MBB: NESCAC

[Pat Coleman]

Don't forget we offer lacrosse and baseball message boards for the NESCAC as well.

baseball: http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=4171.0
mlax: http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=4322.0
wlax: http://www.d3sports.com/post/index.php?topic=4333.0

[GoJumbosOrGoHome]

Interesting that people are putting tufts down again, I do believe the same thing happend last year when they lost Stovell, Martin stepped up, maybe people will start to realize that its the system, much like amherst's, that as long as you have scorers you'll be fine. With Weitzen, Black, Shepard, kumf and o'keefe all returning and more experianced the jumbos will be fine. Expect Grauer, Gallant and Sullivan to go home and work on their games, the system will be fine. But by all means, keep sleeping on the Bo's.

[GoJumbosOrGoHome]

In Regards to recruiting... How good can a player be if he applies to schools where he won't play. How many schools did Rose or Shalvoy apply to where they would " play intramurals" 6'7 is great, but 6'7 and soft won't cut it in the Nescafe`.

Regardless of who joins, think about how sick the nescac guards will be next year. With Olson, Shalvoy, Ray, Black, Shepard, Martin all maning the points for the top 4 teams again. Bradley at Bowdoin is back. The team that gets the most out of it's bigmen will win the league.

[formerbant10]

GoJumbos,

People were looking down on Tufts at the beginning of this year.  Personally I had no idea they were going to be this good.  I don't think many outside of Medford did.  I feel that Tufts and Trinity are in a similar situation, both teams lost their dominant inside players but return a lot of perimeter firepower. 

It's a long way away, but for those two teams health will be the biggest factor...especially Trinity.  A healthy Hasiuk and Taylor returning to the lineup will help them out quite a bit.  Tufts will need all of their guards to be healthy like they were (or seemed to be) this year to continue their success.

Only problem with your post...you named the PG's from Amherst, Williams, Bates, Tufts and Trinity when saying they will be "maning the points for the top 4 teams"  add one more to that.

[JeffRookie2]

2006-2007 early predictions:

1st tier:
Amherst- Must replace key players...BUT there is a lot of talent to choose from

Trinity- WIll taylor and others be enough to get them over the top?

Bates- The get the Jeffs and Trinity(?) in maine.

2nd Tier(in no particular order):
Williams- Can SOMEONE score in the post...If so then they will be part of the 1st tier.
Conn- They could be next years Tufts...nah!!

Tufts- Can they maintain the consistency w/o Martin

Personally I would swap Trin and Tufts. I think Tufts will be ok w/o Martin, heck they lost Stovell and got better, so you never know. Trinity on the other hand has just lost the player that has been the heart and soul of the team for at least three years in rhoten. I think it will take them at least a year to recover.

[GoJumbosOrGoHome]

Figures an Amherst guy would make a post like this... Formerbant, do we know for sure Taylor is coming back? A great point that Tufts lost Stovell, who was more than just a post player, and got better. I see Tufts and Amherst at the top again with trinity and bates behind them. Williams, with a post player brings up the #5 hole. Conn had some very good games last year, but also struggled against the likes of Colby. Tim, what are you up to these days anyway?

2006-2007 early predictions:

1st tier:
Amherst- Must replace key players...BUT there is a lot of talent to choose from

Trinity- WIll taylor and others be enough to get them over the top?

Bates- The get the Jeffs and Trinity(?) in maine.

2nd Tier(in no particular order):
Williams- Can SOMEONE score in the post...If so then they will be part of the 1st tier.
Conn- They could be next years Tufts...nah!!

Tufts- Can they maintain the consistency w/o Martin


pretenders:
Wes
Colby- Cohen can't do it all
Bowdoin
Middlebury

[formerbant10]

GoJumbos,

Everything is set for Taylor to return.  Last I heard he still is.  There is a slight possibility that something may happen to prevent that, but I highly doubt it.  I'd expect to see him in uniform next season.

[nescacfan33]

Regardless of who joins, think about how sick the nescac guards will be next year. With Olson, Shalvoy, Ray, Black, Shepard, Martin all maning the points for the top 4 teams again. Bradley at Bowdoin is back. The team that gets the most out of it's bigmen will win the league.

GoJumbos,

There is no question that the Nescac will have amazing battles between great guards during the conference season. You named some very solid point guards coming back next year including the best in Ray and Olson, but I dont know where Bradley came from. He is a decent player - OK scorer, poor defender, but definitely a third tier guard in terms of the NESCAC elite. I would have plenty of guys ahead of him besides the ones that you rightly mentioned with the top five teams. (including Farrell from Colby, Ashe from Wesleyan, Rudin from Midd to name a few). My predictions for next year...

Top two
Amherst
Bates

Battling hard to crack into the top tier
Trinity
Tufts
Williams

Making the playoffs
Colby
Conn Coll

Bottom of the pack fighting for the last spot
Middlebury
Bowdoin
Wesleyan

[nescacfan33]

How bad was Hasiuk's injury formerbant?? Surgery??

[formerbant10]

No surgery, but I believe it was misdiagnosed back when it happened, which is why he ended up not playing this year at all.  I'm not sure where he is in the road to recovery, but I imagine that after a full year of rest his ankle/foot should be ready to go again.

Even if he's not ready, Martin and Clarke are more than capable at manning those spots with Taylor, Rowe and Westbrooks all having played on the perimeter as well. 

