MBB: NESCAC

[P'bearfan]

http://www.d3hoops.com/awards/all-region/2015-16/northeast-men

D3hoops has just released their All-Region team selections.  Congratulations to the 5 NESCAC players who were selected:  First team: Lucas Hausman; Shay Ajayi; Second team: Matt St Amour; Tom Palleschi; Third team: Connor Green.

Also Jack Simonds was selected as ROY.

[nescac1]

A rueful congrats to the Lord Blanks -- they certainly caught a few breaks along the way, but yet another Final Four appearance is very impressive no matter what, and they put themselves in a position for a favorable draw with a great regular season.  I believe that's seven Final Fours each for Amherst and Williams, now, as the ex-Jeffs have finally pulled even on that front. Looking forward to Williams being back in the conversation soon after the dual blow of losing Maker and Robinson set the program back a bit -- which I think will happen faster than some people might imagine.  This year is not one where there seems to be a dominant team in D3 (notwithstanding Benedectine's record, as they didn't play in a very tough conference), so it looks like the Final Four is a true toss-up.  Just once I'd love for Amherst to have to play an elite WIAC team in Salem ... Williams is 7-2 in Salem vs. everyone but WIAC, but 0-4 (three of them agonizingly close title games) vs. WIAC's big two.   

Congrats also to Tufts -- making the Elite 8 despite the loss of an elite player like Pace is quite an achievement.  Hopefully Vinny can come back strong for next year, but an ACL is really a year plus injury in terms of returning at full strength, so he may have to wait until senior year to push for all-America honors.  Tufts has had a heck of a lot of bad injury luck in recent years, between Palleschi missing a year, Sabety's injury woes, Ben Ferris having a very promising career totally derailed by injuries, and now Pace.  Luck certainly plays a role in these things and it hasn't favored the Jumbos, despite recruiting a slew of very, very talented players. 

Congrats to the NESCAC players who made all-region.  I'm sure he was hurt by the team's mediocre performance, but I do think Dan Arowowitz was worthy.  His stats were as strong as any NESCAC player other than Hausman, and really he had very little help -- once Greenman went down early in the season, he was the only upperclassmen on the roster to make substantial contributions, and the only non-frosh who was capable of creating his own shot, and as such he received an inordinate amount of attention from opposing defenses, yet still carried Williams single-handedly a times to a respectable conference finish, and scored with good efficiency.  Also a solid defender to boot (gave Hausman a pretty tough time once he started covering him, for example).  Hopefully he will have a chance for individual accolades next year, especially if he continues to improve as he's done markedly each off-season so far in his career. 

ESPN, come on man -- glad to see them giving props to Duncan, but an NAIA school?  Even after several high-profile transfers to D1 schools, the national media still can't figure out D3 from their butts. 

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/14964029/first-look-all-68-march-madness-teams-2016-ncaa-tournament


41. Michigan Wolverines
Michigan played itself in with a massive Big Ten conference tournament win over Indiana in Indianapolis, an admirable feat despite losing star guard Caris LeVert to injury on Jan. 1. This is not a vintage John Beilein team, but watching former NAIA player Duncan Robinson hoist 3s (he's 90-of-200 on the season) is worth the price of admission.


Speaking of Duncan:

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/mens-basketball/duncan-robinson-williams-college-michigan-basketball-ncaa-tournament

[P'bearfan]

ESPN, come on man -- glad to see them giving props to Duncan, but an NAIA school?  Even after several high-profile transfers to D1 schools, the national media still can't figure out D3 from their butts. 

Agreed.  I cringed when I read that.

[pg04]

To the people at ESPN a world beyond D1 barely exists, unfortunately.

[amh63]

ESPN is based near Farmington CT....UConn medical center and should know better.  It is owned by Disney that deals in Fantasy World and is known for being tight fisted.  Have family and friends that have worked for Disney in Orlando and France.  One new friend is working on the new site in China near Shanghai...problems there, especially the pollution.  Am afraid a number of people are being let go as financial impacts cause knowledgable and higher paid persons to leave.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

For the record, they have talked about Duncan a lot this year... that is the first time I have NOT seem him referenced as to coming from Division III. I highly suspect this individual, not ESPN, got it wrong and either didn't have an editor or that editor didn't catch it.

[pg04]

Dave swoops in to correct us all (as usual) 

[Gregory Sager]

I will take a shot.  The Saints from the Midwest have a Midwest heavy roster.

Benedictine's nickname isn't the Saints. It's the Eagles, although I usually refer to them as "the Bennies," because "Eagles" is the most boring and overused nickname in American sports.

