Big game in Yarnell tonight. St Mary's TX vs New Jersey Tech for the tournament championship.

Congrats MDH on the Yarnell victory!

Now it is on to conference... The Heartland is having a strong year, bouncing back from last season. 

(Quiet board.  I know we're all getting ready for college/pro football, but let's stir something up.)

U of the Sciences continues to roll.  15-0 with 2 ranked teams remaining on the schedule.  Easily the class of D-II Iba this year.
Pfeiffer has the top rpi and leads the top conference at 13-2.  The CVAC is tough, but this Pfeiffer team looks up to the task.
Green Mountain also sits at 15-0 with one major game remaining on the conference schedule (Lenoir-Rhyne).  A good undefeated non-con has them at #3.

The 4th best team is either St Mary's (TX) or Goldey-Beacom.  I'll choose a 12-2 Yarnell-winning St Mary's team over undefeated Goldey.  Mesa St also deserves mention, a 2 point OT loss away from being undefeated.

What team is the most impressive?  Who is over-rated and due for a fall?  How's your team?  Who do you not want to play in the NT? 

I don't give a crap who I play in the NC. If I make the NC, I couldn't care less if I was playing ****ing Team USA

St. Mary's has a lot of close games this season, we have just managed to come out on top in a lot of them.  I really don't think we are as good as our ranking, but we shall see how it all plays out.  I will say this: the Heartland conference is MUCH tougher this season that it has been in any of my prior seasons at St. Mary's, so wins will be much harder to come by.

My Sciences team is playing well right now.  We were specifically built for this year, and so far not disappointing.  By the end of the year I may have two players over 800, which would be a first for me.  Either way, I have two games where I could lose remaining on my schedule, but with the closest game being ten points this year so far, I am relatively comfortable, especially considering that one of them was against a good hillsdale team, and the other was at NJ Tech, which I was previously 0-16 against in the regular season.  Hopefully we keep it up

Barring a collapse, Harding will win it's division in the Gulf South again. An upstart West Georgia could keep us from winning the conference. We'll be in the NT and play a pretty mean zone/press. And my Junior center can score on anyone. Reminds me of Kevin McHale in that he's a black hole. If you pass him the ball, it's not coming back. We're a year a way though with only 1 SR and 4 upperclassmen. Should be a NT contender again next year though.

since we're in such a rebuild, and teaching just began again leaving me with no free time, I'm kind of mentally checked out this season. That being said, this could be Pfieffer's year.

I still feel like we have a chance to be there at the end and feel like we are still the 2nd best team in the Central Atlantic behind Sciences and ahead of Goldey (though I'd prefer to be playing them at home instead of on the road).  We have wins over Pfeiffer and some other solid teams like Indy, W New Mex, and Harding.  2 pt loss @ St. Mary's, 4 pt loss vs Bowie, and the Sciences game was a 3 pt game with just over a minute to go until Sciences pushed it to 10 from the line at the end.  Only real bad game was the loss @ Hillsdale which we led by 4 with 12 to go before crapping the bed and losing by 21.  

With 6 freshman this year it will be tough for my team to compete with the big boys.  Although they hung in pretty well against U of Sciences and I just beat a very good CSU Chico, so who knows how they'll fare in the tourney.

I'm looking for some top teams to schedule in for Non-Conf next season.  I'll have a fairly young team practicing a new offense/defense set.  I'd like to try to get my RPI/SOS up there since my conference is fairly empty.   Send over a request if interested.

any final four predictions yet?

Posted by bbunch on 9/6/2012 11:00:00 PM (view original):
any final four predictions yet?

U of Sciences has been dropping knowledge on everyone this year.  Showdown between them and undefeated Goldey-Beacom tonight. 

Best 4:
U of Sciences
Pfeiffer (class of CVAC)

Those are easy.  I'll add Goldey-Beacom, especially if tonight's game is a victory or close for them.  The 4th?  I have no idea.  Green Mountain?  E Stroudsburg?  Lenoir-Rhyne?  St Mary's (TX)? Adams State?  NJ Tech?

Tonight is a big game between us and Goldey-Beacom.  It's at their place, so a little tougher, but hopefully my senior leadership will pull through. 

Goldey had the good fortune of playing their single games vs NJ Tech and Sciences at home.  They've only played 1 other team better than 50 RPI, and that was #23 Duluth, also at home.  Overall they only have the 170th toughest schedule...so they're certainly a very good team, but not as tested as some of the others.  One thing they have going for them are some very high IQ's

Still, you have to win the games whether they are home and away and the wins vs NJ Tech and Sciences are very solid.