Marietta from its perch atop the OAC. It was that close.
Graduating are Trevor Halter, Kevin Knab, Joe Puch and Connor Kilpatrick. Its a lot of experience, talent, height, minutes and points walking out the door. This isn't to say the cupboard is bare because it isn't, returning will be All-OAC honorable mention PG Tyler Hammond and Marietta will have seven overall Seniors of varying experience. But, with losing so much it hard to see Marietta being among the leagues best and I think they'll take a step or 2 back in 2013.
1t. Capital 19-10, 13-5
Capital's non-conference season consisted of losses to Wittenberg, Denison, Buffalo St. and Ohio Wesleyan. In fact going into January conference play the Crusaders were 5-6 coming off a 21 point loss to Ohio Wesleyan in Deleware. But they rallied to win 10 of their next 11 with their only loss a two point loss to Wilmington. The title was in Capital's hands going into the final couple weeks of the season but losses to Baldwin-Wallace and a 28 point thumping loss to Marietta meant they had to win their final game over Muskingum to claim just a share of the OAC title, which they did. Capital won the OAC Tournament and bid to the NCAA's where they advance to the second round before bowing out at Wooster.
Capital loses 2nd leading scorer Kelly Winter and 1 other Sr. contributor. With 7 returning Sr's including probably MOP favorite 6-6 F Spencer Niekamp and All-OAC honorable mention F Michael Sommer it really isn't that hard to see Capital as being the overall favorite to capture the league title next season. I expect them to be among the better teams in the Great Lakes Region.
1t. John Carroll 18-7, 13-5
At one point last season JCU was 10-2 and looking like one of the strongest teams in the Great Lakes Region. A few curious losses to teams in the bottom of the OAC, most notably Muskingum to go with losses to ONU and Otterbein, prevented JCU from winning the OAC title outright. Overall though JCU did well to win a piece of the OAC title which came on a last second 3 point shot win over Marietta in the final game of the regular season. JCU's NCAA chances were killed with a loss to Wilmington in the OAC semi-finals.
Mike Moran has made JCU a perennial contender in the OAC but in 2013 he might have his work cut out for him. JCU will graduate 7 Seniors, a group their own website calls the "best Senior class in school history." Among them is league MOP and all-american Corey Schontz along with 3 other starters and a 4th who started a number of games, 6 of their top 7 scorers. While JCU is one of the best, if not the best programs in the OAC year over year, next year is looking like a rebuild more than a reload kind of season.
Conclusion and unnecessary analysis:
The parity of the OAC can't be denied, it is a night in, night out war for the conferences championship. If that weren't enough, how about 6 different teams have won the last 7 OAC Tournaments and its NCAA auto-bid. It's as unpredictable a conference as can be found I think. But in the parity lies part of the problem, the OAC cannibalizes itself and the last two years only the OAC tournament champion has received a bid to the dance. This should be a two bid league every year, the fact that it hasn't been the last two years probably shows where it is right now as a whole. It's a little down.For next year, it might be down a little more.
Flimsy 2013 Prediction:
1. Capital2. Baldwin-Wallace
3. Wilmington
4. Ohio Northern
5. John Carroll
6. Marietta
7. Mt. Union
8. Heidelberg
9. Otterbein
10. Muskingum
(I think you could take 4-9 and put them in any order really, its probably going to be tight again)
NCAA bid to Capital, B-W with a shot at an at-large selection.
Jon Carroll, the assistant coach at BW, also played basketball for the Yellow Jackets. When I was a student, he played and it was funny to watch Jon Carroll play against John Carroll.
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