They seem to have perimeter outside scorers.  They won on Sat by shooting 70 percent from outside !

They also outrebounded Alma by 12, which leads to an important point: Benedictine is big. The Bennies aren't just a bunch of gunners; they like to play inside-out, and they have the personnel to hurt you in the paint. Luke Johnson (6'9, 235 SR) is an All-Region pick, a former D2 scholarship player, and he can and will do a lot of damage in the blocks (14.5 ppg, 11.1 rpg). The Bennies use three other bigs with Johnson in a four-man rotation, among whom are Adam Reynolds (6'5, 225 JR) and Tim Reamer (6'5, 240, SR), who are both very good as well. They both average somewhere in the vicinity of 10 and 6 per game. Shawn Soelter (6'7, 255 JR) is the fourth big; he's there to bang on people for about ten minutes per game. Also, Tahron Harvey (13.5 ppg) is an outstanding slasher, so Amherst will have to be wary of him beating them off the dribble. John Dodson (10.9 ppg) is also a slasher, but his best role is his defense; he's about as good an on-ball defender as you're going to see in this tournament.

So there's a lot more to BU than just Michael Blaszcyk and Brayden Olson bombing away from downtown to their hearts' content.

They have played few games outside of the region and may not be familiar with NE teams.

That cuts both ways. Amherst hasn't played a midwestern team since the Ex-Jeffs faced North Central in the national semis three seasons ago. The only Amherst players to see time in that game who are still listed on the current roster are Connor Green and Ben Pollack, and it appears as though Pollack isn't even playing anymore for Amherst.

As nescac1 noted, Benedictine reps a weak league (the NACC), but don't be fooled by that. The Bennies went 5-0 against CCIW teams this season, and they've beaten #18 Elmhurst, #17 North Central, #13 Alma, and #10 Ohio Wesleyan by an average of almost 11 points per game. I don't think that they'll be intimated by Amherst. Respect them? Yes. Intimidated by them? Doubt it.

[amh63]

Gregory Sager.....Thanks for the update.  Sorry about the nickname error...my bad.  Always good to hear from a midwest school fan and get their perspective of midwest brand of play.  You seem to think my post was a put down of Midwest "style"  of play.  No offense intended.  Both areas MAY have  differences.  Good teams have more similarities than differences....defense, teamwork, etc.  So please do not stir the pot with words of "intimated" and respect.
What is the remark about Co Captain Ben Pollack all about.  Yes. Ben has not played in several years, due to injuries. There is also another senior that has not played much due to injuries and is listed without a number on the roster.
Suggest you calm down a bit and enjoy the game ahead.  The Final 4 brings teams from all regions together.  They bring talented players big and small, etc. 
For your info, Amherst has played a number of schools from the Midwest in Final Fours.  They have won and have lost.
Now I know where I saw the 4PM starting time for the game on Friday.  The website on the Benedictine Athletic page has the time of the game as 4PM.  Must be listed in another time zone?

[amh63]

Pretty quiet here and on other boards. Guess it is the lull before the storm.
All set for my trip to Salem...except for a final weather check. 
Took a final look at the " old"  Amherst.edu website before the new one is launched on Wednesday.  Wonder what the Athletic page will look like.  Found out that almost no students are there....Spring Break, yes....however all the Spring sport teams are either out West or down in Florida.  Guess the Winter sports are finished or heading to or are at NCAA championship events.  Speaking of BB....have you filled out your Div1 March Madness brackets yet?  It's the American past time this time of the year!  Oops, forgot there are elections going on today somewhere.
The WSJ sports Page..singular here....points out that this might be the year for you to take a chance and pick upsets.  There are a number of good teams, but no Great teams...according to Charles Barkley.  I annually run a family and friends " office" pool with pay outs.  More often than not, the ladies win the most...the ones that do NOT follow the sport. They however enjoy watching games live.
One daughter in law has labeled Conner Green....Joe College.  Must have been during one of his unshaven periods.
Good luck to ALL the Nescac teams this weekend!  Looking forward to chatting with friends and parents in Salem.

[gordonmann]

Now I know where I saw the 4PM starting time for the game on Friday.  The website on the Benedictine Athletic page has the time of the game as 4PM.  Must be listed in another time zone?

Yep, the game starts at 5 pm ET which will be 4 pm back home in Lisle for the Bennies.

[JEFFFAN]

I will take a shot.  The Saints from the Midwest have a Midwest heavy roster.

Benedictine's nickname isn't the Saints. It's the Eagles, although I usually refer to them as "the Bennies," because "Eagles" is the most boring and overused nickname in American sports.

