Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - joe8579

#1
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
March 06, 2014, 11:12:55 PM
Quote from: nescacbbrules on March 06, 2014, 03:25:45 PM
NH NESCAC fan, I find myself agreeing with you again. The stats you and I have cited about Zwecker indicate that she in able to effectively accomplish something that d3wbbfan failed to mention in his/her analysis of the LJ's 3-point based offense. She is able to draw the help defense off the shooters or dish to an abandoned post player for open looks. On Sunday she got all the way to the rim, something I don't recall any other Amherst player doing. Renner never did.
D3wbbfan, do you actually attend the games or are you only able to see the video feeds? Being there allows for much more perspective on what is happening off the ball. Your analysis, apart from your critique of Holness, has tended to focus on offense. To my point, it is clear that North is a very efficient force on O. Her defensive liabilities have limited her court time, not Carla's fondness for seniors. Berube is very competitive and committed to victory in any way, but it all begins with defense. Coach G and Schibles are both outstanding coaches all the way around, but the Tufts defense is the best, hands down. Your one-sided comments reveal your love for offense. That's fine, but please don't presume to tell one of the finest D coaches in the D-III pantheon how to apportion playing time if you aren't willing to balance your perspective with a cogent assessment their defense. As far as Sunday's PT, far from Carla finally seeing the light, North's minutes had a lot to do with Kanner's and Rocchi's foul troubles and with her effectiveness on BOTH ends. If she continues to deserve it, for example rebounding with a vengeance, she will play more.
Well said. Anyone who has seen her play can clearly see that North is not up to the rest of the team's standard on defense. She will get there, but she is getting the PT her defense deserves right now.
#2
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
March 06, 2014, 10:32:35 AM
Quote from: MVP on March 05, 2014, 01:08:51 PM
          Tufts gym is a tough place to play a game and a terrible place to watch a game. It may still not be regulation size. The lighting is awful and the acoustics are lousy. As you enter the gymnasium you must go down stairs ...then up some stairs ....then up and around and on and on. The visiting team's locker=room is up in the clouds somewhere... it takes them 10 minutes just to navigate the 71 steep steps to the locker-room.  Fans are constantly walking across the court to find seats and stopped by lunk-heads w/ attitudes who think they're security at a Giants game or something.  Get there early for a good seat w/out a hassle and bring your own popcorn.
As opposed to what, Babson's gym? I can only assume, from your prior posts, that you are connected to the Babson program in some way. Tufts' gym is perfectly adequate as a D3 facility. It has personality and quirks, sure, but what gym doesn't at this level? It's certainly a sight better than most of the NEWMAC venues (thinking mainly of the awful MIT, Wellesley, Coast Guard, and Clark gyms).

As mentioned, the court is regulation size. There is a decent amount (though probably not enough) seating. It's a perfectly fine place to play. So long as you have a full size court, decent lighting, and a bench to sit on, players don't particularly care about different gyms. You're either at home or you're on the road. If you're on the road and the gym meets the basic criteria I mentioned, who cares?
#3
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
March 03, 2014, 09:26:52 AM
Great point on the number of shots difference between the two teams yesterday. It did seem to me that most of Amhersts possessions took a long time and yet did not result in a good shot. It's hard to score if you can't get quality looks, no matter how good a shooter you are. Also, none of the current Amherst players are great shooters yet - just look at their season 3pt percentages.

It'll be interesting to see how the brackets shape up later today.
#4
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
March 02, 2014, 05:34:45 PM
Got to see Tufts for the first time in person today. Overall, a dominating performance against a very good (if thin) Amherst team. Amherst over the past few weeks reminds me quite a bit of Tufts from two or three years ago: they play great defense but can't score. A total of what, ~90 points over two games this weekend? They just don't have the weapons they did in the past, event as recently as last year.

The difference between Tufts two years ago and today is that they can now score multiple ways from multiple people. They still play superior defense but now you have to put up 60+ points to beat them, which is far from easy. How many opponents have scored that many this year?

Tufts hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA tourney both last year and the year before. This year, they will host for as long as they keep playing (up to the final four), since they're unquestionably the #1 seed in the Northeast and surrounding regions.

I don't have numbers to back it up, but Tufts' gym is very comparable in size to Amherst and Williams', when you count the seating on both ends. Maybe a little smaller, but certainly not smaller enough to affect the committee's decision there. It's not like there are thousands of people queuing up to get into these games, despite how compelling they are.

