MBB: NESCAC

[Old Guy]

Thanks, Ephoops. Well put. Your concern is reasonable. I think the faculty do not hold sway in this discussion. The Presidents run the conference and they report to the Trustees, who often love the athletic scene (every Board has ex-jocks with big dough).

Interestingly, I have found young faculty at Miiddlebury not very concerned about this matter: they often come from big D1 grad schools (Stanford, Duke, BigTen universities, Texas, etc) and they find NESCAC small potatoes and refreshingly so.

The movement to Faculty Advisers intimately connected to the teams in NESCAC is an an interesting and positive development, connecting the two spheres, athletic and academic. I am the "faculty affiliate" of the baseball team here at Middlebury, and I think have some value in that liaison role to players and the coach.

Bates is an interesting example. I have connections there (grew up in Lewiston - my dad worked at Bates for 35 years). Their President is a woman who came from the faculty at Haverford in 2002. The Bobcat athletic crowd was terrified that she would impose Haverford-Swarthmore athletic values, but she has done nothing but reassure people. It's apparently not a battle she wants to take on. Those of you hooked in at Amherst may have better information as your new AD (last year), Susan Coffey, came from a similar position at Bates.

I love the NESCAC tourney. It was too long in coming.

[ephoops]

does anybody know what happened to bucknell? i just looked on their website and they had a record of 7-23. hardly a record i would have thought a dave paulsen-coached team would have. he probably just needs time to get his recruits in and put in the offensive system he ran at williams. i just cant imagine a coach of his stature having to suffer thru a season like that.

I followed Bucknell this year, including attending two games and watching several other games on TV.

Paulsen encountered a number of issues in his first year, including:

•   His best player blew out his knee (ACL) in the pre-season;
•   His center reinjured his knee about half way through the season and missed the remainder of the year;
•   Another starter injured his shoulder in pre season and wore a harness all year, limiting his effectiveness;
•   His personnel were ill suited to run his motion offense
•   His personnel also had trouble at times defending the opposition in Paulsen's exclusive man-to-man defensive schemes;
•   Very little depth on the roster, forcing him to play his starters too many minutes

He has four recruits coming in next season.  Hopefully they'll add depth and be better suited to run his motion offense and man defense sets.

It was a long season for him.  Hopefully they'll give him the time to bring in his own players so he can rebuild the program.  It will take a few years....

[NESCAC2]

thanks for the insight ephoops. that sounds like the worst first season a coach could ever have. its a wonder how they even managed 7 wins. with those recruits coming in and more importantly his offense being put in, it does sound like he will have them back competing in the ncaa tournament soon.

i think he gets a bad rep with recruitment. he had a lot of talent the years after all the championships he won. take for example this year: rubin, ethan, kearney, and troy were buried on the bench and turned out to be great rotation players. not to mention snyder and blake averaging 25+ or whatever they avged. these were all recruits of paulsen.

a few more questions: will the best player and center be back? and what type of personnel does he need for his motion offense and defense? when i saw them play a year or two ago, it seemed like he needs players in great shape to be able to run around for the full 35 seconds on both ends of the floor. what do you think? and finally, what is a harness?

[NESCAC2]

i would like to nominate gabe from wesleyan to the inaugural "seniors who nescac fans will miss the most" team.

he was a mountain of a man. an absolute giant who maneuvered among mere mortals like a bull shark hunting the native mexican children that frollic about in waist-high murky river water. all that crying will do nothing to save you. you will be mercked by the bull shark, the fiercest of all sharks. gabe represented everything that was good about collegiate athletics. he will be missed.

[nescac1]

Recently posted on a recruiting blog about two of the Wesleyan recruits (perhaps by one of their fathers?  Same last name and kinda sounds like it ...) (also, he makes a mistake, a lot more than 740 students are accepted by Wesleyan -- that is the number who ultimately enroll).  Here is hoping this dude finds the NESCAC board as I am guessing he could be an entertaining contributor.  Sha Sha Brown, listed here in that blog post as 5'11, is listed here as 5'6 -- quite a difference.  The fact that he is ranked and scored by ESPN seems pretty impressive.  Plus, frigging sweet name.  With those two and the other talented liliputian frosh recruit, Wesleyan should be fun to watch for the next four years.

