MBB: NESCAC

[toad22]

Mary Washington was a revelation to me. The campus is great, the athletic facility is the finest I've seen in d3, and the coaches, team, and crowd were beyond belief good. I have nothing but praise for the entire weekend. Also, the Civil War history in the area is spectacular. I spent all Saturday wandering over several battlefields, including Fredericksburg, which is practically on the MW campus.

[grabtherim]

gratefulfred- save the @ for twitter, not really needed here where folks can remember who said what 5 minutes ago. If you had the retention rate of a basketball you might have noticed my comments were not Killian versus Kizel. Rather they were clear in showing how ignorant your idiotic words were, but why pay attention to facts vs chanelling Rasheed Wallace's "Ball Dont Lie." Rasheed would want you to know he was referring to refs bad calls when he constantly overused that phrase usually followed by another tech. So I guess Midd is not playing this week based on Kizel's play this season?  Great grasp of common sense.

@grabtherim

The past didn't end three weeks ago for Killian...ball don't lie. I'm taking Killian over kizel 7 days a week and twice on Sundays.

[gratefulfred15]

@grabtherim: can't wait for the #jeffs to play the #ephs this weekend in one of the most exciting d3 bball matchups to date. @therealtkillian is gonna #gooff along with toomey, kalema, George and Greene. #inittowinit #finalfour #donthate

[JustAFan]

I hope this is not a bittersweet weekend for Williams fans in several respects, one of which involves Coach Maker, whose third trip to the Final Four in his short tenure in Williamstown is sure to put him on the short list of a several D1 jobs that usually open up after the season concludes.  I have no idea what his long term coaching aspirations are, but he's certainly earned the right to be considered for positions further up the coaching ladder.  Williams fans will have to bank on the reluctance of many DI schools to take what is perceived to be a chance when hiring a DIII coach, no matter how successful.  And there remains a lot to be said for being a big fish in a DIII pond and the security (a relative term at all coaching levels) that goes with that as long as he can get enough kids thru admissions each year to field a competitive team.  Let's hope the allure of the Purple Mountains continues to bewitch him for a few more years!

[lordofthejeffs]

grateful, don't forget about Joe "Moose" Mussachia, I fear nescac1 will be losing sleep over the Manchester native all week:

"I'm not saying that I'm at his level at all, but I think I'm a little bit like [Oklahoma Thunder forward and NBA All-Star] Kevin Durant. Obviously, I'm not 6-10 [Mussachia stands 6-feet-6-inches], but I love how he plays. He can shoot inside and out and he plays all out on both ends of the court."

in around the nescac news, heard Joey shot an 84 at Winged Foot today (how does he keep getting on all these great courses!) -- after the round, he mentioned that his short game was strong, but the breezy conditions and overall trickiness of the course really affected his play...

[lefrakenstein]

Pat, how can Robinson be in the running for national rookie if the year if he didn't win regional rookie of the year? I'd love to see him win but that doesn't seem to make any sense.

[Pat Coleman]

Pat, how can Robinson be in the running for national rookie if the year if he didn't win regional rookie of the year? I'd love to see him win but that doesn't seem to make any sense.

Well, exactly, he really isn't. This whole thing is a joke that has been taken the wrong way. What I get for trying to make funny in text form.

We do occasionally reorder people from the regional team based on playoff performance, though. And sometimes the coach of the year isn't one of the regional honorees.

[nescac1]

Nice article on Mike Greenman and his brother, who is a D1 assistant coach:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/sports/ncaa-basketball-greenman-brothers-scot-and-michael-making-march-their/article_331c0b8f-524e-53ff-a43a-2d3784de2a79.html

Also, yet another Eph hoops alum doing big things, following the big news for Brendan McGuire and Tucker Kain last week. This time it is Will Kuntz 06's turn, as he was named Director of Player Relations for MLS:

http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/yankees/post/_/id/70241/a-top-yankee-scout-leaves-for-the-mls

[jayhawk]

Driving time Washington DC to Salem?

[grabtherim]

4 Hours

Driving time Washington DC to Salem?

[Pat Coleman]

Driving time Washington DC to Salem?

Depends on traffic and where in D.C. Around 3:15 from Dulles in ideal conditions. Your mileage may vary getting out of town on 66, like most days.

[AncientSonOfHixon]

I also agree with you that our first two wins over the Ephs were quite convincing and perhaps even more comfortable than the final score might otherwise suggest.  Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the NESCAC Championship game.  In fact, I think that game was MUCH more competitive than the final score indicated. (I also think that was the closest Williams came to giving us their best shot.)

Other than George, who did a masterful job guarding Mayer, I think our defense really struggled a great deal against the Eph offense.  I know that this might be uncharitable on my part considering we "held" Williams to 1-12 3 point shooting in the second half, but from my vantage point, many of those looks were not ones I would be comfortable giving Epley or Robinson.  Also, even with those misses, Williams did a great job getting to the rim against us.  Bottom line, Williams can definitely hurt us with their offense.

