MBB: NESCAC

[7express]

I know its a couple days away, and people here are still talking Mid/Williams, but LEC/NESCAC matchups this week:

Tuesday:
Amherst @ RIC (the best game, imo)
Tufts @ Mass-Dartmouth
Keene @ Middlebury
Western @ Conn College
Southern Maine @ Colby and on Wednesday:
Wesleyan @ Eastern.

Will we be getting spreads for these games Walzy??

As an LEC fan I'll be happy if we can get 2 wins.
RIC can't score, Keene can't play defense, Dartmouth is awful, and Wesleyan has beaten Eastern the last 3 years, iirc.  USM/Colby is probably the most likely win, and Western probably SHOULD beat Conn College, but we haven't been able to close out games.  I have a feeling at least 1 of those 2 teams (USM/Western) lose.

[LarryBasketball33]

Been sitting on the sidelines watching and listening to all of the chatter, but something just struck me.  The NESCAC must be a pretty good conference when the #3 team in the country drops to #3 in the conference with a one on the right hand column.  Will the NESCAC get three bids this year?  The only way I see that happening is if Amherst, Williams and Middlebury only lose to each other from here on out. Otherwise you probably see two moving on.   

[nescac1]

Larry, I put the odds at better than 50-50 for all three of Williams, Amherst and Midd to make the tourney.  Midd can certainly lose two more, and perhaps three, and still get an at-large bid.  I just don't see a NESCAC team with three or fewer losses being kept out (and doubtful one with four or fewer), especially when the competition from New England in particular isn't exactly stellar this year (especially if WPI, another at-large lock, wins NEWMAC).  Williams with the win over Midd is also in very good shape ... the Ephs already have some solid regional SOS wins including at Springfield, at Curry, at Tufts, and Midd, and so long as they finish with four or fewer losses, I'd have to think they would probably be in, and might even squeeze in with five so long as the fifth loss didn't come in the first round of the NESCAC tourney (Ephs' SOS will be helped by playing only 10/24 games at home).  Amherst, which is playing the best of the three right now, actually has the toughest road, since the Jeffs have two regional losses including a home and neutral court loss, and a back-loaded schedule with a very tough stretch ahead at RIC, Tufts, Bates, at Midd, at Williams.  Amherst will probably have to win 3/5 of those games (maybe even 4/5) to secure an at-large bid, and while they are favored to do so, that is far from a lock.  Now, if someone can pull a huge upset and win the NESCAC tourney unexpectedly, it might be hard to get a total of four NESCAC teams in.  But right now, all three are well-positioned. 

The more I hear about Williams' week, the more impressed I am.  With a significant portion of the team fighting illness all week, including 2/3 stars, Williams gutted out a huge road win at Hamilton and the Midd game, and bounced back nicely from the discouraging road loss at Amherst loss in between.  The Ephs weren't as efficient as they had been in prior weeks, but with a lot of travel vs. very tough competition and a squad under the weather, it's understandable, and that shows this team had toughness.  Hopefully the team (and Taylor Epley in particular) can get the offensive efficiency rolling again with a lot more practice time ahead after this week.   Southern Vermont should provide a good chance for the bench to get some more playing time and maybe get into a groove.  The Bowdoin road game worries me, the long Maine trip is never easy and Bowdoin always plays Williams tough, and Swords seems to be coming on a bit inside, but if the Ephs can pull out three wins this week, they will be in great shape for a postseason bid. 

Finally, no way Midd fans can blame the refs for that one.  Yeah, some of the calls on the big guy (especially the last one) were tough, but the Midd bigs were consistently hacking Mayer inside and could have been called for a few that weren't whistled.  Epley also got clobbered a few times without getting a call, and the last Epley charge call (right before the play that Lynch fouled out) was equally dubious.  Two of the three fouls on Nate that made him sit for a key stretch in the first half also were of the touch-foul variety.  The Ephs definitely benefits from some fortunate foul calls, no doubt, but I certainly don't think the loss can be attributed to the refs. The second half was extremely physical both ways and tough to call, a lot of shoving and grabbing in general ... 

