MBB: NESCAC

[amh63]

Jayhawk....well put!  Plus K
I have a classmate/frat brother who left Amherst after his soph year due to family reasons.  A Philly area family of great resources...he graduated locally from Un of Penn and still practices law in the D.C. Area.  He prefers to hang out with his Amherst "classmates"...and supports Amherst generously.  He enjoyed his limited time at Amherst.  I am sure that DR, who has made his impact at Williams, will remember his friends made, if he should move on in the immediate future.  Life is a long path and I am sure he will always be supported by his Williams friends if he should leave....and he will loop back many times to his " special place" in the NW corner  of Mass....Whatever he does in his lifetime.

[NEhoops]

nescac1, great post. Its refreshing to see someone understand both sides of the situation and have an open minded approach. The main focus is on him having to decide if he wants to be a big fish close to home or a small fish half way across the country. Also if he wants to sit out for a year which is not an easy thing to do. I don't think the education/network/bball system is extreme enough either way to be a big factor.

Going to UM in no way would hurt his chances of continuing his career after college. Just as an FYI coaches/GM/etc don't care how much publicity a player get during their careers. They want to figure out if the player is talented enough to compete ever night.

jayhawk, I thought it was up to us to make the decision?

[Bucket]

he is far better off getting a degree from Williams than from Michigan.

We're friends, Toad, and I truly don't mean this retort to be personal, but I find this way of thinking asinine.

Far better off? You can't possibly mean that. Three kids I coached at Sidwell Friends went to Michigan—one is a VP at Nike, one is in graduate school at MIT, and one is in grad school at Berkeley. Are you telling me they would be far better off if they had gone to Williams instead? Pray tell, how?

My brother-in-law went to Auburn as a recruited athlete. (He was a swimmer, for context.) Three years after graduating, he founded a boutique consulting agency which he just sold for upwards of $20 million. I'm not sure he would say that he'd have been far better off if he had gone to a NESCAC school instead.

And Auburn's academic profile doesn't come close to Michigan's.

We're talking about Michigan here! One can make a case that the Michigan diploma has far greater name recognition (and therefore value) in the global marketplace than any NESCAC diploma.

I gotta say, this type of "we're better than everyone else" myopia (not just @ Williams) could very well lead to an existential crises for liberal arts colleges nationwide as they seek to retain their relevance—when juxtaposed with skyrocketing costs—in society today.

And I say this as one who a) attended and b) is employed by prestigious liberal arts colleges.

[GingerBaker]

"a big fish close to home or a small fish half way across the country"

We are all, as a board, a bit binary - who's to say Duncan doesn't become a big fish@Mich?  I ask because one of the most fascinating things about (some) athletes is they "play to the competition" - e.g. a team's star performing terribly against a terrible team.  It could be that Duncan does the right things during his year off (when he will be playing daily against serious talent) and improves to the point where he's no longer "that D3 transfer" and is simply a D1 stud.  Does anyone here think that is out of the question?  Do we know his real ceiling?

[toad22]

Bucket- I take back what I said (Can you do that?). I love Williams, for me it is a perfect school, and I think Duncan would be better off staying at Williams, and getting a great education, and ripping the guts out of D3 opponents. However, I know that there are a great many places where good things happen educationally. I have known many people who have gone to all sorts of schools and have done very well in their lives. My deep concern for anybody who goes to a big time sports program is that they often don't really get to have the educational experience of the normal students there. At Michigan, I would worry that Duncan would end up experiencing something more like "Michigan lite". I have known a few athletes that have gone through college this way. At many places, way more than 20 hours a week will be eaten up with basketball related duties - I know that this is illegal under NCAA rules, but it happens all the time at major college programs. I guess I shouldn't have written my comment the way I did because I have had a few friends who went to Michigan who got great educations. My concern is the big time athletics/academic mix. Many kids end up with degrees that mean very little. I do feel, that for a kid like Duncan, a small school is likely to be a better place for him, but I know that he is a great talent, and Williams is lokely to lose him. I just hope Michigan treats him right. I hate being poached. I get angry at the thought of being somebody's minor league.

[toad22]

Also, I guess it is easy for fans from other schools to be happy that a player from the NESCAC can go to a school like Michigan. I guess it makes the league look a bit better. For Williams fans, this is a giant bitter pill. A disaster for the program: the loss of probably the greatest player ever to attend our small school after just one year. He was the presumed centerpiece of our team for the next 3 years. We go from being a nationally relevant program to being a program trying to stay in the top half of the NESCAC. Really good programs like Williams get a kid like Duncan perhaps every 15-20 years (Nogelo '98, Sheehy '75, Mahland '62). I guess I represent most Williams fans in my feelings of bitterness about how this is working out. We love Duncan, and wish him the best always, but it really, really, hurts. End of rant.

[amh63]

Back to a basics type post.   Noticed that Amherst Coach Hixon is looking to fill an open date this season. See yesterday post.  Wonder if RIC'ps new coach has dropped the "annual" game with Amherst.  See that Coach Hixon is handling the assignment rather than giving it to an assistant...as is often the case. 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It's not like he's thinking of transferring to Arizona State or something.  Michigan is, right now, the #4 public university in the USNews rankings.  I think we're all here because we value a small-school atmosphere and a liberal arts education more highly than most, but you can't really fault him for thinking about Michigan.  That's nuts on so many levels.

