MBB: NESCAC

[P'bearfan]

Both Ray Barry and Jayde Dawson are combo guards and could play the 2 guard position

It seems to me, that unless Jayde Dawson has significantly improved his 3 point shooting over last year, playing him at the 2 would limit Amherst's ability to score from behind the arc.  I assume he'll be very effective in getting to the rim but again his historically weak FT shooting may dampen his effectiveness (i.e. relatively few And 1's).

[toad22]

Of course, if a team is both big, fast, and can shoot the lights out, we're probably screwed!

[Old Guy]

Good luck to Panthers in Maine tomorrow, going up against Mitchell, a tourney team last year. My sense of the starting five is Matt Daley, Sinnickson, Merryman, St. Amour (or Brierly, if St. Amour isn't ready after knee surgery), and Brown. Sure wish I could be in Biddeford, but too much going on here. Here we go!

[amh63]

Good grief! .  Just checked the scores of two games.  WES scores 100 points in a lopsided win.  MIddlebury scores 101 points in another lopsided win.  Guess the CAC teams are tired of scrimmages.

[middhoops]

Midd ran like gazelles in scoring a hundred on an under sized Mitchell.  Matt Daley out with a stress fracture in his foot.  Jake Nidenberg also shelved coming off back surgery.
St. Amour, Sinnickson and Merryman lit it up for the Panthers.  Middlebury has a very deep bench and a ton of speed this season.  If they rebound, they will run.

Vandy74 and I were shocked to see the Tufts score.  What's up with Sabety and Spadaford?
Midd plays a very tall U. of NE team tomorrow.
Bucket made the trip and behaved himself well.

[jumpshot]

As expected, Williams faces a massive re-building phase regarding talent, interior play, ball handling, defense, shooting, intensity, and confidence, as evidenced by tonight's 75-68 loss to Southern Vermont. Coach App has a real challenge to restore the skillful, unselfish, passionate, elegant play of the past 6 years which spoiled the Eph fans. Others in NESCAC will have their day in the sun ---for a while.

[nescac1]

Tough way to start the Kevin App era for the Ephs.  Overall, the upside of this team is not nearly the same as last year's, but at the same time the Ephs are capable of much, much, MUCH better hoops, and I'm sure brighter days are ahead.  The first problem that obviously needs to be fixed are the turnovers -- not only the sheer number, 21, but the manner in which they came ... at least 3-4 turnovers came off of inbounds plays in which the inbounder literally just threw the ball away.  Several other turnovers were the result of really careless dribbling, passing the ball lacksidasically without really paying any attention to where defenders were, or forcing the ball into very low-percentage situations.  It seemed like every time the Ephs threatened to get something going, there would be 2-3 wasted possession in a row.  Credit to Southern Vermont, who played pretty well and made some tough shots, but against a really good and disciplined team, the Ephs would have lost by 20 plus just by virtue of the careless ball-handling.  It didn't help that the Daniel Wohl was in foul trouble all game and as a consequence never got going, and also, after shooting it well in the first half, the Ephs could not BUY a three point shot in the second half. 

The positives for Williams: (1) they shot it great from the free throw line, and were very adept at driving to the hole and drawing fouls, (2) they rebounded the ball very well collectively, especially on the defensive end, (3) despite being way, way off from three tonight, Hayden Rooke-Ley showed that he will be a go-to offensive player this year, and (4) Daniel Aronowitz looked much more confident shooting the ball, and he has the potential to be a very effective overall offensive player with his quickness and ability to finish inside; he can be an x-factor and needs to be even more aggressive on offense. 

Besides the turnovers, the negatives: (1) the three frosh played fairly substantial minutes, and while they looked like they belonged physically and on defense, none of them initiated any offense.  They will need some points out of those three guys, and soon, because only Luke Thoreson and Ed Flynn, both of whom had some nice moments, gave Williams anything at all off the bench; (2) Williams has no single nationally elite offensive player this year, so they really need to generate points off of passing and teamwork, something they utterly failed to do in this game -- hardly any layups generated off of clever screening and ball movement, and (3) Williams has, as expected, no one who can create points on his own in the interior, something that, unlike the other issues, there is really no solution for. 

