MBB: NESCAC

[Old Guy]

I want to check in even though Bucket gave a succinct account of last night's Midd game against Keene State. The Panthers played great!

Keene State is a good team that plays hard and has a number of ways to beat you: a seven footer with a nice touch (Nate Howard), a rugged, slashing scoring guard (Tom Doyle, who scored his 1000th point), good athletes (Jaquel Edwards), strong kids who don't give an inch (Jeff Lunn). This was a good win coming at the right time. NESCAC teams did well against their out-of-conference opponents - no one else played a team of Keene State's quality (15-5). Midd heads into its tough last four NESCAC games with some momentum.

Sinnickson was terrific - he has a 12 footer in traffic where he goes up over his defender and banks in a feathery jump shot high off the glass - hard to stop. Merryman's shot is back after a brief hiatus - he looked very good shooting the three and had some strong dashes to the hoop for scores. Brown frustrated the pressure applied by the quick, strong Keene guards all night.

Worthy of note too was the play of Nick Tarantino, who replaced Daley and had 13 rebounds (in 18 minutes) in some tough going underneath: he had one spectacular play where he lost the ball on the offensive end and chased down a breakaway Owl guard and blocked his lay-up, the ball pinned to the crotch of the hoop - jump ball. Tarantino didn't have a great game against the Ephs, and didn't play at all against Hamilton - he was ready to play. He will be fun to watch in the next three years.

The contribution of senior co-captain Dean Brierly has been important all year, very dependable, confident, playing 17.5 minutes a game. He's a good shooter (47.5 %), a tenacious defender - tall enough to guard forwards, quick enough to take on guards. He's been very valuable. He was 4-4 against Keene.

Off to Maine for the Panthers, to take on two tough teams on their home courts, Colby and Bowdoin. Big weekend.

[jumpshot]

Old Guy:

Perhaps your report on the Panthers' win versus Keene State is a bit overstated, particularly in light of the Mid team I watched versus Williams and other of their performances.

Many of Keene's wins are against weaker teams that also fill up their schedule, so not really as fundamentally as strong a team as their record would indicate. They have no "signature wins" against the likes of even Plattsburgh, Rhode Island, Eastern Connecticut, Mass-Boston.

Please don't misunderstand ---I admire Panther Pride in all its forms. Certainly there have been exceptional individual performances at times.

Sometimes it seems naturally a bit difficult reconciling the reporting emanating from Vermont with the reality of play on the court over the course of a season ....

Like your loyalty --and trips with Little Guy!

[Bucket]

Old Guy:

Perhaps your report on the Panthers' win versus Keene State is a bit overstated, particularly in light of the Mid team I watched versus Williams and other of their performances.

Many of Keene's wins are against weaker teams that also fill up their schedule, so not really as fundamentally as strong a team as their record would indicate. They have no "signature wins" against the likes of even Plattsburgh, Rhode Island, Eastern Connecticut, Mass-Boston.

Please don't misunderstand ---I admire Panther Pride in all its forms. Certainly there have been exceptional individual performances at times.

Sometimes it seems naturally a bit difficult reconciling the reporting emanating from Vermont with the reality of play on the court over the course of a season ....

Like your loyalty --and trips with Little Guy!

Obviously, I'll side with OG on this one—I don't see how his reporting of the KSC game is in conflict with the reality of the season.

We (OG, me, middhoops) have been very upfront about how this Middlebury team can be spectacular one night and then really struggle the next. Both OG and I wrote about how Williams dominated us in every facet of the game last week. And we talked about the incongruity of blasting Wes by 30+ on a Friday and then slipping past Conn on a Sunday. We played well to win at Plattsburgh; at Tufts, the Jumbos blew us out in the last 10 minutes of the contest. We've written about all of this.

Tuesday was one of those nights when the Panthers played very well. I'm not sure how any of these observations/reports have been in conflict with play on the court.

As has been written about ad infinitum, the only thing predictable about this season has been its unpredictability. Hamilton has one win in conference play—against Williams. Midd beats Wes by 30+. Williams beats Midd by 20+. Does anyone think Williams is 50 points better than Wes? 

I feel that posters have done an even-handed job of describing the highs and lows of our respective teams—especially Midd, Williams, and Amherst posters, as we've seen great games from our clubs as well as real stinkers. And, in this case, I think OG's enthusiasm was warranted.

[AmherstStudent05]

I thought I posted yesterday after the RIC game, but I suppose that post has disappeared?

Anyway, I just wanted to discuss Pool C.  I don't quite share grabtherim's pessimism regarding the NESCAC's chances in Pool C.

