MBB: NESCAC

[maineman]

After years of reading this message board I just signed up.

I missed a webcast this past week-end and bought it for $11.

Does anyone know, does this get me only that particular game or does it buy me more?

if only the one game, is there a way to access more past games for a less pricey fee than $11 per game?

They are free if you watch them live, but you have to pay to watch them after the fact.

You should not have to pay anything to watch the NESCAC games.   Head to the NESCAC scoreboard when there is a game to watch - click through to video.

https://nescac.com/scoreboard/

[SpringSt7]

It's early, but Scott Gyemesi was an egregious snub from my all-league teams and there aren't 6 teams in the league better than Tufts. Averaging 16.5 points, 16 rebounds, 3 assists through 2 wins against a pair of solid non-league opponents in Endicott and Emerson.

[nescac1]

Gyemsi has indeed been awesome but I don't think he was an egregious omission considering he didn't even start last year!  Although his toughness and talent were apparent off the bench, the guy is just an old school bruising forward who is not fun to play against.  I think he will have a big year but I will note that he was able to beat up on some pretty small teams to start the year, especially Emerson, who I don't think will be very good and who are downright tiny (5'10, 5'10, 6'0, 6'4, 6'5, against Tufts' absolutely massive starting five, they just had no hope inside).  Tufts in all events clearly looks like it has filled in nicely for the players who graduated and should be at worst an upper tier NESCAC team.  We will learn just how good they are when they play about as tough a five game stretch to end the semester as any team in the country will face -- at WPI, v. Clark, at UMD, at St. Joe's, at Keene.

Encouraging signs for Williams on the road vs. Vassar tonight, as the Ephs played in my mind their best game of the season.  Although they only won by 7, they were up as many as 15 pretty late in the game and Vassar played well, hitting a slew of closely contested very deep shots.  Even though they lost their key guys from last year's teams, they play cohesively and seem to have some good shooters.  Luke Adams played a great game and should have a good year for them. 

For Williams, Alex Lee has been the best player through three games and was tremendous tonight, finishing with 19-7-2 on efficient shooting and finishing some beautiful drives to the basket.  If his three point shooting picks up just a bit he could be a big problem for the league.  Prowitt-Smith and Roughley both did a great job finishing plays and each had his best game of the season.  Ben McGraw and Alex Stoddard each continue to provide some three point shooting off the bench.  Williams as a whole is still only shooting an uncharacteristic 30 percent from the year on three point shots, but whenever Declan Porter comes back, that should give a boost there.  He, McGraw and Stoddard should be a potent trio from behind the line on the wing and those guys plus Nate and Prowitt-Smith should be taking the bulk of the three point attempts.  The Ephs sophomore class looks much improved overall and we are still waiting to see Hudson Hansen return to the lineup, hopefully he can give a boost to the defense and interior finishing with his athleticism.

On the downside, Arnold and Karren combined for nine fouls from the center position, which could have been a big problem in a tighter game.  The Eph big guys (including Roughley) struggled a bit with smaller, quicker guys beating them off the dribble, and they need to trust in their length to contest shots.  Vassar also scored a few easy buckets in transition, but when the Ephs defense was set it was mostly very tough, and kudos to Vassar for just making some tough ones. 

Hopefully the Ephs continue to improve and certainly they will be happy to be returning home to the friendly confines of Chandler.  As Nate works his way back into shape and they get some front court reinforcements, it will be interesting to see how the rotation shifts. 

A few other NESCAC notes: Conn fans will be happy to see that David Murray returned tonight, and they are now 2-0 and looking like a solid team.  NESCAC as a whole is having some uncharacteristic early struggles, with Amherst, Hamilton, Midd, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin a combined 1-8.  Of those teams I expect Midd at least to pick things up in the very near future - they've lost to two tough opponents, and one bright spot today was Tristan Joseph, who looks ready to earn more time and make a bigger impact.  But overall, the bottom half of the league looks pretty iffy right now. 

[nescac1]

Good to see the NESCAC D1 transfers continuing to play well.  Alex Sobel played up to his D3 POTY billing with a big game against Holy Cross -- 15-13-2 plus 4 blocks, 5-8 from the field and 5-6 from the line.  Dylan Thoerner is playing 12 mpg as a rotation player / three point specialist for UC Irvine, and he's shooting 40 percent from deep.  He hit 2-4 from the arc in Irvine's upset of Southern Cal, showing once again that NESCAC stars can compete at very high levels of college hoops. 