[LarryBasketball33]

Finally, no way Midd fans can blame the refs for that one.  Yeah, some of the calls on the big guy (especially the last one) were tough, but the Midd bigs were consistently hacking Mayer inside and could have been called for a few that weren't whistled.  Epley also got clobbered a few times without getting a call, and the last Epley charge call (right before the play that Lynch fouled out) was equally dubious.  Two of the three fouls on Nate that made him sit for a key stretch in the first half also were of the touch-foul variety.  The Ephs definitely benefits from some fortunate foul calls, no doubt, but I certainly don't think the loss can be attributed to the refs. The second half was extremely physical both ways and tough to call, a lot of shoving and grabbing in general ...

I did not read anything about the refs being blamed for the loss, rather there was some griping about Coach Maker being a 4th ref throughout the game.  Not sure if that's justified or not.  Bad calls tend to even out over a game.  I hope you're right about 3 NESCAC teams making the Big Dance.  At this point, I see all three as legit Top 25 teams.  Many games to play to confirm or change that.   

[amh63]

Again it is a bright sunny day here in MD and up at Amherst (checked the camera feed on the FY quad) and I had a primarily positive post planned....a glass half full sort of thing....but a post has changed my mood a bit. 
Old Guy....I did check the scores at halftime...when both Bates and Midd. were up.  I do not always like to get stressed watching games that I do not have a stake in...so to speak.
7 Express wants to become a regular on the "CAC" board, I see.  He joined me last season for the Amherst vs. William game in LeFrak at my invitation.  After dining in "Val", we sat on bench seats near the floor and the Amherst "tunnel" entrance.  LeFrak was packed, as expected and over the Fire Chief limits, I'm sure.  7 Express had his LeFrak experience enhanced by having a group of fine-looking Amherst women supporters sitting at his feet on the playing floor.  Me, I had a bunch of standing big male students blocking my view at critical times. 
Now to some game observations from yesterday....With the large number of insertion of Trinity players in bunches, and the wish to speed the game up, I briefly thought that Trinity's coach was playing his version of the now much discussed "Grinnell" style.  Trinity's players are young and their play showed it.  Still, they have two front court players, that stood out.  The soph. from Greece is willing to battle down low and inside...even blocked one of "Big Pete's" shots.  There is also a FY player from Brooklyn that played with a great deal of energy and has a very physical and aggressive approach to the game. At this time, IMO, he is raw and needs coaching in his play.  Why?  I posted earlier that the game was like a boxing match and at times the young Trinity players were indeed Bantams.
After an inside play, the announcer stated that Toomey got hit in the face with an elbow...no foul called.  Aaron was seen another time shaking a blow off...scary.  After another play inside, Willy fell/knocked? to the floor in a battle inside.  He fell in an awkward way...getting up slowly as the play went down the floor...scary.  He was also seen to not get into a play....turning away and seemed to be checking the condition of his mouth.  The game was stopped and Willy walked over to the bench.  Other "scary" plays..involving the Brooklyn FY player and Williamson of Amherst.  On a seemly break away by Allen....going for a dunk, a hard foul was given that knocked Allen to the floor.  Later, during a Toomey pass for a Allen dunk, Allen was cut underneath and fell hard on his back to the floor...scary.  There seemed to be some words exchanged between players and to Trinity's coach's credit, the FY Trinity player was taken out of the game.   The Amherst website has a better recap of the game.