http://insider.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/tracker/player?recruitId=53694&season=2008

COACH TONY BROWN:  Part 2. We would also like to congratulate 6'4" wing Ameer Brown (Blair Academy) and 5'11" point guard Sha Sha Brown (Peddie School) for committing to and being accepted into Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. These two prep school student-athletes have made us proud for many years as they embellish both books and basketball at a high level. There were well over 11,000 applications submitted for admission to Wes. U. and only 740 students were accepted from around the globe. Furthermore, only Stanford, Brown, and Wesleyan Universities were schools who's admission applications went up 22% nationally, with Duke University a distant second at 19%.

Ameer just captained his team to the New Jersey Prep "A" Champtionship State title, the first ever for Coach Joe Mantegna in his 8-year tenure, and Sha Sha closed out a sterling 4-year career at the Peddie School as one of the top scorers and steal leaders in their history. Ameer and Sha Sha, who are also close friends, played their AAU basketball at the early age of 9 years old with the likes of Darryl "Truck" Bryant, Lamont "Mo Mo" Jones, Georgio Milligan, Dorvell Carter, and Lenny McNeil at the Old Riverside Church Hawks program, then under the watchful eyes of AAU/Playground Coach William "Wee" Francis and Coach Kenny P., where they used to have epic winter/summer league battles against the likes of the Gauchos and Team Next.

Again, when the cheering stops, Ameer and Sha Sha will walk down the aisle in 2013 with a strong Wesleyan U. degree en route to an Ivy League school to get their master's degree in investment banking and Wall Street being a minute away thereafter. So if these two NYC-bred ballers can do it, then why not you? Again, I ask "when the cheering stops and the last whistle sounds what will be your legacy?" So coaches, directors, and parents please share these two wonderful stories and tell your ballers that it is okay that you may not be the next Lebron, Kobe, or D-Wade, but you can become such student-athletes as Ameer, Sha Sha, and Georgio.

[WESFEST]

word out of nyc is that these two kids are committed to the cardinal program both fell short of ivy league index and it should be rielly's gain. source says they are hard workers who put team first and are eager to embellish the nescac conference.

heard ameer was tp 20 while in florida but at blair joe mantegna did not need his scoring but his overall athletic prowess

is the kid from phillip exeter  greg (something) ? coming as well. he to was slated for the ivy league but a serious injury diminished his stock with them. Wow ! two 6-4 wings that plus with joe has already and sha sha pushing that rock up the floor could mean a nice transition. i feel that they may be a year away but w/o a doubt should make the palyoffs. put two big horses with these studs and man we may have something special.

are we getting any bigs ?

[nescac1]

Sounds impressive.  Plus two more, the other impressive-sounding guard listed here:

http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com/news/article.php?id=735

And earlier on the Long Island list, David Fogel (not sure if he is a big or not).  Add in Mendell who put up huge numbers as a rookie, and with Kaminer returning from injury (he was playing very well early in the year), Wesleyan should be stacked at the 1, 2, and 3 ... been awhile since that could be said ...

the thing is, making the playoffs will be really, really hard next year in NESCAC.  Look at the bottom of the league: Conn has Bernier and Porter back and should be a little better; Tufts has all but one player returning and will be much more experienced and far deeper; Bates returns most of its rotation intact including a great rising senior PG; and Trinity was very inexperienced yet came on late in the season.  NESCAC looks to be the most balanced it has been in a long time ... there will be no gimme games anymore.

[ephoops]

thanks for the insight ephoops. that sounds like the worst first season a coach could ever have. its a wonder how they even managed 7 wins. with those recruits coming in and more importantly his offense being put in, it does sound like he will have them back competing in the ncaa tournament soon.

i think he gets a bad rep with recruitment. he had a lot of talent the years after all the championships he won. take for example this year: rubin, ethan, kearney, and troy were buried on the bench and turned out to be great rotation players. not to mention snyder and blake averaging 25+ or whatever they avged. these were all recruits of paulsen.

a few more questions: will the best player and center be back? and what type of personnel does he need for his motion offense and defense? when i saw them play a year or two ago, it seemed like he needs players in great shape to be able to run around for the full 35 seconds on both ends of the floor. what do you think? and finally, what is a harness?

