MBB: NESCAC

[frank uible]

Rule of 15? The conspiratorial control freaks in the NESCAC administrations are at it again. What is a purpose of the Rule of 15, which could not be addressed by each college independently for itself? One size does not fit all! Amherst would not tolerate Bowdoin's having a hand in determining the number of students enrolled in Amherst's English 101. Why should Bowdoin help determine the number of basketball players Amherst travels with when playing at Bowdoin?

[amh63]

Frank U.......Seem a little tense today.....about the upcoming Hamilton game and your "bet"?
My comment on Colby's players inserted in the game was to see if there had been a recent rule change...sort of thing.  In past years in the NCAA post season games like in the Final Four, there was or is a limit of 15 for dressed players.  At one such Final Four, an Amherst FY player was dressed for the semi-final game and not for the Final game.  Several team members traveled down to Salem and as I was told by Wheeler's mom (parent who had two players on the Amherst team), there was a coin flip choice for who dressed for the game.
Actually I do not know if there is a "CAC" rule for the number of dressed players for an away game and if there is, if it is ever enforced...do not care in truth.  I'm sure I have no worries with Williams and do not care if Williams dresses one of the assistants for the game at Amherst.  However, I do care if any Williams student cross-schedules a class at Amherst and takes a possible space in a class from a fellow 5-college student in the Pioneer Valley

[nescac1]

Ephs in a bit of trouble at Hamilton, down 8 right now in the second half.  Everything that can go wrong, is for Williams ... missing loads of foul shots, threes rimming in and out, crazy sloppy turnovers, uninspired defense overall.  Ephs will really need to pick it up to pull this one out. 

[NEhoops]

The top three are clear at this point, just a matter of who gets the top seed. Tufts has a strong hold on the four seed, but that is definitely not guaranteed at this point. After that there is a lot that is still up in the air. 

My early picks for the top ten players in the league up to this point (no particular order).

Scott Anderson – Tufts
Willy Workman – Amherst
Taylor Epley – Williams
Shasha Brown – Wesleyan
Mike Mayer – Williams
Aaron Toomey – Amherst
Joey Kizel – Middlebury
Graham Safford – Bates
Nolan Thompson – Middlebury
Keegan Pieri – Bowdoin

[lumbercat]

Purple nation can now join in on recognizing Matt Hart of Hamilton as the best FY in the conference. This kid has been playing extemely well all year but today's performance against Williams should convince the W-A-M syndicate that runs this board that this kid is for real.

[frank uible]

walzy: If you are courageous enough to lay me Williams plus 3 1/2 (or more) on Wednesday, I'll take it. Otherwise I'll sit on my hands.

[Ashley Parker Angel]

It's been awhile since my last post (or any Wes posts on the boards for that matter, it seems) and I'm afraid to admit that some of that has been due simply to a now-all-too-common case of post-webcast melancholy – a direct effect of hard-fought NESCAC games lost in the closing minutes (albeit after some great second half comebacks, i.e., Shasha Brown throwing his second free-throw directly off the front rim and proceeding to catch the rebound and tie the game v. Middlebury to end regulation). The Birds' Saturday win at Bates, though, certainly must have Cardinal spirits lifted and having played the CAC's big 3 already (as well as Tufts), the outlook for the remainder of the regular season is certainly a positive one.

With three NESCAC weekends to go, Wesleyan will head to Conn this coming Saturday and then to Hamilton in upstate NY the following weekend. Colby and Bates will then visit Silloway gymnasium to round out the regular season. Of course the Birds cannot afford to take any of these teams lightly, but I'm banking on some serious preparation from Coach Joe and the boys (and doubtless emotional motivation from St. Genius) as they head into the closing weeks and look to get hot heading into the NESCAC playoffs.

This is a special class of Cardinals (with two thousand-point scorers in Brown and Callaghan, as well as Beresford closing in on 1000 as the three of them look to make the first ever Wesleyan class of tri-thousand-point-scorers) and they are more talented than their current record suggests. Here's to a 6-4 NESCAC finish and a dark-horse conference championship.

And some early speculations on play-off seedings:
1. Amherst
2. Middlebury
3. Williams
4. Tufts
5. Wesleyan
6. Bowdoin
7. Bates
8. Trinity

CP

[Old Guy]

He (Nolan Thompson) guarded Matt Hart, and I think disrupted his shot. Hart hit two long threes in the 1st half. He has a really nice stroke. A frosh, he'll be heard from. 1/18/13

Not sure Hart has gone entirely under the radar. I wish there were Hamilton posters beating the drum for him.  I think the "W-A-M syndicate" would love to have company from other NESCAC precincts: hardly an exclusive club.

