MBB: NESCAC

[middhoops]

Yeah, the Bowdoin/Midd game was ugly for sure.  Escaping Maine with two wins shouldn't be under rated.  It's really sweet.
Lost in the shuffle in the comments is Noah Osher's heroic game.  Osher carried his team for much of the game with Sobel on the bench.  Most of his baskets were timely daggers.

This team is remarkable in their resilience.  Since being 2-2 back in November, Midd has found ways to win games that were close with 3 or fewer minutes remaining.  An 11 game streak for a team with no seniors and what started out as being a very short bench has defied all expectations.

Jeff Brown is demonstrating what great coaching looks like.

[maineman]

On to Bowdoin for the afternoon game and see what the Polar Bears have after getting blistered by the Ephs. This was one of my favorite hoop weekends year after every other year. Sad not to be there with Maine pals.

This could be a trap game for Midd if they come in overconfident.  I hope they don't because when assume you'll win, bad things happen.

If Middlebury loses today, it won't be because they are overconfident. What a dumb, clueless thing to say about this group of guys (and coaching staff).

Sheesh Bucket, that's a little harsh. I don't think Midd will be overconfident either, but it is an afternoon game after a night game on the road (it's called "the dreaded Maine trip," for a reason). Three fifths of the starting line-up for Midd are frosh — an offday, foul trouble: hardly impossible. The Midd team continues to surpass all of our early expectations. For Panther diehards, it's a pandemic delight even if we can't get into the gym to watch.

I think you just agreed with me.

Plenty of ways and reasons for Midd to have lost to Bowdoin today—I'm glad they didn't!—but being overconfident would never in a millions years be one of those reasons. Which is why I called the comment clueless and dumb and still stand by that!

Doubling down.  That's head scratcher!  Anyway, I thought Midd seemed in control most of the way, even when they had just a slim lead.  When Bowdoin came back and got within one point, I felt it was important, at least psychologically that they were unable to gain a tie or lead.  The only time I had some doubt was when Sobel came back in with 4 fouls and lasted all of about a minute before committing an offensive foul.  At the time, I believe the lead was only about two.  Alex was frustrated and I think it was Osher who redirected him to the bench before he vented too much to the ref and perhaps picked up a T.  By then, there were only about 5 minutes left and you could count the trips down the the floor each team would get with two hands.  If you come up with empty trips then, it could mean the game.  I noticed on the next trip down the floor, the ref made perhaps a makeup and called a charge on Bowdoin.  But, Stevens was Stevens and he took control with multiple 3's to get a comfortable lead again.  Osher was huge too.  I would imagine that Steven's clutch shooting this weekend could put him in the hunt for NESCAC player of the week.

[Old Guy]

Middlebury was up by just one with six and a half minutes to go and the momentum all the other way. Less than a minute later, Sobel went out with five fouls. If you had said that Sobel would play 16 minutes — 9 in the 1st half; 7 in the second, get only 4 points and 4 rebounds, I could not imagine possible victorious outcome. One of his two blocks was a classic: he blocked the shot at the rim, then saved the ball from going out and directed it to a teammate, and scored at the other end, beautiful! Middlebury is a different team when Sobel is in there. But it cannot be lost on the team that they won a NESCAC game largely without the big guy. 

Noah Osher had 13 points in the first half, 27 overall, and kept the Panthers in the lead practically by himself, deadly from 15'-18'.  Stevens (23 points) really rose to the occasion in the second half, especially after Sobel went out. Nice to have Osher and Stevens at the line when the other team has to foul. Brennan had his double-double - 10 points, 11 rebounds; Peter Carlson, in the rotation now, played 19 minutes (4 points, 8 rebounds); Charley Moore again came off the bench and contributed 6 points in 10 minutes. Osher (39 minutes), Stevens (37) and Brennan (36) played nearly the whole game.

Good weekend for the Panthers! Williams next Friday down there (Tuesday game with Plymouth State).

