Otter Watch in South-Central

March 8, 2012, was in many ways a disaster for college basketball. San Jose State and Nevada combining for 27 points in the first half? Ugh. Notre Dame and South Florida (both supposedly much better than SJSU and Nevada) combining for 36 points in the second half? Another ugh. Wyoming only scoring 11 in the first half? Still another ugh. The Big Slow and Pac-Slower playing games at all? The most emphatic ugh of all. On days like today, your correspondent feels like the only recourse is to do something drastic, to ignore all of these allegedly big-time basketball games, to instead do something random, something like, say, look for random mammals in Mesozoic rivers. Platypuses in the Hudson? Nah...marsupials are too elusive. Sea cows in the Choptank? Again, seems like an unlikely find, and I'm not sure the Choptank even really qualifies as a river (it's mostly just an estuary), let alone a Mesozoic river. Otters in the Susquehanna? That's more like it! It's time for an Otter Watch! in South-Central! And what that means, of course, is another installment of Number Three on Paper but Number One in Your Hearts!

Before I talk about the Otter Watch! in South-Central, though, I must first apologize to the Hotline: I wrote a whole post last week about the York and Franklin & Marshall men's hoopsters playing a first-round game at Meyser Center, and I never bothered to check and see how the York College women's basketball team was doing. Shame, shame on me.

It turns out, though, that they were doing quite well: 22-5, 14-2, and second place in the Capital Athletic Conference, behind still-undefeated and seventh-ranked Mary Washington. The Spartans lost by four to MW in the CAC finals but were nevertheless awarded for their season with a bid to the NCAAs, where in the first round they cruised past St. Vincent 86-66, in Huntington, PA, on the home court of Juniata College, whom they then had to play in the second round. The Spartans must have fed off the home crowd's hostility, though, because they came out absolutely on fire, shooting a blistering 76.9% from the field in the first half (20-26, including 8-9 on three-pointers, and adding a perfect 4-4 from the line for good measure), on 14 assists, giving them a 52-41 halftime lead (only their 7 turnovers kept it that close) that they never relinquished en route to a 90-81 win and a spot in the regional semifinals.

It would be easy to say the Spartans were led by sophomore forward Brittany Hicks (Dover, PA; York Catholic), who led all scorers with 27 points, on 9-12 shooting from the field and 6-7 shooting from the charity stripe. But that ignores the Otter Watch! theme of this blog post and the contributions of Aja Wallpher, a 5'8" sophomore guard out of Ellicot City, MD, and the nation's assist leader at 7.3 per game. That's right, Buffet readers: The most Otter Watchfullness! of them all resides right there in south-central. Go Spartans.

Wallpher apparently thought that leading the nation in dimes wasn't quite impressive enough, so she made sure to up her average against Juniata, dropping 11 of the helpers. For the season, she boasts an impressive 2.3 assists for each turnover (and a more-impressive 2.8 in conference play), and also manages to add 6.2 points and 3.3. steals and collect 3.9 rebounds of her own. Perhaps unfortunately for the continued fortunes of York, she kind of has Jason Kidd disease, shooting only 35% from the floor for the season (and a dismal 5-25 on three's) and 66% from the free throw line. Still, anytime you have somebody with that kind of court vision, you have a chance both to win and to make the game one whose aesthetics the Hotline and the Buffet can enjoy.

What about the rest of the Spartans? Perhaps as to be expected on a team with the nation's leading assist woman, they feature a balanced attack: the aforementioned Brittany Hicks is only the team's third-leading scorer, at 13.4 per game: Senior April Sparkman (Walkersville, MD; Walkersville) leads the team with 16.6 per game, and sophomore Kristen Haley (Silver Spring, MD; Germantown Visitation) follows with 14.1. Those three, with Hicks leading the way, lead the team in rebounding, each averaging over 7 per game. Sophomore (this is a young team!) Kelsey Murphey (Olney, MD; Good Counsel) pitches in with 8 points to round out the contributions from the regulars.

And if you're doing the math, then perhaps you have an idea of what could be the Spartans' Achilles heal: their depth. The five starters dominate the minutes, with only sophomore (yet another sophomore, though--this team should be GOOOOOD next year!) Madeline Sloan (Lancaster, PA; Lancaster Catholic) averaging double-digits in minutes.

And what awaits that terrific starting five and thin bench: only the #1 team in the country, according to the D3hoops.com poll: undefeated (27-0) Amherst.

