MBB: NESCAC

[middhoops]

Best of luck to Matt Hart.
Mike Lonergan loves guards.  He will always give them the benefit of the doubt until they show him otherwise.  He loves shooters, too.
Of all the recruited walk-ons he had in his years at UVM, only 1 stuck.  That kid was a tall 6-8, previous VT player of the year, shortstop for Northfield Mt. Hermon in his PG year and he spent two years on the bench before getting a scholarship for his last two seasons.
If Hart can get his shot off at GW and make a decent effort to guard A10 quick guys, Lonergan is probably the perfect coach for him.

Now, if I wanted to display some wry humor and suggest that his daring move might inspire another NESCAC star who may or may not play in western MA to follow suit, I'd get -k galore from people who may or may not be fans of that school.  But I didn't.

[Old Guy]

Matt Hart at 21 will be a very different athlete from when he was 17 and being recruited by colleges. I'm convinced many of the top D3 athletes could contribute to D1 programs, but perhaps not right away as 18 year old frosh.

Kids develop at different paces, some early, some later. A combination of factors apply - motivation and hard work to be sure, but innate natural genetic factors as well. My older boy (soccer) grew two inches in college. Some kids level out; others blossom late. Most of us have physical capacities at 25 that we didn't have as teen-agers, obviously.

There's a crapshoot element to recruiting and coaches have to make sweeping, conclusive, judgments about young players while they are still at this early stage of growth and development. I suspect there might be some implicit bias among D1 coaches for the kind of thing that Hart is doing - kind of a general reluctance in the fraternity to acknowledge the possibility of a mistake having been made.

Interesting name in the Williams coaching pool - Vermonter Will Voigt, now coaching Bakersfield in the D League - went to Pomona, worked for the Clippers and for Popovich and the Spurs after college, coached internationally in Norway, coached the Vermont Frost Heaves for three years in the ABA. Quite a resume. (His mother, Ellen Bryant Voigt, is an acclaimed poet.)

Would FormerBant also throw his hat in the ring?

[old_hooper]

Formerbant is the assistant GM of Orlando Magic.  Don't think his name will be in the mix.  This could be interesting to see who will be final candidates with the changes in athletic department. 

Regarding Matt Hart, wish him all the luck in the world and hope his dream will come true.  He had the ball in his hand a lot for Hamilton.  They were a below average team.  Had he played for either Williams or Amherst don't think he would have been all conference on those teams and even a question if he would have started.

Good players find their way and hopefully he will at GW in his last two years.

[nescac1]

Old Guy, Voigt sounds awesome.  Where did you hear about his candidacy?

Old_hooper, whatever you think of Hart's chances in the A-10, there is no doubt he would have started and indeed starred for any team on NESCAC last year.  He would have been, at worst, the third best guy on Williams or Amherst.  He definitely earned his place as an all-NESCAC guy.  I think the high interest in him among D1 shows that lots of guys (certainly Mayer, Toomey, George and Robinson, among others) could find a spot somewhere in D1 if they so desired.

[JustAFan]

Voigt's resume certainly is eclectic and he sounds like a tireless worker but he also strikes me as an odd fit for Williams.  His experience is largely limited to coaching pros or aspiring pros--i.e., men--and being able to work with them 8 hours a day or more in what sound like endless video sessions in addition to team practices and individual workouts.  Hard to make that approach translate well in the 2 hours a day of practice time available to NESCAC teams. He may wow everyone should he get interviewed, but I have to believe the Williams applicant pool will include a lot more "safer", or at least more traditional, choices who have significant college experience coaching (and recruiting) academically talented 18-21 year old athletes. More insight on Voigt here:

http://vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070211/FEATURES/702110313&template=printart

http://dleaguedigest.com/2010/03/23/coach-speak/

[NEhoops]

Lonergan knows the difference between a DI talent and someone that puts up numbers/plays well on a bad team. Hart is legit and would have had the opportunity no matter what NESCAC school he attended.

[jumpshot]

Hoop Dirt mentions Dane Fischer, now associate head coach at Bucknell under Dave Paulsen, as a candidate for the Williams College opportunity.

[ephoops]

Hoop Dirt mentions Dane Fischer, now associate head coach at Bucknell under Dave Paulsen, as a candidate for the Williams College opportunity.

Fischer would be a great choice for Williams...

[Old Guy]

Fischer certainly appears ready:http://www.bucknellbison.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=32100&ATCLID=209044526

[nescac1]

The latest from Hoop Dirt on the Williams jobs:

I have heard that the search at Williams is down to six. One name that I keep hearing is Bucknell associate head coach Dane Fischer (a former Williams assistant). Another name making the rounds is Skidmore head coach Joe Burke. He has been at Skidmore since 2010, and was also an assistant at Navy and Cornell. I have a few other names, but will wait for confirmation before going with them.

http://hoopdirt.com/blog/9b6bb8bb/daily-dirt-7-14-14/

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

"But as the body grew, he outgrew Division III."

'12-13:  12-12
'13-14:  14-11

0 NCAA appearances

Makes for a cute quote but it's a ridiculous comment for a guy that led a team to a 8-12 record in league the past two years. He hasn't outgrown the NESCAC let alone DIII.

I wish the kid well but to me this is just another article that slights DIII athletics.

I had the same reaction. It is an article that tries to pretend DIII isn't all that and a bag of chips and that the player had the wrong reasons for attending Hamilton: those reasons being he wanted to just move on to D1. Let's be honest: Hamilton is not a cupcake of a school and knowing first-hand it is not an easy school to get into. If he truly wanted to just move on to D1 there are a ton of other schools, even in New York State, that would have been a better choice.

The article also makes it sound like he made a major impact in Division III... and to be honest, while he made a big impact on Hamilton, his impact overall was marginal (as the records at Hamilton show). He wasn't Colton Hunt at Randolph who made a huge impact there and helped that school to the NCAA tournament and compete in just as tough, if not tougher, ODAC (Clay Nunley also gets a lot of credit for being a very good coach). So the idea that moving on to D1 was the intention and that it happens in D3 based on his impact at Hamilton is a big stretch.

I wish him luck. I would love to see him succeed at GW under Lonergan, but let's not pretend he will be the talk of D1 by the time he graduates... he wasn't even the talk of D3 in what the article made sound like two hugely impressive seasons (he was 3rd Team All-Region after all last season).

And on the topic of players who chose D3 over D1... there are many reasons that also involve academics, but we all know there are player like Duncan Robinson who certainly could be D1 players who chose for whatever reason they want to be at a D3 school. They exist around the country and the choice is never because they think D3 is a lesser option. There are plenty of players who could be at D1 schools and play whatever role they want that level. However, they have proven they are just as good as some of the D1 players in the Top 25... they just have a different set of priorities including in the game of basketball that rule their decisions.

[middhoops]

Love Dave's last paragraph.

[P'bearfan]

Love Dave's last paragraph.

Same here...well put.

[nescac1]

Four finalists for the Williams job, all listed here:

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/sports/ci_26177711/williams-college-closing-next-men-s-basketball-coach

Fischer has been discussed.  Kevin App was on Maker's first staff at Williams (and hopefully would run a similar system?).  I remember Brian Earl well from those well-oiled-machine Princeton teams of the late 1990's ... presumably he would bring a Princeton offense to the table.  Tony Newsome was also a long-time Princeton assistant.  All four guys have a ton of experience recruiting and coaching players to top-tier academic schools, so all would at least be very familiar with the Williams recruiting pool. 

[madzillagd]

HoopDirt thinks it's Kevin App with a possible announcement Monday but I'll believe it when I see it.