MBB: NESCAC

[With Age Comes Wisdom?]

3 teams in the sweet 16 on both the men's and women's .. is, shall I say .."sweet"?  Hamilton did not play their best basketball but still survived.  Unsung hero was Doyle.  He did a lot of the "press busting" and played a very solid game. Hoffman is a tough matchup for smaller guards. Gilmour is quick and crafty but will need to finish better for Hamilton to succeed and go deeper into the tournament. Team will have to play better to advance next weekend but it was a "fun" raucous crowd and I have to believe the crowd will be even more into it next week. Hopefully Williams gets some support from the crowd against Whitman.   From everything I've heard the Whitman press is downright nasty!  Amherst as host I think will survive the weekend and advance but it won't be easy! Go NESCAC!

[jayhawk]

sorry about word fu I meant fun video of Nichols coach dancing after win
Have a nice week
good luck to all

[Old Guy]

sorry about word fu I meant fun video of Nichols coach dancing after win
Have a nice week
good luck to all

Thanks for the clarification: I was worried that it was an "f. u." dance. I've seen coaches do those on occasion.

[NEhoops]

Congrats to the all of the NESCAC teams on advancing, continuing to live up to the annual lofty standards.

I just realized we're through the 2nd decade of D3hoops.com - any chance that we'll see another all-decade team put together?

The original team covered seasons from 1997-98 to 2006-07. Who is you all-decade (top five) NESCAC team from 2007-08 to 2016-2017?

Andrew Olson - Amherst (2008) Only one year of his career is within the timeline
Blake Schultz – Williams (2010)
Ryan Sharry – Middlebury (2012)
Aaron Toomey – Amherst (2014)
Joey Kizel – Middlebury (2014)
Lucas Hausman – Bowdoin (2016)

Who am I missing?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

We decided to align our all-decade teams with the actual decades going forward.  So expect another in 2020, with some recognition of the best players who played between 2007 and 2010.

[Mr. Ypsi]

We decided to align our all-decade teams with the actual decades going forward.  So expect another in 2020, with some recognition of the best players who played between 2007 and 2010.

Thanks, Ryan.  I had PM'd Pat (I think it was Pat; might have been D-mac) that they seemed overdue for another round of all-decade teams, but never got a response.  I thought maybe you had gone to actual decades, but was worried that maybe you had dropped the whole concept.

Alas, I don't think there are any IWU players likely to make it this time among the men (though a couple with an outside chance at at least HM), but among the women I'd think Olivia Lett has a good shot at 2nd or 3rd team, and Christina Solari and Rebecca Ehresman might make it somewhere near the end.

[cacfan11]

Standings predictions for 2019-2020

Amherst- returning Robinson, Che and Sellew. May have trouble at the five position with both their centers graduating, but overall they have the best chance to win the league. 

Middlebury- Returning top 3 scorers in Farell, Folger, and Bosco.  Look for Sobel to fill the gap left by Mcord well. 

Wesleyan- Returning Austin Hutcherson, as well as a promising freshman group of bigs. 

Hamilton- despite losing four major players, they still have the POY and a very efficient set of reserves that are ready for more minutes.   

Tufts- Returning their entire team

Colby- Returning their entire team

Williams- losing most of their players but retain karp. Can always count on good recruits for Williams so they could be higher. 

Not sure about the rest. 

[nescac1]

cacfan11, with the HUGE caveat that it's very early, and we don't know much about impact recruits/transfers, guys returning from injury / for fifth years, guys leaving programs, etc., I think your view is pretty dead-on.  I think NESCAC 1-8 is going to be VERY tough next year and very balanced/difficult-to-predict probably after the top 1-2.  Conn looks like its in for an absolutely brutal year (probably 2-3 years) before a new coach has a chance to right the ship, Bowdoin loses quite a bit from a team that didn't make the final eight, and Bates loses its only productive big man and some solid role players from, again, a team that didn't make the top 8.   The only team that you miss I think is Trinity, which played well down the stretch and returns all but one guy from its rotation; after a few relatively down years, the Bantams should be back in the mix next season.

