For all info on D-1 basketball please go to Crawford's Court, every Monday and Thursday at CSNNW.com.
Here is a little info on D-3, NAIA, Community College and Multnomah University. Next week I will cover the GNAC playoffs in depth.
Cascade Conference---The regular season is over and the playoffs begin on Wednesday night. Once again it was a great year for Oregon Tech, but also a great year for Northwest University. Both teams tied for the regular season title, but OIT got the number 1 seed.
Here are the first round of the playoffs, which begin on February 22nd. College of Idaho at OIT, Concordia at Northwest, Southern Oregon at Warner Pacific and Corban at Eastern Oregon. If you are in the area of any of these schools please go out and watch some good basketball.
Congrats also to Scott Meredith on the women's side for having an outstanding year, his team will play at Warner Pacific on Tuesday, February 21st in the first round of the women playoffs. Good year for Warner Pacific in both the men and women, being able to finish high enough to host first round playoff games.
Community College---A very good week for Clackamas Community College. Knocking off league leading Mt. Hood on Wednesday and defeating a good Lane team on Saturday night. The play of Taylor Dunn continues to be outstanding, along with some great help of many teammates including in the Lane game, terrific work by Brett Ball and Alex Lou.
Next Saturday will be the final home game for Clackamas, so I encourage all in the area to go out and watch as well. Clif Wegner has done an outstanding job once again of coaching the Cougars.
Northwest Conference----Congrats to the four teams that made the playoffs, which will be this Thursday when Lewis and Clark travels to league regular season winner Whitworth and Whitman comes across the state to battle Puget Sound.
Dinari Foreman has done a great job in his first year at Lewis and Clark, after replacing retired coaching legend Bob Gaillard, in getting the Pioneers into the playoffs.
It was a tough year for both Linfield and Pacific, but both teams are really young and will be much better next year. Congrats to seniors on Linfield, Zach Anderson and David Lee. Likewise to seniors at Pacific, Robb Babek and Carson Bartlett. Sadly, Bartlett missed the entire season with an injury, but I am sure the experience of being a graduate of Pacific will overcome that.
Multnomah University---A great win for Curt Bickley's Lions on Saturday over New Hope Chrisitan, securing the number one seed in the NCCAA regional this next week in Lancaster, California. It was great atmosphere at Multnomah for their final home game, which was homecoming.
Congrats also to the five seniors playing their last home game for the Lions, Brent Looyenga, Jared Reando, Gian Cook, Tyler Yates and Willey Yates.
Thanks for reading and also do not forget to go to CSNNW.com for Crawford's Court, but we always have the best Blazer and NBA coverage as well, with Chris Haynes and Dwight Jaynes.
Next year, I plan to really be the go to person for all D-2, D-3, NAIA, Community College and Multnomah basketball. We will be rolling out some surprises in the fall, which will be terrific and the coverage will be the best in basketball for these levels.
Emails always welcome at crawscorner@gmail.com and please go to twitter and follow me @wchoops and I will follow you back.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Week 6, The Other College Basketball People
In case you are reading this column for the first time today or you are a regular reader, this my attempt to bring some small attention to the schools in the Northwest who play basketball below the D-1 level. Of course I love all basketball, so not only this column, but I hope you will go often to CSNNW.com for my Crawford's Court blog, which appears there on Monday and Thursday. As many of you have done and I appreciate it very much, please feel free to send me after getting their permission, the email of anyone who might want to receive this.
Cascade Conference---It was another great week of basketball in what many think is the best basketball league in the NAIA. In order to be the champ, you have to beat the champ. It did not happen and with one week to go, Oregon Tech has a one game lead on the men's side, after a key victory on Saturday night over Northwest, who was tied with Oregon Tech for the league lead going into the game.
It was also a nice weekend for Warner Pacific as they swept at home defeating Northwest Christian University and Corban, to move into a second place tie with Northwest. Next week I will have all the seedings for postseason play.
On kind of sad note, you have to feel for Concordia coach Brad Barbarick, whose team has been decimated by injuries. Brad is truly one of the wonderful people in basketball coaching, has as one of his assistant's Larry Black, another true gentleman. Next week I will be listing several of the seniors on his team that will be going out in this world and making a major contribution to society after graduation, as will so many of these young men and women who play basketball in the Cascade Conference, who are student/athletes in the greatest form.
Northwest Conference---One week to go and all you can say is that once again Whitworth has dominated the league, hats off to them. It has been a tough year for the fans of Pacific and Linfield, many of them who are regular readers of this column. I also want to thank Blake Timm, the superb SID of Pacific University who often writes to me and puts out such a great professional product, which is a big help to myself.
