MBB: NESCAC

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Williams is still the better team, I think.  They played sloppy and will come together.

I don't think this is one of those fluke opening games though where a bad team gets lucky.  Southern Vermont is very good, maybe even better than their pie in the sky coach expected them to be.

Rutgers-Newark tomorrow is the best team left on their schedule.  They've got a legit chance to go undefeated with this roster and that slate of games.  Crazy go nuts.

[nescac1]

Agreed.  SVT is going to post the biggest single-season WL turnaround in D3 history.  It's almost a lock.  They are legitimately good, even though Williams didn't come close to giving them the Ephs' best game. 

BTW, I'm not sure what the odds would have been for every NESCAC team, save for Williams, winning on opening night ... maybe 1000-1?  Strange things happen in sports, that is for sure.  But I think this result will look a lot less strange in hindsight, once we see SVT's record in a few months ...

[grabtherim]

S. VT drops Midd from their schedule tired of years of being crushed by the Panthers so what happens? They beat the mighty Ephs. Go figure.

[lumbercat]

NESCAC 1-
You got beat tonight- .....bad calls ......etc etc etc
It's  long season, the Ephs will bounce back...suck it up

[middhoops]

Whew.  Vandy74 and I just returned to our hotel. 
A few notes.
Alvernia is better than the final score indicated.  They are very fast, disciplined, smart and well coached.  No Middlebury partisan watching that game would like to meet up with them again.  They are going to win a lot of games this season.
Matt Daley didn't just have the coming out game many of us anticipated; he made it look exceptionally easy.
Jack Roberts had more than three times as man blocked shots as the official scorer gave him.  Back to back to back in one sequence.  Roberts altered countless other shots as well.  He was huge.
All of us were surprised at the Baruch victory.  Early on, F&M didn't allow them to get any shots off.

We would like to thank the Middlebury parents for inviting us to their post game soiree.  James Jensen's parents went out of their way to make us feel welcome in what was a family oriented environment.  "These are the bloggers, Vandy74 and Middhoops...."
Such truly nice people.
Players and parents alike gathered around mobile devices to watch the stunning victory by Southern Vermont.  Watching Eph players hit the ceiling twice in the closing seconds was perplexing, but overall, everyone seemed to agree that a new day has dawned in Bennington.
We old guys are looking forward to the Baruch game tomorrow.  If Baruch can beat a tough F&M team on their home court, a true rarity, they can beat Middlebury, too.  Just not if Midd's bigs put up 40 points again.

Thanks again to the players and parents for making a couple of ol' hoops junkies feel like 'insiders'.

[7express]

F&M must not be very good this year if Baruch can beat them on their own court.

[Panthernation]

One other thing: this is the first full game I've seen with the new reffing.  Wow it is horrible to watch.  A touch foul called (both ways) on nearly every play it seemed like.  No rhythm whatsoever to the game and tons of guys seem to be in foul trouble.  I really, really hope this does not last the entire season or it is going to be a lot less fun to watch hoops.

This point shouldn't get lost in the shuffle of SVC's unbelievable upset. We saw the same thing in the Middlebury game, with a number of truly baffling calls—often on the offensive end. It seems like the officials, in addition to calling hand-check calls defensively, are also more sensitive to the arm bar that ball handlers (Kizel) sometimes use to create space between themselves and defenders. Kizel and St. Amour were both called for tick-tack offensive fouls regarding use of their off-arm/hand, in scenarios where I've never seen a foul called. Perhaps it was just today's officiating crew (they missed a pair of blatant goaltends off the backboard, as you noted nescac1) but if this officiating remains constant, I agree, NESCAC basketball is going to be considerably more frustrating to watch.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

F&M must not be very good this year if Baruch can beat them on their own court.

They weren't very good last year, but I did read they've had some injury problems.