Williams is going to need to play much smarter going forward, keep Wohl out of foul trouble, and rely on Wohl, Rooke-Ley, and Aronowitz driving as the keys to ignite the offense. 

One final thought -- I was surprised that App didn't call more timeouts to calm the team down when they were in the middle of their turnover spurts.   I generally dislike when coaches overuse timeouts, but this game was one where the players really needed to just settle down and focus on getting into the offense.  Perhaps something to learn from going forward.  I do think the team will figure it out, but hopefully they do it sooner rather than later after a second straight loss to SVT. 

[P'bearfan]

Bowdoin defeats Elms 77-57.  Nice start for the P'bears.  Overall they had good ball movement that generated some good open shots.

Scoring was spread around with at least 5 players in double figures.  Hausman  led with 22 and Swords, Hurley, Palecki and Fuller were all in double figures. Two FY's, Blake Gordon and Liam Farley saw playing time and did well.  Gordon was very composed against the Elms full court pressure.

The biggest down side was foul trouble. At one point Swords, Palecki and Fuller each had 4 fouls and Fuller fouled out with 3 min to go.

Bowdoin will play Westfield State tomorrow at 3:30pm.  This will likely be a tougher game as Westfield State is a little bigger and faster than Elms.

[7express]

If anyone wants some action for LEC vs. NESCAC games this year.  I'll do this for all the conference games and LEC vs. NESCAC games or tournaments where each conference have a team. 

For Saturday:

Colby
vs.
Purchase (@ Eastern Connecticut)
Purchase -6.5; over/under 144

Trinity (CT)
@
UMass-Dartmouth
Dartmouth -1.5; over/under 140

Framingham State
@
Conn College
Conn -9; over/under 138.5

Colby 73-70; Colby & under
Trinity 86-83; Trinity & over
Conn College 60-55; Framingham & under.

Lumbercat 2-1 +1 unit

Sunday:
Southern Maine
@
Conn College
Conn College -4.5; over/under 150

Colby
@
Eastern Connecticut
Colby +1.5; over/under 149

[amh63]

Yesterday there was an explosion of Winter Sports and the continuation of Fall  sports into the post season.  So much to watch...yet no Amherst BB.  Funny feeling.  I scanned a number of CAC games and finally settled on the Williams game....much interest in the new era in Willytown. 
I am puzzled about the situation at Tufts....will await info.
Noticed that many of the CAC wins were by three points.
As I watched the Southern Vermont team play, I was also watching their coach.  He, according to the writeups recruits players from my next of the woods...a number given a second chance for a college degree.  Did notice the style of play.....yes there is a certain style from the DC area. The coach had his team play a pressing defense, with a lot of discipline.  For the most part, there was good team play on offense.
Williams seem to have the better talent...and will be better as the season progresses.  My take, is that Williams was a little tight and has not mesh as a team yet.  The inside game should be better when the football players are mixed in.  However, I think Williams need to depend less on the outside shots and look for more offense inside. 
Overall, I did enjoy myself watching BB in the CAC...even with no Amherst team on the hardwood.

[lefrakenstein]

Williams' pieces fit much better together. One of the major reasons I think they'll win the league this year.

I think the NESCAC is pretty wide open this year and a reasonable case can be made for any of at least six teams, including Williams, winning it.  However, I'm struggling with the assessment that Williams' pieces fit together better (than Amherst?).

When you look at their respective rosters, Amherst and Williams are almost exact mirror images of each other.  Amherst has an uproven back court and only 1 proven long range shooter and these are likely to be Williams' strengths this season.  Amherst, as you mentioned, has tremendous depth in the front court but Williams is likely to be weak up front and will struggle on the boards (the return of Ed Flynn is likely to improve their front court but it's hard to see him doing it all himself). 

The Ephs will win games but they will really need their outside shooters to be on when they face a team like Trinity who is likely to crush them on the boards.

