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Post by bison137 on Dec 19, 2023 14:41:09 GMT -5
More frustration. Injuries and Quinnipiac is good but its just another loss at the Hart Center. Let's beat Harvard to try and turn this season around. I watched the first half of last night's game this morning on replay. It was an interesting game for almost the entire first half. It seemed to me CDP was encouraging an uptempo approach on offense. Perhaps he feels that will work better vs PL comp than OOC foes. Could also be he isn't that happy with the half-court offense. The other thought I just had is why not try something different on D like a press? I think someone posted that KenPom had HC as the 2nd worst defensive team in the country. (Not sure what metric that was based on). I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting to see a press. In his seven years at Bucknell, DP did not press even one time, with the exception of a M2M press in the final minute of a lost game.
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Post by bison137 on Dec 12, 2023 14:09:14 GMT -5
Back in the days when there was a JV team, I think the JV's played some prep schools. It might have happened before Are there any rules that prevent a college from putting together a JV team? No rule against it. But for most colleges, it would just be an expensive version of a club team. Also, you couldn’t use it as a vehicle for most of your varsity players to get extra playing time, since every JV game in which an athlete participated would erode the max number of games in which an athlete can play. As you probably know, Army and Navy do have JV teams. But it is feasible for them because both bring in about eight recruited players per year. That leaves plenty of bodies for a large varsity team plus a JV. Prior to scholarships, a number of PL teams had JV‘s. Bucknell was one of those, and an unrecruited JV walk-on named Patrick King developed to the point where he was the PL POY.
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Post by bison137 on Dec 5, 2023 19:24:22 GMT -5
Catch & shoot to tie the game took .3 seconds, impressive. The flop was well done also As was the 4 step shuffle on dead ball OOB which was completely whiffed on by ref ?? are you talking about the inbounder on the Vermont pass that led to the winning basket?
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Post by bison137 on Dec 5, 2023 15:33:46 GMT -5
UConn was atrocious in the first half and lucky to be down only 7. They played much better in the second half. Not sure Clingan is ready to be a lottery pick this year. Tristen Newton is really good. Clingan is very good but I think he remains a work in progress. I can’t imagine that he is a lottery pick in today’s NBA. FWIW, ESPN’s latest draft ranking, which came out today, has Clingan moving up to the sixth spot overall.
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Post by bison137 on Dec 4, 2023 16:03:53 GMT -5
The first NET rankings were released today. There are 362 teams. Seven of the ten Patriot League schools are in the bottom quarter with six having rankings in the 300's. Given roughly 2/3 of the remaining games will be against other league members, the rankings for the conference are not likely to get appreciably better. #136 Colgate #202 Boston U #266 Bucknell #295 Navy #311 Lehigh #321 Loyola-MD #327 American #331 Lafayette #347 Holy Cross #354 Army Link: www.ncaa.com/rankings/basketball-men/d1/ncaa-mens-basketball-net-rankingsLooking at these ratings.
If we go 0-2 with the top 4 teams, 1-1 with the next 4, and 2-0 with Army, we would be 6-12 in the PL.
Hoping for better but probably a pretty realistic estimate.
I doubt HC will go 0-8 vs those top four. Except for Colgate, the rest are certainly winnable games, especially at home.
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Post by bison137 on Dec 2, 2023 14:50:43 GMT -5
Why not press down 9 with 2:30 left? Paulson does not press. Ever. In his tenure at Bucknell, we didn’t see one true press in seven years.
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Post by bison137 on Dec 1, 2023 20:49:39 GMT -5
The game was played in Portland not Bangor. They set a new UMaine and America East women's basketball attendance record. Impressive for a mid-major host. Here are some of the OOC teams Holy Cross WBB played in the 2004-5 season: Home vs Providence, UMass, Buffalo, BC and at UConn, Duke, St. John's, DuPaul, and finally Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament. The other usual OOC suspects didn't include any cupcakes like Connecticut College. I think it was easier twenty years ago because WBB was still growing from minor to major sport. Congratulations to the Black Bears. It’s an impressive list, but you areright that the landscape was quite different. For example, both Buffalo and Providence were among the absolute worst teams in the nation. They would have struggled to not finish last in the patriot league. And UMass wasn’t particularly strong. But a lot of the others were impressive names at that time.
