MBB: NESCAC

[jumpshot]

Excellent write-up by nescac1 ... really an instant classic and character win for Ephs' resilience and level of effort. A breakout game for Nate Karren.
This win over Westech High a bit of a surprise in Middletown to #19 ranked team, after Ephs trailed by 17 to a team with evident swagger, lots of length and good defense, and so well coached as usual by Joe Reilly. Cardinals shot poorly in second half, going 5 for 29 from distance for the game.

[deiscanton]

Both Tufts and Brandeis left it all out on the floor today and used every player available to try to win the New England Big 4 title and the Michael Crotty Sr Cup that goes with it. 

Dylan Thoerner of Tufts gets props from me for an amazing 16 of 16 from the charity stripe and a 34 point game in a losing effort.

This was a game that the founder of the Boston area AAU team Middlesex Magic would have been proud of, and a game worthy of his memory.  Mike Crotty Sr probably watched this one from up in heaven. 

(Of course, his son, Mike Crotty Jr, who was a famous Williams College basketball player in his own right, is now the current director and head coach of the Middlesex Magic, and it is Mike Crotty Jr who, by tradition, presents the cup named after his father to the winner of the New England Big 4 Challenge.)

[nescac1]

Thanks Deis.  Didn't know about the Crotty connection, that's really great.  Sounds like quite a game!

Not Nescac but check out the game winner in tonight's Elmhurst-Wheaton game. What a shot!  Well defended, too ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsGeu2nMghE

(Go to 1:44)

[Painter66]

Just a quick message to note that a very young Middlebury team has gone into both Albertus Magnus and New England College and emerged with wins. They have done this while maintaining high turnovers against two teams that win by turning you over but also by posting huge rebound advantages. Not sure what this means in NESCAC, but the kids are tough and fight hard. Also, Sobel, Stevens, Osher, and Brennan can really play. Fun to watch develop.

[SpringSt7]

If I'm Middlebury I'm definitely looking around the rest of the league and wondering why they couldn't host a 1st round NESCAC tournament game. Stevens and the return of Sobel have cushioned the blow of losing a stellar senior class and it hasn't yet been the drop off that some expected. With that being said, NESCAC play is a different animal and they will need some more from the supporting cast more consistently in order to beat the teams that are built around older and more experienced players that have been together for longer.

[maineman]

NESCAC games are a different animal and I don't believe Midd will.get away turning the ball over 25 times and with poor 3pt shooting.  Coach Brown will have to get that cleaned up.

[toad22]

Regarding Wes/Williams, I haven't been to a more entertaining basketball game in a long time. Boy did I miss basketball! The first half was, for a long while, a great display of offensive efficiency by The Cardinals. Maccoux can really shoot, and James is big, long, and powerful at center. If they played like that all the time they would truly be a great team. They also put a lot of pressure on the guards and wings, particularly at the three point line. They chose to let James (or Delollo) guard Karren without any help. That didn't work, as Karren is a very strong low post player, with a good touch from 3. Without those 19 points from Karren in H1, the Ephs could have started garbage time early. The game would have been out of reach. The game turned Well before the half, with Williams finding a bit of rhythm. A corner 3 from first year Roughley just before halftime was really helpful because it got the game to a 7 point margin. I've always thought of single digit ballgames at the half as tossups.

The second half was almost all Williams. Cole Prowitt-Smith and Jovan Jones proved to be real warriors, as Williams seemingly willed their way to a victory. A shout out to Declan Porter is also in order for going 3-4 from 3 to help pull away. Williams is still a very young, untested team. They need to get better to be really good in a national sense. Because so many of their best players are so young, there is a chance there could do that this year. Most Eph fans were thinking of this as a warm up for next year. Maybe they are more than that.

[SpringSt7]

Bates/Bowdoin on a Friday/Sunday is just brutal for Colby. Whoever is donating to the new facilities should try to get on the phone with the AD about that the next time it's time to write a check. Just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

[quicksilver]

A nice 74-61 win for my Polars over Colby despite some poor shooting in the first half.

[Colby Hoops]

Wasn't able to watch either game for Colby this weekend, outside of the final two minutes against Bates.

I'd say it's time to reset expectations for the Mules after the first 8 games. They haven't really looked great in any game, with the exception of the second half and OT against Babson and (based on the box score) the second half against Bates. They are very reliant on their top players and the offense across the board has struggled a lot.

The middle and bottom half of the league looks jumbled, but I think it's clear Colby is very much in that mix (maybe closer to the lower half of that) and not close to the Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan trio.

[SpringSt7]

For anyone trying to make conference predictions in the upcoming days...

# of Home league games:
6-Bates, Williams,
5-Colby, Conn College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan
4- Amherst, Bowdoin

As I've mentioned before, the conference scheduling plays a disproportionately large factor in the conference standings. The difference between Williams playing 6 home games and Amherst playing 4 could be massive.

