MBB: NEWMAC

[BBallers]

Hard to be critical but I hate the way MIT is taking the air out of the ball so early.  SI making a semi run.

Wholeheartedly agree about this, but thankfully it ended up not mattering.  Incredible deep ball shooting and terrific defense won this won for Tech tonight.  Hopefully we saved some shots for tomorrow night. Would love to see the MIT/Amherst matchup!

I agree that it is not always as pretty or as fun to watch, but that's the way MIT plays and Coach Anderson is very successful with it.  If another teams gets lazy, MIT will have a back door cut for an easy layup.  MIT typically has more turnovers because of this style, especially early in the season, but I still enjoy watching it.

[Hugenerd]

Hard to be critical but I hate the way MIT is taking the air out of the ball so early.  SI making a semi run.

Wholeheartedly agree about this, but thankfully it ended up not mattering.  Incredible deep ball shooting and terrific defense won this won for Tech tonight.  Hopefully we saved some shots for tomorrow night. Would love to see the MIT/Amherst matchup!

I agree that it is not always as pretty or as fun to watch, but that's the way MIT plays and Coach Anderson is very successful with it.  If another teams gets lazy, MIT will have a back door cut for an easy layup.  MIT typically has more turnovers because of this style, especially early in the season, but I still enjoy watching it.

It also shortens the game a bit, which helps with the tight rotation MIT plays.

[BBallers]

Just got back from the games.  I sat in the MIT section this evening because those F&M fans are mean and scary.  Yikes!  Not a friendly atmosphere.

Anyway, the MIT was not as athletic as I expected, but they were smarter and played much better defense than I expected.  It was amazing to watch those guards nail 11 threes without missing (especially since Karraker is on my fantasy team).  Kates and Tashman were extremely impressive to me.  I'm not sure Hollingsworth got to show off all his skills.  He only had one opportunity to use a real post move and it was both complicated and smooth - easy bucket.

If they do indeed all return next year, it will be quite a force to be reckoned with.  I also appreciated how well they all played with fouls.  It's cliche, but MIT has a very, very intelligent basketball team.  They were disciplined and took care of the ball.

That being said, I don't see them winning tomorrow.  Both Amherst and F&M looked just a cut above.  They're both championship level teams and I'm not sure MIT has the depth to stick with F&M.  Their interior scoring was tremendous and the referees in Lancaster seem to be making random calls in the post, which could get MIT's short bench into foul trouble.

Still a good run.  I think they're clearly a top 10 team; they've overcome the relatively weak schedule with flying colors.

I held myself from responding to your comments yesterday, but needless to say I strongly disagree with them.

I hope you enjoy eating your words, because tonight it looked like MIT was in another class than F&M. 

All I can say is that, just as he did against Tibbs the night before, Kates won the battle against Milligan on both ends of the court.  I know that Milligan ended up with 23 points, but 9 or 11 of those were in the last 3 minutes when the game was pretty much decided, and even then, it took him 18 shots to get those points.  Kates disrupted his rhythm the whole night, especially with regard to Milligan being able setting up his teammates, as he finished with only 2 assists and 4 TOs (Kates had 8 asissts and 4 TOs).  If Milligan is a 2nd team All-American (as he was in the preseason), Mitch Kates has got to be at least on that same team because if you polled anyone who watched tonight's game, I think it was clear who the better PG is.

Karraker was again huge, hitting 5 big 3s, and McCue even got in the act with a couple.  Hollingsworth wasn't at 100% effectivity for the 2nd night in a row, but still finished with a respectable 14 and 9.  Tash didn't have a huge night, but he made his presence known on the defensive end (this is his first game of the tourney not having a double-double).

It will be interesting to see how MIT prepares for UWW, as the engineers will have a pretty dramatic size advantage inside.  Looking at tonight's box score, UWW starts players that are 6'1", 6'2", 6'3", 6'5", and 6'6", with only 2 main subs that are 6'0" and 6'4".  I know they have some tremendous athletes, like Davis, but I wonder if MIT will try to exploit that advantage more than they could this past weekend.  MIT starts 6'9" Hollingsworth, 6'8" Tashman (who I would guess would guard Davis), 6'5" Billy Bender (if he is back next weekend, if not it will be 6'3" Dan McCue), 6'4" Jamie Karraker, and 6'1" Mitch Kates.  MITs two main inside subs are also taller than anyone UWW has, in 6'8" Andrew Acker and 6'7" Dennis Levene.  Should be interesting to see how both teams prepare/adjust in the national semifinal.

