MBB: Liberty League

[stlawus]

Currently covid positive, so I have some time on my hands to post a list of known recruits for next year.  Incomplete list obviously, will be a work in progress.

RPI:

Dylan Matchet 6'2" G, Choate MA


Ithaca:

Gavin Schauder 6'8" F, Spring-Ford PA

Cole Wissink 6'4" G, Chesire CT




SLU:

Chris Downs Jr, 6'6" F, Canton NY


Hobart:

Niko Lutz 6'7" F/C, Brockton MA


Union:

Kidder Lindley 6'4" G, Pitsford-Mendon NY


No known recruits for Vassar, Skidmore, RIT, Bard and Clarkson. 

[stlawus]

Currently covid positive, so I have some time on my hands to post a list of known recruits for next year.  Incomplete list obviously, will be a work in progress.

RPI:

Dylan Matchet 6'2" G, Choate MA

Zisi Blades 6'4" G, St. Thomas More CT


Ithaca:

Gavin Schauder 6'8" F, Spring-Ford PA

Cole Wissink 6'4" G, Chesire CT




SLU:

Chris Downs Jr, 6'6" F, Canton NY

Alexi Twahili, 6'4" G/F, Uganda/New Hampton NH


Hobart:

Niko Lutz 6'7" F/C, Brockton MA


Union:

Kidder Lindley 6'4" G, Pitsford-Mendon NY


No known recruits for Vassar, Skidmore, RIT, Bard and Clarkson.

Names in bold denote new additions to the recruiting table

[stlawus]

Currently covid positive, so I have some time on my hands to post a list of known recruits for next year.  Incomplete list obviously, will be a work in progress.

RPI:

Dylan Matchet 6'2" G, Choate MA

Zisi Blades 6'4" G, St. Thomas More CT


Ithaca:

Gavin Schauder 6'8" F, Spring-Ford PA

Cole Wissink 6'4" G, Chesire CT




SLU:

Chris Downs Jr, 6'6" F, Canton NY

Alexi Twahili, 6'4" G/F, Uganda/New Hampton NH


Hobart:

Niko Lutz 6'7" F/C, Brockton MA


Union:

Kidder Lindley 6'4" G, Pitsford-Mendon NY


RIT:

Joe Harrington 6'6" F, Lancaster NY


No known recruits for Vassar, Skidmore, Bard and Clarkson.

Names in bold denote new additions to the recruiting table

[stlawus]

Currently covid positive, so I have some time on my hands to post a list of known recruits for next year.  Incomplete list obviously, will be a work in progress.

RPI:

Dylan Matchet 6'2" G, Choate MA

Zisi Blades 6'4" G, St. Thomas More CT


Ithaca:

Gavin Schauder 6'8" F, Spring-Ford PA

Cole Wissink 6'4" G, Chesire CT




SLU:

Chris Downs Jr, 6'6" F, Canton NY

Alexi Twahili, 6'4" G/F, Uganda/New Hampton NH


Hobart:

Niko Lutz 6'7" F/C, Brockton MA


Union:

Kidder Lindley 6'4" G, Pitsford-Mendon NY


RIT:

Joe Harrington 6'6" F, Lancaster NY


Clarkson:

Aydin Kocak 6'5" F, St. Andrew's RI


No known recruits for Vassar, Skidmore, and Bard.

Names in bold denote new additions to the recruiting table

[stlawus]

Currently covid positive, so I have some time on my hands to post a list of known recruits for next year.  Incomplete list obviously, will be a work in progress.

RPI:

Dylan Matchet 6'2" G, Choate MA

Zisi Blades 6'4" G, St. Thomas More CT


Ithaca:

Gavin Schauder 6'8" F, Spring-Ford PA

Cole Wissink 6'4" G, Chesire CT

Laurence Brady 6'4" F, Canterbury CT




SLU:

Chris Downs Jr, 6'6" F, Canton NY

Alexi Twahili, 6'4" G/F, Uganda/New Hampton NH


Hobart:

Niko Lutz 6'7" F/C, Brockton MA


Union:

Kidder Lindley 6'4" G, Pitsford-Mendon NY


RIT:

Joe Harrington 6'6" F, Lancaster NY


Clarkson:

Aydin Kocak 6'5" F, St. Andrew's RI


No known recruits for Vassar, Skidmore, and Bard.

Names in bold denote new additions to the recruiting table

[stlawus]

Going through some of the LL team twitter pages, I did some digging to see if some players listed as seniors this year are actually graduating or will be returning for a 5th year.   On RPI's page they honored 4 seniors for senior day and it seems like they are all leaving, and that included Mahoney, Black and Memmelar.   Will definitely be some massive losses for them.  Given Gilbride's coaching pedigree, it is likely they still have a solid team next year but I would not be surprised if they slipped a bit.

As it stands (on paper at least), I think the pre-season top 4 is in no particular order Vassar, Skidmore, SLU and Ithaca.   Again, RPI could definitely be in there ahead of Ithaca.   I include Ithaca because they are up there every year and while losing some significant scoring, they had several first year players make contributions.