[maineman]

I am wondering about the Midd game at Plymouth State.  This might be just my impression, but it seems to me that the NESCAC prioritizes league games in this covid environment and are willing to do overnights required to play them.  They have canceled or postponed non league games much more readily.  Now that might just be because of the sickness itself.  It would seem to me that it would be a lot easier to keep your team healthy if you can avoid hotels and restaurants.  They have already postponed the Old Westbury game on 1/25, which would involve an overnight, but that wouldn't be the case with Plymouth.  It would be a same day bus ride.  For this reason, unless covid raises its ugly head between now and then, I'm guessing it gets played on Tuesday. 

[nescac1]

Looking at the NCAA D3 team leaders and there are a lot of interesting NESCAC entries ...

Wesleyan is 4th nationally in scoring margin, and Williams and Amherst are highly-ranked as well.  Other than a bad second half in the Williams game, Wesleyan has really been destroying teams - and doing it lately while missing Sam Peek.  If he can come back soon, the Cards should continue to role.  In the meantime, it's been a chance for other guys to step up into leading roles.  Antone Walker is finally back for the Cards, adding to the backcourt depth, and big frosh Jared Langs (he's listed at 6'8 but I swear he looks bigger) has emerged as yet another capable center for the Cards in recent games. 

The top NESCAC teams are dominant in the rebound margin rankings: Midd 1, Wesleyan 3, Williams 7, and Amherst 9.  The Sobel-Brennan combo has just been murdering teams on the boards for Midd.  Wesleyan and Amherst come at teams with waves of capable bigs.  Williams has probably the best rebounding backcourt in the country in Prowitt-Smith and Spivy (helps when your guards are 6'4 and 6'6) and does a great job on the defensive glass. 

After making 18-36 3s over the past weekend, Williams is 1st in the nation in three-point shooting percentage (42 percent), and tied for 1st in the nation in fewest fouls allowed per game.  The Ephs are also fourth in overall scoring defense.  It's no coincidence that in Williams' one loss to Amherst, it committed by far its most fouls of the season and also had its second-worst three-point shooting performance ... we will see on Wednesday if that was just an aberrant performance abetted by rust / feeling the pressure of a rivalry game, or if something about the match-up causes Williams real problems. 

Given those stats (along with the rebounding margin stats), you'd think that Williams would be an absolute juggernaut, but as has been oft-commented on, what's holding Williams back is maximizing possessions ... Williams will never get a ton of extra possessions from offensive rebounds, given the emphasis on no transition baskets, but turnovers are an area that Williams can definitely make some progress on.  And hey, it's not like a 12-1 record, with the closest margin of victory in the wins being 7 points, is unimpressive!  As of now, the Ephs play like a top-five national team when they are at their best, but barely a top-50 team when at their worst.  It's all about staying locked in for 40 minutes for the Ephs.

Where does NESCAC struggle?  Shooting the 3 ball, other than Williams.  Wesleyan is basically an average shooting team.  Everyone else is sub-par, especially Tufts, Amherst and Colby, who are really struggling.  Those three teams were the best teams in the league in 2020, and the biggest reason that they have collectively failed to meet the fairly high expectations for this season is that all three are just terrible shooting teams -- especially Tufts, mired below 30 percent from 3.  If they are hot in any particular game, Tufts and Amherst in particular will both still be very tough to beat, the question is, can they avoid the games where nothing is falling at all?  It's too late for Tufts, whose eggs are all in the Pool A basket.  Amherst can probably afford no more than one more regular season loss to have any shot at Pool C, itself, and may need to win out to be a strong Pool C contender. 

