MBB: NESCAC

[Colby Hoops]

Colby topped U Maine Fort Kent last night behind a huge night from Ben Foreman.  Foreman scored 28 on 11-17 shooting 6-9 from three and dishing out 7 assists.  Not a bad win for Colby considering UMFK nearly beat Bates earlier this season.  Gordon Fischer also chipped in 16 on 4-4 from three, and Eric Beaulieu added 12.  Foreman has really stepped up this year given the scoring void that was created with the loss of Russell and Van Loenen.  Through for games he's averaging 19 ppg on 55% shooting, 48% from three. 

Obviously, Colby may not be on the level of Amherst, Williams or Midd at this point (not that any Nescac team is), but I think they're proving that they can definitely compete with the rest of the league. 

[OchoLoko41]

With a slight apology to OCHOLOKO41...I will make the following opinion about the overall play of Wes.'s offense.  At this point of the season, Wes.'s offense is limited and will not win them many games in the conference against the top teams.  If one can call the BB team a double quartet....8 contributing players, then Wes. has at this time at best a trio but most of the time a solo player.  In the game against Emmanual, it was the S. Brown offense.  He took about 20 shots with the next player taking 5-7.  Wes. does not have an inside game developed yet, other than give the ball to Shasa and let him drive into the paint. 
They do have some talent other than Mr. Brown. 

Have to agree with you up to this point about the Wesleyan offense, at times it seems to regress to the state it was last year and simply becomes dependent on Brown to create his own offense or create for his teammates. 

However, I remain hopeful that Thomas will develop into the solid inside threat that he has shown glimpses of earlier this season and just before his injury last year.  In addition Wesleyan still has tremendous scoring potential in its upperclassmen, Derrick Beresford may be the best shooter in the CAC that no one talks about (right now hes shooting over 50% from three).  Also we havent really seen the output from Jason Mendell that we have become accustomed to.

I fully expect Wesleyan to fix the problems of being so Brown dependent for offense, and at the same time I remind those in the blogosphere that Wesleyan is 5-1, admittedly not against top tier NESCAC opponents but for a team that in the past has often scratched and clawed to get to .500, things seem to be headed in the right direction

[amh63]

Ocholoko......I am forewarned.  In my music analogy..the other two players  in the trio were Mendell and Thomas.  They did get the rebounds in the subject game, I believe, but did not score much.  It is always better to have good games in the conference....especially among the little 3.

[walzy31]

Amherst 46 Westfield St 22 at the half.
Westfield not playing very well and everything clicking for Toomey and Barrise. At the end of the half, Westfield had the ball down 42-22 with the shot clock off and 20 seconds to play. Coach calls for one shot. Player shoots with 10 seconds left, long rebound for an Amherst layup, then a turnover on a baseball inbounds play leads to another Amherst layup at the buzzer. Should be down 17-20 but instead down 24. Ugly stuff.

I always love seeing stats of neutral site games. You'll see one of three things:
1) Tons of assists but no steals or turnovers.
2) Tons of steals and turnovers but not many assists.
3) No steals, no turnovers and no assists (MOST COMMON)

Today we have option #2, as Westfield has 1 credited assist on 7 FGs and 5 steals and Amherst has 6 assists on 13 FGs and 9 steals.

[amh63]

Final score of the game was Amherst 79-Westfield State 62.  The second half saw more subs for Amherst as the big lead of the half was slowly cut down to as low as 14 and finally as the game got physical and more sloppy....with the subs in....Coach Hixon called time and put his starters back in to settle things down.  The lead went up to the 18-21 pt. level and finally ended.  It was not a clean game as the refs. let rough play go and tempers started to flare.  West. state did press hard and other players started to hit their shots.
Glad to see Amherst play and glad to see the game end without injuries to either side.
Has anyone notice that the conference teams are winning today.  Tufts seems to be holding their own.  Any posters know what is happening with the Jumbos this season? 
Oh yes, the announcers were totally out of their element....mixing up lineups and calling C. Johnson of Amherst Jackson.  When more subs went in for both sides, they had to scramble to get the correct lineups for the schools on the floor....mixing up the teams with the game to follow.  All well, youth.

