MBB: NEWMAC

[Greek Tragedy]

Meanwhile, Babson is 1-3 against Clark and WPI.

[WashedUp1]

Meanwhile, Babson is 1-3 against Clark and WPI.

Ha! Fair play. But recent years, Babson has had both their numbers in the tournament.

[WPI89]

WPI scheduled 11 teams with 15 wins last year.  3 with 18 and 2 more with 21.  They blew their chance to play Trinity by losing to Suffolk after the break.  Beat Amherst and Tufts.  SOS will not help - but also not really a scheduling issue - ended up unlucky that several tourney teams last year are having down years this year on their schedule.

Also - played Quinnipiac which counts in Massey rating.

I can't see them being left out this year should they end up 24-3 and lose to Babson or Clark in NEWMAC final.  Hope we don't have to worry about that!

[BaboNation]

Regarding WPI, first off they are pretty safely in this year.  They could probably lose their final regular season game and lose the NEWMAC semi, finish 22-4, and still get a Pool C, unless there's an unprecedented run of bid thieves.

And I have always respected their program under Bartley.  He develops players and gets guys to fit his system year after year.  Just look at how Marelli and Reidy have made huge leaps in their game this year.

But their SOS needs to get better by scheduling tougher out of conference.  Massey has them 6th out of 9 NEWMAC teams for end-of-season projected SOS.  And they barely beat out Wheaton (186 vs. 188).  The last 2 years they finished 22-4 and 21-5 and missed the tournament both years.  There's simply no margin for error with a 186 Massey.  And compounding the issue was adding the 9th NEWMAC team (Salve Regina) so that 16 out of 25 games are now conference games.  Then add the factor that the conference as a whole has gotten weaker in the last 3 years (I watch the games - I don't like to say this).

If it can't be Babson I'll be rooting for the NEWMAC entry, whoever that turns out to be.

[WashedUp1]

Regarding WPI, first off they are pretty safely in this year.  They could probably lose their final regular season game and lose the NEWMAC semi, finish 22-4, and still get a Pool C, unless there's an unprecedented run of bid thieves.

And I have always respected their program under Bartley.  He develops players and gets guys to fit his system year after year.  Just look at how Marelli and Reidy have made huge leaps in their game this year.

But their SOS needs to get better by scheduling tougher out of conference.  Massey has them 6th out of 9 NEWMAC teams for end-of-season projected SOS.  And they barely beat out Wheaton (186 vs. 188).  The last 2 years they finished 22-4 and 21-5 and missed the tournament both years.  There's simply no margin for error with a 186 Massey.  And compounding the issue was adding the 9th NEWMAC team (Salve Regina) so that 16 out of 25 games are now conference games.  Then add the factor that the conference as a whole has gotten weaker in the last 3 years (I watch the games - I don't like to say this).

If it can't be Babson I'll be rooting for the NEWMAC entry, whoever that turns out to be.

Agree 100%. Bartley is one of the best coaches in New England, if not the country, at this level. He gets so much out of his guys, he's a great recruiter, and the culture he has built at WPI is second-to-none in DIII basketball. Guys play so hard and work so hard in that program, it's truly impressive.

I just wish that they would go out and play a better non-conference. I get the Worcester State game but do you need to be playing Salem State, Fitchburgh State, & UMass Dartmouth? Bottom 100 teams? Go play Colby, go play Brandeis, go play Midd, go play Nichols/Endicott/WNEC. Just beef up that schedule a bit more.

Especially knowing that you'll still get two games each against Salve, Wheaton and Coast Guard.

[WPI89]

Don't have an issue with any of that.  I think there was a little bad luck with several opponents having down years, but I agree with all.

Do you guys know how scheduling works?  Is it clean each year, empty slate outside conference games - or are there multi-year deals - sort of home and home type deals?

[Pat Coleman]

Outside of tournaments/classics and guarantee games with teams at scholarship levels, most non-conference games are indeed multi-year contracts.

[WPI89]

Thanks, Pat

[WPI89]

...........and Babo - comparing SOS within NEWMAC is not completely fair (especially since as you said, this is a down overall NEWMAC year) - as the other 8 teams "get" to play WPI twice - which is a big SOS boost.

[BaboNation]

...........and Babo - comparing SOS within NEWMAC is not completely fair (especially since as you said, this is a down overall NEWMAC year) - as the other 8 teams "get" to play WPI twice - which is a big SOS boost.