GNAC---Another great basketball conference that plays on the D-2 level. With two weeks to go, the huge edge to win the GNAC title goes to Western Washington, after they beat second place Alaska Anchorage Thursday night 59-50. It should be lots of fun when the GNAC holds it postseason tournament at St. Martin's in Lacey Washington, starting on February 29th.
Community Colleges---It was fun game to see on Saturday night at Clackamas Community College, when the Cougars defeated Linn-Benton is a game that close the entire way. Clif Wegner has his team playing some great basketball, actually should have won both games this past week, but in something you rarely see in basketball they lost at Chemeketa on Wednesday night because of a scoring error. The Cougars actually won the game, 73-72, but in the first half, Chemeketa was credited with a basket they did not score and at the time the final score was 74-73. Sadly this should not happen in this day and age, but it did and tough loss for Clackamas and is not correctable.
One final note on the Saturday game, I am really puzzled why Joseph Vance did not start either half for Linn-Benton, which might have meant the difference in the game. Vance in my mind is the best player on Linn-Benton and one of the top ten players in the South Division, so to not play him all the time seems rather a mystery.
Multnomah University----Hey, let's pack the gym next Saturday for the final home game of the regular season for the Lions. The game starts at 3:00 p.m. and is a critical game for the number one seed against New Hope Christian College.
Multnomah is such an exciting team to watch and Curt Bickley does a great job of coaching his team each and every game.
Please do not forget to go to CSNNW.com often for all the latest in sports news and please feel free to email me crawscorner@gmail.com or on twitter @wchoops
Cascade Conference---It was another great week of basketball in what many think is the best basketball league in the NAIA. In order to be the champ, you have to beat the champ. It did not happen and with one week to go, Oregon Tech has a one game lead on the men's side, after a key victory on Saturday night over Northwest, who was tied with Oregon Tech for the league lead going into the game.
It was also a nice weekend for Warner Pacific as they swept at home defeating Northwest Christian University and Corban, to move into a second place tie with Northwest. Next week I will have all the seedings for postseason play.
On kind of sad note, you have to feel for Concordia coach Brad Barbarick, whose team has been decimated by injuries. Brad is truly one of the wonderful people in basketball coaching, has as one of his assistant's Larry Black, another true gentleman. Next week I will be listing several of the seniors on his team that will be going out in this world and making a major contribution to society after graduation, as will so many of these young men and women who play basketball in the Cascade Conference, who are student/athletes in the greatest form.
Northwest Conference---One week to go and all you can say is that once again Whitworth has dominated the league, hats off to them. It has been a tough year for the fans of Pacific and Linfield, many of them who are regular readers of this column. I also want to thank Blake Timm, the superb SID of Pacific University who often writes to me and puts out such a great professional product, which is a big help to myself.
GNAC---Another great basketball conference that plays on the D-2 level. With two weeks to go, the huge edge to win the GNAC title goes to Western Washington, after they beat second place Alaska Anchorage Thursday night 59-50. It should be lots of fun when the GNAC holds it postseason tournament at St. Martin's in Lacey Washington, starting on February 29th.
Community Colleges---It was fun game to see on Saturday night at Clackamas Community College, when the Cougars defeated Linn-Benton is a game that close the entire way. Clif Wegner has his team playing some great basketball, actually should have won both games this past week, but in something you rarely see in basketball they lost at Chemeketa on Wednesday night because of a scoring error. The Cougars actually won the game, 73-72, but in the first half, Chemeketa was credited with a basket they did not score and at the time the final score was 74-73. Sadly this should not happen in this day and age, but it did and tough loss for Clackamas and is not correctable.
One final note on the Saturday game, I am really puzzled why Joseph Vance did not start either half for Linn-Benton, which might have meant the difference in the game. Vance in my mind is the best player on Linn-Benton and one of the top ten players in the South Division, so to not play him all the time seems rather a mystery.
Multnomah University----Hey, let's pack the gym next Saturday for the final home game of the regular season for the Lions. The game starts at 3:00 p.m. and is a critical game for the number one seed against New Hope Christian College.
Multnomah is such an exciting team to watch and Curt Bickley does a great job of coaching his team each and every game.
Please do not forget to go to CSNNW.com often for all the latest in sports news and please feel free to email me crawscorner@gmail.com or on twitter @wchoops
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Week 5, The Other College Basketball People
This is once again my continuing efforts to get some small recognition for teams in the Northwest that play basketball on the D-2, D-3, NAIA and Community College level. Of course for all the news on D-1 basketball, I hope you will continue read Crawford's Court, which comes out every Monday and Thursday on CSNNW.com, the best sports website on the entire west coast.