Vassar to me is a wild card.  While they are coming off a LL championship and return every single starter, it's impossible to tell if this year was an outlier or if there will be regression since we're not used to seeing that program in the top echelon of the league.

[Greek Tragedy]

Nice work stlawus +1

[Jersey42]

Hey stlawus.  RPI recently announced their recruits.  The two you had and three more.


https://rpiathletics.com/news/2022/5/25/five-sign-mens-basketball-celebratory-letters.aspx

[stlawus]

Hey stlawus.  RPI recently announced their recruits.  The two you had and three more.


https://rpiathletics.com/news/2022/5/25/five-sign-mens-basketball-celebratory-letters.aspx

Thanks for the link.  Several teams have been doing this in the last week, I hope more LL teams do the same.  SLU is slowly posting their full class on IG, I've periodically checked other teams but so far this is it.  I'll post SLU's full class when it's out in the next week or so, but there at least 4 known recruits.  This likely means more roster turnover as there was only 1 player lost to graduation on a 15 player squad.  It's been at least 10 years since Downs went with more than 15 players, and he's made cuts most years (as I imagine most coaches do).  So unfortunately some guys are on the chopping block, especially if there's more than 4 recruits.

[stlawus]

We're pretty devoid of content these days so I figured I'd post this.  https://www.2adays.com/schools?utf8=%E2%9C%93&sport_id%5B%5D=&conference_id%5B%5D=94&division_id%5B%5D=&commit=Submit

Discovered this site yesterday.  Provides reviews of coaches by players.  It's definitely not the best way to gauge the quality of coaches, but given there's nothing going on I figured it might be interesting to the folks on here as to what some people say about the league's coaches.  I provided a link that filtered in only Liberty League schools, so you can just click on each school and find reviews for the men's basketball coaches or whatever sport you're curious about.   Some coaches have more reviews than others, and some schools don't have reviews for their hoops coaches at all, but it'll kill some time if you're starved for Liberty League basketball content.

[stlawus]

I came across some archived Usenet NFL message boards over the weekend, all of them from the mid to late 80s.  It was interesting seeing the discussions then as they happened in real time, and it kind of inspired me to go through the early days of this board.  I should have done this before, as the past few hours have been quite entertaining since it's like stepping in a time machine.   The first 2 or 3 years of this board was mainly Hamilton focused and at least half of the discussion featured people fighting over whether or not Tobin Anderson was a good coach.  Here we are more than 15 years later and Anderson is starting his first year in the Division I ranks after a decade of extreme success at St. Thomas Aquinas.

[ronk]

I came across some archived Usenet NFL message boards over the weekend, all of them from the mid to late 80s.  It was interesting seeing the discussions then as they happened in real time, and it kind of inspired me to go through the early days of this board.  I should have done this before, as the past few hours have been quite entertaining since it's like stepping in a time machine.   The first 2 or 3 years of this board was mainly Hamilton focused and at least half of the discussion featured people fighting over whether or not Tobin Anderson was a good coach.  Here we are more than 15 years later and Anderson is starting his first year in the Division I ranks after a decade of extreme success at St. Thomas Aquinas.

I did this with the MAC-Freedom board yesterday; yes, entertaining. Goes back to 2006 with some NY schools(St Lawrence) & Scranton contemplating forming a new league - ended up being the Landmark conference(w/o St. Lawrence). Constant pointed chats among 10 or so fans of Scranton, Kings and Wilkes regarding the teams,players,coaches,student bodies, then the changes of what remained in the MAC vs Scranton leaving for the new conference; Pat Coleman's 10000th historic post

[stlawus]

Can't confirm yet but it appears Luka Radovich will be returning for another season with Ithaca.  Definitely changes the calculus for the league's upcoming season.  LL shaping up to be pretty strong this year.

[stlawus]

Some schedules are out and I've been piecing together the remaining ones.  I noticed that Elmira does not have SLU scheduled this year which I am happy about, and now just discovered that SLU will be playing Williams.  Major non-conference schedule upgrade to say the least.  I'm sure Declan Porter getting a chance to play in his hometown played a small part in that scheduling decision. 

SLU's never had really had super soft schedules, but it seems Downs is tailoring the schedule this year in accordance with the selection committee's criteria last year that rewarded losses to really good teams over inflated win %.   Williams also has RPI and Vassar on their non-con docket, so the presumed top part of the LL are all trying to get in on the SoS action.


As an addendum, it appears that Ithaca is returning a lot more next year than I expected.  Looks like both guards from last year are back for an extra year along with Radovich.  League will be as strong as it's been in quite some time.  Out of Vassar, SLU, Skidmore and Ithaca, there is a combined loss of 2 starters from last year. 

[Stretch4]

RPI Roster question ... I see RPI has its 2022-23 roster posted and I see both Mahoney and Black listed on the roster as Grad Students. I get Black as he was frosh in 18-19 with a Covid year in 20-21, so this would be his fourth year. Can someone please explain how Mahoney has a year of eligibility left.  He has played 4 seasons at RPI ... 17-18, 18-19, 19-20 and 21-22 (Covid year in 20-21). Did he qualify for some type of medical redshirt or some other exemption?  Maybe rules have changed and I am just not up to speed on them, but it seems like his eligibility should be up.