MBB: NESCAC

[nescac1]

Well, I guess I spoke a little too soon about NESCAC -- bad night for the league.  Williams goes down to Union at home (ugghh), two straight home losses, perhaps their early season success was a bit deceptive.  Tufts gets destroyed at Plymouth State.  Conn College goes down as well.  Every team in the league already has two losses save Middlebury (who likely can't keep this up forever, but who knows?) and of course Amherst.  Bates won,  but at Bowdoin's expense.   Teams like Tufts, Williams, Trinity, and Bates all better step up soon, because any more nights like this and the league as a whole is in big trouble.  At least conference play will be more unpredictable / interesting than it has in recent years.  Meanwhile, Amherst has to feel good about themselves with no difficult non-conference games remaining, almost all their tough conference games at home, and their conference brethren struggling a little right now ...

[formerbant10]

Trinity wins @ Lasell.....guess they showed up tonight, which is nice of them to do.  2 more games to get through the break with a decent 7-2 record (could be better, could be a lot worse with all those close games).

Chester....to say that Trinity was in the spotlight b/c of their few out of conference losses early in the year is incorrect.  Their only regular season non-conference loss was the last game of the regular season.  I do agree with you in describing how teams had to be at their absolute best to beat Williams and Amherst.  I never once got the feeling that Williams was going to lose to Wesleyan that game and it didn't look like Williams did either, and that's why Abba stepped up and hit the 3 to put the game into OT.  Mills and Johnson played a great game, but they did most games that year.  And no Johnson did not have a great game against Trinity, guys like Tim Holland and R KELLY stepped up when they needed to in that game.  Mills hit his FT's down the stretch to keep Trinity just out of reach.

Chester...I like that someone else who was at these games has some inside info as well.  Keep posting up, I like when I can argue with someone.

That Tufts loss isn't as bad as one would think...Plymouth has been beating everyone very easily.  I still think Tufts will surprise some more people this year.  Wouldn't be shocked if they play into the top 4 again.

Walzy, I like the poetic verse.....very talented you are.

[ephoops]

Williams had a 16 pointy lead at halftime tonight against Union and still lost.

Reminds me of the bad loss at Wes last year...

[paulie]

On the website discussion - One of the limitations of the Tufts Athletics website is that it does not update automatically. You need to refresh or reload your browser to get updated information. I'm not saying we're the fastest in the land, but I had to take exception to "Tufts for example takes their time and sometimes takes days to put up box scores." Stats and a game story are posted on the nights of home games, you just need to reload the page to see them. )

[paulie]

That was supposed to be a smile 

[ephwithbeef]

With williams loss to Union, hopefully Middlebury will get a little more respect. Based on the article on the williams website, it sounds like a bit of a collapse in the second half. However, the scoreboard is the final end result. Midd is 6-0 for the first time since 1912. Wow.

[cbone]

I was at the Amherst-WNEC game tonight and after seeing their big men play there is no doubt that they will run through NESCACs and be a top seed in March. I know that March is far away but their big men give them an outside presence which most teams cannot match. Also, what is scare is that Adolphe only plays 15-20 minutes a game. He is so athletic and still learning the system, but he is going to be unstoppable once Hixon wakes up and actually starts giving him the minutes that his talent deserves. Zelaski is proving to be a solid backup to Olsen who is simply not making mistakes even though the season is young. It is going to be fun to watch Amherst beat the Bantams and Williams handily this year. If only Paulsen could recruit.........

[senatorfrost]

  Watching tonight's game v Wnec I came away with the un original thought that Bedford is what makes Amherst 'Go"
  Watching Coulibaly tonight, I found myself hoping he will slowly drift away from taking as many 3's as he does, and will start doing more of the things he does so REALLY well.

[rufus]

Just back from an 8 hour round trip to Lewiston.  The Bates team took full measure of the Bowdoin team tonight, dominating the boards, shooting, every aspect of the game.  At one point they were almost 30 points ahead.  Zak Ray was exceptional.  Key ingredient here was that Bates kept their TO's down to 10.  Box score says it all.  Happy Holidays!

[JeffRookie2]

The score says they only won by six. How did that happen? Was Bowdoin playing well or did Bates lose interest?

[formerbant10]

Just went through the play-by-play for the Trinity-Lasell game and it was not at all what I expected.  Trinity jumped out to a great start (expected) and the Bants were up 14 at one point in the 1st half, about 6 minutes in.  They end up down 3 at the half, I'm confused with how that happened. 
They played from behind most of the 2nd half never really securing the game till about a minute left.  Good job from the free throw line, especially Clarke, down the stretch.  Rhoten with a good scoring output, but very inefficient with it.  24 points on 26 shots, needs to get to the line more. 
Good come from behind win on the road, but they need to get to the point where they never look back from that 14 point lead and blow the game wide open with a 30 point win with everyone playing. 
They have the talent, just waiting for them to figure it out.  Another good test with Springfield coming to Hartford on Thursday.
Tyler Rhoten is now just 6 points behind Ken Abere on Trinity's all time scoring list.  Great accomplishment for the most consistent scorer in the NESCAC the last 4 years (I think only 1 game not in double digits his freshman year).

[ChesterGreen]

The Cardinals of Wesleyan knocked off Emmanuel last night 77-69, although they really have yet to make a real statment vs high level compeition I think they have made significant steps in establishing a team identity.  Jimmy 'Gimme 3' Shepherd still has yet to cool off shooting 44% behind the arc on the season and Blake Curry was under control and a efficent 6 for 10 from the field both good signs and steps in the right direction going into the break. The Cards are a young team so consistency will be their largest obstacle but already I've seen signs for optimism and I'll go on record as saying the Cards will see post season Nescac play and not as a 8 this year and going by analysis made here that in its self is a bold prediction.

[nescacfan33]

Chester,

I didn't get to see the Wes game last night but I did see them play once this year early on. Four guys in double digits looks good. And Curry, shooting 60 percent, what a shocker. Ashe almost had a triple double (12 pts, 11 asts, 8 boards) i see, he was a one man fast break in the home tourney I saw Wes in. Again, if Ashe stays healthy, and other guys step up (their shooter, Curry, Peletier) I think they can sneak into the playoffs at 7 or 8. No much better than that tho. At 5-4, I agree with you that there are some positives heading into the break, especially to see good games from guys like Curry. It is funny to see all the early predicting of Wes being miserable when they have a winning record into break (albeit against mediocre comp). And yes, that lost to Williams must have been horrible, but it was a fluke I would guess. And more importantly, Wes was without one of the best all around guards in the league in Jerod Ashe. It seems that in previous year posters usually only reserved cellar treatment for teams like Conn. Coll. and Midd. in the past when they started their years at like 1-7 or 2-6. But again, Wes was predicted to finish in the cellar by a lot of ppl at the beginning of last year so who knows what will happen. This team has no seniors, so it will be tough in some conf. weekends I expect. If only they had Kelly.....I would put them at 3-4 in the league.

[walzy31]

If only they had Kelly.....I would put them at 3-4 in the league.

- NescacFan33

NescacFan33,

I can read this two ways. Are you saying that "if Wes had R Kelly they would be 3-4 in the league"? Or are you saying "man, if we only had R Kelly! But I'm still predicting them 3-4 in the league?"

I am just asking for clarification...you are way off either way. Back to the cellar.

[formerbant10]

If Wes Tech is 3-4, who would they be behind??  Amherst and Tufts only?  I don't know if they have the firepower to beat Williams or Trinity either.