There is no doubt that Kates was the best player on the court in both games.  I too am concerned about UWW athletes as they could create some matchup problems.  I hope MIT is effective at breaking the press and getting set up down low.

[BBallers]

Did anyone else think the game was called super weirdly? It was a super physical game with lots of tough defense, and then they just started randomly calling everything in the second half.
Being both a nerd and a lover of basketball, I've gotta root for you in the Final Four. Hope you can bring it home!

Good point.  I noticed and agree with you.  Refs did a decent job overall, but it was too much near the end of the game.

[BBallers]

Did anyone else think the game was called super weirdly? It was a super physical game with lots of tough defense, and then they just started randomly calling everything in the second half.

Same thing happened in both games Friday night.  It's like there's something in the water they put in the ref's room at F&M.

Yeah, I remember thinking that right around the 8 minute mark whent they hadn't called a moving screen all game, and then they called 2 in a row on Will Tashman in less than a minute, something weird was happening.  Then, down the stretch, F&M got several calls on shots that were forced and there didnt appear to have a lot of contact (including on 3s).  Luckily it had no bearing on the game.

Yes the foul call on the F&M 3-point shot was disappointing.  It was a F&M home game.

[BBallers]

Congrats NERD!

Hoops Fan - now might be the time to stay a little quiet.  Literally my 3rd grade neice on Friday night said that MIT looked so much better than any of the teams we were watching (we watched both games from F&M).

Not even saying MIT is better than Amherst.  What I am saying is that NOBODY (from coach K to my 3rd grade niece) would say Amherst looked better on that night!

Makes the rest of your paragraph (which was well written) hard to even get through.

I'm not sure how I'm becoming the bad guy here?  I'm rooting for MIT - I've been more and more impressed every game.  I posted a longer reply on the "Ranking" board so I'll keep it short here:

Something I didn't factor in from Friday, which became amazingly apparent Saturday was the respective team's ability to adjust.  Amherst showed none and MIT has been amazing at it.  When watching the teams play Friday I had no real basis of comparison - and when you put together physical attributes, talent, depth, etc, Amherst still comes out on top for me, talent wise they are a better team.  MIT has talented guys, but less of them; what they do possess is incredible intelligence (I hate how cliched that sounds, but it's true) and ability to control the floor.

As I said before, in one pressure game, I'll pick MIT; over the course of 100, I think Amherst's depth and talent have more impact and makes the decision more difficult.  At this point, they're 1 and 1a and I wouldn't argue with anyone over the order.

You are definitely not a "bad guy", are entitled to your opinion, and I enjoy your posts.  I have not watched Amherst play earlier, but you must believe that they had an "off" game against F&M.  F&M certainly gave Amherst plenty of opportunities to come back with all of their missed free throws.  This was the worst free throw shooting I've seen in the tournament.  Could Amherst's off-game be because F&M has the #1 rated defense in D3 basketball?  Any part of it?  I would be interested in your opinion on each player by player comparison between Amherst and MIT.  If by depth, you mean bench, I would agree that Amherst's bench is more productive because they play more.  MIT has some talented players on their bench, but most are freshman and this might not be shown until the year after next.  3 of MIT's starters were voted as the part of the best 5 in the NEWMAC conference and arguments could be made for the other 2 starters.  I respectively disagree with the "talent" portion of your argument.  As posted earlier, I also disagree with MIT adjustments, i.e., they did not need to make any adjustments.  MIT was obviously the better team and F&M failed to make the proper adjustments IMHO.  Please keep posting including a player by player analysis.  Thanks.

[Hugenerd]

Jamie Karraker up next on Hoopsville:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hoopsville

[diehardfan]

I definitely didn't mean to imply that I thought it was bad, I actually thought it was very even. I am just more used to refs either being very picky or letting people play. On the rare occasions that they do both, it's usually the other way around where they started out tougher and then in a close game they let the teams play. If anything, taking a long time to adjust to the refs tightening things up would hurt MIT due to their super short bench.

Thought the MIT fans would appreciate a great Lancasterian perspective on what D3 sports are all about...
Congrates to MIT... we are pulling for you in Amish Country!!!
http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/602360_Division-III-and-college-sports-at-its-best.html

I love this article so much! Thanks for posting it!!

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Did anyone else think the game was called super weirdly? It was a super physical game with lots of tough defense, and then they just started randomly calling everything in the second half.

Same thing happened in both games Friday night.  It's like there's something in the water they put in the ref's room at F&M.

Yeah... but those refs don't call F&M games. They are from the Baltimore/DC area and don't call Centennial Conference games... and probably didn't even call the game against St. Mary's.

