MBB: NESCAC

[Amherst95]

Nescac 1,
good point about nescac teams only being eligable for 13 yrs now. admittingly, i forgot about those years. however, when i was at williams in the mid/late 90's, hixon's teams were not real contenders to williams until the end of my time there and not "nationally known", even if they weren't allowed to go to the ncaa's. i can't speak for his teams in the 80s but i THINK that his teams became very good in the late 90's - present. he may have had some strong years along the line but i don't think they were consistantly strong until somewhere in the late 90's....maybe i'm wrong though.

Coach Hixon had many good teams before the late '90's . . . ECAC champs in '88, '95, and '96 to name a few.

To mention a couple of others, the '91-'92 team, like Williams, lost in the ECAC semifinals.  Then, during the first season when NESCAC allowed its members to compete in the NCAA's ('93-'94), Amherst lost a close one at Williamstown and won 89-60 at Amherst; Amherst then dealt Franklin and Marshall its only D3 defeat of the season before losing to eventual champ Lebanon Valley.

[old_hooper]

Records over the last 5 years of the National champs

06-07 Amherst 135-18 (in 02-03 won 24, all others 26 or more)
05-06 VaWes  120-31 (18-9 in 02-03, all other seasons 20 or more)
04-05 and 03-04 Stevens Point 125-25 (05-06 17-10, all others 24 or more)
02-03 Williams 110-32 (have not won more thean 17 the last three years)

And the team that has the best record over this period of time is the College of Wooster at 138-19 (have won 26 or more in each of these seasons)

[JeffRookie2]

The record you list for Amherst is actually better than the record you list for Wooster in terms of winning percentage.

[The Historian]

That's an anonymous commenter on a story in a college newspaper. What weight could that possibly carry?

Hahaha.  Certainly less than an anonymous commentator on an internet basketball message board!

[Pat Coleman]

Historian:

It's the exact same thing. Except on our message board you have to at least give your e-mail address.

[Greek Tragedy]

Records over the last 5 years of the National champs

06-07 Amherst 135-18 (in 02-03 won 24, all others 26 or more)
05-06 VaWes  120-31 (18-9 in 02-03, all other seasons 20 or more)
04-05 and 03-04 Stevens Point 125-25 (05-06 17-10, all others 24 or more)
02-03 Williams 110-32 (have not won more thean 17 the last three years)

And the team that has the best record over this period of time is the College of Wooster at 138-19 (have won 26 or more in each of these seasons)

however, the real championship i wanted to see was steven's point and amherst. i'm not saying that steven's point would have beat the herst,

Thought I would take a peak over here since I heard someone was talking about the Stevens Point Pointers...no possession, so don't had the " ' "... 

Anyway, I was just curious how many close games Williams and Amherst have played in their conference and what their records might be if the NESCAC actually played each conference member TWICE.  That's my big thing against the conference.  Everyone else plays at least a unbalanced round robin schedule.  Obviously, no one can predict what their records would be, but I think it's a little skewd. 

Anyway, believe me, I was hoping the Pointers would've made it to Salem this past season too! lol. 

The posts say Amherst has Brockport State and Point coming in, who is the 4th team?  I think I read a post mentioning Ill. Wes. That would work since they'd be in-region for Point! 

[fpc85]

Old school,
I don't think it matters what the record would be. the best in the NESCAC can play with anyone in any given year. I was hoping that the point could get there too...I wanted to see what all the fanfare was about. People seemed very impressed with them. Do you think Wash U. was the better team? If they played in a 7 game series who would win?

why not have the other confs. play only 1 in conf. game?

[John Gleich]

Old school,
I don't think it matters what the record would be. the best in the NESCAC can play with anyone in any given year. I was hoping that the point could get there too...I wanted to see what all the fanfare was about. People seemed very impressed with them. Do you think Wash U. was the better team? If they played in a 7 game series who would win?

why not have the other confs. play only 1 in conf. game?

It's so hard to tell about who is the better team.  Of course, Point fans feel that we would have beaten them the next 6 times... because this was one of 2-3 bad shooting nights by SP for the year.  Point only made 8-36 3 pt shots for the game.  8 is almost 3 3's less than Point averaged for the season (10.8 average going into the game).  Point also averaged only 8.4 TO's per game, but turned the ball over 12 times in the final contest.  If Point hit their average of 11 3's and turned those 4 possessions into 2 pt buckets, that would have accounted for 17 points, which would erase the final margin of 12 and give Point a 5 pt win. 

