MBB: NESCAC

[walzy31]

Tomorrow's games:

Bowdoin 78 - Colby 61
Middlebury 69 - Williams 68 (OT)
Trinity 59 - Amherst 81
Tufts 63 - Bates 65
Wesleyan 66 - Conn College 56

Are you gambling? Should I interpret this as Bowdoin covering 12, Williams covering 3, Amherst covering 14, Bates with a monster upset, and Wesleyan covering 7? Let me know.

[lumbercat]

Walczy- Thanks for keeping the NESCAC Sportsbook open--

Colby/ Over

Williams (ouch)/ over

Wesleyan/ over

Amherst/ under

Bates/ under

[amh63]

OKAY GUYS (and Girls?)....I get it..... Had Husson in Bangor initially....my confusing was in thinking that Polar Bears resided there.  Towns/cities in Maine are like ones in CT.....all look alike to me.  Which town is closer to the Ocean?  Must have forgot to take my medication.
Seems that some Vermont school supporters need to go on medication.
Thanks 7 Express for nit picking my posts lately.
Old Guy....remember students do have a "rebel" streak in them....but yes they do need to "go directly to jail and do not pass GO".
Last night, I skimmed through several UAA games and found them somewhat boring...good play and talent on the teams but, IMO, not up to the level of the "CAC".  Boy, am stirring the hornets again.
Will close with the point that my wife grew up and went to schools in CT.  Explains why I got lost on my way to propose to her!  That. maybe too much info....but is the truth.

[Panthernation]

That said, I don't know how PantherNation can say Williams is more talented than Middlebury when Williams hasn't beaten them since Troy Whittington was on the floor.

Walzy,

That's exactly our point. Middlebury hasn't faced a more talented team since they played against the 09-10 Williams team with Troy Whittington and a healthy James Wang and before the emergence of Sharry and Locke. In our minds it's pretty obvious that this Williams roster has more talent on it, certainly in the starting five at the very least. We think this marks the first time since Middlebury made its run to the Final Four that they've faced a team with more talent. How doesn't that add up?

[madzillagd]

I'm not sure talent was ever the issue for Williams last year, it was more about health which is Midd's issue this time around.  Three surgeries, freak crouton accidents, some things you just can't plan for.

[lumbercat]

Idle thought while glancing at a great schedule of NESCAC games today which, as usual, are all scheduled at the same time by gender.

I know the mens and womens games are scheduled concurrently and think the "double header" concept is great. Surely this also makes good sense for expenses, travel etc....

However, of the 4 or 5 games scheduled on a given day why not stagger the mens and womens starts so there could be the women in the early time slot at, say, 2 or 3 venues with the men in the early slot at others. Don't see why all the games for each gender have to be in the same time at all NESCAC venues. No problem with the structured time slots of 2 or 4 pm but why not have have some mens games start at 2 and some others at 4 and the same for the women.

Don't believe this would be unfair of objectionable to either gender and would afford the opportunity to see additional games (men or women) with less time conflicts.

[walzy31]

Midd up 3 on Williams at the half. Mayer with a boatload of points...Epley held to 2 by Thompson as expected.
Bates up 7 against Tufts at the half in a high scoring game.
Amherst playing ugly but coasting up 9 at home against Trin.
Colby and Conn getting smoked by Bowdoin and Wesleyan.

[nescac1]

Midd with a 3 point lead at half.  Both teams playing well offensively and not all that great defensively.  For Williams, the good news is that Mayer has been incredible, with 16 first half points on a variety of beautiful inside moves. For Williams, the bad news is first that the Ephs have been (as has plagued them all year) sloppy with the ball, with EIGHT turnovers, at least half of which were totally careless and unforced, literally just throwing the ball away on several occasions.  Can't afford those lost possessions in a game like this.  Maker was not pleased.  When Nate went out with his third foul, Midd took control of the game to go up nine, but he came back in and led Williams on a six point run to close the half.  Williams' lack of depth really exposed there, though.

For Midd, they have gotten a lot of easy inside looks off of a combination of good passes, offensive rebounding, and a few weird bounces.  Way too many easy shots for the Panthers big guys, not the Ephs' best defensive half, Williams has to box out inside and also do a better job of pushing guys out of the post, be physical like Midd is.  Williams like last year has a very hard time matching up with the physicality of Lynch inside, who scored 10 despite being very limited by foul trouble.  Kizell was also great as usual, make a lot of excellent plays and Williams had trouble staying in front of him.  NOlan Thompson pretty much shut down Epley, stellar, stellar defense.  Wohl so far winning the high school teammate battle over Merryman. 

