MBB: NESCAC

mrmike88 · November 16, 2006, 06:05:00 PM

WAMH will have Amherst's season opener live on the air tomorrow night at 6. Listen live at http://wamh.amherst.edu/

I missed basketball season...

thunder32 · November 17, 2006, 02:07:38 PM

i cant believe that no one has anything to say today or are we just all in anticipation of another great NESCAC season. Ill be at the Tufts game and be able to give a good report on them either tonight or tomrow

eclinchy · November 17, 2006, 02:44:57 PM

I'll also be at the Tufts-Lasell game... covering it, no less.

I'll leave some notes on the Jumbos tomorrow afternoon after the tournament, probably. I might find some time in between games to comment on the Lasell one... but I doubt it. Lasell's an interesting story though... Sheldon's two assistant coaches are both former Lasers coaches. Chris Harvey was the head coach before Galletta, I believe.

thunder, you seem to know a lot about Tufts. Are you a student here?

thunder32 · November 17, 2006, 02:56:11 PM

no Im Dan Martin graduated last year

walzy31 · November 17, 2006, 10:15:05 PM

Amherst 101 - NYCCT 65

Adolphe Coulibaly gets player of the game awards for 16 pts on 5-7 shooting (estimate) and 4 boards 2 steals.

Mike Holsey gets nicest dunk.
Amherst will take on Thomas College tomorrow for the championship.
PREDICTION: 96-58 Amherst.

Worth mentioning even though it was non-NESCAC action:
In the Thomas Vs. Poly Tech game, Thomas was up by 2, with the ball, 15 seconds left on the game clock and the shot clock turned off.
The Poly Tech coach is screaming not to foul so his players dont foul. Then with 2.4 seconds left one of his players fouled by mistake and he screams "WHY DID YOU FOUL?"

It made me question if I was on earth.

whoarewebobcats · November 17, 2006, 11:02:34 PM

anyone at Williams to see the Bates game tonight. Frosh Chris Wilson team-high 18 points...that certainly caught my eye going over the box score...

thunder32 · November 18, 2006, 02:08:17 AM

It was a great comeback win for Tufts but they played pretty poorly for 3/4 the game, but it just goes to show that the good teams find a way to win even if they dont have the best game. More details in the AM

eclinchy · November 18, 2006, 01:00:49 PM

HUGE game for Kumf. There's a lot of pressure on him to rebound well this year, what with this smaller Tufts lineup, and he came up with 11 boards to lead everyone on both teams.

Jumbos were 11 for 24 on threes. Weitzen was lights-out, and JON PIERCE was amazing. Game-high 26 points for Pierce, who knocked down 4 threes. Weitzen scored 22.

I think Lasell was a bit of a bad matchup for Tufts, since they're a big team (no one under 6'0" on the entire roster). Our little guys had a rough night. Black was scoreless for the first 38 minutes, but then hit two HUGE threes to put Tufts ahead. Shep shot 1 of 6, and Fitz, who at 6'5" is small for a center, was frustrated out there. He finished with more fouls (4) than points (3).

Overall a rough night for the Jumbos, who trailed for about 30 minutes but pulled ahead at the end on Black's clutch shooting. 85-80 Tufts. We now play RIC, who beat Endicott in the early game. Endicott-Lasell at 2, Tufts-RIC at 4. I'll post some thoughts on those games later...

mrmike88 · November 18, 2006, 01:47:54 PM

Piggybacking of Walzy, since we were both at the game last night...

Adolphe's 16 points were some of the quietest points - most of them came within the flow of the offense and I was honestly surprised when I looked at the stat sheet. He did have one bucket early in the second half where he used his speed and athleticism to beat his man baseline for an easy deuce...

It's tough to get a read from the first game, since NYC Tech's biggest guy was 6'4", but even our third team outplayed the Yellowjackets. This is a VERY deep team once again, from all indications.

Pleasant surprise of the night: freshman PG D.J. Carcieri handled the ball for much of the second half and showed some great poise against NYCCT's press (by their starters, who played almost the entire game without rest). I'm a little worried about the lack of a solid sub for Olsen, but if Carcieri is the real deal I'll feel a lot better.

Red1 · November 18, 2006, 03:34:30 PM

According to the Williams website Bates def. SVC 77-51. I didn't see this game, but holding SVC to a mere 51 is pretty good for Bates' defense, especially as SVC scored 77 against Williams last night (although, statisically speaking, it looks like SVC's shooting was off as thier foul shooting was much worse today). Rob Stockwell had 25 pts. and 13 rebounds both game leading. Chris Wilson and Zack ray led the game with 7 assists each, and Bates had a whopping 21 total assists on the day.

So far Chris Wilson is statistically superior to Zack Ray this year (a mere 2 games). Look for him to get a chance to start on Tuesday night in Lewiston vs. USM.

