MBB: NESCAC

[lemonjello]

Thanks for the recap Amh63, great stuff as always.  The foul-shooting was definitely a concern, 19-32 is not what you expect from this team.  George in particular struggled (1-6), Green missed 3 in a row and Toomey uncharacteristically had two misses (9-11 overall, so still pretty good).  George's free throw shooting will bear watching going forward, though it's too early to worry.  He once again played heavy minutes (32), so he have been a little worn down by the end of the game.  Nabatoff is still out, so Levine was the primary backup. 

Toomey definitely had more offensive impact in this game, I don't know if his knee is feeling better, or if he was just seeing fewer double-teams/less extra attention than he did against Emerson.  Berman also had a nice contribution in his 11 minutes on the court.  No points, but 5 boards and 2 assists.  He'll have big shoes to fill when Toomey graduates, so it's nice to see him holding his own from the get-go.

The Babson game will be a nice test of this team's depth, as a few guys who were not expected to see much time this year will see expanded roles.

[Old Guy]

Back in the States - like I never left. Won't see any games before I head back to Africa. I guess they'll play the games in January anyway, with me in attendance or not.

I'm checking box scores - here's my question: how good is Matt Hart? We have no Hamilton posters. Hart's numbers, especially recently, are impressive indeed. Is he dominant because he lacks a supporting cast, or is he a guy that would make any team in the league that much better?

[amh63]

Old Guy...nice to read your inputs.  Expecting your recruit soon as ED announcements start appearing
Anyway...wrt Hart...my view of his play in the game against  Morrisville State was that he carried his team in the second half.  He scored inside and outside against a tall team.  Do not know why he only had 2 pts in the 1st half.  He is not a big guard...but is athletic, and quick.  I feel he is better than Hurly of Bowdoin but not as "dominant" at his position as Aaron T of Amherst....some bias here
Guess we will have to keep an eye on Hamilton now.  Last season, Amherst escaped with a win in Clinton...a point that Coach Hixon noted in several interviews.  Think Williams had a tough game in Clinton last season too.

[P'bearfan]

Tomorrow evening Bowdoin will host the 4-4 Beavers from UM Farmington in their last game before the semester break.  On paper Bowdoin should be favored as UMF lost to common opponents Bates, Colby, and USM by margins of 20, 11 and 10 respectively.  Still there could be some interesting matchups.

UMF's leading scorer is 6'-8" Ben Johson (16.2 ppg).  He's shooting 62% from the floor with no 3 pt attempts so it seems he's similar to Swords in terms of being an inside offensive threat.  It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to being guarded by Swords and if the Beavers go to him heavily when Swords in on the bench.

UMF has 3 players who pose outside threats - Andrew Dickey and Pat Sumner are both shooting 32% from the 3 pt line and averaging 12.6 and 10.4 ppg respectively.  Nate Carson could be an interesting test - he's a 6'-6" forward who, while only averaging 8.8 ppg, is shooting 38% from behind the arc.  He could be a challenging match up if he gets hot.

Rebounding will be another interesting aspect of the game.  So far this season UMF has outrebounded its opponents by a margin of 7.7 rpg - most of that advantage coming on the defensive end where they hold a 5.8 rpg edge.  Bowdoin has held a 12.7 rpg advantage so far this season.  The P'bears have been dominant on the defensive end but still hold an advantage of 3.7 rpg on the offensive glass.

Not sure I'll be able to watch the webcast but will be interested in seeing the box score and re-cap. 

Go P'bears!

[madzillagd]

I know we haven't even hit conference play yet, but P'bearfan has my Rookie of the Year vote.

[nescac1]

I've only seen him play once, but based on what I've seen and his level of performance vs. good opponents, Hart is totally legit, and will be named an all-NESCAC player if not this year then certainly as an upperclassman.  He is undersized as a two guard but otherwise can do it all, very quick and crafty getting to the basket and also a good shooter, a very difficult cover.  I think that he would start for every NESCAC team.  Too bad he doesn't seem to have a ton of help on the Hamilton roster ...

