NESCAC

[Off Pitch]

Not sure if anyone read about the Amherst soccer connection that was exposed, uh, revealed in the news yesterday:

See #4:  http://heavy.com/news/2016/06/krit-mclean-naked-nude-man-model-times-square-video-trump-name-instagram-facebook-youtube-new-york/

http://athletics.amherst.edu/sports/msoc/2012-13/bios/mcclean_krit_2zp2

[Mr.Right]

WOW....Serpone must be so proud of that one...50/50 he was high on crack...That might be the most ridiculous thing I have seen all year...

[amh63]

Slow sports day in the Nescac....so wandered into the Soccer board.
Read the most recent posts and am a little puzzled.  The sad story wrt to the " naked man" has a Amherst link?  There was a 2015 roster and a FY roster shown.  The final 2015 roster on the soccer site does not show the FY roster link.  In fact, I reviewed all the rosters back to 2008!  The 2015 roster does show a tall player from the same NYC HS..a 6'5" FY.  The only possible reason would be a player on the pre- season roster that dropped off the team during the season and was removed accordingly.  Since the article stated a 21 year old person....I went back to rosters initially to 2011 and even further later.
Off Pitch...where did you get the link?

[Off Pitch]

http://athletics.amherst.edu/sports/msoc/2012-13/roster

Not sure what you are looking at, but he is still listed on the 2012-13 roster (for now anyway).  I wouldn't be surprised if this link mysteriously disappears from the Amherst site at some point.  The link I originally posted was to his individual page. 

[amh63]

Off Pitch.....It is what it is!  My confusion was your initial post that had his FY pic under the soccer team banner that has 2015 National champ.  Thus I looked over the 2015 roster.
I then proceeded to the 2014 roster and so forth.  I missed his name on the  2012 roster....my error.
The subject was NOT on the 2013 roster...telling me he was either cut or did not come out.  Note the rosters are by Fall year.
In any case if he remained in school, he would have graduated this year.  He will always be linked to the class of 2016 whether he graduated or not....based on my experience with school record keeping.  Do not expect the athletic department will make any changes.

[Jump4Joy]

My confusion lies here: Why poke at this young man's obvious struggle in the hopes of casting a shadow over Amherst men's soccer? Shouldn't we be sending him well wishes for recovery and wellness? The beautiful game is meant to unify. We can be better here.

[amh63]

Jump4Joy....well said!  Plus K.  The Amherst soccer season is not too far off.  The first games are early Sept.... Indicating practice will be in August.  Last year I attended a DC reception for new students.  Hosts were the parents of a soccer player.  The parents were planning to open up their other home in Lancaster Pa. for informal practice sessions of the women soccer team before the start of school.  The hosts will do the reception again in late July.  Expect to attend again.

[blooter442]

My confusion lies here: Why poke at this young man's obvious struggle in the hopes of casting a shadow over Amherst men's soccer? Shouldn't we be sending him well wishes for recovery and wellness? The beautiful game is meant to unify. We can be better here.

The guy obviously has some issues, and I 100% agree. The only caveat is that I hope you'd believe the same if it was, say, a Williams player.

[Saint of Old]

One thing I can guarantee, each and everyone of us who played in college, had a teammate (or 2) who it would not surprise us to hear was involved in a similar incident.
Mostly these guys are Goalies  , but there are also a few  energy guys/tough as nails guy, or crazy guys on the squad who would be capable of this.

These were also some of the best guys to hang with from time to time.
It takes many different personalities to make a good team... just cant have too many of them on one team!

[EasyGoer27]

We played one game at Saint Lawrence and our captain on the way back got off the bus, stripped naked, borrowed a fishing pole and went wading for salmon in the seaway, funniest thing I ever saw......

[Mr.Right]

Compared to that Amherst kid that sounds like choir boy stuff...

[D3soccerwatcher]

While I may not be the biggest NESCAC fan on these boards, history is history, and some of the NESCAC teams have certainly made deep runs into the tournament, including a few NESCAC national champs over the decades.   My question to the New England experts is this...Is NESCAC the only legit D3 soccer conf in New England?  I rarely hear anyone talking about the CCC and can't ever recall anyone even mentioning the MASCAC.

[Ommadawn]

While I may not be the biggest NESCAC fan on these boards, history is history, and some of the NESCAC teams have certainly made deep runs into the tournament, including a few NESCAC national champs over the decades.   My question to the New England experts is this...Is NESCAC the only legit D3 soccer conf in New England?  I rarely hear anyone talking about the CCC and can't ever recall anyone even mentioning the MASCAC.

I'm certainly no New England expert, but the NEWMAC is surely worthy of mention (7th ranked conference by Hero Sports and 11th ranked conference by Massey Ratings).  MIT made a nice run in the NCAA tournament last year and Babson is a perennial powerhouse.  The conference is made up of kind of a hodgepodge of schools (e.g., Coast Guard, Springfield, Wheaton [MA]).  Teams in the NEWMAC can on occasion give NESCAC schools a good game.

[Off Pitch]

Wheaton and Babson are the two traditional powers in the NEWMAC.  MIT and the others are occasionally competitive, but Wheaton and Babson are almost always at the top of the conference. 

Out of curiosity (and boredom), I looked to see what their historical records are against NESCAC schools to see if they do actually on occasion give them a good game.