I started posting when it was all W-A trashtalk plus a few Bantams and Camels (remember CCSAlive?). Wish we had more posters - every team has good players and fans and bright prospects. 

[nescac1]

I'm sold on Matt Hart as the best NESCAC frosh I've seen (over Boornazian, Palleschi, Haldanya, Schill, although I haven't seen Green).  Can really shoot, crafty and getting into the lane and finishing over bigger guys. 

The bad news for Williams: they came out lethargic (hard to avoid with Amherst and MIdd on the horizon and playing in front of an empty gym) and didn't play with a lot of passion / energy until they got down by eight, after which they dominated the rest of the game.  Nate Robertson had his worst game of the year and something was clearly wrong with him (sick maybe?), just didn't have any of his usual energy on either end.  Epley coming off the bench (for unexplained reasons) seemed to throw him off a bit and he wasn't at his best, although he did nail three crucial threes.  Hamilton really picked apart the zone at times when the Ephs went zone.  The bench (other then Epley) produced very little beyond a nice dunk from Sean Hoffmann.  The Ephs shot uncharacteristically poorly from three and in particular from the line.  Lots of shots from both three and the line seemed to just barely rim out. 

The good news: despite all that, they won a road NESCAC game.  I really don't think they could play much worse offensively, and yet, they still managed the victory.  The man-to-man D basically completely shut down every player on Hamilton other than Hart.  Michael Mayer was unstoppable in the post, scoring with ease en route to 24-6-2 plus a steal and a block in only 27 minutes (first half foul trouble).  Daniel Wohl played with tons of energy on both ends, he continues to be a very efficient offensive finisher and a stellar defensive wing, an underappreciated player and a key guy for everything Williams does (no coincidence that he was hurt and missed the only game Williams lost).  His two-way play, along with Mayer's interior dominance, enabled the win despite a rough game for the Ephs. 

Overall, nice to come away with a win in a trap game when the team wasn't at its sharpest.  I expect the Ephs to come out much sharper in the two huge games ahead vs. Amherst and Middlebury.   Seems like Toomey, who had not been playing to his usual standards, has returned to playing like one of the top three elite guys in NESCAC.  Williams is going to really have to clamp down on him and make other guys on Amherst beat them.  I'd give him a heavy dose of Wohl to save Nate Robertson from foul trouble and conserve his energy, but also Nate can handle him as well as you can ask for defensively, so long as he has fresher legs than he did today and doesn't pick up cheap fouls.  Mayer is going to have to use his quickness advantage to pull Kaasila out of the pain, you figure Workman will smother Epley so Mayer is going to have to come up with another big game on Wednesday. 

[grabtherim]

Of course the Birds cannot afford to take any of these teams lightly, but I'm banking on some serious preparation from Coach Joe and the boys (and doubtless emotional motivation from St. Genius) as they head into the closing weeks and look to get hot heading into the NESCAC playoffs.

This is a special class of Cardinals (with two thousand-point scorers in Brown and Callaghan, as well as Beresford closing in on 1000 as the three of them look to make the first ever Wesleyan class of tri-thousand-point-scorers) and they are more talented than their current record suggests. Here's to a 6-4 NESCAC finish and a dark-horse conference championship.

CP

Pardon my ignorance, who is "St. Genius"?  As for the special group of Cardinals, it's nice to have those points, but I would bet each would be happy to trade them for a NESCAC playoff win and a NCAA appearance. I'm sort of dumbfounded by Cards record under Riley. I expected better results from the squad the past two seasons.  I have to believe supporters of the program did too. Any grumbling among the faithful in Middletown?

[toad22]

Williams had a very good win at Hamilton today. Quite a few Williams players were quite sick, including one starter, who was throwing up before the game. Given everything, I felt very good with the way they played, and the outcome. Hart is really very good. He should be a star in the coming years. Daniel Wohl played a great game today. The stats don't reflect his importance to Williams today. I think he is well on his way to becoming an all-league player sometime in his career. I just hope Williams is in better shape health-wise on Wednesday, than they were today. 

[madzillagd]

Nescac1 - as you suspected there are 4 or 5 guys on the team that are battling the flu/virus going around so I think the energy level and stamina was just not there today.  Under the circumstances I'm glad just to get away with a road win.  Hopefully all can get healthy because the biggest week of the year so far is upon us with two big games this week. 

[madzillagd]

Jinx

[frank uible]

With their purported high intelligence, aren't the Williams players smart enough to have gotten flu shots?

[toad22]

I asked about that. They all got flu shots.