MBB: NESCAC

[nescac1]

That you have an 8-loss Tufts team ranked ahead of 1-loss Williams or Wesleyan teams ... I just can't.  Wesleyan has killed almost everyone it has played, including WPI, a clear top-20 team (its only loss being to Wesleyan).  Wesleyan's only loss ... was to Williams.  Williams likewise has only one loss, to a solid Amherst team.  Williams (as I mentioned in an earlier post) is first in the nation in three point shooting percentage, in the top five in points allowed per game, and one of the top rebounding teams in the nation.  Wesleyan has one of the best point differentials in the nation and is also one of the best rebounding teams in the nation.   Both teams have a lot of really talented players and both teams have a history of success in NESCAC and in the NCAA tourney, so it's not as if there is no track record of success for these teams such that you could claim the W-L record is a fluke (Williams in particular has been to the Final Four and Elite 8 in two of its last four season of play before this one).  I just don't see the case for keeping either out of the top 25.  Both have not played the strongest schedules, granted, but that's why they are merely top 20 teams and not top 5 teams.  Everything else in their resumes is certainly top-20 worthy (and as I noted above, the schedule for both is about to get a LOT harder). 

If you start getting into who was missing for what games, it it going to be ridiculous this year.  In many cases we don't know if guys who are out are hurt and maybe never coming back, or had COVID and will be back shortly.  And this is a year when teams are just going to have to deal with adversity, in all sorts of different forms.  Williams, sure, it has been fortunate in terms of losing only one rotation player for a few games (so far) to COVID protocols, but it also was very rusty after a very chaotic late December when games were continually cancelled at the very last minute and the team could barely practice, leading into a weekend against Hamilton and Amherst when the rust clearly showed and it didn't play well (yet still managed a split).  We could go on with hypotheticals and what-ifs forever but this year, I think trying to project what teams MIGHT have done had they only had x guys or played y days gets pretty silly.  In the end, what matters this year more than any other is how teams actually play in the games they compete in, with the guys who are available to compete.  And in the games it played, Tufts lost 8 of them, which is as many games as Williams, Wesleyan, Middlebury and Amherst lost COMBINED. 

I'm not saying that Williams and Wesleyan are perfect teams ... far from it.  But every team outside the top 6-7 has had some pretty bad outings this year, and not many (any?) others are one-loss teams from power conferences.  I mean heck I'm not sure exactly WHAT you want to see from Wesleyan, who has been beating up on teams even with ITS star missing for the past few games, as opposed to LOSING gamed with its star missing like Tufts did.  Tufts certainly has some worse losses than Wesleyan's loss to Williams, and no win that is even close to Wesleyan's blow out win over a very tough and highly-ranked WPI team.   

[Cards Fan]

I voted for Middlebury just slightly ahead of Tufts.  I had Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan in a group of 8 schools I was debating for my final four spots.  In the end, I decided to leave them all off.  I've voted for all five teams at different points this season and still don't know what to make of any of them.

This year's NESCAC feels like a lot of good teams on paper who've struggled to figure themselves out on the floor.  I'm not confident Middlebury is the best team - in fact I doubt it - but they seem to actually be playing well right now and they're getting better every game.  That was enough for me.

I have been voting for Tufts, but if they can't get their whole team on the floor at the same time this weekend, that'll have to stop, the same way I stopped, this week, giving Amherst the benefit of the doubt when they can't seem to play up to their abilities.  I've not been super impressed with either Williams or Wesleyan.  Wesleyan clearly has a better resume, but it's not like a world beater or anything.

I can rank the NESCAC teams right now, because I'm asked to do so (Midd, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, and Wes, in that order, for what its worth), but I'm not confident in those rankings and I wouldn't argue with anyone who disagrees.  I'm just waiting to see the rest of the season play out.

At this point, anyone who thinks they know what's going on in this conference is fooling themselves.

How would this ranking conclusion be drawn? Just a gut call? At some point, it has to be acknowledged  - winning teams win.

[Colby Hoops]

I voted for Middlebury just slightly ahead of Tufts.  I had Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan in a group of 8 schools I was debating for my final four spots.  In the end, I decided to leave them all off.  I've voted for all five teams at different points this season and still don't know what to make of any of them.

