West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[IUPbigINDIANS]

IMHO WLU needs to win the tourney. I don't relish the thought of playing Hurst in 1st round.

Winning mec might move us to #2 seed or #1 if hillsdale loses and get us a bye.

There will be none of your blackouts against Mercyhurst. I promise.

[Scrub]

IMHO WLU needs to win the tourney. I don't relish the thought of playing Hurst in 1st round.

Winning mec might move us to #2 seed or #1 if hillsdale loses and get us a bye.

Totally agree. Best to stay away from Hurst if possible. I'd take my chances with a Findlay or Hillsdale before wanting to see Mercyhurst on WLU's bracket line. But in the end, if you want to win the Region, you have to beat the best teams one way or the other.

[Columbuseer]

Totally agree. Best to stay away from Hurst if possible. I'd take my chances with a Findlay or Hillsdale before wanting to see Mercyhurst on WLU's bracket line. But in the end, if you want to win the Region, you have to beat the best teams one way or the other.

I watched hillsdale against Tribeca Nazarene. They might have issues with our pace of play, in the event that we would meet. It seems like it is all about matchups at regionals. Have to have some luck to avoid bad matchups. And you hope another team eliminates your bad matchup.

[Layton]

[Columbuseer]

No vaccine, no game for me, regrettably.

[Columbuseer]

Dante Spadafora sighting #4

won tourney game against cal pa 92-35

In transition, ball goes to left corner to teammate; as opponents rush to close out the expected deep three attempt, the teammate whips a 30 foot pass to dante 30 feet down the baseline under the right side of the basket

The opponents rush back down the baseline to contest Dante's anticipated shot.

Dante elevates high to catch the pass. While still in the air, in one smooth motion, he catches the ball and whips a one handed pass around the defenders that travels outside the end line and curves back to his teammate in the left corner who had just passed it to him. Now his teammate is really wide open and drains the three.

He made three opponents look like a yo-yo on a string running back and forth trying to close out shooters.

AMAZING!

[Layton]

[Scrub]

Crutches make that seem pretty likely. Spotted on the broadcast today with both crutches and a big knee brace. Might be ACL based on the style of brace he was wearing. Not sure.

[Layton]

Dang that sucks

[Columbuseer]

Observations from a Dummy: WLU versus Concord MEC Quarterfinals 2021
IMHO defense was the dominating factor in the WLU victory, due to extraordinary effort by WLU to pressure and harass Concord throughout the game. The mental and physical fatigue took its toll, especially in the last 10 minutes of each half. WLU disrupted the offensive flow of Concord.

• Their strategy to deny Johnson the ball on the inbounds pass was very effective. They were making the Concord guards work very hard to even receive the inbounds pass.
• During their first half blackout, WLU had a 15-0 run and held Concord to 2-17 shooting during the latter part of the first half.
• Held Concord to 3 for 27 from three, or 11 %. Some of these were open looks, but WLU was doing a good job of denial of 3-pt looks by their best shooters.
• Concord is a good rebounding team and rebounds were an area of focus for them against WLU, as they demonstrated during their upset of WLU. However, WLU dominated them today, 50-37 overall and 14-9 on the offensive glass. WLU got 33% of their missed shots, which is outstanding, especially against a good rebounding team.
• They made Johnson and Heller work very hard to get the ball and score.
• The 4 blocks and 10 steals gave WLU more possessions

WLU spread the Concord defense, for they had to defend the three, as WLU made 38.5% from three and have at least 4 outstanding three-point shooters on the floor most of the time. By spreading the defense, it opened driving lanes as well as easy entry passes into the post, for there was no help defense. These factors, as well as the rebound put-backs, contributed to the somewhat lower assist numbers.
WLU had an outstanding 1.19 points per possession, despite missing more close-in shots at the rim than normal. I thought the officials were allowing more contact at the rim on contested shots, but overall, they did a good job.
Concord played WLU evenly for the first 10 minutes of each half, but the pressure and lack of depth took its toll. In the last 10 minutes of the game, WLU was scoring easily as Concord was struggling with getting back, which increased the 22-point half-time lead to the final 34-point victory margin.

Statistic	West Liberty Regular Season	vs Concord
POINTS	102	68
FGM	39	24
FGA	78	67
FGPCT	50.0%	35.8%
3FGM	10	3
3FGA	26	27
3FGPCT	38.5%	11.1%
FTM	14	17
FTA	19	21
FTPCT	73.7%	81.0%
REBOUND OFFENSIVE	14	9
REBOUND DEFENSIVE	36	28
REBOUND TOTAL	50	37
ASSISTS	13	13
TURNOVERS	14	16
BLOCKS	4	0
STEALS	10	7
Num Possessions	86	83
Points per Possession	1.19	0.82
Assists per 100 Possessions	15.1	15.7
Assists / FG Made %	33.33%	54.17%
Assist to Turnover Ratio	0.93	0.81
Turnovers per 100 Possessions (< better)	16.3	19.3
Opponent Defensive Rebounds	28	36
Offensive Rebound Efficiency %	33.3%	20.0%
Effective FG %	56.4%	38.1%
Effective FG% Difference (team- Opp.)	18.4%	-18.4%
FGA % Diff ((team FGA- Opp. FGA)/Opp. FGA)	16.4%	-14.1%
Forced Turnovers	16	14
Opponent Possessions	83	86
Forced Turnovers % of Opp. Possession	19.3%	16.3%

[Layton]

[Layton]

Well, that was entertaining

[Scrub]

Can you imagine that ending if COVID hadn't restricted the arena to 750 fans? Imagine if the 3,500 fans from last year's final had been in that building tonight!

[Scrub]

I'll be interested to see your write-up today, Columbus. But looking at the box score, WLU has now gotten away with two tourney wins while totaling only 13 & 12 assists respectively. If they're going to beat a game FSU team for a third time--and we all know how hard it is to beat a good team 3 times in one season--they're going to need to get back to sharing the ball.

They seemed to get lured into GSC's playground style a few times last night, and that likely isn't going to get the job done.

[Scrub]

[Not sure if the photo link will work, but I'll give it a try.]

I'm not sure if this was shown on the broadcast or not, but I was lucky enough to be one of the 750 in attendance last night. After McKinney's last shot, the team naturally dog piles him. Funnily, Nick Edwards of GSC happened to be standing next to McKinney when the bench caught up to him and Edwards ended up on the bottom of the dog pile. But that's not the great moment--just a humorous side note (and Edwards was a good sport about it). The great moment was that Marlon Moore relatively quickly took himself off the celebratory dog pile and went right over to a devastated John Williams who had flown past McKinney on the pump fake on the last shot. Williams was still crouched on the floor by the 3-point line, and Moore--after guarding Williams all game (or at least trying to . . . sometimes not successfully)--took the time to go over and console Williams and show respect for a great effort. It was a nice and maybe not totally visible moment. A MEC photographer did manage to capture it though: https://mountaineast.org/galleries/m...ge-77/306/6744