WPI:  But that's not how it works.  If all of the NEWMAC (or any conference for that matter) played only conference games they'd all have the exact same SOS. Because Massey's SOS is (quoting from his site) "the records of opponents and opponents' opponents".

Not all the teams have to develop an OOC schedule like Babson had this year (sounding like the homer I am), but on January 1st Babson had something like the 7th toughest SOS in the country while WPI was around the 180's.  Now Babson is just under 100 somewhere, because of the relative weakness of the NEWMAC and the fact that 64% of their games are within the conference.  If the NEWMAC teams played each other more and more rounds we'd eventually see a regression to the mean (in the high 100's).

None of this should be taken as WPI bashing.  They are a terrific team.  They are so talented and well coached that they could easily take on a stronger schedule.

Meanwhile I think Bartley should make sure his team is well rested for the NCAA Tournament and rest some guys for the NEWMAC postseason.

[WPI89]

Not at all taking it as WPI bashing. You have always been more than fair and provide well thought out points.

But adding 21-2 twice to your schedule (opponents record) certainly helps a great deal with one's sos.

I understand it's the full picture not just conference games.

[WashedUp1]

D3 Datacast does a great job calculating Non-Conf SOS specifically:

https://d3datacast.com/efficiency-ratings/

And to Babo's point, the Beavers are 6th in the nation in Non-Conf SOS while WPI is 88th (which is 4th highest in the conference).

[BaboNation]

There'll be no 3-peat for Babson.

Coast Guard takes them down in the NEWMAC first round 80-69, in a game that was much closer than the final score, but CG controlled for most of the night.

Babson hung with everyone on their schedule til the Wheaton game mid-January when they seemed to lose their mojo and never got it back.  They were never the same team again.

Luke Farrell 20-10 is exactly the kind of player Babson needs and doesn't have - a low post option on offense.  And the CG guards were quicker and posed matchup problems.  Not enough lateral quickness from the Babson guards opened up the lane and caused rotations to be late.  And CG hit their shots when it counted.

Early commits for Babson look promising, but a Nate Amado (20-9 tonight) doesn't grow on trees. 

[WashedUp1]

There'll be no 3-peat for Babson.

Coast Guard takes them down in the NEWMAC first round 80-69, in a game that was much closer than the final score, but CG controlled for most of the night.

Babson hung with everyone on their schedule til the Wheaton game mid-January when they seemed to lose their mojo and never got it back.  They were never the same team again.

Luke Farrell 20-10 is exactly the kind of player Babson needs and doesn't have - a low post option on offense.  And the CG guards were quicker and posed matchup problems.  Not enough lateral quickness from the Babson guards opened up the lane and caused rotations to be late.  And CG hit their shots when it counted.

Early commits for Babson look promising, but a Nate Amado (20-9 tonight) doesn't grow on trees.

I wonder how much the fairly smooth win on Saturday against Coast Guard played into the struggles last night - having not watched the playoff game but seeing parts of Saturdays game.

[BaboNation]

There'll be no 3-peat for Babson.

Coast Guard takes them down in the NEWMAC first round 80-69, in a game that was much closer than the final score, but CG controlled for most of the night.

Babson hung with everyone on their schedule til the Wheaton game mid-January when they seemed to lose their mojo and never got it back.  They were never the same team again.

Luke Farrell 20-10 is exactly the kind of player Babson needs and doesn't have - a low post option on offense.  And the CG guards were quicker and posed matchup problems.  Not enough lateral quickness from the Babson guards opened up the lane and caused rotations to be late.  And CG hit their shots when it counted.

Early commits for Babson look promising, but a Nate Amado (20-9 tonight) doesn't grow on trees.

I wonder how much the fairly smooth win on Saturday against Coast Guard played into the struggles last night - having not watched the playoff game but seeing parts of Saturdays game.

I don't think Saturday was a factor at all.  Both teams liberally substituted in that game and Babson was already locked into the 3 seed.  They barely beat CG in the last minute at their place a month ago.  Yes, Kloman missed that game, but they have played down to the competition for a month.  After the Wheaton game all the flags were up that something wasn't quite right.
Very uncharacteristic for this squad, but they kinda peaked in early January.

They really need a natural 5 going forward.  They cobbled stuff together and it worked for a while, but it got exposed/exploited as time went on.