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Post by bison137 on Dec 1, 2023 18:07:27 GMT -5
Holy Cross should take the entire Women's Soccer team...they would contend for a Patriot League title next year if they did. Still alive in the NCAAs, playing next a team they beat, 4-1, 3 weeks ago. They got eliminated earlier today.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 28, 2023 19:58:04 GMT -5
Last night during the UConn- UNH game the announcer reported that Bison 137’s best friend and favorite coach, Nathan Davis, had faced UConn’s star transfer, Cam Spencer, at all three of Spencer’s schools (Rutgers and Loyola, Baltimore) in every season Spencer has played. Davis is 1-4 in total against Spencer. The announcer's statement was not exactly correct since Bucknell did not face Loyola at all in the 2020-21 covid year. Loyola in total played 17 games that year - but none vs Bucknell.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 27, 2023 17:59:40 GMT -5
Can you explain the roster size comment? Does the PL and/or HC have restrictions that don't exist at the Ivies? For years and no reason whatsoever, the esteemed PL has handcuffed themselves with a roster limit of 90. This was waived during COVID and HC probably had about 100 players rostered. Rumors have been on this board that the PL has finally begun to remove it's head from where it doesn't belong and the 90 player limit is to be eliminated. I do not believe there is a limit on how many players can be on a roster. The limit is on aid. Feel free those who know better to correct this. After factoring in various exceptions, the roster limit for awhile has effectively been more than 100. HC, for example, rostered 108 this year. Fordham rostered 100. Bucknell rostered 97. Etc. As for equivalencies, the PL rule prior to Covid allowed 60 equivalencies, as compared to the NCAA max of 63. In late 2021, the league raised the limit to 63 if a school was allowing fifth year covid players. Starting next year, the limit will match the NCAA limit, i.e. 63, regardless of any covid exceptions.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 27, 2023 17:29:42 GMT -5
My main concern would be Ivies and Service Academies coming after several hard since they have basically unlimited roster sizes The rare players who transfer into a service Academy must start again as freshmen. That means that realistically only current freshmen would transfer there. As for the Ivy’s, they will normally not take any transfer who is already a junior.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 26, 2023 20:54:31 GMT -5
Does anyone have any idea how big the check is that goes back to Worcester on the bus? Rough guess is $85k My understanding is hoops go from $50-$125k football $450-$1.4 million Based on what Bucknell gets, I think $85k to $90k would be a good guess for HC.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 26, 2023 0:13:41 GMT -5
Why in God's name did we play mostly all M2M defense tonight? Not that it probably made a whit of difference but this was our best tactic defensively? I don't think so. fwiw in his seven seasons at Bucknell, I don't think there were 10 games where DP played any zone defense whatsoever. I have no idea if that philosophy changed at all since he left Lewisburg.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 25, 2023 16:56:55 GMT -5
Bucknell getting beat by Marist..BU playing a zone on D. They don't look like much...Point guard is the heart and soul of the team. Ironically that PG is normally not a starter. Their starting PG tore his MCL and is out for six weeks. On a normal day, the best player on the team by far is Jack Forest.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 23, 2023 1:18:20 GMT -5
Very quietly Lehigh is off to a 5-0 start after beating Marist today 82-64 at a neutral site in Savannah It is possible Lehigh may have found a better coach than Sue Troyan, who was a very good recruiter, but a very mediocre coach. Having said that, Lehigh thus far has played a very weak schedule so it’s hard to judge anything. We will find out more about them tomorrow when they face Bowling Green. The reality is that only Bucknell, who has the 41st best schedule in the country thus far, plus HC, whose schedule ranks 113th, and American (139th) have faced tough schedules. Boston U, Colgate, Lehigh, and others have played mostly weak sisters. Special recognition to Navy, who currently has the 350th toughest schedule in the nation.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 21, 2023 13:01:22 GMT -5
