MBB: University Athletic Association

[deiscanton]

Brandeis/Amherst match will be on WBRS this Saturday.  WBRS is sending a crew to Amherst to cover the game.  Pre-game is 10 minutes before tip-- tip is at 3 PM Eastern.

Game is at http://www.wbrs.org

Amherst will also be covering this one on their station, WAMH.  Details for accessing that webcast are in the NESCAC forum.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Bowers was a big time high school player who went to a pretty big d2 school and actually was all conference his sophomore year, but evidently didn't like the coach and wanted to come back closer to home.  He's got a big time resume, but he hasn't really shown too much of it yet.

[deiscanton]

From earlier today--

#2 Amherst 84, Brandeis 74

I'm back at Brandeis after seeing the game at Amherst.

Packed house at LeFrak Gym today with a playoff-like atmosphere.

Brandeis represented the UAA well today, but Amherst proved today why they are clearly the best team in the Northeast Region and justified at least a Top 10 national ranking.  Brandeis only had 3 assists for the whole game (none from Kwame Graves-Fulgham), but outscored the Lord Jeffs, 49-45, in the second half by way of a strong 30 point performance from Steve DeLuca and a 10 point game from Kwame Graves-Fulgham.

The first 10 minutes of the game were very close, but Amherst used its strong bench and great defense to make Brandeis go 14 down at the break.  The deficit was too much for Brandeis to overcome in front of a rowdy crowd, but Brandeis pulled to within 7 before losing by 10.

The way the Lord Jeffs played today, any team in the UAA would have been a clear underdog in Amherst, MA. 

[Marty Peretz]

Don't sleep on WashU. They dominated again tonight, putting up over 100 with their starters on the bench for the game's final 13 minutes. 7-1 with a 2 point los son the road to #15 Augustana. The Bears are receiving a lot of votes and for good reason. Kwame, Deluca and co. will have a hard time handing Bears nation if they struggled ina  considerably less hostile enviroonment at Lefrak.

[ILive4This]

i do not know much about the basketball atmosphere at wash u, but i do not think that of amherst should be downplayed. le frak is a very small intimate gymnasium, smaller than most highschools, and it was packed, there were no empty seats in the house. in fact there were people in the amherst student section on the floor about 10 deep, they were even told to back up from the court on a number of occasions, one of the only calls the refs got right the whole time. i have been to a number of d1 games, and have seen very few that have rivaled the atmosphere in la frak last saturday, the only thing missing was a band.

[howardjp]

Nice to see the Brandeis crew edging closer to the Top 25, #27 as of this week.  No shame in the recent loss to Amherst in their abode.  Keep it up guys.

[old_hooper]

So it looks like Wash U, Brandeis, NYU and Chicago have to be favorites at this point.  Do you think that any of them will have less then 3 losses in league?

[ILive4This]

im guessing by this that you are assuming that most of these four teams will be perfect at home, and will lose all 3 against the others away, or a random upset loss...this being said i do forsee atleast one of these teams with less than 2 losses, but i do not wish to comment on which team(s) will acheive this.

[Rhodes Scholar]

I saw NYU beat Clark, 74-64, yesterday. NYU had a strong first half, but was sluggish in the second half. Clark never quit and hit a lot of three pointers down the stretch to keep the score respectable.

NYU is a solid team and has an excellent front line in Boone, Falcon and DeCorso. The Violets also picked up a good point guard in Matthew Wilson, a freshman from Texas. Wilson will look to fill the void created by the departure of Jared Kildare.

[hugenerd]

I saw NYU beat Clark, 74-64, yesterday. NYU had a strong first half, but was sluggish in the second half. Clark never quit and hit a lot of three pointers down the stretch to keep the score respectable.

NYU is a solid team and has an excellent front line in Boone, Falcon and DeCorso. The Violets also picked up a good point guard in Matthew Wilson, a freshman from Texas. Wilson will look to fill the void created by the departure of Jared Kildare.

I just wish they would play some tougher out of conference opponents.  I agree that they have alot of talent but the last few years they have won nearly all their games out of conference but then struggled to some extent in conference.  I dont know if their out of conference schedule is really preparing them for conference play. I am not familiar with all the teams they have played, but none of those wins are against real quality opponents or particularly impressive. In the past 5 years (counting this year) they have gone 51-5 out of conference and 24-32 in conference.  You would think for a team that wins over 90% of their out of conference games, they could do better than 8 games under 0.500 in conference.

[Pat Coleman]

UAA still not getting any love.  On the main page it says that the last time a DIII beat a DI was last year's Puget Sound game against UC-Riverside. However, CMU beat Princeton a week later (which in fact was the last time a DIII beat a DI prior to the game played recently).  UAA not getting their due as usual.

Thanks for the three e-mails, too. We got it fixed.

Sorry -- after nine years all of the D-I upsets are beginning to run together.

[Ralph Turner]

UAA still not getting any love.  On the main page it says that the last time a DIII beat a DI was last year's Puget Sound game against UC-Riverside. However, CMU beat Princeton a week later (which in fact was the last time a DIII beat a DI prior to the game played recently).  UAA not getting their due as usual.