I also note that D3 transfer Raheem Anthony is St. Thomas's second-leading scorer and leading rebounder through three games.  Of course, St. Thomas is no stranger to D3 talent with Johnny Tauer and Mike Maker leading the coaching staff ...

[Old Guy]

NESCAC as a whole is having some uncharacteristic early struggles, with Amherst, Hamilton, Midd, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin a combined 1-8.  Of those teams I expect Midd at least to pick things up in the very near future - they've lost to two tough opponents, and one bright spot today was Tristan Joseph, who looks ready to earn more time and make a bigger impact. 

No relief for the Panthers as they play in Ohio in the Great Lakes Classic at Wittenberg this weekend. They play University of Redlands, CA (good team, good program) and draw the hosts in the second game. Post Sobel, Midd has to figure out who they are: play faster or set it up. It may take a while but they will surely be battle-tested when the 10 NESCAC games are played after the holiday break.

[Maine Hoops]

Talking about when you cannot watch a webcast and then want to see the replay

[P'bearfan]

Congrats to the Polar Bears for notching their first win of the season by defeating Bates 79-63.  Didn't get a chance to watch the game but it seems that Bowdoin finally found their shooting stroke.  Hopefully this is the first of many to come this season!

GoUBears!

[maineman]

NESCAC as a whole is having some uncharacteristic early struggles, with Amherst, Hamilton, Midd, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin a combined 1-8.  Of those teams I expect Midd at least to pick things up in the very near future - they've lost to two tough opponents, and one bright spot today was Tristan Joseph, who looks ready to earn more time and make a bigger impact. 

No relief for the Panthers as they play in Ohio in the Great Lakes Classic at Wittenberg this weekend. They play University of Redlands, CA (good team, good program) and draw the hosts in the second game. Post Sobel, Midd has to figure out who they are: play faster or set it up. It may take a while but they will surely be battle-tested when the 10 NESCAC games are played after the holiday break.

I would say that the Panthers have to find a way to get to the hoop.  Their outside shooting has not be kind to them and they really need multiple people to be able to penetrate and make layups.

[SpringSt7]

Williams continuing their now opening home game tradition of christening Chandler Gymnasium with awful shooting to the tune of 3-19 from 3, but lead 32-28 at half against a solid Worcester St. team that was picked to win the MASCAC. The good news is that Alex Lee is 2-2 from deep and contnues to pace the Ephs to start the year, he has 12 points to lead all scorers.

[stlawus]

Is Williams not broadcasting the SLU-SJLI game?  Had a feeling when I never saw a stream link leading up.  Well that's incredibly dumb, have a tournament but not broadcast the other teams. 

[SpringSt7]

As of 2 months ago they weren't even planning on streaming the Williams - Worcester St. game. Non league games were not going to be streamed because of budget cuts until people (rightfully) complained.

[stlawus]

It's a major first world problem, but I had half a mind to make the trip a few weeks ago and now I regret not doing so.

[nescac1]

Williams wins an ugly game over Worcester State last night, as the Ephs missed wide open three after wide open three in a game they perpetually seemed two made threes away from blowing open.  Missing Declan Porter surely hurts the outside game, but at the same time I have to think more of the good looks from good shooters will start falling soon.  Today would be a good day to start as Williams goes up against 3-0 St. Lawrence's very strong zone defense, which gave Williams fits last season.  Hopefully they figured something out vs. the zone last year against Conn when they used Glatzer to facilitate in the middle of the zone.  But guys are gonna have to hit more shots from the wings and corners especially Stoddard and McGraw off the bench.  For the third straight game, a big scoring spurt from Alex Lee was the key to the Williams victory, he continues to play really well and with a ton of energy.   Brandon Roughley also had an excellent game scoring inside and out, he's a totally different player from last season when he barely played and was never healthy, but the rest of the team struggled to make anything. 

In addition to just hitting outside shots, the Ephs need to take care of the ball to avoid giving up transition buckets, as the half-court defense continues to be solid.  The Ephs will also need to hold in check big D2 transfer Adam Dudzinski, who is lighting it up with 20 ppg on 57 percent shooting from deep through three games.  Last year that job would have gone to Spencer Spivy and Hudson Hansen, but with one graduated and one injured, it will be interesting to see who gets the assignment. 

