MBB: NESCAC

[JeffRookie2]

Sikma just got hired to be the rockets new assistant coach under adelman. pat ewing, a former protege of sikma's taught yao ming his favorite post move which apparantly he calls the 'sikma.' D3 might not have many players, but it looks like we have a lot of good coaches and executives.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Wow, the ESPN report I read said it was Olajuwon who taught Yao the Sikma this week, which would make more sense, since he's actually a former Rocket and Houston resident.

Good hire for Houston though.  They are compiling quite the coaching staff down there.  That's going to be a solid team next year.

[eclinchy]

eclinchy,
all jokes aside, crotty and his father are actually good friends with coach sheldon and crotty often plays pick up with the tufts team in the summer and fall. he is so detrimental to player development that he brings jake w. out for kosher hot dogs after workouts.

HA.  So "all jokes aside," you had to get in one last Jew joke.  Well played, I guess.

And no, formerbant, I don't actually blame Crotty.  But come on... Williams gets to win every NESCAC championship imaginable (baseball, basketball, football, obviously... plus I think all the track seasons, and probably tennis/soccer/swimming too, although I forget)... it's hard to find anything to make fun of.  So forgive me if I have to resort to a cheap shot.  It was either poke fun at Crotty or at George Steinbrenner, and one seemed a lot more fitting for this board than the other.

But yeah, I blame Doc, and Danny for not firing Doc (although that's by no means the only reason to blame Danny).

[JeffRookie2]

you're right, i was thinking ewing because he was up until recently a rockets assistant coach, and was pretty much yao's personal coach

[walzy31]

Is Crotty the ballboy or has he moved on from the Celtics already?

i vote this the best post of June 2007


in other news:

Adolphe (the legend) Coulibaly made the Ivory Coast National Team which is playing this summer in the African Gold Cup Games. If Ivory Coast is a top three finisher at these games then they make it to the Olympics. Most of the guys on the squad have D1 backgrounds (Rutgers and OD to name a couple), and everyone has to be a national citizen of Cote D'Ivore.
I am trying to find out more details and will post up when I do.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Is Crotty the ballboy or has he moved on from the Celtics already?

i vote this the best post of June 2007

If I win, I'll dedicate the award to you, Walzy.

[JeffRookie2]

Apparantly, while Amherst is not getting the PG from Texas, Chris McClain, they are getting another point from Choate, Conor Meehan. http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com/news/article/9/

He is 6'3 and according to that website he is the highest rated player in NE to go to a D3 school. (who knows how reliable that is) But they do have him ranked above the Yemga kid going to Brandeis who people think is going to be so good. He was also recruited by cornell:
http://boards.basketball-u.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1012150&Main=1012147

He was the only good player on his team though, and it seems like he was mostly expected to score rather than create for other players. Nevertheless, he should be a good addition alongside Bennett, Butler and maybe that Greek kid. (Has anyone heard about that?)

[The Historian]

Yes, the Greek kid is coming.  And from what I hear, he's like a Dirk Nowitzki clone.

I mean, except for the fact that he's Greek and not German....and not seven feet tall...and will never play in the NBA...and will sit on the Amherst bench for his freshman year.

Other than those few things, though, he's just the same.

[JeffRookie2]

So... right now who do you think will be in the rotation for amherst come crunch time in the postseason barring injury? Its typically 7-9 guys. Last year, for instance, it was Olson, McLaughlin, Salerno, Baskauskas, Wheeler, Walters, O'shea, Hopkins, Jones (9).

