The Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center hosted another great scene this Saturday afternoon as the Streaks stomped out the pussies that Ohio Northern continues to find and ask to come play there. The Streaks took a commanding lead in the league standings as the Muskies helped them out and beat Capital. The last two weekends have completed a changing of the guard in the OAC for at least the next couple seasons, as John Carroll will cruise for a regular season league chip, and can look forward to playing in the NCAA tournament. The bigger topic is how far this year's team can go in the NCAA tournament. In my opinion, pending a decent draw, you can expect the Streaks to play at least two weekends.
Yesterday's game featured "one of the better players" in the OAC Kyle Meyer. I didn't see his numbers but I think he was probably 15 and 10. That's not really the point. The point is that he's one of the most unskilled and unathletic players in the league, and I am both fascinated and confused as to how he gets his numbers. From what I could tell, he's just very good at knowing what he can do, and what shots he can make, and he never deviates from his offensive game. He has great balance when he comes down with a rebounds in traffic, and can make contested layups. He is a good free throw shooter too. Nevertheless, every Wednesday and Saturday, you can find Meyer: 7-11 4-4--18, 9 rebounds 2 blocks. Look, I don't mean to get all over the guy. He's better than I'll ever be on my best day. And he's inked in as first team All-OAC. But I just thought it was funny. I remembered him being an athletic left handed stud. And I watched a slow skinny unathletic right handed kid yesterday. He could not play on John Carroll's team this year. NO WAY. I know that sounds crazy but he couldn't. Not the way they play now. He would be totally lost in the shuffle and sitting next to Kelly Blair (what's up Kel).
Back to Carroll, this team has won 12 in a row. They are gonna finish 16-2 in the league barring a total disaster. They are gonna host the conference tournament. They are a prohibitive favorite to win the tournament. And they will be an absolute absolute hand full in the NCAA tourney. This is by far the best team I have ever seen play in the league. They are 100 times better than the teams I played on, and the teams that were a couple years ahead of me. They might not beat the teams that I played on every time, or beat older teams in a one game sudden death but they would beat those teams more often than not. The only thing that gives older year teams the edge is bigger and better post players and players with more experience. That's not the point. The point is that this is a great team to watch. They play very hard, and really like each other. They work hard, have fun and play with A LOT of confidence. And that is really nice to see. They are easily one of the top 20 teams in d3 right now, and their style of play is so awkward that it probably puts them more accurately in the top 10 because they are so hard to play against and you can't simulate it in practice.
So for the guys on the team that read this, great job. Keep playing with confidence. Keep driving the ball with confidence. Keep shooting the rock with confidence. Keep defending guys with confidence. And have fun and enjoy the rest of the season.
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