MBB: Liberty League

[nescac1]

Thoughts on St. Lawrence - incredibly smart and tough on defense. Get back incredibly well and give nothing in transition.  Adjust well for opposing personnel.  The zone gives up pretty good three point looks on the wings and corners (which Williams did a poor job of hitting other than McGraw who feasts on those).  Very hard to drive to the hole successfully between the big guy and all those bodies in the paint. 

Offensively St Lawrence did a good job getting points in transition but really struggled at times to convert in the half court offense.  I was surprised they didn't run more stuff through Dudzinski.  Williams had no one to match up with him given the guys we are missing up front, he is so long, can shoot, drive and pass.  But there were possessions he barely touched the ball even though there was not an a great matchup for him. Everytime he was aggressive I was very nervous.  He should have a big career for SLU.  With only one senior starter SLU should be a top tier LL team for two years.

[stlawus]

SLU should be fine for a few years, but losing the floor general Syroka after this year will hurt a bit.  They are prone to giving up open looks but Williams moved the ball better than most teams. There was one possession in particular in the second half where I counted about 5 or six passes in the span of 3 seconds.  Half court offense has been an issue the last few years, so a big and physical team can take advantage of that like Williams did.

[mrhoopfan]

Bard beats New Paltz 

Bard defends alot better this year, kudos to the new coach. Previous years they ran a press that led to a ton of open layups. Liberty League should be VERY interesting this year. No cupcakes.....

[nescac1]

Gotcha, stlawus.  Always hard to make an assessment of a team based on one game (although you did a very good job breaking Williams down both here an on the NESCAC board)!  Syroka apparently didn't have his typical game, just like some Williams guys were better or worse than usual.  But I do like the Macaulays, they are both tough two-way players who can beat you in a variety of ways (especially Gavin who played way bigger than his size), Cowan seems like a guy who is still reaching his upside and will only get better over the next year plus, and as I noted I am a big fan of Dudzinski's potential as well, that foursome all looked very good and nice for you that none are seniors. 

Good luck against Oswego -- they are looking like a true top-tier national title contender this year!

P.S. Syroka has another year of eligibility if he chooses to use it, right?

[stlawus]

This is Syroka's final year.  He was a freshman at Niagara in 2019-2020 and I believe took the covid year off.

[nescac1]

Ahh, gotcha. 

[stlawus]

Another great effort by SLU against a top 10 opponent on the road.  2nd game in a row a team's 6th man comes off the bench and throws in 5 threes to win them the game.  SLU's size bothered Oswego all game, but the chucked in threes from 28 feet and solid defense made the difference for the Lakers.  Holding Sparks and Anderson to a combined 9 of 28 is no easy effort.  But Oswego held the Macaulay twins to a combined 3 of 17 so all credit to the Lakers.

A testament to Downs' coaching is the development of 6'10" Andrew Cowan.  Guys that size in dIII are usually long term projects and Cowan was no different.  Came in as a freshman a bit unbalanced and clunky, but he's blossoming into a legit big man with a good offensive game and tremendous rim protecting prowess.   He altered a lot of shots that the Lakers are used to scoring uncontested.

[stlawus]

Pretty typical chaotic first weekend.  RPI blitzes SLU, which I was not entirely surprised about given what happened last year, but every year there's a game where SLU's opponent has a three point shooting performance that probably won't be replicated the rest of the season.  RPI played great defense forcing Syroka to resort to hero ball antics which always leads to a SLU loss, and tonight was no different.

RIT almost came back from a pretty big deficit but Bard got them by a basket.  Same goes for Clarkson who are now 5-1 after a back and forth battle with Skidmore.  Vassar misses some brutal free throws at the end to lose to Ithaca.  Union showed life for a half but Hobart was too much. 

[Bartman]

Moving on from Hobart football to basketball and hockey season. Pleasantly surprised by Hobart's potential after watching their undefeated start to the season. Tonight they completely dominated the second half against Union on the road. Vassar tomorrow night

[stlawus]

Hobart is getting the wins and shares the top spot with a 2-0 league record.  They're playing with fire a bit by relying on 2nd half comeback wins of late, but wins are wins and you take them any way you can.

What a trip for Clarkson, sweeping Skidmore and RPI.  I've said the last two years that Clarkson has the ability to compete with anyone, they just weren't consistent about it.  They've found consistency now with some 5th year players and excellent 3 point shooting.   RPI left in their starters for extended minutes last night against the SLU bench when the game was already over.    Saw some heavy legs for the Engineers today.  Wonder if Gilbride is regretting that move now.  It's always nice to get revenge on the team that beat you 3 times the year before which included the conference championship game, but you'd think one would be a bit more cognizant of the fact you're playing a back to back.    High stakes game in hand Wednesday with Clarkson visiting SLU.  Can't wait.

And how about the Raptors.  2-0 in the league after an OT win against Ithaca today.  If Bard is beating Ithaca then the league should be on notice that this is not a downstate road trip of old.

Trey Syroka's 7 steal performance gives SLU their most comfortable win against Skidmore in close to 10 years.  Skidmore's freshmen look like they're going to develop into solid players, but they still lack depth much like last season.  Good bounce back win for the Saints after yesterday.  As I previously mentioned, Wednesday is shaping out to be a pretty good route 11 rivalry game.

[Caz Bombers]

It's a Bard world and we're all just living in it, apparently

[stlawus]

With Ithaca beating Rochester rather handily I wonder what new and creative ways the UR coach-I mean committee chair will come up with to get them in this year.

Looks like Skidmore's youth cost them at Vassar tonight, following along on live stats they looked like they were up most the game and then lost by a possession in the end. 


SLU-Clarkson was a typical North Country rivalry game.  Extremely physical and tenacious defense.   Clarkson coach was working the refs the whole game which was pretty annoying, especially when they let Clarkson get away with everything in the first half.   Clarkson is definitely passing the eye test, great defensive team than can shoot threes from anywhere.  Everytime SLU pushed the lead to 9 or 10 Clarkson would throw in a 3 way behind the arc at the top of the key.   Depth could be an issue but so far they look the part.    Clarkson had no answer for Andrew Cowan who had the best game of his career with an 18pt 13reb performance which included a huge offensive board in the final minute.

[Bartman]

Attended Hobart-RPI game as Hobart goes to 7-0. Both teams were pretty fast and athletic, played good defense and shot well at times ,but not exactly "lights out". Very impressed with Aidan Rodgers improvement over last year as PG, he's fast, got a few steals , hit a couple of 3 pointers when RPI started to get back in the game. Carter Meshanic is not his brother  Jackson but is very solid. Healy rounds out the top 3 scorers and has a nice game and is ice on the line. Moesch, a Freshman, had 17 points in 18 minutes with 7 rebounds and should be getting more playing time. This team needs to gel more, but I was impressed with its potential. I think they were picked for third, which seems about right, but I think they will improve over the season and could make it to the NCAA tournament if they keep improving and stay healthy .

[stlawus]

Couple commitments have been landed by the league.  From what I can gather so far:

RPI- Tucker Tharpe, 6'6" F, Champlain Valley Union HS VT
Skidmore- Will Ameden, 6'4" F, Burr & Burton Academy VT
Bard- Aiden Dunlap, 6'5" F, The Gunston School MD
Ithaca- Michael Porter, 6'2" G, Scituate HS MA
SLU- Pat Mulholland, 6'2" G, Natick HS MA

[stlawus]

We are back just in time for the conference tournament, excellent timing on the d3hoops staff part. 

One of the more wilder Liberty League seasons that I can remember.  I'll try to pack in all my observations in a hopefully not too long winded post.

We saw this year in division 1 just how insane the home and away splits were, and that was no different for the Liberty League.  Hobart and SLU who finished 1st and 2nd respectively, were a combined 23-0 at home this season.  The tie breaker ended up coming down to the h2h results against Union.  Hobart was definitely a great coaching job by Stefan Thompson.  They lost the league player of the year from last year but still put together a very impressive 20-5 regular season.  They don't do anything out of the ordinary, they just don't really make any mistakes.  The Statesmen are a great rebounding team like always but played timely defense and got clutch 3 point shooting, especially from one of the league's better first year's in Alex Moesch.

SLU finished with the same exact regular season record as last year, and as previously mentioned missed out on the 1 seed due to tiebreakers.  They played with a target on their backs being the defending champs, and like Downs said in preseason pretty much got everyone's best game, especially on the road. The story this year for the Saints was their patented 2-3 zone defense.  SLU is 4th in the nation in scoring defense and #1 in the country in opponent field goal percentage. The other part of the story for SLU is transfer Adam Dudzinski.  "Dudz" was a cold blooded assassin from the perimeter this year, shooting 54% from three, good for tops in the nation. At 6'8" playing the wing he is a true unicorn in world of division 3, and the Saints are very lucky to have him.

RPI was also a bit of a surprise, but at the same time not completely shocking due to the coaching prowess of Gilbride.  Like every year the Engineers' pack line defense carried them throughout the season finishing top 10 in the country in scoring defense.  They got a lot of leadership and experience this year from graduate student Johnny Angbazo, and have some really nice first years that are only going to get better.  Nate Tawiah-Boateng who missed all of last season due to injury looks like he's also going to keep blossoming. 

Union was a huge shocker in my opinion. Chris Murphy would definitely deserve coach of the year.  They lost a slew of seniors and 5th years from a team that finished 2nd to last in the previous season.  There were several key players on this year's team that barely played the previous seasons but exploded onto the scene this year.  This includes Luke McGarrity who shot a gaudy 45% from three.  Union scored 91 points at home against RPI and got extremely clutch 3 point shooting at home against SLU to give them 2 big wins against the top of the conference.

RIT was also another excellent coaching job.  From not making the playoffs last year to a tiebreaker position at 5th place this year.  McVean really revamped the Tigers defense this year, as they greatly improved on that end and got typically excellent perimeter scoring to complement it. RIT's forwards were particularly impressive on the offensive end from the games I saw, shooting a very high percentage.

Bard: Coach Sloan also has an incredibly strong case for coach of the year.  Bard was dead last the previous season, and had a shot at 4th place if not for tie breakers.  Senior leadership was the name of the game for the Raptors, as their experience paid heavy dividends.  Elliot Harris is one of the best 3 point shooters in the country and Rowan Heinze has some of the best post moves I have seen on a Liberty League center in quite a long time. The Raptors defense dramatically improved under Sloan and has kept them in most games. 

Now for the bottom 4 of the conference.  I've rambled quite a bit so I'll keep this a little more concise. 

Vassar's finish was not particularly surprising as they lost all 5 starters from last season.  The Brewers do have a very impressive first year in Shea Fitzgerald and still got some really good wins this season including at home against SLU and a sweep of RIT.   

Clarkson was a bit disappointing.  Some really good wins against teams like Hobart and RPI, but just not consistent enough to bring things across the finish line. They are very well coached and will likely have both the league player and rookie of the year in Ryan Miles-Ferguson and Braeden Burns, respectively.  Depth seemed to be the biggest issue for the Golden Knights this season.  Ferguson's loss will hurt but the remaining 4 starters will be back. 

By normal standards this would have been an extremely disappointing season for Ithaca, but it's not really too surprising given their personnel losses from last year.  A ton of 5th years and seniors that all had a lot of playing time is extremely hard to replace at this level.  Like every year their offense was one of the best,  but they just weren't consistent enough on defense.  Couple promising first years on this team so I'd expect them to be back in the thick of things next year.

It was a very long and adversity filled season for Skidmore. Aside from losing almost every single starter from last year, Coach Burke had a house fire right before the season started, and the Thoroughbreds lost potential rookie of the year Charlie Fantom for the season only a few games in.  They had other injuries to the starting lineup that was already filled with first years and sophomores.  To Coach Burke's credit, in the penultimate game of the season at SLU I did not see a team that was dejected or feeling sorry for themselves, they still looked like a team that enjoyed each other's company and played hard to the end.  It was a tough season but Skidmore is only going to keep improving. 

Award predictions:

COY: Chris Murphy, Union. Sloan could easily get it as well.

POY: Ryan Miles-Ferguson, Gr, Clarkson
ROY: Braeden Burns, FY, Clarkson
DPOY: Trey Syroka, Sr, SLU

First team:

Ryan Miles-Ferguson, Gr, Clarkson
Logan Wendell, Jr, Ithaca
Adam Dudzinski, So, SLU
Trey Syroka, Sr, SLU
Johnny Angbazo, Gr, RPI

2nd team:

Tristan Wennersten, Sr, Ithaca
Pat Healy, Jr, Hobart
Rowan Heinze, Sr,  Bard
Isaiah Washington, Sr, Hobart
Braeden Burns, FY, Clarkson

Honorable mention:

Shea Fitzgerald, FY, Vassar
Lazaros Panagiotounis, Sr, Bard
Matt Caggiano, Sr, RIT