Dribblings 2/23/2005 (Justify My Thug Edition)

By Kyle Whelliston on February 23, 2005 8:16 AM | Permalink

Mid-Continent: Missouri-Kansas City 77, Oral Roberts 70 (story) - In front of a roaring partisan paid attendance of 7,132, UMKC (15-9, 11-2 MidCon) held off the visitors in what the Kansas City Star pegged as "the most important game in its 18-year Division I era." After a seesaw opening to the second half, the Kangaroos bounded to a 10-0 run highlighted by some crowd-pleasin' Globetrottin' skywalkin'. This aerial display infuriated Oral Roberts to the point that these two unlikely rivals scored a double-technical as time slipped away. Quinton Day led the 'Roos with 22, and former MMBOW Brandon Temple chipped in with 19. UMKC now has a half-game lead in the standings - should they need it, they also own a one-seed tiebreaker over ORU by virtue of the season sweep.

Atlantic 10: St. Joseph's 63, Temple 56 (story) - In yet another storied chapter of Big Five history, John Chaney sent thug benchwarmer Nehemiah Ingram into the game to protest what he felt were moving Hawk picks. "I was sending a message," Chaney told the media afterwards. "I sent in my goon." 'Least he's honest.

Ingram did exactly as instructed - he fouled out in four minutes, landing two blows to Joe senior Pat Carroll's forehead in the process. The Greeks have a saying - egine Louis - which means to "become as like Spiridon Louis," fast like the winner of the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896. Now, Philadelphians have egine Ingram to describe someone who runs around throwing elbows.

Shootaround!

Ivy: The Yale-Brown Scale isn't something you want to score high on, but it's a lot harder to obsess over Ivy League results after the two I-95 travel partners clashed in Eliland. Yale (9-13, 5-4 Ivy) had been mounting a run at league-leading Pennsylvania with four straight wins, but a 70-64 loss to underachieving 3-6 Brown at home ended that. The Quakers are now two and a half games up on the field with five games left.

Mid-Continent: There's the top of the league - where Eagles (and Kangaroos) dare - but IUPUI (15-10, 9-5 MidCon) is silently putting it together at the right time. They dusted Chicago State last night 90-62 for their fifth win in a row, and will finish up the regular season next Monday at home against those Oral Robertses. A win there would give Rod Hunter's squad plenty of momentum for another March run.

Game! Of! The! Night!

In the Valley, Southern Illinois (22-6, 12-3 MVC) defends their home court against a Panther attack from Northern Iowa (19-8, 9-6 MVC). Both teams are hot - the homestanding Salukis have won five in a row dating back to the schools' first meeting, a 67-61 Panther win at the UNIDome. Defending MVC champions Northern Iowa has won three straight, and will close out the schedule with three games in six days. Game starts at 8:05 Eastern, and you can listen along here.

Or, if you prefer, there's a Mid-American East division one-two matchup between 11-3 Miami (Oh.) and 9-5 Akron. Some would say that the Bubble line is all but visible between Akron and third-place Buffalo (17-7, 9-6 MAC, 4 straight wins), and Miami - winners against Wichita State in the Bracket Buster - is a strong finish away from being written in pen on Selection Committee clipboards.

It's bad enough that Greensboro News & Record columnist Rod Daniels is careless with his research about northern towns, but he can't swing a simile lead either. I just want to make it clear that provisional D1 Longwood does not field a team that doubles as a lounge act. Scribes who pull cheap laughs by beating down small-college basketball (and who get paid for it) deserve to suffer, and I propose that Mr. Daniels be stripped of his column and forced to serve out a year filing three stories a day about the North Carolina-Greensboro Spartans. It would be a start.

This came out when I was at Western Kentucky last week, but the Sun Belt Conference issued a statement, based on research, that concluded that Arkansas-Little Rock coach Steve Shields really actually didn't attack a fan during a recent game with rival Arkansas State, as local papers reported the day after. CollegeInsider's Matt Drake investigated further: "For starters, the AP report was filed by someone who wasnâ€™t even in attendance." Remember, kids, bad reporting hurts.

Because this site isn't on paper (although I hear at least a couple of people print out the Dribblings to read on the train - how do they click on the links?), errors are usually fixed pretty quickly. And as the traffic continues to increase around here, I get a lot of e-mailed questions about the site. I unfortunately don't have time to answer each one, so some may become flustered, think that I don't care, and stop reading. But I do care. That's why I finally put together the Mid-Majority gloss and primer, a living document that will hopefully answer new recruits' queries about the constantly-evolving terminology and cast.

Yes, I've written about it.