MBB: NEWMAC

[atn alum]

NEWMAC MEN'S BASKETBALL BROADCAST LINKS

ALL GAMES WILL BE WEBCAST

Saturday
Coast Guard vs WPI, 1 ET
Springfield vs MIT, 3 ET

Sunday
Championship, 1 ET

VIDEO/AUDIO LINK
http://wpi.prestosports.com/video/live

AUDIO ONLY LINK
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/coast-guard-sports

LIVE STATS
http://livestats.prestosports.com/wpi/


E-MAIL THE BROADCAST BOOTH AT CGBEARS2008@AOL.COM

[Hugenerd]

WPI wins the first game behind some solid play from Carr and some friendly home court officiating.  Carr went down in the second half and apparently he is doubtful for tomorrow, based on what Bartley said after the game.

Kates is dominating the first half of the 2nd Semi.  He has 18 points, 6 boards, 4 assists, and 2 steals (only 1 turnover)...in one half.  Harkins, for comparison, has 0 points (hasnt even gotten a shot off), 1 board, 1 assist, 3 turnovers and 3 fouls in 13 minutes.  Kates looks like he came to play today and Harkins has had problems staying with him.

MIT leads at the half 39-28.

[Hugenerd]

MIT pretty much cruised in the second half.  Leading by 20 points with 5 minutes to play, before Springfield went on a little run, when it didnt matter, to make the final score respectable. I was glad to see a relatively clean game (the refs made sure of that, calling a combined 55 fouls, but I felt they were consistent; I am sure they were aware of last week).

Big lines for Kates and Tashman.  Kates had 22 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals, and a block. Tashman had 17 points, 14 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

Cavalieri played hard and put in 15 points.  Rankins led them with 16 and Coburn played, scoring 10 points with 5 boards. Harkins was saddled with some foul trouble, playing 28 minutes before fouling out.  He was ineffective this afternoon, just like last weeekend, only scoring 6 points, while committing 5 turnovers, with only 2 assists and a steal.

In their 3 head-to-head matchups, Harkins has averaged 5.7 points, 2.7 assists, 4.3 turnovers (0.61 A/TO), 2.3 rebounds, and 1.0 steals in 28.3 minutes.  In the same games, Kates has averaged 10.3 points, 4.7 assists, 2.7 turnovers (1.8 A/TO), 4.0 rebounds, and 3.0 steals in 27.3 minutes.

MIT and WPI will face off tomorrow for the automatic bid.  WPI may be without Carr, who went down with an ankle injury today.  In a similar situation, MIT backup forward Tim Donegan went down, and looks doubtful for tomorrow.  Obviously the loss of Carr hurts WPI more than the loss of Donegan for MIT, if either cant go tomorrow.  If you're WPI, do you take a chance playing Carr and more seriously injuring his ankle tomorrow when you pretty much have a Pool C bid locked up, or do you try to get the AQ?  Fernando Perez also didnt play today, so if both are out tomorrow that would give MIT a big edge inside with Tashman and Dickson. Should be a good game either way.

On another note, I think Carr should win POY, but I am not sure he was nominated (each team can only nominate 1 player, and Robinson may have been their nomination).  If I had to rank players for POY, I would say Carr, Kates, Robinson, Tashman, and Cavalieri.  I dont think any players on any teams out of those 3 gets consideration, because of team records.

[7express]

Don't think Carr is playing for WPI today, but if he is he's playing sparring minutes, currently not on the court (24-14 MIT 5:04 left in half).  MIT can steal a pool C bid since WPI is more then likely getting an NCAA bid regardless.

[Hugenerd]

Carr is playing (25 minutes or so), but ineffectively.


MIT up 15 with 1: 43 to play.

[JustAFan]

Congratulations to MIT on a well played win.  The Engineers have a bright future ahead of them, only losing one senior.  It was my first time seeing Kates play since he was at Exeter.  He's the real deal.  If he was in the NESCAC they would be gushing about him along with the great guards at Williams, Middlebury and Amherst.  He's the equal if not better than any of them, with a ton of court savvy and a great handle and ability to get to the hoop. 

[7express]

Carr is playing (25 minutes or so), but ineffectively.


MIT up 15 with 1: 43 to play.

WPI closed the first half on a huge run, 14-2 to cut a 24-14 deficit to a 28-26 halftime lead, I thought that would carry over to the second half.  Congrats to MIT, but that drops another team into pool C that West Conn has to deal with.

[beaner11]

WPI should get an at large bid right?

[7express]

WPI should get an at large bid right?

Yes, they have good numbers.  They'll either be the second or 3rd northeast team selected after Williams and possibly after Amherst.

[mass_d3fan]

Good Evening Fellow Posters

Im back online here at home after some delays with an electrical contractor here.

First - Congratulations to MIT for winning the NEWMAC Tournament. On this weekend, the better team won the day.  Also Congrats to Will Tashman for two great games & the Tournament MVP.

Second - Hats Off to WPI's Matt Carr who looked for sure like that was no way he would be on the court today.  Most everyone around the arena assumed he was out for this one and looking back your post from last HN, I would have agreed with you.  He looked pretty good considering the way he was after yesterday's game.  He did not play up to his usual level, but it's hard for a big to do that when you're not seeing the ball. (I'll post more on this later).

