MBB: NESCAC

[Colby Hoops]

Will be nice to have hoops back for the Nescac starting tomorrow. Should be an interesting opening weekend for Colby -- starting with New England College and potentially a matchup against WPI on Saturday.

Expect it to be an extremely fast paced opener against New England College, a team that sells out for steals at all costs (led by all-time steals leader Calvin Cheek who had 12!!! steals in their opener). Not exactly the easiest style for the first real game in two years, but if Colby can take care of the ball reasonably well they should have no trouble putting up quite a few points. If Colby can take care of NEC, a matchup against a very solid WPI team on Saturday should be a great early season test.

The main thing to watch for Colby will be who gets minutes outside of King, Hanna, Tyson, McGovern and Obi. I'm guessing that Lucas Green, Liam O'Connell, Jack Lawson and Cooper Wirkala will all get some run, but there are a lot of unknowns!

[SpringSt7]

With games returning tomorrow, here's what I have:

First Team:
Grant Robinson - Amherst
Cole Prowitt-Smith - Williams
Sam Peek - Wesleyan
Noah Tyson - Colby
Donald Jorden - Trinity

Second Team:

Garrett Day - Amherst
Omar Sarr - Bates
Luke Rogers - Tufts
Jordan James - Wesleyan
Will King - Colby

POY: Tyson
COY: Reilly
ROY: Declan Porter, Williams

Tournament Teams: Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Colby

These are impossible. Just an unprecedented situation---2 of the 10 all-league guys return. Obviously the headline here is I'm selling on Tufts and Luke Rogers---I just think Eric Savage is a really big loss from a team last year that got a bump from winning the conference (barely, against a pretty easy gauntlet of teams) and then got their season stopped before they could lose in the Sweet 16 to a Brockport team that was better than them. They should've lost in the first round to Western Connecticut too. Quite frankly I don't trust that Rogers will come back in shape after the extra year off, but obviously I could have major egg on my face if he shows up jacked and averages 25/15.

These are not predictions of what the votes will be because the trend as of late has been to give COY to whoever wins the conference (lame), POY to whoever wins the conference (lame) and to get each team's best player on an all-league team (by far the lamest).

[SpringSt7]

With games returning tomorrow, here's what I have:

First Team:
Grant Robinson - Amherst
Cole Prowitt-Smith - Williams
Sam Peek - Wesleyan
Noah Tyson - Colby
Donald Jorden - Trinity

Second Team:

Garrett Day - Amherst
Omar Sarr - Bates
Luke Rogers - Tufts
Jordan James - Wesleyan
Will King - Colby

POY: Tyson
COY: Reilly
DPOY: Nick Osarenren
ROY: Declan Porter, Williams

Tournament Teams: Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Colby

All Rookie: Porter, Brendan Roughley (Williams), Will Dorion (Trinity), Sam Stevens (Middlebury), and one of the Colby wings---don't know which one.

These are impossible. Just an unprecedented situation---2 of the 10 all-league guys return. Obviously the headline here is I'm selling on Tufts and Luke Rogers---I just think Eric Savage is a really big loss from a team last year that got a bump from winning the conference (barely, against a pretty easy gauntlet of teams) and then got their season stopped before they could lose in the Sweet 16 to a Brockport team that was better than them. They should've lost in the first round to Western Connecticut too. Quite frankly I don't trust that Rogers will come back in shape after the extra year off, but obviously I could have major egg on my face if he shows up jacked and averages 25/15.

These are not predictions of what the votes will be because the trend as of late has been to give COY to whoever wins the conference (lame), POY to whoever wins the conference (lame) and to get each team's best player on an all-league team (by far the lamest).

[nescac1]

First team:

Grant Robinson - Amherst
Luke Rogers - Tufts
Omar Sarr - Bates
Will King - Colby
Donald Jorden - Trinity

Second Team:

Garrett Day - Amherst
Jordan James - Wesleyan
Sam Peek - Wesleyan
Cole Prowitt-Smith - Williams
Brennan Morris - Tufts

POY: Rogers
COY: App
DPOY: Sarr
ROY: Declan Porter, Williams

All rookie: Stevens, Dorian, Porter, Roughley, Andrew Hartell

Team standings: Tufts, Williams, Amherst, Colby, Wesleyan, Trinity, Bates, Hamilton, Midd, Conn, Bowdoin

[nescac1]

This is not Nescac related but man, check this first-year out. 7', 360, and shoots threes!

