UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

[northernGNAChoopfan]

Great rivalry game in Fairbanks this afternoon. No team lead by more than 6 points in the game. That's gotta feel good to Sparling to get a win over UAA in his first try as a Nook. I thought the game was very tight the entire time, but the last 5 minutes, UAA was kinda wrapping it up and UAF made a few unfortunate and timely mistakes and found themselves down by 5 with 11 seconds left but were dynamite on the FT line down the stretch which was incidentally where UAA struggled on the day. Otherwise stats were very even all the way around to reflect the tight game. 68-67 was the final score and was won on 3 FTs by Sweet after being fouled on a 3 with basically no time left. He hit all 3 with no hesitation. The previous 4 FTs in the final seconds by the Nooks they went 3 out of 4 with an intentional miss while procuring the rebound on the intentional miss and earning a jump ball off that rebound to set up the final 3 point play. Great game and great way for the Nooks to go into their almost 5 week long winter break.

[northernGNAChoopfan]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

Great article in the Fairbanks paper today on the win: http://www.newsminer.com/sports/one-...ca72d4649.html

Oh, Rusty... Tough to lose with grace, huh? He sure does make it very easy to root against the Seawolves. I watched the final foul on the video stream again after the game. Sweet was definitely fouled before the buzzer went off Rusty... It wasn't the refs "handing it to us". In fact, reffing was rough for us the whole game with Kluting only playing 16 mins due to foul trouble and every block/charge call going UAAs way despite some pretty tough calls to make there. I thought the reffing was kinda painful, but painful for both teams. The last call, heck the last 2 calls were not the problem for the Seawolves; the combo of Karlberg missing the front end of a 1 and 1, Rymer's fouling Baham without letting any time expire, Berg fouling Sweet on that three, and UAF's FT shooting was UAA's problem, as well as a perfect intentional FT miss and rebound by Potts-Woods & Glover. And a "never die" attitude that Sparling and Brown have instilled at UAF. Those were the problems for UAA, along with, potentially, Rusty, who many refs would've T'ed up at some point in the last minute of the game and sealed the deal for the Nooks there too... Great afternoon for the Nooks and like Sparling says in the article; there is a lot of potential for a fun and much better team to develop this winter~they've come so far in the last 5 or 6 weeks of play.

For UAA, I was most impressed with Berg, who as he always has been, is still a great rebounder, but he's also much more comfortable on offense now and looking to score much more readily. I thought Dowell (Keenan?) also looks to have a huge upside as he is really leggy, and fast. Bevins and Brimhall look smooth, but were otherwise a little underwhelming and definitely did not dictate too much. UAA has some potential, but they did not look like a tight team yet and so seem to have a lot of room to improve as well...

[tsull]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

Big, early signature win for Sparling! Making 3 straight FT's at the end of the game is not easy.

[MrGNAC]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

Great article in the Fairbanks paper today on the win: http://www.newsminer.com/sports/one-...ca72d4649.html

Oh, Rusty... Tough to lose with grace, huh? He sure does make it very easy to root against the Seawolves. I watched the final foul on the video stream again after the game. Sweet was definitely fouled before the buzzer went off Rusty... It wasn't the refs "handing it to us". In fact, reffing was rough for us the whole game with Kluting only playing 16 mins due to foul trouble and every block/charge call going UAAs way despite some pretty tough calls to make there. I thought the reffing was kinda painful, but painful for both teams. The last call, heck the last 2 calls were not the problem for the Seawolves; the combo of Karlberg missing the front end of a 1 and 1, Rymer's fouling Baham without letting any time expire, Berg fouling Sweet on that three, and UAF's FT shooting was UAA's problem, as well as a perfect intentional FT miss and rebound by Potts-Woods & Glover. And a "never die" attitude that Sparling and Brown have instilled at UAF. Those were the problems for UAA, along with, potentially, Rusty, who many refs would've T'ed up at some point in the last minute of the game and sealed the deal for the Nooks there too... Great afternoon for the Nooks and like Sparling says in the article; there is a lot of potential for a fun and much better team to develop this winter~they've come so far in the last 5 or 6 weeks of play.

For UAA, I was most impressed with Berg, who as he always has been, is still a great rebounder, but he's also much more comfortable on offense now and looking to score much more readily. I thought Dowell (Keenan?) also looks to have a huge upside as he is really leggy, and fast. Bevins and Brimhall look smooth, but were otherwise a little underwhelming and definitely did not dictate too much. UAA has some potential, but they did not look like a tight team yet and so seem to have a lot of room to improve as well...

Looked like the end of the game was chaotic... were you there?

[northernGNAChoopfan]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

Looked like the end of the game was chaotic... were you there?

I don't miss games for much man, of course I was there (although I'm critical, I bleed blue and gold). Chaotic... yep, it was.

[Rob_AK]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

I watched the replay of the last shot a couple of times. My main observation was that it was not a foul in the act of shooting. The shot had been made and his feet were back on the floor before Berg brushed his legs. Probably should have been a one and one at most. On a last second shot where the "foul" did not affect the shot in the least, kind of chicken**** to have the ref give them an additional bite at the apple. But "oh well" I guess they probably felt sorry for the Fbx folks. Enjoy it - might be another 4 or 5 years til you get another.