Wheaton record vs NESCAC:
Amherst      3-5-2
Bates           3-1-0
Bowdoin      8-6-5
Colby           2-5-1
Conn           1-3-1
Hamilton     0-0-0
Middlebury  0-1-0
Trinity          0-3-1
Tufts           3-5-0
Wesleyan    5-4-2
Williams     1-7-1
TOTAL    29-45-14   (0.409)

Babson record vs. NESCAC
Amherst       4-13-6
Bates           10-3-2
Bowdoin      18-17-7
Colby           19-9-4
Conn           1-0-1
Hamilton     0-0-0
Middlebury  7-4-6
Trinity          7-0-1
Tufts           8-7-0
Wesleyan    7-6-3
Williams    10-25-3
TOTAL    91-84-33   (0.517)

[blooter442]

While I may not be the biggest NESCAC fan on these boards, history is history, and some of the NESCAC teams have certainly made deep runs into the tournament, including a few NESCAC national champs over the decades.   My question to the New England experts is this...Is NESCAC the only legit D3 soccer conf in New England?  I rarely hear anyone talking about the CCC and can't ever recall anyone even mentioning the MASCAC.

I'll take a swing at this. While I'm by no means an expert, I'm always down to offer my thoughts on New England teams.

The NEWMAC is not in the same echelon as the NESCAC in terms of year-in, year-out consistency. That said, it is definitely respectable, and I would say "legit" if not in the "powerhouse" category. I'd say that, any given year, the best team in the NEWMAC will be around the level of perhaps the #3-#5 team in the NESCAC, and, in some years, maybe even higher (Babson's 10-11 and 11-12 teams come to mind).

That said, such is not the case most years (in my observation). Case in point: I think we can all agree that, last season, Amherst and MIT were the best teams in the NESCAC and NEWMAC based on their body of work — even if neither won the conference. And while Bowdoin did win the NESCAC, they were ranked #6 in the conference regular season rankings, and MIT, barely eked by them at home in OT. Now, obviously, there are numerous factors that go into games like that, and we say "any given day" for a reason, but the fact that it took until the 99th minute for a goal to come illustrates the parity between the two teams, I think.

Another thing is that the NEWMAC conference tournament has a tendency to produce upsets, which results in a team that has done virtually nothing all year going to NCAAs. In fact, no team ranked #1 in the conference during the regular season has won the NEWMAC since Babson in 2010. The other years: 2011 Springfield (9-4-3 regular season) beat Babson. 2012 MIT (11-4-1) beat Babson. 2013 Wheaton (14-5) beat MIT. 2014 Babson (14-5) beat Wheaton. 2015 Babson (11-6-2) beat MIT.

Certainly, the NESCAC tournament has produced similar upsets: however, the difference is that when the NESCAC champ gets to NCAAs via an upset, it stays in until at least the 2nd Round: in fact, Bowdoin in the last two years has been the only NESCAC champ in the last 10 years who has been knocked out before the Sweet 16 (losing to Brandeis and MIT). The NEWMAC, meanwhile, has not had the same success. In fact, four out of the five champions listed (Springfield, MIT, and Babson x2) has been knocked out in the 1st Round, and the one that didn't (Wheaton) was beaten 8-0 by St. Lawrence in the 2nd Round. Last year, Babson didn't get beaten that badly by F&M, losing 5-1, but they didn't get out of the 1st Round and they also lost 7-2 to Williams at home. Bottom line: the NESCAC schools, even those who have produced upsets en route to a conference title, are ready when NCAAs come around. The NEWMACs, meanwhile, are not (at least not to the same degree).

Last year, MIT had one of the best sides in NEWMAC history, making it to the 3rd Round of NCAAs, but I don't think that they were battle-tested enough in their regular season (as evidenced by their poor SOS). And while you can't ignore that they did defeat a NESCAC school, I'd say they would have been "middle of the pack" in the NESCAC.

Is the NEWMAC "legit"? In my book, yes. Is it the 2nd best conference in New England? I would say so. Is it on the same level as the NESCAC? Absolutely not.

The CCC, meanwhile, will produce a quality NCAA participant every few years. Western New England had a few years where they were pretty strong under Erin Sullivan, and only a 3-2 loss to St. Lawrence in the 2011 NCAA 2nd Round kept them from getting to the Sweet 16. However, most years they are represented by the conference winner only, who promptly gets knocked out in the NCAA 1st Round. Gordon and Roger Williams have been exceptions to this in recent years, but both have been unceremoniously dumped out in the 2nd Round, and I can say with 99% certainty that no CCC school has made it to the 3rd Round of the NCAAs (I saw the Roger Williams 2013 hype video in which the locker room speech inferred that this was the case). Certainly, CCC schools spring surprising results from time to time against the NESCACs/NEWMAC/UAA (Gordon beating Carnegie Mellon last year, Roger Williams downing Wheaton and Babson in 2013, and Western New England beating Wesleyan in 2010, 2013, and 2014,) but such wins are the exception rather than the norm, and is symptomatic of the CCC's inconsistency in terms of producing "legit" NCAA participants.

Each of the GNAC, LEC, MASCAC, and NAC may produce a "legit" team every five or so years. However, most years the conference winner is dumped out in the 1st Round of NCAAs. They're the type of teams that will "sit in" against the big teams, and while it will ultimately work for the majority of the game, the favorite usually finds a way.