[Old Guy]

There's dancing in the streets here in West Africa this morning. Well, I'm dancing in the street and getting very strange looks from people who don't look resemble me much and are shaking their heads and saying: "Monsieur Le Blanc est fou!" Six hour time difference. I'm an old guy - I went to bed in the first half. Young Guy (who is going home to start the second semester as a frosh at Middlebury) stayed up and was grateful for the tweets. Today's game starts at 9:00 pm here - and we'll be tuning in, one way or another. Young Guy loves basketball and is a wonderful writer - I'm encouraging him to sit at the feet of Panther Nation (when do they go to class? That's my only worry).

Green Mountain, next week's Midd opponent (who drew some derision on this board recently) has an ambitious young coach and a bunch of new faces (9 frosh) that don't much match the VT demographic (including a 6'10" fr from Oklahoma; two 6'8" fr from Texas and Spain). That would be something, if So VT (4-46 the last two years) and Green Mountain (4-20 last year) knocked off nationally ranked Wms and Midd in early season games. GrMtn plays SoVT on Friday.

Some things jump out from the box score of the Midd-Alvernia game: Midd's rebounding edge of 51-37 (22 offensive!) - Middlebury was not a particularly good rebounding team last year; without looking, I suspect we did not have an edge like this all year. Is it only because Alvernia is small?

Kizel would like to have shot a better % from the floor (4-14), but I'll take 14 pts (4-4 from the line - he's such a good ft shooter), 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals in 38 minutes. He will be the focus of other team's attention like never before, especially given the preseason A-A selection. He will have to make his teammates better (he can do that and still hit the last-second shot).

No other Panther played those minutes. Daley and Merryman had 25 - in all ten players played double-digit minutes, and presumably Jensen and Brown will be in the rotation soon enough. That's challenging depth. 23 minutes on the floor for St. Amour - looks like he can play up a level.

Deconstructing a box score to analyze past performance and predict future performance is like reading the Racing Form: lots of information, lots of imponderables.

[Clutch]

Middlebury had the height and the length to rebound, not to mention Alvernia missed a lot of long shots causing rebounds, the officiating was baffling to say the least. Alvernia could have won the game if they shot better.  In my experience this part of the metro area in Philly is saturated with may colleges so height is not prominent at the D3 level due to so many school concentrated in one area, not talking about the average 6'6-6'8 guy who cant move but the 6-7 6-10 guys who can play the game and sit on a bench for a D1 program.  Correct me if I am wrong, with all due respect it is more difficult to get the height and talent the Northeast can get due to the structure of athletics up there it seems as if you either play for a D1 or D3 in the Northeast with players having d1 talent and height heading to the d3 programs to play for an other than Ivy league program, objectively speaking if you look at the NEast, such as the MIT players etc.....up there everyone seems to be bigger where as down in the Mid Atlantic it seems there could be more talent and speed in a smaller guy who just cannot compete in the D1 schools in the metro area therefore they seem smaller, faster, etc..... just my personal observation.  Having seen many Neast teams play they all seem well coached, slow the game down for the most part when playing against a team with bigs the games seem to be disciplined, clean, crisp versus speed demons and slashing down here in the mid atlantic.   Having said the above, the exception is the NE teams with depth who can play small on the court as well have the advantage over the constantly small teams with a couple of bigs who are not as talented as the bigs up North... for what its worth just how I see it.....

[nescac1]

Panthernation, from what I understand the officiating we saw last night is the new official policy.  In Williams-SVT, there was very little flow or rhythm to the game at all (particularly in the first half) because of how many whistles there were.  Both teams players were utterly mystified at some of the calls.  It makes it very difficult to press (as SVT did a lot) without picking up a ton of fouls when any touch foul on the body is called.  Similar, guarding physical guys in the post seems nearly impossible as well, because if they bang into you while you are just standing there, you are called for a foul.  There has already been a ton of backlash at all levels of college hoops, and I think that players and coaches will adjust somewhat but that also as the season goes on the officials will regress back towards calling less fouls as players, fans and coaches continue to express anger.  At least so I hope. 

As for Williams, lumbercat, not sure that I said anything different.  I'm not worried at all about the Williams starting unit which is going to be very difficult to stop as the season moves along.  It is only one game and sometimes upsets happen.  This game will be a wake-up call and I expect them to come out with a TON of fire at home tonight.  I do hope to see a lot more out of the bench, but as the younger guys gain experience I think they will show more. 