Obviously, our conference is not as strong at the top as it has been in years past.  However, while my d3hoops focus is VERY Amherst/NESCAC centric, my sense is that there are a lot of up-and-down teams throughout the Northeast and the country at large.  More worldly posters such as nescac1 can correct me if I am wrong.

While obviously a miniscule sample (and against the LEC rather than the NEWMAC), I think Tuesday's results indicate that the NESCAC is still most definitely a power conference in the region.

When do the first regional rankings come out?  I don't envy anyone on that committee.  But, if any of them read these boards, I can provide some helpful advice: When in doubt, rank Amherst high!

In all seriousness, I will be quite interested to see how these rankings shake out.  From my Amherst perspective, my Jeffs have been on a nice little run here and I think they definitely could still be in the Pool C mix.  Road wins against Eastern Conn and RIC are likely to serve them very well.  Obviously, the Brandeis loss at home hurts and it would have been nice to pull out that game in Chandler (even if we did protect our home turf in the Little III), but our resume has quite a bit of promise, it seems to me.

Of course, there is still plenty of work to be done.  Even though they are road games, we obviously will be favored to sweep our Connecticut games this weekend.  These are games that we should win and need to win.  I am confident that Hix & Co. will be ready for the challenge. 

[amh63]

Hear! Hear,  Bucket....as they say across the Pond.
Watched a variety of BB games last night....even the lone LEC vs Nescac game....WBB.  It was a game between ECSU vs Conn College.  Conn is on the rise...maybe due to the new assistant coach from Williams.  Anyway, my interest in the game is that Amherst women's team plays Conn this weekend. The Lady Jeffs had played ECSU. Close game and the announcers mention the up's and down of their team and the close race for tourny seeds this year.
This leads me to my question here....why has this season been so unpredictable for CAC teams.  Yes the spread of talent among the teams?....the play of newcomers to the conference/inexperience?
Heard a comment from a veteran football coach...yes football...it was "signing day"....that pointed to a key factor that resonated with me.   The need of leadership, often veteran leadership, that is required/critical to have a successful season.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I thought I posted yesterday after the RIC game, but I suppose that post has disappeared?

Anyway, I just wanted to discuss Pool C.  I don't quite share grabtherim's pessimism regarding the NESCAC's chances in Pool C.

Obviously, our conference is not as strong at the top as it has been in years past.  However, while my d3hoops focus is VERY Amherst/NESCAC centric, my sense is that there are a lot of up-and-down teams throughout the Northeast and the country at large.  More worldly posters such as nescac1 can correct me if I am wrong.

While obviously a miniscule sample (and against the LEC rather than the NEWMAC), I think Tuesday's results indicate that the NESCAC is still most definitely a power conference in the region.

When do the first regional rankings come out?  I don't envy anyone on that committee.  But, if any of them read these boards, I can provide some helpful advice: When in doubt, rank Amherst high!

In all seriousness, I will be quite interested to see how these rankings shake out.  From my Amherst perspective, my Jeffs have been on a nice little run here and I think they definitely could still be in the Pool C mix.  Road wins against Eastern Conn and RIC are likely to serve them very well.  Obviously, the Brandeis loss at home hurts and it would have been nice to pull out that game in Chandler (even if we did protect our home turf in the Little III), but our resume has quite a bit of promise, it seems to me.

Of course, there is still plenty of work to be done.  Even though they are road games, we obviously will be favored to sweep our Connecticut games this weekend.  These are games that we should win and need to win.  I am confident that Hix & Co. will be ready for the challenge.

This is a straight RPI projection (not a prediction of actual rankings) - http://tomaroonandgold.blogspot.com/p/division-iii-mens-regional-rankings.html - but he usually does a good job of getting the SOS number correct.  Amherst is really hurting in that department this year.  I'd say they're at the bottom of the mix for Pool C (at best).  They have to win that tournament (which is entirely possible, of course).

[AmherstStudent05]

Thanks for sharing, Hoops Fan.  I don't know how this is computed, but I find it interesting that Amherst seems to have played 8 of the top 10 teams listed on these "rankings".  Against those 8 teams we are 6-3 (playing Williams twice) -- 3-2 in conference and 3-1 out of conference.  Nothing like the ridiculous record we had last year against regionally ranked teams, but not too shabby, it seems to me.

When it all shakes out I will be curious to see what our record will be against other Regionally Ranked opponents in the Northeast.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Thanks for sharing, Hoops Fan.  I don't know how this is computed, but I find it interesting that Amherst seems to have played 8 of the top 10 teams listed on these "rankings".  Against those 8 teams we are 6-3 (playing Williams twice) -- 3-2 in conference and 3-1 out of conference.  Nothing like the ridiculous record we had last year against regionally ranked teams, but not too shabby, it seems to me.

