Ryan, Meren was 6-5 as a freshman at Skidmore, (I saw him play in person), and listed as such in the Skid program. Maybe he went thru the growth spurt between high school and his freshman year at Skidmore? FWIW he was listed as 6-3 his senior year in HS but those stats are notoriously off. But his physique certainly got much bigger between frosh and sophomore year at Skid, as you noted. He was dominating games as a sophomore at the D3 level and at times looked a bit bored. Can't blame him for seizing the opportunity when it presented itself and still be able to attend a high academic college as well. He will have got compete hard to earn time at Brown--I wish him success.

Minor side note to Saturday's Skidmore/Middlebury game: Skidmore's best player from last year, 6-5 sophomore guard Noah Meren, transferred to Brown this fall and is sitting out the year. It is unlikely it would have changed the result of the Middlebury game but it's a big loss for Skidmore nonetheless. Meren led the Liberty league in scoring last year while shooting 49% for the year, was a first team Liberty league selection (and also a D3Hoops second team all-East region selection) and one of the smoothest and effortlessly talented D3 players I've seen in quite a while.  His mother graduated from Brown and he graduated from Moses Brown but was lightly recruited at the D1 level coming out of high school until his performance at Skidmore opened some eyes. Add him to the growing list of D3 players making the more to D1. 

Williams announced its 2019-2020 schedule in its summer newsletter. New to the slate this year is a road match-up on January 14th against Jim Calhoun's St. Joe's team. This game will conclude a very tough 10 day January road trip in which the Ephs will play Union, Hamilton, Amherst and St. Joe on the road.  The Ephs also travel to Albertus Magnus in December.  Springfield, Union, Yeshiva, Fitchburg St and Oneonta St are on the schedule once again and the Ephs will again play in the Salem State New Year's holiday tournament, this year against Endicott and Salem State, which should be a very challenging weekend pair of games, and 4 days after that tournament the Ephs hit the road for the January road trip vs. Union et al.  Williams will be challenged early and often but hopefully it will strengthen them for league play later in January.

Tufts names Bowdoin grad and former Tufts assistant Jill Pace as coach of its women's basketball team. Great (and very quick!) hire. She did a very good job as head coach a Pomona, turning around their program in short order.

http://www.gotuftsjumbos.com/sports/wbkb/2018-19/releases/20190624j00o7i

Former Trinity player Tyler Simms was named the new head coach at Clark University yesterday.  His most recent experience was as an assistant at Brown, with a stint at Trinity before that.

https://www.telegram.com/news/20190419/mens-college-basketball-former-brown-assistant-tyler-simms-will-stress-defense-as-clarks-new-coach

Former Trinity player Tyler Simms was named the new head coach at Clark University yesterday.  His most recent experience was as an assistant at Brown, with a stint at Trinity before that. Good hire by Clark.

https://www.telegram.com/news/20190419/mens-college-basketball-former-brown-assistant-tyler-simms-will-stress-defense-as-clarks-new-coach

Telling first half stats from Amherst/Wesleyan:  Amherst is shooting 19% (7 of 36!), has only gotten to the line twice and Wesleyan is controlling the boards (23-14 defensive rebounding edge, 16-8 points in the paint, 10-0 second chance points). Amherst bigs are a combined 0-9. Pretty clear what Amherst needs to improve on in the 2d half. 

Lots of interesting half time scores today, proving how hard game 2 of the weekend back to back series can be.

Bates has 5 steals and 17 points off turnovers to lead Williams by 7 at the half. Rebounding is dead even despite Williams huge size advantage and the Ephs have only gotten to the line 6 times.  The Ephs need to clean up their play and get more aggressive in the second half around the rim. Credit to Bates for a solid first 20 minutes of pesky play.

Wesleyan plays a solid first half to lead Amherst and Middlebury is in a dogfight at Tufts.  No gimme's on day 2 of the NESCAC weekend series!

Game of the day today clearly is #1 Bowdoin at #4 Tufts. This game will be a good benchmark for Tufts--are the young Jumbos (only 1 senior starter) overachieving despite graduating 2 key starters or simply rebuilding? Bowdoin defeated Tufts decisively in both the regular season and elite eight last year.  Neither team has been tested this year. The only common opponent was Colby, which Bowdoin defeated by 30 early in the season and Tufts beat by 17 last night.  Bowdoin is averaging 86.6 points a game and shooting an amazing 48% from the field while the Jumbos are an equally impressive 83 ppg and 48%.  Should be a good one!

