MBB: NESCAC

Started by cameltime, April 27, 2005, 02:38:16 PM

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Conts Fan

If Hamilton loses to Amherst and finishes 6-4, does anyone know what the order would be for the four-way tie at places three through 6? Or if they win, someone said Midd takes first, but who would be second?

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)

Quote from: Conts Fan on February 10, 2019, 03:43:44 PM
If Hamilton loses to Amherst and finishes 6-4, does anyone know what the order would be for the four-way tie at places three through 6? Or if they win, someone said Midd takes first, but who would be second?

If they win, Hamilton gets second, because they have the tiebreaker with Amherst after Middlebury gets the 1 seed.
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@ryanalanscott just about anywhere

Colby Hoops

#26177
With Trinity's convincing win, here's what we're looking at pending the Amherst-Hamilton game on Tuesday. Please correct me if I've messed this up. Going through all of the tiebreakers is a little tedious.

If Amherst wins
#1 Amherst vs #8 Tufts
#2 Middlebury vs #7 Colby
#3 Hamilton vs #6 Wesleyan
#4 Williams vs #5 Trinity

If Hamilton wins
#1 Middlebury vs #8 Tufts
#2 Hamilton vs #7 Colby
#3 Amherst vs #6 Trinity
#4 Williams vs #5 Wesleyan

A few random end of season thoughts:

  • Crazy to think Williams may not even host a Nescac tournament game. Very disappointing for them. They've just been unable to find reliable shooting or scoring outside of the top four. I'm not counting them out though (assuming Heskett returns) -- still so much senior talent, which often seems to be a big key in these tournament games.
  • Props to Trinity for a solid season. Despite some ugly blowout losses to Williams, Amherst and Midd, they've played really well the rest of the conference slate. Donald Jorden has had a very underrated year, definitely worthy of all-league consideration.
  • Polbear73 -- a weird season for Bowdoin. Reynolds shooting tailed off down the stretch, but Simonds and Rucker were both very good. Perplexing that they weren't a bit better -- from a pure talent perspective I think they're better than Colby, Tufts, Trinity.
  • You could surely do this exercise with many teams in the league, but Colby held leads in the final minute against both Bowdoin and Trinity and lost those games. Win those and they are 19-5, in third place in the league and a likely NCAA tourney team. Not complaining as it's been a wonderfully fun season for the Mules and they've certainly outperformed preseason expectations.

*Updated to reflect's Ryan's correction from below.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)


I'm not sure Wesleyan can get to #3.  The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, then record against tied teams.  Wesleyan and Trinity are 1-2 against the others, Williams and Hamilton are 2-1.  You'd drop Wes and Trinity then go back to head-to-head for the other two.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how Wesleyan ever ends up at 3 in this scenario.
Lead Columnist for D3hoops.com
@ryanalanscott just about anywhere

Colby Hoops

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on February 10, 2019, 03:55:20 PM

I'm not sure Wesleyan can get to #3.  The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, then record against tied teams.  Wesleyan and Trinity are 1-2 against the others, Williams and Hamilton are 2-1.  You'd drop Wes and Trinity then go back to head-to-head for the other two.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how Wesleyan ever ends up at 3 in this scenario.

You're right, for some reason thought Wes had beaten Trinity. Will update my post above to reflect this. Should be Hamilton #3, Williams #4, Trinity #5 and Wesleyan #6

Conts Fan

Tough tournament when you can earn the 2 seed and face a team like Colby.

cacfan11

What's the consensus on league awards?

JEFFFAN

Quote from: cacfan11 on February 10, 2019, 07:09:44 PM
What's the consensus on league awards?

More to come after the Tuesday game, but the best player in the league is the kid Hutcheson.   He is virtually unguardable   Almost regardless of Tuesday's results, Hixon should win coach of year   I understand that makes a lot of folks sick to their stomach but they were an after thought when the season started; the team only starts one senior; and their pre season performance got him lambasted.  Yet here they are close to the top.  I have followed him since I attended Amherst and this is one of his best coaching jobs ever 

Mountain Man

Quote from: Mountain Man on November 17, 2018, 07:41:27 PM
Williams fifth slot need is the point guard position. Not exactly the definition of a role player, which showed in 14 turnovers.

Very interesting to see how they handle the defensive pressure backcourts & speed of the NESCAC. First up the Dec 1, Wesleyan game, although no Kevin O'Brien on roster reduces Cardinal backcourt defense.

interesting to see if traditional Coach App strategy of playing 10+ players will continue this year.

The Big 4 are quite impressive. They just need someone to protect the ball and get it to them in their desired spots to be dominant.

