For the week the MIAA went 6-8, maybe an extra loss that shouldn't have been, the Wooster win cancels out the Wabash loss. Not a bad week but the opponent strength probably wasn't the greatest and yet NCAA tournament teams Capital, North Central, Wheaton and Wooster were 4 of the opponents. I didn't count the Hope win.
In-region: 4-6
vs OAC 1-2
vs NCAC 1-1
vs PAC 0-1
vs HCAC 1-0
vs CCIW 1-2
other D3
NAIA
other 2-0
D1 0-1
Adrian 2-0
Adrian 61 Otterbein 49
Adrian 57 Wooster 56
Adrian's week started out with a roster reveal last Monday that most of us thought was a roster explosion that couldn't possibly keep Adrian in the mix for the MIAA title. Then they went out and beat Wooster, and the rest of us stare blankly into space..but, but, but...... Last second shot or not, that's kind of impressive and something to take note. Video link: 1:45:00 is about the moment of Adrian glory, I'd go back and watch the last full 2 or 3 minutes to get the full experience. It was a pretty good ending to a game.
Its way too early to tell just how good Wooster is or isn't, but past history leans on this being a big time signature win for the Bulldogs. Not many teams come out of Wooster with an away win, at least those not named Wittenberg.
This week: @ Sienna Heights(milk jug), @ Marygrove
Next week: UM-Dearborn, Mt. Union, @ Carnegie-Mellon
Albion 1-1
Albion 78 Manchester 63
Wabash 53 Albion 51
Friday Albion took care of a pretty young Manchester team with ease. Sunday I expected Albion to do the same with Wabash (who lost to Manchester) but it didn't happen. Yours truly was there and I kept waiting for Albion to pull comfortably enough ahead to say it was safe, but I was really thinking Wabash is going to steal this. Sure enough they did. Albion let that that game get away and it was really a poor final 7 or 8 minutes that did them in.
The team without Kolin Kazen had trouble scoring Sunday, that same team had no trouble scoring Friday. There really aren't any roster additions for Albion other than Fr. Jordan Herron who played well but got himself into a little foul trouble. Everyone's just a year older. This is much the same team as last but without Kazen they could struggle some. Most likely this won't be the same roster that competes in the MIAA.
This week: vs Franklin, vs Purdue-North Central or DePauw @ DePauw
Next week: vs Elmhurst
Alma 0-2
Capital 83 Alma 73
Wheaton 76 Alma 49
These were expected losses, what wasn't expected was Wheaton thrashing OAC favorite Capital so thoroughly on Thursday night. It's a little hard to make anything of the Capital/Alma score, consider Alma stayed competitive with last year's OAC co-champ John Carroll as well. At the moment, I'm getting pretty pessimistic about the OAC and what results vs them really mean. The Wheaton game was a demolition, Alma had 32 points on the board with 5 minutes to play.
Alma gave significant playing time to four Freshmen, starting Ivy Johnson.
This week: vs Ohio Northern, vs Heidelberg
Next week: @ Defiance, Baldwin-Wallace
Calvin 2-0
Calvin 84 Grace Bible 53
Calvin 83 North Park 54
(these results are some sort of weird numbers bingo aren't they?)
Calvin hosted its own tournament and did what good teams are supposed to do, thrash opponents of this caliber. Grace Bible doesn't appear to be the nuisance Grace Bible of the last 4 years and North Park has been struggling in the CCIW of late(forever) and they didn't have their best player.
The next couple weekends will tell much more about Calvin than this past weekend and I think everyone realizes that. Still, the last couple of years with basically the same cast Calvin has sort of kind of struggled with these kinds of teams.
This week: vs Anderson, vs Aquinas and vs Cornerstone @ Hope
Next week: @ Manchester, @ Wheaton vs Carthage @ Wheaton
Hope 0-1
North Central 60 Hope 49 Game Recap
Friday never happened. Saturday Hope went on the road and dropped a tough one with CCIW favorite North Central. Overall I think it was an ok to good performance given the circumstances.
