MBB: NESCAC

[duffer]

Yeah, there are still a couple of us. You're right Harrigan had a heck of a game. The last shot however, doesn't tell the story of the sequence. After the rebound of a missed shot bounced around a bit, the ball went off the leg of a Conn player. Pierce chased the ball out of bounds preventing anyone else from getting to it, certain it would go to Tufts. The the ref, however, called it out on Tufts and gave Conn the ball. The rest as they say... is history. Very brutal weekend is right!

[boston ball 56]

Very Sad News. Mike Crotty Sr. father of Williams grad Mike CrottyJr. passed away this morning. Mike was the Director of Middlesex Magic an AAU basketball club that has been responsible for assisting hundreds of kids to attend college, rather they continued to play ball or not. Our prayers go out to the Crotty family.

[walzy31]

Nobody deserves to lose a father. That is sad news.

Elms -3.0 @ Amherst
Over/Under: 151.0

[nescac1]

That is sad news indeed.  Crotty Sr. steered quite a few kids to NESCAC programs in addition to, of course, his son.  Sorry to hear it.

[nescac1]

Walzy, didn't Elms already beat Amherst?

I think Hancock and Nogelo are locks for the post-1970's all-time all-NESCAC squad.  After that it gets a bit more interesting. 

[walzy31]

Nobody deserves to lose a father. That is sad news.

Elms -3.0 @ Amherst
Over/Under: 151.0

Yeah good call NESCAC1, Rhode Island College is at Amherst tonight.

RIC -3.0 @ Amherst
Over/Under: 151.0

[nescac1]

Wow, Amherst a home dog in a non-conference New England game ... that has to be a first. 

Latest NCAA stats out, and Whittington is now first in the country in FG percentage at an insane 70 plus percent (with 100 made FG's in 20 games, you need to hit five a game to be eligible, so it is a bit precarious).  Williams continues to lead the country in team FG % 3-point FG % and scoring margin; despite taking a hit from the Williams game, Midd continues to lead in FG % and blocked shots. 

Colby game should be great.  Russell is the type of player that gives the Ephs fits; if they can stay out of foul trouble, I imagine we might see a little more of Whittington and Geoghegan on the floor together so that Troy can keep him off the glass.  Otherwise, Hardy/Dodson/Timmins will have to step it up and match his physicality; they did a good job battling Midd on Saturday.  On the other hand, I think Colby will have a LOT of trouble guarding both Whittington and Wang; not sure who on their roster has the quickness to handle either one, and Choice will have his hands full guarding Schultz.  Bowdoin seems to have turned things around, so it will be a great weekend overall for the Maine teams battling Midd and Williams. 

[walzy31]

Amherst 60 - RIC 48


at the half!!

[ac08]

didn't look like a whole lot of D was being played...

amherst cruises past ric 105-84

[walzy31]

I like being wrong on my spreads when Amherst is an underdog. Can we please switch back the balance of power from our Women's team to our Men's team? I hate this.

[Mr. Ypsi]

I like being wrong on my spreads when Amherst is an underdog. Can we please switch back the balance of power from our Women's team to our Men's team? I hate this.

Chauvinisht Pig!

[Old Guy]

I only saw Hancock play a couple of times, but my impression was that he was a D3 phenomenon, would have had difficulty at a higher level, which is one standard of evaluation. He was a great, great scorer, but am I wrong in thinking he might not have been complete player, not that fast, not a great defender - took 25 -30 shots a game. His teams did win a lot of games (26-1 in '89-90), he did score 2600+ pts, he did shoot 90% from the line. Not too shabby.  

For best NESCAC players, I'm partial to some of those great forwards - Nogelo, Rhoten, Tabb, Zieja, Coffin. I only saw Jamal Wison once- pretty impressive. Has Amherst had better players than Jim Rehnquist (averaged 28 pts a game one season)? Is he a candidate for best ever? Fletcher Walters came into Middlebury in '08 and blew my mind - a 6'8" #2 guard in NESCAC! Should CC's Kareem Tatum be in this discussion?

I loved the reference to Bobo MacFarlane from Bowdoin, back around my time. A terrific guard, really fast, and he could score, ended up playing some pro baseball. I believe. As a kid , I watched Dick Whitmore play for Bowdoin in that little gym at Bates: he was intense, a bruiser in those really ugly black Bowdoin unies and black Converse All-Stars - he was easy to hate, but he could play.