[amh63]

Here again...I guess for now, it is my first step to brevity...post again on a subject mentioned in another post.
The subject here is that I am getting a little annoyed by some of Williams' posts of late.  Not so much the info/opinions provided as an inference made by repeating particular information.   To the point.
There has been some close and well fought Williams games posted by posters from both sides of the contests.  Critical games, rival games.   In the Hamilton vs. Williams game, we find that a number of the Williams players had been ill...with the flu, etc.  and it may have affected the final outcome of the game/score.  I got it!   There was a close hard fought Williams vs. Middlebury game yesterday....coming down to the last second.  Fine posts on the games from both Williams and Panther supporters.  Though I did not watch it, I got the flavor and atmosphere from the posts.  Thank you all.  A recent post game post pointed out that Williams players were again hit by illness..even the coach.  I got it!  Illness, injuries, etc. occur during the season and is just part of the game and coaches plan for it...at least the good coaches...think recruiting, bench strength, player development.
Today, I read in a Williams supporter post the point of illness brought up again.....illness over a two weekend period, to infer maybe that it affected the games played.  That I find in bad taste.  When I read that the Coach was fighting the flu, I thought of Bucket and his family catching it.
After reading the latest posting of the flu subject....I start to think that maybe it is also inferring that Amherst's win over Williams in yes another hard fought game...was somehow impacted by Williams players being STILL ill.  Come on guys....such posts to me puts down the play of the opponents.
A number of years ago, 4-5 years maybe...when Midd. hosted a "CAC" tourney, I watched in LeFrak the Williams and Middlebury games. Amherst lost to Williams on Friday but lucked out and beat the Panthers on Sat.  The Panthers beat Amherst in the NESCAC finals by the fine play of their PG/scorer...Rudin?  On Friday, I met and talked to the father of the Amherst center from Landon in MD.  He was somewhat down and out when I asked him how his son and the team was up for the game.  He stated that the team had been battling illness all week....there were not enough players to have full/good practices all week.  Some key players was not yet at full strength.  Amherst never reported the state of the players or used illness as some excuse.  For me, it made Amherst's win on Sat. a little sweeter.  Enough said on this matter by me.  If I loose Karma points, so be it.

[lefrakenstein]

Here again...I guess for now, it is my first step to brevity...post again on a subject mentioned in another post.
The subject here is that I am getting a little annoyed by some of Williams posts of late.  Not so much the info/opinions provided as an inference made by repeating particular information.   To the point.
There has been some close and well fought Williams games posted by board posters from both sides of the contests.  Critical games, rival games.   In the Hamilton vs. Williams game, we find that a number of the Williams players had been ill...with the flue, etc.  and it may have affected the final outcome of the game/score.  I got it!   There was a close high fought Williams vs. Middlebury game played yesterday....coming down to the last second.  Fine posts on the games from both Williams and Panther supporters.  Though I did not watch it, I got the flavor and atmosphere from the fine posts.  Thank you all.  A recent post game post pointed out that Williams players were again hit by illness..even the coach.  I got it!  Illness, injuries, etc. occur during the season and is just part of the game and coaches plan for it...at least the good coaches...think recruiting, bench strength, player development.
Today, I read in a Williams supporter post the point of illness brought up again.....illness over a two weekend period, to infer maybe that it affected the games played.  That I find in bad taste.  When I read that the Coach was fighting the flu, I thought of Bucket and his family catching it.
After reading the latest posting of the flu subject....I start to think that maybe it is also inferring that Amherst's win over Williams in yes another hard fought game...was somehow impacted by Williams players being STILL ill.  Come on guys....such posts to me puts down the play of the opponents.
A number of years ago, 4-5 years maybe...when Midd. hosted a "CAC" tourney, I watched in LeFrak the Williams and Middlebury games. Amherst lost to Williams on Friday but lucked out and beat the Panthers on Sat.  The Panthers beat Amherst in the NESCAC finals by the fine play of their PG/scorer...Rubin?  On Friday, I met and talked to the father of the Amherst center from Landon in MD.  He was somewhat down and out when I asked him how his son and the team was up for the game.  He stated that the team had been battling illness all weekend....there were not enough players to have full/good practices all week.  Some key players was not yet at full strength.  Amherst never reported the state of the players or used illness as some excuse.  For me, Amherst's win on Sat. a little sweeter.  Enough said on this matter by me.  If I loose Karma points, so be it.

