MBB: NESCAC

[nescac1]

Yeah, I have not seen them enough to have a good handle on the seemingly limitless pool of bench players who rotate in and out.  Clearly lots of talent, no question, and it seems like guys are willing to sublimate egos for smaller roles than they would have anywhere else. 

I'm not sure I'd make them a favorite (at least not a clear favorite) against Augustana or Oshkosh, who both have the veteran perimeter guys you want against a pressing team plus bigs who can punish Whitman, but those three seem like the three teams to beat right now, followed closely by Amherst/Swarthmore.  Williams, Hamilton, CNU, RMC, Marietta, St. Thomas I see as the dark-horses-with-a-chance. 

[toad22]

I have no idea what will happen tomorrow, but I am excited to watch. Williams will be ready to go, and I know they will play as hard as they can. Everybody is pretty healthy, so we have no excuses. I know that the best game they played his year was their last game, against  Gwynedd. Whitman wants to play a very fast, chaotic game. If Williams can't play closer to their normal pace, they will likely be in for a tough night. Let the games begin!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Yeah, I have not seen them enough to have a good handle on the seemingly limitless pool of bench players who rotate in and out.  Clearly lots of talent, no question, and it seems like guys are willing to sublimate egos for smaller roles than they would have anywhere else. 

I'm not sure I'd make them a favorite (at least not a clear favorite) against Augustana or Oshkosh, who both have the veteran perimeter guys you want against a pressing team plus bigs who can punish Whitman, but those three seem like the three teams to beat right now, followed closely by Amherst/Swarthmore.  Williams, Hamilton, CNU, RMC, Marietta, St. Thomas I see as the dark-horses-with-a-chance.

I'd add Wheaton to your 'dark horse' list.  They've already lost twice to Augustana (whom they play tomorrow), but when you've got Aston Francis, you've always got a 'puncher's chance'.  Augie has largely shut him down before, but I don't know if they can do it three times in a row.

[Colby Hoops]

Austin Butler is the best player, an athlete the likes of which Williams has not seen this season.  He is a two-way terror, the Ben Simmons of D3, as he is not an outside shooter  (if he was he'd be a D1 guard for sure) but does pretty much everything else at an elite level.  Tremendous moves, very strong, hard to keep out of the lane, and very explosive going to the rim with a head of steam as this video demonstrates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y071G8JxFO0   

Some of those rims are hanging on for dear life...

[MiddWatcher]

"MiddWatcher, thanks for the coaches' bible stats.  Very interesting.
Do you think the Middlebury coaching staff is unaware of the situation you call to attention?"

No idea. I am just a "Watcher", not a talker.  "tho I  live in the area, have not spoken to a Midd bkb coach in many years. Thanks for the comment. Analytics can be fascinating.

[Gregory Sager]

Yeah, I have not seen them enough to have a good handle on the seemingly limitless pool of bench players who rotate in and out.  Clearly lots of talent, no question, and it seems like guys are willing to sublimate egos for smaller roles than they would have anywhere else. 

I'm not sure I'd make them a favorite (at least not a clear favorite) against Augustana or Oshkosh, who both have the veteran perimeter guys you want against a pressing team plus bigs who can punish Whitman, but those three seem like the three teams to beat right now, followed closely by Amherst/Swarthmore.  Williams, Hamilton, CNU, RMC, Marietta, St. Thomas I see as the dark-horses-with-a-chance.

I'd add Wheaton to your 'dark horse' list.  They've already lost twice to Augustana (whom they play tomorrow), but when you've got Aston Francis, you've always got a 'puncher's chance'.  Augie has largely shut him down before, but I don't know if they can do it three times in a row.

Keep in mind that "shut him down" is relative, too. Francis scored 30 and 35 against Augie this season. But they were an inefficient 30 and 35, because Augie's guards kept him from driving and from losing him off-ball on backcuts and screens; Francis typically makes himself efficient by either getting layups or by getting to the FT line, where he's close to 90%.

Of course, if he's en fuego from behind the arc on a given night, then you can pretty much forget about it, because you'll never be able to extend far enough out to stop him from shooting.

Wheaton played Augie close both times, the first time especially. Wheaton had the ball while down two with the shot clock turned off, but Francis couldn't manufacture a good game-winning or game-tying shot for himself and ended up taking a low-percentage trey attempt from the right corner with 11 seconds left that rimmed out and Augie rebounded. Wheaton can beat Augie if everything falls right (i.e., Francis dons his Superman costume), which means that it can certainly beat Marietta or Oswego State as well, neither of whom presents nearly the obstacle that Augie does. The question is, how many times in the final two weekends can you win with puncher's-chance odds? The answer to that question is not likely to be "three".

[daoustian]

Nice Hoopsville interview with Coach Hixon.  No big inside baseball but some nice anecdotes about the season and a touching one about the team putting together a video for his mother when she missed a game online.  Sounds like there is good chemistry with this group, although Hixon talked about how 2019-20 will need "something added" to compensate for Schneider's graduation.  With the late season run, Hixon has moved up from 25th to 20th on the all-time college men's basketball coaching wins list, and if Amherst can make it to the championship game, he'll be in a tie for 19th.  A lot of ball between here and there, and a lot of big names ahead of him on the list (though many of them are also moving targets), so it'll be hard to have as large of a jump up the list in future seasons.  Wooster's coach went from 19th to 17th on the list this year, but no more wins for them this season. 

