The Southern Highland Reader

2009-12-08 – Slam Online’s Joey Whelan’s take on Western’s win at Bradley:

Western Carolina out of the SoCon took down Bradley last night, significant because the MVC is looking stacked this season and because the Catamounts are now looking pretty at 8-1, their only loss coming to Texas. The rest of the early season schedule includes the aforementioned win over the Braves, solid victories over conference opponents Furman and Wofford and the win to hang your hat on for now, an 83-77 squeaker over Duquesne. This is an offense by committee with six players averaging between six and 11 points and five averaging been four and six rebounds. It’s always hard to gauge how these hot starts can carry over into the near year, but with the type of balance Western Carolina is showing, I like them in the SoCon to make some noise.

2009-12-08 – WCU beats Bradley.

2009-12-07 -Western Carolina’s mens basketball team enters tonight’s game against Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with six straight wins in its back pocket, and a 7-1 overall record.

The Catamounts rose today to 15th in the collegeinsider.com mid-major poll.

The Cats are coming off of consecutive league victories over Wofford and Furman, and Western is ranked 97th in the Sagarin college basketball rankings from USA Today. Bradley, which competes in the Missouri Valley Conference, is 93rd. On the other hand, the Cats are 32nd in the national RPI rankings, Bradley 86th.

Western is playing a steady — and luxurious — ten-man rotation, and has had six different high-scorers in eight games. The Catamounts have shown flashes of potential on offense, including a record-setting night from three-point territory in a victory over Duquesne, but have hung their hats on their defense. Western is forcing 21 turnovers per game, good for a nationally fifth-best turnover ratio of 7.8. The Catamounts are ranked eighth in steals.

Tonight’s game is the first of a three-year three-game series with the Braves; two in Illinois, one in Cullowhee.

2009-11-29 – WCU at #52 in the national RPI, one spot behind Bradley, who Western plays next week.

2009-11-29 – Western Carolina forced 29 turnovers in a comfortable 75-59 win Saturday at Gardner Webb. As the the Shelby Star reported, Western beat the Runnin’ Bulldogs at their own up-tempo game. Brandon Giles, a senior all-conference selection, had 24 points after a quiet start to his season. This was Larry Hunter’s first win in four tries against Gardner Webb.

2009-11-26 – WCU tops Duquesne (post)

ASHEVILLE/CULLOWHEE –North Buncombe quarterback and defensive back Randy Pressley, a top regional prospect, has committed to play at WCU, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

A quote:

“Western has always been after me the hardest,” Pressley said. “The scholarships to other Division I schools have come and gone, but I didn’t want to go somewhere where I would be the last choice for someone. I don’t want to wait until I’m a junior to play.”

The story is here.

CULLOWHEE–Pick your headline:

Dewey defeats Truman.
Martians invade New Jersey.
Beelzebub frostbitten on the butt.
Western Carolina basketball nationally ranked.

Release from Western’s sports information department:

CULLOWHEE–Collegiate Basketball News released its first Rating Percentage Index (RPI) Report for men’s basketball today with Western Carolina leading the Southern Conference with an RPI of 28. The Catamounts are currently riding a three-game winning streak stemming from its pair of neutral court wins at the Great Alaska Shootout, and last Saturday’s win over Kent State on the road.

The SoCon, which features four teams in the nation’s top 100 RPI, debuted at an all-time high of sixth overall as a conference among the 32 NCAA Division I conferences. In addition to WCU, preseason SoCon favorite, Davidson, is ranked 50th on the list, followed by conference counterparts Wofford at 68th and Georgia Southern in 92nd.

Gonzaga is the national RPI leader in the first rating report, with the Atlantic Coast Conference representing the league leader. The Big Ten ranks second, just ahead of the Big East, Big 12 and Mountain West in fifth.

The RPI is used by the NCAA basketball committee to supplement the selection of at-large teams and the seeding of all teams for the NCAA basketball tournament. Using statistics generated through games played Dec. 7, the list is an independent duplication of the RPI without input from the NCAA. It is derived from three component factors: Div. I winning percentage (FI, 25%); schedule strength (FII, 50%); and opponent’s schedule strength (FIII, 25%).

Games against non-Division I opponents are not used in calculating the RPI.

According to the CBN RPI list, WCU boasts the nation’s 15th toughest strength of schedule, with the SoCon rated first in the same category. Catamount opponents Connecticut and San Diego State rank 12th and 35th, respectively, with upcoming foe, Marquette, standing 75th on the list.

WCU, which has tied its best start under fourth-year head coach Larry Hunter, is amidst final exams this week, with the team not returning to practice until late in the week to concentrate on studies. The Catamounts return to the court to host Tennessee Wesleyan on Monday, Dec. 15 at 7:00 pm in the Ramsey Center.

For the complete RPI list: http://rpiratings.com/mensrpi.html

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina’s men’s basketball team is 4-2 now, and winner of three straight games without a gimme among them.

(Update: First national RPI rankings of the season put Western at 28th nationally)

After finishing the Great Alaska Shootout a week ago with a win over Mid-American Conference member Northern Illinois, the Cats ducked back into the MAC this weekend and took an 89-84 overtime win at Kent State – a program that won 28 games last year and has won more than 20 games for 10 straight seasons.

Coach Larry Hunter is getting solid performances from several players, and his bench is running deep. Western gets this week off for exams, then comes back with games against Tennessee Wesleyan and Gardner-Webb. It’s reasonable to see Western being 6-2 going into its next big challenge: a trip back in to the Big East with a visit to Marquette (currently 7-1). Western opened the season with an 81-55 loss at #2 UConn of the Big East.

