MBB: NESCAC

[middhoops]

The Midd win and Hamilton loss guarantees a game in Pepin next weekend. Happy to have another go behind the mic.

And I'll be glad to see the players' parents in Pepin gym again.

[amh63]

Tournament positions seems to be clearer after last night's games.  With an Amherst win on Sunday, there will be some interesting rematches in the first round.  Amherst could/will meet Colby and Trinity will meet Middlebury again....this time the games location will be different.  Hope I got that correct.

May check in on a few games today.  Did watch some of the women's swimming events up in Williamstown.  Guess I better explain a little.  My granddaughter really likes the water and swims in the Ithaca NY area.  Ithaca HS has sent a number of champion swimmers to NESCAC schools....recently to Amherst and Williams.  The Williams swimmers have been outstanding...winning almost a dozen national individual titles.

Seems all the scheduled games are go at this time.  Travelers take care.

[madzillagd]

Last night I got appetizers, dinner and dessert.  Unfortunately it all left me unfulfilled because the appetizer was the first 5 minutes of the Williams game, was forced out of the house to have dinner with friends, then back home for a dessert of the final 3 minutes of the game.  Had I been able to reverse the order I would have felt like I saw an actual basketball game but unfortunately the 8 minutes I saw didn't have a whole lot of substance.  Great to see Mayer take over right out of the gate and of course got to see the first 3 Vadas threes as well.  Just looking at the stat sheet it doesn't look like Epley did a whole lot but I think it's more important that he get time this weekend to start to get back into the groove.  Hoping Robinson didn't tweak his ankle too badly and would not be surprised if he is out today. 

[Bucket]

Tournament positions seems to be clearer after last night's games.  With an Amherst win on Sunday, there will be some interesting rematches in the first round.  Amherst could/will meet Colby and Trinity will meet Middlebury again....this time the games location will be different.  Hope I got that correct.

May check in on a few games today.  Did watch some of the women's swimming events up in Williamstown.  Guess I better explain a little.  My granddaughter really likes the water and swims in the Ithaca NY area.  Ithaca HS has sent a number of champion swimmers to NESCAC schools....recently to Amherst and Williams.  The Williams swimmers have been outstanding...winning almost a dozen national individual titles.

Seems all the scheduled games are go at this time.  Travelers take care.

Not necessarily...a Panther win OR a Bowdoin loss at Tufts, would lead to a 3rd-place finish for Midd and a match-up with one of Hamilton, Wes, Colby, depending on how other games turn out.

You are correct that Trinity is locked into the 5 seed and will travel to either Midd or Bowdoin.

[P'bearfan]

Will be watching the webcast of the Bowdoin - Tufts game instead of being there in person. 

I haven't seen Tufts play this year but I'm very interested in seeing the Swords - Sabety matchup.  I'll be interested to see if Sabety plays from the high post and tries to draw Swords out.  If Swords comes out to guard him, Sabety is quick and athletic enough to drive past and score.  If Bowdoin doesn't cover him tightly, we give up an easy shot.  This could turn into a repeat of the Babson game where Wickey torched us for 18 points.

On the other end, Sabety is big enough to keep Swords from getting the low post position in which he's most effective.  Of course, in those situations Swords has done a nice job of passing out of the low post to an open teammate.  Should be fun to watch.

[nescac1]

Well, most teams seem to have really upgraded their webcasts, but Wesleyan wins the worst webcast quality award, at least if today's games are any indication -- it freezes every few seconds, and is basically unwatchable.  Bummer. 

[madzillagd]

Bummer indeed. Too bad they don't offer a standard definition option because I suspect their bandwidth issue stems from the fact it looks like an HD picture. 

[Old Guy]

I got up at 2:00 am, but couldn't get the video of the Midd-Trinity game last night, so watched live stats instead. I was happy with the outcome, but it seemed a dreadful game - Midd shooting 33% and Trinity 29.5%, the Bantams going 1-9 from three and 50% from the line, and Midd not that much better (Sinnickson was 1-10). But the win gets us a home game in the tourney, a big deal.

I enjoyed following the Wesleyan-Colby, Tufts-Hamilton, and (surprisingly) Williams- Conn College, good games all.

I fully expected Bates to beat Bowdoin last night, playing at home in their beautiful bandbox, with bigtime pride at stake, and a full house of rabid fans. When these two play, throw the records out. Historically. Earlier in the year, Bowdoin beat Bates in Brunswick on a last-second prayer. But Bates got hammered, virtually from the opening tap, never in it.