[northernGNAChoopfan]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

Rob, we're never going to agree on controversial calls. I've seen fouls on three point shots called for a lot less, but again, you will disagree. You're probably right, the refs were worried about my mental health when they made that call, yeah, that's it. Yeah, we might have to wait another 4 years; it's a possibility (which is why we have to celebrate when we get em). In the end, since we have been disagreeing on here, I always thought I was a fairly gracious loser time and time again, even when Anchorage won by 1 point, or 2 points (and yeah, there was NEVER a controversial call made in favor of UAA in all of those games, right?), so you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little happy and a little sick of Rusty running his trap. The way I see it is that everything went wrong for the Seawolves in the last 15 seconds in a way that probably happens once in ten years... The stats don't lie though, FTs killed them and when it mattered, the Nooks nailed the FTs. I truly don't think the refs gave it to us, cause if they wanted to give it to us, they would called a few less ticky-tacky fouls on Kluting so he could've done more damage than 14 pts and 11 rebounds in 16 minutes... Suck it up man, it'll only be a few months till you get another stab at beating up on the Nooks. Merry Christmas!

[lv2hoop]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

In the end, the winner of the game is the winner. Nobody cares about a controversial call unless it was something completely wrong.

[hoosierdaddy34]

[tsull]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

NCAA allots 10 scholarships in D2, I'd guess splitting it to 11 is the norm. Let's face it, your 9-10-11 players usually don't make huge impacts; and many deep bench scholarship guys in D-1 aren't very good. The rest of their roster? I'm not sure.

I like that Sparling raided the NWAACC for players -- he did so at CWU, too. While he will recruit in-state, Sparling will also successfully bring in good NWAACC players, he has deep connections there and it's paid off for him.

I could be way off here, but it seems like UAA's mass D-1 transfer experiment did not pay off and they were left scrambling. Didn't a few of those guys leave after one year? I'm not against D-1 drop-downs, you just gotta make sure they stick around.

To me, Sparling was a tremendous hire for UAF. Proven winner, who knows how to recruit.

[hoosierdaddy34]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

NCAA allots 10 scholarships in D2, I'd guess splitting it to 11 is the norm. Let's face it, your 9-10-11 players usually don't make huge impacts; and many deep bench scholarship guys in D-1 aren't very good. The rest of their roster? I'm not sure.

I like that Sparling raided the NWAACC for players -- he did so at CWU, too. While he will recruit in-state, Sparling will also successfully bring in good NWAACC players, he has deep connections there and it's paid off for him.

I could be way off here, but it seems like UAA's mass D-1 transfer experiment did not pay off and they were left scrambling. Didn't a few of those guys leave after one year? I'm not against D-1 drop-downs, you just gotta make sure they stick around.

To me, Sparling was a tremendous hire for UAF. Proven winner, who knows how to recruit.

Correct, most guys get a .6 or .7 at the D2 level. You see most teams carry 13 or 14 scholarship players. I think Alaska teams are realizing the best method is recruiting AK 4 year players and then fill in with drop downs or transfer based on need.

[northernGNAChoopfan]

Re: UAF bests UAA by 1 at the FT line

I agree with most of this, except this last part. I think it's a stretch now to call UAF better for the season based on a 1 point win... UAF has a long ways to go to be a top 6 team in the conference this year too, they just seem to be more on the path to that right now than UAA, but all it would take is a shift in momentum for both teams to change that.

Although I haven't pondered the UAA roster as you have, I agree in that it's unfinished and just doesn't yet come together like a team right now. There are risks no matter how you build your roster, but bringing in outside DI dropdowns into a team with local in-state freshman, you might be running into the issue of team cohesion. There are some UAA players who are sticking with it, but they've lost a lot of local and DI dropdowns to premature exits in recent years, making it hard to build a team with any gel to each other or continuity. It's early season, but it'll be interesting to see where their philosophy goes. They might be a different product in a few months and they will probably have better shooting nights than they had in Montana and Fairbanks.

I don't know what Sparling's dream philosophy is, but I would agree, for little time, he managed to bring in some players that are starting to look like a team. I don't know if you guys watched this game, but believe me when I say that they have a long ways to go too; lots of room for improvement. They've played a lot of close games and I don't think they are going to get many big blow out wins, but they are showing some knack for squeezing out wins and some fire down the stretch. But it's a long season, they are probably going to have some more adversity and time will tell with them. While they will lose a few seniors at the close of this season, between the amount of Juniors now from Durham's group and JUCOs Sparling brought in, they will be a senior dominated team NEXT year. It'll be really interesting to see how Sparling does convincing local kids to come to Fairbanks as well as younger out of state kids too. Fairbanks is always an uphill battle when compared with Anchorage for many reasons (geography, size, weather, "gymnasium", etc); but if he can follow what Durham had arguably gotten going nicely in the last few years in signing Jalon McCullough, Alex Baham, and Michael Kluting to the Nooks, he'll be doing good.