SVT is a really great story and if I were not an Eph fan I would be very excited for them -- the coach is clearly going to be very good and it is amazing how many really talented players he convinced to come to a program that was maybe the worst in D-3 last year, and also most of them are at a TINY rural school far from home.  Just an epic recruiting job.  They were also very well-prepared for everything the Ephs threw at them.  They could really be a national force in another year or so, clearly modeled after the elite teams he played for and against (St. Mary's and Cabrini).  Similar style of players and play, just not quite at that talent level -- yet. 

[middhoops]

Clutch, I'd say you hit that nail squarely on the head.
It's interesting that the higher rated academic schools in the NE seem to also have talented big guys.  I am not suggesting any cause and effect.  Clearly, tall kids favor MIT these days.
The Alvernia guards were faster, more aggressive and more daring offensively than most talented NESCAC back court players.  Also, the reason Alvernia missed the outside shots you refer to is that Jack Roberts made it nearly impossible for them to shoot near the hoop.  They also made a lot of outside shots.  Some with very high degrees of difficulty due to two Panthers draped over them 23' from the hoop.

[Old Guy]

SVT is a really great story and if I were not an Eph fan I would be very excited for them -- the coach is clearly going to be very good and it is amazing how many really talented players he convinced to come to a program that was maybe the worst in D-3 last year, and also most of them are at a TINY rural school far from home.  Just an epic recruiting job. NESCAC 1

From 2002-2004 Southern Vermont had three very successful seasons (57-29) under a coach named Ryan Marks. They were 3-22 the year before he came and 2-21 the year after he left. In 2003, they went 24-6 and made an NCAA tournament appearance. They defeated Middlebury teams in close games in two of those three years. They haven't had much luck since then (though they were 16-11 in 2011), bottoming out recently.

Marks has a Wikipedia page: he went from SoVT to D2 St. Edwards (Austin, Texas) for five successful years, followed by five relatively unsuccessful years at Texas-Pan American. He is in his first year as head coach at St. Francis of Illinois, an NAIA school.

[P'bearfan]

Bowdoin's season got off to a good start last night as they took apart WCSU 80-55.  A couple of thoughts:

-While Bowdoin will miss Hurley they did a good job adjusting and they handled the press from an athletic WCSU team.  If they continue to keep their composure and handle pressure defense the way they did lat night they'll be OK.

-Grant White had a monster game scoring 20 points - a career high.  He's starting the season healthy and that's made all the difference in the world.  He adds another serious scoring threat which is terrific news for the P'bears.

-Swords had a very solid game - playing 31 minutes and finishing with a double double (11 pts and 13 rebounds).  He could have scored even more if Bowdoin was more effective in feeding him the ball when he got position down low.

-Despite the change in the rules, the game was very physical.  I was surprised by how much banging occurred down low.  It will be interesting to see if that continues tonight.

-Bowdoin had very balanced scoring with three players in double figures (White; Swords; Pieri) and two more players with 9 each (Mathias and Madlinger).  I suspect they'll need that kind of balance going forward.

Bowdoin should be in good position tonight against Regis.  Regis looks similar to WCSU - smaller but very athletic and aggressive on D.  Should be a fun game!

Go P'bears!!

[grabtherim]

"SVT is going to post the biggest single-season WL turnaround in D3 history.  It's almost a lock."  How dare they beat Williams.  Do so and you are destined to make history.  All you guys from Southern Vt.  , book your trips to Salem, it's almost a lock. 

Agreed.  SVT is going to post the biggest single-season WL turnaround in D3 history.  It's almost a lock.  They are legitimately good, even though Williams didn't come close to giving them the Ephs' best game. 

BTW, I'm not sure what the odds would have been for every NESCAC team, save for Williams, winning on opening night ... maybe 1000-1?  Strange things happen in sports, that is for sure.  But I think this result will look a lot less strange in hindsight, once we see SVT's record in a few months ...