MBB: NESCAC

[nescac1]

I think the all-region picks were generally fair.  Regarding Nate Karren, I think despite not being an all-region pick he may well end up as an all-American next year, just because he ended the season on SUCH a high note.  His last five games, four of them in the post-season, were absolute fire as a two-way guy: 16-8-3 plus 3.6 combined bps on 60/65/86 splits.  He obviously can't shoot that well over an entire season (although 50/45/95 was pretty incredible for an entire year especially for a center) but I'd expect his scoring and rebounding numbers to be closer to that range next year.  Williams will certainly need him to be the player he was down the stretch (really, most of the last half of the year) for an entire season if the Ephs hope to go deeper into the post season next year.   

I'd say my top three candidates for NESCAC POY heading into next year (and it certainly won't be a no-brainer like Sobel was this year) are Nicky Johnson, Karren and David Murray.  Callahan-Gold and Singh give a very solid (and clear) pre-season top five.  But I agree, after that top five, it starts to get a lot more uncertain and I assume we see a lot of guys emerge who haven't produced a ton yet.  Assuming no seniors with eligibility return, I think James McGowan (assuming back to 100 percent), Vetter, Poulton, and Hank Morgan would be my next four guys.  After that, it feels really wide open, although I'd probably go with Noah Osher as my fifth guy.  I'd group other players to watch in the league as:

Productive vets who could improve enough to be in contention: Osher, Cole Prowitt-Smith, Declan Porter, Cam Schainfeld, Lucas Green
Potential bounce-back years: Sam Stevens, Brandon Roughley
Talented underclassmen who could take a big leap: Edward Witherington, Alex Lee, Ryker Vance, Owen Kane, Jahmir Primer, Scott Gyimesi, Shane Regan
Rookies to watch: TBD, very few clear potential impact rookies committed to date, but plenty of time left for guys to commit

Contenders for DPOY I'd say will be Nicky Johnson, David Murray, Josh Bernstein, Ryker Vance and Even Glatzer. 

[SpringSt7]

https://twitter.com/NABC1927/status/1636064730459545601/photo/1

Alex Sobel and Dylan Thoerner are the newest names to join the All-American ranks out of the NESCAC. Congrats to them! Certainly deserving players who had great careers.

[Old Guy]

Congratulations to Alex Sobel — 1st team All-American! That's a first for Middlebury, I believe, 1st team A-A. We've had some great players, All-Americans, in the last decade or so, starting with Ben Rudin, and then Ryan Sherry (the best Midd player I've seen in a half century of my spectatorship), Joey Kizel, and Vermonter Matt St. Amour, all winning national accolades. I'm one grateful fan, and I'm not alone.

Because of his fast start this year, Alex's selection as an All-American is perhaps something of an after-thought. It should not be. His year is the gold standard: NESCAC POY, DPOY. leader in three individual categories (points, rebounds, blocks) and top ten in another (assists). That's unprecedented, right, NESCAC historians (NESCAC1)? When we speculate in the future about NESCAC greats, don't we start with Alex Sobel?

Plus, it's a good story. In his sophomore year, Alex left school for personal reasons. After the pandemic off-year (2021), he came back with a terrific 2022 and then this transcendent senior year. I believe he has a year of pandemic eligibility left. I'm not in a position to know what's next: perhaps pro ball abroad, perhaps the right D1 opportunity, perhaps getting on with his life. He has been resilient, determined, and courageous.

Whatever is next, we at Middlebury wish him well indeed and everyone in NESCAC should tip their caps!

[SpringSt7]

I have raved about Sobel all year and will remember his performance against Keene St. for a long long time so I feel comfortable being the Debby downer—it is hard to imagine a world in which Alex Sobel is put into the pantheon of all time greats with 0 total NCAA tournament wins. Aaron Toomey won a national championship and won 2 national player of the year awards. Feels like a better place to start.

