MBB: NESCAC

[P'bearfan]

P'Bearfan......what are your thoughts on the play of Sr. Matt Mathias to date.  I thought he would take more of a leadership/offensive role with Hurley out.  Went over his stats to date...seems to be laying back ,IMO.  He played a very strong game last season against Amherst in LeFrak.

Actually I think Mathias has done a great job.

He's a SG who, in his Senior year, has been asked to fill in for one of the better PG's in the country.  Through the first 4 games he's played 30 min per game and had an assist to turn over ratio of 1.4:1 and scored 8.5 ppg.  This includes games against Western Connecticut State and Regis who both brought very athletic full court pressure for then entire game.

During today's game against Babson (a more NESCAC-like opponent??), Mathias played 32 min, had a 3:1 assist to turn over ratio and scored 15 points.  That's outstanding.

Also, this year's Bowdoin team is just that - a team.  So far this season they're averaging 5 players in double figures and one with 8.5 ppg.  It's not a team dominated by 1 player which can make it difficult to classify them (or defend them). 

So I think Mathias has shown some real leadership and I expect he'll continue to show it throughout the year.

[P'bearfan]

A good win for Bowdoin today as they took down Babson 66-54.  Four P'bears (Swords, White, Mathias and Madlinger) scored in double figures and Pieri was just below with 9.  Bowdoin did get off to a fast start - there were a few lead changes at the beginning of the game but Bowdoin took the lead for good at the 12:53 mark of the first half. 

The next couple of games will be interesting as Bowdoin travels to Southern Me on Tuesday and then has Bates at home on Friday and travels to Colby on Saturday. 

Should be fun.

[amh63]

P'bearfan....thanks!  After having some technical difficulties getting the webcast..via NESN..I started to follow the game on Stats...and what do you know...M. Mathias seemed to turn on a switch and scored his 15 points in the first half...getting his last two just before the half.  In the second half, I got video and watched as your Polar Bears get a good working lead.  In spite of Babson's history of strong teams and being undefeated until today...I'm glad that Bowdoin controlled the game.
My brief look at Babson did not impress me.  I feel Amherst at this stage should handle Babson too
I went to look at other games...the Wash. U game..to see how a highly ranked team is playing.  They are a team with around 25 players...run a JV program.  Wash. U was in Salem twice when Amherst was there.and won back to back National Titles...'08 and '09.  Solid team...maybe a Final 4 team.

[P'bearfan]

After having some technical difficulties getting the webcast..via NESN..I started to follow the game on Stats

For what it's worth I had the same technical problems here.  It was very frustrating to say the least but to NSN's credit they had the webcast up and working for the second half.  Announcers were pretty good.  Now if they can get rid of the occaisonal jumpiness in the picture all we be right with the world.

[middhoops]

In an otherwise less than interesting game at RPI, the behavior of one of the officiating crew was notable.  Very early in the 2nd half, the Middlebury bigs were getting mugged repeatedly.  In a calm voice, Bucket said, "Let's try to keep it even, here."  Mind you, other people were yelling things at the refs that could have been construed as personally insulting, but Bucket had absolutely no emotion in his mellifluous voice.
The ref nearest the stands stopped the game, required that "the man in the green shirt" be removed from the building before resuming play.  Strange stuff.
Giving that ref the benefit of the doubt, it was probably unconscious on his part, but he called ticky tack fouls on RPI immediately thereafter.
Be warned fans, do not utter, "Let's try to keep it even, here." this season.  Apparently, that's a nasty one.
Bucket, better at RPI than Amherst, pal.  We got your back next time.

[toad22]

The Williams game at MCLA was ruined buy the refs. There were so many fouls called that everyone was just praying for the end of the game! Williams won easily, but if this is the future of basketball, count me out.

[Vandy74]

The Williams game at MCLA was ruined buy the refs. There were so many fouls called that everyone was just praying for the end of the game! Williams won easily, but if this is the future of basketball, count me out.