Individual stats, NESCAC is far less impressive, outside of Midd.  Alex Sobel is the only guy who registers, 5th nationally in blocks and 6th in double-doubles.  Those are first-team all-American two-way stats.  One other stat to watch -- Sam Stevens is the fourth-leading first-year scorer in the country.  The three guys ahead of him are from not-very-good teams in very weak leagues.  He's more than 2 ppg ahead of the next guy from a prominent league (Isaiah Taylor from Clark at 17.3 ppg, but Taylor's overall numbers, especially his shooting numbers, aren't even close to Stevens-level).  Unless there is someone obvious I'm not aware of, if the season ended now Stevens would be an easy choice for best first-year in the country.  (Hayden Doyle from Wash U is probably his biggest competition that I can think of, he's having an amazing year as well, just an old-school pure point guard, and Wash U looks like a legit title contender which helps his case despite solid but modest overall stats). That Stevens is doing it without a lot of help on the perimeter for the current first-place team in a power league is all the more impressive.  Stevens, if he just continues at this pace, is also a near-lock to be the first NESCAC first-year to be named to an all-league team since Duncan Robinson.  And if you look at the other New England first-years who have won national accolades in recent years (Duncan, Joey Flannery, Jake Ross) Stevens' future seems very bright indeed ...

[nescacfaninbos]

Somethings off in those stats on that NCAA site... for instance, according to that site, the leading 3 point shooter %-wise in the NESCAC is McCormick from Bates at #33, yet look at the NESCAC site and Eric Anderson is leading the conference at just over 50% (top 5 nationally) and Declan Porter is #2 which would put him in the 20s nationally. Can't be the number of attempts as they both have more shots than the #1 player listed.

Not sure if that is the only category that is off.

[Old Guy]

[/quote] Anyway, I thought Midd seemed in control most of the way, even when they had just a slim lead.  When Bowdoin came back and got within one point, I felt it was important, at least psychologically that they were unable to gain a tie or lead.  The only time I had some doubt was when Sobel came back in with 4 fouls and lasted all of about a minute before committing an offensive foul.  At the time, I believe the lead was only about two.  Alex was frustrated and I think it was Osher who redirected him to the bench before he vented too much to the ref and perhaps picked up a T.  By then, there were only about 5 minutes left and you could count the trips down the the floor each team would get with two hands.  If you come up with empty trips then, it could mean the game.  I noticed on the next trip down the floor, the ref made perhaps a makeup and called a charge on Bowdoin.  But, Stevens was Stevens and he took control with multiple 3's to get a comfortable lead again.  Osher was huge too.  I would imagine that Steven's clutch shooting this weekend could put him in the hunt for NESCAC player of the week.
[/quote]

Well put!

[Old Guy]

Individual stats, NESCAC is far less impressive, outside of Midd.  Alex Sobel is the only guy who registers, 5th nationally in blocks and 6th in double-doubles.  Those are first-team all-American two-way stats.  One other stat to watch -- Sam Stevens is the fourth-leading first-year scorer in the country.  The three guys ahead of him are from not-very-good teams in very weak leagues.  He's more than 2 ppg ahead of the next guy from a prominent league (Isaiah Taylor from Clark at 17.3 ppg, but Taylor's overall numbers, especially his shooting numbers, aren't even close to Stevens-level).  Unless there is someone obvious I'm not aware of, if the season ended now Stevens would be an easy choice for best first-year in the country.  (Hayden Doyle from Wash U is probably his biggest competition that I can think of, he's having an amazing year as well, just an old-school pure point guard, and Wash U looks like a legit title contender which helps his case despite solid but modest overall stats). That Stevens is doing it without a lot of help on the perimeter for the current first-place team in a power league is all the more impressive.  Stevens, if he just continues at this pace, is also a near-lock to be the first NESCAC first-year to be named to an all-league team since Duncan Robinson.  And if you look at the other New England first-years who have won national accolades in recent years (Duncan, Joey Flannery, Jake Ross) Stevens' future seems very bright indeed ...