Also unclear how Sobel would have an extra year of eligibility—to clarify, the COVID year stipulates that the 2020-21 season did not count towards anyone's eligibility, it did not give an extra year to anyone who didn't play. Playing in '19, '20, '22, and '23 is 4 years used up, unless he somehow got a waiver for his leave in 2020, which would seem unlikely to me as he played in 11 games which I believe is too many to preserve the full year. But anyone who has played 4 NESCAC seasons does not have another year.

[stlawus]

Yea his playing career is over.  People get confused over the extra year thing.  It's 6 years to play 4 full seasons instead of the usual 5.  It looks like an "extra year" mostly due to the division I situation because the d1 players technically had seasons in 20-21.  Pretty much everyone that year still had their season impacted so no one really played a "full" season.  If you were a freshman in division III in 2018-2019 this would be your last year of eligibility. 

[nescac1]

Just to clarify one thing, my understanding on Sobel is that if he had missed his entire sophomore year, or only played a few games (like seven or less), he'd still have a year of eligibility.  But he played half the games that season, which counts as a year of eligibility lost.  I think he could nevertheless apply for a hardship waiver if he really wanted to try for an extra year, but at least presumptively, playing 3.5 seasons OUTSIDE the COVID year exhausted his eligibility. 

[nescac1]

The NCAA era (1994 forward, so don't jump on me for no Hancock, Sheehy, Rehnquist!) NESCAC Mount Rushmore still in my opinion is Nogelo, Olson, and Toomey, with a huge gap after that trio; all three have to be in the top 20 D3 players of the last 30 years.  I thought earlier in the year that Sobel was playing at such a dominant level that he had an outside chance to join with a huge individual and team run, but as great as he's been, that was probably a stretch, and he tailed off individually just a bit and the team didn't go nearly far enough in either the NESCAC or NCAA tourney.

I do think Sobel has worked his way into that next group which includes (in some order) Coffin, Crotty, Schultz, Sharry, Mayer, Whittington and Michael Schantz.  That's amazing company.  All those guys were (by at least one metric) first team all-Americans and NESCAC POTYs, unless blocked by another player from the list.  All were two-time all league players in much stronger eras for Nescac hoops.  And all other than Schantz (the forgotten Nescac great who was overshadowed by Nogelo but look him up - his stats were just utterly insane, he was a 2000-1000 career guy who averaged 26-13 as a senior!) and Sobel led their teams to at least one final four, which is where Sobel falls short. 

I include Sobel because he was one of the two best players in the league by a wide margin for two years running.  The POY / DPOY combo appears to be without precedent.  He had absolutely monster stats during those last two years. He's a two-time all-American.  And the other dudes all played on flat loaded teams, which is not Sobel's fault.  If you trade him for say Coffin, Whittington or Sharry, those are still final four-caliber squads in my view. 

But when talking about the best of the best, Nogelo (either two or three Nescac POTYs - not sure if won as a soph, national POTY, three time all-American, led just a good supporting cast to two final fours, where he was the best player and set the record for most points in one tourney, 2000 career points despite missing a good amount of time with injuries); Olson (led team to championship and title game plus another Final Four, Nescac ROTY, three-time all conference, two Nescac POTYs); and Toomey (led team to national title and final four, 2000 career points, national POTY - twice if you count all award orgs, two-time all American, Nescac ROTY, two-time Nescac POTY, three time all-league) have resumes that are worlds ahead of everyone else.  It's gonna take a monster career to claim that last spot (if forced to choose I'd say either Schantz since he was so individually dominant or Coffin as the best player on a team that was one play from winning two titles, but again no one is close to those three).  No one currently playing in the league even has a shot. 

What's interesting is that Nescac has been hurt more than any other league over the past decade by guys transferring up to D1 - and given how those guys have generally succeeded, you have to wonder when the next player at a true Mount Rushmore level will play four years of Nescac ball.  Duncan Robinson, Austin Hutcherson, Matt Hart, Hunter Sabety and Sam Peek are guys who all would have ended up with massive careers had they played four years in D3.  Robinson in particular surely would have gone down as one of the GOAT.