[walzy31]

Saturday December 3rd Spread

Amherst Vs. Westfield St (@ Springfield)
Amherst -26.0
O/U: 154.0

Amherst 79 Vs. Westfield St 62 (@ Springfield)
Amherst -26.0 (Westfield Covers +9.0)
O/U: 154.0 (Under +13.0)

[magicman]

Hamilton remains undefeated at 7-0 as they claim the Utica area championship with a 73-72 road win over SUNYIT. The Continentals defeated Utica College on Thursday night to sweep the Utica area teams.

This afternoon's contest was a close affair throughout as the first half featured 11 lead changes and 6 ties. The Wildcats from SUNYIT enjoyed their biggest advantage when, tied at 13, they scored 6 unanswered points to go up 19-13 with 8:55 left in the period. Hamilton regained the lead at 23-22 and they continued back and forth play before the Continental's Ken Click hit 2 jumpers in the final 36 seconds, the last as time expired, to give Hamilton their biggest 1st half lead 35-31.
Hamilton opened the 2nd half with a 3 pointer to extend the lead to 7 and eventually would widen it to 11 at 51-40 with 12:35 to play. The Wildcats refused to go away and a 7-0 spurt narrowed it to 51-47. The lead would remain with Hamilton but it was only 63-62 after a Wildcat triple with 3:42 left. Two trips to the charity stripe boosted it to 66-62 and after a Wildcat bucket made it a 1 possession game Hamilton frosh Joe Lin hit a big three with 2:14 on the clock to make it 69-64. Still trailing by 4 at 72-68 the Wildcats get a bucket and one to make it 72-71. They actually had a chance to take the lead as they steal the ball on Hamilton's ensuing possession but miss the layup and have to foul with 15 ticks left. Cont's Hans Schulte makes 1 of 2 for a 73-71 lead but Hamilton fouls a Wildcat player with 2 seconds left. He makes the 1st but misses the 2nd and Wildcats get the rebound, throw up a shot at the buzzer that is no good. The Continentals escape with the win.

Hamilton's go to guy Patrick Sullivan once again leads the Continentals and ties for game scoring honor with 22 pts (9x14 fg, 0x2 3's, 4x6 ft) and completes another double-double with 10 rebounds. Soph guard Greg Newton adds 12 pts (5x11 fg, 2x3 ft). Hamilton grabbed 44 boards to 39 for the Wildcats but had 13 TO's to only 8 for SUNYIT. Hamilton shot 22x63 from the field (42.9%), 7x26 3's (26.9%) and 12x17 ft (70.6%). Cont's got 21 pts and 16 rebounds from their bench.

Hamilton will complete a 5 game stretch in 10 days with a game tomorrow afternoon at home against Cazenovia College, a game they should win and then step up in competiton as they travel to Rochester on Wednesday to face the Univ. of Rochester. That one might be a different story.   

[OchoLoko41]

Wesleyan got a tidy 72-50 win over a reeling CCNY team.  While winning is always preferential to losing,  this win as lopsided as it has to raise some questions amongst the Cardinal faithful.  This was another top heavy effort in scoring with Brown and Beresford leading the Cardinals with 22 and 17 points respectively, one really hopes to see more balanced scoring out of Wes in the future.  Also Wesleyan gave up 13 offensive boards, although the loss of Mike Callaghan, arguably the Cardinals most dynamic player, to foul trouble (5 fouls in 19 minutes) may have had something to do with these o boards.

In this win Coach Reilly got a great opportunity as a coach, a nice victory with enough problems in it to keep his team hungry.