[Conts Fan]

Williams is handling Whitman's pressure well and getting some easy baskets off the press so far. It will be interesting to see if they eventually wear down.

[Colby Hoops]

First half went as well as you could have hoped for Williams. Mickey Babek stepped up big off the bench to give Williams a big boost - handled the pressure nicely and hit three big three-pointers.

Williams also put the clamps on defensively. Whitman can't get anything in the paint, but Jack Stewart and Darne Duckett have kept them in it with long range shooting. If Williams can continue to minimize live-ball turnovers and keep forcing Whitman to play half court offense they seem to have a big advantage.

Coach App went deeper into his bench given the pace. Casey was gassed just a five minutes into the game -- it's an exhausting pace for a PG. Will be an interesting second half -- Whitman is the type of team that can rip off a big run in no time.

[Conts Fan]

Whitman's pressure was relentless - I didn't think Williams was going to hold on. Really nice job by the Ephs. Hopefully that's only the first of three NESCAC wins tonight.

[old_hooper]

Congrats to the Ephs!  They handle the pressure enough to win.  Great effort by the Eph bench.

[BluesBrother]

Well, congrats to the Ephs.

Blues shot poorly (credit to the Ephs for string interior D) and put themselves in a position where everything had to go right down the stretch and it didn't.

Alas.

[Colby Hoops]

Great win for the Ephs, after a sloppy end to the regular season they're playing their best basketball in the tournament. Controlled the game for 35 minutes and held off a big push from Whitman at the end. By far the most balanced scoring effort from Williams this season (partly due to Whitman's style). Michael Kempton was really solid in the second half contesting shots at the rim and rebounding the ball.

Williams didn't get nearly as many easy looks in the second half and turned the ball over a whopping 29 times for the game, but they shot it very well and played tough physical defense. Just no easy looks all game for the Blues. Austin Butler was as advertised with 18, 10, 8 and 7 steals -- crazy stat line.

A lot of fouls and foul trouble made the second half a bit choppy, but it was a physical, intense game between two very good teams.

Rooting for the Hamilton and Amherst now -- would be pretty cool to have 3 Nescac teams make it to tomorrow.

[nescac1]

What a win for the Ephs!!!  Fun to for once be the underdog.  That was the very definition of SURVIVE and advance.  Williams was playing beautiful basketball really for the first 35 minutes of the game, but you could see the Ephs were totally out of gas at that point.  Whitman started to get every single offensive rebound and turnovers by the bushel.  The Ephs were making poor decisions due to mental fatigue.  Fortunately, the Ephs' truly awesome defensive effort late, plus late clutch free throws, enabled Williams to hang on by the skin of their teeth.  I'm not sure how much they will have left in the tank for tomorrow, but tonight sure was fun.

The game ball goes to the Ephs' much-maligned bench.  I think NO ONE could have predicted the Ephs' bench unit would outscore Whitman 26-17.  Mickey Babek in particular was huge, providing some extra ball-handling, hitting three massive first-half triples, and the free throws to ice the game, cool as a cucumber.  Easily the best game of his career.  Jovan Jones, Michael Kempton, Marcos Soto all played great as well, and even Spencer Spivy hit a circus layup in his brief stint on the floor. 

Due largely to foul trouble, none of the Eph starters played even 30 minutes save for Casey.  It may actually have been a blessing because man does Whitman wear you down.  All five played very well, and Kyle Scadlock was immense on both ends in the second half. 

The stats in this game are crazy but against Whitman things are going to be crazy: Williams shot 67/64/79 as there were wide open looks galore in much of the game until the Ephs finally wore down late.  But Williams survived a crazy 29 turnovers and 18 offensive rebounds.  The Eph D was tremendous given how many opportunities Whitman had, getting back and really giving up very, very few easy looks all game -- almost no uncontested dunks or layups and in the second half they were all over the three point shooters. 

For Whitman, Austin Butler is such a monster.  He is right there with Troy Whittington and Allen Williamson among the best athletes I've seen in D3 (I'm sure there are other non-NESCAC guys too, but from NESCAC, only those two are in his class).  HE really is the young Jason Kidd / Ben Simmons of D3 ... 18-10-8 plus seven steals, he seemingly was everywhere on the court at once.  But he is not a shooter and his and Whitman's overall free throw conversion difficulties came back to bite them.  Whitman had 34 more FG attempts than Williams -- that is absolutely insane!!!!!  But Williams shot it so well, and Whitman relatively poorly, that it was enough to compensate.

Go Ephs, that was the most fun and satisfying Eph win in quite some time.  Now I'm hoping to play Hamilton so win or lose we can at least guarantee a NESCAC team in the Final Four! 

[nescac1]

The second half box score is especially crazy.  Williams only attempted 16 field goals in the entire second half, vs. 41 for Whitman ... 11 offensive boards, and 17 turnovers forced (and yes, most of them were very much forced) by Whitman in that half.  But when Williams DID manage to get a shot attempt off, they hardly ever missed.  Still, to get outscored by only 5 in the half with that sort of shot differential is pretty unreal.