https://athletics.sjfc.edu/sports/mens-basketball/roster/connor-williams/11118

[D3.Lifer]

First team:

Grant Robinson - Amherst
Luke Rogers - Tufts
Omar Sarr - Bates
Will King - Colby
Donald Jorden - Trinity

Second Team:

Garrett Day - Amherst
Jordan James - Wesleyan
Sam Peek - Wesleyan
Cole Prowitt-Smith - Williams
Brennan Morris - Tufts

POY: Rogers
COY: App
DPOY: Sarr
ROY: Declan Porter, Williams

All rookie: Stevens, Dorian, Porter, Roughley, Andrew Hartell

Team standings: Tufts, Williams, Amherst, Colby, Wesleyan, Trinity, Bates, Hamilton, Midd, Conn, Bowdoin

To not have Noah Tyson on an All-League team is criminal

[nescac1]

I think Tyson is a very good player.  But I don't really understand the hype.  He was Colby's fourth-leading scorer last season.  He's a strong rebounder and defender but he did not get a ton of defensive attention and still didn't shoot it especially well.  I think there is a good chance he's all league but also no guarantee he's even ahead of Hannah or King on his own squad. 

[SpringSt7]

I have to be honest I'm pretty surprised that I ended up with Tyson as my POY. There's probably like 5-7 guys at least I would draft ahead of him in a mock NESCAC draft but I just think he's going to put some insane numbers as the #1 option---assuming his shooting improves just a little bit over the past 2 seasons he could be close to an 18-10 guy on the perimeter which is really impressive. And are there really that many better options?

I don't think Hanna will be ahead of him---he's a talent but he's ultimately a low efficiency volume guy who gets to put up stats on a run and gun offense. King could easily beat him out though, that kid is special, just don't know what his scoring output is going to look like if their offense isn't the same level of efficiency without Jefferson and Dorion.

[Colby Hoops]

I'm also surprised to see people have Tyson in the POY conversation. Great player, and his rebounding/defense allow Colby to play the way they do, but he's mostly been a spot up shooter on offense. I think he'd have to take a pretty major step forward as a creator to get in the POY conversation. Hopefully he does and I'm proved wrong!

[SpringSt7]

I just didn't want to pick Rogers to be honest. 3rd straight junior to win the award and Gilmour and Heskett didn't leave up to the hype for their senior seasons, although Heskett was hurt and Hamilton was just a mess. I thought about Robinson/Day but really don't know how you pick one of those guys. I really like Sam Peek but that just seems like a stretch with how many other mouths they have to feed, although I do think he's a 1st-teamer.

[Greek Tragedy]

This is not Nescac related but man, check this first-year out. 7', 360, and shoots threes!

https://athletics.sjfc.edu/sports/mens-basketball/roster/connor-williams/11118

The county Player of the Year.

[nescac1]

All the NESCAC hoops rosters are out.  One big name missing for Hamilton: Nkosi Cooper, who I thought could be primed for a big year.  Without him, no Kena Gilmour, and no fifth year seniors on the roster, a lot of young guys will have to step up for the Conts, especially at guard. 

[D3.Lifer]

Tough game for Colby but boy did Tyson look good. Making that POY looking more and more realistic.

[Colby Hoops]

Colby takes a wild one over NEC in overtime 94-84. Very sloppy first half for Colby (not too surprising) followed by a much better second half and overtime. Colby came roaring back and looked like they were going to put it away in regulation before a sloppy finish almost cost them the game. The Mules dominated OT, with special assistance to an extremely untimely technical on an NEC player with just a couple minutes to go that basically ended it.

Tyson played very well the entire game, and Hanna and King were very good in the second half/OT, but the surprise star of the game was David Basich. The undersized guard was everywhere -- great defensively, pushed the pace, made some truly excellent passes, rebounded extremely well for his size and made some timely buckets. Finished with 12-10-6. This style of game certainly played to his strengths, but he seems like a player.

Jack Lawson also looked solid, good size and nice touch and ballhandling skills. The rest of the Colby supporting cast was pretty quiet, although Strahorn went with a huge rotation in the first half.

Should be a good test against WPI tomorrow. Will have to play better than today, but nice to get a W in the opener.

[nescac1]

As usual the Nescac scoreboard is terrible.  Wes is winning by 40.  Very very impressive outing led by Sam Peek.  Gilbert Otoo had a big debut for Trinity, though hard to take much from it given a very weak opponent.  But still, solid overall day one for three teams with hopes of being in the upper tier of Nescac.