GNAC play begins with a bang

[northernGNAChoopfan]

If you guys get the chance to go to a Concordia game this season or see them play on the road, you should go see, if for nothing else, to see their new coaches in action; they are hysterical and very hard to dislike. They are almost never in their coaching box, but they are so well-intentioned, they get away with being at half court most of the time. Crazy game in Fairbanks; Concordia doesn't even put their players on the blocks to rebound when they are shooting free throws (I found that strange), but apparently, they shoot free throws at such a good clip, they don't need to. They played some stifling defense that was really making it hard to score on, but eventually that defense got the better of them when they fouled out some of their top players with a couple of over-times still to go.

Does anyone know about the new "flopping rule"? We had "flop warnings" twice on Thursday called and then a technical on a flop too. Have never seen that before, but think it would be great to start strongly discouraging the flop.

Should I say I'm cautiously a little optimistic about the Nooks? Nah. Everything I saw is wrong these days, so I should just keep being a scrooge.

[tsull]

Fun games in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Alaska Teams both pulled out OT Ws.

Went to the UAA vs WOU game, first half neither team could hit a shot. In the 2nd neither it seemed could miss. WOU got up 7 with two and a half to go in OT, UAA finally got some stops and won it on a Jack McDonald 3 ball at the buzzer for the 88-86 win. Great game, hated to see either team lose. Both squads came to battle and they did. Both teams made huge plays down the stretch in regulation and OT. No one should hang their head after that one.

Great report, thanks. Sounds like an awesome game, glad to see that Western Oregon played a little bit better on Saturday. Early concerns about the new coach is lack of attention to defense. They've been giving up a lot of points to a lot of teams. Nevertheless UAA is tough to beat anywhere especially on their home court.

Interesting night for the GNAC, looks like Saint Martin's is the real deal and made a really good hire as their coach. NNU is struggling. Fairbanks looks like they might be pretty tough this year.

[northernGNAChoopfan]

Great report, thanks. Sounds like an awesome game, glad to see that Western Oregon played a little bit better on Saturday. Early concerns about the new coach is lack of attention to defense. They've been giving up a lot of points to a lot of teams. Nevertheless UAA is tough to beat anywhere especially on their home court.

Interesting night for the GNAC, looks like Saint Martin's is the real deal and made a really good hire as their coach. NNU is struggling. Fairbanks looks like they might be pretty tough this year.

I wouldn't worry too much at this point Tsull. WOU will get the Alaska schools at home for the final week of play and it will be revenge time. If nothing else, it could make for a really exciting showdown in late February when they'll be poised for righting their disastrous trip to Alaska. The only thing that looks truly worrisome for the Wolves is that they are getting basically nothing in production from their bench in both AK games, and would agree with you that the attention to detail that Shaw typically coached into his plays, players, and games may not be at the same level now. But it's early; I don't think we can conclude that much from the weekend, accept that UAA is better than last year and WOU and UAF had surprising results this weekend.

SMU winning two on the road is the other notable surprise this weekend too, I would think. Hope everyone hits the books hard and can make grades and get ready for 2020. It'll be interesting to see where NNU and CWU go from here. Both taking consecutive losses at home the first week; but potentially against teams worthy of taking those losses to? We'll have to wait and see. MSUB is not looking as good as I had thought; last year they seemed to be dancing on the line of being a league contender and this year they look like a one-man show with Howard lighting it up every night but not much else.

[tsull]

I wouldn't worry too much at this point Tsull. WOU will get the Alaska schools at home for the final week of play and it will be revenge time. If nothing else, it could make for a really exciting showdown in late February when they'll be poised for righting their disastrous trip to Alaska. The only thing that looks truly worrisome for the Wolves is that they are getting basically nothing in production from their bench in both AK games, and would agree with you that the attention to detail that Shaw typically coached into his plays, players, and games may not be at the same level now. But it's early; I don't think we can conclude that much from the weekend, accept that UAA is better than last year and WOU and UAF had surprising results this weekend.

SMU winning two on the road is the other notable surprise this weekend too, I would think. Hope everyone hits the books hard and can make grades and get ready for 2020. It'll be interesting to see where NNU and CWU go from here. Both taking consecutive losses at home the first week; but potentially against teams worthy of taking those losses to? We'll have to wait and see. MSUB is not looking as good as I had thought; last year they seemed to be dancing on the line of being a league contender and this year they look like a one-man show with Howard lighting it up every night but not much else.

Thanks Northern, great post. WOU lost two and I won't make excuses, but do think if Etan Collins and recruit Gant were available they might be playing better ... probably would've still lost both games, but their presence would've helped and in turn provided needed bench help. Correct, they are not getting much off the bench this season.

Where are they? In D2 fashion, who knows? Same with Jayden Bezzant of NNU, he's in sweats, don't know if he plays this year or not. If he doesn't, it's going to be a very long year for NNU, they don't have the players and he's by far their best player.

I think both Alaska schools will be tough outs this year; UAA is always good and UAF has a superstar, potential player of the year candidate, that helps any program.