MBB: NESCAC

[amh63]

PC...you are Soooo right !  Thanks for the correction...though the Wish of mine remains.
My mistake...other than being plain stupid..is my confusion over when the last back to back title wins occurred for a school.  WashU. Beat Amherst in 2008 for the title and repeated in '09.  When I was in Salem in  2004,  I remember seeing/reading Bo Ryan's name with the Wis - Platteville's wins in '94 and '95 and was duly impressed.  Never realized he won in '91 and again in '98.  Enjoy his coaching style in Div.1 ever since.   My Bad is that I never realized that another  UW Div  3 school had won back to back  titles.  You get the picture....I hope

[P'bearfan]

Have been watching the Williams vs W&L webcast.  At the half W&L leads Wiliams 26-22.  I haven't really seen either team play before but below are some impressions from the first half:

-Terrible shooting by both teams.  At one point the Ephs were 2 of 12 from the 3 pt line.  W&L wasn't any better and their shot selection was really poor

-Williams is clearly the bigger more talented team.  They got out to a quick 13-2 lead.  Expect they'll regain control in the 2nd half

-W&L has really been tenacious.  They've been surprisingly good on the defensive glass (don't have the stats but that's they way it looks).

Looking forward to the second half.

[middhoops]

Williams isn't playing well.  Shots aren't falling.  Sloppy defense.
They'll win it, though.

[middhoops]

Ephs get out by the skin of their teeth.  Second half 3s saved them from an otherwise underwhelming performance.  Hope they play like that in Middlebury in a few weeks.

[P'bearfan]

Williams eeks out a 2 point win against a tenacious and well coached but otherwise average W&L team.  Realize that this is the 2nd game in 2 days at the end of a holiday break but the Ephs looked very beatable today.

[AmherstStudent05]

Generally agree with everything that has already been said about the Williams/W&L game.  I am not sure if it is possible for Williams to play much worse.  Their shooting was clearly off, they committed a bunch of sloppy turnovers and fouls, and they inexplicably got a little lazy on D at the end, allowing the Generals to almost win a game they had no business winning.  Williams was significantly more talented that W&L at every position (though #55 had good size and was a smooth finisher for W&L).  Credit Coach Hutchinson (an Amherst alum) for having his team play tenacious, active, and disciplined D that kept them in the game against a far superior team.

Still, the most credit has to go to Williams for finding a way to win on a day when nothing was going right for them.  It has been said many times before, but I will say it again, Duncan Robinson is going to be an absolute nightmare for the rest of us these next four years.  Kid can seemingly do it all and it seems like his confidence is only growing (Although he fouled out by taking 3 needless and incredibly foolish fouls late in the game, which opened the door for the comeback as Williams was without its automatic free throw shooter).

Middhoops, I agree that it would be nice for the rest of us if Williams plays a similar game come conference play.  I, for one, am not planning on holding my breath though.  These late December games tend to produce anomalous results and I can assure you that Williams is MUCH better than they played tonight.

[amh63]

I too watched THE game in Va.  Saw the switching defenses of Williams and the overwhelming reliance of the 3's by Williams.....even when they have the height advantage to go inside.  Seems that the Generals may have the quicker players.  Agreed that Williams needs work on defense as they often loose players inside & outside.  Must be frustrating for the W&L coach to see a ball go to his center uncovered and watch his player miss
two layup tries.  Still surprised that the Sr. center from Ct. outplayed Mayer at times.  Do know that in the last few minutes of the game, HBC Maker put in all his top players...dropped his patoon like subbing.
Overall,Williams played a flat game.  Mayer will need to get much better when Williams arrive in LeFrak...or things can get ugly fast for the Ehps.  Agreed with Middhoops on his post.   
Do want to point out that the Generals' HBC Coach was at Amherst when my two sons were there.

[nescac1]

Back from a fun trip to see the team live.  Agreed that it wasn't the prettiest game in the world from a Williams perspective but better an ugly win than a pretty loss.  Bucket, I did check out the old gym which is really cool -- it actually looks just like Lasell Gym at Williams, must have been designed by the same architect.

