MBB: NESCAC

[frank uible]

Although six other colleges do, Williams does not get a call in the Aronowitz article.

[Bucket]

Cmon Bucket- Maineman was saying that Bates came at the Panthers hard with good guard play. The Bobcats performed well on the boards with a dominating effort. At the end of the day the Panthers got out with a win on the road what the hell are you whining about?

Read my original write-up of the game. No whining. Gave Bates major props for a hard-played game. Made specific mention of rebounding margin.

Snarkiness--no whining(!)--emerged after Maineman's damning with faint (if that) praise post.

[amh63]

The post battles on this board are as exciting as the first conference games of the year.....said with a smile.
Lumbercat.....agree with your praise of the post by Old Guy's true reporter's post of the game....and even with "disclosure".
Too bad this board has no posters on the Trinity, Bowdoin games to date.....even some comments from the Tufts' supporters.  Are there ANY Tufts' MBB posters of late?
On the subject of the upcoming Trinity vs. Wesleyan game today.....two up and down teams going at each other.  Give the battle to be to the Cardinals since they have a better front court and more size and it will be Trinity on the road?
I had more trouble last night with my internet connection than Amherst with Wes......very surprising since Amherst has lost to the Cardinals on the road twice in recent memory.  Last year, the game did not count towards the standing and in the game at Amherst that counted, it was also a close win.  Still happy and here's hopping that Amherst does not overlook the Camels today.

[gordonmann]

Too bad this board has no posters on the Trinity, Bowdoin games to date.....even some comments from the Tufts' supporters.

In my 14 years involved with this site, I can't remember any active Bowdoin posters for men's basketball.  There was a poster on the women's side with a handle or avatar that referenced monkeys flinging poop.  He (or she) was a good poster.

Trinity has had a few more posters over that period, but less recently given the team's performance. My early involvement with the site was as a Trinity poster on these message boards in the late 1990s. I used a different handle and was a little more, um, spirited than I am now.  

At that time Trinity and Conn College had active posters. 

[magicman]

Middlebury trailing Tufts 37-30 at the half.

Tom Palleschi leads the Jumbos with 15 points, and Scott Anderson has 8. Jake Wolfin with 7 and Nolan Thompson with 6 for the Panthers.  Middlebury was down by 13 at 37-24 but back to back 3 pointers by Wolfin and Thompson to end the period closed the gap to a 7 point deficit.

[magicman]

Middlebury has fought back from a 13 point deficit, 52-39, with  13 minutes to play, to tie it up at 61 with 5 minutes to go.

Panthers now with the lead at 63-61 on a James Jensen layup. First lead since they were up 12-10 early in the first half.

Panthers stil ahead 70-67 with 1:37 left in the game. Tufts with a time out. Panthers with the ball.

Lynch misses a layup and Tufts' Palleschi scores to make it 70-69. Tufts with another time out. Panthers ball with 24 seconds left.

Jumbos get a steal with 16 seconds left but Palleschi misses the final shot and Middlebury escapes with the victory.  Heck of a game and nice come from behind win by the Panthers.

[nescac1]

Break out game for Palleschi, too bad he couldn't finish it off.  He and Haldanya are a very nice frosh duo for Tufts, a great foundation for the next four years. 

Williams completes a very impressive opening NESCAC weekend with an 11 point win over Bates.  Williams was up by about 23 or so in the second half, then Michael Mayer picked up his fourth foul, the Ephs went into cruise control a bit early (and also looked, understandably, very tired, stopped moving feet on defense), and Bates starting hitting all sorts of shots, and came all the way back to cut the lead to as little as 7 I believe.  But the Ephs never really seemed in real danger and they were able to hit most of their foul shots down the stretch to secure the victory.

For Williams, it was the Epley-Mayer show once again, combining for 52-9-5, plus 2 blocks and only 3 turnovers.  Both shot extremely well from all over the court.  I think that very, very few teams, if any, can match the talent of the Eph starters at the 4 and 5, and the bad news for the rest of the country is that both are back next year.  Bates simply had no one up front who had a prayer of contending with either, as both made it look easy.  That's the good news.   The bad news for the Ephs was a poor effort from the bench, especially relative to the spark the bench has provided in recent weeks, accounting for only 4 points in total.  The Ephs will need more production from the bench to beat tougher opponents.  Daniel Wohl had another nice game for the Ephs with 11-8-3 and solid defense once again, but some other guys didn't have their best days.  Fortunately for the Ephs, the big two were more than enough.