They seem to have perimeter outside scorers.  They won on Sat by shooting 70 percent from outside !

They also outrebounded Alma by 12, which leads to an important point: Benedictine is big. The Bennies aren't just a bunch of gunners; they like to play inside-out, and they have the personnel to hurt you in the paint. Luke Johnson (6'9, 235 SR) is an All-Region pick, a former D2 scholarship player, and he can and will do a lot of damage in the blocks (14.5 ppg, 11.1 rpg). The Bennies use three other bigs with Johnson in a four-man rotation, among whom are Adam Reynolds (6'5, 225 JR) and Tim Reamer (6'5, 240, SR), who are both very good as well. They both average somewhere in the vicinity of 10 and 6 per game. Shawn Soelter (6'7, 255 JR) is the fourth big; he's there to bang on people for about ten minutes per game. Also, Tahron Harvey (13.5 ppg) is an outstanding slasher, so Amherst will have to be wary of him beating them off the dribble. John Dodson (10.9 ppg) is also a slasher, but his best role is his defense; he's about as good an on-ball defender as you're going to see in this tournament.

So there's a lot more to BU than just Michael Blaszcyk and Brayden Olson bombing away from downtown to their hearts' content.

They have played few games outside of the region and may not be familiar with NE teams.

That cuts both ways. Amherst hasn't played a midwestern team since the Ex-Jeffs faced North Central in the national semis three seasons ago. The only Amherst players to see time in that game who are still listed on the current roster are Connor Green and Ben Pollack, and it appears as though Pollack isn't even playing anymore for Amherst.

As nescac1 noted, Benedictine reps a weak league (the NACC), but don't be fooled by that. The Bennies went 5-0 against CCIW teams this season, and they've beaten #18 Elmhurst, #17 North Central, #13 Alma, and #10 Ohio Wesleyan by an average of almost 11 points per game. I don't think that they'll be intimated by Amherst. Respect them? Yes. Intimidated by them? Doubt it.

Great input, Greg Sager - thank you.   With all due respect to our esteemed teams, I am not sure that intimidation is even in the vocabulary of D3 basketball players nor do I think that Greg Sager intimated the same even though the word was used.   The relevant questions relate to playing style, size, and athleticism.   The beauty of D3 at this point - and at times the curse - is that these teams have never seen each other play in person, have not played against them or their fellow league competitors, and really have no idea going in what it will feel like to compete with such unknowns.   Maryland and Oregon, for instance, may not have played against each other but they have played enough teams that look and feel like the other to make the games more familiar.

It is interesting to note the size and strong inside game of Benedictine because the Jeffs are not very strong inside, choosing to play a one center and almost four guard rotation throughout most games.  That rotation suits the roster with its group of good outside shooters and comparatively weak inside players.   (Water under the bridge but would love to see a healthy Pollack on this roster to bolster the inside game.)  Green will come inside when necessary but this team would hardly qualify as a big team.   As with most Jeff performances, they will succeed or not based on the three-point shooting.   If they are successful from the outside, it will force Benedictine away from the inside - if not, it will likely be a long late-afternoon for the Jeffs.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Typically we see a bigger midwestern team match up against a faster east coast squad.  I'm not sure Amherst is particularly quick - that's why I have them a big underdog.  I'm always more excited to be surprised, though.

[amh63]

The Amherst athletic website has features/ previews of the upcoming men and women NCAA BB events.  Nice info provided on ALL teams involved, IMO.
Two points...the men's game now has a 5:00 PM ET start...yippee, the info boards are in sync. Second point...the Amherst WBB team is playing Thomas More on Sat..  The No. 1 team has the mascot name " Saints".  There is where I went wrong....calling the No. 2 ranked men's team....by the mascot of the No.1ranked women's team.  My apologies go out to both schools.
Amherst will have viewing parties on campus for the community fans.

[Gregory Sager]

Gregory Sager.....Thanks for the update.  Sorry about the nickname error...my bad.  Always good to hear from a midwest school fan and get their perspective of midwest brand of play.  You seem to think my post was a put down of Midwest "style"  of play.  No offense intended.

None taken, believe me. You're wording it too strongly to say that I seemed to think your post was "a putdown of Midwest 'style' of play." First of all, I don't think that there really is a "Midwest 'style' of play," although Hoops Fan is right that the midwestern teams that reach the Final Four are often bigger than their northeastern or southern counterparts. (This is not always true, though; last year's UWSP team that won the whole shooting match didn't have a starter over 6'4, and the UWW team that won it the year before last wasn't very big, either.) Teams from this part of the country run the whole gamut in terms of style, strategy, personnel, etc., just as I'm sure is the case in the Northeast Region.

