MBB: NESCAC

[Bucket]

Kenny Lofton played hoops for Arizona before going in to star for the Cleveland Indians.

And you left off rhe two best football/baseball combos: Bo Jackson and Dion Sanders.

Who can forget Prime Time playing for the Falcons in the afternoon and then suiting up for the Braves in the playoffs that night??!!

[Old Guy]

Lofton, of course. And I'm here in Tucson with huge Wildcat fans.

Deion - who can forget Carlton Fisk screaming at him to get his ass down to first after a base on balls.

Bo Jackson!

[amh63]

Vandy 74......good to see you back with energy.  Your recent post to me...would suggest that your "special friend" maybe a long time Amherst hater..or dislikes me and my posts.  Why?....remember that you were the only one, it seems, that supported  Amherst going into the Final 4....for the "CAC".  I too have been loosing brownies in the period you cited.  The way the "karma cricket game" is played here is that first you can not go back in time to see when it started so you can determine what post caused it.  The second factor is unlike in a game, you do not who the persons are.....I have asked  for persons to "man up" but got no takers.  Anyway, plus karma  and suggest you refrain from future positive posts of Amherst.

To all the MHB posters, I will simply suggest your best way to gage the Amherst team is to go to the Amherst website and study the boxes and writeups of the recent NCAA games and maybe catch a few highlights of available video highlights....and even go to the game writeups of the opponents.  That is often the approach I have taken.  Also, next week, the Amherst SIDs will preview the game ahead.  Good searching!

[frank uible]

Sadly how soon we forget - Jim Thorpe.

[lefrakenstein]

Babe Didrikson - double gold medalist in track and field (hurdles and javelin throw), pro basketball player, 10 major golf championships (and made many cuts playing on the men's tour), got her nickname from hitting 5 home runs in a single HS baseball game (against boys) and also an expert diver.

In the 30s, when they had AAU track and field competitions, she won the team AAU national championship competing by herself. On the afternoon of the championship she set world records in 5 different events.

[middhoops]

I, too, lost K points for showing support for Amherst.  Funny, may have to change my name.  Much as I immerse myself in Middlebury College athletics, I am a D3 fan and a NESCAC fan on the same level.  Someone here doesn't appreciate that.

Old Guy, I LOVE baseball in Tucson.  When I went to AAA games there, you could park for free a couple hundred feet from the front gate, sit where you like for $5, get a $2 beer and a cheap hot dog.  Prices may have gone up since '08 but I still miss the place.  BTW, if you are a wine person, check out 58 Degrees and Holding.  Spectacular place. 

[lefrakenstein]

+K for the all the Midd posters supporting Amherst! The karma thing is sort of a funny social experiment. People get really upset about losing their K points, even though they don't affect anything.

[AncientSonOfHixon]

I couldn't let it go that Mayer is your 3rd team All American behind a 1st team All American that on paper and watching just isn't as good of a player.  They both are fantastic and deserve to be rewarded, but it would have made far more sense if they had switched places.  The watching part is subjective, but here are the objective #s. 

Gamble:

32 Gms, Pts  463  Rebs  184,  Asts  58,   Tos  69, Blks  11,  Stls  17,  PF  110   2 pt Fg %,  .579,  3pt % .00  FT  .665

Mayer 

31 Gms, Pts  548  Rebs  273,  Asts  72,   Tos  62, Blks  36,  Stls  19,  PF  64  Fg %,  .601,  3pt  .373  FT  .760

Any voting is subjective but just based on the numbers I'm not sure how Gamble gets 1st team and Mayer gets 3rd team. 

I find this Gamble/Mayer issue interesting--not because of All-America team (in)justice, but because of questions it prompts about how Williams chooses to use Mayer and whether Maker might retool his approach next year. (Man, I hope not.)

It'd be hard for me to argue against the Gamble selection. The Mayer/Gamble numbers differentials are mostly explained by pace-of-play differences; typical Will game was 80-66, typical NCC game was 69-59. More telling to me, though, is that Gamble was one of the two toughest covers for Amherst all year (Cabrini's freakish Walton-Moss being the other). Gamble was just too strong (no one like him in NESCAC), but still with the good feet that enabled him to play that old-school post game of dropping the caboose into you, forcing you to anchor yourself as heavily as you can (or be backed straight under the basket), and then beating you with simple drop-steps or lean-ins because you're too unbalanced to respond. LJs had no answers, despite having certainly the 'CAC's physically strongest 5 in Kaasila plus a more mobile and still fairly strong backup in Pollack. Once it became clear Jeffs could handle Raridon and the rest of the NCC offense, NCC pushed everything through Gamble. If he'd had any help, the outcome would have been different.