I actually felt like Williams played with a lot more intensity defensively today.  They really shut W&L down until late in the game when they tired and allowed too much dribble penetration leading to easy buckets.  But they did a much better job contesting jump shots today, including an impressive four blocks by Duncan Robinson. 

The offense was about as bad as Williams can be but they actually were not getting awful shots considering the defense W&L was playing.  W&L was really packing the paint, collapsing on Mayer and Epley in the post and also clogging lanes to deny any sort of off-the-ball back door cuts.  As a result, Williams had a LOT of really good looks from three.  The problem is, they were just ice cold for most of the game.  They are a great shooting team and that won't happen that often, collectively.  I swear at least five threes rattled in and out this game (Epley in particular just barely missed on several shots), had a few of those gone down, I think the game would have gone very differently.  When Williams was cold shooting the ball it affected the whole offense as guys started passing up looks and tried to force the ball into the paint leading to some turnovers and such.

Finally, though, the shots did start falling.  There were three "Onions" shot late (as Bill Rafferty would say), first Duncan Robinson's beautiful 26 foot trey at a time that Williams could not buy a bucket, and then two big threes from Rooke-Ley and Epley, both of whom had really been struggling but did not hesitate to take threes in a big spot.  Hayden was huge all weekend and has a knack for making clutch plays in big moments -- it's nice when your point guard has no fear. 

Amh63, you are right that Williams won't fare well if they play like that at Amherst, but then again, Amherst would not fare well against Williams if they played the way they did against Emerson.  I expect that both teams will bring their A games when they collide.  But Williams certainly has a lot of room to grow and will have to do so in a hurry with a very tough upcoming slate of games, and can't worry about Amherst when they know they will need to play better to survive Hampden Sydney. 

Williams still needs to work on certain aspects of defense (defending the high pick and roll, for example) but I was glad to see the improvement today.  On offense, the free throw shooting was abysmal (especially for Williams) all weekend, several missed front end of one-and-ones were particularly rough, and of course the three point shooting will hopefully be more characteristic going forward.  The Ephs really need to hit the open threes consistently to create some space for cutters to the basket.  They had very few easy baskets inside today because W&L was daring them to shoot. But if other teams want to employ that strategy, I think more often than not, the Eph shooters will burn them. 

The other big area for improvement is Mike Mayer.  He has yet to really get on track this year as he was sick at the start of the year, then hurt his ankle, and it's no surprise he was very rusty and lacking in stamina this weekend after nearly a month of basically no hoops.  For the Ephs to go far he absolutely had to be the dominant interior presence which he was last year, and is certainly capable of being again.  He faces a very tough test vs. Hampden Sydney's star center on January 2 and it will be interesting to see if, with a few games under his belt, he starts to feel more comfortable and show what he is capable of.   And of course fingers crossed that he is totally in form for the Amherst/Trinity weekend. 

Finally, agree with what others have said about Duncan Robinson.  Other than the occasional frosh-mistake silly foul, he really could not have played any better on both ends this weekend.  He, obviously, has incredible touch and range on his shot.  But the play that impressed me most today was a miss -- an explosive, sudden drive to the basket where somehow in midair he flew by / avoided two defenders and nearly laid it in.  He has a preternatural ability to snake around defenders setting up for a charge on a hard drive to the basket.  Once again, however, he needs to shoot it a bit more for the Ephs to reach their maximum offensive potential.  He's now shooting 57/47/96 -- those are just incredibly efficient numbers, especially from the line, as he has only one missed FTA all season ... and warrant more than nine field goal attempts per game.  If Mayer can get back on track, he, Robinson, and Epley will form a dynamite trio with a very complementary inside/outside skill set. 

