MBB: NESCAC

[old_hooper]

Tough loss for the Jeffs.  Certainly missed the presence of Killian on defense.  Kinda makes you wonder how of many of those second chance points would have been negated had he been there. Emerson is a very capable team and Coach O'Brien has them playing hard and smart.  They kept their composure and had an answer for everything Amherst would throw at them.  They definitely were not the same team today that lost to Wesleyan.  Kalema really struggled on offense again and made some bad decisions at crucial times in the game.  Could it be he might be a better player coming in off the bench? It is still early in the season and we will see how they respond against a good Brandeis team next week.  amh63 you are correct, depth will be a question for this team. 

[amh63]

Madz.....it was not me as I was eating lunch and watching the game and then trying to get comfort from my wife...me, I was moping and quietly crying in the corner of her home office. In any case, will cover your lost.
Hope the other conference teams hold up the honor of the "CAC'. 
Need to get the Amherst game out of my mind....waiting for the next game to watch.  Thinking about watch the RIC vs ECSU game.....too hard for me to root for Williams vs. Springfield for conf. honors
Forgot....an announcer mentioned that Killian was out of the game because of a strain in his arm?  No mention of Pollock.  Those on the Pollock watch....caught pictures of the Anna Maria game..better days .  There was a picture of Pollock sitting on the bench..at ease.  Surprising to see Ray Berry in uniform on the bench.

[magicman]

Surprise- Jim O'Brien's Emerson team upsets Amherst.

The scoreboard is screwed up, the game is just starting now.

Was that a harbinger of things to come?

And madz, I gave you a plus K to make up for whoever it was that dinged you for your comment that didn't deserve  to be dinged.

[madzillagd]

Skidmore providing a unique twist on streaming broadcast in which you watch the announcer watching the game.  It's oddly fascinating.

Meanwhile the Williams feed is still not up so I assume the women's game ran long.

[P'bearfan]

Bowdoin defeats Colby 82-64.  I was only able to watch part of the webcast and haven't seen the box score so I'll give initial (and not fully informed) impressions.

Bowdoin took control perhaps mid-way through the first half and the Mules never really threatened (they shrank the lead to 8 just before the half).  What was impressive was that Bowdoin played well with Swords sitting on the bench for a significant part of the second half.  Swords picked up his second foul with perhaps less than 1 minute left in the first half.  He proceeded to pick up fouls 3 and 4 early in the second half before heading to the bench.  Despite missing Swords presence in the middle Bowdoin managed to increase their lead (didn't see this part of the game so I'm not sure what happened).

Nice win for the P'bears.  Hopefully they can keep it going.

Btw, have to love technology.  At one point this afternoon I was watching my daughter's JV high school lacrosse game while simultaneously watching the Bowdoin-Colby game on my tablet.  Very cool.

[jayhawk]

Tough game at Emerson. Amherst without 3 of their bigs who did not suit up-- Pollack, Killian, and Nabaotff.  Amherst lost because Emerson had too many second chance points-
Amherst did not lose that game because of the play of any single player-- Absolutely not

Playing at Emersion home court has the added challenge of playing in very confined space but not the reason Amherst lost.

Games like this can serve as a wake up call

[madzillagd]

Ephs squeezed out the win with some good free throw shooting down the stretch.  Definitely a game where Mayer was missed.  Ephs got pounded down low but managed to get some key blocks and boards down the stretch. 

[lumbercat]

Bowdoin continues red hot on threes- 50% again today against Colby for second night in a row.

[nescac1]

Great five point win for Williams over a tough, physical Springfield team who will no doubt be in the top two in NEWMAC and looks like an NCAA squad to me.  Certainly the toughest team Williams has played this year. Williams won the game with great shooting from three and in particular from the line (25-28).

The Ephs REALLY missed their two injured centers today, as Springfield just overpowered them inside, with 15 offensive rebounds and loads of interior points.  Williams just could not keep the beefier Springfield bigs out of the paint, and Tim Swenson in particular killed them.  Resorted to fronting him a lot, which wasn't terribly effective plus created even more offensive rebound opportunities.  Williams did not utilize its bench much and got limited production when they did, and the starting unit looked visibly exhausted in the second half -- yet somehow, some way, gutted out the win.