The Lord Jeffs have absolutely rolled through their competition this year, winning games by an average of a g-dd*mn sh*tload, including scores of 94-59, 66-52, and 65-39 in their conference tournament and 61-48 over Babson in the second round of the NCAAs (they had a first-round bye). They're led by senior Caroline Stedman (Walpole, MA; Walpole), player of the year in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (the third straight Lord Jeff to win the award). Stedman must do a bunch of things that don't quite show up in the box score--statistically, she's certainly not bad--13.6 points (third in the conference), about 2 assists, 1.5 steals, 3.4 rebounds per game: fine numbers, but certainly nothing to make a Division III women's hoops fan forget about Chelsie Schweers. But she was conference player of the year, and her team's undefeated and ranked #1, so I'm guessing she does something right. She's helped by two more seniors, Lem Atanga McCormick (Chicago, IL; Loyola Academy) and Kim Fiorentino (Holmdel, NJ; Holmdel), who both garnered all-conference honors this season, and Megan Robertson (Bob Tewsbury, MA; Phillips-Andover Academy), who was rookie of the year in the conference.

Amherst, by virtue of being undefeated and top-ranked and, presumably, boasting at least a half-decent gym (although I don't know how many people show up for these games), hosts the game, which tips at 4 p.m. Nevada time on Friday and can be seen here. Go Spartans! Hopefully, their Otter Watchfulness! can pull off the shocking upset.

But that doesn't end our discussion of Division III basketball: The Franklin & Marshall men, as I'm sure you know, cruised past York in the opening round of the NCAA's last week and then survived Western Connecticut to also advance to the regional semifinals, where, just like the York women, they'll play Amherst, although F&M has the advantage of hosting the game.

Against Western Connecticut, F&M was led by the career-high 34 points from junior Hayk Gyochynan (Beirut, Lebanon; Lawrenceville School), including 6 in the 10-2 run that turned a 68-64 deficit with 8:01 left into a four-point lead with 4:11 left, and then four more points when the Diplomats stretched the lead to the final margin in the closing minutes. For the year, though, the Dips are led mainly by senior guard Georgio Milligan (Spring Valley, NY; Don Boscoe Prep), the two-time Centennial Conference player of the year and the first player in league history to be named first-team all-conference four times. Milligan leads the team with 18.4 ppg, shooting almost 50% (173-359) from the field and 43.8% on three-pointers, and for good measure adds 4.8 assists, 4.4 rebounds, and 2.1 steals per game. He is for sure the engine that drives the Dips machine. He's not a one-man team, though: Gyochynan, who led the conference in blocked shots (1.9 per game) also earned all-conference honors, as did sophomores Jon Salandra (Harrison, NY; Hackley School), who led the conference by shooting almost 64% from the floor, and Matt Porter (North Brunswick, NJ; St. Peter's Prep), who is the defensive stopper for the vaunted Diplomat defense, which, in a tempo-dependent stat (couldn't find any D3 stats at kenpom), led the country by allowing opponents to score just 55.8 points per game. Go Dips.

That defense will be tested against Amherst, which may or may not have an efficient and high-octane offense, but is certainly good: the Lord Jeffs are 25-2 and ranked #2 by d3hoops.com. (F&M, by the way, is ranked #9, but is hosting the game nevertheless. I don't know if the NCAA or Amherst decided that the Amherst women's team was better comparatively then the men's team and so that they then deserved to host the regionals while the men went on the road, or if the NCAA just likes the Mayser Center. Regardless, the lower-ranked team [although not necessarily the lower-seeded team; other than the two byes, I'm not sure the NCAA seeds teams in Division III--I think geography determines the match-ups as much as anything else] is hosting. A good thing for F&M; Amherst has won 30 straight at home.)

The Lord Jeffs are led by sophomore guard Aaron Toomey (Greensboro, NC; Bishop McGuinness), who averages 17.7 points and 4.8 assists per game and poured in a career-high 34 in Amherst's second-round win over NYU over the weekend. They might be a bit one-dimensional, though: the second- and third-leading scorers [Willy Workman (Northhampton, MA; Deerfield) and Taylor Barrise (Allendale, NJ; Northern Highlands)] average only 11.6 and 10.6 points per game, respectively, there are no Otter Watch! candidates, and nobody else averages in double figures. If Porter can shut down, or at least hassle into an inefficient night, Toomey, I like F&M's chances. Game tips at 4:20 p.m. Nevada time on Friday and can be seen here. Go Dips.