MBB: NESCAC

[fpc85]

works for D3hoops now.

[Hugenerd]

works for D3hoops now.

http://www.d3hoops.com/nation/

[Old Guy]

Cool.  Good for "eclincy." Didn't he have a protege at Tufts - nothing now from Jumboland.

(Couldn't he have gotten one little mention of Middlebury in that Williams love fest? It's not like the Ephs in general need the pub)

[nescac1]

Coach Maker on hoopsville tonight at 8:

http://d3hoops.com/hoopsville/

[senatorfrost]

  The two best things about the Amherst/Conn. Coll game was 1. 24-26 from the line. Who could ask for more?
   2. The play of Waller. He seems to be coming around nicely.

[amh63]

Thoughts from the weekend at Amherst.  Agree with SenatorFrost about Waller.  Actually Waller's play at the Wes game was also nice.  His weekend play overall was like he woke-up and made the  necessary adjustments.  His talents was more evident.  He was more active and attacked the net and did not seem to worry about getting into foul trouble early.
While watching the games, I must remind myself that the players are 17-22 years old students.  They have their ups and downs, get upset over their mistakes and the whistle blowers.  The Amherst team is still trying to find their identity.  They are progressing well.
I have been passionate about BB for over half a century.  I follow the ACC mainly in Div1 and NESCAC in Div3.  It is not surprising that whenever conference play starts, predictions over contests become more uncertain, whatever the division.  Case it point was seen this weekend.  Both Wes and Conn. have talented young players.  In my bias viewpoint, the difference between the Ct. schools and Amherst is the coaching.
Wes.'s new coach has brought in better players but it is still to much one-on-one.  Conn.'s coach in my mind, still has not been able to get his teams to play good team ball.  I often wonder if they have any offensive sets....while watching them over the decade.   Conn. does have more talent this year.  The Conn. team plays a physical game and when the officials let them play, Conn. can be dangerous.
Anyway, it was good to see for the Conn. game, Amherst could hit foul shots.  They needed to!.  In the Wes. game it didn't matter.  If Amherst had hit more foul shots, the score differential would have been greater.
Both Ct. teams tried to deny Amherst the perimeter.  Wheeler in the Wes. game proved it did not work. 
In the Conn. game, Amherst made the adjustment.  Wheeler, Waller and Meehan and others went inside more  and the mid range shots fell.
One last observation.  Meehan is working on his 3-point shooting.  In the Wes. game, two of his long range shoots just spun out.  In the Conn. game, his second 3-point attempt went in to the delight of his fans and himself.  Meehan is often left alone outside in the Conn. game.  His made shot was after he hestitated, looked to pass and with no one guarding him, he took the shot.  I believe, Hixon has told him to take the shot when he is wide open and unguarded.  When he becomes more consistent, Amherst's will roll.

[magicman]

Updated Pool C rankings from the Pool C board on the Multi-Regional Topics page. 
Includes all games through 1-17-10.

Numbers include regional results only.

REG   #   WP      OWP     OOWP    RPI      NAT   Pool        REG     OVR   CONF     Team
                                   
NE   01   0.909   0.549   0.548   0.6388   010   A   C      10-1    14-1   NESCAC   Middlebury
NE   02   1.000   0.481   0.532   0.6236   015   A   C      14-0    15-1   NEWMAC   MIT
NE   03   0.846   0.507   0.591   0.6129   022   C   011    11-2    11-2   UAA      Brandeis
NE   04   0.889   0.494   0.553   0.6076   026   C   014     8-1    10-2   NESCAC   Colby
NE   05   0.800   0.536   0.529   0.6005   032   A   C      12-3    12-3   LEC      Eastern Connecticut
NE   06   1.000   0.407   0.559   0.5935   042   C   023    12-0    14-1   NESCAC   Williams
NE   07   0.667   0.586   0.511   0.5871   050   C   028    10-5    10-5   LEC      Mass-Dartmouth
NE   08   0.700   0.539   0.545   0.5807   060   A           7-3     8-5   MASCAC   Bridgewater State
NE   09   0.786   0.503   0.530   0.5804   062   C   033    11-3    12-3   NEWMAC   Worcester Polytech
NE   10   0.625   0.579   0.505   0.5719   074   A           5-3     8-4   NAC      Husson
NE   11   0.750   0.496   0.516   0.5646   085   A           9-3    10-3   CCC      Gordon
NE   12   0.400   0.684   0.490   0.5643   086   C   050     4-6     6-8   NESCAC   Bates
NE   13   0.778   0.451   0.560   0.5600   092   C   055     7-2     8-2   NAC      Thomas
NE   14   0.750   0.483   0.517   0.5583   093   C   056     9-3    10-3   LEC      Western Connecticut
         

[nescac1]

I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain those rankings bear little or no resemblance to the criteria actually employed by the selection committee, which weighs in-region record far more heavily than these RPI rankings.  There is little doubt that Williams or MIT, both undefeated in-region vs. D-III, would be the top two Pool C candidates from New England if the tournament was picked today, with Middlebury likely third. 

[tball]

Massey ratings would have Williams 11th nationally, MIT 16th, Brandeis 31st & Middlebury 40th.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain those rankings bear little or no resemblance to the criteria actually employed by the selection committee, which weighs in-region record far more heavily than these RPI rankings.  There is little doubt that Williams or MIT, both undefeated in-region vs. D-III, would be the top two Pool C candidates from New England if the tournament was picked today, with Middlebury likely third. 

Actually, the RPI that Knight Slappy compiles has regional winning % as a key component (I don't recall the precise formula, but I think he has presented it on the Multi-Region, Pool C board).

It does not include such criteria as results against regionally-ranked opponents, head-to-head, etc., but as well as any single number can, these results do reflect the selection criteria.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Those numbers are many of the ones that will be used for selection.  The problem this early in the conference season is that the numbers reflect mostly non-conference games.  Things will change quite a bit.

The primary selection criteria are:

In-region win/loss percentage and regional strength of schedule (OWP and OOWP)

If teams from one region are being compared, then they move to head to head matchups and common opponents and games against regionally ranked teams.

In the past they've often just gone by in-region record unless there is significant reason to change the order based on strength of schedule.

[Mr. Ypsi]

While the five primary criteria have no rank-order in the handbook, in past seasons it SEEMS to be:

1. regional winning %

2. SOS (or whatever it is called in a given season! )

distant 3. everything else (with the sole exception if two teams are otherwise quite close, head-to-head seems to be decisive).  (A few years ago two WIAC teams became aware of that - one was definitely the stronger Pool C candidate, but went 0-3 against the other.  Not having room for both, the committee took neither.)

Knight Slappy's RPI computations seems to mirror the relative weight of 1 and 2 pretty well (i.e., like the selection committees do it); just missing those other criteria.

[Hugenerd]

Massey ratings would have Williams 11th nationally, MIT 16th, Brandeis 31st & Middlebury 40th.

Massey ratings that do not take into account margin of victory (BCS formula), MIT is 12 and Williams is 25.

[Hugenerd]

RPI is 25% WP and 75% SOS (50% OWP, 25 % OOWP).

[Old Guy]

Bates has played 14 games (6-8) this season, 13 on the road. How can that be?

Seven of their last ten are at home. Still that's an 8-16 home-road split. Tough schedule.