I think Williams needs to keep going inside to both Mayer and Epley (Epley is not going to beat Thompson with quickness, needs to post) to have a chance to win, and also hope to keep Robertson on the floor.   For Midd, keep doing what they are doing on offense and I imagine they will try to help out more on Mayer inside. 

Refs calling it tight both ways, lots of piddling fouls so both teams in a bit of foul trouble there. 

[lefrakenstein]

Incredible finish at Chandler, Ephs get the 1 point win. Looked really well played by both teams. Can't wait for the Amherst game in Chandler and at Middlebury. Certain to be wars.

[old_hooper]

Nice comeback for Williams, gutty performance!  this will make for interesting challenge providing Amherst and Williams take care of business next week.

[nescac1]

HUGE comeback win for Williams in Chandler.  Phew.  Williams FINALLY got one of these last-second games to go its way.  Tremendous, gutty, gritty performance.  This was an ugly second half, unless you love defense and grit.  Very slow pace, very little offensive flow by either team, as easy as the baskets seemed to come in the first half, both teams had to fight and claw to score in the second.  Midd could do virtually nothing vs. Williams' half-court D in the second half after cutting through it like butter in the first ... most of the Midd points seemed to come off, again, some sloppy turnovers by Williams or off of inside looks off of second chance opportunities (including a few fortuitous deflections / blocks).  Meanwhile, other than Robertson and Mayer, no one on Williams could create offense vs. Midd's VERY tight second half defense, and even Mayer had very few good looks after scoring with ease in the first half. 

For Midd, Jensen was fantastic off the bench, playing with a ton of bounce and energy and using his athleticism to get rebounds and finish inside.   Lynch could not be stopped when he got the ball within five feet (which he did, way too often) but fortunately for Williams fouled out.  Nolan Thompson, who definitely earned my vote for defensive player of the year, completely locked down Taylor Epley, tough week for Taylor against two of the premier defensive players in the, I'd argue, country, but he'll learn and grow from it.  Thompson is so strong, so quick, so tenacious.  Kizell was also great.  The bad news for Midd is that they had two brutal turnovers down the stretch (a dribble off the foot and a step on the baseline) when the Williams zone FINALLY was really working and flummoxing Midd into a lot of bad shots, other than one open Thompson three, seemed to get very few clean looks from outside.  Wolfin and in particular Merryman really struggled to get shots vs. the zone and both were out of synch accordingly.

For Williams, Sean Hoffmann I'd say gets the game ball.  6 points including two team-igniting dunks, 4 boards, 1 block, and tremendous D on the Midd bigs down low in only eight minutes of play.  Mayer had tougher sledding in the second half but still finished with a very nice stat line of 24 points, 7 boards, 3 assists, 1 block, 1 steal, 9-14 from the field.  Nate Robertson was in attack mode for the second straight game and Midd had trouble keeping him out of the lane, 11 points 6 assists, 4 boards, 2 steals, great perimeter defense, a great game overall.  Finally, although Daniel Wohl had a few ill-advised passes and finished with 5 turnovers, he otherwise played fantastically, 11 points (including the game-winning bucket), 5 boards, 2 assists, 3 blocks, and tremendous perimeter defense.  He is in my view the leading contender for top wing defender in NESCAC after Thompson and Workman graduate.  Gutty gritty win for Williams against a Midd team that played some really stellar D in the second half.  If the Ephs can take better care of the ball, they will be even better going forward. 

[Ashley Parker Angel]

Wesleyan comes away with an easy win at Conn, 71–41, in a game that was never close. The Cards played well but the lopsided score seemed to be just as much an outcome of a poor performance on the Camels' behalf, as they shot 33% from the field, 25% from 3, and just 45% from the line (compared to 49%, 38%, and 70% for Wes). Chalk that up to good defense from Wesleyan and frequently sloppy play from Conn. Solid performances for both Brown and Beresford, with 18 and 19 respectively. Zach Lynch provided good sustained energy off the bench for the second straight game, playing 29 minutes but remaining relatively statless (in what seems to be true Zach Lynch fashion). Also good to see Freshman BJ Davis back in action with 7 points in 9 minutes, though I am still unsure as to the whereabouts of Junior Julian Harris, who hasn't played since the start of the NESCAC season.

[Bucket]

Williams steals a one-point win in Chandler. I don't mean that disrespectfully--just that Midd up the entire second half until Williams takes a 1-point lead with :17 left and then survives two missed Panther perimeter shots to win.