Also please note, that this is just the tip of the iceberg as we finish out the 2011-12 basketball season. I already have a team in place to go big time with more information and the best website, radio interviews and much more when we get to the 2012-13 season when it comes to D-2, D-3, NAIA and Community College basketball in the Northwest. No one will be able to match what we are going to bring you for coverage of the people that have often been forgotten by many media outlets. We will be the go to people for basketball, without question.
Ok, here we go as we get down to crunch time in all of college basketball.
Multnomah University----Curt Bickley's Lions went 1-1 this past weekend, defeating Walla Walla University on Friday and then traveling to Eugene on Saturday and getting beat by New Hope Christian. Good battle this Tuesday as Multnomah travels to play their arch rival, Portland Bible College.
Multnomah has only two home games left, so I urge you to go to their website, check the schedule and go and watch an exciting team that loves the 3-ball and is so much fun to watch. I was raised on up-tempo basketball and will never ever not be a fan of teams of that score in the 100s as Multnomah does often.
Northwest Conference---It was great to see Tim Cleary's Pacific Boxers break their eight game slide and defeat Willamette on Saturday night. The Boxers have been plauged by injuries this year, so a win was just what the Doctor ordered. I still wish the Boxers would pull one of the greatest marketing moves the Northwest Conference has seen and change their nickname back to the Badgers. So Blake Timm, one of the best Sports Information Directors in the country, get going on my suggestion please.
It is no surprise that Whitworth will once again win the regular season championship in the NWC. Depsite losing their great coach Jim Hayford who left to over the head coaching job at Eastern Washington, the Pirates have not missed a beat this season and have lost only one league game so far, that being to Whitman.
Lastly on the NWC, congrats to longtime Linfield coach Larry Doty for surpassing Ted Wilson as the leader of all time wins at Linfield with 325. You can probably congratulate Larry in person as he is constantly out scouting and recruiting in the state of Oregon. Quite an accomplishment at a school with such a rich athletic tradition and I might add, my alma mater.
Community College---Clif Wegner's Clackamas Community College Cougars continue to surge as they won again on Saturday night, defeating SW Community College on the road. Wegner's team is playing the best ball they have played all year and face a tough week as they travel to Chemeketa on Wednesday and they return home on Saturday night to battle Linn-Benton, which is led by terrific player Joseph Vance.
It is worth noting about the Saturday night victory, seldom in basketball do you ever see a player score more points than minutes played, but the Cougar's Taylor Dunn accomplished that fete this past Saturday as he posted 34 points in just 32 minutes. No matter where Dunn goes to school next year, he is going to help whoever he plays for, it is really hard in this day and age to find a shooter like Dunn is.
CCC---Coaches never like to look ahead, but basketball writers have to and should. That is why the CCC championship just more than likely will come down to the February 11th match-up of Northwest traveling to Klamath Falls to meet OIT. The teams are tied atop the CCC at present and the showdown on Danny Miles court should be something. I also might add, I watch as much basketball as anyone in the country and I have not seen a player on any level play as hard this year as Bobby Hunter for OIT. He does not take one play off, either on the defensive or offensive end.
I am personally looking forward to seeing in person the Corban @Concordia game this coming Friday night on the Cavaliers campus. Brad Barbarick's Concordia team is fighting for playoff positioning and this game will be a key contest for Concordia. Of course the next night, Corban will travel to Warner Pacific to meet the Knights, in what is always a fun place to watch basketball, much like Concordia.
Before I leave the CCC, I would be remiss if I did not congratulate OIT women's coach Scott Meredith on winning 20 games so far this season. Anytime a college basketball team wins 20 games that is an accomplishment in itself.
GNAC---This is quite a league and is headed to a great finish, before the league goes to St Martin's later this month for their postseason tournament. It certainly is no surprise to see a Brad Jackson coached team on top of the league at this point in the season, as Western Washington leads Alaska Anchorage by one game, in an exciting race.
Worth noting as well, two new coaches in the league have had really good seasons thus far. Jamie Stevens is doing a wonderful job at Montana State University Billings as is Brady Bergeson at Western Oregon. Both of these coaches have really turned the programs around at their respective schools and deserve lots of credit.
So there you have another week of my covering "the other guys". If you have someone who would like to get this column by email, check with them first and then send me their email and they will get it automatically each week. Big things as mentioned before are coming from this column next year, but this year you still will get plenty of info. And please do not forget to go to CSNNW.com often to check not only Crawford's Court, but all the other great info on the website, the best as stated on the west coast.
I am always open to suggestions, comments, criticism, you name it by emailing me at crawscorner@gmail.com or you can follow me on twitter @wchoops.
