MBB: NESCAC

[middhoops]

What a week for Middlebury!
Keene on Monday and a huge win at Chandler Gym today.  Can't possibly say enough good stuff about Jeff Brown.  Midd played awesome D against a legit top 10 team on their own court.  Sobel was Sobel, which is enough to get the Panthers over the top against most teams.
The game was, as NESCAC1 said, decided in the first half when Midd shut the Ephs down.
Massive kudos (yet again, and again) to Jeff Brown.  Don't even know where to start.  Just, wow.
This is SO not the Midd team that was so mediocre for most of the season up until last Monday.

Williams is a super talented team, but missing Brandon Roughley and the downstream effects of his loss is evident against a rebounding team like Sobel/Brennan.

Great game, as Toad predicted.  One we won't forget soon.

[SpringSt7]

It's not the first time that Williams has banged around with Amherst 3 days before playing Middlebury so I guess to some extent the slow start is understandable but it is pretty frustrating to get so out toughed when you know that is the opposing team's MO. They gave up 18 offensive rebounds and while 13 turnovers wasn't the be all and end all, 8 of those came in the second half and all seemed to come at the worst times imaginable right when they were on the verge of cutting it to a one possession game.

Credit to Coach App however, was fun to watch him have to throw all sorts of stuff at the wall. With Karren in foul trouble and Arnold struggling he went small, which he NEVER does, against the most physical frontcourt in the country and put his freshman power forward on Sobel, and they cut it all the way to 4. He drew up some great stuff coming out of the half as well that allowed them to immediately find their offensive footing. Just too much to overcome today unfortunately.

[jumpshot]

Midd wins today with excellent individual and team defense over an EPH team not playing loose and freely. As a result, EPHS shoot, rebound, and handle the ball poorly. Each time Williams got close, their next play seemed to be a turnover, shooting foul, offensive rebound, missed finish at the hoop, or failed foul shot. Hard to win with that byline. Sure, EPHS' revamped lineup and jagged rotation a factor. For some reason EPHS seem often out of breath to me, even with less up and down than typical Midd style.

Still a long way to go ....

[SpringSt7]

Middlebury shot 31% from the field and made 5 threes. Would love to know how many times that combination has gotten a team a win on the road against a top 10 team in the country.

But they took 16 more shots than Williams on the backs of their offensive rebounding and turnover rates. An infuriating way to lose

[toad22]

It was a tale of two halves. Middlebury won H1 very easily. I'm not sure when the last time was that Williams scored 13 points in a half, but I'm pretty sure we need to go back at least 50 years. Middlebury wasn't exactly scorching, but at least they got over 20 (24) to be exact. That 11 points proved impossible to overcome, hard as Williams tried. Too many turnovers, plus the fact that Middlebury seemed to get to every loose ball. Though Williams shot a lot better in H2, 54% in H2 vs 17% in H1, they couldn't overcome those turnovers and that scrappiness. Great win for Middlebury.

[JEFFFAN]

No horse in the race ... that Middlebury team seemed to be far superior to Williams for probably 37 minutes today.   The inside strength of Middlebury was just way too much for the Ephs from beginning to end.  Kudos to Williams for making it sort of a game at the end but I see a big difference in quality between these two teams.

The Lord Jeffs are .... what we thought they were.  That was just ugly.

[Greek Tragedy]

Is it time to take Wesleyan seriously? I suppose the 1st weekend in February will tell us. Williams and Middlebury at home and they finish with the last 4 at home.

[ThumannsOwn]

Having watched the Amherst Williams game in person last night, I cannot fathom how Amherst can be 6-10.  I know rivalry games bring out the best in many teams, but how in the world did Amherst ever lose to the likes of Colby Sawyer and Springfield?

Coaching?

Legit question from lumbercat who may have hit the nail on the head. Amherst now 6-11 after a 78-49 shellacking at the hands of Hamilton on the road yesterday. Absolutely nothing in that box score to like or worth even mentioning.