Inability to drain outside shots has plagued the entire league this season.  Trinity leads the league in the early going with a quite bad 31 percent from three and it only gets worse from there, with Amherst bringing up the rear with a putrid 19 percent.  I assume that some of this is just early season rust and maybe some bad luck - teams will surely start shooting better.  But at the same time, the league as a whole had troubles with shooting from deep last year and a lot of top shooters from last season are gone (Thoerner, Ravetz, Anderson), recovering from injuries (McGowan) or out to start the year (Porter). 

Tufts, Wesleyan, and Trinity continue to look the strongest in the early going, each undefeated and winning all games with ease.  But Wesleyan and Trinity have played a soft early schedule and Tufts a middling one, so it's hard to say just how good they will be.  Tufts continues to be lead by the dynamic sophomore duo of Gyimisi and Morakis.  Along with big man Bernstein, Tufts can feel confident that it's found its core for the next three seasons; the future (and maybe the present) are VERY bright there behind that awesome recruiting class.  Wesleyan is playing no seniors at all, so it's another team that is far from peaking - the Johnson-Regan backcourt duo are just lighting teams up, hard to match up with two guys like that who can both score and create for others.  The question for Wesleyan will be if there is enough shooting around that pair, as the Cards are always tough and physical on defense and they have strong rim protection up front. 

Huge game for Trinity today vs. St. Joseph's, if they can pull that one out they should have a gaudy record coming into league play as the remaining first semester schedule is very weak.  Callahan-Gold has yet to get it going from outside (only 18 percent from deep to start the year) and once he inevitably does they should be even more potent.  Trinity's huge weakness last year was defending the post and this year they play against few centers of note and none until Jan 12 v. Conn and David Murray. 

Midd, which has played a very challenging early schedule, falls to 0-3.  Going back to at least 2007, no Jeff Brown team has ever started 0-3 before.  Midd's schedule does get easier over the next three games so they have a chance to bounce back but man they clearly miss Sobel who was so dominant on both ends of the court. 

[jumpshot]

Well, you had to see it to believe it! Williams wins 66-58 in overtime over St. Lawrence after one of Ben McGraw's five three pointers ties it in regulation with three seconds left. St. Lawrence well-coached, cohesive team led by 9 with 4:36 left in regulation. Skilled passing a diminished art among current NESCAC players, especially against an effective zone defense as displayed by St. Lawrence. Undermanned EPHS need to get healthy in order to reach potential.

[nescac1]

 :(Wow St. Lawrence and Williams seem incapable of playing a game that is not a heart-stopper.  Great comeback for Williams which was down 9 and looking dead in the water late in the game.  If the Ephs do anything this year, this will go down as the Ben McGraw game, 5-5 from three, most of them down the stretch when Williams was particularly stagnant, all of them huge.  He's the only guy on the team shooting the three ball well now and he just looks so smooth launching it.

Williams was led once again by Alex Lee and Brandon Roughley -- Lee with 19-4 and Roughley with 13-12.  Those two and McGraw provided the offense in a pretty anemic day for the rest of the team.  The Williams offense simply needs a lot of work but if the senior class can get it going the way they are capable of, and the injured guys can return and provide some more punch up front, there is a ton of room to improve. 

Other than a few too many fouls, the Eph half court defense was fantastic in this game, I thought.  The problems came in transition where St. Lawrence burned them for some easy shots, including after made baskets, which is something the Ephs need to clean up.  But when the Eph defense was set St. Lawrence really struggled to score.  Williams also forced 20 turnovers, huge on yet another day when the shots weren't falling for anyone not named McGraw.  The two defensive plays of the game were a late steal by Glatzer which he converted to a big bucket and an absolutely nasty highlight-reel block from out of nowhere by Brandon Arnold on a driving St. Lawrence player which was the key play of the OT.

Williams somehow survived rough outside shooting, a slew of injuries, and five games in eight days to start the year to fight their way to 4-1.  Hopefully this comeback is a catalyst to a strong rest of the semester.

In other big NESCAC news, Trinity knocks of previously unbeaten St. Joe's, and does it with ease as Callahan-Gold finally heats up.  They look like they are going to be a very tough out this year.