For Williams, Taylor Epley was big on offense, continuing to light it up from deep with four threes, three of which were from well beyond NBA range. 

Duncan Robinson was crucial down the stretch, creating out of nothing a very difficult drive for a three point play when it seemed like Springfield had taken control of the game. If there are stats for three point plays converted, Robinson must be leading NESCAC in that category. Then he hit four free throws late to help ice the game. He finished with another awesome all-around stat line of 17-9-3 plus two very athletic blocks and a steal.  How can he be a first year?  He's incredibly poised on the court, and is shooting now over 95 percent from the line on the year, and when he misses threes, he never misses by much.  Can we just hand him national frosh of the year right now? 

Hayden Rooke-Ley was also great for the Ephs, driving aggressively to basket and continuously beating the first man and drawing contact and a foul on the second.  As usual, he nailed most of his free throws.  Daniel Wohl had his typical strong all-around game including four crucial blocks and a beautiful breakway jam.  Unlike last game, however, the bench contributed very little which is a big concern. 

After a series of easy wins, nice to see the Ephs gut out a tough one.  Considering how many guys were banged up and the loss of Mayer, it's been a very successful first part of the season for Williams.  Hopefully, the two big problems that have plagued the team -- getting overpowered by physical teams on the interior, and lack of depth -- will be at least partially solved by Mayer's return.  It's clear that Kilcullen is the sixth best player on the team, and Coach Maker may have to tweak his system to get him more minutes at the four alongside Mayer ... he needs to play at least 15-20 mpg even after Mayer returns, which means 5-10 mpg at the four.  That would allow Weinheimer to spell the wing players a bit more as well.  And it would also make the Ephs a lot more physically imposing on defense. 

[Vandy74]

The Skidmore feed finally worked out the glitches.  Anybody who gave up on it missed a hell of a game.  Actually that was one of the best live feeds I've seen although I don't watch that many.  Every time it looked like the Panthers would put it out of reach Skidmore came right back at 'em.  Great play all around from both teams.  I'll leave it to Bucket, Middhoops or PN to do the analysis but just want to say this should answer a few of the St. Amour doubters.  Add to that a near perfect performance from Kizel.  On the Skidmore side Aldin Medunjanin with 31 points and Erik Sanders with 22 are both sophs.  The announcers mentioned that 3rd year HC Joe Burke took over the program with the expressed intent of making it one that could compete with anybody.  It looks like he means what he says.   I'm just glad this one is over and in the books.

[AmherstStudent05]

Congratulations to Emerson on an outstanding win.  Sometimes, you just get beat and today was one of those days.  While I think the game was closer than the final score might suggest, Emerson won decisively -- never trailing in the second half.  Amherst cut it to 1 at one point, but Emerson responded immediately with a 3 pointer and the Jeffs would never really threaten again.

Not much to add to what has already been said.  Obviously a key to the game was Emerson's second chance points. Emerson had 11 offensive rebounds and it felt like they converted on every second opportunity.  And you have to give them credit, every time it looked like Amherst might make a run, or that they might get passive/tentative on offense, Emerson remained aggressive and attacked the rim.

Thorpe, who appeared to be their best player going into the game, did not impress at all in the first half, but really showed his class in the 2nd.  Remarkably, he finished with 26 points and really carried his team late in the second half when Amherst looked to be making its run.

For Amherst, Toomey, Green, and George all had nice games, but it wasn't enough.  Green played spectacularly in the first half (as he has for most of the season thus far), but then kind of disappeared for most of the second half.  Toomey had a nice game (24 points and 5 steals), but he had several opportunities to make a clutch 3 to put Amherst back in the thick of things, but he could never seemingly get them to go.  George continued to look good for a freshman, but clearly tired out in the second half.  Levine spelled him for 3 minutes in the first half, so I assume Nabatoff may have been injured as well (couldn't see him on the bench, but may have missed him).  I do sort of agree with nescac1.  It is not at all clear to me that Amherst is worse off with George starting in place of Pollack (although, on the flip side, it is not clear to me that we are better off with George playing over Pollack).  Anyway, if we can keep Pollack, George, and Nabatoff healthy and motivated, Amherst should have tremendous depth at the 5 spot.