Also please note, that this is just the tip of the iceberg as we finish out the 2011-12 basketball season. I already have a team in place to go big time with more information and the best website, radio interviews and much more when we get to the 2012-13 season when it comes to D-2, D-3, NAIA and Community College basketball in the Northwest. No one will be able to match what we are going to bring you for coverage of the people that have often been forgotten by many media outlets. We will be the go to people for basketball, without question.
Ok, here we go as we get down to crunch time in all of college basketball.
Multnomah University----Curt Bickley's Lions went 1-1 this past weekend, defeating Walla Walla University on Friday and then traveling to Eugene on Saturday and getting beat by New Hope Christian. Good battle this Tuesday as Multnomah travels to play their arch rival, Portland Bible College.
Multnomah has only two home games left, so I urge you to go to their website, check the schedule and go and watch an exciting team that loves the 3-ball and is so much fun to watch. I was raised on up-tempo basketball and will never ever not be a fan of teams of that score in the 100s as Multnomah does often.
Northwest Conference---It was great to see Tim Cleary's Pacific Boxers break their eight game slide and defeat Willamette on Saturday night. The Boxers have been plauged by injuries this year, so a win was just what the Doctor ordered. I still wish the Boxers would pull one of the greatest marketing moves the Northwest Conference has seen and change their nickname back to the Badgers. So Blake Timm, one of the best Sports Information Directors in the country, get going on my suggestion please.
It is no surprise that Whitworth will once again win the regular season championship in the NWC. Depsite losing their great coach Jim Hayford who left to over the head coaching job at Eastern Washington, the Pirates have not missed a beat this season and have lost only one league game so far, that being to Whitman.
Lastly on the NWC, congrats to longtime Linfield coach Larry Doty for surpassing Ted Wilson as the leader of all time wins at Linfield with 325. You can probably congratulate Larry in person as he is constantly out scouting and recruiting in the state of Oregon. Quite an accomplishment at a school with such a rich athletic tradition and I might add, my alma mater.
Community College---Clif Wegner's Clackamas Community College Cougars continue to surge as they won again on Saturday night, defeating SW Community College on the road. Wegner's team is playing the best ball they have played all year and face a tough week as they travel to Chemeketa on Wednesday and they return home on Saturday night to battle Linn-Benton, which is led by terrific player Joseph Vance.
It is worth noting about the Saturday night victory, seldom in basketball do you ever see a player score more points than minutes played, but the Cougar's Taylor Dunn accomplished that fete this past Saturday as he posted 34 points in just 32 minutes. No matter where Dunn goes to school next year, he is going to help whoever he plays for, it is really hard in this day and age to find a shooter like Dunn is.
CCC---Coaches never like to look ahead, but basketball writers have to and should. That is why the CCC championship just more than likely will come down to the February 11th match-up of Northwest traveling to Klamath Falls to meet OIT. The teams are tied atop the CCC at present and the showdown on Danny Miles court should be something. I also might add, I watch as much basketball as anyone in the country and I have not seen a player on any level play as hard this year as Bobby Hunter for OIT. He does not take one play off, either on the defensive or offensive end.
I am personally looking forward to seeing in person the Corban @Concordia game this coming Friday night on the Cavaliers campus. Brad Barbarick's Concordia team is fighting for playoff positioning and this game will be a key contest for Concordia. Of course the next night, Corban will travel to Warner Pacific to meet the Knights, in what is always a fun place to watch basketball, much like Concordia.
Before I leave the CCC, I would be remiss if I did not congratulate OIT women's coach Scott Meredith on winning 20 games so far this season. Anytime a college basketball team wins 20 games that is an accomplishment in itself.
GNAC---This is quite a league and is headed to a great finish, before the league goes to St Martin's later this month for their postseason tournament. It certainly is no surprise to see a Brad Jackson coached team on top of the league at this point in the season, as Western Washington leads Alaska Anchorage by one game, in an exciting race.
Worth noting as well, two new coaches in the league have had really good seasons thus far. Jamie Stevens is doing a wonderful job at Montana State University Billings as is Brady Bergeson at Western Oregon. Both of these coaches have really turned the programs around at their respective schools and deserve lots of credit.
So there you have another week of my covering "the other guys". If you have someone who would like to get this column by email, check with them first and then send me their email and they will get it automatically each week. Big things as mentioned before are coming from this column next year, but this year you still will get plenty of info. And please do not forget to go to CSNNW.com often to check not only Crawford's Court, but all the other great info on the website, the best as stated on the west coast.
I am always open to suggestions, comments, criticism, you name it by emailing me at crawscorner@gmail.com or you can follow me on twitter @wchoops.
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