MBB: NESCAC

[names jaismith]

Agree completely.  Conn was more impressive vs Tufts than Bates but none of the league games are a gimme and 2-0 is 2-0.  Their defense, which has been their calling card, has been solid all year and it will be tested even more against the top tier teams.  One more good recruiting class should enable them to make a big jump.  Sweeney has done an amazing job to bring them into the league conversation in such a short time.

[lumbercat]

Camels are 2-0, a great start. That last shot was prayer that went in. Breaks like that can be the difference in the short Nescac league season especially in rebuilding programs. Good luck to them the rest of the way.

[ThumannsOwn]

I wrote a discourse wrt last night's Williams vs Amherst game....in response to Old Guys' thoughtful post.  However, I seemed to have losted it.
Here goes again...
OLD GUY, enjoyed your post and thoughts.  Will like to hear another post after the Amherst vs Middlebury game later today...at Amherst.
Watched the Amherst vs Williams game at Amherst yesterday.  Surprised to see how young the Amherst players were in the first half and how long they were on floor.  Their energy kept the game close, in my opinion.  Should be an interesting game today when Middlebury arrives in LeFrak.  Saw a lot of my fellow Amherst supporters in the stands....ones that I sat among at Salem, Va., Williams, Trinity, Wes., in days past.  Interesting to see the new Amherst Prez and group of "older" persons enter LeFrak during halftime.  They sat on the Amherst student side.  Maybe, the older persons were members of the Board of Trustees....in town.  Maybe to discuss the Amherst Campaign direction.  Amherst is about to reach its goal for 625 million early in '63.  The new Amherst Prez is in the same class as my older son at Amherst.  All three of my children...wife's too...are Amherst grads.

Despite the Amherst win, Coach Hixon must have rolled over on whatever tee box he was on upon seeing the box score from the game. Amherst went 32% from the field, 20% from 3, had only 3 assists on 20 field goals, and 8 TOs. And only 200 in attendance (not sure if this includes the new President and his older entourage that entered LeFrak at the half).

[toad22]

At the beginning of the Amherst-Williams game there were 65-75 fans. It was a "late arriving crowd". To me, the most stunning statistics of the game were the assists. Williams had 6 and the aforementioned 3 for Amherst. The offenses displayed by both teams were, for the most part, terrible. Williams recovered at Hamilton and played very well, particularly on offense (18 assists). I didn't see the Middlebury-Amherst, but Amherst had 6 assists and Middlebury only 3, so it seems like another mud slog.

[Greek Tragedy]

For all the talk of the Amherst/Williams rivalry, that attendance number seems low. I have no idea how many fans show up for "normal" games and I assume the students are on holiday, but only 200? I also get that counting attendance is very unofficial.

[nescac1]

Amherst - Williams games in the first week of January have historically had low-ish attendance, since Amherst is mostly out of session at that time with very few students on campus.  But that doesn't account for all of it.  I think it's a combination of factors ...

(1) This may not be backed up by data, but my sense is that there has been a gradual decrease in interest in athletic attendance at most NESCAC schools since the 1990s and 2000s when athletic events seemed like a bigger deals on campus.  I think it's a longer discussion why that might be, if accurate. 

(2) I'm not sure if all the wariness about packing into indoor venues that built up during the COVID epidemic has yet worn off for all potential spectators

(3) Amherst has had very poor attendance (reportedly) for both football and basketball this year.  Surely folks are less motivated to attend when the teams are just not very good nor especially fun to watch relative to past Amherst teams, and haven't been so for a few years.  Beyond that, I think also that Amherst did not (as some of the posters here have noted) exactly emphasize athletic culture under the old President, and students that the school has attracted may just be less inclined on average to attend sporting events, generally, than back when Amherst students packed LeFrak. 

How much all of those various factors weigh, respectively, I have no idea.  But even at Williams, I've definitely noted that Chandler (which also has a much bigger capacity than LeFrak) is not as jammed as it once way for the big rivalry games.  It does still attract a MUCH bigger crowd than 200 for those games, however, and hopefully we will see a lot of students in Chandler in January, especially for the big Midd and Amherst games.   

[SpringSt7]

I would add that the emergence of streaming over the last however many years has also contributed to the attendance numbers---why drive an hour in rural Western MA on roads with no street lights each way to see Amherst/Williams when you can watch on stream?

I'd also add that, while not what they used to be when people lined the baselines, the Williams-Amherst games at Chandler immediately pre pandemic were quite strong. The 2020 Little 3 game (which Williams won) was as good of a student section as I had seen in quite some time, and the 2019 NESCAC game (which Amherst won) was probably the biggest non NCAA tournament crowd since Kevin App took over.

[JEFFFAN]

As with most of the NESCAC schools, Amherst used to draw a significant local crowd - folks who lived in Amherst, Northampton, or Holyoke, who loved good basketball.  I have a dozen friends from the area who used to love to go to Amherst games on Friday and Saturday nights!   Their reasons for not going now center mostly on two factors - mediocrity (we hope!) and a belief that the school doesn't care about being really good at football and basketball anymore.   These folks have no vested interest - they are not alumns - but they know when a school is making a commitment or not.    Also - this will frost a lot of readers - a lot of folks loved Hixon teams, period.   They knew what they were going to see in terms of toughness, etc.