Similar sentiments were expressed in Lancaster after the Middlebury-Baruch game.  Something to the effect that "A win's a win, but that wasn't even fun to watch".  The UVM radio commentators said almost exactly the same thing after an early season game in which 63 fouls were called, and more recently people with me in a sports bar watching Duke play concurred.  New rules can be learned.  If the situation here is that the old rules have to be reinterpreted by both referees and players with virtually no preseason preparation the result is hardly surprising.

Btw Bucket, this is exactly why my mother won't let me play with you.  You're trouble.  Plain and simple.

[Old Guy]

I had a good basketball night last night: the Middlebury-RPI game game was a 1:00 pm start, 7:00 pm, our time. Couldn't get the video, so followed by "live stats." Nice to see Merryman playing so well. He was a h.s. teammate of Williams' Wohl.

St. Amour had 14 points and again significant playing time. Coach Brown certainly appears to have confidence in him. He's on the floor when the game is being decided. Lots of discussion here last year when he made the decision to come to Midd about whether his high school celebrity was chimerical, merely the result of playing in such a small state against lesser competition. This would be his prep school year if he had chosen the same course as other frosh who have come into the league and stepped right in, in the past few years. It may work out that Midd has another four-year tandem in the backcourt (cf. Wolfin /Thompson) with the coach's nephew and the VT kid. Sounds like a novel.

The Bowdoin-Babson game was on right after the Midd game concluded, and miraculously, the video was fine. Ironic: problems with the telecast at home but not 6000 miles away (my wife said it was because they don't try to do HD). I watched just about the whole game and was impressed with Bowdoin. Their defense was suffocating, both in a man and zone. Babson had no good looks. Swords is nimble enough to play man-to-man and is a nice backstop under the hoop in the zone. He had a couple nice blocks on one possession: the Babson big guy (not that big) went right at him and Swords stood his ground and flicked away two shots without fouling and kept the ball in play, went straight up. He plays with exuberance, runs the floor hard. He's fit: absent foul trouble it would seem he could play the whole game. Mathias was confident in the backcourt, ran the team, was aggressive on defense. Looked like a four-year starter. Bowdoin is not deep, that's for sure, but the seven they put out there can play.

[Old Guy]

About yelling at officials: I impose on myself a gag order, zero tolerance. I believe that for many of us, it's like alcoholism - once you start, you can't stop. My friends laugh and say I often fall off the wagon, but I don't. I am capable of spontaneous eruptions but they are never abusive or sustained, and usually are swallowed up in crowd noise. "He walked!"; "That's a foul!"; and so on.

The last 5-10 minutes of a close home game, I'm in the hallway watching behind glass. This is not to protect myself from myself, but to allow for pacing and to avoid having to exchange pleasantries with other nearby fans who do not consider the outcome of the game a life-or-death matter.

I have matured into this position largely as a result of an embarrassing episode many years ago in our gym (against Amherst!) when I corrected the officials after they mistakenly counted a hoop. I was brutal. I was right, but way out of line and lucky not to have faced repercussions. Officials make mistakes, part of the game.

I coached high school basketball for eight years without a technical being called (some would argue the impossibility of that) and reffed for ten years - and that was useful.

Having said all this, I was almost removed from a high school game a few years back when I yelled, not unpleasantly (I thought), "Turn around!" to a ref jogging down the floor with his back to the action, missing a collision in his zone. He warned me that "one more comment" and I was "gone." Right or wrong, that would have been a long walk. I'm sympathetic to Bucket.

Basketball is a great game (second only to baseball), but its weakness is its heavy reliance on officials and their judgments, which can determine outcomes more readily than in other sports.

Now, pick-up basketball, that's transcendent. One of my great regrets about the aging process is that I can no longer play pick-up (knees). That's a loss.

[nescac1]

I can't believe the Bucket situation.  As a ref you need to have a bit of a thicker skin.  They shouldn't even be paying attention to the fans unless they hear something truly vulgar / abusive towards a player or ref, or unless they are somehow managing to interfere with the game in some way.  Fans are going to complain, there is really nothing unusual about that. 