Clearly the Bants will be a different team than in the previous years with Rhoten out of the mix.  But there are definitely some guys waiting to capitalize on the extra minutes/points that are now out there for someone to grab. 

[Gregory Sager]

who cares who the pre-season top teams are???  i'd rather be no. 1 at the end of the season.  the wiac's days are done, at least for a while.  they couldn't even get a team in the sweet 16.  i think the lack of red-shirt production in that conf. means they will take a few years to get back to national status.  just look at their non-conf. record this year....

I doubt that you're all that well informed about the WIAC, dman.

First, I took your advice and looked at that league's non-conference record this past season. Yes, it was down as compared to past WIAC seasons. But here's how it stacked up to the other power conferences that play double round-robins (conference tourney games excluded):

UAA 67-22 (.753)
NJAC 60-23 (.723)
WIAC 55-27 (.670)
CCIW 61-34 (.642)
OAC 42-27 (.609)
MIAA 55-36 (.604)

(I should point out that the NJAC can and does fatten up its non-conf records in the postseason ECAC tourney, a benefit none of the other five leagues can enjoy.)

The WIAC may have been down a little from its previous standards, but a .670 cumulative winning percentage is still ridiculously high. And it paid off for them -- the WIAC got two Pool C bids. If they're "done," then the CCIW -- which claimed the national third-place team and a Sweet Sixteen team as well -- is even more "done."

Power conferences don't automatically get teams into the Sweet Sixteen, especially when they're bracketed into the much tougher competition in the loaded sectionals that involve the West, Midwest, and Great Lakes regions. The WIAC didn't get a team into the Sweet Sixteen in 2001, either. It didn't mean anything other than that their lone representative got knocked out early. In fact, the WIAC's non-conference record that year in regular season play was a whopping 69-12 (.852). This year two of the WIAC's three tourney teams lost in the home gyms of a couple of power-conference champions (Augustana and Calvin) and the third faced a senior-laden juggernaut that got hot at the right time (Illinois Wesleyan).

You're misreading the whole redshirt thing. It'll affect the WIAC only slightly. Regardless of whether or not they're allowed to develop their talent with a non-playing year, they're still going to get that talent. The WIAC will still be picking up most of the cream of the prep hoops crop in the state of Wisconsin.

The reason why the WIAC was down as compared to previous years was simple: Too many underclassmen, not enough seniors. Take a look at the 2005 All-WIAC team, and then take a look at this year's. The WIAC class of 2005 was loaded, starting with Kalsow and Bennett of UWSP and going on from there. Ten of the 18 players on the All-WIAC team were seniors. By comparison, only seven of the 19 players on this year's All-WIAC team were seniors -- and the consensus in the WIAC room is that the caliber of this year's seniors was a notch below that of last year's, even among the All-WIAC group.

Leagues as a whole have these sorts of fluctuations in terms of talent by class. I'm sure that the same thing has affected the NESCAC at one point or another. To draw the sweeping conclusion that the league is "done, at least for a while," is to completely misread the evidence.

[almcguirejr]

This year two of the WIAC's three tourney teams lost in the home gyms of a couple of power-conference champions (Augustana and Calvin) and the third faced a senior-laden juggernaut that got hot at the right time (Illinois Wesleyan).

UWL lost to Calvin on a "neutral" floor.  They played at Hope where Calvin had previously played 3 times this year

[dman]

gregory,
    thanks for noticing my little jab at the wiac.  i know they're an elite league, but i can't help busting on the little remnants of pre-d3 days there.  you are probably right, and this year was just a down year there.  i still think in national terms, the edge they had is now gone.  it will be alot harder (but not impossible) for them to come up with a team that totally dominates like platteville did in the late '90's.....
      i know alot of people are down on nescac because of the single round-robin, so i looked at it just from a distance perspective.  just taking three schools, williams, midd, and conn, i looked at their distance from colby.  in each case, it works out to approximately 300 miles one way or 5-6 hours of driving time.  those three are the furthest, but you can also calculate amherst, trin., and wes., as approximately 70 miles less in each case.  to me, it would be asking alot of colby to make six trips of 230 miles or more during the season(you can do the same thing with bowdoin).  not considering the expense involved, i believe alot of these games would involve an overnite stay.  it is really unrealistic to expect nescac to make these teams play each other twice.  doesn't the ncaa set a limit of 200 miles for a regional game??? and we're talking about games within the same league!!! i think, as long as nescac schools engage in strong non-conference play, that the lack of double-round robin should be ignored. the real problem comes from the rest of new england(and ny), where many schools attempt to dodge nescac and pad their own records.  gordon(and baruch) was a perfect example this year.  when it comes time for at-large bids to be handed out, don't you think elmhurst and trinity would have strengthened the field for early-round games, instead of gordon and baruch??? i'd much rather see a stronger national tournament where at-large bids are given to the power conferences and the sectionals are evenly divided amongst all regions, which could be done with a little bit of geographic manipulation- so then if a nescac or wiac team gets to salem, noone can say they had an easy road there......

[Pat Coleman]

The WIAC is far, far more affected by the league's rule that they can only have 15 on a basketball roster than they are by the end of non-medical redshirting.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I'll speak up for the MWC since none of them will read the board, but for a school like Grinnell.  Thier shortest conference trip is like 200 miles.  If you want to be the elite league in New England and get all the respect nationally, you might have to bite the bullet and do the double round robin.  However, if you want to keep gaming the system and getting two teams to the sweet sixteen every year, then keep it up.  To me, they are both equally good choices.