MBB: NESCAC

[amh63]

Up on the board early....no morning paper delivery today...new service.  dislike reading paper online.
Anyway, to BB...welcome to the board pinseeking1.  Nice to get a Bates fan posting.
Also, good to read a post from a WES fan.  Was curious about the Cardinals after seeing the century scoring in the first game.  Seems the conference is starting to " flatting out" a bit. 
Did watch a major portion of the Panthers' game.  Let the Midd fans post the details but will point out some things I saw.  Midd does run the floor well and plays defense well.  However, as the game went back and forth, I thought Midd may lose the game on the foul line.  Point guard Brown was missing his foul shots in the first half but came back to hit them in the second half.  Both teams were contesting shots under the basket.  The winning basket was on a follow- up put back after a Panther miss.  Liked the man to man defense played by Midd.  Seemed to recall Williams went to a zone at times in their game.  Do wonder who is the primary backup to Brown...PG, ball handling player.  The announcer mentioned that Brown doesn't shoot much as he drove to the basket.  He does get points when he drives and gets fouled.
If Midd gets the big man Daley back, it should be an interesting 2nd half of the season.....no correction....it should be an interesting CAC season!

[Bucket]

Do wonder who is the primary backup to Brown...PG, ball handling player.  The announcer mentioned that Brown doesn't shoot much as he drove to the basket.  He does get points when he drives and gets fouled.
If Midd gets the big man Daley back, it should be an interesting 2nd half of the season.....no correction....it should be an interesting CAC season!

The frosh from Scarsdale, Jack Daly (no relation to Matt, different spelling) is the primary ballhandler when Jake Brown is not on the floor. He's really tenacious, confident. It's a luxury to have a first-year backup of his caliber, because it allows Bryan Jones and Matt St. Amour to stay at the off guard (their natural spots) when Brown's not in the game.

A flurry of observations from the weekend:

*Rebound and run was in full effect on Saturday, and boy was it fun to watch. Jake Brown at the point running the floor is a thing of beauty, especially with St. Amour, Sinnickson, Jones, and Merryman running with him. I can only imagine what it will be like with Daley.

*Speaking of, I really feel for the kid. Just when it looked like he had put his bad luck behind him he gets the stress fracture diagnosis. I had heard that he worked really hard all summer and was having a tremendous start to practice before the injury. Here's hoping he's back for conference play.

*The way Matt St. Amour played this weekend, you'd never believe that he's 8 months removed from an ACL injury. Foul trouble limited his minutes yesterday, but he seems to be really on his game.

*Chris Churchill will have a big role to play with Daley and Nidenburg out. He played well this weekend, too, though foul trouble hampered him yesterday.

*Jake Brown has a pass-first mentality, but make no mistake. He can shoot. I understand that that facet of the game has come a long way in the past year or so.

*Can't really say anything about Merryman and Sinnickson that hasn't already been said. They played the way you'd expect—all tourney for Merryman and MVP for Sinnickson. Neither shot the ball well on Sunday, but they still had very solid all around games. And when they were running and gunning on Saturday—25 and 26 points in around 20 minutes of play—let's just say they were having a lot of fun.

*With 3/4 of the junior class in street clothes this weekend, Connor Huff repped his class in a big way. Game-winning put back with a second left, did a tremendous job defending guys 4 or 5 inches taller than him the entire game. Nice to see for the young man.

*Dean Brierly also gives the team solid play when he's on the court. Good defender. Confident shooter. Gets the most out of his minutes.

*The game's a little fast for Nick Tarantino right now, but he's a baller. High hoops I.Q.

[P'bearfan]

Bowdoin defeated an athletic and tenacious Westfield State team 68 – 56 to win the Westfield State Tip-off Tournament.

Bowdoin was led by John Swords who scored 20 points on 8-10 shooting from the floor and also grabbed 16 rebounds.  Two other Polar Bears, Bryan Hurley and Lucas Hausman were also in double figures with 15 points apiece.  Neil Fuller and Matt Palecki chipped in 8 and 6 points respectively.

