MBB: NESCAC

[Agent_Zero]

thank you mrmike. the only reason i left kelly off the list of post players with huge games was because that game was "over" after about 6 minutes and kelly got most of his points against "the answer" pat sullivan. cohen won the game for colby with his performance but you are right, kelly put up 30 or so on the jumbos but a lot of those were garbage points in a game tufts dominated.
in response to fpc, i respectfully disagree when you say pierce has a perimeter mentality. he got 70% of his baskets in the paint and making moves with his back to the basket. how is that not a willingness to play inside? and maybe i misunderstood your other statement but no team in the nescac wins without great guard play. williams is good because of shalvoy and rose. amherst is dominant because of olson. trinity had kino and pat martin. maybe we differ on our definition or idea of quality post play. post players are a luxury in this league. and tufts certainly doesnt need 3 or 4 dominant post players because their success lies with their guards. and pierce and weitzen will each play over 30 minutes a game.

[fpc85]

az,
weitzen and pierce took 32% of there shot from behind the arc. no other post player on trinity (Martin is 12%), williams(no one over 1%) or amherst (oshea .05%, hopkins .05%) come close to that percentage. it has been my experience watching the conf. for the last 5 years that you need a bigger post identity than what they give. Martin was a beast or the jumbos and stovall before him.
in addition, weitzen doesn't get to the ft line enough. lastly, the post defense of the pierce and weitzen doesn't compare to the trinity, williams and amherst players.

[Agent_Zero]

ok fpc, here are some numbers...18 and 4, 26 and 6, 20 and 8, and 20 and 10. those are pierce's numbers (pts and boards) against the three teams you mentioned(amherst, trinity, williams twice) whose interior defense is far better than the jumbos in your opinion. weitzen had 16, 5 and 7; 13, 5 and 3; 15, 6 and 1; and 10, 8 and 7 (pts, rebs, assists) in those same 4 games. in comparison, o shea and hopkins combined for 0 rebounds and 1 point in the amherst game. solid numbers. in the trinity game, russ martin went for 11 and 7...too bad he went 3-14 from the field to get those numbers. in the first williams game, geoghegan had 1 rebound and no points. in the second game, he had 6 boards and 4 points. since im not sure what other players on williams you consider "post players", i wont attempt to guess. pierce was also among the league leaders in blocks. so COMBINED, in those four games where tufts was up against a better defensive interior and they themselves were supposed to struggle guarding the interior, the opponents had 16 points and 14 boards (16 is less than pierce had in ANY of those games.) so how does the "post defense of pierce and weitzen not compare to trinity, williams, and amherst players"? granted, the two of them must play even better next year because the guard play of tufts might be a step below that of the elite teams in the league. and with your percentage of shots taken from behind the arc, it seems you are punishing pierce and weitzen because they have 3 point range, unlike the other big men you mentioned. it doesnt mean there post games suffers because they can also shoot. but i would say they have their "post identity" and their poor post defense certainly seems to be a figment of imagination, as the numbers dictate.

[fpc85]

az,
your numbers are compelling....the numbers say i am wrong....they indicate tufts dominance in the post. no disrepect, but i would still take the trinity and amherst post guys over weitzen and pierce... i doubt if trinity or amherst would have had the same success if pierce and weitzen were on the team instead of the trinity or amherst post guys...but the numbers don't bear that out. would you take the trinity guys and or the amherst guys?

[Agent_Zero]

well thats a different matter entirely in my mind. see, i think the amherst and trinity guys compliment their teams well. for amherst, they dont need much out of their post players because of the dominance of olson, mcglaughlin, and wheeler this past year(who was sort of a hybrid post but i digress). russ martin fit very well with the dominant guard play of kino and pat martin. with tufts, its an entirely different situation. over half of their offense comes from pierce and weitzen. thats much more than amherst needs from their big men and more than trinity needed this year from russ martin, with kino having a breakout season. so because pierce and weitzen need the ball to be effective, you might be right, trinity and amherst might not have been as good, with team chemistry and everything else by having pierce and/or weitzen as opposed to their own players. again, tufts needs gaudy offensive numbers from those two along with a serious defensive and rebounding presence. in that respect, they are more heavily relied on than any of those other bigs in your argument. im not saying you are wrong, i actually think you are correct. amherst (obviously with a title to back it up) and trinity are/were perfectly constituted for their systems. what even made me comment on the pierce/weitzen combo was the comment voiced by someone on this board and generally believed i think, that tufts struggles in the post defensively and that their size prevents them from rebounding and controlling the paint. i dont think the numbers and facts support that contention. that being said, they still have to work harder to make a bigger commitment to working both on their offensive and defensive games because so much runs through them. however, i dont think the post/size issue is the biggest issue facing tufts next season, and the numbers show it wasnt their issue this season

[JeffRookie2]

az,
weitzen and pierce took 32% of there shot from behind the arc. no other post player on trinity (Martin is 12%), williams(no one over 1%) or amherst (oshea .05%, hopkins .05%) come close to that percentage.