When it all shakes out I will be curious to see what our record will be against other Regionally Ranked opponents in the Northeast.

No, it's all about how terrible the teams they played before New Year's are.  Their SOS will go up the more NESCAC teams they play, but they're starting from a disadvantage.  I think they and Middlebury really can't drop another regular season game if they want to overcome the weak schedules this year.

The RRO thing will be different this year, too - because the committee is now only counting teams in the final (secret) rankings for RRO purposes.  There's no more once ranked always ranked, which will likely hurt the NE disproportionately, since there are so many ranking places for random teams to slip into over the next month.

[AmherstStudent05]

Thanks.  I definitely agree that, realistically, we need to beat Conn, Wesleyan and Lasell to stay in the thick of things for Pool C.  You are probably right about Midd in Pepin, I suppose.  However, were we to sweep our remaining regular season slate (not an easy task, of course), I would have to think we would be in strong position even if we didn't have the greatest showing in the NESCAC Tournament.  Of course, I always prefer the option of just winning the NESCAC Tourney to keep the human beings out of it, but Coach Hixon has spoiled me, I guess.

I wouldn't argue that Amherst has played a murderer's row this year, but I guess I have a different take on SOS then the machines.  To me, the key inquiry is to see how the top Northeast teams fared against one another.  After all, these are the teams that are competing with one another for the highest spots on our Regional ladder.  Obviously I am biased, but I think Coach Hixon does a good job of making sure that (a) we play a good cross section of these teams every year, and (b) we win more than we lose.

But maybe this isn't a great way to look at things or maybe it doesn't matter because the powers that be see things differently.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Thanks.  I definitely agree that, realistically, we need to beat Conn, Wesleyan and Lasell to stay in the thick of things for Pool C.  You are probably right about Midd in Pepin, I suppose.  However, were we to sweep our remaining regular season slate (not an easy task, of course), I would have to think we would be in strong position even if we didn't have the greatest showing in the NESCAC Tournament.  Of course, I always prefer the option of just winning the NESCAC Tourney to keep the human beings out of it, but Coach Hixon has spoiled me, I guess.

I wouldn't argue that Amherst has played a murderer's row this year, but I guess I have a different take on SOS then the machines.  To me, the key inquiry is to see how the top Northeast teams fared against one another.  After all, these are the teams that are competing with one another for the highest spots on our Regional ladder.  Obviously I am biased, but I think Coach Hixon does a good job of making sure that (a) we play a good cross section of these teams every year, and (b) we win more than we lose.

But maybe this isn't a great way to look at things or maybe it doesn't matter because the powers that be see things differently.

I know Amherst was scrambling to fill non-conference slots this year.  I heard from several coaches who couldn't make it work due to late notice.  I don't know if some teams dropped out or they just had a couple dates left to fill, but when that happens you get some weaker opponents.  That Johnson State, Mt. Ida, Westfield "murderer's row" sure didn't help things.

[toad22]

I'm looking forward to making the long trip up to Bates tomorrow, for the Eph-Bobcat tussle. The Bates gym is a great place for a college basketball game. One of my fondest memories is the game I watched in 1966 (I believe) between Bates and UMaine. I was a junior in high school, and my older brother played for Bates. It was a Saturday night, the place was packed, most of the students were feeling no pain, and the basketball was great. Bates nearly knocked of the heavily favored Maine team. They were saved by a favorable whistle with less than a minute to play. It was a great experience. I hope my experience tomorrow is as good. I have no idea what will happen in the game. I don't know who should be favored, though I suspect most fans would pick Bates. Maybe, but it will be fun to find out. Btw, ditto for Saturday's game at Tufts. This weekend is really meaningful for nearly all teams.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Here's my take on the top teams in the Northeast - in alphabetical order with regional records. 

Albertus Magnus (15-0)
Babson (16-2)
Bates (15-2)
Eastern CT (12-2)
Trinity (12-2)
WPI (13-2)

You are going to watch to check your regional records... for example, Albertus Magnus has a loss to Richard Stockton. Remember, all games count in Division III now (as your regional record) as long as you play 70% of your games in-region. However, even under the "old" rules, the game against Richard Stockton is still a regional game (200 miles and in the administrative region).

[booyakasha]

Pretty quiet on here for a Friday with some big games coming up. Hard to even come up with a marquee game as every matchup is going to be important for seeding and securing a playoff spot from here on out. Looking forward to a good weekend of basketball.

[Bucket]

Agreed. Every game is one of consequence, with the possible exception of Amherst@Conn--though it becomes consequential if the Camels can spring the upset!

[amh63]

Go Jeffs!