How to explain the Bates' second half of the season? When they beat Middlebury in the opening game in Vermont, they seemed a team of real competitive quality, with a go-to guy, Safford, being compared to Kizel and Toomey, a big swing man, Boornazian, with both an inside and outside game, size in the Delpeche twins, senior leadership in Martorazzo, and lots of complementary pieces in Selmon, Cunningham, and Philpot. Middlebury has shown itself to be a team that can play with the best teams in the league, and Bates beat 'em.

So, Bobcat lurkers, what happened? How to explain this second half collapse? I have hard time believing the coach has lost his team. My sense is that Furbush enjoys the respect of his players, not to mention opponents and Bobcat supports generally. This board is dominated by Wms, Amherst, and Midd posters, but the Bates story is an interesting one, without much analysis here.

[P'bearfan]

Bowdin up by 1 at the half against Tufts 36-35. Unfortunately this game has the look and feel of the Midd game. Madlinger and Mathias have been very quiet offensively in the first half. Lucas Hausman leads the P'bears with 16 pts.

Hope we can get everyone going in the second half.

[AmherstStudent05]

I have had no trouble at all with the video (since the overtime of the women's game).  I am using an iPad.  Sometimes the audio goes in and out though.  Also, the webcast has commercials! Not sure I have ever seen that in a NESCAC webcast before.

Williams up 10 at the half, playing without Rooke-Ley and Robinson.  Play of the half was Wohl stone cold stuffing Epps as Epps appeared to be going in for an uncontested dunk.  Looked totally clean to me (as well as the officials).  Amazing play.  Wohl then got the rebound for his block and drew a foul from Epps that was called intentional.  (I have absolutely no idea what the basis for that intentional call could have been.  The announcer was perplexed and I can't say as I blame him.  Overall, I would say that Wes has not been particularly fortunate with the whistles in the first half).

Williams is looking good though.  No denying that.  Especially without DR and HRL.  They probably should be up by more as they have missed a few good looks inside.  Their length in zone is giving Wes all sorts of problems on the other end.  A few deep Mackey threes have kept Wesleyan in range.

[nescac1]

AmherstStudent, agree completely that the Wohl play was absolutely amazing, the defensive play of the year for the Ephs and seemed to ignite a big run.  Epps has given Williams a LOT of trouble both games this year -- he has a bit of Troy Whittington in his game, although he doesn't have close to the same leaping ability.  Also agree that the intentional foul was cryptic -- it was clearly a frustration sort of foul, but in no way did it look intentional, just going for the ball.  Strange call.  Pretty amazing that Williams is up 10 with Mayer having a very rough day so far, and in light of the guys they are missing. 

[P'bearfan]

Bowdoin falls to Tufts 62-66 in echoes of the Midd game. Disappointing loss for the P'bears.  Think they will have to finish in the top 2 of the NESCAC tournament to qualify for the NCAA tournament.

[Panthernation]

Tufts just beat Bowdoin to finish 4-6, but we believe they still need Wesleyan to beat Williams to get in to the tournament. We highlighted what would happen if there's a three-way tie at 4-6 between Wesleyan, Tufts and Colby in our recent post on NESCAC Tournament possibilities:

"If Colby, Wesleyan and Tufts all finish 4-6 in the conference (this would happen if Tufts goes 2-0, beating Colby, Colby beats Bates and Wesleyan goes 1-1) then there would be a three-way tie as each team will have beaten and lost to one of the other teams. In that scenario, Colby would be the 7 seed because the second tiebreak (after head-to-head) is record against the top four teams. Only Colby has beaten one of the top four teams (Amherst) from that group, unless Wesleyan beats Williams, but either way, Wesleyan holds the head-to-head against Tufts and would be the second team in, making Colby the 7 seed and Wesleyan the 8 seed."

http://sites.middlebury.edu/panthernation/2014/02/14/breaking-down-the-nescac-tournament-picture/

Tufts was celebrating after the win, but if a berth in the NESCAC Tournament was what they were celebrating, there's more work to be done...

[Panthernation]

With only Middlebury and Amherst left to play, the 3-8 seeds have been determined. If Amherst wins tomorrow they will be the 1 seed, if they lose, Williams will be the 1 and host the NESCAC semifinals and finals, assuming they win their opening round matchup. Here's how the 3-7 seeds look.

3) Middlebury
4) Bowdoin
5) Trinity
6) Hamilton
7) Colby
8) Wesleyan

And, for what it's worth, 9) Tufts; 10) Conn. College; 11) Bates

[fanfromct]

Now that Williams has beaten Wesleyan the three are tied with 4 wins, each going 1-1 vs. the other two.
Tiebreaker is wins vs. top 4. Colby beat Amherst, and now Tufts has beaten Bowdoin. Wesleyan is out.
Tufts beat Colby, so Tufts is #7 and Colby is #8.