CIS Hoops.ca

A rain shorten, tardy version of the blog tonight...

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix Article on Saskatchewan's star forward Andrew Spagrud (our thanks to Nathan Schellenberg for sending along the article Andrew Spagrud

UCFV article from the Chilliwack Progress (click on link, then click on Sports at top and then look for "Vaughan's Cascades Take Two" UCFV article

The Coaches Vote Top 10 Today as it appeared on the CIS web site:

In MEN’S BASKETBALL, the four-time defending CIS champion Ravens (12-0), the only undefeated team in the country in conference play, continued to roll last weekend with a pair of road wins, 85-69 over No. 10 York (8-4) and 74-65 over Laurentian (7-6), a game in which the Ravens trailed 42-36 at the half. Carleton hosts a pair of Kingston teams this week when RMC (1-11) and a dangerous Queen’s (8-4) squad make their way to the nation’s capital. It was a wild seven days in CIS men’s basketball with six Top 10 teams (StFX, Concordia, UBC, Ottawa, Victoria and York) each dropping one contest. The team of the week was without a doubt the Canada West Great Plains Division-leading Brandon Bobcats (12-2) who improved five positions in the national poll to No. 3 after defeating No. 6 and previously unbeaten UBC (14-1) 87-77 and No. 9 Victoria 82-81 (13-2), the latter on a Michel Yul basket with 2.3 seconds left on the clock.

EN’S BASKETBALL
(regular season record) / (votes) / (previous rankings)

1. Carleton (12-0) / 480 pts / (1)
2. StFX (5-2) / 390 pts / (2)
3. Brandon (12-2) / 361 pts / (8)
4. Windsor (9-2) / 333 pts / (7)
5. Concordia (7-1) / 332 pts / (3)
6. UBC (14-1) / 317 pts / (4)
7. Ottawa (10-2) / 261 pts / (5)
8. Cape Breton (7-1) / 214 pts / (9)
9. Victoria (13-2) / 186 pts / (6)
10. York (8-4) / 74 pts / (NR)

Other teams receiving votes: Alberta (63), Brock (27), Acadia (26), Queen’s (24), Saskatchewan (11).

Marginally different than mine with Brandon making the biggest move from #8 to #3. Surprisingly X stays at #2 and Cape Breton only moves up one spot to #8. Windsor deserves at least a #4 ranking while with only a one point loss on a buzzer beater Vic drops 3 spots. As mentioned before, York is worthy of the #10 spot given their schedule thus far.

For those who didn't read up on the Winnipeg at Saskatchewan matchup from Saturday night, the game appeared to be flush with controversy as Wesmen star guard Erfan Nasajpour was ejected in the first 10 minutes of play after picking up his second technical foul, Huskie guard Rejean Chabot suffered two seperate lacerations on his face and during treatment for the second was assessed a technical - one of seven technicals assessed in the game, 48 personal fouls were called (30 on the Wesmen) and the Huskies shot an amazing 59 free throws. Huskiehoops.com described the intense, physical encounter as "bizarre". Let's hope that these types of games are few and far between.

There was a set of posts on one of the CIS discussion boards recently commenting on the state of statistics for the league and, unfortunately, I agree with much of the opinions. The gist of the comments were that CIS basketball stats are invariably incorrect to some degree. Let's try to explain why these inconsistencies (mistakes actually) occur. Much of this stems from the fact that game box scores are entered by each of the schools - home teams have a certain time limit after the game to post box scores - and these box scores are then used as a data base by the programs purchased by the CIS and the OUA to develop the stats. The problem occurs if the spelling of player's names is not exactly the same in each and every box score. For example, earlier in the year, Josh Gibson-Bascombe of Ottawa had two seperate entries in the Gee-Gees stats, one entry: Joshua Gibson-bascombe and the second Josh Gibson-Bascombe. As a result, the stats package treats it as two seperate players. This will happen especially when visiting teams have their lineups filled out by the home stats team who may not have the exact proper spelling of names in the pre-game. This also happened in years past. Last season, a call to the OUA offices identifying the situation was quickly rectified. However, it is clear that no one at the OUA or CIS offices regularly checks these inconsistencies as they continue to occur. Unfortunately, the stats I provide on the blog are simply cut and pasted from these sites. AUS, QSSF and Canada West stats are somewhat better, box scores are easier to read and stats easier to access but mistakes still occur in those leagues as well. The only way to rectify this is either to use the same lineups from a central data base as input to the games or to have someone check each week. One thing for sure, these mistakes don't happen in the U.S.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Wednesday night's game previews.