Amherst does lose its three-headed monster up front, but Amherst will I think be quicker and more dynamic offensively next season with a smaller Sellew-Che-McCarthy/Chery-Allen-Robinson with Day as the sixth man lineup.  Not as much rim protection, but won't really be needed with such tremendous man-to-man defenders at every spot (especially if Chery is the fifth starter).  Allen and Phelan should make much bigger impacts next season, and McCarthy will be I think a much bigger factor after coming back, presumably, healthy.  And the Mammoths have some good young bigs who will be ready to help off the bench.  Amherst will start the season in the national top 5 for certain and maybe even number one if they make it to the Final Four this year ... because nearly every other top team (other than Swarthmore and RMC) suffers fairly massive losses, in many cases devastating ones, to graduation.

Middlebury, yeah, clearly number two with that tremendous top-four.  The rest 3-8, very closely bunched and way too early to predict the order.  Tufts, Colby, and Trinity should all be much improved on paper, especially Tufts and Colby.  But expectations will be much higher for all of them and sometimes that can change the dynamics a bit for a team. Still, those are suddenly very deep, very veteran teams.  Hamilton loses so much but Gilmour will be in the mix for national POY I think and their young bench guys, many of whom are stellar athletes with big upside, really came along nicely over the course of this season.  Still, a big difference between being spark plug / energy guys and 30 mpg 2nd or 3rd options on the team ...  Wesleyan, I really love their sophomore and frosh classes, but they do lose Bonner which is big, and they looked rough down the stretch.  I think they are probably another year away from being a true contender but Hutcherson is so good, they could surprise with big leaps forward from a few rising sophomores. 

Williams of course loses by far the most, not every day you lose three guys who will finish with well over 1000 points each for their careers, plus two more seniors who started a lot of games over the course of their careers.  Williams could easily fall as far as eighth or even ninth, but could also surprise and squeeze into the top half of the league if everything goes right -- for the first time in a few years, they will be playing with no expectations, which may help a young team.  Karpowicz with even marginal improvement could be a monster as a senior when you look at how many tough bigs are graduating throughout the league (Schneider/Bachman, McCord, Lynch, O'Neil, Groll, Bascom that's a LOT of beefy dudes who have patrolled the lane for 3-4 years gone, NESCAC is gonna be a small, quick, very fast-paced league next season).  And Feinberg has played very well down the stretch and should be ready for a bigger role next season.  But the Ephs will need a lot of little-used guys / incoming frosh to take on a big scoring and playmaking burden on the perimeter.  There is enough talent there for the Ephs to be a surprise team next season despite such huge losses to graduation, but there is no way to know if guys like Spivy and Jovan Jones will be ready for prime time until the start of the season. 

With so many teams on the upswing, NESCAC has a chance to be even more dominant regionally next year.  Nichols and Keene State lose all-American level talents.  Emerson loses its star.  MIT loses the vast majority of its production.  Gordon loses a ton.  Springfield (which I expect to bounce back in a big way next season), Eastern Conn and WPI look like the only regional contenders, outside of NESCAC, likely to be on the upswing, but I don't think any have the look of national contenders outside of MAYBE Springfield if they add another star.  Although keep an eye on St. Joe's (CT), with one more big recruiting year for Coach Calhoun, that very young team will start be regionally dangerous as soon as next year and most definitely within another two years. 

[Colby Hoops]

Generally agree with the thoughts mentioned above. Although it's definitely early and especially for Amherst, Hamilton and Williams they could care less about next year right now.

A few additional thoughts:

• Amherst is definitely the cream of the crop next year, but I do think losing Schneider hurts more than we might think at first glance. Amherst's success this year has been primarily driven by an elite defense. They'll still have elite perimeter defenders next year, but losing that safety blanket in the middle will leave a bit of a question on the rim protection side. I expect they'll be a more balanced team with a much improved offense as Robinson continues to develop into an All-American level player and Sellew, Che and some of the younger guys continue to grow offensively.
• Midd also has the opportunity to be a national power. Sobel seems ready to step in for McCord (although foul trouble will be something to monitor). I think the big question is who steps up as a wing defender. The Panthers have great bigs and great guards, but defensively they probably need someone to step in for Dahleh and handle some of the bigger wings/guards they'll face (Gilmour, Hutcherson, etc.)
• There are a few teams with a wide range of outcomes -- Hamilton, Colby, Wesleyan, Williams, Tufts. I think all of those teams have the potential to be NCAA tourney teams or could be fighting for the bottom of the league. Trinity probably deserves to be in that conversation as well, but they I think they have a lower ceiling.

