haha ouch.

the good news is you'll beat NJ Tech by 40 tonight and feel a lot better about yourself afterwards :)

6 is not 40, but we'll take it.

Down goes Chico.  The new king is.....Slippery Rock.

Afte hacker's "begging" on the Yarnell thread, here are some thoughts halfway through non-con.

- There is no clear favorite this year.  Last night alone, 4 of the top 10 lost.  There are 9 undefeated teams in the top 25, which seems like fewer than usual.
- #1 Slippery Rock owns a couple of huge victories.  I overlooked them coming into the season, but they've beaten two ranked teams by a combined 75 points.  One was Lynn, which has stuggled so far (and I know non-con struggles).  We will see what they've got the night of the 22nd vs #8 St Rose.
- The Great Lakes Valley (GLV) is off to a sizzling start.   41-19 is not too shabby for greenhawks, bhizzy, mslongaker, and the rest.
- Jack Ritch needs ice for his shooting elbow.  SW Minnesota St's SF leads D-II with 28.4 ppg.  Hillsdale held him to a season low 19 points on a season "low" 17 attempts.

Tonight has #4 Belmont Abbey vs #1 SW Minnesota St, #14 Western New Mexico vs #15 Incarnate Word, and the game 2 of the meatgrinder that is the Yarnell. 

Thoughts?  Discuss?

There are definitely a LOT of teams this season that are in contention, but I suspect by the end of the season a few coaches will have harnessed the potential of their teams and pull away.  It is hard to say at this point who that will be.

I like Belmont Abbey over #11 SW Minn St. and IW over W. New Mexico.

First meeting tonight with bow2dacowz. Looking forward to the battle of traditionally the 2 best zones in Iba D2.

There are a lot of top 25 matchups tonight, all outside of the Yarnell.

#1 Slippery Rock @ #9 St. Rose
#2 CSU, Chico @ #19 Clark Atlanta
#3 Belmont Abbey @ #22 W. Oregon
#15 St. Mary's (TX) @ #18 Limestone
#17 Charleston @ #16 S.W. Minnesota St.

Who do you like in these games?

Interesting night.... #1, #2 go down... Belmont takes over #1.  Limestone slips by St. Mary's.... SW Minn beats Charleston.

Lots of jockying still going on in the top 25.  Hard to predict if there is a clear favorite for final four berth/NT champ

Interesting note - last season Bowie State didn't play a game decided by fewer than 10 points until the Final 4.  So far this season 5 of 8 have been decided by 5 or fewer.

every single one of Longwood's games have been decided by 8 or fewer points. There's a lot of parity among the top teams. I still like my top 4. 

Pfeiffer is really struggling this season. Hopefully I can find the right mix before we fall too far behind.

Lost by 2 at Bowie with his 4 all-american starters. Other loss was on the road at St Mary's when I experimented with a gimmick defense to prepare for Yarnell. Fail. If I can take Longwood down and get a Bellarmine upset over Bowie, I'll be flying high on Saturday.

I'm very happy with our Longwood team going 6-4 with that NC schedule. Didn't know what to expect with this squad - I think our team's success hinges on A. Brown's development. 

Looks like Eckerd is the new #1. Don't remember this much turnover in the top seedings in other seasons prior. I still like OBU, Chico, Bel Abbey, and IW for the final four, though I would love for Longwood to find a way to sneak back in there. 

Anyone else w/ thoughts on how Non-Conf went?

didn't expect us to even go 4-6 with the quality of teams we played (and 7 of the games on the road) and only having 4 upper-classmen so all in all i can't complain. 

played some really tight games on the road against some really good teams...so i think by the end of the season we'll be a tough draw for someone in the NT

After dropping the opener to Bowie St and dropping a double OT game to Bellarmine, we started playing more like bbunch expects us to play.  If we can continue playing well in conference, we should lock down a high seed.

How many teams have been #1 this season already.  4?  5?  It's a revolving door.  Can anyone hold on to it?