MBB: NESCAC

[PolarBearPA]

Warm weather in MD today....good news in a day of good news.
Some MBB comment. 
First comment.  Agreed with Cards Fan on the two Wesleyan players cited.  First Dixon comes into the game and his first TWO shots made are from 3- point land!  Has smooth low post moves to score inside.  A 6'9" player with glasses that needs attention.  The FY Guard...the thinly built 6'6" PG named Hutchison does have a court awareness.  Left unguarded, he makes Long 3- point shots a d quick passes to his teammates.  His play was impressive against an athletic J&W team.  Got a feeling the Cards will float to the top of the Nescac come Tourny time.
Took a look at Colby and Bowdoin today wrt to key players and record.  Saw about a half of the Colby whipping of a solid Trinity team in Maine.  Trinity's HC is an interesting person to watch during a game...pacing along the sidelines with his head downward.  When a timeout comes, he gathers his chalkboard and uses it to to illustrate direction to his players.  Remember his first year at Trinity in a game in LeFrak.  I was sitting among some relatives of the HC plus his wife ON the Amherst Fan side!
Anyway HC Cosgrove is a fine coach and hard to beat.  In the Coby game, I watched, he was NOT pleased with his team's play.  In brief, Amherst should be weary of Colby.  Also with Bowdoin on their home court.  Do not want to hear too many "Bang" shouted out by the colorful home announcer when Bowdoin players makes an outside shot.
The Nescac teams have "turned the corner".  CAC Tourny spots are up for grabs it seems.

Bowdoin either has Jim Toomey with the BANG or Don Shields with the BINGO. We do have a couple of NSN guys that cover Bowdoin with deep experience in broadcasting Maine high school and college hoops.

[amh63]

PolarBearPA.....thanks for the name...it is the Toomey with the Bang that brings a smile to me.  Of course, I want to hear few BANGS or BINGOS .
Interesting to read about Wesleyan's LOST to SUNY-Purchase tonight...after praising the Cardinals.  Oh well!
Both Williams and Hamilton are putting a HURT on their opponents today at home....after losing on Sat.

[nescac1]

Ephs win a snoozer vs an awful opponent.  But actually good timing for this one as with Greenman, unfortunately, hurt the Ephs got a chance to test out their rejiggered lineup.  Bobby Casey moved to the point where he looked very comfortable and Henry Feinberg moved into the starting lineup and played his best game as an Eph: 15-3-3 plus two steals, hit all his foul shots, drew a charge, had a nice dunk.  He's clearly a very good athlete and adds some toughness and grit to the lineup, but is still very much developing in certain areas.  Trial by fire from here on out .... Babek and Galvin look like they will be the two perimeter subs and both will need to step up as well.

In garbage time, Marc Taylor stood out as he has done often in short minutes, with eight boards - seven offensive - in six minutes.  He needs to add a lot of muscle and a lot of polish to his offensive game, but he looks like a guy who has the size, athletic ability and aggression to be a big contributor as an upperclassmen. 

Tough loss for Wesleyan tonight.  O'Brien still out and they aren't the same team without him. 

[Old Guy]

Ephs win a snoozer vs an awful opponent.  But actually good timing for this one as with Greenman, unfortunately, hurt the Ephs got a chance to test out their rejiggered lineup.   

I dunno, NESCAC1. Not embarrassing? St. Joseph's of Rutland (was St. Joseph the Provider or "Joe the Pro" colloquially) is a nice small school of its type, but it's total enrollment is 230. I know we can cite So VT, but still, a "test" of the "rejiggered line-up? Better than a scrimmage of first unit against second? A stretch.

[nescac1]

Generally, I'd rather not play a game like that, little point to such a mismatch.  But given the injury adversity, I do believe that it was fortuitous timing for essentially a glorified scrimmage, a chance for guys to get comfortable in new roles, without pressure, before real competition resumes. The Ephs are down two starters, including now their point guard.  They are shifting a bunch of guys around in the lineup and once again have had to do so on the fly.  Hopefully a confidence builder for the young guys.  No illusions that St Joe's could test anyone in Nescac .... not even Conn. 