[Gregory Sager]

Amherst will start the season in the national top 5 for certain and maybe even number one if they make it to the Final Four this year ... because nearly every other top team (other than Swarthmore and RMC) suffers fairly massive losses, in many cases devastating ones, to graduation.

UW-Oshkosh loses its starting backcourt in WIAC POY Ben Boots and All-WIAC honoree Brett Wittchow, but the Titans will return two other All-WIAC picks, 6'8, 240 C Jack Flynn (15 ppg, 7.8 rpg) and 6'8, 210 PF Adam Fravert (14.3 ppg, 7.7 rpg), as well as fellow starter Connor Duax -- and it wouldn't surprise me if Duax becomes the breakout player in the WIAC in 2019-20 -- and their three top reserves. In other words, the Titans are going to be very good again next season.

St. Thomas is a very balanced team, as Johnny Tauer essentially plays two full units -- and seven of those ten rotation players will return, including this season's likely d3hoops.com Freshman of the Year, Anders Nelson (14.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 4.6 apg). The Tommies will be a monster outfit next season.

Nebraska Wesleyan brings back four double-digit scorers (Nate Schimonitz, Jack Hiller, Nate Bahe, and Clay Reimers) so I wouldn't be quick to count the Prairie Wolves out of the preseason national top five. And North Central returns four starters, including surefire All-American Connor Raridon (18 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 5.1 apg), as well as his fellow All-CCIW first-teamer Matt Cappelletti (15.1 ppg, 8 rpg), and All-CCIW second-teamer Blaise Meredith (10.4 ppg), plus the entire bench. The Cardinals will be the unquestioned CCIW favorite, which means that they, too, will get preseason top five consideration.

It also wouldn't surprise me if 2019-20 UAA co-favorites Emory and Wash U get some preseason top five votes, as the Eagles and the Bears will both be absolutely loaded next season.

[nescac1]

Those teams all sound worthy for sure.  North Central especially who I wasn't thinking of, I thought Raridan was a senior, seems like he's been around for quite awhile.  Amherst though loses only one starter, returns its top four scorers, and was really a very young team this year, with four underclassmen handling all of the backcourt minutes plus a fifth, Tim McCarthy, who looked like a prime-time player as a frosh before getting injured and who should be healthier.  The Mammoths' top two scorers are both sophomores who emerged in a huge way late in the year with a lot of room still to improve.

Losing the WIAC POY seems like a pretty big deal as well as another all-league honoree, even if two elite big guys return.  St. Thomas figures to be improved too, but losing three starters including the first and third leading scorers seems like a lot.  NWU should still be good but Garver and Cook seem like pretty massive losses, those are two all-American (or at worst all-region) type players. 

Meanwhile, Augustana, MIT, Hamilton, Whitman, and Pomona-Pitzer, all top-12 teams, are fairly decimated by graduation (even though many have plenty of good talent waiting in the wings), and CNU and St. John's each lose their clear number one guy. 

I have a feeling when all is said and done, Amherst, Swarthmore (the biggest threat for them is one day losing that coach, who is gonna be at D1 very soon I think), North Central, Randolph Macon, Oshkosh and St. Thomas will head into the season as the consensus top group, with CNU, NWU, Whitman, Emory, Wash U., Midd maybe forming the next group along with a few others (I'm sure some Ohio teams are involved, not clear who brings back the most there).  But of that top group, Amherst, Swarthmore (only one senior, although he is a very good one) and (it seems) North Central lose the least.  Agree that Wash U. and Emory are loaded on paper, but one didn't make the NCAA tourney and the other lost in round one, so they have a long way to go to get into the top 5 ...

[Gregory Sager]

Raridon will be a fifth-year senior next season. He broke his finger seven games into his sophomore season and received a medical redshirt. It seems like he's been around forever because he's been a prime-time star since the beginning of his freshman season (he had a 14-9-3 line against Chicago in NCC's second game that year). Plus, his dad is NCC's head coach and his older brother Derek was an All-American during NCC's Final Four run in 2013, so that contributed to his immediate name recognition.

Losing Boots is a big deal, but UW-Oshkosh has been loaded with highly-rated recruits in its freshman classes for the past several years and, as I said, Connor Duax is just waiting to step out of the shadow of Boots and Wittchow to become a star. I think that NWU will be less hampered by the loss of Garver and Cook than by the lack of challenges on the schedule, since graduation is going to devour the next-best teams in the ARC, Loras and Wartburg.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Swarthmore loses only one player.  They're going to be very good.  Whitman will be fine.  They're losing something like nine players, but they have tons of talent returning and they don't need to be as deep as they have been this year.  Andrew Vickers and Michael Gutierrez are more than capable of picking up the slack.  They won't be as good, but how could they possibly ever hope to be?