You are alluding to a home-court advantage... but trust me, since I knew all three crews this weekend very well, there really wasn't that kind of advantage!
Yeah, I remember thinking that right around the 8 minute mark whent they hadn't called a moving screen all game, and then they called 2 in a row on Will Tashman in less than a minute, something weird was happening.  Then, down the stretch, F&M got several calls on shots that were forced and there didnt appear to have a lot of contact (including on 3s).  Luckily it had no bearing on the game.

Yes the foul call on the F&M 3-point shot was disappointing.  It was a F&M home game.

[Hugenerd]

For those of you confused by the previous post, I reformatted Dave's post for him:

Did anyone else think the game was called super weirdly? It was a super physical game with lots of tough defense, and then they just started randomly calling everything in the second half.

Same thing happened in both games Friday night.  It's like there's something in the water they put in the ref's room at F&M.

Yeah, I remember thinking that right around the 8 minute mark whent they hadn't called a moving screen all game, and then they called 2 in a row on Will Tashman in less than a minute, something weird was happening.  Then, down the stretch, F&M got several calls on shots that were forced and there didnt appear to have a lot of contact (including on 3s).  Luckily it had no bearing on the game.

Yes the foul call on the F&M 3-point shot was disappointing.  It was a F&M home game.

Yeah... but those refs don't call F&M games. They are from the Baltimore/DC area and don't call Centennial Conference games... and probably didn't even call the game against St. Mary's.

You are alluding to a home-court advantage... but trust me, since I knew all three crews this weekend very well, there really wasn't that kind of advantage!

Sometimes the serial quoting gets a bit tricky!

[BBallers]

For those of you confused by the previous post, I reformatted Dave's post for him:

Did anyone else think the game was called super weirdly? It was a super physical game with lots of tough defense, and then they just started randomly calling everything in the second half.

Same thing happened in both games Friday night.  It's like there's something in the water they put in the ref's room at F&M.

Yeah, I remember thinking that right around the 8 minute mark whent they hadn't called a moving screen all game, and then they called 2 in a row on Will Tashman in less than a minute, something weird was happening.  Then, down the stretch, F&M got several calls on shots that were forced and there didnt appear to have a lot of contact (including on 3s).  Luckily it had no bearing on the game.

Yes the foul call on the F&M 3-point shot was disappointing.  It was a F&M home game.

Yeah... but those refs don't call F&M games. They are from the Baltimore/DC area and don't call Centennial Conference games... and probably didn't even call the game against St. Mary's.

You are alluding to a home-court advantage... but trust me, since I knew all three crews this weekend very well, there really wasn't that kind of advantage!

Sometimes the serial quoting gets a bit tricky!

I thought the F&M refs called a pretty good game until near the end, maybe the last 8 to 10 minutes.  I don't believe it was biased, but sometimes referees (who are human) are affected by a home crowd.  I know my limitations and I would not like to referee myself.  The most important trait for a ref is consistency IMHO and they called it a little tighter near the end of the game compared to the first half.  The only bad job by referees in the MIT NCAA games was the first round game against Skidmore College, only because they let way too much unnecessary contact go uncalled.  Does anyone know if those refs were from their area of NY?  It was by far the weakest team MIT played, but that game had the closest score.

[NEWMACJACK]

Great job MIT.  Bring the whole thing home!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Congrats NERD!

Hoops Fan - now might be the time to stay a little quiet.  Literally my 3rd grade neice on Friday night said that MIT looked so much better than any of the teams we were watching (we watched both games from F&M).

Not even saying MIT is better than Amherst.  What I am saying is that NOBODY (from coach K to my 3rd grade niece) would say Amherst looked better on that night!

Makes the rest of your paragraph (which was well written) hard to even get through.

I'm not sure how I'm becoming the bad guy here?  I'm rooting for MIT - I've been more and more impressed every game.  I posted a longer reply on the "Ranking" board so I'll keep it short here:

Something I didn't factor in from Friday, which became amazingly apparent Saturday was the respective team's ability to adjust.  Amherst showed none and MIT has been amazing at it.  When watching the teams play Friday I had no real basis of comparison - and when you put together physical attributes, talent, depth, etc, Amherst still comes out on top for me, talent wise they are a better team.  MIT has talented guys, but less of them; what they do possess is incredible intelligence (I hate how cliched that sounds, but it's true) and ability to control the floor.

As I said before, in one pressure game, I'll pick MIT; over the course of 100, I think Amherst's depth and talent have more impact and makes the decision more difficult.  At this point, they're 1 and 1a and I wouldn't argue with anyone over the order.

