Thursday, December 8, 2011

Double Dribbles- 12-8-11

1) It was a rough night for the SoCon last night. Every team put up a valiant effort against a favored foe, but none were able to come away with wins in the end. Davidson's game against Vanderbilt was critical to the perception of the SoCon and to Davidson's at large chances come NCAA Tournament time. They dominated the first eight minutes and the last eight minutes, winning those stretches by 20 points. The middle 24 minutes they lost by 24, and got beat by four points on their home floor. The Wildcats now will rely heavily on beating Kansas at Kansas in a couple of weeks to have any shot at all at an at large bid to the NCAA Tournament. This is very unfortunate, because that was a good performance in coming back against the Commodores.

2) Samford and Western Carolina both lead at halftime, and Samford was able to take Mercer to overtime before succumbing to a Bears team that has been playing very well. The Bulldogs are not a particularly good SoCon team, but they made some threes last night to show that if they are hot shooting, they can be a tough out after all. Western Carolina was leading at Purdue last night before losing to the Boilermakers by five. That makes two Big Ten teams in two nights that teams from the North have put a scare into (Appalachian State against Minnesota Tuesday night). Maybe the SoCon North is starting to come around a bit with some of these performances. They have been badly outmatched so far this year, but maybe things are starting to look up.

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