Game story from the Kent Sports Report
Game story from Cleveland Plain Dealer
Game story from the Akron Beacon Journal

Western’s Lady Catamounts had a rough time last week. A mauling at UT a couple of weeks ago was followed by unexpected losses at Montana State and UNCA, and coach Kellie Harper’s Cats were on the ropes. Despite a fine recruiting class and a transfer, the Cats seemed to be having trouble adapting to the loss of four starters to graduation.

Lauren Powell

Then into Cullowhee rode Middle Tennessee State, a tough mid-major with whom Western split a couple of emotional contests last year. Although MTSU had absorbed a 20-point loss to Louisville Thursday, they’d put together four straight W’s before that, with wins over Indiana, Chattanooga, LSU and Arizona.

The result? A strong, 69-58 WCU victory in which Western led most of the way.

Interestingly, the Blue Raiders came into the game talking some in the media about “payback”, which seemed odd, given the absolute thrashing they gave Western in last season’s post-season NIT. As it turns out, MTSU held Western responsible, by way of the Catamount’s early season win last year at Murfreesboro, for knocking MTSU out of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament last year. They were determined not to let that happen again.

Whoops.

The Cats got a breakout 25-point performance from sophomore Emily Clarke, and won the battle of the boards decisively. Harper, who usually spreads the minutes around, kept her four freshmen seated for this one. Junior point guard Jessica Jackson, a transfer from South Florida, continued to struggle, handing out four assists but losing 6 turnovers. She has 24 assists and 30 turnovers on the season. On the bright side, sophomore guard Kendra Carroll, who didn’t see a ton of time as a freshman, is showing confidence and scoring ability off the bench. A Lauren Powell three-pointer early in the second half gave her the WCU career record in that category.

Western opens SoCon play next time out, as they face the Davidson Wildcats on the 14th.

Game story from the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal

CULLOWHEE–Western’s athletics department entered one of its toughest-ever days on Friday with not much to lose and plenty to gain. Unfortunately, “knowledge we can use going forward” wasn’t very high on the “gain” list and that — in addition to some paychecks — was all the Catamounts got out of three thumpings in: men’s basketball (81-55 at #2 UConn), women’s basketball (90-56 at #6 UNC in the first round of the pre-season NIT) and women’s soccer (5-0 to UNC in the first round of the NCAA tournament).

Nope. Seven blocks for UConn.

Still, you take what you can get. Here’s a little knowledge gained:

Coach Kellie Harper has reached the point with her team where indeed she reloads rather than rebuilds, but with the loss of four key players from last year’s squad she’s looking for some chemistry, experience and better shooting (31% against Carolina). She’ll also seek to bolster the confidence of her new point guard – South Florida transfer Jessica Jackson – after Jackson gave up eight of the team’s 32 turnovers against the fearsome Lady Tarheel frontcourt.

What Harper did get Friday was a solid performance on the boards (40-35 UNC) and a sense that 6-4 senior Brooke Johnson, who missed two-thirds of last season after a knee injury, is getting her legs back under her. Johnson scored 13 points in 23 minutes to lead Western. As always, Harper spread the minutes around liberally, and 10 of 12 players scored.

The Lady Cats host next weekend’s consolation round of the NIT, and will face Lafayette College in the first round and either UC-Riverside or Liberty in the second round, all at the Ramsey Center.

Soccer coach Tammy DeCesare’s squad faced a similarly amped opponent in the second-ranked Tarheels, and two early Carolina goals put the Cats, who haven’t been explosive offensively this year, on the ropes. It was a rainy night in Chapel Hill, and Western’s stellar goalkeeper Caitlin Williams was pelted from more than one direction. Carolina out-shot Western 28-1.

Despite the loss, a strong second half of the season, a conference tourney win over regular season league champ UNCG, and the subsequent trip to the NCAA tourney show that DeCesare’s program is well-established.

DeCesare’s team is laden with talented freshmen and sophomores, and loses only a pair of seniors to graduation. After the Carolina game, one of those seniors, Arlan Whittle, told the Asheville Citizen-Times: “Maybe there was an (awe factor) with some of the younger players. I played here as a freshman, so I was over all of that. I thought we played hard and played pretty well, but that is a very good Carolina team. We played about as well as we could against a team like that.”

The men’s basketball team will pull the underdog switcheroo by hosting Div. II Toccoa Falls Thursday in Cullowhee before jetting off for next week’s Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage. There, the Cats will mix it up with San Diego State and either Seattle or Louisiana-Lafayette.

Pre-season publications and polls have written the Cats off, but writers and poll makers seem to do that out of habit these days. On paper, coach Larry Hunter’s Cats, bolstered by three transfers and and a strong recruiting class, seem promising.

It’s a lot to ask of a young team to play well against a mighty opponent like #2 UConn, especially right away. But the Catamounts did some things well, made a second-half run at the Huskies and, after some early butterflies went away, stayed in their patient offense and never let things get out of control.

In fact, Western’s fiestiness in the second half led to the ejection of standout UConn point guard A.J. Price. Price turned an ankle in the first half, and in the second half threw a punch to the stomach of junior Catamount guard Joey Parker that got him tossed. Price finished scoreless in 25 minutes of play and turned the ball over five times.

WCU guard Harouna Mutumbo (nephew of Dikembe), a redshirt freshman, scored 11 in his debut.

13 Cats played, nine scored, and Western stayed in the ballpark on the boards, losing that stat 42-31 against a team with three players over 7 feet tall (the Cats top out at 6-8).