MBB: NESCAC

[nescac1]

Wild West ... interesting.  Impressive group of basketball players from those two Colorado teams, not only in playing ability but academically as well, to end up at top schools like MIT, Wash U., Williams, etc.. 

Wow, these Wooster fans are confident -- much like some of the Amherst posters (outside of the always pessimistic Senator).  The only thing for sure is that one group will be saying I told you so and the other will be eating crow.  Don't you folks worry about jinxing your squad? 

Regarding the Amherst poster who said Amherst will win the Sears cup this year -- no chance.  By the end of winter Williams will hold an enormous lead over Amherst (Williams won one national title already, and will score points in every winter sport except hockey).  Amherst has the better men's basketball team right now, which of course is the topic of this board, but you can't say that Amherst has ever, or likely ever will have, the better overall athletic program.  Middlebury could plausibly make that argument (not as many strong teams, but a bunch of dynasties in certain programs), but not Amherst.   In any event, I don't think recruits really consider the overall athletic success rate, just the strength of a particular team they might be interested in.  I doubt that men's basketball recruits at Amherst reconsider, for example, just because Amherst's football or women's basketball teams are not as dominant. 

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Coming soon to a theater near you:

Pat Coleman as Captain Obvious
Wooster Booster as Boy Obvious...his trusty sidekick

WORKING NIGHTS TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS TO THOSE WHO REMAIN ENTIRELY INDIFFERENT!

I will ignore your use of the contraction "it'll" but rather hope and pray that by "over," you mean that you will no longer come to this message board and flood it with grammatical errors, pure idiocy, and Kevin Hopkins taking 3's.  Perhpas instead you will come to understand the truth.  He is four inches taller than the poor soul who will attempt to stop him and will instead, to take a phrase from one of the greatest poets of our time Weezy F. Baby, "rain terror" on Wooster.

[BooBallsCasRay]

nescac1, let me give you the quick rundown on how the Sears Cup race is going. As of 12/21/06 Amherst was in 3rd place with Williams trailing closely behind in 6. Yes, Williams did win Women's Indoor Track and Field, but let me give you the run down of how Amherst has done.
Women's Ice Hockey: In the Frozen Four this Weekend
Women's Swimming: 2nd
Women's Track and Field: 6th
Men's Basketball: FINAL FOUR
Women's Lax: Currently ranked 1st nationally

I like our chances

[nescac1]

Williams:

Men's basketball, women's basketball, men's swimming and diving (likely top 10), wrestling, skiing, women's swimming and diving (6th), men's track, women's track (first) all will scored winter points.   Men's and women's tennis are both locks to get lots of points in the spring.  Women's lacrosse, crew, softball and baseball are all playoff contenders as well.  The Sears Cup tends to rewards getting lots of teams w/ medium to high finishes as opposed to relatively few with super high finishes, which is why Middlebury despite its amazing record of national titles has never won, and why Williams consistently wins.  The Cup is about athletic excellence widely spread.  You can argue about the methodology, but it is what it is and it would be very surprising for Amherst, with fewer NCAA entrants, to beat out a school like Williams.  (If lax, basketball and hockey all win titles, you may have a shot though). 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

We're actually having a discussion about the Director's Cup over on one of the "General Division III Issues" boards if you want to join us.  They've changed around the rules for scoring and awarding the cup this year, so that may change things up a bit.

[ScotsFan]

Coming soon to a theater near you:

Pat Coleman as Captain Obvious
Wooster Booster as Boy Obvious...his trusty sidekick

WORKING NIGHTS TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS TO THOSE WHO REMAIN ENTIRELY INDIFFERENT!

I will ignore your use of the contraction "it'll" but rather hope and pray that by "over," you mean that you will no longer come to this message board and flood it with grammatical errors, pure idiocy, and Kevin Hopkins taking 3's.  Perhpas instead you will come to understand the truth.  He is four inches taller than the poor soul who will attempt to stop him and will instead, to take a phrase from one of the greatest poets of our time Weezy F. Baby, "rain terror" on Wooster.

So nice to see you revert to the old standby of ripping on gramatical errors because you have nothing else to come up with?!  YAWN!   Based on your meaningless drivel, and the lack of substance on this board provided by yourself and the likes of geronimo and The Truth, I think it's safe to say my time in here is "over!"

[dman]

scotsfan,
  a "very average" williams team??  actually, i found it rather comforting that williams played brockport as tough as they did, because brockport could very easily be the team in salem right now.....i still have a bone to pick with mr.mike complaining about amherts' free-throw shooting in the nescac championship game.  buddy, did you look at the stat sheet???  amherts was 16-25(it was actually 23 in my book, because o'shea missed 2 in a row, got his own rebound, was fouled a made the next 2) so, 16 for 23.  the ephs got to the line exactly 4 times in a 40 minute game.....

nescac1,
  with the best gm in the business, amherts will eventually close the gap and (possibly) surpass the ephs in overall athletic supremacy.....

[daoustian]

Is there any word as to whether the games will be broadcast on TV?  I remember when the Amherst/Williams Final Four game a couple of years back was shown on TV in a few bars in NYC/Boston.  It'd be nice for those not making the trip to Salem and who don't want to hang out in front of the computer all day being antisocial.  Any info would be appreciated.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Um, I think if you read the front page there's some information on it.  CSTV will once again broadcast the games.  It's a pretty hard get on most cable or even satellite packages, but a good sports bar should have it.  If all else fails they're doing video broadcasts online for PC and IE users only.

As always d3hoops will have online audio coverage as well.


Again, you can check out the specifics on the Daily Dose blog on the front page.