This year's NESCAC feels like a lot of good teams on paper who've struggled to figure themselves out on the floor.  I'm not confident Middlebury is the best team - in fact I doubt it - but they seem to actually be playing well right now and they're getting better every game.  That was enough for me.

I have been voting for Tufts, but if they can't get their whole team on the floor at the same time this weekend, that'll have to stop, the same way I stopped, this week, giving Amherst the benefit of the doubt when they can't seem to play up to their abilities.  I've not been super impressed with either Williams or Wesleyan.  Wesleyan clearly has a better resume, but it's not like a world beater or anything.

I can rank the NESCAC teams right now, because I'm asked to do so (Midd, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, and Wes, in that order, for what its worth), but I'm not confident in those rankings and I wouldn't argue with anyone who disagrees.  I'm just waiting to see the rest of the season play out.

At this point, anyone who thinks they know what's going on in this conference is fooling themselves.

I like your work and think you are typically well-reasoned, but having Tufts second among Nescac teams is asinine.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I voted for Middlebury just slightly ahead of Tufts.  I had Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan in a group of 8 schools I was debating for my final four spots.  In the end, I decided to leave them all off.  I've voted for all five teams at different points this season and still don't know what to make of any of them.

This year's NESCAC feels like a lot of good teams on paper who've struggled to figure themselves out on the floor.  I'm not confident Middlebury is the best team - in fact I doubt it - but they seem to actually be playing well right now and they're getting better every game.  That was enough for me.

I have been voting for Tufts, but if they can't get their whole team on the floor at the same time this weekend, that'll have to stop, the same way I stopped, this week, giving Amherst the benefit of the doubt when they can't seem to play up to their abilities.  I've not been super impressed with either Williams or Wesleyan.  Wesleyan clearly has a better resume, but it's not like a world beater or anything.

I can rank the NESCAC teams right now, because I'm asked to do so (Midd, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, and Wes, in that order, for what its worth), but I'm not confident in those rankings and I wouldn't argue with anyone who disagrees.  I'm just waiting to see the rest of the season play out.

At this point, anyone who thinks they know what's going on in this conference is fooling themselves.

How would this ranking conclusion be drawn? Just a gut call? At some point, it has to be acknowledged  - winning teams win.

Wesleyan is getting the short end of the stick in my rating - I'll grant that.  They've won almost all their games and its probably unfair for me to keep penalizing them for just not looking great.  That's a gut call.  I don't trust them yet, even though there's little else they could've done differently. 

I guess my counter question, at least for the other four, is who's the best?  I don't think anybody feels Amherst is playing well right now, but they beat Williams.  A Tufts squad missing half their normal rotation beat Amherst last weekend.

Maybe I shouldn't be voting for any of them until we've got more games under our belt?  I don't know.  It's not like any NESCAC team has proven itself head and shoulders above any other.  That's why we play a conference schedule, I guess.  We'll see how it pans out.

[nescac1]

Ryan, it seems that only when it comes to NESCAC do you make a single loss determinative.  I think it's fairly clear that the three teams playing the best basketball right now are, in some order, Wesleyan, Williams and Midd, mostly because they are winning nearly all of their games.  I think there is a case for any of the three, but really the strongest cases are for Wesleyan and Williams, because they each have only one loss and their average margin of victory has been so high.  Williams did win the head-to-head but Wesleyan probably has the overall strongest resume, at this point.  I just know the answer is, NOT the team which has eight losses. 

I mean, you could do this for virtually any team in the top 10 --- like, Wash U. lost to Webster, how can they be a top five team!  Yeshiva has beaten no one good, how can then be a top 10 team!  Swarthmore lost to Widener, they don't belong in the top 11!  (By the way I think all those rankings are fair).  There are always going to be some results that are difficult to reconcile because, I mean, teams have good days and bad days.  I don't understand why NESCAC is some cryptic puzzle that is entirely impossible to unlock so you throw you hands up and vote for the team that has the most losses in the league, but you feel comfortable ranking teams from other conferences even though there are plenty of grounds to nitpick for just about ANY team who is not undefeated.  Especially when the league has three teams which are all talented on paper, have a long history of success on the national stage under current coaching leadership, impressive overall statistical profile, and which win nearly all of their games.  Now, of course, all of that can change at some point, but that doesn't mean that RIGHT now Wesleyan/Williams, followed by Midd, don't have by far the best resumes in NESCAC. 

[Pat Coleman]

Ryan, it seems that only when it comes to NESCAC do you make a single loss determinative. 

Can't speak for Ryan but in almost every other conference, there is a second game between conference foes so I can understand holding back some on determinations when you know teams will play again.

[nescac1]

What I mean re: a single loss is, a single loss should not be determinative of relative rankings between two teams.  Like, Ryan seems to be suggesting you can't put Williams above Amherst because Amherst beat Williams (of course, Williams beat Wesleyan, who beat Amherst, so there is really nothing you can draw from those relative results other than all three teams are talented enough to beat one another).  My point is, we don't say, Swarthmore can't be ranked above Widener because Widener beat Swarthmore.  Of course, we all know Swarthmore is clearly the better team notwithstanding that result.  Heck, Amherst has beaten Williams twice, and Williams beaten Amherst twice, in recent years in which the better overall team came out on the losing end of BOTH games.  You just have to look at things more holistically (and head-to-head results can certainly be the tie-breaker when things are otherwise very even) because sometimes teams will have a really bad day and catch an inferior team on a really good day, or a match-up favors the team which isn't as strong overall. 

But I just don't see the logic for "I'm going to rank a one-loss Williams team with the fewest points allowed in NESCAC and which has a great road win at Wesleyan, and leads the country in three point shooting percentage, and a one-loss Wesleyan team that has one of the best point differentials in the nation and blew out WPI, below an eight loss Tufts team that shoots 28 percent from 3 on the season and has allowed the most points of any NESCAC team."  I can see the argument for Midd at the top of NESCAC in terms of national rankings given that they are currently first in the conference, but Tufts above Williams and Wesleyan?  I mean why not go all in and rank Curry or something because you caught them for five minutes when they were looking good, if actual game-day results are deemed irrelevant? 

[nescacfaninbos]

How much stock does everyone put into the Massey Power Ratings? Judging by those rankings, Tufts lost to the #74, #75 and #114 teams without their best player and the #94 team with their best player but without a couple of other starters. By any objective measure, a top #25 team should be able to beat those teams without a couple of key players. I would also imagine those teams were missing a few players here and there as well.

[nescac1]

I think Massey is, like all ratings, imperfect, but is at least instructive:

The Massey ratings for NESCAC are:

11 Wesleyan
18 Williams
38 Amherst
67 Midd
89 Tufts
94 Hamilton
106 Trinity
145 Bates
185 Colby
193 Conn College
221 Bowdoin

I think those are pretty darn accurate overall.  I think I'd put Midd a bit higher, and I predict they do ultimately crack the top 40-50, just because it's such a young team and it's clearly progressed over the course of the season, so its early season results are holding its current rating down a bit.  I can see Trinity and Tufts moving up a bit since they've been hit harder by injuries / COVID that most and both clearly have good talent on the roster.  It's not that I don't think Tufts has the potential to be a lot better -- but even if they DO get a lot better, we are talking about maybe 50 in Massey, not top 25.   Hamilton has been a very hard team to figure out but 94 overall seems about right.  Right now, Colby, Conn and Bowdoin are pretty clearly the worst teams in the league in some order.   

[SpringSt7]

Maybe this is a better question for the Top 25 talk poll, but Ryan, I'm curious to ask you as a voter, at one point do you draw the line on H2H criteria being the top factor and turning towards other parts of the resume? Like the example given, I'm a Williams fan but despite the fact that they beat Wesleyan, Wesleyan does have 3 more wins than Williams and their wins @ Amherst and a blow out of WPI probably outweigh the loss to Williams, plus the fact that Williams' loss came more recently. I'm just curious for anyone reading this that has a vote, when they start to look towards alternate criteria as they get down their ballots?

[Colby Hoops]

Agree with pretty much everything nescac1 has said. Would rank it Wesleyan, Williams, Midd as the clear top three and think it's pretty crazy not to have some order of that as the top three based on resume. I think Amherst will still be right there as well once Day finds his shot again.

I get Ryan's point that Tufts is more talented than the record indicates. But the record matters and they haven't shown promising signs at all, even if the roster theoretically still looks good on paper. If we're unimpressed by Wesleyan's eye test, than I have no clue how Tufts passes any sort of eye test.

On a different note, seems like no Williams-Yeshiva reschedule, but a nice replacement for Yeshiva at least: https://twitter.com/PoppersMacsLive/status/1483485679157981189

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

How much stock does everyone put into the Massey Power Ratings? Judging by those rankings, Tufts lost to the #74, #75 and #114 teams without their best player and the #94 team with their best player but without a couple of other starters. By any objective measure, a top #25 team should be able to beat those teams without a couple of key players. I would also imagine those teams were missing a few players here and there as well.

Right.  I was all ready to abandon Tufts... and then the same short handed team went at beat Amherst.  In the end, I dropped both teams from where I had them last week.

To answer some of the other questions, I don't put as much weight in the head to head results as I do in performance.  As you all well know (and somebody pointed out), you can have the better team lose a game or two, when the teams are pretty evenly matched.  What do you do with a team that seems overall better, but loses those games?  You have to make judgements.  They're not always right - in fact, they're usually proved wrong.  We make a big deal about getting them right, because it's so rare.

I watched Williams and Wesleyan closely.  Williams obviously won that game, but I didn't think they were super impressive.  I watched most of the Wesleyan-Amherst game, and, despite the win, felt Amherst was, overall, the better team - or, at least, would be more likely to win a future matchup.

Wesleyan crushed WPI in that game - as the season goes along, you have to ask "are they more like the team who crushed WPI or more like the team who lost to Williams?"  I think it's valid to say they're probably somewhere in between.  I'm currently hedging towards the Williams game being more indicative - at least until we've got a few more top quality games played.

Maybe the NESCAC will prove us all wrong, but I do think consensus is that the best team in the NESCAC may not be the top team in New England or even the second best - and its been a really long time since that's been true and it just makes it so much harder for everyone to gauge how good these teams are relative to the rest of the country.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'm just not a believer in Williams yet.  Put it on the bulletin board.  Use it for motivation.  Go prove me wrong.  I'd love to see it.

I'm happy to be wrong, especially when it means a d3 team succeeds.  I'm rooting for both teams in every game.  That's how I watch.  In between, I try to call it like I see it.

[toad22]

I'm just not a believer in Williams yet.  Put it on the bulletin board.  Use it for motivation.  Go prove me wrong.  I'd love to see it.

I'm happy to be wrong, especially when it means a d3 team succeeds.  I'm rooting for both teams in every game.  That's how I watch.  In between, I try to call it like I see it.

I would do that, but I am sorry to say, that the guys on the team don't know who you are (or care!). No slight intended to you, just a reality for us older guys. I do feel a bit like you do concerning the NESCAC this year. There are no great teams. Some good young ones (Middlebury and Williams), and some senior laden teams who are ok when fully healthy, but no superior teams. As an ardent Eph, I confess to having no idea which version of the team shows up each game (or half). So, some skepticism seems appropriate. They have won 12 games with only one loss, so they are not awful. Tufts, on the other hand, has been terrible for a good portion of the year. The other top teams are more of a debate. These other teams, particularly Middlebury and Wesleyan have been good all year. Amherst, not quite as much, but since they beat Williams, I see the argument for them. Tufts is the complete outlier.

[amh63]

Interesting...but confusing postings wrt to Nescac games.  Oh well...nothing really chances much in Nescac mens...and women conference games.  Will be watching tonight the game between Amherst and Williams at LeFrak.  Will see if there is a homecourt advantage this season in a small attendance venue.  I recall when fans were sitting on the floor in a Amh vs Will home game.  I remember when an Amherst team won a game at a packed house in Vt.  An Amherst forward missed a foul shot, intentionally, in order to put it in for Two points and a win.
Did notice several things in the lost to Tufts in LeFrack.  The third senior guard/forward shooter was dressed for the game.  Young FY players..front court players are gaining more time on the court.  Nice to see....Coaches are still evaluating the talent among the FYs'.