AmStud: Due respect, brother, but my biggest fear about the Ephs isn't on the perimeter--it's still Mayer. George has come a long way, as many have noted, but it's still a huge ask to expect him to check Mayer without help (which the LJs won't give) at this point in their respective careers. Any time I've seen Williams over maybe the last quarter of their season including the tournaments, it seems like they do a better job of exploiting Mayer's match-ups than they ever have. Or maybe it's just that Mayer is playing at his highest level now, I'm not sure. But the most notable thing about that third Amherst win was that Mayer never really got in the game. And I'm not sure how much of it was George "holding" him down. Mayer missed some early looks that he usually makes, and he got in early foul trouble that had him up and down all game. He ended with 4 fouls, played just 25 minutes, had just 5 rebounds, and posted just 10 points on 3/9 shooting.

. . . [George] has been simply outstanding for us the past few weeks as he is really starting to come into his own.  Most noticeably he has made tremendous strides in his conditioning.  Anyone who watched the Emerson game -- the first time George was asked to play 30+ minutes with Pollack out -- could see how obviously George got fatigued in the second half (absolutely not the reason we lost that game by the way).  When Pollack went down, I was naturally very worried that George would not be able to pick up most of those additional minutes.  I am happy to say that he has proved me wrong big time.  For the most part now, George's minutes seem to be almost entirely dictated by foul trouble, not conditioning.

Great observation here. (Man, that Emerson game was brutal--and George was both gassed and overwhelmed. As you note, he wasn't the only one.) So when I think about The Mayer Problem, I keep fingers crossed that George's leaps in stamina, experience, and flat-out confidence will help him carry the day. The core question, as I bet most Jeff fans would agree, isn't even Mayer's point total as much as it will be George's foul total. Jeffs simply must find a way to keep George on the floor, yes?

. . . Speaking of which, Amherst was very fortunate this weekend that neither game was called all that tightly.  Given our depth concerns, we simply cannot afford a lot of foul trouble -- particularly with George and Toomey.  As we saw last year, the officiating in Salem can be quite erratic as players, coaches and refs try to familiarize themselves with one another.  Our starters really can't afford the usual "feeling out" period to see how the game will be called.  Last year, we had some serious foul trouble in Salem -- fortunately, Kalema, Green, and Pollack each stepped up BIG TIME for us when called upon (in fact, Kalema did so well for us off the bench that some informed posters argued that he should be starting for Toomey!).  We may well need Mussachia, Gach, and Nabatoff to do the same this weekend.

Agree here, too, AmStud, re Salem officiating wild card. IMHO, fouls will be the single strongest predictor of how Friday night's game turns out. If all the Jeffs avoid foul trouble, I like Amherst's chances just fine. If they don't, I don't.

p.s.  --  And, alas, if we need Muss/Gach/Nab to do anything like what Kalema/Green/Pollack contributed last year, I think we're outta luck, even though they give everything they have. Gotta remember that Kalema and Green had each registered regular season games when he was Amherst's leading scorer, and Pollack had spent an entire season getting meaningful minutes behind Pete. By NCAA's end, Pollack was even able to hold his own against Landon "Suffer-My-Caboose-On-Your-Narrow-Ass-And-Weep" Gamble, the most physical old-school post player I've seen lately. (OK, that's probably not his real nickname.) Those guys were already proven threats.

[AncientSonOfHixon]

George may have more upside than any other player in D3 basketball.

Whoa, Middhoops, I'm not sure even we LJ loyalists can subscribe to this. (It's juuuuuuust possible that he doesn't even have more upside than a certain other player in Friday night's D3 basketball game. . . .)

BUT I love your Kool-Aid! And I want to drink some pronto. Will make it my only beverage between now and Salem.

[amh63]

On the Amherst website there is a preview of the Final 4 for fans.  Seems there will be a running blog item set up by the SID....started last year for BB teams and carried on for the baseball team in its NCAA run.
Anyway, slightly different from past years...TICKET arrangements to the games.  I usually make a call to the ticket office in Salem and or go to ticketmaster or something.  The story on the Amherst website states that to get tickets...for Amherst fans?...is to call the center after 2:30PM on Thursday.  Interesting.  Maybe it will allow the LJ fans to sit together.  In years past, I have had trouble getting proper seats....even been put into another school fan group...requiring me to go back and changing my seat.  Was going to walk up this year for tickets to avoid problems.

[middhoops]

AncientSon,  it's only one old fool's opinion, but from what I've seen of his athleticism, David George is still relatively timid offensively even though he has the skills to be terrifying.  Given his size and great physical gifts, he could be a contributor at a higher level and that is very rare among D3 bigs.  When his offensive confidence catches up with his D, look out!
Your team is graduating significant talent and we all expect Hixon to 'reload'.  David George is the best young building block I can think of to do that around because he prevents scoring.  To be certain, Duncan Robinson is a superior basketball player but his skills are primarily offensive and given how good he already is, his upside is mostly just giving him the ball more often. 
Sorry if it seemed like I was trying to raise the imaginary bar.

Looking forward to an epic game on Friday.