Bates is feisty and kudos to them for mustering the energy for a huge comeback when they could have given up.  Frosh Boornazian lived up to his impressive billing, scoring inside and out and doing a nice job on the boards, putting up 18-11.  Safford, not known as a shooter, was hot from 3 and played well overall.  And LUke Matarazzo is fun to watch and played well.  ULtimately, though, Bates was just too small.  Until Williams wore down late, Bates got very few good lucks over the longer Eph defenders, and they could not deal with the Williams interior game on the other end.  Still, they are never going ot be fun to play, especially on their home court.  Also, Bates is not a deep team, with Boornazian moved to the starting line-up, Bates got ZERO points from their bench. 

IN other NESCAC news, I see Toomey only played nine minutes, presumably due to injury.  Hopefully nothing too serious.  Conor Green of Amherst looks like the overwhelming favorite at this point for rookie of the year, he's really been lighting it up. 

[amh63]

Amherst beats the Camels in New London by 10....77-67 in a physical game that had the refs scrambling a bit to take control.  Control was had in the second half.  It was a game that Amherst controlled from the start.  Amherst again shot over 50% from outside and around 45% overall.  Conn. near the end of the game extended the game with fouls to get the ball back and finally reduced the lead to 10.  The big story of the game was that Aaron Toomey took one shot and made it a 3-point shot.  He MISSED a foul shot and did not play much more as he was rested.  Kalema played 40 minutes and scored in double figures as did Conner Green and Willy Workman.  Both Willy and Connor played 30 min. with Workman making 4-5 from outside and leading Amherst with 18 points.  He also led the team in steals, rebounds, block shots and assist as he guided the team....being a captain...made up of young players for most of the contest. For a time, Workman, Toomey and Kaasila was sitting down along with Williamson.  The long missing Barry made an appearance in the game!  However, did not see Logan Buckner on the bench.  Vardas of the Camels led the game with 21 points....hitting inside and outside.  FY Lopaz was a nice surprise player for Conn. as his scoring, rebounding and general hustle/energy led a mini rally at times.  For the most part, Amherst had a comfortable 11-16 point lead with all sorts of player combinations.  It was rough at times and Big Pete even broke the nose of a Camel center in a battle underneath and Conn. was called for a flagrant foul on a C. Green drive.

[jayhawk]

I think Toomey only played nine minutes because of some kind of physical issue
Connor Green and Ben Pollack are garnering significant minutes as freshman, Connor Green is a very serious offensive threat
Nice to see guard Ray Barry returning to play recovering from injuries. May take some time to work himself back in.

[amh63]

With respect to Toomey, one has to wait for an announcement if it is ever made.  When I turned on the game, he was out of the game and came into the game.  He was fouled going inside on a drive.....made one of two shots and left the game...never to return. The drive surprised me in that of recent he has not driven to the basket much.....not once in the Wes. game.

[nescac1]

One crazy stat for Williams this year: they've attempted 148 fewer field goals than their opponents (nearly 11 fewer per game).  A few reasons, one positive (Williams draws a lot of fouls, and very seldom commits fouls, so they are shooting a ton more FTAs), and two negative (opponents have secured 60 more offensive rebounds -- of course, they've also missed a lot more shots, so offensive rebound percentage probably paints a different picture), and Williams has turned it over 19 more times than opponents. 

Williams has been so successful because the Ephs shoot incredibly well -- 52 percent from the field on the season! -- and force opponents into a lot of low-percentage shots (36 percent fgpd).  If the Ephs can limits second chance opportunities and improve ball security just a tad, their huge offensive efficiency advantage will prove even more difficult for opponents to overcome. 

[Old Guy]

I'm waiting for Bucket's first-person account of today's one-point Midd squeaker with Tufts. He must be driving home from Boston. Either that or he's being defibrillated at Mass General.

[Panthernation]

I'm waiting for Bucket's first-person account of today's one-point Midd squeaker with Tufts. He must be driving home from Boston. Either that or he's being defibrillated at Mass General.

Looks like the latter, so we'll paste the Tufts part of our weekend recap here (full version: http://blogs.middlebury.edu/panthernation/2013/01/06/a-2-0-weekend-barely/):

Saturday's game was even tighter, with Middlebury losing for most of the game. Middlebury's offense was out of sync again early, putting up a 39% field goal percentage in the first half. While Nolan Thompson played great defense on Tufts' leading scorer Ben Ferris (Ferris had four points today, the same total as last season; he has two career made field goals vs. Midd), the rest of the Middlebury defense struggled immensely. Tufts' starting frontcourt--Tom Palleschi and Scott Anderson--combined for 23 points on 10-18 shooting in the first half. Midd's bigs didn't make up for their poor defensive showing either:  Lynch, Roberts, and Churchill (who got significant minutes early) combined for 4 points, 2 rebounds, and 5 turnovers in 29 first-half minutes. The Jumbos stretched their lead to 37-24 at one point in the first half before a pair of Middlebury threes shrunk the lead to seven heading into the break.