His best player will be back.  He'll be a senior next year, although he may apply for a medical redshirt so ha may have two more years of eligibility if he's granted the redshirt by the Patriot League.

The center was a senior so he will not be back.  One of his recruits is a 6'9" center from Minn.  Another is a 6'8" PF from PA. 

IMO, Paulsen's offense works best when he has the following type of personnel:

A point guard who can penetrate and make good decisions with the ball (Crotty).  He needs to be able to create his own shot as well.

A center / post player who commands the respect of the defense when he receives the ball in the post (Coffin).   

Wing players who can shoot the "3" (Folan, Kain, Abba).

They all need to be in good shape.

Regarding the harness, he had a bad shoulder separation so he was forced to wear a shoulder harness (it looked like a big black brace that wrapped around his shoulder).

[jbergman]

IMO, Paulsen's offense works best when he has the following type of personnel:

A point guard who can penetrate and make good decisions with the ball.  He needs to be able to create his own shot as well.

A center / post player who commands the respect of the defense when he receives the ball in the post.   

Wing players who can shoot the "3".

They all need to be in good shape.

Any offense should work pretty well when you have players with those types of offensive skills - right??

[frank uible]

No one at Williams should hold his breath until another Williams group of the quality of 2002-03 comes along.

[NESCAC2]

IMO, Paulsen's offense works best when he has the following type of personnel:

A point guard who can penetrate and make good decisions with the ball.  He needs to be able to create his own shot as well.

A center / post player who commands the respect of the defense when he receives the ball in the post.   

Wing players who can shoot the "3".

They all need to be in good shape.

Any offense should work pretty well when you have players with those types of offensive skills - right??

haha i would normally agree with you, but i think it comes down to the fact that it takes a great coach to put these types of players in the position to be great. thats what sets paulsen apart and helped him win multiple championships.

take the celtics for example. or the lakers. without doc or phil, those teams wouldnt have won the championships despite all that talent. same goes for paulsen. the great coaches find a way. i think the majority of coaches wouldnt have won a lot of games at all even with the personnel he had.

[nescac1]

Call me a crazy optimist Frank, but I am holding my breath.  I'd say this year's group of rising seniors is about as talented as the class of 2004 (I realize they didn't have nearly the same results as that class did as Juniors, but they had the class of 2003 to support them, whereas 2010's support comes for the most part from younger classmates, and the none of the big three in 04 missed substantial playing time to injuries in two years).  Geoghegan / Schultz / Rubin aren't all THAT much worse a trio than Coffin / Crotty / Abba, and toss in the depth from a few other solid players in 2010 (especially Timmins-Schiffman), and I'd rate them, in the aggregate, as pretty close in talent.  I guess we'll see next year ...

[NESCAC2]

id have to agree with nescac1 here. and i do this grudgingly because i really dont like williams.

id have to say that gohegan is better than coffin, but has just had a lot of injuries. from what ive heard, gohegan has absolutely given it to coffin in the past two alumni games.

and although they are different positions, shultz is a more desirable player than crotty because shultz is a flat out scorer who can defend.

its hard to argue rubin over abba though, because abba had a larger body of work and i dont think rubin can guard at a level even close to abba.

[lefrakenstein]

So, with Reilly's hiring at Wes, it looks like the Cards will be competitive in basketball again.

However, Wesleyan is still terrible at most sports. Wouldn't it be better if the Little Three could swap Wesleyan for Middlebury?

Middlebury has better teams, seems to have a very similar school culture to Amherst and Williams, and is geographically comprably close, if not closer. Woudln't that make for a better rivalry?

[La Verdad]

i would like to nominate gabe from wesleyan to the inaugural "seniors who nescac fans will miss the most" team.

he was a mountain of a man. an absolute giant who maneuvered among mere mortals like a bull shark hunting the native mexican children that frollic about in waist-high murky river water. all that crying will do nothing to save you. you will be mercked by the bull shark, the fiercest of all sharks. gabe represented everything that was good about collegiate athletics. he will be missed.

Couldn't agree more.  Gabe hung around amherst after Wes played there last year.  Absolute legend.  Reminds me of a young Jamie Snyder-Fair.