Simon Wilbar is not listed on the Maryville Scots roster. Tough to get a waiver to play right away at your fourth college. It's D3, don't think he would need one. If he only has 1 or 3 semesters of eligibility left, could see him sitting out the fall and playing in the winter. Normally eligibility goes by season, not semester. Once you play one game, that uses up an entire year of eligibility, not just a semester, under NCAA rules. The one exception is some arcane ivy league rule that has applied a couple of times over the past decades.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 21, 2023 11:02:00 GMT -5
Simon Wilbar is not listed on the Maryville Scots roster. Tough to get a waiver to play right away at your fourth college. Even if he didn’t get a waiver, why would he not appear on the roster? The two aren’t really related at all.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 21, 2023 1:06:18 GMT -5
Bucknell beat Southern Indiana ( D 2 ?) Southern Indiana is D1 - Ohio Valley Conference. They lost their previous game at La Salle by one, which led me to believe Bucknell was a likely loser to them tonight. Instead, to my surprise, final was Bucknell 67, Southern Indiana 56. So. Ind. next visits Duke for the conclusion of the Duke-sponsored multi-team event. From some talks with Griffin, I think it is unlikely that he will ever schedule a D2/D3. After being left a very poor roster by Nathan Davis, Griffin scheduled too tough this year.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 18, 2023 22:03:50 GMT -5
There are six coach-like gentlemen in the Elon tine out huddle. Is the NCAA just winking at maximum numbers of coaches? Not at all. Even in the Patriot League, there are often five or more in the huddle. In addition to coaches, you have a manager basketball operations, a trainer, possibly a strength and coordinating person, and maybe a video person. There is no rule about who can be in the huddle as long as the non-coaches don’t do any coaching.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 18, 2023 16:06:19 GMT -5
Anyone else think Nugent might be the key back man in a 1-3-1 zone? Not nearly fast enough. I'm not sure HCDP has ever employed a 1-3-1, so a moot point. 137? he used it a couple of times his first year (La Salle, Army) when things were going badly. They obviously hadn't practiced it much, and it didn’t work very well. After those couple of occasions, DP never used it again. In all the years that he was at Bucknell, you could probably count the number of times he played a zone on one hand.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 17, 2023 21:52:21 GMT -5
Yale's center Wolf makes Keegan Records look small Some of you will recall that Wolf’s brother, Josh Wolf, played for Lehigh about six or seven years ago. He was almost as big as his brother Danny, but not nearly as good. He was a walk-on who had some injury issues. IIRC he had to stop playing his last year or two due to the injuries.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 15, 2023 19:00:37 GMT -5
Two Bucknell connections to Winthrop:
1. Their opening night Center, Alex Timmerman, played for Bucknell the previous four years. He did a good job as a BU starter the final two years after wasting the first two years with weight issues. In Winthrop’s opener vs Clemson he played 25 minutes and had seven rebounds, but missed their next game against a D3 opponent with a minor injury. Then played some minutes off the bench in game three. He has always had a very high rebound rate and a good shooting percentage. Was second in the PL last year in rebounding and top ten in FG pct.
2. Winthrop’s head coach, Mark Prosser, was an assistant for five years under Pat Flannery early in his career. Flannery and his dad, Skip Prosser, were good friends.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 14, 2023 12:24:18 GMT -5
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Post by bison137 on Nov 3, 2023 16:21:47 GMT -5
Massey sees BC as a 16 point favorite (71-55) with a 90% chance foir the win. Don’t forget that Massey at the start of the year simply uses an average of the last few seasons for the strength of each team. He makes no attempt to look at who is returning or who transferred in or out or what freshman might play. Etc That’s his current ranking for HC says they are significantly weaker than last year. That would not be the case if his rankings looked at any facts for a given team. His rankings for many teams really won’t make much sense until the end of November.
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Post by bison137 on Nov 2, 2023 10:39:22 GMT -5
Nice summary. One addition for Bucknell under "key returners" would be soph PG Blake Matthews. Matthews as a freshman won the starting PG job prior to the season opener, beating out Dingler. Unfortunately suffered two injuries and was out or hampered almost the entire season. She is still recovering from a knee issue and may not contribute at the beginning, but she has the talent to become the starting PG if she ever gets healthy.
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