[John Gleich]

PC...you are Soooo right !  Thanks for the correction...though the Wish of mine remains.
My mistake...other than being plain stupid..is my confusion over when the last back to back title wins occurred for a school.  WashU. Beat Amherst in 2008 for the title and repeated in '09.  When I was in Salem in  2004,  I remember seeing/reading Bo Ryan's name with the Wis - Platteville's wins in '94 and '95 and was duly impressed.  Never realized he won in '91 and again in '98.  Enjoy his coaching style in Div.1 ever since.   My Bad is that I never realized that another  UW Div  3 school had won back to back  titles.  You get the picture....I hope

You're not completely off base. Yes,  Jack Bennett coached the championship teams in 04 and 05, after which he retired and top assistant Bob Semling has been at the helm ever since.

However... Dick Bennett is Jack's older brother. He coached at UWSP in the 80's coaching Terry Porter and a bunch of excellent NAIA teams. From UWSP, he went to Green Bay, where his son Tony played for him. He (Tony) had a cup of coffee in the NBA and played professionally overseas for several years... and then came back to Wisconsin and coached under his dad at Wisconsin until Dick retired. A few years later, Dick unretired and took the job at Washington State... Then retired a few years later (again) and left the program in the hands of Tony... where he became the NCAA coach of the year... and subsequently took the job at Virginia, where he is right now.

As Pat said, Bo Ryan was at UW Platteville up through the 90's... Then took the job at Milwaukee... Then got the job at Wisconsin the season after Dick retired (Brad Soderberg, a UWSP grad himself, was named the interim coach but wasn't retained, in favor of Ryan).

[nescac1]

Williams by the way has a really tough schedule coming up: at Hampden Sydney, Trinity and Amherst, followed by home games vs. a potentially undefeated Bowdoin team, Colby, and Amherst.  That's four games vs. very high level competition with two potential trap games against decent teams sandwiched in the middle of each pair of higher-profile opponents.  Hopefully the Ephs will iron out the rough patches from this weekend and be ready to play to their potential during the next three weeks, which really is the crucial stretch of this season. 

Looking to the next game, Hampden Sydney's center averages 14.7 and 9.7 in only 23 mpg, so the Ephs will need a lot more out of the Mayer/Kilcullen combo than we saw this weekend.  I am sure Mayer won't be all the way back to full strength just yet, but hopefully having two games under his belt he will be a lot more in rhythm.  HSC plays about 12 guys regular minutes and no one player averages 30 mpg, which offers a huge contrast to the Ephs who rely so heavily on basically seven guys.   

[P'bearfan]

Finally, agree with what others have said about Duncan Robinson.  Other than the occasional frosh-mistake silly foul, he really could not have played any better on both ends this weekend.  He, obviously, has incredible touch and range on his shot.

Nescac1....have to disagree with you a bit on this description of Robinson....his range is best described as "gXd-dxmnxd frightening".  He was pretty much in the next county when he hit his last 3.

[amh63]

JGleich....thanks for the understanding comment. The coaching changeovers is a little hard for me to follow other than you guys like to keep the talent instate .  Do like the info on Tony, the HBC at UVA.
I have been a fan of the ACC for many decades and like the recent improvements since Tony's arrival.  Especially on the defensive side. Since the Terps of the U.of MD are moving to the "big ten" next season, guess I will be watching more Div I  games in your region.
Just been reminded by my wife, that our son-in-law has a niece that is a student at UW-SP.  Small world!

[Bucket]

Nescac1....have to disagree with you a bit on this description of Robinson....his range is best described as "gXd-dxmnxd frightening".  He was pretty much in the next county when he hit his last 3.

As one who grew up in Lexington, I would say that Robinson hit that three from "BV"...the next town over being Buena Vista, pronounced BU-na Vista if you're keeping track of such things.

The Warner Center hasn't seen range like that since Bryan Watkins, a St. Anthony's (NJ) sharpshooter, dropped bombs for the Generals in the early '90s.

[madzillagd]

As one who grew up in Lexington, I would say that Robinson hit that three from "BV"...the next town over being Buena Vista, pronounced BU-na Vista if you're keeping track of such things.

As a native Californian that has spent his life listening to and speaking Spanish I got to ask why it's BU-na Vista and not "bwena vista" as it would be pronounced here and in Mexico? 

[jayhawk]

May have been mentioned already - Washington and Lee is coached by Adam Hutchison a former Amherst College basketball player