Now, I realize that this is all just wondering... because the fact that Point played as poorly as they did could just as easily be associated to the good play of Wash U instead of the bad play of UWSP, but open shot after open shot kept rimming out.  Pete Rortvedt hit only 1 3, when he had averaged over 3 made 3's per game.  He has the ability to simply go off on teams (ask UW Platteville, Pete hit 9/11 in the conference tournament last year, or UW Whitewater this year, Pete hit 7/11 3's), but did have a few games where he was a bit off.  Regardless, though, he always came up with the big shots, and he was only a sophomore this year.

Like I said, Point only averaged 8.5 TO's per game.  This was better than every college program in the country (DI, DII, DIII, NAIA I & II).  The next closest was DI Butler at 9.4.  The next closest DIII team was Lewis and Clark at 9.6.  Point also led the entire country in free throw percentage, setting a new DIII record of 82.3% from the line.  Put these two stats together, along with the fact that Point had the ability to score in bunches because each of the five starters was a 3 point threat truly shows how dangerous a team UWSP could be.

The one achilles heal was the lack of a true inside presence.  Jon Krull, at 6'4", was guarding players like Joe Werner (6'7", WIAC POY), Jake and John Nonemacher (7'0" twins), and Kerry Gibson (7'1"),  and while guys like Jerome Wotachek and Cory Krautkramer could step in and bang, they didn't really flow with the type of offense that Point ran when they weren't in there.

Wotachek will really have to step up next year to be that inside guy next year.  I know Coach Semling has been trying to recruit them but they've all gone other place the last few years.  The old addage really held true this year... Point did die by the three in that tournament game.

[walzy31]

The posts say Amherst has Brockport State and Point coming in, who is the 4th team?  I think I read a post mentioning Ill. Wes. That would work since they'd be in-region for Point! 

The 4th team is the Boston Celtics. Crotty hooked it up.

[eclinchy]

I'd like to see Tufts play the Celtics -- that way we'd see a renewal of the Jake Weitzen-Sebastian Telfair rivalry.  Jake was probably the better player when they were in high school in NYC, and he's probably still better too.  Time to prove it.

And speaking of Crotty and Telfair, was Crotty in any way responsible for the inane idea of trading the Celtics' rights to Brandon Roy?

[nescac1]

Congrats to Luke Flockerzi, former Amherst assistant who was just named head coach of Skidmore.  Given his success in recruiting at Amherst (I THINK he brought in a lot of the top talent, although an Amherst person could confim) I imagine Skidmore will soon cease to be an easy win on Williams' schedule.  I imagine he won't be the last of Hixon's former assistants to secure a head coaching gig ... Williams has been a coaching pipeline for some time now, and the visibility of a title should help land some great opportunities for the current bunch of assistants. 

[fpc85]

Luke! congratulations!! Well deserved!!

[hoopjunkie]

Now that Sebatian Telfair got fired from the Celtics , I guess we won`t see a
PSAL New York matchup with Tufts Jake Weitzen . But maybe he can play
point for Tufts . Oh yeah he could`nt get in with his transcripts from Lincoln
HS. He could however afford $48,000 tuition .

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I guess we won`t see a PSAL New York matchup with Tufts Jake Weitzen.

Actually, it might be more likely now that they'll meet up in some Bosnian or Bulgarian professional league someday.

[eclinchy]

First of all, wow.  I am such an incredible jinx.  I mention Telfair one day, and hours later, he gets himself kicked off the team.  Maybe if I do the same for Brian Scalabrine, Kendrick Perkins and Leon Powe, they'll get rid of those guys too.  Then the Cs might look a tad respectable...

Second of all, I'd expect Telfair to end up in some random league in Bulgaria, but not Weitzen.  One of them call fall back on a Tufts education and get a good job, and the other can't.

Third of all, does anyone know anything about the Coaches vs. Cancer game that happened this past weekend?  I know it was just a charity event, but I'd be really curious to know who won... it was somewhat of a New England D3 All-Star game.  Kumf/Shep/T-Mac/Wheeler/Kino/P-Mart all played for the NESCAC team, and the other squad included Kinsey Durgin, Ryan Cain and Tony Barros.  Interesting match-up (although if Bates and Colby were in on it, our all-senior team would have CRUSHED).  Anyone see the game/hear anything?