WBB: NESCAC

Roundball999 · January 14, 2015, 12:43:53 AM

Massey currently has NESCAC as 7th rated conference with 19th SoS. NWC is 3rd rated conference with 2nd SoS.

d3wbbfan · January 14, 2015, 12:54:20 AM

Roundball, you already made that point in your Hope argument. Hope is a fantastic program. But the NESCAC just started league play last weekend. You can't take a snapshot today, and have it mean anything at all. 80% of its leagues games haven't been factored in yet. You get that, right? Hope's numbers always drop from early on after MIAA play wraps up, while the NESCAC's always rise significantly from now until late Feb. Just as Pat Coleman outlined to you earlier.

I must say, you are extremely, extremely, extremely passionate about your team, and its coaches. You're a terrific fan. I also think it is genius that Coach Brian continues to utilize his dad's wealth of knowledge on the bench. That's a awful lot of smarts to have access to - no wonder you guys are great every season. Stay healthy, and best of luck to your Dutch!

Roundball999 · January 14, 2015, 07:23:14 AM

Quote from: d3wbbfan on January 14, 2015, 12:54:20 AM
Roundball, you already made that point in your Hope argument. Hope is a fantastic program. But the NESCAC just started league play last weekend. You can't take a snapshot today, and have it mean anything at all. 80% of its leagues games haven't been factored in yet. You get that, right? Hope's numbers always drop from early on after MIAA play wraps up, while the NESCAC's always rise significantly from now until late Feb. Just as Pat Coleman outlined to you earlier.

I must say, you are extremely, extremely, extremely passionate about your team, and its coaches. You're a terrific fan. I also think it is genius that Coach Brian continues to utilize his dad's wealth of knowledge on the bench. That's a awful lot of smarts to have access to - no wonder you guys are great every season. Stay healthy, and best of luck to your Dutch!

I said nothing about Hope. I thought the current discussion was NWC and NESCAC, which was what I posted about?

So if you want to use a full season, thinking that snapshot at the beginning of league play is not representative, then how about for the full season last year Massey had NESCAC as 9th rated conference with 10th SoS while NWC was 1st and 1st.

nescac1 · January 14, 2015, 10:06:00 AM

d3wbbfan, that post sums it up better than I ever could. It's one thing to gradually build a powerhouse at one D3 school, and sustain excellence there -- there are plenty of examples of that, across multiple sports, in Division 3. But I can't think of ANY coach, in any D3 team sport, who has done anything like what Gromacki has done, instantly turning three dormant / mediocre programs into national contenders, and instantly competing for national titles, every single year, with a program that had no record of success in hoops, and again, after inheriting the same players who had been a mediocre team the year prior. I agree that last year's coaching team was particularly good -- that particular Amherst team had no business having a record like that. Believe me, I have no vested interest in pumping Gromacki up, being an Eph fan, but I'm confident that if you traded him for any other D3 women's hoops coach (and probably many D1 coaches), he would improve the team's record instantly -- indeed, he's already done it three times! And if you give him the talent of any top-10 team, I'd bet on him to win the title, without blinking. From what I understand due to a variety of reasons he is likely to stick around Amherst for a long time, and that is very, very lucky for the Jeffs, because otherwise I'm certain a lot of D1 teams (including any Ivy with a vacancy) would come calling.

amh63 · January 14, 2015, 04:30:14 PM

Changing the topic a bit...during this quiet period before the next conference battles. There is an interesting assistand WBB coach at Conn College.......Grace Rhenquist. she is an recent Williams grad and was an outstanding outside shooter for the Ephs. Her blood lines are Amherst though. Her Aunt and father are LJs alums. The latter was a record setting player for the MBB before the 3- point shot was recognized. Considered by many as maybe the best player ever.

saratoga · January 14, 2015, 07:22:39 PM

d3wbbfan/nescac1 etc,

As a fan of the University of Scranton Lady Royal's, I can honestly say I've seen many great coaches come into the Long Center throughout its storied history & I've also witnessed one of the best patrol the sidelines for the Lady Royal's in the recently retired Mike Strong.
However, for my money GP is clearly the best of the best.
Coach Strong won a National Championship, took his teams to 8 Final Fours, never had a losing season & I believe never finished with less than 16 wins in a season.
Pretty incredible stuff.
But, if you had to win 1 game with only 1 day to get ready... there is no question regarding who my pick is to get the most out of his talent, understand & prepare his team for the tendencies of the opponent & execute with finite detail.
GP gets it done.
Back in 2007 when I first heard he accepted the Amherst position, I made a few predictions about the future of Amherst women's basketball on this site.
They can be reviewed on thread 43 dated 12/21/07 & thread 45 dated 1/20/08.
The hiring of GP may be the best decision Amherst has made since their trek over the Berkshire's a few years back.

bowdoin74 · January 14, 2015, 08:02:15 PM

d3wbbfan,

Re: your post at 12:29 a.m. today

"(He's only lost one home game *ever* at Amherst, and that was when a Bowdoin desperation 3-ptr at the buzzer went in!)"

Bowdoin's Leah Rubega was assisted by future NESCAC all first team Maria Nucas while being guarded by Amherst's Sarah Lehman when Rubega made the game winning layup at the buzzer at LeFrak on January 30, 2009.