So obviously: Olson, Hopkins, Baskauskas
Slightly less certain but still pretty sure: Walters, Jones, Goldsmith, Coulibaly
On the fence: Wong, Carcieri, Wheeler
Long Shots: Bradley, Bennett, Holsey

Personally, I think it will be the six seniors plus Baskauskas and Wheeler and whoever proves himself to be a better defender between Wong and Carcieri. (Wong has the advantage of being older and bigger, but Carcieri has the adventage of being able to spell Olson at the point)

[JeffRookie2]

Trinity is bringing in a 6'11 kid named Daniel Donoghue who is supposed to have pretty good athletiscm for a guy that tall going into DIII. Could have an impact next year. Trinity's entire recruiting class is reported here: http://www.newenglandrecruitingreport.com/news/article.php?id=4,
and also includes Jared Pimm, who was discussed on the recruiting page, Tim Dunn, a 6'7 kid from Holyoke Highschool near Amherst, Luke McDonald 6'5 from upstate New York and Ian Fels 6'0 from Miami. Sounds like they have good size, but with the loss of p.martin and clarke you would think they would be looking to restock the backcourt.

Also, nescac hoops, Brandeis' camp is July 13-15. Here is the site: http://www.hoopmountain.com/ne_ny_boys/academic_all_american_camp.html which shows a nice picture of former bants star Colin Tabb tutoring some prospects, as well as one of the amherst assistant coaches watching intently.

[eclinchy]

So... right now who do you think will be in the rotation for amherst come crunch time in the postseason barring injury? Its typically 7-9 guys. Last year, for instance, it was Olson, McLaughlin, Salerno, Baskauskas, Wheeler, Walters, O'shea, Hopkins, Jones (9).

So obviously: Olson, Hopkins, Baskauskas
Slightly less certain but still pretty sure: Walters, Jones, Goldsmith, Coulibaly
On the fence: Wong, Carcieri, Wheeler
Long Shots: Bradley, Bennett, Holsey

Personally, I think it will be the six seniors plus Baskauskas and Wheeler and whoever proves himself to be a better defender between Wong and Carcieri. (Wong has the advantage of being older and bigger, but Carcieri has the adventage of being able to spell Olson at the point)

I'm surprised you're not more confident with your picks.  All four of your "less certain" picks could easily be upgraded to the "obvious" category.

I think Hixon really likes Wheeler -- even as a sophomore, he probably belongs in the "pretty sure" category.  Especially being as big as he (already!) is, he might already be as good as his big bro.  Give him some credit.

I'd give the edge to Carcieri over Wong... not only can he play the point, but at least from what I've seen of his stats, he looks like a better shooter too.  Those two edges outweigh the age/experience factor... at least for me.  Hixon may very well think differently.

[JeffRookie2]

Yeah, i dont know why i said 'near certain', those guys are basically locks. the one problem with carcieri is he committed a bunch of TOs. it was in garbage time, when play is typically very sloppy, but its still a concern.

So, the other day John Hollinger made up this stat called the 'pure point rating' to evaluate point guards for the nba draft. in his words,

"Pure point rating is something I created to replace assist-turnover ratio, which is a fairly useless creation because it sticks turnovers in the denominator and thus tends to reward point guards who never penetrate. Pure point rating produces much more relevant rankings of a player's ability as a distributor; the formula is:

Pure Point = (100* ((Assists * 2/3) - Turnovers))/Minutes"

In general, anything above 2 or so is very good, while anything below -2 is very bad. Out of curiosity, I did the calculations for the nescac's starting points. Heres how they stacked up:

Olson (First Team): 6.4
P.Martin(Second Team): 4.667
Rudin: 3.1
Bradley: 2.1
Shalvoy(Second Team): 1.25
Shepard: -0.4
Washington: -1.4
Ashe: -1.7
Farrell(First Team): -3.0
Ray(First Team): -3.4

What is striking about this is that A) Ben Rudin is really good, distributing and scoring in double figures for the Panthers, and B) that Zak Ray and Nick Farrell, while effective scorers, are terrible at getting their teammates involved, and should not be compared to the likes of Olson, Shalvoy and Martin, who both distribute and carry a scoring role.