As a Middlebury partisan, I love Stevens obviously. Never met him, know nothing about him. Does he benefit (as well as Osher, Brennan, and Bobbett), as good as they are, from the fact that the cupboard was bare at Middlebury, no returning starters, tons of playing time available? Would they start for the Ephs, Mammoths, or Cardinals? Are there other Stevenses in NESCAC, frosh, getting but few minutes, lots of bench time because there are so many experienced players ahead of them, players with reps who took a pandemic semester or year off and have expectations of playing time? It may be that Stevens, Brennan, and Bobbett were perspicacious enough to say, "I can play right away at Midd," but I suspect they just saw an overall situation that appealed to them. Would love to sit down and have acuppacoffee with the coaches and hear the recruiting stories.

[Old Guy]

Individual stats, NESCAC is far less impressive, outside of Midd.  Alex Sobel is the only guy who registers, 5th nationally in blocks and 6th in double-doubles.  Those are first-team all-American two-way stats.  One other stat to watch -- Sam Stevens is the fourth-leading first-year scorer in the country.  The three guys ahead of him are from not-very-good teams in very weak leagues.  He's more than 2 ppg ahead of the next guy from a prominent league (Isaiah Taylor from Clark at 17.3 ppg, but Taylor's overall numbers, especially his shooting numbers, aren't even close to Stevens-level).  Unless there is someone obvious I'm not aware of, if the season ended now Stevens would be an easy choice for best first-year in the country.  (Hayden Doyle from Wash U is probably his biggest competition that I can think of, he's having an amazing year as well, just an old-school pure point guard, and Wash U looks like a legit title contender which helps his case despite solid but modest overall stats). That Stevens is doing it without a lot of help on the perimeter for the current first-place team in a power league is all the more impressive.  Stevens, if he just continues at this pace, is also a near-lock to be the first NESCAC first-year to be named to an all-league team since Duncan Robinson.  And if you look at the other New England first-years who have won national accolades in recent years (Duncan, Joey Flannery, Jake Ross) Stevens' future seems very bright indeed ...

As a Middlebury partisan, I love Stevens obviously. Never met him, know nothing about him. Does he benefit (as well as Osher, Brennan, and Bobbett), as good as they are, from the fact that the cupboard was bare at Middlebury, no returning starters, tons of playing time available? Would they start for the Ephs, Mammoths, or Cardinals? Are there other Stevenses in NESCAC, frosh, getting but few minutes, lots of bench time because there are so many experienced players ahead of them, players with reps who took a pandemic semester or year off and have expectations of playing time? It may be that Stevens, Brennan, and Bobbett were perspicacious enough to say, "I can play right away at Midd," but I suspect they just saw an overall situation that appealed to them. Would love to sit down and have acuppacoffee with the coaches and hear the recruiting stories.

Stevens is averaging over 34 minutes of playing time a game: a first year's dream.

[SpringSt7]

Somethings off in those stats on that NCAA site... for instance, according to that site, the leading 3 point shooter %-wise in the NESCAC is McCormick from Bates at #33, yet look at the NESCAC site and Eric Anderson is leading the conference at just over 50% (top 5 nationally) and Declan Porter is #2 which would put him in the 20s nationally. Can't be the number of attempts as they both have more shots than the #1 player listed.

Not sure if that is the only category that is off.

I don't know anything as it pertains to that particular stat but the new NESCAC stat software on the website is miserable across all sports. I'm not a software designer but it's clearly coded to only sort based on maybe the points per game leaders or something like that. If you search for the top 20 rebounders, it's not going to give you the top 20, it's just going to sort the top scorers by rebounding.

[maineman]

There are two NESCAC teams in this weeks D-3 poll.  Wes is at #15 and Wil at #20.  Two NESCAC teams are just off the top 25 with Midd accumulating 29 votes and Tufts with 6 votes.  Amh is not listed.  Now I know I am dumb and clueless, but Tufts ahead of Amh makes no sense to me.  Maybe there are some Tufts loyalists on the board who do what Steve Spurrier did in football with Duke.....always list them on their ballot, regardless?

