MBB: NEWMAC

[Hugenerd]

Babson handles WPI tonight, 72-58. 

[Hugenerd]

MIT defeats Coast Guard, 78-58.

Mark Simon was on his game, as usual, on the call.

[Hugenerd]

Springfield holds home court against Clark, 64-61.

[Hugenerd]

Getting back to the MIT game, Noel Hollingsworth had 25 points on 10-13 shooting, adding 7 boards, 3 assists, and 2 blocks.  Will Tashmen continued his strong play, almost getting another double-double, with 9 points and 12 boards.  Billy Johnson and Jimmy Burke came alive, with each of them making 4 threes in the game (Johnson was 4-5, Burke was 4-9).  Mitch Kates put in another solid effort, scoring 14 points on 5-9 shooting.

As a team, MIT put their 3-point shooting woes behind them, going 8-12 in the first half, and finished just under 50% at 11-23 for the game.  They shot 56% from the floor as a team.

[toooldtoplay]

Good signs for the Engineers all around. The box shows 14 assists to only 12 turnovers - another good sign against recent games.   It looks like the D picked up in the second half allowing only 27% shooting while stretching the lead from 8-20.  WPI next away. It will be an intense and physical game. I expect WPI to bring their best effort of the year.

[Hugenerd]

Article published today on Hollingsworth and MIT:

http://media.www.dailyorange.com/media/storage/paper522/news/2010/01/28/Sports/Hollingsworth.Leads.DIii.Mit.After.Transferring.From.Brown-3859530.shtml

The article is in the Daily Orange, which is Syracuse's newspaper, of all places.

[mass_d3fan]

Hugenerd,

   My wife attended a gathering of her old school friends this week at Babson. I and a couple of the other husbands decided to "escape" some of it by going to the Babson-WPI game on Wed.

Given the MIT loss, the door to gaining at least a share of the regular season title had opened up and I expected the Engineers to play well and handle Babson.  It was a very bad showing on the part of WPI.  Babson on the other hand continued their Jeckle & Hyde ride by playing a very solid game.

Right from the opening tip, the signs of a bad evening were there for WPI.  I had to double check the play-by-play sheet on this, but they did not score until almost 5 minutes were gone.  They did not get to 10 pts until over 13 minutes had gone by.  In just the first 10 minutes, they had 8 turnovers & 6 missed layups and only 7 points. 

All night they had major issues seeing the floor and moving the ball to the open man.  Their offense was forced and lethargic.  Coach Bartley was clearly frustrated on the sidelines and drew a T after an offensive foul call against the Engineers.  He kept on the officials and came very close to getting tossed.  On the night, WPI had 8 assists on 24 made FGs and 22 turnovers.

Jeff Robinson was shutout in the first half, came alive to bring WPI back into the game.  Two minutes into the 2nd half, Babson got Robinson to commit his 3rd foul by isolating Florio on him.   Just after that, Robinson started to catch fire and Babson never came back to attempt the isolation play again.  WPI got to with 1 at 47-46 on a Robinson 3-ptr with just under 10 minutes left.  That completed a run where he scored 17 of WPI's 26 2nd half points. 

Babson applied some full court pressure after that and WPI simply folded.  Shannon & Nadeau looked completely intimated by it.  Looking back at the play-by-play, of their next 11 possessions (about 6 minutes), they had 6 turnovers(3 by Shannon) and only scored on 2 Robinson free throws.  During that time they had multiple opportunities to get the ball down court to wide open teammates for easy scores but never once made the play.  Babson capitalized on the turnovers with easy break out hoops including a nice dunk by Braithwaite.

Matt Zoia had a very good game.  He had 4 3-ptrs and tallied up 19 points on the evening.  Russell Braithwaite gave the Engineers fits all night and had 15 of his 21 in the second half.

Babson defended Perez very well and had him frustrated all night as evidenced by the fact had the same number of FG attempts as turnovers – 6.  Combine the 22 turnovers with 26 in their previous game against Springfield and the trend is not pretty. If they turn it over 20+ times vs. MIT on Sat., it could lead to an even bigger blowout than the game in Cambridge.  They need to get back to the way they were playing before Christmas when they moved the ball much better in their offensive sets.  If they don't, look for MIT to seriously embarrass them on their home court.

I was hoping that that Saturday's game would be a big battle for the top again, but now it's a really a pride issue for WPI to show that they can actually compete with MIT.  I think WPI's only route to the NCAA's now is to win the NEWMAC post-season tournament.  A pool C bid is pretty much out of the picture now.

[Hugenerd]

Good stuff.  Good to hear about other games in the NEWMAC.  I hope MIT takes care of business tomorrow.  The team played pretty well on Wednesday, so I hope the loss go their attention (and I hope that the guys are getting over the illnesses/injuries).

[Hugenerd]

MIT with a solid win today at WPI.  Made it out to Worcester today and was happy to see MIT play well in the second half to pull out the win.  Great shooting again was the key, as they shot 60% from 3 and 58% overall from the field.  Up next is Babson at home on Wednesday.

[mass_d3fan]

Hugenerd,

   I had a scurry around to get a few things done at home, but did make the game just after the tip.

   What were your impressions of WPI's usage of the big men in this game?
Specifically, I am curious what you thought of them staying small in the last minute when they cut the lead to 3.

   Also, the MIT front court did an even better job on shutting Perez down this time - he was non-factor in this game (1-6,2pts).

   In the end, the difference in this game was again MIT's ability to take advantage of mismatch's and hit the 3's.  MIT is 16 for 30 in the 2 games Vs. WPI from outside the arc, while WPI is only 8 for 24.

   Another interesting stat MIT had 11 assists spread over 6 players on their 26 made FG's.  WPI had only 5 assists on 24 made FG's and they were all by Kyle Nadeau.

   Overall, WPI played better than in Cambridge, but the end result was the same.

[Hugenerd]

Hugenerd,
  I had a scurry around to get a few things done at home, but did make the game just after the tip.

  What were your impressions of WPI's usage of the big men in this game?
Specifically, I am curious what you thought of them staying small in the last minute when they cut the lead to 3.

  Also, the MIT front court did an even better job on shutting Perez down this time - he was non-factor in this game (1-6,2pts).

  In the end, the difference in this game was again MIT's ability to take advantage of mismatch's and hit the 3's.  MIT is 16 for 30 in the 2 games Vs. WPI from outside the arc, while WPI is only 8 for 24.

  Another interesting stat MIT had 11 assists spread over 6 players on their 26 made FG's.  WPI had only 5 assists on 24 made FG's and they were all by Kyle Nadeau.

  Overall, WPI played better than in Cambridge, but the end result was the same.

I think WPI stuck with the small lineup because thats the lineup that cut the lead to 3.  WPI has some bigs that make up in strength what they are missing in height, so they can be effective.  However, when you are down double-figures you need to go to a smaller lineup to try to press and pickup the tempo to force turnovers.  It almost worked, as MIT made a couple of poor decisions in terms of shots and a couple of  bad passes, but when Kates got the ball at the end of the game the team settled down, they ran their stuff, and got the ball to Hollingsworth for the decisive shot.

I expected Perez to be shut down because he can only go left.  The reason he scored as much as he did in the first game was because it took a little while (one half) for Tashman to figure out how to defend him.  Tashman is big enough so that he is not overpowered by Perez and when he sits on his left and forces Perez to go right, he really has shown that he cant do anything.  In the last 3 halves that Tashmen has guarded Perez he has a total of 6 points, and only 2 points in the last 50 minutes of game time (Perez had 6 in the first half of the first matchup).  Perez is a good player, but unless he gets more comfortable going right, teams are going to be able to slow him down considerably if they have a strong post defender.

[mass_d3fan]

Hn,

  I completely agree with your assessment on Perez.  I saw the same thing unfold at that Babson game.  They are even trying to give him the ball at the top of the key and drive, but he always ends up on that left block.  In truth, Jerome Stewart would appear to be a better fit for the role they are forcing so hard to fit Perez into.  He has the ability to work both sides of the lane and has the mid-range jumper that Perez is missing.