Thanks for the three e-mails, too. We got it fixed.

Sorry -- after nine years all of the D-I upsets are beginning to run together.

Sounds like we need a specific archive for DIII wins over D1 schools.

[Rhodes Scholar]

I saw NYU beat Clark, 74-64, yesterday. NYU had a strong first half, but was sluggish in the second half. Clark never quit and hit a lot of three pointers down the stretch to keep the score respectable.

NYU is a solid team and has an excellent front line in Boone, Falcon and DeCorso. The Violets also picked up a good point guard in Matthew Wilson, a freshman from Texas. Wilson will look to fill the void created by the departure of Jared Kildare.

I just wish they would play some tougher out of conference opponents.  I agree that they have alot of talent but the last few years they have won nearly all their games out of conference but then struggled to some extent in conference.  I dont know if their out of conference schedule is really preparing them for conference play. I am not familiar with all the teams they have played, but none of those wins are against real quality opponents or particularly impressive. In the past 5 years (counting this year) they have gone 51-5 out of conference and 24-32 in conference.  You would think for a team that wins over 90% of their out of conference games, they could do better than 8 games under 0.500 in conference.

NYU has played a very weak out-of-conference schedule for at least the last ten years. The reason why they have such a high winning percentage vs. non-conference opponents is very simple: they play a lot of weak teams. For many years, the Violets were an average team that feasted on less-than-stellar non-conference teams and then folded during conference play. Last year was different. The Violets were a very good team and did well both in and out of conference. Please remember that Falcon missed most of the year and Boone was out the last three games or so. NYU was a very strong team last year and probably will be this year as well. Once again the UAA looks very tough: You have Chicago, Washington, NYU and Brandeis either in or hovering around the Top 25.

[hugenerd]

I saw NYU beat Clark, 74-64, yesterday. NYU had a strong first half, but was sluggish in the second half. Clark never quit and hit a lot of three pointers down the stretch to keep the score respectable.

NYU is a solid team and has an excellent front line in Boone, Falcon and DeCorso. The Violets also picked up a good point guard in Matthew Wilson, a freshman from Texas. Wilson will look to fill the void created by the departure of Jared Kildare.

I just wish they would play some tougher out of conference opponents.  I agree that they have alot of talent but the last few years they have won nearly all their games out of conference but then struggled to some extent in conference.  I dont know if their out of conference schedule is really preparing them for conference play. I am not familiar with all the teams they have played, but none of those wins are against real quality opponents or particularly impressive. In the past 5 years (counting this year) they have gone 51-5 out of conference and 24-32 in conference.  You would think for a team that wins over 90% of their out of conference games, they could do better than 8 games under 0.500 in conference.

NYU has played a very weak out-of-conference schedule for at least the last ten years. The reason why they have such a high winning percentage vs. non-conference opponents is very simple: they play a lot of weak teams. For many years, the Violets were an average team that feasted on less-than-stellar non-conference teams and then folded during conference play. Last year was different. The Violets were a very good team and did well both in and out of conference. Please remember that Falcon missed most of the year and Boone was out the last three games or so. NYU was a very strong team last year and probably will be this year as well. Once again the UAA looks very tough: You have Chicago, Washington, NYU and Brandeis either in or hovering around the Top 25.

I agree they are a very good team, Boone is one of the better UAA post players over the past 5 years (Not nearly as good as Seth Hauben or Derek Reich, however).  Falcon, DeCorso, etc. are also solid. I know they have been beating up on these teams out of conference, but it will be interesting how they do when they play some teams with solid big men, like Rochester, WashU or Brandeis.  Any of those teams (plus Chicago) could make a run at the conference title.  CMU will probably have a tough year with only 3 guys with significant playing experience returning (one of their big men, Gonzalez, who would have been a senior is injured and I think will take his last year of eligibility next year).  Case appears to be even worse than last year and I am not sure where in the bottom half of the conference Emory fits in.

As for last year, I wouldnt say NYU was very good in conference because they were in a three way tie for fourth place.  They were competitive for awhile, but faded near the end of the season (not only did they lose their last 3 conference games without Boone but lost 2 of 3 conference games before Boone went out- losing 5 of their last 6).  They were an average UAA team, as their record indicated.  They could play with anyone in the conference last year but just didnt get it done when it counted (but that could be said for alot of the UAA teams last year- alot of inconsistency or parity, whichever you want to call it).

[martin]

According to the Massey Ratings, the UAA is the second toughest D3 conference, after the CCIW.  The rankings of UAA teams (and their strength of schedule out of 404 men's D3 teams) through the games of 12/31/2006:

9 Brandeis (57)
19 Washington (32)
23 NYU (302)
35 Chicago (41)
51 Rochester (111)
75 CMU (77)
79 Emory (51)
301 Case (333)

I would venture that the other UAA teams, which have played much tougher non-conference schedules, will be better prepared for the conference schedule than NYU.  Cupcake non-conference schedules seem to be the norm for NYU hoops - the women's schedule is 303 (out of 425).