2015-16 NCC Men's Basketball Preview

This weekend features the annual Chicago Marriott Naperville Tip Off Tournament, and there's something notable missing... I have yet to preview the NCC men. This year is the first time I've dedicated a full post to each team, which seems fairer than splitting one post between the two. More so, I felt the women's team deserved their fair share of attention, given how connected I was to last year's squad.

This is Year Two of me pulling double duty at Merner Fieldhouse, and this year's men's team is an intriguing prospect. They will have to find a new identity to some degree, but there are good pieces in place for the upcoming campaign. Let's take a look.

2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 12

Buckle in. This one could get heated.

We're onto one of the final weeks of the college football season, but this one is probably the most controversial of all the weeks that I do a Non-Conference Schedule Strength rankings. And really, it's mostly Nick Saban's and Greg Sankey's fault. But more on that later.

If you read last week's post,  you may remember it being formatted weird. I've fixed it now though and it should be working okay. Otherwise, things stayed the same: the Group of Five conferences have the toughest non-conference schedules and there are a ton of cupcakes amongst the Power Five. Don't let delusion Alabama fans claim otherwise.

So below, I will take a look at the non-conference games for this week by conference. They will get a score for the week, which then gets added to their cumulative season total. Here's the updated rankings.

2015 Death to the BCS Playoffs: Week 11 Mock Bracket

I thought last week's bracket was going to be hard. It's just getting harder and harder as we go further into the season.

There are only five undefeated teams left in college football, which means as I'm looking into filling the bracket and seeding these teams, I have to really look at teams with blemishes on their records. It makes things much more complicated and controversial.

So before I dig into this, if you're new to Confessions of a Sportscaster or have never read the brilliant book pictured to the left by Wetzel, Peter and Passan, here's how the Death to the BCS Playoffs work: this is a 16-team bracket. Ten spots go to the champions of each conference as an automatic qualifier to put to bed this nonsense of elitism rampant among the Power Five conferences, while the six remaining spots go to at large teams. These teams are seeded 1-16, with home field advantage going to the higher seed in each of the first three rounds. This is designed to incentivize the regular season, contrary to the morons who feel like a playoff cheapens it.

So how do the teams get selected and seeded? I use a fairly organic process, but rely on four major metrics: my NCSS and Playoff Points rankings, and then the computer rankings compiled by Jeff Sagarin and a UCLA faculty member using the formula created by the late David Rothman.

Hopefully that answers any questions you may have, at least for now. Without further ado, here is the third mock bracket for this year's Death to the BCS Playoffs.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 11

We're getting down towards the end of the regular season here, and every game is becoming more and more critical. This should be the case in every conference on a national scale though, but the corrupt powers that be are still being elitists. That won't stop me from a look around the country again today.

We're down another undefeated team to just five remaining after 11 weeks of action. Last week's dropoff was bigger, but several one loss teams lost a second game this week as well, which will have implications that I will get into later.

For now, I'm focusing in on results, and how it impacts the Playoff Points race. I'll have an updated look by conference after the jump, and after that conference look, I'll update the leaders across the country. If you need a refresher on how Playoff Points work, you can refer back to my Week 1 post.

Game Notes: Calvin College @ North Central College (11/13/15)

Final Score
Calvin 106, NCC 80

Game Summary
It was a tough opening night for the Cardinals (0-1), who were able to keep pace for the first few minutes and held a 13-10 advantage partway through he first quarter, but the Knights (1-0) rallied back to take control and led 28-20 after one quarter. Calvin would build a double digit lead partway through the second, but a Cardinal rally cut the deficit to 42-39. Calvin would score the next 11 points before NCC answered to pull back within eight at the intermission. It all fell apart in the third though, as after a three point play 20 seconds in, the Cardinals wouldn't score for almost five minutes and the Knights hit shot after shot to turn this one into a laugher. They took their foot off the gas in the fourth, but the Cardinals couldn't rally to make the final more respectable.

Key Stats

• Calvin: Outscored NCC 32-11 in the 3rd quarter. The box score doesn't have an official count, but my math says NCC shot 4-21 in the third quarter, including 0-11 from deep. Meanwhile, Calvin shot 13-23 in the frame to pull away.
• Ali Spayde (Calvin): 10-18 FG (6-9 3PT); 26 pets, 3 reb (1 off), 8 ast, 3 stl. Holy crap. We kept marveling at Spayde's shooting last night, as she got red hot in that third quarter, and she knew it. The crazy part is that she wasn't just gunning. Her threes were in the flow of the offense and she kept dishing to find her open teammates. It was her game last night, and she led Calvin to a good win.
• Anna Timmer (Calvin): 10-14 FG (2-2 3PT), 3-4 FT; 25 pts, 16 reb (5 off), 4 ast. I feel like Timmer went under the radar with Spayde's shooting. Timmer got plenty of open looks and dominated the glass as well, helping minimize the Cardinals' chances while giving her team some extra looks... Not that they needed them.

North Central System Watch

• NCC 3PT: 12-62 (19.4%). It was just one of those nights where the shots weren't falling. They hit eight of 34 in the first half, good for about a 23.5 percent clip, but then went ice cold in the third quarter and stretching well into the fourth before regression to the mean allowed for a few more.
• Calvin Turnovers: 35. Seeing this number, honestly, shocked me, especially when the Cardinals only had 23. Calvin had some struggles with the press and made some bad passes while getting whistled for multiple travels and the like. They also got whistled for a five second in bounding violation. The Cardinals did manage 18 steals on the night, led by four apiece for Erica Buck, Michaela Reedy and Paula Zerante.
• NCC Charges Drawn: 2. Anita Sterling defended her crown admirably, drawing a pair of charges in the first half. She arguably could have had another but was probably in the circle when she was hit. Calvin did a great job adjusting after the fact though.

Final Thoughts
Ultimately, I just have to tip my cap to Calvin. I knew they were good, but it's different when you see them in person. They took advantage of their open looks and earned the win. For the Cardinals, I don't want to overreact to one game, but I think they over relied on the three last night, even if they struggled with layups as well. It was kind of a rude awakening to the year, but to their credit, they didn't give up. Hopefully they'll take from this experience and build on their successes. I'd like to see more of an inside game to take pressure off the shooters.

Overall, a rough game, but just one of 25. They'll be back in action on Friday for the Tip Off Tournament, and I'll have a preview piece on that this week.

2015-16 NCC Women's Basketball Preview

Today begins one of the most fun times of the year for me. Gyms will be filled, floors will be shined, and thousands of players will set foot into these gyms filled with the hope that every new season brings. For me, I've had eight or nine months for my vocal cords to recover, just in time to do it all over again for my fifth season.

In prior years, I have done one combined season preview for both the men's and women's basketball teams at North Central College. Partially because the schedule doesn't align, but also partially because I continue to believe that each team deserves its own post, I'm separating the two this year, and with the schedule being weird this season, we get to cover the women first.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 10

The status quo amongst the coalition was maintained last week, and we're well into the second half of the season as our NFL picks against the spread continue.

Adam and I had our greatest groupthink week maybe ever last week, and we split the two games we disputed, but we overall had an awful week. With eight weeks to go, Adam maintains his ten game lead on me, but his lead over the other folks has narrowed. My dad opted to go all home teams this week in a desperate shake up move, and it worked, giving him the win for Week 9, but he's still trailing Adam by nine games.

This week, Adam and I disagree on seven games. Let's see if I can pull off a second half comeback.