MBB: NESCAC

[walzy31]

Results

The final weekend of NESCAC play has produced the final 20 spreads of the season. Please enjoy this. Purely for entertainment purposes only.


"The nescac1 long shot bet"
Williams wins the NESCAC tournament.

Yes +720
No -800
Actual: ?

Drew Cohen and Nick Farrell combined point total (Saturday only).

0-14     +400
15-29    -110
30-44    -110
45-59    +250
60+       +650
Actual: Cohen 12 Farrell 17 for 29 = 15-29 range : )

"Block party bet"
Who has more blocks, Drew Cohen or Kevin Hopkins (Saturday only).

Cohen -2.5
Hopkins +2.5
Actual: Cohen 0 Hopkins 3 = Hopkins

Does the 4th pick in the 2007 All NESCAC All Crazy draft (Michael Westbrooks) receive at least one of the following: technical foul, flagrant foul, or intentional foul?

Yes +130
No -140
Actual: No

Timeouts called in Amherst/Colby game.

O/U 7.5
Actual: 6 = Under : )

Timeouts called in Trinity/Williams game.

O/U 11.0
Actual: 10 = Under : )

Who records the most assists this weekend (Saturday AND Sunday).

Andrew Olson   -130
Pat Martin    -110
Chris Shalvoy   +200
Nick Farrell    +400
Actual: Martin 9 Olson 8 Shalvoy 4 Farrell 0 = ?(Sunday left)

Team with the most turnovers on Saturday.

Williams   -110
Colby    -120
Amherst  +240
Trinity   +220
Actual: Colby 18 Amherst 14 Trinity 9 Williams 6 = Colby : )

Highest scorer in LeFrak on Saturday choosing one of the leading scorers from each team.

Chris Rose    +100
Russ Martin   +120
Dan Wheeler  +150
Nick Farrell    -110
Actual: Rose 9 R. Martin 10 Wheeler 18 Farrell 17 = Wheeler

First fan ejected from LeFrak on Saturday is a _____ fan.

Amherst   -110
Colby   +250
Trinity   +150
Williams   +150
No fans are ejected  +350
Actual: No fan ejected

"Steal bet"
Who has more steals, Tim McLaughlin or Kino Clarke.

McLaughlin -1.5
Clarke +1.5
Actual: McLaughlin 3 Clarke 2(although i only saw one) = Clarke : )

Phil Wall Field Goal Attempts (FGA) on Saturday.

0    -130
1    +100
2    +150
3    +400
Actual: 0  : )

Total 3Pt FGA by both teams COMBINED in Amherst/Colby game.

O/U 36.5
Actual: Amherst 40 Colby 24 for 64 = Waaaaaaaaaay Over

Total 3Pt FGA by both teams COMBINED in Trinity/Williams game.

O/U 39.5
Actual: Williams 16 Trinity 23 for 39 = Under : )

"Western Mass Bet"
Leading scorer on Saturday who hails from the 4-1-3.

Russ (East Longmeadow) Martin  -150
Pat (Minnechaug/Cathedral) Martin  +120
Glenn (Deerfield) Wong   +8000
Actual: Russ 10 Pat 13 Glenn 2 mins = Pat Martin

"California Bet"
Leading scorer on Saturday who hails from the Golden State.

Andrew Olson -130
Brian Baskauskas -110
Blake Schultz -110
Tommas Galia +300
Grant Meyer +714
Random dude on Colby (Justin Sherman) +800
Any other Cali guy (Eric Moore, Trin Players) +1500
Actual: Olson 10 Baskauskas 14 Schultz 22 Galia 3 = Schultz

Meghan O'Malley vs. Joe Goheghan - Total Points (Saturday only).

O'Malley -6.5
Goheghan +6.5
Actual: O'Malley 14 Goheghan 11 = Goheghan

Back by popular demand:

"Williams Gunners bet"
Maggie Miller/Chris Rose COMBINED FGA on Saturday.

O/U 27.5
Actual: Miller 15 Rose 10 for 25 = Under : )

"First name is Chris bet"
First player to score a point for the Ephs has the first name "Chris."

Yes -250
No  +300
Actual: Exciting bet. Schultz lay in and the foul about 2 minutes into the game. 3 of next 4 Eph baskets were from Rose or Shalvoy = No

"Bladder bet"
Number of cups of water Coach Paulsen drinks on Saturday.

O/U 14.0
Actual: Paid extremely close attention. 6 in the first half and 8 in the second half. = Push : )

FBant,
You got 4 right, 11 wrong, and 1 push with the olson pick and williams not winning still open. Thanks for the "action" though.