This week: vs Cornerstone, vs Aquinas
Next week: vs Carthage vs Wheaton @ Wheaton
Kalamazoo 0-0
The Hornets finally debut with new head coach Eric Dougle this week. It occurred to me that Kzoo's entire 11 game non-conference schedule is compressed into 28 days.
This week: vs Manchester and Earlham @ Earlham
Next week: @ Oberlin, vs Chicago, vs North Central
Olivet 0-3
Central Michigan 76 Olivet 62
Mount St. Joseph 88 Olivet 57
Thomas More 90 Olivet 62
This road trip was never going to go well, but I thought the D3 part might at least be competitive. It wasn't. Winnable games are ahead but this was a foreboding kind of weekend, its looking like a long season in Olivet.
Garner Small the 6-7 transfer from Goshen has been a bright spot, so far he's had games of 20 and 16 but somehow had 0 against MSJ. I'm reaching, wins will come soon...I think, just not many of them.
This week: @ Union, Ky, Purdue-Calumet
Next week: no games
Trine 1-1
Heidelberg 80 Trine 77
Trine 100 Akron-Wayne 75
The Heidelberg result wasn't what I was anticipating from a team I expected to be a little better this year. Maybe Heidelberg is a lot better, but I doubt it. Trine gave 3 or 4 Fr. some significant playing time on Friday. I don't remember 6-7 Todd Watkins from last year, I imagine he plays the Tim Pearcy role this year.
Nick Tatu played only a few seconds in the first game, then went out and went 7-9 from 3 in the second game. Expect more Tatu in the future maybe.
This week: @ Earlham, vs Manchester @ Earlham
Next week: North Central
For this upcoming week the MIAA has several delicious snaky cake games, 10 wins seems almost pessimistic. I guess the real key will be the Hope and Calvin encounters with Cornerstone, and hoping that somehow Aquinas doesn't remember how to play good basketball. I'm kind of assuming Kzoo, Olivet and Alma can find one win apiece. The week after is much more difficult and may really define how well the league performs on the year.
The Neighbors
OAC
Last week the league went 10-9. I don't know what to think of this. Thursday the OAC favorite went out and got blitzed by Wheaton. Wheaton might be really good and win the CCIW but it was a surprising margin of victory. The league went 2-4 against the PAC and Marietta was blown out by Ohio Wesleyan. The bright spot I guess was Baldwin-Wallace beating defending PAC champ Bethany.In the coming two weeks the league has several opportunities for perception redeeming wins, including games with Wooster, Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan and Washington U.
in-region 7-8
vs NCAC 0-2
vs PAC 2-4
vs MIAA 2-1
NCAC
The league went 12-7 last week, the highlight was probably Ohio Wesleyan debuting with a thumping win over Marietta. Wooster suffered a last second home defeat to Adrian, Wabash won on a late tip-in at Albion. Otherwise there weren't a lot of great match-ups.in-region 8-6
vs OAC 2-0
vs PAC 1-1
vs MIAA 1-1
PAC
10-10 overall record and it was a really good week for the PAC which included a combined 6-2 record against its Great Lakes Region conference neighbors. Thomas More beat DePauw, this was probably the only win against a team that will finish in the top half of its league. Bethany lost to Baldwin-Wallace.in-region 8-8
vs OAC 4-2
vs NCAC 1-1
vs MIAA 1-0
In the future I'll probably try and pull-off some kind of Great Lakes ranking but since we're one week in that seems kind of fruitless. I do think the main teams to focus on probably hasn't changed: Hope, Calvin, Adrian, Wooster, Wittenberg, Ohio Wesleyan, Capital, Baldwin-Wallace, Thiel, Bethany and maybe Thomas More. There just really isn't enough data on anyone else, or really anyone.
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