As an Amherst fan, I can tell you for certain that our PFs-- Wheeler and Walters--are both VERY perimeter oriented, taking a bunch of 3s. Also, Amherst was pretty darn successful with Andrew Schiel at center, and he was definitely a guy who preferred to play on the perimeter.

[fpc85]

jf2,
they are hybrids and i believe fletcher grew was recruited as a sg/sf and grew about 4". wheels and pierce may be a valid comparison they both shoot 3's and can post. if you had to only choose one,who would you take?

[Agent_Zero]

pierce, but obviously i have a tufts bias. in my mind, hes more athletic and brings a little more to the table than wheeler. both he and weitzen can create their own shots, something i didnt see wheeler do a lot of this year. granted, i didnt see him play that often. i know ive already touched on this but its also just a question of team systems. pierce (and weitzen) have to be able to create their own shots because of their offense and lack of a real PG( sheperd was recruited as a shooting guard). wheeler can just go to a spot and  you know olson will deliver the ball

[JeffRookie2]

I have only seen Pierce once, so I dont think its fair to for me to make a choice, but it's foolish to say that wheeler can't get his own shot. although he was not called upon to do it as much this year as he was last year, wheeler had a very nice post up game, with a pretty nasty dream-shake-esque fade away jumper. wheeler also established himself as a force in the nescac over several years, while pierce has never even started. pierce might end up being better, but right now its hard to compare his accomplishments to wheeler's.

fpc- i think the best evidence against your assertion that a team needs a post presence to be successful is the lord jeffs team of a few years ago that featured schiel at center and casnocha at power forward. neither of those guys posted, they both loved to shoot the 3, and that was a really good team.

[Agent_Zero]

jeff, i wasnt saying wheeler cant get his own shot, just like you said, that he wasnt called upon to do it whereas pierce was on a consistent basis. but your right, his fadeway was unstoppable, party because he has such a strange release point on his ball. you never thought it was going in but it usually did. as for pierce never starting, thats pretty irrelevant. it was his first year of college ball and he was behind fitz and weitzen, both older guys. but he still played the 2nd most minutes on that team(behind only sheperd) and averaged nearly 30 a game, which i imagine would be among the league leaders.

[JeffRookie2]

This is what i would call heated agreement. I just meant to point out that pierce was only a sophomore transfer last year. wheeler was a senior, a thousand-point scorer, first-team all-nescac, a josten's award finalist, and a national champion. pierce may well go on to add some of those things to his resume, but right now its unfair to compare the two

[Agent_Zero]

haha i like that, heated agreement. and you right, pierce has only one year of what will hopefully be a great career under his belt whereas wheeler has already cemented his legacy

[nescac1]

Although Schiel was a shooter as well, I seem to recall him posting quite a bit as a senior, and being difficult to stop down low one-on-one when he chose to post up (he was a load).  And in any event, while you can succeed in NESCAC without a dominant, or at least signficant, post presence, it is pretty important to succeed on the national stage.  The 2005 Jeffs were the only Amherst team in about six years not the make the elite eight, and they lost to a team with a dominant inside game.  Hopkins, by the end of last year, was very difficult to handle inside (a 6'10 guy with moves, good touch, who hit his foul shots, rare in Div III), and in combination with Jones and O'Shea gave them 18 fouls and three solid players at the center position.  And of course the two dominant Williams teams had Coffin, probably the best NESCAC post player of the 2000's.  Point guard is of course crucial as well and Amherst would not have won w/out the best point in the country, but it is almost impossible to succeed against the teams from the midwest without at least a credible threat of interior scoring, someone who if guarded one-on-one will score at least 60 percent of the time on the blocks.   Hopkins is probably the best post scorer in the league returning next year, which gives Amherst a big edge.   As a Williams fan, I am hoping a few of the young bigs can mature to give the Ephs the same kind of threat (Geoghegan being the most likely candidate).  

[sofa king raw]

trinity will suprise a lot of people this year with their incoming class. i can guarentee that.

[JeffRookie2]

Im dubious about guarantees from people who cant spell guarantee. Nonetheless, Trinity's incoming class does sound promising, especially that 6'11 kid.

NESCAC1-Schiel could post a little, but got dominated down low on the other end. Would you dispute that he was generally 'perimeter oriented'? And that team may have lost in the sweet 16, but it was one of only 2 games they lost all year. I would say they were successful.