[Old Guy]

It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to being guarded by Swords and if the Beavers go to him heavily when Swords in on the bench.P'Bearfan

Strikes me the way to beat Bowdoin, if you have a decent big man, is "to go to him heavily" when Swords is in the game, not on the bench, hoping to get him in foul trouble, testing the Bowdoin bench. That was the way teams attacked Midd and Ryan Sharry, who liked to block shots.

[P'bearfan]

It will be interesting to see how he adjusts to being guarded by Swords and if the Beavers go to him heavily when Swords in on the bench.P'Bearfan

Strikes me the way to beat Bowdoin, if you have a decent big man, is "to go to him heavily" when Swords is in the game, not on the bench, hoping to get him in foul trouble, testing the Bowdoin bench. That was the way teams attacked Midd and Ryan Sharry, who liked to block shots.

Great poins Old Guy and that's probably the strategy they'll use.

It's interesting to look at the Colby and Bates games as proxies.  Against Hudnut, Johnson scored 15 points but was less efficient than average only going 5-11 from the field.  Hudnut finished the game with ony 2 fouls.  In the Bates game, Johnson only scored 8 points on 4-9 shooting but the Delpheche brothers finished with a total of 7 fouls though being FY's they may be a little more prone to fouling (especially with the rule changes).

I didn't see either game but I think its a fair assumption that these were the key matchups.

Not sure if we can draw too many conclusions but it does seem that Johnson is at least less efficient if not less productive overall when facing solid big men.  So far this season Swords is average 3.0 personal fouls per game so yes this could be an issue for Bowdoin.

[lefrakenstein]

Note to our friend from Lefrak.  Just as his 1st seven games didnt give reason for concern on St. Amor, yesterdays performance doesn't mean we should be planning his ROY speech yet. 

I'm just going to stick my head out from underneath the finals rock to take all the credit for St. Amour's shooting turnaround 

Ok, back to studying.

[amh63]

Amherst has an away game tonight at Babson.  The only show in town so to speak..  Should be a good one.  Classes ended at Amherst yesterday.  The FY players are now facing their hardest challenge, IMO, ...first college Final exams.
Do FYs have final exams these days?    Out of touch.

[old_hooper]

This will be a big challenge for the Jeffs tonight.  Babson is an experienced team that has 92% of their scoring back from last years team who surprised the Jeffs at LeFrak. They are now led in scoring by Joey Flannery a 6'4 frosh who is scoring almost 19 a game and and connecting on 64% of his shots from the field.  Babson is 7-1 and really blew a decent Brandies team out last weekend by almost 30 points.  Their only loss was to now the only undefeated team in the NESCAC in Bowdoin.

Amherst will have to play much better than they have the last couple games.  The interior defense will have to step up and not allow so many points in the paint.  George will need help and need to stay out of foul trouble. They will need Kalema to have a big game tonight and more offense from the bench.

[middhoops]

I really, really do not want to step in anything here.  This is a simple question.  Not one to be smited for, I might add.
Is David Kalema more effective as a starter than he was coming off the bench? 
Mine is NOT a statistical question but rather one a coach would ask himself as he sought balance in a long season from a 8-9 man rotation.

[nescac1]

A bit of recruiting news for Williams:

Brebeuf Jesuit guard Adam Kroot (2014) committed to Division III Williams College (Mass.). Great school, strong basketball program.

Kroot is a 6'4 swingman from Indiana. 

A bit more on Kroot, who sounds like a good fit for Williams:

Kroot has played at a very high level for a long time and is as fundamentally sound as you will find in a player.  He has a great feel and understanding for the game and his main attribute is his outside shot.  He has interest from Williams College, NYU, Washington University and Hillsdale.  A 3.9 at academic tough Brebeuf is gettin it done in the classroom.

