MBB: NEWMAC

[WPI89]

WOW!  WPI scores last 4 to best Babson at home by 1. Will wait for Babo recap ad I only watched last 5 mins!

[BaboNation]

WPI 55  Babson 54

Heartbreaking way to lose a game.

Babson was up 1 with the ball and an inbounds off a made basket with :20 seconds to play.
With WPI at 7 fouls I was questioning keeping Lauder on the floor on the chance they’d put him at the line for a 1 and 1.  But it never came to that.  The inbounds pass went to Cibull (19 pts., who carried Babson in this one) and he was fighting off a double-team (maybe thinking a whistle was coming);  he finds Gao along the backcourt sideline falling out of bounds, and in an effort to avoid a time violation he tries to pass to Amado who was overplayed.  Turnover and basket of a nice baseline reverse layup by Sevilla with 2 seconds to play.

Lowther (22) carried WPI in the first half with his inside game.

Whatever the leg ailment is that seems to be recurring with Amado rendered him a non-factor, rarely looking or physically able to drive off his leg; just 2 FTs in the last minute off 0-3 shooting and a lot of time on the bench down the stretch.
On the other side Adams finished with 1 on 0-7.  Tough night for some stars.

The gap between these teams is not as large as it was last year, but WPI executed when it counted and Babson did not.

And Clark defeated Emerson at home to throw things into further disarray.

WPI 9-1 Emerson 7-3 Babson 6-4 Wheaton 6-4 Clark 5-5.  Those are pretty certain to be the NEWMAC tourney teams, though the order is fluid after WPI at #1.

While WPI gets closer to NCAA selection even without the AQ, they’re going to need to play at a higher level than I’ve seen the last 2 games when they get there.  They’ll almost certainly be on the road for the 1st weekend, unlike last year.

[WPI89]

So yes agree with most. However (despite SOS) I gotta believe WPI wrapped up pool c bid today if they lose in NEWMAC tourney. Also, if they win tourney, I think they will certainly host first weekend.

Now to the stuff I agree on. For sure they need to step up on offense to get a win much less past first weekend. The bright side is I don’t think Adams and Lowther have yet to have big games together. And for sure Adams/Lowther/Supporting cast have not. They shot just above 30% the 2 games this week. Not going anywhere with that.

I am normally a cautious/skeptical fan. I just feel we have not seen this teams best yet.

[WPI89]

Babbo - I take back all I said above - I am stunned WPI is ranked 5 in region 2.  SOS is king.  Seems to be all that matters.

[deiscanton]

Babbo - I take back all I said above - I am stunned WPI is ranked 5 in region 2.  SOS is king.  Seems to be all that matters.

Rankings are alphabetical this week.    WPI starts with a W.  LOL.

Actually, WPI is 4th alphabetically on the list, followed by WestConn and Western New England.

[WPI89]

 Glad I didn’t overreact!  Lolololol. Sorry all.

[BaboNation]

Some reflections on the first regional rankings:

The state of the NEWMAC,  ‘22-23 edition is captured quite clearly - a 5-36 record against RRO, with the 5 wins coming only against NEWMAC conference teams that were ranked.

WPI               2-2
Emerson        2-5
Wheaton        1-3
Coast Guard   0-2
Babson          0-4
Clark             0-5
MIT               0-5
Springfield     0-10

Springfield leads the conference with the most RRO games (0-10).  I give credit to them for scheduling some opponents that were sure to be formidable and others that have been better that expected:  Keene St., Williams, WNE, West CT, Trinity, and Wesleyan.  And they even scheduled teams that were near misses (Mitchell) or have been historically elite, just not this year (Amherst).

On the whole I think the RRO performance is a reflection of the relative youth of conference rosters:

MIT: An historically NEWMAC champion contender with no seniors;  top-4 scorers are FY-SO-FY-SO.  It also doesn’t help that there are often 8 or fewer players dressed to play.

Clark:  1 Grad sub and 1 Sr who only plays at end of games;  a relatively new coach whose recruits are mostly FY and SO because he was hired late; top-4 scorers are SO-JR-FY-SO

Coast Guard: 1 Sr and 1 Jr (who hasn’t played);  top-4 scorers are SO-FY-SO-SO

Springfield:  1st year coach;  top-4 scorers are GR-SO-FY-FY;  GR (Costa) missed or was limited in half their games due to injury;  2nd most productive, JR-Blauner has missed all conference games.

The top half of the NEWMAC, WPI, Emerson, Babson, and Wheaton are a combined 0-8 against OOC RRO (St. Joe’s CT (2), Tufts (2), Keene St, Hamilton, Trinity, and Wooster.  Still poor, but no one has beaten St. Joe’s and the largest loss in other games was 9 points - not exactly blowouts.

So in summary, while I can admit this has been a particularly bad season for the conference as a whole, and they’ll only get (and deserve) one bid if WPI gets the AQ, there’s reason to believe the future will improve as the rosters mature.

[deiscanton]

Finals today--

WPI 69, Coast Guard 62
Emerson 99, Springfield 71

The NEWMAC does not have their conference tiebreaker rules published on the website, but if the second tiebreaker is results vs subsequent teams in the standings in descending order from 3rd to last until a winner is determined, then it looks like WPI clinched the #1 seed in the NEWMAC tournament today on the second tiebreaker, due to WPI's sweep of third place team Babson vs Emerson's 1-1 split vs Babson.