Gromacki was out coached that game by A. Shibles, who started first year and future Honorable Mention All American, Jill Henrikson, for the first time. Henrikson scored a game high 16 points. A case could be made that the etiology of Gromacki's lone loss at home was anemic scouting. Even if you disagree, his lone loss was not due to a game winning Bowdoin desperation 3 point buzzer beater.

bowdoin74 · January 15, 2015, 06:38:30 AM

Video evidence at the 9:15 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q0pELh7n5I

amh63 · January 15, 2015, 10:24:44 AM

bowdoin74.....got it! Amherst lost at home in a last minute layup. Your point ..if that is it..has been made. Move on to more positive contributions to this board. The Polar Bears have a fine team this season and a fine coach. Any thing else you want to contribute?

gordonmann · January 15, 2015, 02:08:19 PM

I don't know if Gromacki is the greatest coach at the Division III level, but he's on the short list, along with Morehouse, Nancy Fahey at Washington U, Hoffman at DePauw and undoubtedly a couple others I'm forgetting.

What impresses me most about Gromacki is he's a tremendous program builder. Sandwiched in between his accomplishments at Amherst and St. Lawrence, he took a non-descript Hamilton team to the NCAA tournament and played Scranton tough in the second round in their gym.

FWIW, I consider the power five conferences in D3 women's hoops to be the UAA, NESCAC, CCIW, WIAC and NWC. Having seen the best those conferences have to offer in the Final Four for over a decade , those conferences consistently produce great teams and (here's the key) its not just the same team, year after year.

There are other outstanding programs outside of those conferences -- Hope is the example I usually cite. FDU-Florham is on that list now. Scranton has been in the past. Those teams are just as good, or in any given year, better than the top teams in the power five. But the conferences they come from aren't as deep.

For the MIAA to get in that conversation as a whole, someone other than Hope and Calvin has to consistently (meaning more than a year or two) compete with those programs for the conference title. The third best team in that conference is probably Trine right now and they lost to Calvin by 47.

Roundball999 · January 15, 2015, 02:46:04 PM

Well said Gordon, I agree in all respects.

Just for clarity, I never intended to imply (don't think I did) that MIAA was near the top of the conferences. I think it's been well demonstrated that Hope and Calvin are typically able to compete nationally with anyone, but I agree the MIAA needs to get deeper in order to join those ranks as a conference. I sincerely wish that would happen.

Ourtrun · January 16, 2015, 04:55:13 PM

What no predictions on the games tonight?

Hoopsinfo · January 16, 2015, 11:38:34 PM

Interesting to read the comments about Coach Gromacki here. I beg to differ about Gromacki's coaching prowess. I like to watch good basketball so I tuned into the Tufts - Amherst and Williams - Amherst games last year and this year. If Gromacki is such a great coach, how did he allow his team to fall behind like they did tonight with barely a timeout. He needed to take his best shot at attacking the inside so it would open up his outside game. Was Giddens injured tonight? She absolutely dominated against Williams just a week ago and more than held her own against Tufts last year. With Robertson back, why wouldn't he team his two most dominant inside forces to counterbalance Kanner's domination on the offensive end of the floor while forcing Tufts to collapse on the inside game to open up Amherst's outside game. Hand it to tufts tonight, they played great - especially Kanner. Better coaching, in my opinion, would have kept this game close and allowed Amherst to try and pull it out at the end. Games between two tough teams are defined by in-game adjustments by coaches. Gromacki gets great players but against the better teams they need some in-game strategic adjustments to compete. I look forward to the next game between Tufts and Amherst - and a more competitive game.

d3wbbfan · January 17, 2015, 01:45:21 AM

Quote from: bowdoin74 on January 14, 2015, 08:02:15 PM
d3wbbfan,

Re: your post at 12:29 a.m. today

"(He's only lost one home game *ever* at Amherst, and that was when a Bowdoin desperation 3-ptr at the buzzer went in!)"

Bowdoin's Leah Rubega was assisted by future NESCAC all first team Maria Nucas while being guarded by Amherst's Sarah Lehman when Rubega made the game winning layup at the buzzer at LeFrak on January 30, 2009.

Gromacki was out coached that game by A. Shibles, who started first year and future Honorable Mention All American, Jill Henrikson, for the first time. Henrikson scored a game high 16 points. A case could be made that the etiology of Gromacki's lone loss at home was anemic scouting. Even if you disagree, his lone loss was not due to a game winning Bowdoin desperation 3 point buzzer beater.

Bowdoin74, you are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong in describing the type of game-winning shot Bowdoin hit. I meant no disrespect. Any good NESCAC fan knows how good Coach Shibles is at what she does. Some years have gone by since that game was played, and I had no idea at the time that the loss that day was going to end up being an especially memorable one, for any reason, with it now being almost six years later. I apologize to you for my faulty memory, and I thank you for correcting me on it.

Vandy74 · January 17, 2015, 03:35:31 AM

I hate the way the scheduling with the mens' and womens' teams works this season. I didn't see the game, even via the computer feed but I'm very glad to see the Lady Panthers matched the men with a win tonight to go 10-5 on the season and 2-1 in the 'CAC. A low scoring contest that saw the Panthers maintain a 4 point halftime lead enroute to a 50-46 victory.