MBB: NESCAC

[middhoops]

Good news and bad across the NESCAC tonight.
Amherst can't buy a bucket and loses at home to Babson.
Williams holds off a game Union team.
Colby drops a game to Gordon.
Bowdoin over Bates.
Hamilton crushing SUNYIT.  Which sounds like a Russian satellite.

[nescac1]

I think Williams loses that game last year - Union worked really hard and shot it very well, making some really deep 3s, kind of caught Williams napping after the Ephs ran out to a huge early lead, and Casey and Heskett (who otherwise played well) were both cold from outside. The difference was Kyle Scadlock, who just owned the entire court tonight, 25-13 and was especially huge on the offensive glass.  A 17 point win but Union really competed. 

Marc Taylor continues to make a few big plays a game in limited time. I'd love to see more of him as the season moves along!

[amh63]

Yes...back from the holidays...Amherst put up a Turkey of a game...period.
Babson after being crushed by Brandeis played an aggressive game and crushed Amherst.  Both teams played ten plus players.  Amherst after leading in the first half went cold at 15 pts and Babson took a big lead into the half.  Amherst came out strong and soon took a lead again and then shot blanks and lost by double digits.  To many TOs.    Babson with a young team made their shots. Hixon looking at his young team will have to go back to the drawing board.  Looking for his best defensive player combination when conference play begins. 
Babson has beaten 4 Nescac teams to date.

[Mountain Man]

Middlebury this past week & Amherst tonight...

How can ANYONE analyze a team... that has not PLAYED ANYONE that CAN BEAT THEM.
To me the season does NOT START until you play a competent foe that you fear. 
Your opponent through application of team's skills with coaching strategy gives a window in every game as to how a team could possibly be beaten.

Amherst faces a young Babson squad that CAN PLAY DEFENSE & DISRUPT.  2 for 20 from 3. One Player in double figures.

Amherst = Exposed = Offensive depth in starting lineup & bench.
Middlebury = Exposed = Limited depth in frontline, frontline physicality.  (Lost Majors & Tarantino = Their physical bigs)         

Plattsburgh St., Keene St., Babson each played their best game of the season to date

NESCAC's 2 Top Teams CAN BE BEATEN....  Just not by anyone on their schedule to date...

Williams = There were small windows in the Wesleyan game. Created by Cardinal defense
Heskett off, Casey multitasked (point, defense, scoring) Scadlock non aggressive, Karp tired on bench
Wesleyan could not knock down the shots to stay with Ephs. Wesleyan's best game of season. They can build on this

Hamilton = There were small windows created from playing back to back games against decent teams on road
Groll scoreless, Grassey & Hoffman up & down, Doyle multitasked (point, defense,). Everything on Gilmour's shoulders.
These teams did not have a defensive answer for Gilmour. Better teams will.

Eventually these TOP HEAVY (great starting lineups) teams will need to get solid contributions from bench to win a game.

My strategy to beat Williams  Force Casey to defend & get him in foul trouble, Post him, Attack him defensively to tire him
Take away Heskett, Make Scadlock beat me from perimeter, push tempo after all misses & selective makes = Keep Karp tired

My strategy to beat Hamilton. Selectively by game situation double Gilmour, force rest of team to make shots. Attack Gilmour & Doyle on defensive end to tire them. More half court oriented style. Force Hamilton to execute plays.

[jumpshot]

Mountain Man ---

I have said many times on this site, as you just did, that a weak out-of-conference schedule of scrimmages often fails to prepare a team adequately for real competition. amHerst's strategy for decades has been to play known underdogs, resulting in engorging career wins, while running the risk of an occasional bad loss prior to conference play. Certainly the program has been successful as lots of individual talent and transfers can have real impact at the D3 level, interspersed with seasons failing to meet expectations.

amH63, a "a turkey of a game...?" "crushed....?" Give the boys a break ....a long way to go.

[toad22]

My observation of the Union-Williams game is that things were so easy early in the game, that the Ephs fell asleep a bit late in the first half and early in the second. They did play much tougher later to regain control, and win easily. Union played very hard and shot the three very well. Kyle Scadlock was the player of the game. He is relentless. I always fear games in this week because of academic pressures, and a few of the guys did play like their heads were in the library. In the end, however, it was a 17 point win, so I have no reason to complain.

[nescac1]

Weird things always seem to happen in that Amherst-Babson game.  I think the next few games will provide insight into whether it was just an aberrant brutal outside shooting day or Amherst is a team that just looks really scary beating up on bad teams.  I still think Amherst has plenty of talent, and will be fine, but the Mammoths need to figure out which five guys they trust in big situations.

Right now, it seems like Hixon fully trusts only Cherry and Robinson, and is tinkering with a rotating cast of guys who come in and out - 11 is certainly too many guys for the rotation. I think ultimately Hixon wants to go with Day, McCarthy or both, but McCarthy is clearly still working his way back from injury.  Four big guys are playing right now and I think ultimately 1-2 will drop out since Amherst is best served by Che and Cherry playing mostly at the 3/4, when right now they are starting at the 2/3, where perhaps they don't offer enough perimeter playmaking skill and spacing against top teams.

[Colby Hoops]

Tough loss for Colby -- was following the live stats. They actually shot it pretty well from deep it looks like (especially to start), but struggled on the glass, and in particular getting to the hoop. Only two FTs! It looks like they were missing Ronan Schwarz who is their de facto starting "big" and the one guy that can finish around the rim effectively. I think this is going to be the biggest question mark going into league play for them. They can clearly shoot it from deep, but can they get easy baskets against good teams? Hannah and Tucker are good getting by people but are so small that finishing against bigger teams is a challenge. Tyson is going to be very good (18, 12 and 5 last night), but he hasn't shown too much of an off the bounce game, more of a shooter and finisher. Hopefully they can knock off Bates on Saturday to cap off a very solid start to the season. Btw, Bates is not looking good -- crushed by Bowdoin last night and not a single player got to double digit points.