Mayer was as good as advertised, better even, at least offensively. (Defensively, he had a really hard time guarding Lynch. Unfortunately for Panther fans, Pete was in foul trouble, including a bogus fifth. Bad calls the other way, though, so can't complain too loudly.)

Nolan Thompson utterly emasculated Epley. A thing of beauty to watch.

Clutch play by both sides. The Williams zone took away the three point looks we usually get. Still, Panthers managed to find seams for inside points or the occasional kickout for a bucket. What the zone did more than anything was create a few more turnovers than we normally commit, especially down the stretch.

Two good teams going at it; one had to emerge the victor. Today it was Williams. More games to play.

[amh63]

Well an ugly first half at LeFrak....ugly was the term used by the student announcers.  Amherst as Walzy posted earlier was up by 9 at the half.  Amherst "withstood" the literally wave of Trinity players who brought  physical play as a defensive tactic on Amherst.  It did not work as Amherst pulled quickly away from Trinity in the 2nd half to double digits leads as high as 30 plus.....winning 83-55 over the fighting birds of Trinity.  Amherst took the lead with inside points by Big Pete who set a career high by scoring 23 or more points (22 was the previous high).   Amherst emptied the bench so to speak in the last two minutes of the game.  It was the defense that stood out in the 2nd half as Trinity's young players turned the ball over and had their shots blocked.  It was like a boxing match for awhile as Amherst players were often seen on the floor.  Amherst took the punches and gave some back at times.  Will go look at the stats and add my particular comments after the women's game.

[lefrakenstein]

So, I realize I never posted this last spring after the season ended, but for anyone who's interested here are the top 20 players in the league last year in terms of PER (w/ at least 100 minutes played). A PER of 15 is league average. Sorry about the lousy formatting.

Williams Mayer     42.26
Midd   Sharry   37.27
Tufts   Ferris           33.79
Amherst Toomey  29.41
Midd   Sinnickson   27.48
Bowdoin Hanley   27.42
CC   Vadas   25.53
Midd   Kizel           25.26
Tufts   Anderson   24.87
Amherst Kaasila   24.55
Wes   Callaghan   24.42
Amherst Workman    24.32
Amherst Holmes   23.79
Bowdoin Swords   23.73
Midd   Lynch           22.88
Bowdoin O'Connell    22.13
Bates   Safford   20.96
Hamilton Sullivan   20.92
Tufts   Orchowski   20.50
Bates   Squires   20.49


Additionally, here are the top 10 in Estimated Wins Added, which Hollinger uses as a basically a proxy for who should win MVP. It's just a function of PER and minutes played.

Midd   Sharry   4.31
Williams Mayer   3.08
Amherst Toomey   3.08
Bowdoin Hanley   3.04
Midd   Kizel           2.50
Amherst Workman 2.35
Tufts   Ferris             2.32
Tufts   Anderson   2.10
Wes   Callaghan   2.09
CC   Vadas   2.08


Some quick takeaways... Mayer was amazing last year. He played 100 minutes less than Toomey and still tied him for second for EWA. That's pretty incredible. He probably should have been in the MVP discussion. I checked to see where his numbers this year would fall, and while his PER has dropped a little, it was only to about Sharry's level from last year. And that was before today's game.

Also, Ben Ferris had a great year last year.

Finally, here are the full team PERs for Midd, Williams and Amherst:

Midd:

Merryman   46.82
Cuddy   46.82
Sharry   37.27
Sinnickson   27.48
Kizel           25.26
Lynch           22.88
Hicks      19.88
Gayle      18.24
Thompson   15.19
Wolfin   13.74
Jensen   9.74
Bulluck   9.63
Roberts   5.83
Nascimento   0.76
Brierley   -0.42
Alvarez   -7.37
Churchill   -10.54

Williams:
Mayer   42.26
Robertson   19.14
Klemm   17.29
Wang           15.88
Emerson   18.19
Epley           15.40
Mickens   12.36
Hoffman   12.25
Semin           10.74
Rooke-Ley   10.73
Weinheimer   7.79
Flynn           6.53
Wohl           1.93
McCreary   -14.40
McClelland   -20.46

Amherst:

Buckner   38.02
Garay           37.55
Toomey   29.41
Kaasila   24.55
Lewis      24.35
Workman   24.32
Holmes   23.79
Prowitt   23.77
Waller   17.57
Barrise   15.94
Williamson   15.51
Mussachia   10.63
Kalema   10.43
Johnson   7.37
Killian      6.92
Bryant   0.00
Gach      -14.96
Lippe           -24.84