I also agree there are times when you need to try to speed up the tempo when your down and it did work in getting the game to a single possession contest.  However at that point, WPI did not need a steal, they needed a defensive stop.  It was surprising to me and those around me that they did not get one of their bigs in the game at that point.  We all knew exactly were MIT was going to go with the ball, and it was a serious mismatch.  I am not saying that putting Lessard or Carr on him would have prevented a score; just that it was the right play given the fact they had held him in check when they were in the game.

Just out of curiosity, I went back over the play-by-play sheet and was very surprised to see that when either Lessard or Carr or both were in the game, Hollinsworth was only 1-4 scoring just 2 pts.  During that time, Tashman only had 2, Bender 4 & Johnson 0.

The rest of the time without a true size presence on the court, Noel did not miss a shot! (8-8 FGs,3-3 FTs)   He kick started MIT by scoring 6 pts in the first 4 minutes of each half and had no difficulty getting the ball or scoring over that small lineup.

I will say Stewart was very effective on the offensive end against Hollinsworth, but on the defensive end, if MIT wanted Noel to get the ball, he was able to get it and get his shot whenever he wanted it. This is not a knock on Stewart, just a simple fact that he was overmatched.

Sticking with my 'bigs' theme, I thought Ben Montgomery played a good game spelling both Hollinsworth & Tashman.  He keeps their front line big without a really big drop off in ability.

I think this was a good character win for MIT.  They were very patient most of the game and obviously shot the ball very, very well. (57.8% from the field overall, 60% from 3, and 86.7 from the line)  They did make a couple of mistakes near the end, but Kates showed a great amount of poise in the final minute handling & passing the ball.  This team is constructed for a good run in March.  Depth is really their only weakness.  The experience factor is fading away with each game where they get tested and respond as they did in this one.

[Hugenerd]

Hollingsworth is very patient.  He may have been 1-4 when he was guarded by WPIs bigger guys, but he also is very adept at passing out of double teams, or otherwise congestion in the lane, and this can lead to wide open shots from the perimenter guys (obviously they shot very well).  I wouldnt read too much into him going 1-4 compared to 8-8 in a single game.  He had a huge game against Jevon James against CGA on Wednesday and James is probably the best big man in the league outside of MIT's guys.  He can score against either.  They may have been running a different defensive scheme when the bigger guys were in (clogging the middle and leaving the wings open, for example), so it may not have been an issue of 1 on 1 matchups either.

I am just glad Hollingsworth is at MIT and not at Brown this year.  With this young nucleus, and what I have heard about some of the guys coming in next year,  they not only look good going into this postseason but potentially for several years down the road as well.  In terms of depth, if MIT is healthy this year then they will be fine (and they will definitely have more re-inforcements next year).

[Hugenerd]

Noel Hollingsworth named NEWMAC player of the week (again).  This is the fourth time he has won the award this season (out of 8 weeks the award has been given).

http://www.newmacsports.com/sports/mbkb/awards/weekly/2009-2010/mbkbweekly020110

[mass_d3fan]

Hugenerd,

Congratulations to Noel Hollinsworth on the Player of the Week award.  Very Well Deserved!

I agree he is a very patient low post player.  It does not surprise me that had a big day against CGA's James.  James may be very physical, but give me a talented 6'9" player in the low post against 6'4" or 6'5" any day of the week. Also, it's not like James is 6'5" and 240 lbs either.  Noel gets the ball up in a good shooting position very quickly and lets face it, there are no 6'5" players around whose reach alone is going to bother a 6'9" player of Hollinsworth's ability.  From the box score, Noel was 10 for 13 with 2 of the 3 misses coming from outside the arc.  It just proves my point, you are not going to be able to defend a player like Noel with someone the size of a Jerome Stewart or Jevan James.  He simply plays over them.  It is a huge advantage that MIT & Coach Anderson fully exploit.  This is backed up by your observations and the 2 1/2 games I have seen him play, he has the ability to completely destroy smaller guys in the low post and mid-range areas.

You also see MIT have this advantage in the guard slot as well.  How many other 6'5" shooting guards is Bender matching up against?  None in the NEWMAC that is for sure.  Also Johnson at 6'8" is more comfortable on the perimeter where he is rarely drawing someone his own size this season.  I know his offense has been sub-par based on what he has done in the past, but he is still a hard weapon to defend when he gets going.