Good to see another stellar offensive performance from the Ephs last night.  The Williams offense when it is clicking is extremely difficult to stop, and that is even without Mayer.  The offensive efficiency stats for the top six guys are staggering: they average between 10 and 19.2 points per game, all shoot between 52 and 67 percent from the field, 78 and 93 percent from the line, and four out of the six are over 40 percent from three (and the other two are very capable distance shooters).  The Ephs are now averaging an incredible 94.3 ppg, and the upcoming game against RPI isn't likely to hurt that average ... obviously that will come down a bit as the level of competition improves, but Williams has played overall a decent group of opponents, not great but not the worst teams out there, either.  Springfield is a returning NCAA team and has lost only one game and that was to Hampden Sydney in OT, so they could provide a real test next weekend. 

This is may bet the best group of shooters Williams has ever had playing together: 2010 could absolutely light it up with Wang, Rubin, and Schultz, but there wasn't depth of shooting behind that group (Klemm was on the roster but not a rotation guy) and there were several guys in the line-up who were not perimeter threats.  When Mayer returns, the top six guys in the offense can all hit from anywhere, and all six of them are also very able passers (as reflected by the even distribution of assists throughout the lineup) -- so the team doesn't really need a traditional point dominating the ball, as the shots come from good movement and the flow of the offense. 

I don't see many teams this year slowing the Ephs offense down very much as it continues to get more precise over time.  Williams needs to work on the defensive side of the ball (both guarding and defensive rebounding) as Williams, while very long across the board, is not especially strong, quick, or athletic across the board.  It seems crazy to say, but Mayer is missed more for an interior defense and rebounding presence than for his offense right now.  The Ephs don't need to be an elite defensive team with this much offensive firepower, but they need to play smart and to their strengths.  So far only Weinheimer and on occasion Wohl has really stood out on defense this season.  Right now the Ephs go a legit seven deep (once Mayer returns), but finding an 8th/9th guy to give more consistent contributions is the other big early-season task for Williams. 

[amh63]

P'bearfan...my image was jumping around too...but thought it was due to the camera people reacting to the Polar Bear weather in Maine . 

[Old Guy]

but finding an 8th/9th guy to give more consistent contributions is the other big early-season task for Williams.  NESCAC1:

This question sounds like an implicit criticism but it isn't. First, it's not a matter of any real consequence. But I'm genuinely curious. It may be under the category of coaching philosophy (and I have great respect for Coach Maker).

How is Williams going to develop an 8th or 9th guy off the bench if he doesn't play in a blow-out. Williams had a 22 point lead at the half, won by 36. The starting five played between 24-30 minutes, hardly the whole game to be sure, but significant minutes. Robinson fouled out and played 30 minutes. Off the bench, Greenman and Weinheimer had 18 minutes each. The rest, single digits, and we are being advised that Aronowitz (seven minutes) and McCreary (nine) have a possible role, no?

Am I overly sentimental (wouldn't be the first time) to think a laugher is a chance to get kids who bust their hump every day in practice a chance for some time in an actual game (and not just garbage time, a minute or two at the end)?  I know, the 3- point shot has changed the game - teams catch up, but I'm making a relative point here.

[WPI89]

The ref "kicked the Bucket"!

[middhoops]

The ref "kicked the Bucket"!

Hey WPI89, nice to have you back.  Bad pun and all.

[grabtherim]

The ref "kicked the Bucket"!

Great line.  If Bucket runs into the same crew at Skidmore he may have to watch the game in disguise.  He can put on a mustache and go as Clubbo.  The only issue will then be having to tell everyone about the one time he passed the ball while at Midd.  Seriously, from what I'm told Clubbo might have passed the ball twice while playing for Midd.  Really seriously, this team is in a serious transition stage of finding out who plays what roles/minutes.  Where it all ends up is an open question.  Fans of the program may have actually become a bit spoiled off the recent runs.  Let's see how this bunch does under Jeff and his staff.  I think the talent is there for another very good season.  The key for me is taking some pressure off Kizel to allow him to do what he does best and getting some consistent production off the boards when things get tough inside.  A win is a win, but 15 offensive rebounds in the 1st half for RPI and 27 for the game jumped out at me.  Midd has the horses to change that, especially if they get Sinnickson back on the floor.  Skidmore has given Midd fits for the past few years.  I know nothing about this years team. Hopefully the trip to Saratoga ends with a W.