[toad22]

Generally, I'd rather not play a game like that, little point to such a mismatch.  But given the injury adversity, I do believe that it was fortuitous timing for essentially a glorified scrimmage, a chance for guys to get comfortable in new roles, without pressure, before real competition resumes. The Ephs are down two starters, including now their point guard.  They are shifting a bunch of guys around in the lineup and once again have had to do so on the fly.  Hopefully a confidence builder for the young guys.  No illusions that St Joe's could test anyone in Nescac .... not even Conn.

I don't think anyone in St. Joseph's lineup would play at all for any NESCAC team. However, we needed a game, and they wanted to play. So we played.

[Cards Fan]

There was no way to watch the Wesleyan game last night, but according to recap, a loss on a buzzer beater 3. Makes me even more frustrated that I couldn't even see how it happened, but I likely wouldn't want to anyway.

[mathteacherjedi]

Wes vs. Purchase buzzer beater here:

https://twitter.com/PC_Panthers

Incredibly lucky sequence; tough way to lose.

[middhoops]

The kid who made that shot will see it in his dreams for decades to come.  The ultimate driveway fantasy.

[Bucket]

Wes vs. Purchase buzzer beater here:

https://twitter.com/PC_Panthers

Incredibly lucky sequence; tough way to lose.

Holy cow.

[nescac1]

Wow, everyone had to watch that Purchase shot.  Insane, that's gonna be on Sports Center I would think ... tough one for Wesleyan.

The Cards have really struggled (relatively) since O'Brien got hurt, shows what an absolutely critical player he is for them.  Without him, they lack a true facilitator at the point guard making it tougher for other guys to get easy shots.  Wesleyan was 8-0 before O'Brien's injury (the nature of which has not been announced, and is 5-4 since.  That does include three games he played in (two of which they lost), but he may have been somewhat limited in those, I imagine ...  now, those are the breaks.  Lots of teams have struggled with key injuries -- Williams, most prominently, but Tufts and Amherst as well.  It's part of the game.  But if O'Brien can return 100 percent, Wesleyan certainly has a much higher upside than than do now without a true PG.  The Cards are in a dangerous spot this week as they are playing a crazy FOUR games this week, ending with (on paper) the most difficult vs Tufts on Saturday.  Have to wonder how much gas they will have left in the tank for that one ...

On the plus-side for Wesleyan, Austin Hutcherson is now, in my view, running away with the rookie of the year race.  He's shooting 69 percent from 3 in league play, that's just incredible ... 

[nescac1]

On another note, while St. Joe's Vermont may not be very talented at basketball, they absolutely CRUSH it in terms of names.  Just an absolutely tremendous collection of hoops names, Key and Peele-level stuff.  Consider:

Kreem George
Quiddus Terry
Mickalous Snowden
Quadarius Spence
DQ Abernathy

and my favorite,

Junior FanFan

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Wow, everyone had to watch that Purchase shot.  Insane, that's gonna be on Sports Center I would think ... tough one for Wesleyan.

Play was #1 on the overnight SCs... though dum dum said DII. SMH

[JEFFFAN]

On another note, while St. Joe's Vermont may not be very talented at basketball, they absolutely CRUSH it in terms of names.  Just an absolutely tremendous collection of hoops names, Key and Peele-level stuff.  Consider:

Kreem George
Quiddus Terry
Mickalous Snowden
Quadarius Spence
DQ Abernathy

and my favorite,

Junior FanFan

I wasn't sure whether to believe you on the names so went to the roster.  And - sure enough - there is a player named Junior FanFan!   Best name of all time in my book!

http://www.csjfightingsaints.com/sports/mbkb/2017-18/roster

[nescac1]

Trinity's last box score is one of the weirdest I've ever seen: they won by 22 points despite (1) no starters in double-figures, (2) only one starter scoring more than 5 points and (3) no one on the roster scoring more than 10:

http://d3hoops.com/seasons/men/2017-18/boxscores/20180120_i434.xml?view=boxscore

Trinity, as usual, seems to be struggling on offense (they haven't cracked 73 points in their last six, and have been held to 55 or under in three of those game), but are winning through tough defense ... (4-2 in that stretch despite the offensive struggles).  They don't have a star like Ogundeko this year, but they play 12 men, none of whom score a ton or play very heavy minutes, and I imagine wear teams down with depth, balance and relentlessness.  Should be quite a contrast with Williams on Friday, which continues to rely very heavily on three offensive stars.