You are definitely not a "bad guy", are entitled to your opinion, and I enjoy your posts.  I have not watched Amherst play earlier, but you must believe that they had an "off" game against F&M.  F&M certainly gave Amherst plenty of opportunities to come back with all of their missed free throws.  This was the worst free throw shooting I've seen in the tournament.  Could Amherst's off-game be because F&M has the #1 rated defense in D3 basketball?  Any part of it?  I would be interested in your opinion on each player by player comparison between Amherst and MIT.  If by depth, you mean bench, I would agree that Amherst's bench is more productive because they play more.  MIT has some talented players on their bench, but most are freshman and this might not be shown until the year after next.  3 of MIT's starters were voted as the part of the best 5 in the NEWMAC conference and arguments could be made for the other 2 starters.  I respectively disagree with the "talent" portion of your argument.  As posted earlier, I also disagree with MIT adjustments, i.e., they did not need to make any adjustments.  MIT was obviously the better team and F&M failed to make the proper adjustments IMHO.  Please keep posting including a player by player analysis.  Thanks.

I don't have a lot of earlier viewing to compare, but at this level, when your big guys are missing layups with the frequency Amherst's bigs did in the first half, that contributes to an off night.

Honestly, I think F&M's offense and Amherst's inability to adjust to it was the real difference maker.  It really boggled my mind that they couldn't at least shut down one simple play, which F&M used over and over again.  Amherst should have had an advantage in the post, but they lost the game because of post play (as good as Milligan was and as successfully as they frustrated Toomey).

As I said, the perspective of the Saturday game helped me understand just how much the adjustments matter.  MIT absolutely scouted Friday and they didn't let F&M pull off some of those simple post plays that killed Amherst.

When I say talented, I'm thinking more about overall talent.  Amherst's athleticism is definitely better and they've got better players deeper down the bench.  Individually, MIT's top three are better than Amherst's top three, but overall, I think Amherst is the more talented team.

MIT has overcome that disadvantage because all of their guys know how to stay on the floor.  Bench doesn't matter if you don't need it.  They've actually gotten over the hump as far as that's concerned.  The only team left with a real deep bench is Cabrini - but without a lot of big guys that won't matter as much to MIT.

I can totally see them winning the whole thing.  Obviously, if they do there's no question they're #1.  If they lose to Whitewater, I still have some thinking to do about them verses Amherst.  It's close, and as I said, one game I'll take MIT - long haul, I'm still thinking it over.

[onetinsoldier]

Very interesting discussion, i wanted to make a few follow up points about this weekend after reading these comments:

On the officiating, I think in order to have a "home-ref" advantage you need a gym where the refs feel like their decision matters.  The studies have shown that, it is human nature that a ref would want to make a call that is cheered, and would be more timid to make a call that gets booed.  The F&M crowds, for the better part of the last decade can best be described as a wine and cheese party.  It really is impossible to hear 2000 people be so quiet.  Now to their credit, the student section has been very strong (especially the last three weeks and most certainly friday night).  But for as great of a gym Mayser is, they just dont have the type of crowd that can influence refs regularly.

And as for the officiating Saturday, I felt the refs let the play get a little too physical down low.  This definitely benefited MIT because of their outside game was far superior to F&M's and the discussed depth issues.  Did it impact the outcome? absolutely not.

But as for who the "better" team is between Amherst and MIT, I'll simply answer it this way:  On friday Amherst put forth their best effort and it still wasnt good enough.  On Saturday, MIT put out an 80-90% effort and yet F&M was still not within 7 at any point in the second half.  MIT put on a clinic in arms-length, ball possession basketball and didnt even need to ramp up the offensive intensity in the final 20 minutes.

[mass_d3fan]

Since they did not play each other, in my view the only other way to say one is better is indeed to use the progress throught the NCAAs as the measuring stick.  In my mind, there is not doubt that MIT is better.  MIT is the best team I have seen over the last year as actually using the inside game.  It frees up their outside shooters.  Saw Amherst last year at WPI and while thier guards where exceptional, their interoir game was not a focus of what they did.  They have talented guys but they are under-utilized.

Bottom line, MIT is the BEST team from this region, opinions can differ, the RESULTS do not!  They are the only one left standing from the Northeast, if you think someone is better, then they should be still playing!

I still have reservations about MITs depth, but they have proven on the court so far it is not a hinderance.  I do however fear they will have major issues after next year if coach Anderson plays the big 4 over 30 minutes a game again.