There has, in fairness, been a lot of flu going around. I don't think it's so far fetched that it could impact various players on a team over the duration of even an entire month. Hopefully everyone on the three main teams is healthy for the final weekend and for the 'CAC tournament. That's going to be a really tough weekend for Amherst... it's so hard to beat any of the top three teams in their home gym.

[jumpshot]

Two final comments on Williams' win that showed a lot of resilence (as Coach Maker pointed out in his post game remarks), character, and courage versus Middlebury ---

1. Consider that in the final 7 minutes, 20 seconds the following six different players made big plays:

Nate Robertson: a layup, 2 assists, a block;
Michael Mayer: 2 layups, a steal;
James Klemm: a jump shot;
Taylor Epley: a rebound, 4 foul shots;
Sean Hoffman: 1 dunk, 2 rebounds;
Daniel Wohl: a block, winning layup.

2. We all have gained a lot of respect for Panther Pride from observing Middlebury men and woman's teams in all sports (as well as "fair, balanced and mature" posters), particularly in the past decade or so in which Middlebury has escalated its athletic prominence. The consistent tone of competing well generally without the poor behavior exhibited on recent occasions by some players, coaches, students, and fans of other NESCAC schools is an attribute worth sustaining. Well done, Midd!

[Bucket]

Finally, no way Midd fans can blame the refs for that one.  Yeah, some of the calls on the big guy (especially the last one) were tough, but the Midd bigs were consistently hacking Mayer inside and could have been called for a few that weren't whistled.  Epley also got clobbered a few times without getting a call, and the last Epley charge call (right before the play that Lynch fouled out) was equally dubious.  Two of the three fouls on Nate that made him sit for a key stretch in the first half also were of the touch-foul variety.  The Ephs definitely benefits from some fortunate foul calls, no doubt, but I certainly don't think the loss can be attributed to the refs. The second half was extremely physical both ways and tough to call, a lot of shoving and grabbing in general ...

I, for one, wasn't blaming the refs. Yes, the 5th on Peter was bogus and had a big impact (Pete out, Epley at the line with the clock stopped), but Epley still had to make the free throws and each team still had to make plays to secure the win. So, it didn't decide at the game, and there were equally dubious calls the other way. Just typically bad officiating on a Saturday in New England.

A lot of guys playing with/affected by the flu this time of year, including key Middlebury players. A fact of collegiate life.

[nescac1]

Amh63, forgive me if it was another Amherst poster, but I could have sworn it was you, who mentioned on these boards on multiple occasions that a bunch of Amherst players were sick one time that Williams beat Amherst a few years ago, I know that info didn't reach me out of thin air.  Kind of funny how it's OK to talk about it when Amherst players are afflicted by illness (and in fact, you yourself have DEFINITELY mentioned illnesses and ailments suffered by Amherst players on NUMEROUS occasions this year), but when Williams players are puking before games, etc., it's suddenly verboten to even MENTION it.  Not one Williams poster "blamed" the Williams loss to Amherst on players being sick -- the Ephs got spanked, Amherst played great, Williams could have played better, and the results reflected exactly that, as I think everyone recognized.  I think things will be better at Chandler but Amherst with its team speed and athleticism definitely presents some match-up problems for Williams this year.  It's more in the way of complimenting the toughness and resilience of the Williams team when so many key players played so many minutes, through illness, in three very tough games over the course of one week, and still managed to have enough left in the tank to make clutch plays down the stretch in the third of those games, after a very physical and intense battle by both groups of players throughout the second half.   Sheesh.

Two good points by jumpshot.  Plus one ... 