Here's my All-Middlebury team, post 1976:

G: Ben Rudin ('09) (nuf ced)
G: John Humphrey ('88 all-time leading scorer - 1844 pts)
F: Kevin Kelleher ('80)
F: Mike Bauman ('92)
C: Mike Waggett ('82) - only played two years - 158 blocks

Toughest omisson: PG Greg Birsky, ('79) a distributor who could score.
Best pure shooter: Andrew Harris ('08), shot the three and had a great 12-15' baseline jumper - Phi Beta Kappa in Biochemistry, in med school now: quite a student-athlete.
Of the big guys, Aaron Smith ('09), in his junior year when he was healthy, was as good as anyone I have seen here. I wasn't here from 1971-76 when we had good teams (68-49) with three 1000 point scorers, so can't evaluate how good Pentkowski, Cummings, and Nelson were, alas.

[O-Boards10]

I would like to begin by throwing out my take on Bowdoin's best starting five:

G-Dennis Jacobi (1988-92)
G-Kyle Jackson (2005-09)
F-Gregg Fasulo (1974-78)
F-Chris Jerome (1979-83)
C-Joe Williams (1984-88)

No Kyle Petrie??

I have to admit that I saw more of Kyle Jackson than Kyle Petrie, even though they overlapped a bit.  In looking more at the numbers, Jackson leads in games played, but Petrie put up signifcantly more points, rebounds and assists than Jackson during the course of his career.    I could be convinced that Petrie is the better choice. 

Bobo McFarland and Dick Whitmore were certainly Bowdoin's best of the pre 1970s crowd.

You could be convinced? How about you convince us how Kyle Petrie does not make the list when he's top 5 in career points, rebounds, assists, and blocks as well as top 10 in steals. If you are going to make a list of great players having not seen them play and ignore any context of their games (which is ridiculous to begin with), it still doesnt makes sense how Petrie fails to make the list. At least the Amherst and Williams faithful can back their claims with actual in game analysis.

[muletrain]

Really excited for this weekends games. Will be splitting the insane 15 dollar streaming video charge with a bunch of friends and watching from Colby. I haven't seen Williams for two years but the player that stood out the most then was Geohegan. I haven't heard about him as much this year but am really worried. He posses a potential problem especially if Woodward gets in foul trouble. Colby will really need his 6'8 body down low for this one.

I am also very intrigued about the Choice/Shultz matchup. Would Shultz be able to guard Choice effectively? What type of defensive player is he anyway?

In regards to matchups, I feel pretty good in this game. I think that Williams is deeper and more talented but not nearly as tough of a matchup as midd. Midds length gave Colby a terrible time last year. With Van Loenen guarding Wang and Choice on Shultz, Colby's best two defenders will be guarding there best two players. If Russell and Woodward can stay out of foul trouble they will hold there own as well. I am hoping Fridays game goes down to the wire because Colby has been able to pull out close ones all year long. If they can limit Williams big runs they should be able to hang in there.

[nescac1]

Muletrain, while Geoghegan is the best defensive rebounder (by far) on Williams and a capable offensive player when called upon, Whittington is now the main low-post offensive threat on the team.  He is virtually unstoppable by most NESCAC centers one-on-one if he gets the ball within ten feet of the basket.  And he eats up bigger, slower guys like Woodword.  I am sure Colby will have a plan in place that does not involve Woodward trying to guard Whittington one-on-one in the post. 

Schultz is a very good defender, in my view the best one-on-one perimeter defender on Williams.  He is strong for his size, athletic, aggressive, works hard, gets a lot of off-ball steals when guys fall asleep, plus makes a ton of hustle plays.  I think as long as both stay free of fouls, he and Choice should match up fairly evenly.  As for Van Loenen, I'd be surprised if he is a better defender than Nolan Thompson (his d really impressed me) but we'll see ... in all events, the Ephs will really need someone besides the big three (most likely candidate is Rubin or Geoghegan, but this would be a nice time for a break-out offensive game from Robertson or Dodson as well) to step up and produce.   Getting Midd after Williams will be very rough for Colby, they probably do have a better chance in game one as that second half of NESCAC road trips is always tough after a hard-fought game ...