[maineman]

I am wondering about the Midd game at Plymouth State.  This might be just my impression, but it seems to me that the NESCAC prioritizes league games in this covid environment and are willing to do overnights required to play them.  They have canceled or postponed non league games much more readily.  Now that might just be because of the sickness itself.  It would seem to me that it would be a lot easier to keep your team healthy if you can avoid hotels and restaurants.  They have already postponed the Old Westbury game on 1/25, which would involve an overnight, but that wouldn't be the case with Plymouth.  It would be a same day bus ride.  For this reason, unless covid raises its ugly head between now and then, I'm guessing it gets played on Tuesday.

Mens and Womens hockey with Norwich and Plattsburgh against Midd have been canceled, but the mens basketball at Plymouth State is still on.  Again, I wonder if it will be played tonight?  Perhaps the hockey cancellations are due to the opponent, not Midd?

[nescac1]

All of the rescheduling is going to lead to some really tough stretches of games for certain teams.  But man, Wesleyan seems to have caught the roughest scheduling break:

at UMD, at Tufts, Amherst, Hamilton, at Midd, at Williams.  That's a brutal stretch of games packed into only two weeks (including four games over only nine days) because they had to squeeze the Tufts league game in.  The big question for Wesleyan is will Sam Peak be back for those games, because they certainly need him for that stretch.  Everyone else seems to be healthy right now for Wesleyan, which is a good sign. 

Speaking of Peak, he's listed as a senior with a year of eligibility remaining.  If he returns to Wesleyan next year, they are going to be absolutely loaded.  But I wonder if tries to use his final year as a D1 grad transfer.  I think he could play for the right Ivy or Patriot League type program. 

As for the Tufts question, maineman, scroll back through this board and the top 25 board on this site.  Those six points are almost certainly from one voter who continues to be very high on Tufts and has stuck to his guns despite being hammered for it.  Middlebury will surely enter the poll with a sweep this week (including a win over Williams).  Williams and Wesleyan both have a chance to make big leaps in the poll with very tough games ahead (or suffer losses that knock them down a few pegs).  The reason both are languishing lower than their record and stats might suggest is the strength of schedule.  But Wesleyan has the aforementioned brutal stretch ahead, and Williams plays Amherst and Midd this week, so the schedule is about to get a lot tougher for both.  I'm still hoping Williams can reschedule Yeshiva, or if not add in a few other tough non-league games to compensate for the games that were lost due to COVID. 

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I voted for Middlebury just slightly ahead of Tufts.  I had Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan in a group of 8 schools I was debating for my final four spots.  In the end, I decided to leave them all off.  I've voted for all five teams at different points this season and still don't know what to make of any of them.

This year's NESCAC feels like a lot of good teams on paper who've struggled to figure themselves out on the floor.  I'm not confident Middlebury is the best team - in fact I doubt it - but they seem to actually be playing well right now and they're getting better every game.  That was enough for me.

I have been voting for Tufts, but if they can't get their whole team on the floor at the same time this weekend, that'll have to stop, the same way I stopped, this week, giving Amherst the benefit of the doubt when they can't seem to play up to their abilities.  I've not been super impressed with either Williams or Wesleyan.  Wesleyan clearly has a better resume, but it's not like a world beater or anything.

I can rank the NESCAC teams right now, because I'm asked to do so (Midd, Tufts, Amherst, Williams, and Wes, in that order, for what its worth), but I'm not confident in those rankings and I wouldn't argue with anyone who disagrees.  I'm just waiting to see the rest of the season play out.

At this point, anyone who thinks they know what's going on in this conference is fooling themselves.

[maineman]

As I indicated earlier, in my opinion, NESCAC prioritizes league games and will make every effort to play them if two healthy opposing teams can be fielded even if an overnight is required.  Non league games necessitating an overnight are an endangered species at this point.