[nescac1]

A breakdown of Duncan Robinson's game from a Michigan fan site.  Seems like a fair analysis to me:

http://michigan.247sports.com/Article/Target-Spotlight-Duncan-Robinson-30002762

[jayhawk]

For you NESCAC hoops junkie- there is legit on line information in public domain
You can always just look at a person's twitter account which depending upon the person can be open to the public
so if a person does not limit his twitter account that person knows anyone can access it.
So for those NESCAC centric (being nice here) individuals, Robinson does note (tweet about) the Forbes poll and also on a separate tweet a reference to an article that discusses his approach to his present situation including Michigan.

no matter what games will still have to played to decide final score

[jayhawk]

What I meant say whatever happens happens and Duncan Robinson by his twitter account is fully informed of his choices

[NothingButNESCAC]

Just a quick aside and maybe this was brought up at some point but I didn't see anything.

For you posters who have been watching D-III bball longer than we have, can you think of any D-III-to-D-I transfers who have turned into bona fide stars at the next level (the Varun Ram example having been noted)?

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

You're not really a star in d1 unless you're on the NBA radar - no one like that is going to end up in d3.  Usually the best players in d3 (the ones who might likely contribute on a good d1 team) develop over time and stick with their d3 program.  It seems (and my impressions could be wrong) that most transfers from d3 involve kids who can use the money a d1 scholarship brings more than guys who are really ahead of the game talent wise.

I've been watching d3 for over a decade now - Robinson has as much, maybe more, pure potential than any other freshman I've seen.  Given his physical make-up and talent, i think he's got the potential to do very well - but I still don't see him becoming a star (At least a nationally recognized star).

[magicman]

Back to a basics type post.   Noticed that Amherst Coach Hixon is looking to fill an open date this season. See yesterday post.  Wonder if RCI's new coach has dropped the "annual" game with Amherst.  See that Coach Hixon is handling the assignment rather than giving it to an assistant...as is often the case.

I called Coach Curle at Plattsburgh State as soon as I spotted the post from you that said Amherst was looking for a game to fill an open date. Unfortunately Plattsburgh had already completed their schedule for 2013-14 and couldn't fit the Amherst game in. Needless to say I was extremely disappointed because it looked like it would be a home and home game for the next 2 years.

On a side nor we did try earlier to schedue a game with a high profile New England team that desperately needs to upgrade their weak schedule. Our coach called their coach no less than 5 times and left a mesage to try and arrange a game either on their court or ours. He couldn't even get the courtesy of a return phone call. So much for that school trying to play quality out of conference teams.             

[magicman]

Just a quick aside and maybe this was brought up at some point but I didn't see anything.

For you posters who have been watching D-III bball longer than we have, can you think of any D-III-to-D-I transfers who have turned into bona fide stars at the next level (the Varun Ram example having been noted)?

I don't know of any D-III players who transferred to D-1 off the top of my head and turned into bona fide stars, but I do know of several D-III players who were excellent players in the NBA.

Randy Smith from Buffalo State, who I saw play in college a number of times, was drafted number 104 or 205 (depending on whose info site you read) in the 1970 draft and went on to play for 12 outstanding seasons mainly for the Buffalo Braves and other teams. While at Buffalo State Randy was an All American in 3 different sports.... basketball, soccer, and track. (In high school Randy set a state record for the high jump at the time, 6'6") Amazingly even though he was only 6'3" tall he played small forward in the pros because of his leaping ability. Twice he was named as an NBA All Star and was  the MVP of the NBA All Star Game in 1978, scoring 27 points off the bench. He averaged over 20 ppg for at least 4 years. In June 2009 after working out in Norwich,  Connecticut Randy had a heart attack and died shortly after, he was only 60 years old. He was undoubtedly one of the best D-III ballplayers I have ever seen or ever will see.   



Marvin "The Human Eraser" Webster who went to Morgan State back in 1975 was also drafted by the NBA and had an excellent 11 year career. Webster was 7'1" and still holds a number of records at Morgan State. He averaged over 6.5 blocked shots per game for his career and his junior year averaged over 8 blocks per game when his team won the National D-II championship that year. I believe they defeated Potsdam State during that run and it may have been in  the championship game. There was also no 3 Divisions back then. Webster averaged 7.0 ppg and 6.8 rpg. He left us at an early age when he was found dead in his Oklahoma hotel room in April 2009 in what was diagnosed as coronary artery disease.

Jack Sikma also was a D-III superstar who went to D-III Illinois Wesleyan College. Jack was drafted in the 1st round with the #8 pick by the Seattle Supersonics and had an outstanding 15 year career in the NBA playing for the Supersonics and then the Milwaukee Bucks. Sikma was one of the best shooting centers in NBA  history. The 6'11' player averaged 15.6 ppg and 9.8 rpg for his career.   In 1987-88 he led the league in free throw shooting with a 92.2% and averaged 84.9% for his career from the line. He also made over 200 three pointers for his career (32.8). (Note this was during the time that the NCAA only had Division I and Division II) The last I knew Jack was still with us and was an assistant coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves.