MBB: NESCAC

[el_jefe_90]

Every team usually has a clunker at some point. It does make what Wesleyan is doing all that more impressive.

Tufts played very well the night before at Wes, just had a couple things not go their way. It's human nature to have a let down after a tough loss like that.

That Wes Trinity trip is especially brutal this year. Trinity has had Tufts number the last couple years which adds more of a difficult element. Hope that doesn't get in the players heads come tourney time.

All that being said, I do see Tufts rebounding from this and running the rest of the NESCAC table. They're too good and too well coached imo not too. One thing we all know though, the NESCAC is unforgiving. You have to earn everything.

[jumbomumbo]

Mumbo Season Record: 21-4 (84% win rate)
Friday:
Colby 72 - 60 Williams
Hamilton 65 - 62 Conn
Bowdoin 67 - 75 Midd
Amherst 57 - Tufts 64
Trinity 76 - Bates 52

Saturday:
Amherst 59 - Conn 67
Bowdoin 65 - Williams 72
Hamilton 67 - Tufts 70
Colby 80 - Midd 67
Wesleyan 82 - Bates 49

D3bball - how are you liking my prediction that 2 of the following do not make the NESCAC playoffs? Bowdoin, Hamilton, Midd? This weekends picks are a bit of a hedge against that prediction as Amherst would drop out based on my picks, however Bowdoin is seemingly a lock to miss. Think there is a good chance one of Midd / Williams is out and the other hangs onto 8th place.

I also think there is a decent chance Wesleyan drops to Colby in the following weekend. They'll be 23-0 by then and a long trip to Colby is always a tough one. It almost seems if just one of Regan and Johnson has an off night that they will be on the ropes. The problem for the league is those two consistently produce, and Colby doesn't play the best defense. Colby has some great pieces and when they're hot from 3 they can beat anyone in the league. They played Tufts real tough on the road. Likewise, if Colby ends up the 4th seed - potential dark horse to upset Wesleyan on home court.

[names jaismith]

Friday
Colby 67 Williams 77
Hamilton 63 Conn 61
Bowdoin 64 Midd 77
Amherst 63 Tufts 79
Trinity 77 Bates 64

Saturday
Amherst 59 Conn 70
Bowdoin 64 Williams 76
Hamilton 68 Tufts 79
Colby 84 Midd 77
Wesleyan 85 Bates 63

What the heck happened to Bowdoin this year?  Were like 9-3 and played two good UAA teams tough.  Then lost at Harvard by only 6.  Does this mean Harvard would not make the NESCAC tournament this year?

[jumbomumbo]

Friday
Colby 67 Williams 77
Hamilton 63 Conn 61
Bowdoin 64 Midd 77
Amherst 63 Tufts 79
Trinity 77 Bates 64

Saturday
Amherst 59 Conn 70
Bowdoin 64 Williams 76
Hamilton 68 Tufts 79
Colby 84 Midd 77
Wesleyan 85 Bates 63

What the heck happened to Bowdoin this year?  Were like 9-3 and played two good UAA teams tough.  Then lost at Harvard by only 6.  Does this mean Harvard would not make the NESCAC tournament this year?

Harvard punches way below their weight in men's basketball. They'd prob be a 4 seed at best. Better athletes, but can't put together a system and team that would win consistently. Many coaches in our league would out coach Amaker.

Bowdoin's wins were against mostly teams I can't even name. They looked great at Harvard. I have no idea what happened to them. I'm projecting 0-10.

[D3BBALL]

Ok let's not go overboard on Amaker, he maybe be the main reason that the Ivy League has as many good players as it has ever had. He is better than pretty much every coach in the NESCAC except maybe Reilly.

I think you should be worried about Tufts, yes everyone has a stinker, but they didn't come to play at all and more importantly they quit. That is not championship caliber.

Bowdoin and bates are going to finish 10th and 11th, then Midd, Amherst and Williams fighting for 7, 8, 9. Amherst plays both and Middlebury holds tie breaker against Williams. Amherst is in trouble, coaching is just so bad. I think Williams and Middlebury, who got a little healthier, to get the last 2 spots.
Wesleyan and whoever ends up as the second seed will have their hands full opening round. I guess nothing unusual there.

Only prediction I have nailed this year is Regan as POY, that is done deal. Head to head he out played Morgan, Vetter, Gyimesi, Espinso, Joseph, anyone on Williams, and well Amherst had no one up there.

Let's look at all league:
4 locks for first team Regan, Gyimesi, Morgan and Johnson, then I see the following battling for the remaining 10 spots between 1st and 2nd team
Amherst - may be Scherer but might be a stretch, just so poorly coached.
Bates - Pouye
Bowdoin - Cuevas gets a spot and Freshman of the year
Colby - Poulton, not because of his shooting but because of overall play and Lawson.
Conn - espinosa and Schainfeld
Hamilton - Singh, only based on reputation, better play better in remaining games to have a shot
Middlebury- Brennan and Joseph
Trinity - Lazarre, Okorougo and Vetter
Tufts - Morakis and Reilly
Wesleyan - add Cormier to Johnson and Regan
Williams - Hansen
18 players for 10 spots. Still dislike the 7 spots for 1st and 2nd team. Either go back to just 10 players. Or add 1 more player, go with 15 and do 1st team, 2nd team, 3rd team.

[rdanie03]

I think Tufts would be worried if they had a challenging schedule remaining, but home vs. Hamilton, Amherst and Bates is about as easy a last 3 as anyone has.

[nescac1]

All league thoughts:

First, I don't think Regan is anything close to a lock over Morgan.  He's a slight favorite, but Morgan's league stats remain incredible, despite being by far the primary focus for every opposing defense: 27-5-1.5 plus 1.5 spg on 60/50/90 splits.  He's still on pace for the most efficient offensive season in league history, I have to imagine.  You simply can't count a guy like that out of the POTY race at this point.  Regan is also having an incredible year (21-4-2 on 56/40/84 splits in league play), but Morgan has clearly been superior statistically, and Wesleyan has two first-team all-league locks and a COTY virtual lock so if he doesn't end up as POTY, it's certainly no crime. 

I'd say right now first team will be Morgan/Regan/Gyimisi/Morakis/Vetter/Johnson with one spot pretty wide open (as of now I'd go with Espinosa).  Espinosa, Pouye, Joseph, Stevens, Poulton, Lee, Hansen, Scherer, Okorougo, and Lazarre would be my picks for the last eight spots (ten guys for eight spots), with Pouye, Espinosa, Okorougo, and Hansen being near-locks for at least second team all-league.

Cuevas will likely be ROTY but Dan Civiello is not wholly out of range with a huge finish to the year - his per-minute stats are pretty wild and he has been crazy-good in league play: 14-6-2 plus over two BPG on 49/46/94 splits in only 20 mpg. Not many 6'10 guys around who can protect the rim and shoot like that.  Statistically, the only category Cuevas exceeds him during league play is PPG, although of course Cuevas has a big job being Bowdoin's only reliable scorer as a FY.  Besides those two, Garrett Clar, Aidan Yates, and Elias Chin would form my all-rookie team. Clar would be a strong ROTY contender most years, but the FY class is pretty loaded this season.     

Barring an epic collapse, Reilly will be COTY. 

DPOTY is a very tough call.  Jackson Cormier would be my pick right now, but Jon Medley, Josh Bernstein, Will Scherer, Dylan Watson and Pouye all could make a case down the stretch. Jalen Reese and Josh Cameron are also excellent defenders but don't play enough minutes to contend. 

[nescac1]

A few other random thoughts as we head into the home stretch.

1. NESCAC is currently in great shape to be at least (and very likely exactly) a four-bid league.  Wesleyan is not just number one in NPI, but number one by a wide margin.  They are at this point nearly a lock to be a number one seed in one of the four quadrants and if they win out, or win out with a loss in a latter round of the NESCAC tourney, will very likely be the top overall seed.  Trinity at 9 and Tufts at 12 are I think it's safe to say locks for the tourney and well positioned to host home pods in rounds 1 and 2 with a strong finish.  Hamilton at 19 is also approaching "safe" range for the NCAA tourney - a split in Hamilton's last four regular-season games would I think lock them into a tourney slot. After that, it's very likely anyone else would have to win the automatic bid, although Williams at 62 and maybe Colby at 71 could move into bubble range with a huge run to end the season plus at least one NESCAC tourney win or certainly with a trip to the NESCAC finals.

2. Wesleyan jumping from 13-12 to 21-0 (and counting) has to be the biggest single-season improvement in NESCAC history, right?  I'd be stunned if there has ever been a bigger leap.  What is interesting is if you look at their stats from 23-24, their offensive numbers were roughly the same overall.  Wesleyan still, in fact, struggles to shoot the three ball (although I feel like despite poor three point numbers overall they seem to manage to hit critical ones).  Where they have improved dramatically is in defense and rebounding.  This year they are giving up 58.7 ppg on 38/29 splits.  Last year they gave up 71.4 ppg on 43/34 splits, and their rebounding margin has gone from 5.6 to over 10 per game. Last year they also had some issues in close games, which is obviously not a problem this year (in the very few they've played).  Last year they lost two games in overtime and four others by five or fewer points; with a 8.0 scoring margin the record probably should have been better, which is part of the reason they were such a sleeper heading into this season. 

These changes have all been made with in large part the same personnel.  You could see the framework for an elite defensive team last year, with Lyttle, Cameron, and Cormier with the size and athletic ability to hound teams on the wing (plus Johnson using his quickness at the point of attack) but those guys just didn't have the experience and are now more disciplined as a group.  Just shows what continuity and growing together as a group can mean for the right kind of group of players as they mature. 

3. Speaking of shooting woes, Tufts continues to really struggle to hit outside shots in the games it loses.  They have the ability to win the physical battle in the paint with I'd guess anyone in D3, but if they lose a game in the first few rounds of the NCAA tourney, it will be because of shooting.  In the four losses, Tufts is 21 for 93, or 22 percent on only five made threes per game, from outside.  When the outside game is going, Tufts is going to be very hard for anyone to beat since no one has two defenders who can match Bernstein and Gyimisi size-and-strength wide. But once they get to the NCAAs against better teams the scouting report is going to be to try to make anyone but Reilly take a contested three. 

4. Hudson Hansen has been playing tremendous ball over the last three games for Williams - averaging 20-7-3 plus nearly 2 bpg on 67 percent shooting.  The Ephs need him to sustain this level of play.  I feel like Lee, Hansen and Yates have all taken turns having high-level stretches of play for the Ephs this year, but Williams hasn't been able to get all three going at once, which they need to do for the offense to avoid the funks that have doomed the Ephs in several of their losses as the team doesn't have many guys who are likely to explode as scorers on any given night.  And hopefully Declan Porter can be an x factor, the Ephs could really use a few big games from him down the stretch as well, as after that group of four and Roughley, who is very consistently right around 10 points in nearly every game, it's a lot of guys who are role players and/or aren't ready yet for a bigger offensive load. 

[rdanie03]

I think Dylan Reilly makes it to the 2nd team. Maybe the best wing defender in the league and one of the best shooters in the country.

All league thoughts:

First, I don't think Regan is anything close to a lock over Morgan.  He's a slight favorite, but Morgan's league stats remain incredible, despite being by far the primary focus for every opposing defense: 27-5-1.5 plus 1.5 spg on 60/50/90 splits.  He's still on pace for the most efficient offensive season in league history, I have to imagine.  You simply can't count a guy like that out of the POTY race at this point.  Regan is also having an incredible year (21-4-2 on 56/40/84 splits in league play), but Morgan has clearly been superior statistically, and Wesleyan has two first-team all-league locks and a COTY virtual lock so if he doesn't end up as POTY, it's certainly no crime. 

I'd say right now first team will be Morgan/Regan/Gyimisi/Morakis/Vetter/Johnson with one spot pretty wide open (as of now I'd go with Espinosa).  Espinosa, Pouye, Joseph, Stevens, Poulton, Lee, Hansen, Scherer, Okorougo, and Lazarre would be my picks for the last eight spots (ten guys for eight spots), with Pouye, Espinosa, Okorougo, and Hansen being near-locks for at least second team all-league.

Cuevas will likely be ROTY but Dan Civiello is not wholly out of range with a huge finish to the year - his per-minute stats are pretty wild and he has been crazy-good in league play: 14-6-2 plus over two BPG on 49/46/94 splits in only 20 mpg. Not many 6'10 guys around who can protect the rim and shoot like that.  Statistically, the only category Cuevas exceeds him during league play is PPG, although of course Cuevas has a big job being Bowdoin's only reliable scorer as a FY.  Besides those two, Garrett Clar, Aidan Yates, and Elias Chin would form my all-rookie team. Clar would be a strong ROTY contender most years, but the FY class is pretty loaded this season.     

Barring an epic collapse, Reilly will be COTY. 

DPOTY is a very tough call.  Jackson Cormier would be my pick right now, but Jon Medley, Josh Bernstein, Will Scherer, Dylan Watson and Pouye all could make a case down the stretch. Jalen Reese and Josh Cameron are also excellent defenders but don't play enough minutes to contend. 

[D3BBALL]

Another DPY to think about is Lazarre from Trinity. Probably too small to win it, but I would guess most guards don't like being guarded by him.

[nescac1]

I think Reilly is a very solid player but that's a lot of hyperbole.  There are a slew of very good wing defenders in the league, several of whom I mentioned in my last post. There is a reason NESCAC dominates the list of the best defensive teams in the country ... Reilly, again, is a very good shooter but one of the best shooters in the country is a bit of a stretch for a guy who is not in the top FIFTY nationally for either three point percentage OR three pointers per game. Is it even clear that he's the best shooter in NESCAC?  Espinosa, Poulton, Reilly, Kwalina and Coyne are probably the guys in that conversation, but I'm not sure if one would be the consensus best.

If Tufts was dominating the league it's one thing, but there really is no reason to have a third Tufts guy on the team especially when Tufts will almost surely have two on the first team. If you are going to put a third guy on, I'd say Cormier over Reilly.   

[D3BBALL]

Agree with NESCAC, a clear best shooter in the league, tough to decide, but you would have to go with either Morgan or Regan, then everyone else next, no clear standout after first 2.
My final standings projections with likely/ best and then worst/best case
Wes 10-0, 10-0
Tri 8-2, 8-2
Tufts 8-2, 7-3
Ham 6-4, 7-3
Colby 5-5, 6-4
Conn 5-5, 6-4
Midd 5-5, 6-4
Will 5-5, 6-4
Amh 4-6, 5-5
Bates 1/9, 2-8
Bow 0-10, 0-10
Colby with tb over Conn, Midd, wil.
Conn with tb over Midd and will
Midd with tb over will.
First round
Wes/Will, 3rd meeting
Tri/midd
Tufts/conn easiest first round match up??
Ham/colby

[SpringSt7]

Someone at the top is going to be really not pleased to get stuck with Williams in the first round, even though it probably won't end up mattering. D3Datacast still has them as the 29th best team in the country (I would push back on that) and they have missed the semifinals just once since 2016. They can still get to 5-5 in league (6-4 seems very unlikely) but even that would be a bit of a stretch.

Unlikely but possible nonetheless that Williams plays at Amherst for the 8 seed in the last game of the regular season. Woof

[D3BBALL]

Someone at the top is going to be really not pleased to get stuck with Williams in the first round, even though it probably won't end up mattering. D3Datacast still has them as the 29th best team in the country (I would push back on that) and they have missed the semifinals just once since 2016. They can still get to 5-5 in league (6-4 seems very unlikely) but even that would be a bit of a stretch.

Unlikely but possible nonetheless that Williams plays at Amherst for the 8 seed in the last game of the regular season. Woof

Agree no one wants them in first round. D3 datacast has them rated 29 in efficiency ratings but wouldn't go with that. Would use NPI where they are 62nd overall and 35th rank as an at large selection. Might end up higher if upsets occur in other conference tourney results. They will need deep run in NESCAC tourney, if they make, to have any shot.

[SpringSt7]

NPI rates your resume and the efficiency ratings rank your on court performance. They are two different things.