I like what I'm seeing so far.

Cheers,
Red1

TUrighty14 · November 18, 2006, 03:46:18 PM

Tufts wasnt really comfortable in their half court O until last few minutes of the game. Lasell really let the game get away from them, froze a little bit in the end once Tufts starting knocking down big shots. like EC said, Pierce was amazing last night. I dont think anyone, even Tufts players and coaches, expected that kind of a performance out of him in his first time wearing the uniform.

Tufts rebounding was also a suprise: outrebounded Lasell 46-26 and every player on Lasell was taller than Tufts. Just came down to toughness and experience, look for Dave Shepherd to take over games the way he did down the stretch last night. When the team needs a big steal, he gets it.

RIC will be a big test, Bob Walsh, former Providence College assistant coach, has done a good job with the anchormen. They are favored to win the Little East this year.

eclinchy · November 18, 2006, 08:12:03 PM

95-84 RIC wins. Congrats to the Anchormen, they played a great tournament.

Tufts looked really sloppy, and they missed way too many threes. 5 for 23 as a team from beyond the arc. Jake missed 4, O'Keefe and Fitz missed 3 each, tons of guys missed one or two. It was frustrating, since this is the same team that went 11 for 24 on threes last night against Lasell.

Another stat: Tufts outrebounded Lasell 46-26, but then got outrebounded by an RIC team that wasn't even that big. Only 45-42, but it was still surprising.

This Tufts team is looking a bit streaky/inconsistent so far, but on the NESCAC schedule they've really only had two weeks together so far. They'll get better.

Red1 · November 18, 2006, 10:51:02 PM

RIC has 2 6-9 centers, and a 6-6 forward. Whether they play much or not I don't know, but that doesn't exactly strike me as small. This kind of height could certainly help them on the boards.

Also, The difference in Tufts' stats from behind the arc in the two games is just what happens to teams that rely too heavily on 3s. The 3 point shot is a very low percentage shot, and a team that drives, rebounds, and takes high percentage shots can hurt a team who shoots from deep a lot. Granted a good shooting team will have some on days and hit a lot of long shots, but they will have quite a few off games too, and that can easily lead to losses. Overall Tufts is shooting 34% from behind the arc, and that's not too shabby. They shot nearly 46% yesterday, so today's game really just averaged them out. When a game plan features that many shots from behind the arc it's not overly surprising to see the kind of numbers we saw from Tufts over the last two days.

Cheers,
Red1

eclinchy · November 19, 2006, 04:20:40 AM

Obviously I'm biased, but I think Friday was closer to the truth. Between Weitzen, and Black, and O'Keefe, and Dan Cook, there's a lot of talented pure shooters on that roster. Also, Fitz was 20 for 40 from beyond the arc last year -- people don't realize that he's got that hidden talent.

nescac1 · November 19, 2006, 09:31:57 AM

Yeah, I don't think Tufts will have any problem scoring this year, when Pierce is in they have five legit scorers/shooters on the floor at once and Weitzen in particular is very difficult to contain. Tufts' success will rest on its defense -- they gave up a lot of points this weekend and often gave up a lot of points last year. If they can contain teams, particularly taller teams with an inside presence, they should have no problem making the NCAA's with all of those offensive-minded players.

Initial thoughts on first weekend, based on reading about games: legit rookies include Chris Wilson, Joe Geoghegan, Jeremy Kaminer. Schultz, Carcieri, Wheeler, O'Keefe, Bernier could all have impacts as well if they get the playing time (at least for the Amherst guys, that seems unlikely once Amherst finishes its exhibition season).

Williams sounds a lot more balanced this year which is good to hear, they just can't expect to win consistently taking 50 percent of shots from 3 (which they had to do last year due to injuries and lack of depth up front). Ephs will still need Rose healthy to win against the tougher opponents, hopefully he can be back before January. If Rose plays the 3 when he returns that should help with rebounding and interior defense, with him at the 4 the Ephs were really undersized. Wesleyan could be challenging as adding Kelly makes them much tougher than last year. It will be interesting to see how the Ephs' frosh center matches up to the fifth year Senior this week.

Amherst is Amherst with talent and Division-I size up and down the roster (sounds like Walters, Jones and Baskauskas will step right in for Goldsmith and Casnocha), Tufts will be fine, and Trinity and Bates didn't do anything to show that the pre-season optimism was misplaced. Trinity is very deep, only Amherst and maybe Tufts have a comparable second unit. Colby did OK against two solid teams, but sounds like once again will be very thin behind the top three-four guys. The rest of the teams will probably be in a fight to make the conference playoffs although none are pushovers.

LEC looks much tougher this year than last -- Keene has a ton of talent, RIC obviously looks good, and UMass Dartmouth could be solid as well. Those squads could provide some solid competition for the top NESCAC teams.