The game was quite close in the first half with Westfield State taking a lead for much of the half after sending John Swords to the bench early in the period with 2 fouls.  Bowdoin looked a little flat in the first half offensively but the P'bears hung tough and were able to take a 2 point lead into the locker room.  Bowdoin began pulling away at the 18 minute mark in the 2nd building a double digit lead that Westfield State couldn't overcome.

Congrats the P'bears on a 2-0 start for the season.

[P'bearfan]

A couple of observations from this weekend:

-Bowdoin played tough defense shifting from man-to-man and zone effectively.  They were aggressive in trapping players just as they did last year.  Hopefully Bowdoin can continue this tough defense throughout the year.

-Bowdoin's 3 point shooting was better on the first day than the second.  This is an area Bowdoin will need to continue to focus on but there were some promising signs

-At times, in the first game against Elms, Bowdoin looked very sharp moving the ball quickly and creating uncontested shots.  The P'bears weren't as sharp on Sunday and they'll need to develop more consistency in their offensive execution

-While Bowdoin relied heavily on their starters several of the bench players provided quality minutes if not much scoring.  Last year's bench chipped in about 12 – 18 points per game during conference play.  I'm not sure we'll see that same level of production but it was good to Jake Donnelly, Jack Hewitt and FY guard Blake Gordon and FY forward Liam Farley come in and play well

-Hurley looked very good; he played with a knee brace but he was very mobile, made hard cuts and dove for the ball.  He led the team in minutes played (36 / 37) and assists (5 / 6).  He's off to a strong start which is good to see.

-Bowdoin had a significant size advantage over both Elms and Westfield state and Bowdoin started a big line up.  However, they played significant minutes with 3 guards and looked good doing it.  Bowdoin dominated the boards on both games leading the Blazers 42-17 and the Owls 32-27

-Senior forward and co-captain Keegan Pieri is injured and did not play this weekend

[P'bearfan]

Nice weekend for Bates in the Babson Tournament in Wellesley, MA with two come from behind wins. On Saturday, the Bobcats fell behind to Nichols College early, but stayed close enough to allow for a good run at the end. Billy Selman hit a go-ahead three with 27 seconds left and the Bobcats held on to win, with a little help from Nichols, who missed four free throws down the stretch. Bates had strong performances from Mike Boornazian (25 pts), Graham Safford (22 puts) and Marcus Delpeche (14 puts on 6 for 8 shooting).

On Sunday, the situation was similar and Bates fell down by as much as 13(?) in the second half before Graham Safford decided to take things into his own hands. After scoring only 2 points in the first half, he scored 21 second half points, including the game winning three with 1.8 seconds left in the game to win 54-51. He also made three other three pointers to help erase the deficit and bring the game down to the wire. Defensively, Boornazian held Babson's scoring threat, Joey Flannery, to 7 points.

A great road win against a pre-season ranked team in Babson (no. 23). Very impressive how the Bobcats held their composure down the stretch in both of the tightly contested games to close the deal

pinseeking1 - Welcome to the board and congrats on Bates' fast start to the season.

I was looking at the box scores to the first two games and was hoping you could answer a question.  It looks like Malcolm Delpeche fouled out of the Nichols game with only 8 minutes of playing time and he collected 4 fouls in just 15 minutes against Babson. 

Are those stats correct?  What happened?  Fouling out in just 8 minutes of play is actually kinda hard to do.

[Bucket]

Nice weekend for Bates in the Babson Tournament in Wellesley, MA with two come from behind wins. On Saturday, the Bobcats fell behind to Nichols College early, but stayed close enough to allow for a good run at the end. Billy Selman hit a go-ahead three with 27 seconds left and the Bobcats held on to win, with a little help from Nichols, who missed four free throws down the stretch. Bates had strong performances from Mike Boornazian (25 pts), Graham Safford (22 puts) and Marcus Delpeche (14 puts on 6 for 8 shooting).