[nescac1]

Strong night for NESCAC last night.  NESCAC teams often take a bit to find their groove, considering they start practicing two weeks later than the rest of D-3, and this year a lot of teams were hit particularly hard by the early-season injury bug.  But now it seems like the conference as a whole is really rounding into form.

Williams, finally just about fully healthy, had the type of result you would expect from the Ephs, now that they are back at full strength, against a weaker team.  Hopefully the Ephs can have another easy win today before a tough stretch ahead (Springfield, Keene, Ohio Northern after a big lay-off, all of which should be very challenging games).  Taylor Epley had a big game for the Ephs, with 17-10 and three treys, he is key and they really need him to rebound well at the four and hit shots.  He has a skill set reminiscent of Blake Schultz (not nearly at that level yet, of course), as he is physical, can shoot threes, but also is effective at slashing/driving and hitting difficult mid-range shots.  Wang put up good numbers which is good to see after a few off games, hopefully he will benefit from the long rest in December and be back up to full speed by January.  Matt McCreary started, but played just a few minutes, I am guessing maybe to reward good practices or something?  It doesn't seem like he will be a rotation guy this year, barring further injuries.  Assuming Robertson starts ahead of McCreary going forward, it looks like the back-ups will be, based on who played last night before the game got out of hand, Mayer, Wohl, Rooke-Ley, and Mickens.  That gives the Ephs a lot of skilled guys who can shoot, score, and drive off the bench, but not a lot of bulk / physicality.  Williams will be a bit undersized at the four with Epley, Mickens and Wohl sharing time there, but fortunately all three have shown they can rebound well so far ...   

Nate Robertson has been playing incredibly efficient basketball since his return from injury (and really, since the Amherst game in last year's NCAA tourney, when he was the best player on the court by a wide margin): his first three games since returning from injury this year, he has combined to hit 9-11 from the field, 5-5 from three, 9-11 from the line, with 11 assists, 8 boards, and 4 to's, all in fairly limited minutes.  Hard to play the point much better than that.  Hopefully both his MPG and his shot attempts will rise a bit as he gets back into a groove and the competition stiffens.  I really think that, in terms of court sense and decision-making, he is at the level of guys like Andrew Olson and Mike Crotty among pass-first NESCAC point guards of the past.  And his D is better than either. 

Amherst continues to get simply incredible production from its top six guys -- I doubt anyone regionally, or likely even nationally, can top them 1-6, Toomey, Waller, and Workman are all particularly versatile and talented guys, who are just lighting it up.  But despite a huge roster with, seemingly, a lot of talent, the Jeffs are still getting very little production off the bench.  The Springfield game was telling, with Hixon barely trusting his bench at all, and with two guys playing 38 and 40 minutes (and Toomey probably would have been close as well but for foul trouble).  After the top six, the rest of the team combined to score 7 points on 1-8 shooting.  The bench was even worse against Westfield, going (other than Kaasila), 1-11 and scoring only six points.  Hixon in recent years always seems to favor very tight rotations in close games.  Williamson definitely has the talent, I figured he was due for a break-out year, but he has apparently struggled with shooting so far.  Moreover, the top frosh Ray Barry who probably would have played a lot has been out all year -- who knows if and when he can contribute -- and Killian, who was projected to be a key guy and had been producing well, must be injured right now, as he hasn't appeared in many games.  Amherst's bench guys are sort of the opposite of the Williams bench: very physical and athletic, but don't provide a lot of perimeter scoring.  The way the starters are playing, if Amherst can develop even 1-2 consistently reliable bench scorers, they will be very, very difficult to beat.  If not, they will need good fortune with injuries and foul trouble to beat the better teams on the schedule.