With that said, predictions for all-nescac next year:

Likey Candidates: Olson, Hopkins, Baskauskas, Coulibaly, Hippert, Stone, Rudin, Harris, Smith, R. Martin, Taylor, O'Keefe, Weitzen, Pierce, Shalvoy, Rose, Schultz, Geoghegan

First: Olson, Shalvoy, Weitzen, R. Martin, Hopkins

Second: Rudin, Rose, Baskauskas, O'Keefe, Stone

POY:Olson
ROY:Scott Seidor (Conn), should emerge as the second option behind stone
COY:Jeff Brown (Midd)

Rank:
Amherst
Williams
Midd
Tufts
Trinity
Bowdoin
Conn
Colby
Bates
Wes

[nescac hoops]

jeffrookie,

I really like you predictions. I'm not saying I disagree with your team standings but I wouldn't be totally surprised to see Tufts do better next year. Obviously, they need to replace Shepherd but with a strong recruiting class and Pierce into the starting 5 they could be contenders. That being said, they were very streaky last year and need to find some consistency. If they can, I think they have the talent to finish as high as second. While Midd may very well finish 3rd, I still think they are missing a piece to really bring them to the next level. Just my opinion.

[eclinchy]

Yeah, i dont know why i said 'near certain', those guys are basically locks. the one problem with carcieri is he committed a bunch of TOs. it was in garbge time, when play is typically very sloppy, but its still a concern.

TOs in garbage time are a misleading stat, because the people you're passing to are freshmen who don't have the same ball-handling skills that Olson's floormates do.  It's a lot easier to turn the ball over as a third- or fourth-string PG.

Likey Candidates: Olson, Hopkins, Baskauskas, Coulibaly, Hippert, Stone, Rudin, Harris, Smith, R. Martin, Taylor, O'Keefe, Weitzen, Pierce, Shalvoy, Rose, Schultz, Geoghegan

I think the nine best players in the league are (roughly in order, but not really set in stone) Olson, Martin, Weitzen, Rose, Shalvoy, Stone, Hopkins, Pierce and Rudin.  I think there's a bit of a dropoff after my top nine, so rounding out the top two teams is kinda tricky.  I find it interesting that you picked O'Keefe... usually I'm the Tufts-biased one, and I'm not sure even I would rate him that high.  I think my #10 spot is a race between him, Baskauskas and Hippert, all of whom are somewhat similar players.  I'll give the edge to Bausko though, since I think he has the smartest shot selection of the three.

So...

First team: Olson, Martin, Weitzen, Rose and Shalvoy
Second team: Stone, Hopkins, Pierce, Rudin and Baskauskas

Subject to change of course.

POY:Olson
ROY:Scott Seidor (Conn), should emerge as the second option behind stone
COY:Jeff Brown (Midd)

I'm not sure if I even want to bother.  POY is pointless because I'll just look stupid if I say anyone but Olson, ROY is pointless because we haven't seen these guys play yet, and COY is pointless because it's largely based on who overperforms their expectations, which we can't predict, because right now all we have are expectations.

Anyway... that being said, what the hell, this is supposed to be fun.  So here are my wild guesses:

POY: Olson (yawn)
ROY: Matt Galvin (Tufts needs one or two guards to step up... Shep was the team's workhorse for three long years)
COY: Hixon.  (Brown is an interesting pick, since he could have a really good year if Rudin and Smith step up as juniors, but I think they still have a year to go.  Brown in '09.  Hixon will get a lot of credit for losing his winningest class in program history and STILL dominating.  That's really impressive, and it goes to show how consistently he brings in the league's best recruits.)

Rank:
Amherst
Williams
Midd
Tufts
Trinity
Bowdoin
Conn
Colby
Bates
Wes

Not bad, but again I think Middlebury's still one year away from being that good.  I'll go with:

Amherst
Williams
Tufts
Trinity
Middlebury
Bowdoin
(There's a big dropoff somewhere in the middle. It's either here, or if Stone just plays out of his mind all season, it's after Conn.)
Conn
Bates
Colby
Wesleyan

[Pat Coleman]

TOs in garbage time are a misleading stat, because the people you're passing to are freshmen who don't have the same ball-handling skills that Olson's floormates do.  It's a lot easier to turn the ball over as a third- or fourth-string PG.

There's probably something to this theory, but turnovers aren't charged to the point guard if they're the fault of the pass recipient.