(BTW no disrespect to Bedford, Zieja, Tatum, Leo Jones, Schiel, Hausman, Rhoten, Workman, Gilmour, Wolff, Casey, St. Amour and other guys who I didn't include in group two, plenty of whom have great arguments for that next tier as well, it's much less of a hard cut-off in terms of who to include than the big drop from group one to group two). 

[jumpshot]

As usual, nescac1 has provided all of us a fair, balanced, and 100% accurate analysis. Many thanks for your excellent work!

[Hamilton4]

NESCAC1 awesome post sir, thanks for sharing so many historical nuggets about some of the greatest players in NESCAC history!!

[AmherstStudent05]

Congratulations to Alex Sobel for being named the 2022-23 d3hoops.com player of the year!!!

Not sure whether this changes the Mount Rushmore calculus but it is certainly an impressive honor to cap off a great Middlebury career. In addition to be the only person to win NESCAC Player of the Year and DPOY in the same season I believe he is just the second NESCAC representative to take home d3hoops player of the year honors. Way to do the NESCAC proud, Alex!  And thank you for getting out of the conference!!!

[Old Guy]

Congratulations to Alex Sobel for being named the 2022-23 d3hoops.com player of the year!!!

Not sure whether this changes the Mount Rushmore calculus but it is certainly an impressive honor to cap off a great Middlebury career. In addition to be the only person to win NESCAC Player of the Year and DPOY in the same season I believe he is just the second NESCAC representative to take home d3hoops player of the year honors. Way to do the NESCAC proud, Alex!  And thank you for getting out of the conference!!!

Brief clip of Alex Sobel on the Midd website on the National POY honor: https://athletics.middlebury.edu/news/2023/3/18/mens-basketball-sobel-named-d3hoops-com-national-player-of-the-year-earns-pair-of-all-american-nods.aspx

[nescac1]

Congrats to Sobel on the well-deserved honor.  I do think he's the best overall center I've seen in Nescac, and there have been a ton of great ones.  Here is the full list of Nescac players to have won a national POTY award.  It's quite august company!  Jostens also considers off the court achievements but you have to be an elite player to even be considered. 

Btw if anyone has a connection at NABC please tell them to fix their website - they have Wooster's Bryan Nelson as graduating from Williams. I wish we had him, he was a beast! 

Jostens:

Michael Nogelo
Michael Schantz
Blake Schultz
Kena Gilmour

NABC:

Matt Hancock
Michael Nogelo
Andrew Olson x2
Aaron Toomey (2013)

D3Hoops:

Aaron Toomey (2014)
Alex Sobel

https://nabc.com/awards/poy/

[nescac1]

Moving this to the front and updating the list of NESAC recruits:

Amherst:

Nate Pablis, 6'6 SG, Flint Hill (VA)
Johnny McCain, 6'0 G, Canterbury (#19 Connecticut)
Marc Garraud, 5'8 G, Noble and Greenough

Bates:

Cole Decker, 6'5 G, Archbishop Stepinac (New York)

Bowdoin:

Justus Bardauskas, 6'7 F, Loomis Chaffee (#49 New England, #17 Connecticut)
Ben Chilson: 6'5 SG, Tunkhannock (PA)
Natrel Allen, 6'4 SF, Deerfield (PG)

Colby:

Marcos Montiel, 6'3 G, Brooks School
Sam Hinman, 6'0 G, St. Sebastian's
Matt Lamy, 6'4 G, St. Paul's School (#20 in N.H.)
Kam Rodriguez, 5'9 G, Berkshire School
Savion Stroud, 6'2 G, St. Paul's School

Hamilton:

Connor Jenkins, 6'5 F, Willison Northampton
Nate Raub, 6'8 F/C, Payton Prep (Chicago, IL)
William Holmes, 6'8, F, Ithaca H.S. (NY)

Middlebury:

Ian Murray, 6'3 G, Governors Academy
Kuba Cwalina, 6'5 G, Archbishop Malloy (NY)

Trinity:

Jared Berry, 6'0 PG, Vermont Academy (#53 in New England, #2 in Vermont)
Tristan Davis, 6'6 F/C, Frederick Gunn (CT) (#41 in New England)