As it stands, WPI has a 2 game lead over Emerson with 2 games left to play, and can clinch the #1 seed outright with a win on Wednesday at Wheston (MA), if WPI does not have the #1 seed already.

[nescac1]

Good analysis of the league BaboNation.  I too expect Newmac to be worlds better next year.  Only Emerson looks like it will experience a big drop. 

I was impressed by Clark’s top six guys, all of whom are coming back, but you need more depth to play the frantic style they employ.  And when Santilus got hurt in the Williams game they fell off a cliff.  I think they could be a dark horse for a big year next year with the top six back if they can add a few quality recruits who can provide immediate depth. 

MIT has just had so much attrition and this year’s 5x40 box scores have been wild.  If they can just field a real team by keeping guys in the program four years, we know Anderson can bring in a ton of talent and really coach. 

I know Babson has been destroyed by injuries too.  If Amado and Dorney return healthy those two alone should make you tough next year and Babson always seems to add a big recruit or grad transfer (or two) to the mix. 

WPI should be a top ten preseason team if Lowther uses his extra year of eligibility.  If not, still very solid. 

Overall I do expect Newmac will be a lot closer in quality to Nescac next year, where Colby, Wesleyan, Midd, Hamilton, Williams and Tufts all lose at least one massively impactful player (many of them fifth year seniors). 

[Pat Coleman]

Babbo - I take back all I said above - I am stunned WPI is ranked 5 in region 2.  SOS is king.  Seems to be all that matters.

Rankings are alphabetical this week.    WPI starts with a W.  LOL.

Actually, WPI is 4th alphabetically on the list, followed by WestConn and Western New England.

The NCAA for some reason sorts all caps teams at the top of the alphabet for their letter. That's one of the changes we have to make in even the alphabetical rankings.

[WPI89]

So no tiebreakers needed. NEWMAC field set. 2/3/4 seeds may be fluid based on tiebreakers. But 5 teams are set.

[BaboNation]

I believe the Saturday games will not change the playoff picture.

Currently we have:

WPI          12-1
Emerson   10-3
Babson      9-4
Wheaton    8-5
Clark         6-7

WPI has locked up #1.

Emerson and Babson could end up tied, but though they tied HTH, the tiebreaker advantage belongs to Emerson by virtue of their win over the #1 seed (top to bottom rank tiebreaker)

Similarly Babson and Wheaton could end up tied, but though they tied HTH, the tiebreaker belongs to  Babson by virtue of their win over the #2 seed (Emerson) that Wheaton does not have (neither team beat the #1 seed).

Wheaton is locked into the #4 seed because they can’t be caught by Clark.

I believe the 4 vs. 5 play-in game will be Tuesday, Feb 21st:

Clark @ Wheaton

Then the semifinals are typically Thursday:

Wheaton/Clark winner @ WPI
Babson @ Emerson

Championship on Saturday @ highest remaining seed

[BaboNation]

Oops, might have gotten ahead of myself.

The #3 and #4 seeds could still be either Babson or Wheaton I suppose.  I forgot that Wheaton plays Emerson on Saturday.
If Wheaton beats Emerson and Babson loses to MIT they’d both end up 9-5, tied HTH, and with the same records against all ranked teams right down to the 6th seed.  And without giving myself a migraine, Springfield, MIT, and Coast Guard look like they could all end up at 3-11.  It may come down to whether Babson’s potential loss to MIT is ‘worse’ than Wheaton’s loss to Coast Guard that’s already on the books.

[WPI89]

Thanks Babo.  +1

I hate to ever choose an opponent - but seems there is a chance WPI could have to beat both Babson and Emmerson to win NEWMAC - that seems like the hardest possible path.

[BaboNation]

Clark @ Wheaton   NEWMAC 1st round

Clark wins it 73-71.

It’s an eternal truth that it’s difficult to beat a conference opponent 3 times in a season, which was what Wheaton was trying to do.

They looked in control and were up 13 with 10 minutes to play when Clark got rolling.  It started harmlessly enough at the FT line where Clark was taking its first attempts of the night.  Then Calabrese (their best 3 pt, shooter) hit 2 3’s, Saintilus got fouled on a made 3, and after canning the FT it was only a 1 point game with 6 minutes to play.

Clark was able to continue the run, cultimating with a big-time layup from Saintilus, giving them a 73-66 lead with 1:50 to play.

And yet Wheaton almost came all the way back from that.  Carlisle (23) had a layup slide tantalizingly off the rim with 5 seconds left for the potential tie.  Then, after O’Brien missed both FTs for Clark, Carlisle had a looong look for a 3 that would have won it at the buzzer.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of the key trio of Wheaton seniors.  Though they have 6 seniors in total it’s Williams, Carlisle, and Cook who contribute the most by far.  They had 63 of Wheaton’s 71 points in this one and are 1-2-3 in ppg.
With Wheaton having no graduate program (as far as I understand) these guys would need to transfer if they want to continue with basketball and use their Covid year (sounds unlikely).

Kudos to student-athlete, do-it-all, play-by-play announcer, baseball player, media major, Jackson Walsh who is as good as any student announcer I’ve heard this season.  Great enthusiasm; has natural ability to rise to the moment.  He even did a great job with a halftime interview with the Wheaton AD, where I learned Wheaton is adding water polo and fencing, and this was their 1st home playoff game since 2009.  And as Keith Jackson would say, “he’s only a sophomore”.