[Bucket]

As with most of the NESCAC schools, Amherst used to draw a significant local crowd - folks who lived in Amherst, Northampton, or Holyoke, who loved good basketball.  I have a dozen friends from the area who used to love to go to Amherst games on Friday and Saturday nights!   Their reasons for not going now center mostly on two factors - mediocrity (we hope!) and a belief that the school doesn't care about being really good at football and basketball anymore.   These folks have no vested interest - they are not alumns - but they know when a school is making a commitment or not.    Also - this will frost a lot of readers - a lot of folks loved Hixon teams, period.   They knew what they were going to see in terms of toughness, etc.

This makes sense, and it doesn't frost me—one who has been critical of Dave Hixon—in the least.

[names jaismith]

A lot of pressure on Colby this weekend, and it won't be easy. They are a talented team that can beat anyone, but away vs Williams and then Midd less than 24 hours later will be a huge test.  Surprising Conn won't be sneaking up on anyone this weekend, and will be decided underdogs against both Trinity and Wesleyan. 

[Greek Tragedy]

So has Wesleyan turned the corner? I believe at least one key player was hurt for awhile and possibly more than that. They've won a few games in a row and are 2-0 in conference now with both on the road. True, it was "only" Bowdoin and Colby (with a good overall record), but as everyone knows, hard to win on the road in the conference. 3 of their 5 losses were to Williams, Rowan and Swat, so those can be forgivable.

[SpringSt7]

Great question Greek, Wesleyan has quietly won 6 in a row, 4 of those on the road, and 3 against NESCAC opponents. I don't know if they have turned a corner per se but what is very impressive is that their offense does not seem to have improved much at all over the course of this win streak---their best performance from the field was 45.3% against Bridgewater St and their best 3 point shooting night was 8-24 against Bowdoin. With the exception of a 95-91 shootout against Bridgewater they've done it with defense: 62, 35 (!), 54, 65, and 59 points allowed in their other 5 wins.

It seems like they've gotten back to their trademark Joe Reilly defense and toughness and yes, the return of what appears to be a fully healthy Preston Maccoux, who had 26 against Bowdoin and 22 against Colby, is a big plus, but it is a little hard to imagine a team shooting 40/27/71 as a collective really competing in the NESCAC.

[Homer]

The attendance at Amherst/William on Friday didn't bother me, especially when there are no winter session classes. It was a typical January crowd by halftime. What bothers me is the policies set up by the past president. I'm not sure of these #s because I have not researched them, but I've been told that the % of athletes on campus when from 36% to 30%. That is a reduction of around 100 athletes. The football team has suffered the most. Staffing changes and turnovers have become a problem, too. As for the men's basketball team, both the Williams and Middlebury games were low-scoring defensive battles. The men score 6 less points than the Amherst women did over the weekend. That might not have been the case if the men's guards had had better shot percentages, 5-15 against Williams and 2-15 against Middlebury. We'll learn more this weekend at Tufts and Bates, then at Chandler on Wednesday against the Ephs.

[nescac1]

I do think Wesleyan is better than they showed early in the season.  They have a veteran, battle-tested core that includes two fifth-year seniors and two regular seniors, all of whom have played a ton of big minutes in their careers.  I definitely think it took them some time to adjust to the loss of Sam Peek as the go-to guy, and of course Maccoux, who is (at worst) their second-best player, missed three of their losses and was in his first game back for the fourth.  Since he's been back to full strength, they've only lost one game, at Williams.  The other factor that they really need to keep playing well is for Nicky Johnson to keep shooting well.  He had struggled to make shots all year until the Maine weekend, when he lit it up both games.  If he has turned a corner with his shooting, that is very big for Wesleyan. 

They are big, physical and athletic but as SpringSt7 noted, the outside shooting is definitely an impediment to them going far, as seems to be the case with a lot of Wesleyan teams (from 2016 forward, they haven't been above 35 percent from 3 as a team, and often well below, despite having some very successful teams in that stretch).  They do have a chance to keep building momentum as four of their next five games are at home including all of their remaining non-league games (and tomorrow is a gimme v. Mitchell).   

[nescac1]

Another first year who has really emerged is Trinity's highly-touted Jarrel Okorougo, who has replaced Callahan-Gold (still no word on what his injury is) in the starting lineup.  A totally different style of player (only one three point attempt all year), despite being only 6'4, he's averaged 10-10 on 58 percent shooting plus 2.5 spg as a starter.  Trinity has three first years playing key roles, and a fourth at the fringes of the rotation, and has only one senior starter - CJ Redd, who has a year of eligibility left if he chooses to return.  So, Trinity should be a NESCAC contender for awhile.  Thanks to a very weak schedule, the Bants are way under the national radar despite being 14-1. But they just keep winning ... their next two league games v Conn and Wesleyan should give a better sense of whether they are for real.