(Speaking of help: Raridon a 4th-team All-America with likes of Walton-Moss and Reynolds? Wow. Jeffs had zero trouble with him: 3 pts., including the tech at the end when LJs prematurely celebrated. He never even felt like a threat.) (Of course, he tripled that production against the lesser Midd defender, so maybe the Amherst game was only an outlier.) (KIDDING, Panthernation! Just kidding.)

Why was Mayer less problematic for Amherst than Gamble? (Despite doing fine, mind you--averaging 18 in the three Amh/Will games.) Mostly, it seemed to me, because of how the Ephs offense used him. Obviously, Mayer is just about the diametric opposite of Gamble in style--the whole McHale finesse thing. But in his own way he's still an elite post scorer for D3...and I bet I'm not the only Amherst partisan who silently celebrated all the minutes he spent camped around the 3-pt arc setting high screens or swinging the ball side to side. ("Stay right there," we'd think. "Beautiful.") Williams appeared never to contemplate doing what NCC did: spotting the mismatch their post man could present and abusing Amherst with it. I'm not sure the Jeffs could have held Mayer under 30.

The question for Eph faithful: Can we LJ fans count on Maker to limit his own player again next year? (Sorry if this sounds like begging.) I realize Maker is philosophically committed to the 3s-and-layups formula that's taking over basketball, but I still find it surprising that he didn't try to achieve the formula by playing more through Mayer down low. Mayer looks like he could score an efficient 25 a game next year--talk about elite--and he's a good enough passer to create spot-up 3s after pulling help defenders off the perimeter.

Or maybe I'm overrating Mayer, and only saw him at his best. If not, then I sure hope Maker sticks to his plan. For Amherst's sake.

[nescac1]

Ancientsonofhixon, it's certainly a fair question.  There were certain times during the Ephs' mid-season scoring difficulties when I was perplexed why Mayer wasn't fed the ball more on the post.  And actually, Epley presented a mismatch on the post vs. most players too, at times even a bigger one than Mayer.  Both will present even bigger mismatches down low next year.  On the other hand, as much of a mismatch Mayer presents down low, what makes him truly elite is what he can do on the perimeter ... he is able to drive past many big men, and a lot of his points came off the bounce, and his perimeter shooting game is good enough that he draws the opponent's best interior defender out of the paint.  Klemm, Robertson, and Wohl all scored countless layups off of their own drives (Nate) or back-door cuts (all three), frequently fed the ball by Mayer.  Epley also had tons of room to operate down low vs. certain teams.

As good as Mayer is in the post, he isn't better than barely-contested layups.  And once Williams' offense really got humming (basically, after Wohl returned from illness), hardly anyone could stop them.  In the Ephs' last six games, they scored 88, 87, 73, 79, 89, 84, and 79 points, with insanely efficient shooting percentages, and most of those games were vs. Top 10 teams.  Williams lost only two of those games, by a combined three points, to the number 1 and 2 ranked teams in the country, one on the road one on a neutral floor.  Williams was able to score virtually at will vs. St. Thomas for much of the game, at least when they could get the ball past the press, turnovers hurt them a bit but that has nothing to do with the half-court offensive strategy.  So it's hard to argue with results ... Williams' starting five was the most efficient offensive unit in Division 3, and I'm not sure they would have been better had they simply fed the ball inside play after play, no matter how good their post players are.

Williams' defense was very solid, but a bit behind its offense and elite teams could score on them, and really, the Ephs' weakness was not offensive strategy, but a glaring lack of depth which was apparent when they wore down (on both ends of the court) late in games vs. deep, athletic teams like St. Thomas and Amherst.  I wouldn't have Maker change a thing about the offense, which could be historically efficient next year depending on how the point guard situation turns out ... the Ephs should be a lot bigger and deeper next year, and I expect them to be a bit tougher on defense (which, again, was very good, but could be exploited at times).  But as good as Mayer is on the post (and he will get plenty of touches down there), camping him out in the lane for most of the game would eliminate what makes the Ephs' offense so difficult to prepare for, which is that there is a ton of space for all the other players to operate and when the Ephs run their sets properly, defenses have no choice but to give up either open threes (like Catholic did) or tons of good looks inside (like Virginia Wesleyan and St. Thomas did). 

[lefrakenstein]

Williams is going to be scary good next year - the prohibitive favorite in the NESCAC.