Thoughts from the Williams game:
-Not to go with too hot of a take, but Williams is really, really good. I don't think they'll run the table in the NESCAC because it's so easy to have one bad shooting night or run into a hot team, but I'm tempted to say they will. Clearly a very legitimate chance to win a national title.
-Union is not a big team, but they looked downright tiny next to Williams. The skill, size combo is impressive.
-Union is smart, plays hard and has some young guards who are going to be very solid players. Jackson Mannix was particularly impressive. They played and shot about as well as is possible (and Williams shot pretty poorly) and it still wasn't that close of a game.
-I do think Williams can get a little lackadaisical. Last year, Galvin and Greenman were both high-energy players who could get the team fired up with some hustle plays. I think Feinberg does a nice job of filling that gap and making those small hustle plays that can get a team going.
-I'd love to see some more (any?) minutes without Karp or Kempton. I think a lineup of Casey, Babek, Feinberg, Heskett and Scadlock would be really interesting. Plenty of size to still defend and rebound, but would provide more room to get to the basket and could be pretty dynamic offensively.

[nescac1]

Very astute points on Williams, Colby Hoops.

I agree that Feinberg is the Ephs' biggest hustle-grit-energy-glue guy, by far.  He brings a physicality that Williams hasn't had for awhile. And I do think Williams has a second gear that it generally kicks into only when it feels challenged.  The team collectively showed that sort of grit and intensity when Yeshiva, Wesleyan and Union all made runs to take a lead or get very close.  In each case, Williams picked up its level and bore down on the defensive end in particular, going on big runs to close out (or effectively close out) the games.  Williams will need to show that killer instinct when it has teams on the ropes, to really put them away, but I think that will be less of an issue as competition starts to improve.  The team has no shortage of big-time competitors, led by Feinberg and Kyle Scadlock.  Heskett and Casey are less visibily-so, but are also intensely competitive: those guys both want the ball in big situations and can also lock in on defense. 

The best illustration of how dominant Williams has been so far: the Ephs' lowest scoring game (80 points, vs Wesleyan) would still beat their opponents' highest scoring game (Salem, 79).  And Williams still has room to improve on the defensive end, particularly in regards to occasionally losing track of outside shooters.  But when the defense is locked in, wow. 

I don't think App is going to play a non-center lineup this season (Soto at the 5 when teams are likely to foul late in a game is the closest they will come).  He seems to like having a true 5 out there and it would also mean sitting everyone at a very deep position on the roster.  But I agree that it would be a very intriguing look for the Ephs to try going centerless in small spurts.  The five-man lineup I would LOVE to see is Scaldock-Heskett-Taylor-Spivy-Casey.  Still loads of size (two 6'8 guys and one 6'7) and enough rebounding, but that is a lineup with four (maybe five?) guys who can handle the ball and drive and five guys who can shoot 3s, three of them at an absolutely elite level.  Wouldn't be as strong defensively without Feinberg or a center out there, but would be well-suited to play some zone.  And wow I have no idea how you could defend that group together, just so much firepower.     

[frank uible]

nescac1 - Are you in the process of counting chickens?

[nescac1]

Not at all Frank.  Long season ahead.  There will be bumps in the road.  But the potential is there.

[jayhawk]

For Amherst Babson game, what hurt Amherst initially was that it got into the foul bonus situation midway through the first half, which meant fouls resulted in Babson shooting 12  extra foul shots over at the charity stirpe and build an early lead . The initial foul trouble on Amherst players and the bonus situation put Amherst behind the eight ball in the first half.
The second part was the 3 point shooting and shooting in general, Amherst shot only 10% from 3 pt line. Several players such as Garrett Day who had been lights out previously in shooting the 3 poit shot had an off night. expect bounce back
Babson was quick and Amherst had the height , Amherst seemed to get frustrated with fouls and falling behind leading them to not fully running their offense

Agree there is knowledge being gained in which Amherst players will be on the court longer
Most of Amherst scoring is sophmore laden so they are getting more acclimated with more time
All those things said Grant Robinson continues to grow and been impressive , very quick off the dribble to the basket

[amh63]

Jayhawks...appreciate your comments/viewpoints.  Seems to me, the inside passes to Amherst's bigs surrounded by defenders were forced and the scramble for the ball resulted in fouls on Amherst.  In the last few minutes of the game, some drives followed by a pass....resulted in TOs.  Whatever, it was a learning experience, IMO.  The announcer mention that the FYs put into the game late were , according to Hixon, proving to be the better defensive players.  They in turn, made some offensive TO's, passing ones.
Will see what the lineups will be in today's game.

[Bucket]

Good news and bad across the NESCAC tonight.
Amherst can't buy a bucket and loses at home to Babson.
Williams holds off a game Union team.
Colby drops a game to Gordon.
Bowdoin over Bates.
Hamilton crushing SUNYIT.  Which sounds like a Russian satellite.

Not for sale.

[nescac1]

Haha, Bucket.

Amh63, I'm not surprised Hixon said that about the first years ... Devonn Allen is going to be one of the best NESCAC guard defenders we've seen in recent years, the guy is extremely quick and absolutely relentless, already a top-notch defender as a rookie.  It will be fun to watch him up against some of the most dynamic guards in NESCAC, although how much time he gets will depend on his offense developing  In general, I think Amherst is right now better defensively than offensively.  Their biggest need in my view is for a second offensively creator to emerge other than Grant Robinson.  Plenty of size, big-time athletes, and guys who can finish plays, but unclear who has the skills to create offense on their own against better defensive teams.