[mrmike88]

Dman, free-throw shooting has not been one of Amherst's strong points this season.  It absolutely baffles me as to why a team shooting 52% from the field and 41% from three can only shoot 69.6% from the foul line.  As someone who has watched Amherst games all season, it's been a common source of frsutration as a fan.  Maybe I overreacted, but 16-25 is STILL not what I think they could be shooting from the line.  The free throws are almost never a problem, since they played in so many blowouts, but in both losses this season guys missed pivotal free-throws in the final minutes of tight games.

I think I have been very fair to the guys for most of this season.  Certainly they have tons more talent than I ever will (and they could vouch for that after watching me play intramurals my whole time in college).  I made one frustrated post stemming from the Williams loss.  The Ephs played a tremendous game in the championship and I tip my hat to them for that.  But to observe that Amherst wins that game if they shoot 80% from the line takes nothing away from Williams.

We shall see how the guys do down in Salem.  I think they're in a better position this year than last year.  Everyone who gets minutes on this team has been there before.  They match up better against Wooster than Wittenberg.  Last year's game was a tight contest throughout; I expect no different this year.  Go Jeffs!

[mrmike88]

According to the Amherst website, all four seniors on the team were named to the NESCAC all-academic team.  Did any other NESCAC school achieve this?

[senatorfrost]

 All region teams with SID's voting? I take them as seriously as I would a Miss USA or a Miss Universe contest. Deluca on third team? Simply silly. No Zak Ray no Kino Clarke? Absurd. Coaches and SID's probably campaign amongst each other and some SID's might have voted for names they liked. Not necessary to actually see the players play.
  I don't see why anyone would want to declare superiority before a game is played, but I thought the Wooster folks made a pretty good logical case. They sound and look very good. I wouldn't bet on the game but if someone GAVE me a sum of money and said I HAD to bet it, I might bet Wooster. No one, including myself made a really good case for Amherst. I liked reading their posts and I got a kick out of the box score. I'm not that big a fan but I think it can be entertaining to listen to/read someone who is.
  Are Collins and Port the equal of Amelianovich and Freeman, the best duo I've seen in D3? (with the likely exception of Crotty and Coffin of course-no need to rouse ire.) Of course Amelianovich and Freeman didn't win it so one never really knows. I'd really like to see this Amherst team win. Everyone deserves to win but I am especially partial to McLaughlin and Salerno. I think they deserve it a tiny bit more, because defense never really gets the recognition that it should, even though it's half the game. Half is a LOT!


 

[David Collinge]

Are Collins and Port the equal of Amelianovich and Freeman, the best duo I've seen in D3?   

If by "Collins" you mean James Cooper (Wooster has nobody named Collins), then it's apples and oranges.  Wooster has nobody that can reasonably be compared to IWU's 6'9" center Zach Freeman.  Wooster's starting center (Evan Will) is 6'6" and is more of a defensive player than a back-to-the-basket offensive presence; and the other center, Tim Vandervaart, also 6'6", is not the kind of physical specimen that Freeman is.  Vandervaart is a offensive threat because of his outrageously effective spin moves, which allow him to succeed against opposing centers that are almost invariably taller and stronger than he is.  He is recovering from a broken left wrist, a fact that I see has not escaped attention in this forum.

Port and Amelianovich are somewhat similar, but still there are more differences than similarities.  Amelianovich was almost exclusively a perimeter player, one with an outrageously good three-point shot.  Port is also a good long-ball shooter, but not as good or frequent as Amelianovich.  But Port is much more adept at driving to the hoop and either finishing or finding the open man, and he's also a better rebounder.  Of course, Amelianovich had Freeman under the hoop, so he didn't have to concern himself with rebounds.

James Cooper is a 6'0" shooting guard whose best weapons are the pull-up jumper and the three-pointer.  Neither Freeman nor Amelianovich are comparable to Cooper (and vice-versa); in fact, 2-guard was not an especially strong position on that IWU team.

I am one Wooster fan that is not over-confident or willing to declare superiority.  I'm confident in my team, but I suppose all of the fans of the final four teams are as well, and rightly so: none of them has lost more than four games this year, and all four were champions of either their conference regular season or tournament titles (in Wooster's case, both.)  I anticipate a great game Friday, and hope that each team plays to its potential.  Good luck to Amherst, and safe travels to their fans!

Here is a link to Wooster's Final Four website.

[Pat Coleman]

All region teams with SID's voting? I take them as seriously as I would a Miss USA or a Miss Universe contest. Deluca on third team? Simply silly. No Zak Ray no Kino Clarke? Absurd. Coaches and SID's probably campaign amongst each other and some SID's might have voted for names they liked. Not necessary to actually see the players play.

It's a shame there wasn't better participation from the best league in the region.

And DeLuca probably suffered from the fact that Brandeis has no conference opponents in its region. It's hard to compensate for something like that.

[senatorfrost]

 I keep thinking of him as Collins. My mistake.
I saw Amelianovich and Freeman on the computer. While that's not as good as in person, it will have to do. I was aware that Cooper was a guard and that neither Port not Cooper was anything like Freeman. What I meant was this-If I was starting a theoretical team, and one had to pick players two at a time who had played together in NESCAC, Coffin and Crotty would be my first pick, if indeed I had first pick. (mostly because of Coffin BTW) Of course in this theoretical league, players would have exactly the same skills they used to etc. Sort of like that Wooster Amherst box I saw 89-77.
   Maybe you have better players out there. All I can say is that those two from IWU impressed me a LOT!
   
   P.S. Let's make my theoretical league only for players from 2000 on. That way I don't have to think about Nogelo and waste even more time.