On Sunday, the situation was similar and Bates fell down by as much as 13(?) in the second half before Graham Safford decided to take things into his own hands. After scoring only 2 points in the first half, he scored 21 second half points, including the game winning three with 1.8 seconds left in the game to win 54-51. He also made three other three pointers to help erase the deficit and bring the game down to the wire. Defensively, Boornazian held Babson's scoring threat, Joey Flannery, to 7 points.

A great road win against a pre-season ranked team in Babson (no. 23). Very impressive how the Bobcats held their composure down the stretch in both of the tightly contested games to close the deal

pinseeking1 - Welcome to the board and congrats on Bates' fast start to the season.

I was looking at the box scores to the first two games and was hoping you could answer a question.  It looks like Malcolm Delpeche fouled out of the Nichols game with only 8 minutes of playing time.  Also, it seems he collected 4 fouls in just 15 minutes against Babson. 

Are those stats correct?  What happened?  Fouling out in just 8 minutes of play is actually kinda hard to do.

But entirely possible! On Sunday, I watched a University of New England kid foul out in just 4 minutes of play!

[P'bearfan]

But entirely possible! On Sunday, I watched a University of New England kid foul out in just 4 minutes of play!

That's astounding - and something I wouldn't mind him repeating next Tuesday!

[pinseeking1]

Yes, Malcolm Delpeche got caught in the air a few times after head fakes by the offensive player, etc. I think he loves to block shots and gets a little overanxious when he sees an opportunity. He had a couple of spectacular blocks, but really needs to stay on his feet and just play better defense. I'm certain he'll still get his share of blocks...

[P'bearfan]

So a couple questions for the Trinity fans:

-What happened to the Bantam's defense?  Last season Trinity only allowed an average of 61+ ppg.  The allowed an average of 92.5ppg in their first two games this season!  Last year the team lived on defense and they brought everyone back this year so these scores are shocking.

-In their second game against Salem State, Trinity was outrebounded 36 - 29.  That's amazing for a team that led the NESCAC in rebounding.  Is Salem State that good?

[amh63]

Seems there is an Amherst preview of the coming season.  Surprised me!  Some interesting comments.  Ben Pollack is the Capt. As listed on the roster...updated over the weekend.

[lefrakenstein]

Some takeaways from the Amherst preview...

Hixon's quote that the team has more depth at every position compared to last year jumped out at me. The article also refers to Pollack as a power forward, so maybe they are planning on playing Pollack and George next to one another after all, which would go a long way towards fixing the glut at center and the lack of depth on the wing. I wonder though if that will create any spacing issues, especially since Dawson and Berman are not supposed to be great shooters. If Pollack and George are planted in the lane, and perimeter defenders can cheat off their assignments without fear of giving up an open three to a shooter, Dawson and the other guards won't have much room to drive.

Racy and Magana are among the highlighted sophomore wings. McCarthy and Riopel are also mentioned as potential contributors, as is Ray Barry. No mention of either Brady Holding or Chris Wright. Prior years' previews have been pretty good at forecasting who will get playing time.

Can't wait for tomorrow's game.

[amh63]

Lefrak.....nice pick up.  I noticed the "missing players" mentioned too.  However, if one looks at the size...weight...and the designation of the players....Brading and Chris.....I expect them to contribute on the wing...at the 3 position. 
My overall take of who of the young players to get PT will be based on their defensive ability.
Last week, I caught a game between Louiville and Minnesota.  Louiville was preparing for their entrance into the ACC conference.  The offense of the team was generated by the defense...steals, etc.  I guess, the discussion in the preseason   has been wrt to the offense of the CAC teams primarily.  Amherst, imo, has always had good defensive teams.  Believe, Coach Hixon makes it a priority when building teams.
No video coverage yet of the game tonight.

[madzillagd]

Amherst assistant moves on...

http://www.hoopdirt.com/blog/7b910f01/amherst-college-dirt/

[amh63]

madz.....thanks!  Fills an info void.  Wish him the best of luck.  His parents were often seen at Amherst big games even after Hopkins' graduation.  Long drive from the hometown of Skidmore College.

[middhoops]

Amherst in a huge drought against Anna Maria in the 2nd half.  Trailing by  12.
Ephs all over Oneonta with Wohl on fire.