The second half started with more struggles for the Panthers, as the lead was extended to 43-30 in the first two minutes. Palleschi, the 6'8" freshman, continued to pile on points in the second half, finding the basket in a variety of ways on his way to a game-high 27 points. Palleschi was able to score with post moves from six to eight feet away from the basket, hitting a few lefty hook shots and using his length to find shooting angles around the Middlebury defenders. He could make Tufts a much more complete team in the future.

Middlebury finally pulled together at about the 13-minute mark, down 52-39. A Nate Bulluck layup followed by a Jake Wolfin (13 points, 5-9 FG) three cut the lead to single digits before CJ Moss responded with a layup of his ownto bring it back to ten. In the next two minutes, Hunter Merryman scored eight points on 3-3 shooting as a part of a 10-6 Middlebury run. Middlebury finally started to score inside after that, hitting six layups and four free throws in the next two minutes, making it 70-65 visitors with two minutes to play. Tufts then made two unanswered field goals before Middlebury turned it over with under twenty seconds to go (a long pass from Wolfin to Jensen was errant), giving the Jumbos a chance for the outright win in regulation. Kwame Firempong drove to the hoop as the clock ticked under five seconds (Why wait? If you're losing, you should shoot game-winner at :10 so you can foul and get another chance if you miss) and could not get a good shot off in traffic. Middlebury secured the rebound and won the game, slipping away from an ugly weekend with a still-perfect record.

When we predicted a Tufts win, we said it was because the Jumbos had the talent to beat a top-tier team, and that was evident Saturday. They have a lot of pieces and although they struggled to come together early in the season, their ceiling in any one game is high enough that they could be the sort of team that upsets one of the big three and makes a NESCAC tournament run this year.

Although the biggest concern this weekend was the post play, a more puzzling statistic was Kizel's 2-6 showing from the free throw line Saturday, since he shot 91% from the stripe last season. Joey made up for it by leading the team in rebounds (9), assists (5), and steals (2). Here's a telling statistic relating back to the struggles in the post: Middlebury's starting backcourt (Kizel, Wolfin, Thompson) finished the game with 23 rebounds, while the rest of the players combined for six.

With the win, Middlebury now has a 40-game winning streak against NESCAC teams outside of Williams and Amherst. The Panthers host Connecticut College and Wesleyan next weekend and J-term should bring a strong crowd to Pepin as the Panthers look to remain undefeated.

[grabtherim]

I think the biggest difference in the Tufts/Midd game yesterday was big game experience down the stretch.  Middlebury led by kids who made a Final Four run and have played in some real pressure cookers in Kizel, Wolfin, Lynch and Thompson never looked fazed or down when the lead went from 13 to 7 and then back up to 13 in the 2nd half.  Add in some game changing 3s from Merryman, and you have the recipe for a tough hard fought road win.  Tufts on the other hand during Midd's late run made mistakes they had not made earlier in the game and rushed things as the lead crumbled.  Still they hung in there with a chance to grab the game back on the final possession. Palleschi will be a force in the NESCAC this season and a dominant one in those to come.  Along with Ferris and some really solid players, the foundation is there for them to be a force in this year's NESCAC Tournament.  As a Midd fan, I would rather not see them again. 
Like every team, Midd has things to work on.  They may well find themselves with a few losses on nights they get beat on the boards like they were at Bates.  That being said, Jeff Brown seemingly has them ready to deal with any adversity they run into when things don't go their way in a game.  To me, it all starts with their commitment to defense, and it has been that during the past six years of Midd's change from mediocrity to consistent Top 25 contender.     

[Bucket]

Here I am, safe and sound. Son and I traveled back about halfway last night--room service and playoff football, what better for a 6yo (or his dad)?--arriving home this a.m.

Not too much to add, other than to second what grabtherim writes. The poise of the Panthers, even when down 13 in the second half and everything clicking for the Jumbos, was the difference, in my opinion. Never rattled, same approach--tough d, patient offensive sets, attack when the opportunity presents itself.

So impressed with the big fella, Palleschi. Best first-year post player I've seen in the NESCAC in 10 years. Size like Kasilla, but post moves to rival Mayer. Quick feet. Nice touch. And only a first-year. If he keeps progressing, even modestly, he will be a big-time force in the league.

I'm not worried about Kizel's free throw shooting...yesterday was a statistical anomaly. What's head-scratching is the rebounding. I love that the guards are getting 7,8,9 rebounds EACH a game--that's the way they play, hard, aggressive, tireless motors--but the dearth of boards from the front court worries me a bit. I think Sinnickson could make a huge difference here--size, athleticism--when he returns (which I hear could be any time now), but it's something the Panthers could certainly improve upon in the games ahead.

Gotta feel happy about two road wins against quality opponents, though. Fun weekend of hoop.
Is it Friday yet?