Tufts:

Liam Kennelly, 5'11 PG, Millbrook School
Jon Medley, 6'2 G, Wilbraham & Monson

Wesleyan:

Jack Williamson, 6'2 G, Williston Northampton
Hunter Fleming, 6'8 C, Northfield Mount Herman
Ben Lyttle, 6'5 F, Stepinac (NY)

Williams:

Matt Devine, 6'4 G, Berkshire School
Tyler Van Gorp, 6'10 C, New Trier (IL)

[toad22]

Since the end of the season for all NESCAC teams, regrettably on the same day, I have been thinking about the chances of anybody in the league being nationally relevant in the next couple of years. Nobody was this year. To me, national relevance is only established in the NCAA tournament. If a team can't break through to the round of 16, it can't be very important in a national sense. I am not saying that a team can't be really good, but not make it into the tournament, or perhaps make it, but lose in an early round. There are more than 400 teams in D3, to be a top 100, or top 50 team is great, but not good enough to be a national quality team. Will the NESCAC have any teams good enough to be thought of as a team of national significance? I'm not certain we will. That would be really sad from my perspective. There were several decades when it was a near certainty that one or more NESCAC team would make it to the Sweet 16, or even the Final 4. Are those days gone for now? I hope not. I am a diehard Williams fan, but I would also like to see the whole league do well. We got four teams into the NCAAs, but nobody did terribly well. What do you think? Are our best days behind us? I am aware that this is a non-issue  from a global perspective, as there  are probably about ten fans who even care about this. Still, anybody care to comment?

[nescac1]

I think one thing that has really hurt Nescac the last few years is the increased fluidity of players which has accelerated due to the extra COVID year of eligibility.  While transferring more is probably here to stay, it won't be nearly as commonplace in another year and certainly another two I suspect. 

Look at the two title game teams.  CNU had three transfers, including the final four MVP, who had major impacts in the title game.  Mount Union had two big-time transfers plus two other starters and a key reserve in their fifth year of eligibility.  Look who Nescac teams lost to in the tourney - Nichols, Keene, Hopkins and St Joe's all had significant transfers and also (collectively) loads of guys taking fifth years. 

Nescac schools almost never take impact athletic transfers.  Can't even recall the last one for hoops in the entire league.  Most don't have grad programs at all which means guys have to take a year off to get a fifth COVID year (plenty did, but plenty didn't).  And basically no one can take guys as grad transfers.  So guys like Spencer Freeman or Danny Frauheim or TJ Askew or Jakigh Dottin are never going to be joining a Nescac squad for a year or two of grad studies.  I mean imagine Midd last year if Eastman, Kornaker and Farrell had been able to attend grad school there for a fifth year - that team would have easily been a top five squad. 

Now it's still possible to do really well in that climate.  Swarthmore certainly has managed.  And RMC hasn't used transfers or many fifth year guys of note (Buzz excepted) during its big run.  But if you look at the final top 25 this year, 14 of the top 17 by my count had at least one MAJOR impact transfer, in many cases more than one.  That's an eye-popping stat.  So at least for the time being, that puts Nescac a bit behind the 8-ball.

I do think a lot of this is a temporary artifact of COVID.  But some of it is endemic to how college sports works now.  Assuming that Nescac doesn't change its transfer policies, I don't see another run from 2003 through 2017 where Nescac had legit title contenders, often two, nearly every season. (Hixon retiring didn't help either, btw!).  But I do think that once the era of extreme ease of enrolling stars for a fifth year for schools with grad programs ends in another two years, we will see Nescac teams start to make more of the deep runs we were accustomed to until just a few years ago. 

One other thing - Nescac has been killed by stars transferring up to D1 in a way no other league really has (yet).  Robinson, Peek, Hutcherson, Sabety, Hart, that's a brutal talent drain (ten years of eligibility lost combined due to transfers).  I have to think that's just random and we won't see that kind of drain of the league's elite tier of talent over an eight year period ever again.  No reason why Nescac in particular should keep losing stars to D1 opportunities.