....

Brebeuf rising senior Adam Kroot has an offer from Hillsdale and is receiving interest from Vermont and some Ivy League programs.

"He's a real high academic kid so he's getting those Ivy League looks," said his AAU coach and father, Barry Kroot. "He just does all of the little things that make a team better."

Adam Kroot, a guard, said he doesn't have specific dates set, but would like to visit Tufts, Williams College and Washington University in St. Louis in the fall.

"I need to keep shooting the ball well," Kroot said. "I've been working on my shot a lot this summer and playing hard against good competition. If I just play hard and can make shots, I think I'll be alright."

[old_hooper]

Congrats to Coach Hixon on getting win 700!  This was a fantastic game to watch in the first half as Tom Killian scores 20 points and the Jeffs have a 46-43 advantage.  Game totals, Killian 27, Green 26 and Toomy 23 points.  Another tough game for Kalema.  He is really in a slump and perhaps the break will help him.  Once he gets it together these four guys will be a real force to deal with.  George has 7 blocks tonight.

Make no mistake about it, Babson is a very good team.  They will give other top NEWMAC teams fits this year.

Don't know what happen to camera man at the half but no action to watch in the second half.

[AmherstStudent05]

Congratulations to Coach Hixon on win #700!

Amherst defeats a very game Babson squad, 90-77 in Babson.  Crazy game.  Tom Killian was absolutely on fire coming out of the gate.  Kid couldn't miss.  He accounted for Amherst's first 14 points and connected on his first 7 field goals (four of which were from three-point range).  Reminded me very much of Dan Wheeler's breakout performance in 2005 in the NCAA Tournament where he never missed from the field while scoring 19 points in 19 minutes. He finished the first half with 20 points.

Incredibly, Toomey didn't even attempt a field goal until there were under 4 minutes to play in the first half.  I guess he finally realized that everything was going in tonight, so he started hoisting up some insanely deep threes (even by his standards), knocking down his first three before finally missing right before halftime.  Incredibly, he still managed to collect 11 points in the first half.

Despite the hot shooting, Amherst only led Babson by 3 at the half.  John Wickey hurt us inside and outside (16 first half points), and the freshman Flannery was as good as advertised.

The video feed was down, unfortunately, for the first 10 minutes of the second half (otherwise, I thought it was a very solid webcast, with a terrific announcer).  True to form on the night, I thought Killian had easily the play of the game.

With a little over 7 minutes to play in the game, Babson had the ball up one.  Killian made a fantastic steal on the wing, and led Mussachia with a smooth bounce pass on the fastbreak which resulted in an and-one.  Amherst never trailed again as Green and Toomey hit some clutch 3s to put the game out of reach.

While the final margin might indicate a comfortable victory, it was anything but.  This one easily could have gotten out of hand.  Great work by the guys to keep their composure and battle thru.

Amherst was led by Killian (27 points), Green (26), and Toomey (23).  While this was a great win, there were some familiar problems that cropped up again that I am sure the team will look to correct over the break.  Amherst once again shot poorly from the line (they rallied to shoot, 23-38 -- at one point midway thru the second half they had shot 10-23).  There were also too many turnovers (13), and there also seems to be a little too much confusion on defense (as has been noted many times before, the Jeffs like to do a lot of helping and some switching on D) -- although that tends to improve as the Teams plays longer together.  Also, we only got 5 points from our bench.  However, Berman played 17 minutes (Kalema had foul trouble throughout) and was aggressive in facilitating on the offensive end (but would obviously like to see fewer TOs).

Anyway, it is always nice to head into Break with some momentum.  Nicely done.

Still, the story of the night has to be Coach Hixon.  700 wins is a truly wonderful achievement (I remember being in school for #500).  He has been such a credit to Amherst as a student-athlete and then as a coach.  A great guy whose success is richly deserved.  Here is hoping for 700 more! (All at Amherst!)