After a lot of big games this week, not sure how much has really been cleared up.  WPI is now the team to beat in New England although I kind of doubt they are in a class above the NESCAC elite.  WPI, Amherst, Midd and Williams are probably four teams who can beat each other on any given day, and should be closely grouped in the next top 25.  RIC can put themselves into that group with a win vs. Amherst on Tuesday, but I think will have a tough time with Amherst's size advantage and they will need to shoot from distance better than they have shown to date (although RIC is one of the few teams who is even quicker than Amherst, and they also have a ton of depth to run at the Jeffs, so I expect a very competitive battle).  Brandeis loses tough UAA games which knocks them down a peg.  Right now, WPI, the big three from NESCAC, RIC and maybe Albertus Magnus are the only New England teams left with a fighting chance to earn an at-large bid should any of them fail to win their conference tourney.

[amh63]

I made my points and your response, nescac 1 is unexpectly "childish", IMO.  First, yes several years ago, I believe,  I mentioned the same story that I posted earlier....probably for the same reason. However, the story was first posted about 2, TWO, years after the event.  Second, my comment to your follow up comments on the issue in question is that they are not really related and in context...thus my "childish" remark above.  Really, Williams has a fine team this year and the players efforts, IMHO, were seen by the viewers of the games.  There will be several more battles ahead, I fear, between Amherst and Wiliams and with Middlebury.  Once played, they should be enjoyed as contests between the participants on the floor....not to be replayed here..often badly and for the wrong reasons..by posters.
Have a good day.

[walzy31]

I know its a couple days away, and people here are still talking Mid/Williams, but LEC/NESCAC matchups this week:

Tuesday:
Amherst @ RIC (the best game, imo)
Tufts @ Mass-Dartmouth
Keene @ Middlebury
Western @ Conn College
Southern Maine @ Colby and on Wednesday:
Wesleyan @ Eastern.

Will we be getting spreads for these games Walzy??

NESCAC / LEC Challenge Spreads

Amherst -10.5
Tufts -23.0
Middlebury -10.0 (O/U: 113.0)
Western Conn -15.5
Southern Maine -20.0
Eastern Conn -1.5

NESCAC will go 3-2 going into that Wes/Eastern game which is basically a toss up. I'll be at the RIC game Tuesday...they always play us tough and actively (especially on defense).

[WPI89]

 

NESCAC / LEC Challenge Spreads

Amherst -10.5  Amherst
Tufts -23.0 UMASS
Middlebury -10.0 (O/U: 113.0)  Midd
Western Conn -15.5  West Conn
Southern Maine -20.0  Colby
Eastern Conn -1.5  Wesleyan

NESCAC will go 3-2 going into that Wes/Eastern game which is basically a toss up. I'll be at the RIC game Tuesday...they always play us tough and actively (especially on defense).

[amh63]

Awaiting warmer weather as icy mix is falling outside.  Decided to share some side notes that may be of interest.
Williams is looking for new OCC opponents for next season on three dates...saw info on the "board" that is titled ...open bb dates.
During the Williams vs. Amherst game the announcers gave a shout out to Aaron Toomey's older brother who was watching the game in North Carolina.  The brothers were team mates in high school.  The older bro. attends NCS and was awaiting a big rivalry game with UNC in Raleigh.   State has not beaten Duke and Carolina in the same season in a decade.  The Toomeys were celebrating that night..parents were up for Aaron's big game.   Maybe this will be the year Amherst takes trips north and wins against the Ephs and Panthers.
WALZY..make sure you get one of the seats with back supports.  According to 7express the back rest were added this season.....actually many of the LEC venues have nice seating.
It was Nescac 1 that pointed out Willy Workman's abilities first...to me.  Got to give credit when credit is due.....thanks Nescac 1!
Learned from the announcers during the Trinity game that Willy....who set a personal high in points in the Williams game....has increased his scoring in each of his Williams contests.  Nice!

[Old Guy]

Keene State beat Middlebury last year, 77-76

The Owls are 11-7 this year, with tight losses to Springfield, RIC, Plattsburgh, SoME, EConn.