Reupping this only as a reminder that the league schedule is often times influenced by home games, which will probably be a bigger factor than it usually is with how jumbled teams 4-10 look at the moment.

[Old Guy]

NESCAC games are a different animal and I don't believe Midd will.get away turning the ball over 25 times and with poor 3pt shooting.  Coach Brown will have to get that cleaned up.

That's for sure. Also for sure is that nobody from Midd has outsized expectations. This first 9 games (7-2) have been a wonderful surprise. More experienced NESCAC teams, deeper in the backcourt especially, will come at Midd in waves. The NESCAC season will be a challenge indeed.

Quite a weekend for the Panthers, two nice road wins, some help from interesting quarters: on Saturday, with Bobbett in foul trouble (5 fouls, 22 minutes), Lucas Shinn (5'9" jr) came in at the point and acquitted himself well in 18 minutes. Shoutout to him.

Quite a line for Alex Sobel Saturday: 21 points, 19 rebounds, 5 blocks. Just 2 fouls in 36 minutes: that's a departure.

Livin' in the moment here, basking in the glory, taking nothing for granted.

[nescac1]

The difference between Colby last year and Colby this year seems pretty easy to figure out -- it's shooting. 

So far, Colby this year is shooting an abysmal 28 percent from 3 and 59 percent (!) from the line.  Colby has the most three point attempts in the league and the lowest made percentage.  Not a formula for success.  Last year, Colby shot by FAR the most threes in the league but made them at a high enough percentage (38 percent) that the offense was very efficient for them.  Sam Jefferson (especially) and Alex Dorion were both very efficient offensive players and Colby really misses them.  Moreover, shooting is an area that tends to improve over the course of a college career and Colby went from a team with five seniors in the rotation to a team with only one. 

Unsurprisingly, the top three teams in three point shooting percentage are Williams, Wesleyan and Amherst.  Wesleyan and Williams have had dramatic turnarounds in shooting the ball .... last year they were both at 31 percent from 3 for the season, and both struggled from the line (Wesleyan 65 percent, Williams 64 percent).  This year, both have fared far, far better at both the three point and foul line (Williams, 42 and 75 percent, Wesleyan, 40 and 75 percent, respectively). 

For both teams, a lot of young players seem to have just matured into better shooters over the past 18 months ... Wesleyan's main perimeter threats are still Maccoux, Walker, Peek, Millstein and Ravetz, and all of them are just shooting it much better.   Williams added a very good shooter to the starting lineup in Declan Porter, added a healthy Marc Taylor and another frosh who can shoot in Brandon Roughley off the bench, and then the returning perimeter threats like Cole Prowitt-Smith, Nate Karren, Alex Stoddard (who has only played one game but hopefully will be back at some point), Spencer Spivy, and Jovan Jones, who all struggled to connect as players new to the team/rotation, are simply better.  Now, as the competition stiffens there is always a chance both Wesleyan and Williams come down to earth a bit.  But just looking at their relative standings in NESCAC, going from nearly worst to first (so far) in shooting efficiency is quite a dramatic difference. 

Of course, none of this happens by accident.  Some guys plateau or even regress as shooters.  And it takes a ton of hard work to make big improvements as a shooter.  But as a general rule, it takes guys time to adjust to the college three point shot since there is so much less time to shoot than in high school, and it's also the area that can be improved most with a ton of repetition.  So if a team has young guys whose shots LOOK good going up but don't go down with the rate of frequency you might expect, that to me is always a team to watch as those guys get older.  (And of course, the good news for Williams is that the main perimeter threats on the team are around for awhile longer after this season ...). 

Back to Colby, they have two very tough games before the break.  UMaine Farmington has not lost to a D3 team this year and is led by a potential all-American guard, Terion Moss, who started his career at UMaine, and a good 6'9 rim-protecting center.  Then they have Brandeis, which by them might have recovered from its 5-OT bloodbath with Tufts.  Rough pair of games to end the semester. 

I'm very impressed by the coaching job being done by Alex Lloyd at Bowdoin so far.  That team seems to be maximizing the talent on hand.  There are some good young players, especially Michael Simonds, who has his brother's knack for scoring in a lot of creative ways, James McGowan, who is a creative playmaker, and Adamdi Achufusi, who looks like he will be a defensive ace, but Bowdoin is small, not terribly quick, only has two major three point threats, and no rim real rim protector, plus has very little experience.  And yet, they are somehow 6-2 (vs. admittedly a largely weak schedule) with a win over a more talented Colby team.  They seem to play very hard and tougher than their size and do some creative things on both offense and defense and I think Lloyd, if he can recruit (always the biggest question and a challenge at Bowdoin with its especially strict standards for athletes), will be a real keeper for Bowdoin.   It might not always look pretty this year but give him time to bring in some more guys and they could be interesting. 