I am pretty sure WPI gets Pool C bid, I guess the real question is where do they end up?  Two years ago they lost in the NEWMAC semis and still hosted.  Middlebury & RIC were the other NE hosts that year.


HN, TY for pointing out I had put this in the wrong forum.

[mass_d3fan]

The Saturday games provided some excitement and drama.

WPI/Coast Guard.  This one was shaping up a great back & forth between Jevon James amd Matt Carr.  In the first half Carr had 11 and James 8 even though he was limited to 7 minutes with 2 fouls.  Carr & Wesoloski combined for 18 of the Engineers 27 in the first half.  Carr turned his ankle on his 2nd FG of this 2nd half.  At that point he had 15 and James had 10.  WPI was up by 6 at point.  They extended it to 9 on a Ryan Kolb bucket with 10 minutes to go. A James FG followed by 5 straight points by Greg Marshall and a jumper by Jimmy Knudsen made it a 2 point game.  The teams traded baskets and a James lay-up made it a 2 point game (48-46) again with 6 and half minutes to go. A Robinson jumper and a putback hoop by Wesoloski opened the lead back up to 6.  WPI closed out the game at the free throw line.

For Coast Guard, James finished with 19 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists. Greg Marshall also had 19.  Only 3 other Bears scored.

WPI was led by Carr's 15 and 6 rebounds, Robinson had 12 points, all in the 2nd half, Wesoloski posted 11 to go with a game-high 8 boards and Ben Etten had 10 points and 5 rebounds.

I was in and out of the MIT/Springfield game handling calls with my electrician, but MIT handled them quite easily actually.  Springfield made a run near the end of the first half and got the lead down to 6, but Kates hit a 3 and then made a lay-up off a steal to give MIT an 11 point lead at the half.  Springfield never really challenged again. Cavalieri was off, shooting just 5 for 13. Kates made Harkins a zero factor and ended the debate about who the best PG. 

For those you who were there or watched on-line, what did you all think of the play at the scorer's table?  Very lucky the MIT player was not seriously injured and I was amazed that no foul was called.

[toooldtoplay]

A few observations of the games this weekend.  Congrats to MIT on getting a bid to the dance. Congrats to WPI on a great season as well.

1. Tashman has improved tremedously over the past year and dominated the paint this weekend. His scoring and rebounding were the difference and he well deserved the MVP for the tournament.

2. Robinson was defended better than in previous meetings and most of his 16 shots were contested or forced leading to a 4-16 showing.

3. Although both teams ran 3 defenders at Kates full court the entire game he dominated his position as he has throughout the year. Both starting points fouled out after ineffective games trying to guard him.  He handles all the pressure and decision making extremely efficiently and his first half against Springfield was as good as it gets.

4. The play at the scorers table with Tashman crashing into the table appeared to be a foul but maybe the ball went out of bounds first. Luckily noone injured.

5. Carr sucked it up and played in alot of obvious pain. Great effort by him.

6. Bush move by the WPI athletic director making the MIT fans sit down during the game.  They were allowed to stand in the Springfield game but not against the home team??  The excuse is that fans behind could not see but with 1000 empty seats that is no excuse.  Every high school and college team in America has students standing and cheering.  Designate a student section for such activities and let the adults go somewhere else.

7. The WPI band and crowd were great making a tremendous atmosphere for the game.

8. Second time that MIT has captured the NEWMAC at WPI.  I remember a huge MIT student section at that game. Not nearly as many this time but very vocal (while sitting).

[mass_d3fan]

The MIT/WPI title game was an amazing contrast in on-court poise and decision making.  WPI played like a panic-stricken team for most of the game.  They completely abandoned what got them to this point.  Most amazing stats -> MIT had only 31 FG attempts for the game.  They went 17 for 31, including 8 for 15 from 3.  WPI had 6 assists on its 21 FGs in the game, while MIT had 13 assists on 17 FGs.  A rather telling stat! The outside shooting got them off to a good start as 15 of their 26 1st half points came from outside the arc. Their 24 to 9 free throw advantage was skewed a bit as 13 of those attempts came in the last 3 minutes.

MIT was led by Tashman's 2nd double-double of the weekend with 17 points and 10 rebounds to go with 3 assists.  Mitchell Kates posted 13 points and 5 assists and Billy Bender also scored 13 to go with 5 boards and 2 assists. Kates did a great job of running his teams offense and defended very well too.

WPI got 12 from Robinson, 9 from Etten to go with a team-high 5 rebounds and 8 from Shannon. Coming down the stretch, Robinson has seems to really be struggling & pressing and had a bad weekend shooting the ball. He was 3 for 11 on Sat. and 4 for 16 against MIT.  In his last 4 games he is a combined 16 for 56 (28.6%). with 4 assists and 12 turnovers.  To top that off, he had a really bad gash opened up on his head at the end of the game.  it was not a pretty sight. I am pretty sure that is going to have required a few stitches.  Hopefully it will not hinder him come this weekend.

