Iup basketball

[Penguins87]

Re: Iup basketball

You must have a really short memory. Bonifant's credentials are unmatched.

More than 2,000 points. Multiple national, regional and conference player of the year awards. Conference Male Athlete of the Year twice. Played for a national title and in two Final Fours.

The display he put on in the national semifinals last year is the single most impressive performance I have seen.

On a different note, I can see why Sleva is a frustrating guy to play against. He's really good. No disrespect to Segar Bonifant or the West Liberty fans, but he's a better player than Bonifant was. There's no debate on that. He handles the ball like a guard, uses his size like a big man. Faster than Bonifant, bigger, more finesse moves, better power game, tremendous rebounder. There's really nothing you can do on him to limit his game at this level.

And he's a high energy guy that plays with a lot of emotion. That's evident. And those guys, when they aren't on your team and are torching you like he was today, they're giant pains in the asses to play against. It seemed like all of the extracurriculars really fueled him today. All of the post whistle scrums, the fact that he was public enemy number one in that building when he touched the ball. It motivated him. And boy, does it seem like he really embraces that role of the villain. He taunted the IUP crowd every trip back down the court. At times it seemed like he was more interested in wagging his tongue at the crowd after draining a 3 than he was at getting back on defense. Not everybody can play the role of the villain and create that identify for yourself and be the best player on the floor in multiple facets of the game. Tremendous player.

Ship will be a tough out next week.


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[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: Iup basketball

Tom's entire roster (plus the addition of Audrey Stapleton) returns next year. IUP Catholic is going to be pretty powerful.

Re: Iup basketball

Congratulations to the iup women on their tournament win. I told you tom was doing a great job. I have been very vocal about mazzante coming to Gannon. If a school was going to go in a different direction with a new coach, how long after the season does a school typically wait before letting them go.

Re: Iup basketball

Mansfield isn't really d2 is it?

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: Iup basketball

Hey, look, the moron troll is back.

Maybe so, Troll man, ... how's your WCU and Mansfield boys doing? Getting ready for the banquets?

[Horror Child]

Re: Iup basketball

This group is very close but just seems to be missing something when the lights get bright. Maybe it's that DeVante Chance-type leader and grit/swagger. There's something to this team. The region's best teams can't put them away. Something is just a little off.

Drake, Chicago St, Harford, Shenanndoah, Lackawanna, Quinnipiac - maybe it's meshing issues??

[CALUPA69]

Re: Iup basketball

"IUP Women should feel very thankful they got Cal at the end of the season, when 28 ppg. were missing from their lineup..."


Geez ... Lenny Williams come to mind ... we know the feeling. It sucks for Cal but it's part of the game.

A 3rd PSAC would have been nice, but when you switch from the most veteran team to a much younger team, it's bound to affect your play. But for no reason I can figure CALU still gets to host.....at HAMER HALL 😀

[ironmaniup]

Re: Iup basketball

Saturday was a lot to digest. Here are my 'clearer mind' comments:

* IUP could lose to Kutztown or win the Regional. Neither would totally surprise me at this point.
* This pattern of digging themselves in to these giant holes in big games is hard to figure out -- Ship's blown two 20-point, second half leads to IUP.
* The comebacks they keep routinely making are also hard to figure out ... what is changing? They did it to Ship twice and Fairmont (not exactly easy teams to mount giant comebacks against)
* Ship (both games) had a field day with wide-open three point shots ... why? You could argue it was due to Sleva underneath but he did whatever he wanted anyway.
* Ship shot the lights out percentage-wise but getting that many open looks surely makes it a little easier to shoot at those percentages
* Ship's guards have had field days in both games
* Despite all this both Ship games were there to win at the end (somehow)
* IUP's press was largely ineffective for much of the game yet they stayed in it for so long. They've struggled both games playing a run-n-gun with Ship.
* Cottrell getting that second foul so, so early was just a total killer
* Not sure how many tuned in yesterday but Kutztown played Ship much differently defensively than how Joe did
* Hutton has to start bringing more production to the table. His stat line was non-existent Saturday.
* Ship was just the hungrier team for the first 33 minutes. They played with a chip and had an unreal high level of intensity.
* Fite has pulled some big WPIAL talent from the West's backyard
* Obviously Dante can't bust out another 2-18 from the field. He seemed pretty rattled.
* Ship did a tremendous job altering IUP's offense and limiting the ability to pass the ball around as they like to do
* That game was Malik Miller's true coming out party. He brought the spark and toughness/attitude the team was desperately lacking most of the game. He'd been reserved most of the season. It was nice to see but at the same time why is a freshman the one lighting the spark?
* Dramatic comebacks have been exciting and all but IUP is 1-3 (all at home) against regional level teams -- and a converted Hutton air-ball away from 0-4.

This group is very close but just seems to be missing something when the lights get bright. Maybe it's that DeVante Chance-type leader and grit/swagger. There's something to this team. The region's best teams can't put them away. Something is just a little off.

Nobody remembers conference tournaments. The games that count start this weekend.