: ) = the spread was close

[JeffRookie2]

Watching the Williams-Trinity game I was hugely impressed with Blake Schultz. I know Walzy already sung his praises, but its worth noting that he not only dominated on the offensive end, but spent most of the game guarding either Clarke or Pat Martin. In fact, the turning point of the first half was when Paulsen took Snyder off of Clarke and let Schultz guard him. All of a sudden Kino was kept under wraps, letting Williams seperate themselves a little bit for a six point lead at the break. Start of the second half, Synder is guarding Clarke again, he quickly gets an easy lay-up and then a three, and Schultz stays on him the rest of the night, holding Kino to only 5 more points.

I'll say it, I'm worried about Williams tomorrow, and even more worried about next year. Shalvoy, Rose, Geoghegan and Schultz are all very solid players. I dont understand how these guys lost to Framingham St.

[mrmike88]

Early season, rookies are raw, no Rose.

[Bluesky]

Some of us have been saying for some time now that Williams was well coached and had some great young players.

In addition to Blake and Joe G, there are some other first year players who will be outstanding. Just mark my words.

Williams has nothing to lose tomorrow and everything to gain. They survived an early season injury to Rose and they became a team when he got his game going and other players stepped up. Now, they get to play for the chance to go to the big dance when just a few weeks ago many on this board were quick to mock Paulsen and his team. He's a great coach.

I don't expect them to beat Amherst on their home court. But, next year, watch out.

[Rick Vaughn]

To answer the question on the wierd 1-3-1 trap Williams threw at Trin.  It worked so well last weekend vs Tufts (5-32 from 3) so Paulson went with it again.  Manly effort from Schultz. I have watched this team all year and the amount he has grown as a player has been amazing.  Shalvoy is just a great leader.  Let's hope Williams can play a full 40 tomorrow vs the Herst and not just a solid 1st half.  It has been ugly offensively in the second half their first two meetings.   Also for the first time watching the Bantams, damn Kino Clarke can shoot it.   

On the odds...I finally watched Paulson pounding cups of water and got a chuckle out of it. 

[mrmike88]

Two ways to check out today's championship game:

Webcast: http://www.d3cast.com/
Audio Only: http://wamh.amherst.edu/

Is Williams sending a crew again as well?  They did yesterday.

[nescac hoops]

There were some great individual performances in this one (Schultz, Shalvoy, Clarke, to state the obvious), but I wasn't impressed with either team's overall offensive flow.

mrmike,
what exactly do you mean by offensive flow? the final score was 91-89. that's a combined 180 points! was it just awful defense? it seems hard to critcize offensive flow in a game that featured this many points. perhaps the defense shold be criticized in this one, not the offense.

[mrmike88]

Nescac Hoops - I thought at points yesterday that both teams seemed to rely upon very individual-oriented, isolated plays.  Perhaps I should have phrased it differently, but I made the remark because I was surprised that this came to pass based on having seen both teams before.  While this was not true for the whole game (in fact, it held in my opinion for mostly the first half), it was interesting to see whole possessions turn into the Kino Clarke show or the Chris Shalvoy show when I know that isn't the general style of play of these two teams.

Oh, and the defense certainly left something to be desired.  A lot of open looks under the basket for both teams.  I have a feeling we won't be seeing that trap today.  It also helps that neither team was playing a slow, grind-it-out type of game yesterday.

Chris Rose is my key today for Williams.  They need to get him more involved than he was yesterday and he needs to stay out of foul trouble.  It makes what Williams did yesterday that much more impressive that he played a minor role in the win.

[nescac1]

Yeah, the Ephs have a lot of one-on-one mismatches against Amherst mostly due to size disadvantage, but nonetheless I think they should avoid that trap except for very limited stretches as a change of pace.  Amherst has much better finishers inside and from the baseline than either Tufts or Trin (you just don't have to worry very much about Westbrooks and Hoar looking for shots down there), and Olsen would certainly find the open man underneath.  Plus Hixon will surely have his team prepped for that. 

As for Rose, I agree.  He has been fairly quiet the last few games with nary an open look.  Both Trin and Tufts put smaller, quicker guys on him for most of the game, and Rose struggled a bit to get open.  The good news is, that left Schultz with mismatches against big guys who had no prayer of staying with him on the drive.  The one thing Rose needs to do, besides start the year healthy next year, is work on his post game.  At 6'5 and pretty thick to boot, when other teams put guards on him he should immediately take them down low and shoot over them on the blocks rather than try to get open for 3.  Won't factor in today as Amherst doesn't even have any guys who play the wing who are under 6'5. 

