MBB: NESCAC

[ephoops]

For those who are interested, Paulsen is assembling his staff at Bucknell. 

He hired Dane Fischer (former Eph asst coach who went on to Rider and rose to the #1 asst coach position) to be his #1 assitant coach.  It appears that Aaron Kelly, an asst on this year's team, will move with Paulsen to become Director of Basketball operations. 

Paulsen also asked Mark Prosser, an asst at Bucknel to stay on, but he decided to take the #1 asst coach job at Wofford.  Marke Prosser is the son of the late Skip Prosser, former coach at Wake Forest.  Paulsen did not retain any other of the asst coaches at Bucknell. 

It will be interesting to see how Paulsen fares with an entirely new staff at Bucknell.  I certainly wish him and his family the best of luck at Bucknell.  He will be missed on the sidelines and on campus at Williams.

[JumpShotCharlie]

Hello all,

I just ran into a women at a graduation party who is the nephew of an older Williams Basketball Coach.  Apparently, he is 101 years old now and celebrated his 100th birthday with 3 former Williams College presidents.  Anybody know anything about this guy?  I'm trying to learn a little about some NESCAC history. 

Thanks

The ERA begins...

[frank uible]

He's Al Shaw, lives in Williamstown and is legendary. He took the Williams basketball team to the NCAAs in 1955 - not the DIII NCAAs - THE NCAAs, beating Harvard, Boston College, Boston University, UMass, Army, Dartmouth, Vermont and Rhode Island, among others, along the way..

[ephoops]

The poop is that the new Williams coach will be publicized by mid-July.

It's my understanding that the Williams basketball team is/was scheduled to travel to Italy later this summer. 

With Paulsen's departure, is that trip still on??  If so, and assuming that the new coach is not hired until mid-July, that does not give him much time to get organized (i.e., hire assistant coaches, etc.) for such a trip. 

Would Williams move up the announcement to give the new coach a bit more time to prepare for the trip.

On the other hand, if the trip is still on, it will give the new coach and the returning players a chance to get to know one another and "bond" as a team in a new system. 

[frank uible]

The poop implied that the identity of the new coach will be publicly disclosed promptly after the job is offered and accepted, the offer coming from the College with all deliberate speed considering the nature of the process.

[jumpshot]

I played for Al Shaw. Among other achievements, his teams won about 20 consecutive games over Amherst (two each year for about 10 straight years) during the 1960's. It is known in Williamstown that Al Shaw was recommended as basketball coach at Williams by the legendary John Wooden who first accepted the position, then declined it after learning about the rigorous admission standards at Williams. In the 60's Williams had wins over Harvard, Dartmouth and other major programs in addition to many Little Three championships.

[Old Guy]

I played against Al Shaw's Williams' teams in the 1960s and they were simply terrific. Williams was the best team on our schedule year after year.

Thanks for the Wooden anecdote. Shaw should perhaps be recognized as an East Coast, small college, version of the LA legend.

I posted-up on Al Shaw back on January 29. Here's a nice piece on him archived on the Williams website:

http://www.williams.edu/athletics/news.php?id=6603&sport=10&year=2003

Incidently, Amherst's best player in that era was actor Ken Howard, the White Shadow. He was 6'3", 6'4" (big in those days), a genuinely good shooter. He would be a force these days with the three-point shot, but was not, as I recall, a great rebounder or defender.

Wesleyan's best player was Winthrop "Winky" Davenport, a giant at 6'6"-6'8", the father of tennis player Lindsay Davenport.

[nescac hoops]

10 in a row.

http://williams.prestosports.com/information/generalnews/0612_Ephs_come_from_behind_to_capture_10th_straight_Directors-_Cup

[ephoops]

Congratulations to Athletic Director Harry Sheehy and the entire Athletic Department at Williams for winning a remarkable 10th consecutive Directors' Cup.

The NESCAC placed three schools in the top five of the standings.

The NESCAC is without a doubt the premier conference in D-III athletics.

Next up for Sheehy....hiring a new basketball coach.

[BankShotCharlie]

Thank you for all of the information on Al Shaw.  It looks like they are going to have to find another coach of that caliber if they ever want to beat Amherst again this decade!

(anybody notice that Game 4 of the NBA finals was the first non-biased refereed game thus far in the playoffs?  Its funny how the FBI can influence David Stern so much with just a little chatter)

[JustAFan]

Interesting column on the top 10 steals of the DII/DIII 08 recruiting class.  Included are Trinity's Andrew Yanulis, Chris Applegate, and Jon Pike as well as MIT's Ted Eby and Vytas Kriskus to Brandeis.   

Link:  http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com/news/article/444/The-Biggest-Steals-of-2008-%E2%80%93-Part-I.php

[nescac1]

Especially impressive is the D-I transfer Trinity is bringing in.   Every time Trinity looks to be down, they seem to bring in a huge impact player (Tabb, Rhoten, etc.) and this year seems like no exception ... Trinity will probably start at least 2 and as many as three frosh ...

If they stay healthy, it could finally be MIT's year to make the dance, with the top player by far in the region (Bartolotta) and an NBA-huge front-line (6'10, 6'8, 6'8).   Considering that MIT offers virtually no admissions concessions and certainly scares lot of players away with its reputation for academid intensity, impressive how much talent they have managed to assemble.

As for Brandeis, with Delucca returning and the topnotch recruit, they should hardly skip a beat despite the enormous losses suffered to graduation.  Thanks for some great recruiting classes, the top New England contenders appear to once again include usual suspects Brandeis, RIC [overwhelming regional pre-season favorite as no one graduated], Trinity, Amherst, with MIT, Midd, Williams, Wheaton (all of whom return veteran squads and seem to have solid recruits, but not quite in the class of the incoming guys at Trinity/Amherst/Brandeis) all having enough talent to surprise a few people.

[formerbant10]

Haven't seen those incoming guys for Trin at all, but they still have Rowe and Westbrooks as returning starters with a solid group of rising sophomores who saw some good minutes last year.  They do have to replace a lot, but from the press on those kids it seems they may be very capable of doing so.

[ac08]

With the top tier of NE growing, I'm exicited to follow the fight for who will end the on top...i will take a risk and go with amherst as my offseason pick for the crown.

...hopefully this season will show NE to be one of the premier regions in division III.

[eclinchy]

Is anyone else out there watching the Celtics pregame, and if so, can they tell me...

That short white guy on the floor right now, feeding Pierce and Allen for warm-up jumpers... is that Mike Crotty?