I am also confused as to why Zwecker didn't play more. She got to the rim well, made her free throws, and was probably Amherst's most dangerous offensive player. Barring some kind of injury/discipline problems, she should have played more minutes.
#5
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
March 04, 2013, 04:34:59 PM
I wouldn't look past Emory in Williams' bracket. They came out as the top team in what was probably the best conference in the country this year. I look for them to advance to Michigan from Williamstown.
#6
Region 2 women's basketball / Re: Little East
February 26, 2013, 06:12:19 PM
Quote from: 7express on February 25, 2013, 11:56:02 PM
Babson should have enough of a seating capacity and I *assume* they put in a bid to host, so I have no clue why they keep getting passed over.  Hopefully MVP can answer the question about the arena capacity and possible whether they put in a hosting bid or not.
It's relatively easy to figure out why USM got to host and Babson did not.

http://www.d3hoops.com/playoffs/women/2013/womens-basketball-championships-handbook

All the criteria used to rank teams are there. USM beats out Babson because they have a higher strength of schedule and higher winning percentage. I'm betting USM jumped Babson in the last regional rankings.
#7
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
February 08, 2013, 10:29:32 AM
So much for curling up with a cup of hot cocoa and a whole lot of NESCAC games today...
#8
Region 2 women's basketball / Re: NEWMAC
February 05, 2013, 12:40:54 PM
I'm not sure MIT can score 56 against Babson. If you said 46-45, then I might be on board.
#9
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
February 04, 2013, 08:20:59 AM
Quote from: Maine1 on February 02, 2013, 08:28:31 PMThe referees overall were very inconsistent, but they did not affect the outcome.  They let Holness get away with pretty much pushing everyone off her on the offensive end.   
Frankly, I thought the officiating was an embarrassment. It was incredibly inconsistent from half to half (tons of ticky-tack stuff - especially from the younger shorter ref - in the first half and no calls in the second), and from official to official (as I said, one guy seemed like he was making every call). I was astounded by the level of physicality they let Holness get away with. She was displacing defenders (illegal according to the rules), hooking defenders (also illegal), and outright pushing (same) left and right, and was not called for it a single time.

I'm all for letting the teams play to a certain extent, especially in a hard-fought game as this was, but when you let an offensive player get away with murder and then call a defender on a ticky-tack foul somewhere else? That is just bad. I think all three officials were out of their depth. At one point, Meg Robertson blatantly imbalanced herself by leaning on a Tufts defender, then the defender moved away and she fell over. The result? A foul on the defender.
#10
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
January 31, 2013, 08:09:41 AM
Gromacki definitely inherited two phenomenal forwards (Daigneault and Leyman), who were better than any first-year coach has a right to expect. Obviously, his next class was great as well, but there is no doubt that he started with very good pieces.
#11
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
January 30, 2013, 05:23:35 PM
I'm taking Bates over Trinity on Saturday.
#12
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
January 30, 2013, 03:11:05 PM
Amherst's last loss at home was 1/30/2009 to Bowdoin, who ended up winning the NESCAC championship on their own floor by beating Amherst again.
#13
Region 2 women's basketball / Re: Little East
January 27, 2013, 07:27:13 AM
Nice predictions 7express!

I'm not sure I agree with your logic about an at large bid being a possibility for West Conn. They have a decent strength of schedule at this point, but it is liable to go down with the remaining games against the bottom half of the conference. We will have to wait for the regional rankings to come out, but it looks to me like they have either a 1-1 or possibly a 2-2 record against regionally ranked teams. Combine that with 7 losses (according to your scenario of losing one more regular season game plus the conf championship), and I think they'd be on the outside looking in. I think they have to either win out and reach the championship game or win the LEC tournament to get a bid.

We will know more when the regional rankings come out in a week or so.
#14
Region 1 women's basketball / Re: NESCAC Hoops
January 24, 2013, 10:13:07 PM
I don't know of any coach that would want their three starting guards to play those kinds of minutes, especially playing back-to-back games like the NESCAC does. Granted, this was a mid-week game, but still, 38+ minutes from two perimeter players and all 40 from your best scorer?
#15
Region 2 women's basketball / Re: NEWMAC
January 19, 2013, 07:50:34 PM
Collins spent the first three years of her career shooting lay ups off offensive rebounds or feeds from Wurdeman. It's no surprise she has a good career FG%. She is a good player, but her stats are inflated by playing 24+ games a year against inferior competition. Pit her against NESCAC or even LEC defense game in and game out, and I think things would look a little different.