MIT did a great job of getting Tashman fully involved in their offense, where WPI seemed to think Carr was not on the court (He went 2 for 3 in 24 minutes).  It was shame when you think what a risk it was to have him play in the first place.  I talked to a lot of people at half-time and to a man they were wondering why they were not getting him the ball if they were going to send him out there. I got to the game early enough to watch the warm-ups and he looked quite good especially considering he needed help to go through the handshake line on Saturday. The only thing I noticed that was really different from what I have seen in the other games was he was struggling some with getting around Tashman and Dickinson.  He had been probably the best big in the conference with his feet at being able to get from defending in back to fronting and denying the ball.  Other than that, he got up down the court well and had no problem getting position inside, his teammates just did not get him the ball.  Tashman did a good job of keeping him off the boards at times, but some of WPI's shot selection negated his ability on the offensive glass as well.

I will confess I just do not get it when you see this team play well as they were early this month, working their inside game and having it provide open looks for the perimeter game they are very, very good.  Then they have games like this one where they just abandon it completely and decide to bomb away or drive into the lane into double and even triple teams without kicking it to an open player. There has to come a point where the numbers have to hit home with the WPI staff.  This team is simply not a good enough perimeter shooting team to rely on it the way they have been. In the Coast guard game, Carr & Wesoloski went a combined 12 for 17 (70.5%) and even if you add in Stewart & Kolb it is still 13 for 26 (50.0%).  The rest of the team goes 8 for 33 (24.2%). In the final, Carr and Wesoloski go 3 for 4, add in Perez, Stewart, Kolb & Galloway and the bigs were 5 for 10.  The remainder of the team went 16 for 48 (33.3%).

I was thinking that the title game would be a potential breakout game for Wesoloski after his performance on Sat.  Unfortunaelty, he only got off one shot and played only 13 minutes.

Its one thing to believe you can win more with outside shooting than the interior game, but you at some point actually have to make those shots.  You also have to have enough awareness to realize when it is not working and make adjustments.  WPI does not do that very well. As a team, since going 11 for 18 in the first half of the Wheaton game, they are a combined 22 for 104 from 3-pt territory. I understand the "shooter's mentality" is I always believe I will make the next one, but why would anyone want their team to keep shooting a shot they are only hitting 21% of the time over a number of games?  Now maybe I'm ranting a bit because I am a huge believer in establishing your inside game as a way of creating open looks for your perimeter shooters.

To be very honest, if this continues next week, the Engineers will be one and done.  You really have to wonder how long the staff believes that this "style" is going to be successful at this time of the year.  Poor decision making and terrible shot selection had them looking like a team praying for entry into the ECACs instead of a top 25 team looking to get a seed in the NCAAs.

[mass_d3fan]

A few observations of the games this weekend.  Congrats to MIT on getting a bid to the dance. Congrats to WPI on a great season as well.

1. Tashman has improved tremedously over the past year and dominated the paint this weekend. His scoring and rebounding were the difference and he well deserved the MVP for the tournament.

2. Robinson was defended better than in previous meetings and most of his 16 shots were contested or forced leading to a 4-16 showing.

3. Although both teams ran 3 defenders at Kates full court the entire game he dominated his position as he has throughout the year. Both starting points fouled out after ineffective games trying to guard him.  He handles all the pressure and decision making extremely efficiently and his first half against Springfield was as good as it gets.

4. The play at the scorers table with Tashman crashing into the table appeared to be a foul but maybe the ball went out of bounds first. Luckily noone injured.

5. Carr sucked it up and played in alot of obvious pain. Great effort by him.

6. Bush move by the WPI athletic director making the MIT fans sit down during the game.  They were allowed to stand in the Springfield game but not against the home team??  The excuse is that fans behind could not see but with 1000 empty seats that is no excuse.  Every high school and college team in America has students standing and cheering.  Designate a student section for such activities and let the adults go somewhere else.

7. The WPI band and crowd were great making a tremendous atmosphere for the game.

8. Second time that MIT has captured the NEWMAC at WPI.  I remember a huge MIT student section at that game. Not nearly as many this time but very vocal (while sitting).

on #4 - From my vantage point (opposite side from the scorer's table, it looked like the Springfiled player wrapped his arm around Tashman's waist and pushed him into the table.  Where the ball is should not matter .  The play where Harkins did his pile-on move on Etten was after the ball was out-of-bounds as well.  Very, very fortunate that there was not a serious injury on that play.

on #6 - I agree with you - they should have provided a section for the MIT students to stand if they wish.  They were a joy to watch and should remind us all of what is great about college sports.

[mass_d3fan]

Time to head to bed, but I did get the D3hoops projected bracket.
They have WPI hosting Becker, Husson & Salve Regina.  Hopefully it will work out like that.  Husson was one of the teams who played in Worcester 2 years ago.

They also gave one of the byes to Middlebury.  They get the winner of West. Conn hosting Elms. 

Williams would play host to RIC, Kean & Wells.

Their bracket sends MIT to Oswego State.

Now we wait til 1 PM.  Good luck to all the NE teams especially MIT & WPI.