Here's an interesting chart (to me anyway). Looking at the estimated wins returning next season for each team:

TEAM	EWA Returning	EWA Lost
Williams	5.83	1.20
Tufts	4.86	2.07
Amherst	4.38	4.57
Hamilton	3.90	0.32
Bates	3.79	1.35
Midd	3.62	3.19
Bowdoin	3.19	1.00
Colby	2.43	-0.12
Trinity	1.26	-0.55
Wes	1.19	4.46
CC	0.02	-0.04

I've never looked at this in prior offseasons, so I can't say if it's been an accurate predictor in the past, but it looks directionly correct. Midd is a little low, but if you didn't take into account the return of Sinnickson and Alvarez and a very strong incoming class, it might be reasonable to expect them the fall out of the top three with all that they're losing this year.

Williams is head-and-shoulders ahead of everyone else, and that's before you factor in the return of Rooke-Ley and the arrival of Duncan Robinson. Could be a tough year for Amherst in the Williams-Amherst rivalry next year. One thing that the EWA misses is the importance of Nate Robertson. His PER was under the league average, so he only accounts for 0.89 departing EWA, but his skills directing the offense are surely more valuable than that.

Also, for all the talk of how much the big three are losing in their respective senior classes, look at Wesleyan. Brown, Callaghan and Beresford completely carried that team. It might be a big drop off for the Cards next year.

[ronk]

And Middlebury won it as well.  Good to start the NESCAC part of the season off with a W.  From the brief write ups available it seems that Sinnickson is healthy and playing well.  Also good to see. vandy74

Zip it, Vandy. Not even a hint of gloating. We have two with the Ephs today - and are flipping a coin (drawing names out of a hat?) to see who pitches. Lots of baseball left with the Ephs today. The Ephs come here for two weeks (Midd only has a one-week break) - I wonder if that's too long, that's a long road trip.

Early a.m. cloud cover in Tucson - I want my money back. It's fun to watch Sinnickson, 6'5", run down balls in centerfield. Merryman is not with the hardball team, taking a break between seasons. Any other NESCAC basketball/baseball doubles? Or other sports, the throwbacks, guys who when basketball season ends, can't wait to get out and do somethings else intensely athletic?

Who were the basketball/baseball pros - Gene Conley, Dave Debusschere, Gary Roggenburk, Bob Gibson (Globetrotters) - I realize I'm dating myself. It can't be done today - the seasons are too long and the demand to focus, specialize, too great. Barry Larkin's son, Shane (Miami), would be a candidate. Who are great college baseball-basketball doubles over time: Dave Winfield? Anyone else? (The old old guys will say Dick Groat, the O'Brien twins, even Curt Gowdy.) Elway, Henson Samardzija are football/baseball. Golf: Bill Sharman, John Brodie, Hale Irwin?

This kind of unproductive rumination will only get worse as I get older. I won't know anything about today's players, teams, and games, but I'll be hell on the '50s.

I think Bill Sharman and Robin Roberts were baseball/basketball players; don't know if Sharman did it in college, but he did it professionally; Roberts was a Michigan State Spartan.

[ronk]

 And I must add Ryan Minor, a VG player on Oklahoma's NCAA basketball teams a few(9?) years ago who replaced Cal Ripken at 3rd base the night Cal sat out breaking his all-time consecutive game streak. I was there; gee, Cal, I coulda stayed at home and not seen you play instead of coming to the ballpark.

[AncientSonOfHixon]

As good as Mayer is in the post, he isn't better than barely-contested layups.  And once Williams' offense really got humming (basically, after Wohl returned from illness), hardly anyone could stop them.  In the Ephs' last six games, they scored 88, 87, 73, 79, 89, 84, and 79 points, with insanely efficient shooting percentages, and most of those games were vs. Top 10 teams.   

n1, can't disagree much with that. Nor, sadly, with this from lefrak:

Williams is going to be scary good next year - the prohibitive favorite in the NESCAC.

And don't get me wrong, I wouldn't plant Mayer on the block and strip the motion out of the Eph offense--love the motion, and wish Amherst could employ more of it. But I'd still rather cope with Mayer up high than down low. In the Williams games I saw this season (just five--the Amherst 3 plus Midd and ST) I didn't think he was all that tough to stop outside, though he definitely can function out there in ways that a Gamble, for instance, can't. I just think Mayer's got potential to be a very rare kind of D-III offensive threat next year, and I'll be fascinated to see how/whether Maker bends the offense to capitalize on it. This year, it didn't look like he did any bending. But I often wondered: Did Maker even know quite what he had in Mayer when the season began? (I certainly didn't.)

[frank uible]

Since Williams is going to be scary good next year, can we merely treat it as an undefeated season for Williams and avoid the inconvenience of playing the schedule? It seems like the reasonable thing to do.

[Panthernation]

But I often wondered: Did Maker even know quite what he had in Mayer when the season began? (I certainly didn't.)

I think most knew what Mayer was after watching him last year. He put up 13.6 points in 20 minutes per game on 61% shooting. And his even-higher potential was noticeable in his play.