Friday's edition of The Saratogian featured an article on Luke Flockerzi and Jeff Juron, a pair of coaches for the men's basketball team at the University of Rochester. The duo — Flockerzi is the head coach, Juron an assistant who played in high school for Burnt Hills — coached at Skidmore before heading out to Rochester, who is still alive in the D-III NCAA tournament.

It wasn't exactly relevant to the article, but an interesting sidebar is that Flockerzi played his college ball at Grinnell College, a D-III school in Iowa. The team's basketball program gained national attention a few years ago for its unorthodox style of play — simply put, Grinnell runs and guns ... and then runs and guns some more. Grinnell is coached by David Arseneault and routinely leads the country in points per game; this season, Grinnell went 18-7 and scored 102..9 points per game.

For some perspective, the D-1 leader in men's basketball (Virginia Military) averaged 87.9 points per game this season.

Grinnell's system gained national attention in the mid-2000s when ESPN the Magazine did a featured article about the team and then the network showed one of the team's games on TV. The team regularly subs all five players out at the same time and routinely plays more than 15 players so that legs can remain fresh to hoist 3-pointers; this season, the team shot 1,399 shots from behind the arc.

Again, perspective — Virginia Military led D-I in 3-point attempts and "only" took 978 shots from deep.

"It's definitely a different style of game, it's a lot of fun to play," Flockerzi said of Grinnell's approach to the game. "It definitely lends itself to being very team-oriented because everyone gets to contribute."

On this most recent Grinnell squad, 13 players played double-digit minutes and seven players scored more than eight points per game.

More of a role player on the team, Flockerzi (dismissively) said his high-game during his Grinnell career was (just) 22 points. Though not a common occurrence because of the way Grinnell hands out minutes, it is not rare for players on the team to have career-high scoring games in the 30s, 40s and 50s.

Flockerzi said his personal style of play is a mixture of all the coaches he has been around, but his teams do have some Grinnell-like flavor to them. He helped recruit the personnell for this past year's Skidmore squad that took 221 more 3-pointers than any other team in the Liberty League and Flockerzi's Rochester club has scored 75.9 points per game this season.

Mostly, Flockerzi said, Grinnell's style most infused his coaching personality in that he is willing to give his players extra freedom in shot selection and in going for steals on defense.

"(Beacuse of Grinnell) I can live with mistakes of aggression," he said.

--Michael Kelly

All three local teams — RPI, Skidmore and Union — are still alive and fighting for spots in the Liberty League's four-team postseason tournament. With just one week of regular season games left to play, let's take a look at each of the three teams' chances of advancing to postseason play in the (suddenly) topsy-turvy Liberty League; six teams are within 1 1/2 games of each other in the standings after Saturday's games.

RPI (10-12, 6-5), fifth-place tie 

RPI picked up a big win on Saturday, downing first-place Union, 55-52. The Engineers have a quick turnaround and will host Vassar on Tuesday.

At 6-5 in league play, RPI is likely one of three teams fighting for the conference tournament's fourth and final spot; right now three teams (Union, St. Lawrence and William Smith) sit in a first-place tie at 8-4, while Skidmore (7-5) is in fourth place and Vassar (6-5) is tied with RPI.

For RPI to secure the Liberty's fourth spot, a win on Tuesday is all but a necessity because a loss will put Skidmore 1 1/2 games up and Vassar 1 game up on the Engineers. Looking forward from Tuesday's game, RPI should beat Hamilton (2-10) next weekend while an away game at first-place William Smith will be a challenge.

To have a chance, RPI needs to win at least two games and likely needs all three.

Skidmore (11-11, 7-5), fourth place

The Thoroughbreds did themselves no favor in losing at Vassar on Saturday, 59-49. With a win in Saturday's game, Skidmore would have joined the tie atop the Liberty League and been feeling pretty secure in its positioning for the playoffs.

Even still, Skidmore could be a lot worse off — the Thoroughbreds final two games are at home and one of them is against last-place Clarkson. The other is against first-place St. Lawrence, a team the Thoroughbreds lost to by nine earlier this season.

Given Vassar and RPI still play each other one more time — guaranteeing a loss for one of those two clubs — Skidmore definitely seems to be in the driver's seat.

Union (13-7, 8-4), tied for first place

The Dutchwomen look pretty safe for the tournament; Union is a game up on fourth-place Skidmore and also owns the tiebreaker against the Thoroughbreds, having defeated Skidmore twice this season.

But Union still has work to do — the Dutchwomen would like to earn that top seed, if only because whoever finishes as the top team does not get a first-round date with the two other Liberty League squads currently tied for first.

To this end, things do not break too badly for Union. The Dutchwomen have two remaining games — both at home — and one of them is against last-place Clarkson (2-10). The other one is against St. Lawrence, giving the Dutchwomen a chance to knock off one of its first-place rivals in the final weekend of the season; however, Union did lose to St. Lawrence by 13 points when the two teams met earlier this season.

To finish with the top seed, Union will likely need to win both games. If the Dutchwomen win both games, first place should be there for them — two wins means St. Lawrence has lost and William Smith has a tough back-to-back (fourth-place hopefuls RPI and Vassar) next weekend.

At the very worst, one win should push Union into the postseason as no worse than the fourth seed.

With just three games to go for most Liberty League men’s basketball combatants, the race for the league tournament’s four spots is kicking into full swing. Here’s a quick breakdown for the league's two local teams — RPI and Skidmore; Union is in second-to-last place — with postseason aspirations.

RPI (13-7, 7-3), Second Place

To start this off, RPI picked up a huge win on Friday night when it hosted Skidmore. The Engineers emerged with a 65-63 win paced by a 16-point effort from senior Travis Jones, as RPI just barely escaped — the team had led by 11 points with under two minutes to play.

Remaining on RPI’s schedule are four more games, two of which will be played against teams with records better than .500. The team's next two games, both home affairs are must-win games for the Engineers — the team takes on Union and Vassar, who both reside in the Liberty League's basement.

After that, things get much tougher for the Engineers. RPI will travel on Feb. 18 to take on first-place Hobart and then turn around the next day to play fourth-place Hamilton.

RPI looks like it will need to win three of its four remaining games to make the Liberty League tournament; as long as chalk holds, the Engineers should make the league's postseason without too much of a problem.

Skidmore (13-8, 7-3), Tied for Third Place

Meanwhile, in the wake of the team's loss to RPI, Skidmore has some work to do.

The Good News: Skidmore has three more games, only once of which is on the road; also, Skidmore will not play a team the rest of the season with a winning record.

The Bad News: Skidmore is tied for third with Hamilton, but fifth-place St. Lawrence is just one game back of both.

In all likelihood, Skidmore can clinch a playoff spot if the Thoroughbreds handle St. Lawrence when the two teams meet on Feb. 18 at Skidmore. If the Thoroughbreds beat St. Lawrence and win at least one other game, Skidmore is in to the tournament.

Check back on Sunday for an update on where the women of the Liberty League stand!

--Michael Kelly