MBB: NESCAC

formerbant10 · October 17, 2005, 06:47:08 PM

Trinity does not have Taylor back. He's not in the outlook for this year...but there word is that there are some very talented rookies that will be pushing for time at the 3 spot.
The word about Brandeis is they are very young, Nescac1 is most likely right about them being a year away, but you never know....we all thought it was Trinity's year last year (whoops). I'll believe CSC can hang with the others when I see it, lot of rumors going around 4 years ago that they were the best in NE until Trinity smoked them in the first round of the NCAA's...but anything is possible. Springfield started playing well at the end of the 03-04 season and it continued all the way through last year. It'll be different w/o the big guy, but they still have their core intact...Yvon can be a lot to handle some nights.

fpc85 · October 17, 2005, 07:25:29 PM

formerbant,
What happened with taylor? That is a significant loss for the bants,although, they appear to be pretty deep.

Any news on Conn college? They appear to be pretty athletic.Do they have enough players to make some noise in the conference.

formerbant10 · October 17, 2005, 08:44:11 PM

Taylor is taking this year off. Not exactly sure what he is doing, just know that he is living in LA this year. He's in good academic standing if/when he decides to return. This is not a case where he was asked to leave, Taylor received a school award for his work in Japanese....yes, Japanese. There may be some other surprises for the beginning of the season, I'll see what else I can dig up.
As for Conn, they have been very athletic the last couple of years and haven't done much. The upside is that it's the same athletic players coming back for their junior year. If Stone can improve from last year and show up against the big boys of the conference they have a chance. But in past years they have relied too much on the long ball to keep them in games and have never had a very good shooter. Satran is a good coach though, so I wouldn't rule them out and they can always be a spoiler.

walzy31 · October 25, 2005, 03:07:51 PM

Adolphe Coulibaly

formerbant10 · October 26, 2005, 12:38:37 AM

What about Adolphe??? Have you seen the kid draw yet....that's a whole nother story.

nescac1 · October 27, 2005, 04:27:01 PM

Preseason Top 25 is up. As for New England teams, it goes like Amherst, WPI, Springfield, Salem State, Williams, and that's it, in terms of teams receiving votes. Of course, hard to predict where teams will end up before pre-season rosters are even out, but the big surprise is no Trinity(CT) in site. Considering they return an all-american, many of their top scorers, and have some big-time frosh and a Div-I transfer coming in, they should at least be in the top three in the region headed into the season. If I had to say now, based on what I've heard, a New England pre-season top ten would go something like: Amherst, Trinity, WPI, Springfield, Bates, Keene State, Salem State, Williams, Bowdoin, Tufts, with the group after Keene State essentially interchangeable. Brandeis, Clark, UMass Dartmouth, Colby-Sawyer, Western Ct. State, Plymouth State also possible contenders. So, the top 25 looks pretty close to accurate as far as New England teams go, with the major omission of Trinity -- wonder why that is?

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · October 27, 2005, 05:46:30 PM

I wouldn't call Trinity a major omission. They probably should have gotten votes, but then again Trinity is notorious for not giving out information easily. I know the NE region voters may not know too much about the actual make-up of the squad, which means national voters know even less. Couple that with the general weakness of the region this year and that makes for an absence of Trinity.

Besides that I think Amherst is too high, but its very accurate in that only Amherst and WPI are ranked. I'd have to agree there.

I'm going to restart the "NE Regional Rankings Board" so feel free to continue discussion there.

formerbant10 · October 28, 2005, 09:57:08 AM

Trinity is very tight-lipped, but pre-season rankings are fun and really don't mean anything when tournament time comes around. Look at where Trinity was last year in this poll, #9 I believe, and they finished out of the poll. They will be fine this year. Two seasons ago they started out with no votes and won 15 straight to start the year....I don't know if that will happen again, but I do know they will end up on the final top 25 this year.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · October 28, 2005, 10:05:23 AM

They scheduled a great tip-off tournament. It will give them either a great boost to begin the year with or a lot of motivation to prove themselves.

formerbant10 · October 28, 2005, 10:11:46 AM

From what I have heard, they will need some time to come together as a team. It's a very different team than last year, but Rhoten is very very very focused this year. It doesn't matter what they do right now as long as they win the conference tourney, which is all they wanna do right now.
If you look at their first two games from last year, one would say that they had a great tip-off classic with RIC and Ursinus....Trinity destroyed both of them and both of those teams won their conference with Ursinus making it to the NCAA's. So trust me, the beginning of the season means nothing.

And it's also going to be hard to tell b/c they haven't even started practicing yet.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · October 28, 2005, 10:16:25 AM

Yeah, the late practice thing again. Although I do agree, there should be games this year that Rhoten could win with 11 year olds as teammates. He's got so much talent and I think, a great team around him to help out. I just hope he's gotten some of that pressure off of himself. I think some of the underacheiving the last couple years has been because he tried to do too much, knowing that he was the leader, even as a sophomore.

formerbant10 · October 28, 2005, 11:35:41 AM

Rhoten came into a strange situation, as a freshman there were only 3 seniors on the team and his sophomore year there was only 1 senior....so he and the class in front of him were forced into leadership roles very early. They had to grow up quick, and Rhoten definitely tried to do too much some times, but there were others guilty of that as well. They need to play better team ball, like Amherst and Williams during the Crotty years. Those teams didn't care who scored as long as they did, thats why they were/have been so successful. I hope the Bants learn from the mistakes of last year and pull it together this year.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) · October 28, 2005, 11:38:49 AM

Yeah, I mean I'm not really a "fan" of any team, but it always makes me root for the talented teams that haven't realized their full potential. I want to see every squad play at their best; it's much more fun to see who comes out on top when you feel like every kid is doing as much as their abilities will allow them to do.

formerbant10 · October 28, 2005, 11:49:45 AM

I agree with you on that. I think the best games last year were Trinity's against Amherst....both 3 point wins for the Herst, both played very well and very hard with every player putting everything on the table.

Pat Coleman · October 30, 2005, 02:22:42 AM

Quote from: Hoops Fan on October 27, 2005, 05:46:30 PM
I wouldn't call Trinity a major omission. They probably should have gotten votes, but then again Trinity is notorious for not giving out information easily. I know the NE region voters may not know too much about the actual make-up of the squad, which means national voters know even less. Couple that with the general weakness of the region this year and that makes for an absence of Trinity.

We received info on Trinity. I just didn't feel I could vote for them myself and apparently nobody else did either.