I think the Ephs' offense flowed very well, certainly as well as I've seen it flow since the Crotty era, except for the last few minutes when they were clearly spent from the frantic pace.  Other than a few tough shots by Shalovy, almost every basket the first 3/4 of the game was off a drive, entry pass, in transition, or a pretty wide open jumper.   They look nothing like the team that was hoisting up 40 3's earlier in the year.  Of course, Amherst's defense is much better than Tufts, and somewhat better than Trinity's.

Go Ephs!  Hope the Williams crowd is a little more boisterous today ...

[hoopjunkie]

Let me be the first to congratulate the Ephs on a great game beating Amhert today
for the nescac championship.

I did predict they were beatable & glad to see Amherst lose. Olson is great, but other
then Baubaskus & Wheeler who are good players they are nothing so special.


You can`t keep relying on miracle last second shots,  like last year against
my Jumbos.

i think the freshman from Williams kept getting better each week & really hit their
stride the last couple of weeks . Shalvoy played great today. Rose not a great game
but other guys stepped up.

[nescac1]

Unbelievable win for the Ephs.  Down 20-5 and just totally flustered, 3 pointers and Rose kept them in the game, and they just persevered through the second half.   Shalvoy clinched all-conference honors this weekend, hit 7 3's today.  I think he may have played 80 minutes this weekend.   Ephs hit clutch shot after clutch shot, to do that, on the road, when they must be exhausted after two brutal games, with a team that had never even been in a pressure situation before speaks volumes about the character of the Ephs and the coaching acumen of Paulsen.  

Congrats to the Ephs -- this is as big as any win outside of the final four wins in program history -- a loss would have meant seven straight losses to Amherst, season is over, and a long off season to wonder what could have been.  Now they are in the tourney, the Amherst monkey is off the back, and there is no doubt that in future years the talent level between the programs is back to even.   The future is finally now for the Ephs.  I hope they get an NCAA draw that recognizes the team they have now as opposed to December.  

Amherst better work on their foul shooting if they hope to make it far in the tourney.  Around this time last year Amherst's students were hopping around on the Ephs home court and celebrating.  No one's hopping now as two losses in four games have to have the Amherst faithful wondering what is going on ...

[eclinchy]

Wow.

[nescac1]

I believe it was Dman who predicted that Shalvoy was bound to have a good game against Amherst and that the Ephs would steal one from the Jeffs this season.  Turned out to be quite prescient indeed. 

Coast Guard stuns WPI.  Amherst and WPI are locks for Pool C.  Trinity probably still is as well, but I think that may be it for New England -- Keene and Brandeis may end up being the biggest losers today.

[Bluesky]

Congratulations to the Ephs for beating Amherst on their home court.

Some of us tried to tell the Amherst fans on this site just how good Williams was going to be. I guess they arrived a little sooner than expected. And what's this about Paulsen not being a good recruiter/coach? Man, he did a great job with this team. And, the talent, with more on the bench, returns next season!

[mrmike88]

As Amherst has shown several times in the past few years, it's awfully hard to beat a team that can't miss from beyond the arc.  Williams was just a shade under 60% for the game from 3.

I think Amherst played very well through most of the game, in spite of the loss.  Olson had a double-double (12pts 11assists), Baskauskas cleaned up on rebounds, Hopkins had a great run in the low post, especially once Gogheghan got into foul trouble.  Olson is truly a special player and there is no doubt in my mind that he deserves the NESCAC POY after this weekend.

However, as an Amherst fan I'm very nervous now.  The way they handled the final few possessions of the game left MUCH to be desired.  I hate to be critical since I myself am a horrible basketball player and it isn't fair of me to call out hard-working classmates of mine, but I just don't understand what happened in the final few minutes.  First, how do you fall asleep on the big man?  Walters (who had checked into the game for Hopkins for some bizarre reason) went to contest Shalvoy's shot (Salerno was already in his face) instead of go for the rebound, and that left Gogheaghan alone for the easy put-back.  Then, it looked like poor decision-making on the final shot that left Wheeler with a turn-around fade-away heave.  How was that the best shot they had?  Where was Hopkins/Olson, and why didn't Wheeler go to the rim?  And why didn't Amherst call the timeout after Rose missed the shot?  I can second-guess all day, but it really could come down to all those missed free-throws.

Congrats to the Ephs for playing so well this weekend.  You certainly deserve the NCAA shot.  I hope we get our revenge.  I hope we figure out our crunch-time play.