[amh63]

Discussions here wrt to next season and beyond is a little strange to me.  Guess it is just chatter while waiting for the sectional games.  Me, been watching D3 lacrosse online.  Big sport in the D.C and Baltimore area.  Watched some Nescac games on turf fields surrounded by piles of snow!  Coaches and refs all buddled up in cold weather gear under the lights while players running/playing hard in shorts!  Ah, youth!. 
Amherst has a semester break starting this weekend.  Did I mention the baseball team is heading South?  See Bates' softball team is in Florida...smart coaches .
Been looking over the teams/schools in Amherst's sectional.  Nicholas is older than Amherst and yes.Old Guy, is almost just down the road to boot.  Been to RMC in Ashland Va.  A HS classmate friend of my oldest son attended and played basketball at RMC.  Another HS friend visited Swarthmore but decided to go elsewhere.   Went IVY to play football.  Good move since Swarthmore dropped football.
Not much chatter here wrt our Nescac teams' in their respective sectional.  Old well, good luck to the CAC hockey teams in the NCAA and the swimming teams and the track teams, etc.  Yes,. the Winter Sports are winding down.  However, D3 "March Madness" continues and good Wins awaits the CAC teams.

[nescac1]

Turning back to the tourney path for NESCAC teams, lots of potential interesting storylines ...

Whitman may have to run the NESCAC gauntlet (Williams-Hamilton-Amherst)
Williams may have a chance at two payback games (Hamilton then Amherst, two teams the Ephs are a combined 0-4 against this season)
Amherst may have to run the U.S. News rankings gauntlet (Swarthmore, then Williams)
Williams and Amherst could meet for the third time in the Final Four, and the sixth time overall in the tourney, with Amherst looking to pick up its first NCAA win over Williams and Williams looking to erase the memory of three losses this season vs. Amherst, much like in 2014
Amherst and Hamilton could meet in a rubber game, which would also be the first-ever non Williams-Amherst all-NESCAC final four matchup.
Would CNU-RMC be the first ever all-South semifinal?  Certainly in recent memory.

Lots of interesting possibilities down the line!

Looking more immediately, Williams-Whitman has been discussed a lot already, just a classic contrast of styles of play and players, should be a fascinating game that could go in a lot of different directions, even if Whitman is, justifiably, the clearly favored team. 

Hamilton and Christopher Newport looks like a very even 2-3 matchup (clearly the second and third seeds in this bracket), despite Hamilton's home-court edge.    CNU has beaten some very good teams this year, Randolph Macon, York twice, Salisbury three times, and seem to be on a major roll, blowing out all five opponents in conference tourney and NCAA play.  CNU has lost only one game since January 5, and that was a one-point road loss without star Marcus Carter.  None of those opponents is quite the quality of Hamilton, but still some very capable teams that CNU has just been destroying.  Carter is a big-time player and it should be fun to see him go against Kena Gilmour.  Hamilton will also have to carefully mark Jason Aigner, a three-point specialist who shoots 45 percent from deep on very high volume.  The Conts will need to play better than they did in their first two tourney games to beat CNU.  Key for Hamilton is for Kena Gilmour to break out of his shooting slump, Hamilton, with a lot of different guys stepping up, has mostly been winning despite Gilmour having a tough time over his past six games (3-18 from 3, only one game above 40 percent from the field), but we've all seen what Gilmour is capable of doing in big NCAA games.  If he straightens out his shooting and plays like an all-American, with their improved depth Hamilton will be very tough to beat at home this weekend, but if not, CNU, Whitman or Williams could all very well take them down. 

Amherst certainly has the best Friday matchup of the three NESCAC squads, as the Amherst perimeter defenders are very strong and should give Nichols' dynamic backcourt duo a difficult test.  Echeverria and Bruton will have to really go off from them to beat a bigger, much deeper Amherst squad, and while they are both capable for doing so, it won't be easy against Robinson, Allen and Che.  Either RMC or Swarthmore will likely be a much tougher matchup.  I like Amherst-Swarthmore in this sectional with a great game going down to the wire in that one.