[names jaismith]

I've seen Wesleyan in person.  Very good starting lineup.  Best point guard in the league.  Great coaching.  Not much depth.  They are in a good spot to finish in top third of league.  Don't think they are nearly as good as Middlebury or Williams.  Looking at the bottom, poor Bates!  The could easily be 4-0.  But they play a murderous away schedule in their remaining games and have only one game at home (Bowdoin) which looks like a pretty sure thing.  Staying at the tail end of the NESCAC, it looks as if Bowdoin will end up with either one or no wins.  Their best remaining chance is against Conn, a team they match up well against, and handled twice last year.  The middle of the NESCAC is a complete muddle.  Hamilton looks to be on track for a playoff spot with a win vs Midd and a history of being very tough at home.  Colby will need to get hot - they can do it with three very winnable home games and Bates on the road, but they have no room for slip ups.  Tufts is 2-2 but has four really difficult road games.  Amherst, the definition of inconsistent, could win all its remaining games or get blown out in all of them.  Trinity is actually in a decent spot with a good chance to win at least three and maybe more, of their remaining games. Conn is 3-1, but the three wins have been by a total of 17 points.  The good news for them is that if there is a tie breaker with Tufts or Trinity, they will hold the upper hand.  The bad news is that they still have Middlebury and Williams left, along with Amherst, Hamilton, Bowdoin and Colby away.  A win against Bowdoin would seem to all but guarantee them a place in the playoffs, but they have not yet found a way to beat the Polar Bears.  Conn's biggest issue is that they are not a good offensive team, and so their defense needs to carry them in each and every game if they are going to have any chance at all.  On the other hand, they have proved very pesky and gave a very good Emory team all it could handle in Atlanta.  I won't even try to predict the final standings except that Middlebury and Williams will be one and two, in some order.

[SpringSt7]

I won't even try to predict the final standings except that Middlebury and Williams will be one and two, in some order.

Wesleyan is 4-0 in the NESCAC and Williams is 3-2. Williams will have to win @ Trinity and @ Wesleyan on back to back days to stay at 2 losses which is not impossible but mathematically unlikely. I think it can still be done but would not be that confident.

As for Amherst, man that has to be frustrating. They so clearly found a rotation, a rotation that was a possession away from sweeping Top 5 Williams, and instead they revert to old ways against Hamilton. Seems almost like self sabotage.

[toad22]

I forgot to mention a bright spot for the Ephs vs Panthers was Cole Prowitt-Smith. He played and played with energy. His scoring - 20 points yesterday - has been missed. He had been out with a sprained ankle, but seems now to be fully healthy. Williams needs him to play well. With Brandon Roughley still hurt, the Eph attack, by necessity becomes more of a guard oriented one. On a given day, Cole is one of those players who can carry the team on his back.

[nescac1]

Williams has definitely performed below expectations for several weeks now.  The Ephs are clearly a man short up front without Roughley, and the interior muscle and depth just isn't there to deal with bigger, stronger frontlines effectively - it's no coincidence their biggest struggles have come against the big front lines of Middlebury and Amherst.  I do think getting Cole back to full strength now is a big deal and should give the offense a boost going forward.  But while he does help a bit with rebounding as well, that still doesn't solve the fact that the Ephs have been muscled out of the paint and killed on the offensive glass against top-tier rebounding teams.  The Ephs all year have had an elite defense on the first possession in the half court - teams just can't solve them, or rarely can.  But they get in trouble when they give up easy looks in transition off turnovers or on resets off offensive rebounds.  Soooooo many loose balls bouncing around yesterday seemed to be seized by Midd and in some cases led right to a much easier look than the first attempt. 

Middlebury (like everyone in NESCAC) is far from a perfect team despite two awesome wins this week, but they will jump into the top 6-7, and deservedly so. Sobel is such a dominant force, the variety of things he can do you simply do not see in Division 3, and then you throw Brennan's insane physicality next to him plus an effective big backup in McKersie, that the inside relentlessness just wears pretty much everyone down they play (don't know HOW a small Hamilton team hung with them but everyone can have an off day).  They will need a lot more scoring punch from Stevens and Osher if they want to keep this winning streak going, but the depth is definitely much better than last year, when both those guys were consistently lighting it up and carrying the entire perimeter offense.  If they both can finally get it going, Midd becomes very scary. 