I agree that Williams has a small roster on the whole, but they also have a clear, positionaly coherent starting 5 comprised entirely of players who have proven that they can make a solid contribution. That's more than Amherst can say. I realize that my prediction that they will win the league isn't looking so good after the first game, but I'm standing by my prognostication - the ship will be righted in Williamstown. Terrible game for Greenman, whom I really like as a player. I doubt we'll see any more 8 TO games from him.

jayhawk - thanks for the reminder that Nabatoff was a guard in high school. I read that when he first got recruited, but I had forgotten. Maybe that will make him a solid candidate to get some time on the wing.

Tufts appears to be Tuftsing, which is what we should call massively under-performing given the level of talent on the roster. Good to see Palleschi back and contributing, but Sabety and Spadaford were conspicuously absent from the box score. Hopefully they'll be back soon.

[Old Guy]

Nice weekend for the Panthers - two wins, a blowout and a nailbiter. I couldn't get to Maine, nor could I watch either game on-line (domestic obligations - church auction and Young Girl in high school theater!). I trust those who were there will report (Bucket). From now on, hoop is a priority! As well as Midd shot last night (49%, 8-24 from three), looks like they couldn't hit today at all (31%, 4-17). Just cold or UNE "D"?

Sad that Matt Daley is once again hors de combat (foot fracture - 4-6 weeks). Poor guy. He has already lost most of two years to illness and injury. I went to the intrasquad game (refs, scoreboard) a week ago today and was very impressed with the skill and depth of this year's team. No one was more impressive than Matt: 6'8", smooth, goes to the basket, runs the floor, shoots the three - in all honesty I have not seen in four decades a player with more natural ability and potential than Matt Daley. Here's a firm hope that he heals, rehabs, and gets a chance to be the college basketball player he can be - which would of course be great for the Middlebury hoop fortunes, but more more so for his sake as a young man who deserves a break and a chance to express himself.

Good news: Matt St. Amour played 23 minutes on Friday and 22 on Saturday and went for 24 and 10 points, ten months after major knee surgery.

Pretty good weekend for Dylan Sinnickson (26 points, 11 rebounds vs Mitchell; 16 and 14 vs UNE). Tourney MVP.

Another tournament next weekend for the Panthers at Bridgewater State, first game against Medgar Evers.

[pinseeking1]

Nice weekend for Bates in the Babson Tournament in Wellesley, MA with two come from behind wins. On Saturday, the Bobcats fell behind to Nichols College early, but stayed close enough to allow for a good run at the end. Billy Selman hit a go-ahead three with 27 seconds left and the Bobcats held on to win, with a little help from Nichols, who missed four free throws down the stretch. Bates had strong performances from Mike Boornazian (25 pts), Graham Safford (22 puts) and Marcus Delpeche (14 puts on 6 for 8 shooting).

On Sunday, the situation was similar and Bates fell down by as much as 13(?) in the second half before Graham Safford decided to take things into his own hands. After scoring only 2 points in the first half, he scored 21 second half points, including the game winning three with 1.8 seconds left in the game to win 54-51. He also made three other three pointers to help erase the deficit and bring the game down to the wire. Defensively, Boornazian held Babson's scoring threat, Joey Flannery, to 7 points.

A great road win against a pre-season ranked team in Babson (no. 23). Very impressive how the Bobcats held their composure down the stretch in both of the tightly contested games to close the deal.

[pinseeking1]

That should be pts, not "puts". Darn that autocorrect...

[GoWesYoungMan]

Ok start for the Cards this weekend. Nice execution Saturday against an overmatched Sarah Lawrence. Win today despite a pretty ugly shooting effort against Worcester St which was better than SL but not NESCAC level competition. Coach Reilly gets almost everyone back including Chris Tugman and PJ Reid who were both injured last year. Joseph Kuo had a very efficient weekend. Freshmen Jordan Sears and Chad Elliot also seeing action. Not sure there is a whole lot of dropoff 1-10. Wes may lack an all league type player but they are definitely improved at this point vs. last year when they finished 4-6 in the league. Still have to improve a bunch before January but Reilly has options. It will be interesting to see if we can get into our opponents' bench where I feel like we may have some advantage.