I wasn't quite sure how to take your point that the Bennies "have played few games outside of the region and may not be familiar with NE teams." I simply tried to answer that this Amherst team isn't used to seeing teams from BU's part of the country, either, so any regionally-based surprises in terms of style (if there are any, which I doubt) are canceled out, and that BU wouldn't be intimidated by Amherst based upon regional considerations -- since, let's be honest, as good as the NESCAC has been in the tournament (and nobody questions that it has been very good), on balance the dominant area of the country in terms of D3 men's basketball is the midwestern arc from Cleveland to the Twin Cities, which has produced fourteen of the last 20 national champions (and eight of the last 20 national runners-up as well). What I said was just my way of trying to figure out what you meant by that "may not be familiar with NE teams" statement. I didn't assume it was a putdown.

Both areas MAY have  differences.  Good teams have more similarities than differences....defense, teamwork, etc.  So please do not stir the pot with words of "intimated" and respect.

No pot-stirring intended at all on my end, I can assure you. I was simply trying to discern what you meant by your remark about BU's unfamiliarity with New England teams.

What is the remark about Co Captain Ben Pollack all about.  Yes. Ben has not played in several years, due to injuries. There is also another senior that has not played much due to injuries and is listed without a number on the roster.

Again, you're reading too much into it. I thought that my meaning was pretty straightforward. I mentioned Pollack because he was one of two players on the current Amherst squad who played against North Central four years ago. Since Pollack only played two minutes of one game this season (I didn't know why, although I suspected it was injury-related; thanks for clearing that up), I felt it was certainly relevant to mention that, since it didn't seem likely that he'd play against BU on Friday and that his absence would thus reduce the number of Ex-Jeffs who'd faced a midwestern team before to one (Connor Green).

Suggest you calm down a bit and enjoy the game ahead.

Trust me, I've never been anything but calm in this conversation. There was a request on this board for info on the Bennies, and, speaking as someone who's seen several of their games, I thought I'd respond. Again, my mention of intimidation was, as JEFFFAN correctly surmised, just a truism that's pretty applicable in most Final Four situations regarding teams from different regions that have no familiarity with each other. As I said, I was simply trying to parse what you meant when you said the Bennies "have played few games outside of the region and may not be familiar with NE teams."

The Final 4 brings teams from all regions together.  They bring talented players big and small, etc.

Yep. Certainly no argument here.

For your info, Amherst has played a number of schools from the Midwest in Final Fours.  They have won and have lost.

I'm well aware of that, seeing as how I've closely followed D3 men's basketball since the late '70s.

However, the track record of the Amherst program vis-a-vis Final Four contests against midwestern teams really isn't relevant, outside of the current team itself. And, as I said, the only current Ex-Jeffs who've played against a midwestern team -- regular season or D3 tourney -- are Connor Green and Ben Pollack.

Great input, Greg Sager - thank you.   With all due respect to our esteemed teams, I am not sure that intimidation is even in the vocabulary of D3 basketball players nor do I think that Greg Sager intimated the same even though the word was used.   The relevant questions relate to playing style, size, and athleticism.   The beauty of D3 at this point - and at times the curse - is that these teams have never seen each other play in person, have not played against them or their fellow league competitors, and really have no idea going in what it will feel like to compete with such unknowns.   Maryland and Oregon, for instance, may not have played against each other but they have played enough teams that look and feel like the other to make the games more familiar.

Thanks, JEFFFAN. I'd only add one thing, which is that tourney experience is relevant, too, and that's one area where Amherst has the edge. And, overall, I think that these Amherst players have probably played in more big, everything's-on-the-line type of games than have their Benedictine counterparts. That's as much due to BU's weak league (and the fact that the Bennies were an also-ran in it prior to this season) and Amherst's strong league as it is to the much greater tourney experience of the Ex-Jeffs.

It is interesting to note the size and strong inside game of Benedictine because the Jeffs are not very strong inside, choosing to play a one center and almost four guard rotation throughout most games.  That rotation suits the roster with its group of good outside shooters and comparatively weak inside players.   (Water under the bridge but would love to see a healthy Pollack on this roster to bolster the inside game.)  Green will come inside when necessary but this team would hardly qualify as a big team.   As with most Jeff performances, they will succeed or not based on the three-point shooting.   If they are successful from the outside, it will force Benedictine away from the inside - if not, it will likely be a long late-afternoon for the Jeffs.

Good stuff, JEFFFAN. Thanks.