To continue the discussion further off-topic, to those who suggest that the NESCAC would not be competitive on the national stage in football, I note that Johns Hopkins recently beat RPI to make the semi-finals of the DIII championship (after earlier beating MIT). I admit it's only one data point, and it may not be appropriate to infer that Trinity or Amherst would enjoy the same success as Hopkins or RPI just because all of them are very good academic schools with strong football programs, but at the very least it suggests the two are not incompatible and that strong academic schools can enjoy success at the national level in football.  Of course,  Hopkins' reward is a game with perennial champion Mt. Union and we'll see how that goes.  The reality may nevertheless be that there is a huge divide between the top 2-3 DIII football schools and everyone else, including the rest of the tournament teams, but that doesn't diminish Hopkins (or RPI or MIT's) achievement in getting to and succeeding in the tournament or infer that NESCAC teams couldn't enjoy similar success.

As evidence of the potential divide between the top and bottom of the best of the best in the tournament, several of the DIII football tournament scores were staggering blowouts --e.g., first round scores included St. Johns (Minn) over Martin Luther 84-6 (that is not a typo!), Wisconsin-Whitewater over Eureka 67-14 and Mt. Union over Denison 60-0 and in a second round game Mary Hardin Baylor beat Berry College 75-9. It will come as no surprise to learn that Mary Hardin Baylor, Wisc-Whitewhater and Mt. Union are all in the final four along with Hopkins. Good luck to Hopkins, and the same to UMaine!

Tonight's WPI at Tufts game will be a battle of very similar teams, both young and guard-oriented. WPI starts 4 sophs and 1 junior (the only junior on a roster that also does not include any seniors), with 2 sophs and 2 frosh off the bench.  With junior Eric Savage still out of the Tufts lineup with an injury the Jumbos  will similarly play all sophs and frosh with the exception of junior Patrick Racy off the bench. Two very young and talented teams with a bright future ahead of them.

Bowdoin dips into the Worcester Academy roster again for its second WA player for next year, this time 6-3 guard Manav Randhawa.  Manav will join his teammate Dylan Lien in Brunswick next year. Both are complimentary players with very good 3 point range.

6'2" Worcester Academy senior guard Dylan Lien commits to Bowdoin. He sounds like a very good 3 point shooter with a developing offensive game off the dribble. More info here:

https://newenglandrecruitingreport.com/in-the-news/2018-all-academic-camp-day-1-recap

https://newenglandrecruitingreport.com/in-the-news/2018-e75-best-of-the-guards

Williams Coach App announced the Ephs 2018/2019 schedule in his recent fall newsletter and it is a challenging out of conference schedule.  Of particular note is the Ephs hosting Albertus Magnus in late January. 

Williams opens up against always tough Salem State and then spends a good deal of November and December on the road, with challenging away games at Yeshiva, Wesleyan and Springfield as well as road trips to Manhattanville and Fitchburg State before December exams.  It's also good to see Union on the Ephs schedule for another year in what will hopefully become a regular contest and a renewal of a great rivalry.  Expect a vocal contingent from Schenectady to travel to Chandler gym for that game.

The Ephs return from the holiday break with a challenging weekend visit to Moravian College, where they will face Montclair State from the NJAC on Sunday, Dec. 30 and Moravian on Monday Dec. 31st. The weekend series could feature 4 potential NCAA tournament bound teams as Montclair State takes on Virginia Wesleyan in the other opening game. Moravian travelled to Williamstown in the opening round of the NCAA tournament last year, where they lost to the NJAC champ, Ramapo. 

It looks like Coach App intends to challenge his experienced team early and often.

NERR reports today on 3 NESCAC commitments, some of whom may already have been reported here:

--St. Sebastian's 6-4 swingman Will Phelan to Amherst
--BFA St. Albans (VT) 6-6 big man Jens Ulrich-Verderber to Wesleyan
--Groton School 6-5 wing Joe Collins to Bates