Lots of good points. Though after seeing Ship against KU, I have to say they played much better against IUP. IUP's shooting has been horrible at times, with Dante leading the way on Saturday. As far as what's "off", I don't know for sure either. It seems that no one wants to be the guy that takes the winning shot. They hesitate

But I agree, losing in the first round or winning the region, equal possibilities.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: Iup basketball

"IUP Women should feel very thankful they got Cal at the end of the season, when 28 ppg. were missing from their lineup..."


Geez ... Lenny Williams come to mind ... we know the feeling. It sucks for Cal but it's part of the game.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: Iup basketball

Saturday was a lot to digest. Here are my 'clearer mind' comments:

* IUP could lose to Kutztown or win the Regional. Neither would totally surprise me at this point.
* This pattern of digging themselves in to these giant holes in big games is hard to figure out -- Ship's blown two 20-point, second half leads to IUP.
* The comebacks they keep routinely making are also hard to figure out ... what is changing? They did it to Ship twice and Fairmont (not exactly easy teams to mount giant comebacks against)
* Ship (both games) had a field day with wide-open three point shots ... why? You could argue it was due to Sleva underneath but he did whatever he wanted anyway.
* Ship shot the lights out percentage-wise but getting that many open looks surely makes it a little easier to shoot at those percentages
* Ship's guards have had field days in both games
* Despite all this both Ship games were there to win at the end (somehow)
* IUP's press was largely ineffective for much of the game yet they stayed in it for so long. They've struggled both games playing a run-n-gun with Ship.
* Cottrell getting that second foul so, so early was just a total killer
* Not sure how many tuned in yesterday but Kutztown played Ship much differently defensively than how Joe did
* Hutton has to start bringing more production to the table. His stat line was non-existent Saturday.
* Ship was just the hungrier team for the first 33 minutes. They played with a chip and had an unreal high level of intensity.
* Fite has pulled some big WPIAL talent from the West's backyard
* Obviously Dante can't bust out another 2-18 from the field. He seemed pretty rattled.
* Ship did a tremendous job altering IUP's offense and limiting the ability to pass the ball around as they like to do
* That game was Malik Miller's true coming out party. He brought the spark and toughness/attitude the team was desperately lacking most of the game. He'd been reserved most of the season. It was nice to see but at the same time why is a freshman the one lighting the spark?
* Dramatic comebacks have been exciting and all but IUP is 1-3 (all at home) against regional level teams -- and a converted Hutton air-ball away from 0-4.

This group is very close but just seems to be missing something when the lights get bright. Maybe it's that DeVante Chance-type leader and grit/swagger. There's something to this team. The region's best teams can't put them away. Something is just a little off.

Nobody remembers conference tournaments. The games that count start this weekend.

[IUPalum]

Re: Iup basketball

IUP Women should feel very thankful they got Cal at the end of the season, when 28 ppg. were missing from their lineup...

AND the just shut award was given!!! You can say that about a lot of teams when injuries happen. No validity here, injuries happen in sports!!!

[WarriorVoice]

Re: Iup basketball

Oddity from the weekend:

The two schools that hosted the men's & women's PSAC final fours both won PSAC titles. But neither school won the final four that they hosted. Ship men won at IUP; IUP women won at Ship.

IUP Women should feel very thankful they got Cal at the end of the season, when 28 ppg. were missing from their lineup...

[Golden89]

Re: Iup basketball

Oddity from the weekend:

The two schools that hosted the men's & women's PSAC final fours both won PSAC titles. But neither school won the final four that they hosted. Ship men won at IUP; IUP women won at Ship.

[Chuck Norris]

Re: Iup basketball

If you checked out the MEC final you saw just why you don't bet against West Lib or trust any other MEC team when it really counts. So I think we can pencil in IUP vs Kutztown in the 4/5 matchup. Top 3 is the big question. Fairmont won the MEC regular season has just 2 losses, won at IUP. West Lib beat Fairmont twice, won MEC tournament. Ship beat IUP twice KU twice, only losses came when Antonio Kellem was hurt. Very interesting.

[IUP24]

Re: Iup basketball

It's tough. Look at the MEC games in Charleston drawing terrible. This year it just worked out poorly with two west teams playing in the east and two east teams playing in the West.

It cost the conference a lot of revenue today.

The Bryce Jordan Center at PSU would be the neutral site but why play with a 5% capacity crowd.

The reality is that this could easily be solved. The conference (and maybe the schools) don't want to add one more trip into the week. That's the issue. If you had the top 6 make it in each division, it's simple. Your first round is on a Saturday where you play the 3-6/4-5 games. Come back on Tuesday with the 1s playing the lowest remaining seed and then the 2s play the other winner. Thursday or Friday would be your semifinals. Saturday or Sunday would be your championship. The top seed hosts every game. Alternate hosting rights between the east and the west every year. That's a simple solution. If you aren't a 1 or 2 seed you have to play that same number of games, but you only have one less road trip if you make it to Sunday under the current format. What I just proposed gives you the same number of games, the same length for a Championship Week, but just spreads it out to allow one more road trip.

That's what most of the very small mid-major D1 conferences do.