Williams struggles to score SO much early in games - it seems like they often have either 2, 3 or 0 points so often at around the 16:00 minute mark.   I'm not sure if it's a mental thing, just taking awhile to settle in, or taking too long to diagnose defenses, but the difference in production after those first few minutes is very noticeable.  Maybe they need a different warm-up routine, just to mix it up .  Excluding Anna Maria (when the deep bench played much of the second half), since the RPI game, Williams has averaged only 32.5 ppg in the first half of games.  That jumps to 38.5 ppg in the second halves.  (I didn't do the math, but the defense seems to average roughly the same points allowed in first halves vs. second in the same stretch of games).

Williams has trailed Bowdoin, Oneonta, Clark, and Amherst at halftime in games it came back to win.  The Ephs were tied in the other Amherst game, in a game they lost by a point, and were putrid in the first half vs. Midd before playing a much stronger second half.  Williams seems to do fine in second halves, but the key to getting another winning streak started seems to be coming out a bit faster in the tough league games ahead. 

[JEFFFAN]

I won't even try to predict the final standings except that Middlebury and Williams will be one and two, in some order.

Wesleyan is 4-0 in the NESCAC and Williams is 3-2. Williams will have to win @ Trinity and @ Wesleyan on back to back days to stay at 2 losses which is not impossible but mathematically unlikely. I think it can still be done but would not be that confident.

As for Amherst, man that has to be frustrating. They so clearly found a rotation, a rotation that was a possession away from sweeping Top 5 Williams, and instead they revert to old ways against Hamilton. Seems almost like self sabotage.

I get frustrated if I think a team has a bunch of talent and is not performing to that level.   My posts have been fairly consistent that I do not see much special on that roster from a talent standpoint, especially at the guard position.   So, yes, it could be coaching but I also see a whole lot of mediocre talent as well.   Hopefully they grow.   

As an aside, I thought that Hixon's teams played very consistently at their talent level.  Not a lot of times where one thought that the talent exceeded the performance.

[Colby Hoops]

Williams has definitely performed below expectations for several weeks now.  The Ephs are clearly a man short up front without Roughley, and the interior muscle and depth just isn't there to deal with bigger, stronger frontlines effectively - it's no coincidence their biggest struggles have come against the big front lines of Middlebury and Amherst.  I do think getting Cole back to full strength now is a big deal and should give the offense a boost going forward.  But while he does help a bit with rebounding as well, that still doesn't solve the fact that the Ephs have been muscled out of the paint and killed on the offensive glass against top-tier rebounding teams.  The Ephs all year have had an elite defense on the first possession in the half court - teams just can't solve them, or rarely can.  But they get in trouble when they give up easy looks in transition off turnovers or on resets off offensive rebounds.  Soooooo many loose balls bouncing around yesterday seemed to be seized by Midd and in some cases led right to a much easier look than the first attempt. 

I'd say the biggest thing for Williams is that keeps them from being elite, elite is that they don't really have that top offensive player. Karren, Porter, CPS, Spivy are all very good players but none are guys who are truly scaring defenses. Karren remains a very good player, but hasn't really taken the leap that might've been expected after how great he was toward the end of last year. Porter is an absolutely lights out shooter/scorer, but not someone who operates with the ball a lot. Spivy is a wonderful all around player, but probably not best-suited as a lead scorer.

I think CPS and/or Karren probably need to take that "leap" down the stretch for Williams to be a true national championship contender. Still, they are going to be a tough out for anyone.

[nescac1]

I think Colby Hoops is dead on, the Ephs' don't have one all-American player, but have four different guys who could conceivably end up as all-NESCAC players when all is said and done (not that all four will, just that it's hard to say which of the four will end up as most valuable and they are very balanced amongst them).  The Ephs need all four to play really well from here on out because they (barring a major leap forward) don't have that one superstar, like a Sobel, who you know is going to be the best player on the court and totally control a game even against a team that has top-flight players of its own. 

Right now, Midd and Wes are the hottest teams in the league, Trinity with Callahan-Gold back could make a run, and Tufts, despite some cryptic results, is still very talented.  Williams I still believe has the most upside, but has a lot of work to do with the two conference losses. All five still have a shot at a Pool C bid, with Midd and Williams both in very good positions to earn one barring a late season collapse.  Midd, with the wins over Keene State and Williams, is getting close to lock territory ...