Tufts is looking good.  They return every guy of consequence from last year's team, which showed a lot of grit all year, and the talent level seems bolstered now with two frosh putting up strong number, CJ Moss (who is backing up his Jeremy Black-esque confidence highlighted in the off-season on this message board) and in particular Ben Ferris.  Tufts has two solid, physical interior guys (former D-1 transfer Orchowski has been scoring with Whittington-like efficiency in the early-going) and now a lot of depth on the perimeter.  They will be a tough out all year, although they will need to improve their perimeter shooting, which has been putrid to date.  I'm not totally sold on Hamilton, which has been eeking out a lot of narrow wins against teams from arguably the weakest D-3 region.  Beating a winless SUNYIT team by one isn't exactly a win to hang one's hat on.  Let's see how they do once the competition gets tougher ...

Other than Conn, which is in a sad state after yet another major off-season transfer/defection, the rest of the conference seems to be playing very well right now.  Good to see Colby pick up a few wins, I expect they will have a big recruiting year this spring, much like Wesleyan and Trinity did following recent coaching changes.     

One other note: with Augustana losing last night, Midd-Amherst, in some order, should move to 1-2 in the polls.  I don't believe that NESCAC has been so-positioned since Amherst-Williams in 2004 ... looking at the schedule ahead for both, I think they will maintain those spots through at least early January, and likely longer.  Midd in particular has few remotely challenging games between now and playing the Ephs late January.   

[amh63]

As usual, nescac1 is ahead of everyone on the national poll news.  The "upsets" in the #1 and #4 positions maybe more evidence of the difficulty of early predictions of the top 25.  Even in the Div.l polls, there are daily upsets of sorts and rapid movements.  Still, it is interesting for the posters on this and other boards to speculate and wonder as the season goes forward.  When was the last time that Midd. was ranked #1?   I had been wondering what kind of season it would be for Wash. U this year as I glanced over the early scores.  More close to home will be the Tufts vs. Salem State game at 3 PM today.  Salem is the team that beat on an injury ridded Williams team earlier in the season.  I look on Tufts game today as a sort of gage of where Tufts is, given the lack of Tuft posters this year.  I will be looking for the Williams score later today. 

[Old Guy]

Tufts' Ben Ferris was "Mr. Basketball" in Vermont last year, and Gatorade Player of the Year in VT. Vermont's a small state but good players can come from anywhere.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110403/SPORTS0512/110402016/Mr-Basketball-Essex-s-Ben-Ferris

http://www.vermontscoreboard.com/2011/03/ferris-named-gatorade-boys-basketball-player-of-the-year/

[Hugenerd]

Tufts leads Salem State 41-37 at the half.

Tufts wins 85-73.

[amh63]

Tufts wins at Salem State...85-73.  It was Tufts by 4 with less than two minutes to go and the last few minutes took about 8-10 minutes as the foul shooting by Tufts jacked up the score.  It was nice to watch the game without sound but there were times I wondered about the fouls and technical fouls called.   Tufts has players in the front court that looks like they have been working  in the gym.  Tufts plays tight man to man defense and likes to run.  Salem even went to a zone defense for awhile but Tufts cracked it.

[Colby Hoops]

Colby tops Fisher for the second time this season, this time in Colby's tournament.  Ben Foreman with another great performance, scoring 26 pts on 8-15 shooting.  Obviosuly, beating Fisher by 6 isn't anything to write home about, but nice to see Colby stringing together some wins.

[magicman]

Hamilton moves to 8-0 with a 94-56 thrashing of Cazenovia College. Pat Sullivan, once again, led the way for Hamilton with 21 points and 8 rebounds. Hans Schulte and Peter Kazickas also hit double figures as they both tossed in 12 points. Coach Stockwell went to his bench early and often as 10 of his 11 players broke into the scoring column. The Continentals had a 14 point lead before the 1st half reached the 10 minute mark and went into the locker room up 46-32. The second half only got worse for the Wildcats as Hamilton outscored them 48-24 in the period and coasted to the win.
Hamilton will get a good idea of how they measure up when they travel to Rochester Wednesday to take on the U of R Yellowjackets who are favored by 8.5 points. It's possible that Rochester may have streaming video for this game, but nothing on their website announcing it as yet. If I find a link for a webcast I'll post it here.