[P'bearfan]

The difference between Colby last year and Colby this year seems pretty easy to figure out -- it's shooting. 

So far, Colby this year is shooting an abysmal 28 percent from 3 and 59 percent (!) from the line.  Colby has the most three point attempts in the league and the lowest made percentage.  Not a formula for success.  Last year, Colby shot by FAR the most threes in the league but made them at a high enough percentage (38 percent) that the offense was very efficient for them.  Sam Jefferson (especially) and Alex Dorion were both very efficient offensive players and Colby really misses them.  Moreover, shooting is an area that tends to improve over the course of a college career and Colby went from a team with five seniors in the rotation to a team with only one. 

Unsurprisingly, the top three teams in three point shooting percentage are Williams, Wesleyan and Amherst.  Wesleyan and Williams have had dramatic turnarounds in shooting the ball .... last year they were both at 31 percent from 3 for the season, and both struggled from the line (Wesleyan 65 percent, Williams 64 percent).  This year, both have fared far, far better at both the three point and foul line (Williams, 42 and 75 percent, Wesleyan, 40 and 75 percent, respectively). 

For both teams, a lot of young players seem to have just matured into better shooters over the past 18 months ... Wesleyan's main perimeter threats are still Maccoux, Walker, Peek, Millstein and Ravetz, and all of them are just shooting it much better.   Williams added a very good shooter to the starting lineup in Declan Porter, added a healthy Marc Taylor and another frosh who can shoot in Brandon Roughley off the bench, and then the returning perimeter threats like Cole Prowitt-Smith, Nate Karren, Alex Stoddard (who has only played one game but hopefully will be back at some point), Spencer Spivy, and Jovan Jones, who all struggled to connect as players new to the team/rotation, are simply better.  Now, as the competition stiffens there is always a chance both Wesleyan and Williams come down to earth a bit.  But just looking at their relative standings in NESCAC, going from nearly worst to first (so far) in shooting efficiency is quite a dramatic difference. 

Of course, none of this happens by accident.  Some guys plateau or even regress as shooters.  And it takes a ton of hard work to make big improvements as a shooter.  But as a general rule, it takes guys time to adjust to the college three point shot since there is so much less time to shoot than in high school, and it's also the area that can be improved most with a ton of repetition.  So if a team has young guys whose shots LOOK good going up but don't go down with the rate of frequency you might expect, that to me is always a team to watch as those guys get older.  (And of course, the good news for Williams is that the main perimeter threats on the team are around for awhile longer after this season ...). 

Back to Colby, they have two very tough games before the break.  UMaine Farmington has not lost to a D3 team this year and is led by a potential all-American guard, Terion Moss, who started his career at UMaine, and a good 6'9 rim-protecting center.  Then they have Brandeis, which by them might have recovered from its 5-OT bloodbath with Tufts.  Rough pair of games to end the semester. 

I'm very impressed by the coaching job being done by Alex Lloyd at Bowdoin so far. That team seems to be maximizing the talent on hand.  There are some good young players, especially Michael Simonds, who has his brother's knack for scoring in a lot of creative ways, James McGowan, who is a creative playmaker, and Adamdi Achufusi, who looks like he will be a defensive ace, but Bowdoin is small, not terribly quick, only has two major three point threats, and no rim real rim protector, plus has very little experience.  And yet, they are somehow 6-2 (vs. admittedly a largely weak schedule) with a win over a more talented Colby team.  They seem to play very hard and tougher than their size and do some creative things on both offense and defense and I think Lloyd, if he can recruit (always the biggest question and a challenge at Bowdoin with its especially strict standards for athletes), will be a real keeper for Bowdoin.   It might not always look pretty this year but give him time to bring in some more guys and they could be interesting.

     Here's hoping you're right!

[deiscanton]

For a limited time only, you can now rewatch Saturday's 5 overtime championship game of the New England Big 4 Challenge between Brandeis and Tufts for the Michael Crotty Senior Cup on the Brandeis Boxcast channel under recent games.

(Just another word about the original founder of the Boston AAU team Middlesex Magic-- he passed away in 2010 at a young age of 57 years, just months after the first New England Big 4 Challenge.  Mr. Crotty, who was the father of the Williams basketball all-star Michael Crotty, Jr., knew every New England men's basketball coach from every division on a personal basis, and his passing was a huge loss at the time to the New England basketball world.  As a result, the trophy for the New England Big 4 Challenge is dedicated in his memory.)

Don't miss out on watching or reliving one of the longest DIII men's basketball games in modern history. 

(Just 2 OT periods short of tying the Skidmore vs S. Vermont DIII game from 2010 for longest DIII men's basketball game ever, but it is definitely the longest Brandeis men's basketball game ever-- may be for Tufts as well.)