One place where we clearly do not have tremendous depth is at the wing spot.  Killian being out provided a wonderful opportunity for someone to establish themselves (Mussachia got his first career start today), but sadly that didn't really happen today.  With or without Killian, Amherst simply needs a little more depth here heading into league play.

As has been mentioned, Kalema had a tough game today, going 1-9 (0-4 from distance) with a few bad decisions in crucial moments late in the game.  Still, I must say, frankly, that I was encouraged to see Kalema have the confidence to assert himself at crunch time.  As we know from last year, come tournament time, you really need to be able to rely on a few different options to generate offense in crunch time.  While Kalema didn't quite get the job done tonight, I for one have seen enough from him to have no problem with him continuing to look for his shot and generating offense at crucial moments in the future.

All in all, a tough loss, but hopefully this will turn out to be a valuable learning experience for the guys (as last year's early season losses unquestionably were -- not that this is how Hixon would draw it up).  Indeed, reminiscent of lat year, Amherst will look to rebound quickly against a Brandeis squad that always plays us tough.

One final thought on the Emerson webcast.  Very interesting.  They had a very professional looking halftime and pre game show with in-depth features and everything.  They also had multiple camera angles and replays.  Curiously, they did not have an onscreen scoreboard, and they often seemed to favor a rather, um "artistic" presentation of the game, with lots of closeup shots that sometimes unfortunately obscured some of the action.  All in all though a very impressive operation.  Sadly, Coach O'Brien's outfit was even more impressive.  Very well done.

[AmherstStudent05]

Tough game at Emerson. Amherst without 3 of their bigs who did not suit up-- Pollack, Killian, and Nabaotff.  Amherst lost because Emerson had too many second chance points-
Amherst did not lose that game because of the play of any single player-- Absolutely not

Playing at Emersion home court has the added challenge of playing in very confined space but not the reason Amherst lost.

Games like this can serve as a wake up call

Good post, Jayhawk.  Didn't see this until after I posted mine.  I agree that we just got flat out beat today.  Hopefully won't happen again for another year, but I know that is a lot to hope for.  Do you happen to know what the issue is with Nabatoff? I was really looking forward to seeing him get some minutes with Pollack out.

[nescac1]

Very impressed by Bowdoin's start.  Who could have expected them to play this well without Hurley?  At Colby, Bates, and Babson are three solid wins.  Looking at the schedule ahead, I'd say there is a very good chance they will be undefeated heading into the January 17 game at Williams ... would make for an exciting match-up.  (The Ephs, on the other hand, have some pretty tough games before then, including at Hampden-Sydney and at Amherst). 

Nice stat line for St. Amour ... seems like he finally had that break-out game on offense, and in a crucial situation.  It will be noted in considering the next rookie rankings ...

[quicksilver]

For Bowdoin, John Swords had another double-double (in 28 minutes) as the Polar Bears are off to a fine 7-0 start with an easy win over a solid Colby team. Then senior Andrew Madlinger also went off, scoring 28, including 6 for 9 from the three . . .

[amh63]

I lied.  Did watch bits of three games....The Williams game, the Middlebury games and bits and parts of the RIC vs ECSU game in the Warriors' floor.  Amherst plays both ECSU and RIC at home this season.  Thank goodness.  It seems the home nets are kinder to Amherst shooters.
I thought the Williams game and the Middlebury game had quite similar endings,..though one was at home and the other an away game.  Skidmore and Springfield made runs at the favorites...at least the higher ranked teams; the ranked teams fought back and won.  Both games had FY players shine and played impact all around games.  Robinson and St. Amour were confident on the floor and at the foul lines.
Just found out that the HBC of Emerson is the O'Brien of Ohio State U. (maybe Boston College??) He wants to build up Emerson and has recruited well it seems.  Emerson left the GNAC for the NEWMAC this past season.  Big time coach whose players played their best game today....that comment was a digest of the Emerson post announcers.
Last comment before going to watch the ACC Championship Football game.
AmherstStudent05 and others who see a lack of depth or options at the wing postion.  I think Coach Hixon is aware of this and is working hard on it.....as he and his coaches did last season on Williamson.  My thoughts on that point on another day.  There will be an run of away games coming up for Amherst.  Team needs to adjust quickly to unfriendly nets before the start of conference games.