It was said earlier in the season, that ALL Williams needed was a role player.  Basketball is still a team sport with back to backs & injuries, slumps & most importantly team improvements. All teams need Bench contributions.  Amherst, Colby, Middlebury end up being the 3 most improved teams in that order. 

Shout out to D3forLyfe for seeing the Amherst talent & ascension in his preseason rankings. Coach Hixon living up to his pedigree for sure. Mammoths are a mentally superior team that is not prone to beating themselves. Hixon constructs his lineups with inordinate skill during games.

Another crazy season = If Hamilton beats Amherst then Top 6 teams separated by 1 game. Tiebreaker then reverts to W-L record versus 7th place team Colby, who would finish 2-1 against the 3 way first place Tie with both wins on road = Unbelievable 

Deeper tiebreakers versus more conference games is an interesting tradeoff & of course argument. Does the regular season NESCAC title ever really get settled on the court in this era of parity??

Old Guy

Quote from: Conts Fan on February 10, 2019, 04:43:38 PM
Tough tournament when you can earn the 2 seed and face a team like Colby.

Ain't that that the truth. I was at the Midd-Colby game — Midd played a great second half, went on a 15-0 run, but I fear Colby, because they seem to have no fear. Midd folks will be rooting hard for Hamilton, would prefer Tufts even though they gave Midd one of its three conference defeats. That kind of year.

MiddWatcher

This Midd - watcher will be rooting for Coach Hixon to wave his magic wand ( as he did yesterday ! )and send the impending snowstorm out to sea !  This could be a real mess : )

Heck of a coach and a very fine team, the Mammoths. As are lots of the NESCACs, Midd no exception. Their achilles heel ? Box out mentality as soon as a shot goes up; not stressed in this New Age of basketball. Amherst has crashed the boards two years in a row and killed Midd. ( 26 second chance points ! By comparison, Trinity gave Tufts 2 points in that category today.  And you can bet Trinity coach was furious ! :)  If a team crashes and Midd boxes and outlets to Farrell ...... good luck catching the Energizer Bunny. He is gone.  But not without the ball.  Coach H. won that gamble. More power to him.

Let the games begin !

Dave 'd-mac' McHugh

Was just looking that the forecast - similar, if not worse (ice), than the one that postponed Amherst/Hamilton in the first place. They need to play this game ... so this is getting tricky.
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ContinentalDomer

#26187
Play the game. At the risk of going out on a limb, if Amherst misses two days of class, not one player will miss out on getting a job or going to grad school.  They'll be fine, even if they have to stick around Central NY through Wednesday.  😄
Quote from: Dave 'd-mac' McHugh on February 10, 2019, 11:50:37 PM
Was just looking that the forecast - similar, if not worse (ice), than the one that postponed Amherst/Hamilton in the first place. They need to play this game ... so this is getting tricky.

frank uible

One alternative is to cancel the damn game, an action which would not cause the end of the world and would surely meet with approval in some circles at Amherst and maybe at Clinton too.

nescac1

Regarding league honors, my top three candidates for POY, in order, are Gilmour (big favorite), Casey and Hutcherson.  Casey or Hutcherson could win the honor with a huge NESCAC tourney, but Gilmour has to be the favorite going into the NESCAC tourney. 

Those three are to me the only locks for first-team all-league.  After that, there is a pretty closely grouped bunch of very good players - Farrell, Folger, Robinson, Sellew, Jefferson, Simonds, Heskett, Scadlock, Farrell, Bonnner, Grassey, Labossier - contending for the next seven spots.  Right now, I'd probably say Farrell, Jefferson and Robinson are the other top contenders for first-team honors, and all are locks for one of the two all-NESCAC teams, but other guys could move up in the NESCAC tourney for sure. 

ROY is a bit of a morass as well.  Noah Tyson is probably the leading contender, but Alex Sobel and Devonn Allen can make cases due to their defensive impact for top-tier teams.  This is not a year when anyone has emerged in the first-year class who is a surefire future superstar (unlike, say, Hutcherson or Gilmour the past two years).  Probably the weakest group of frosh we've seen in terms of instant impact for some time in NESCAC.  I do like the potential of Osarenren on Hamilton as well, he could be really good down the line, but needs some time. 

-----

As for Williams, a lot has gone wrong down the stretch.  There is still plenty of talent on hand but there have been a variety of things that together have added up to being 19-5 instead where I think they should be, with 2-3 more wins. 

- The Ephs have played a bit tight I think overall, especially down the stretch in close games, as I think the pressure of not living up to the favorite status has taken a slight toll.  The losses to Hamilton, Amherst (the first one) and Bowdoin could all have been wins with just one more key shot made down the stretch.

- Injuries have certainly played a role - losing Marc Taylor was underrated as I thought he was the most effective bench player on offense and got hurt just as he was really coming on.  James Heskett has dealt with a variety of nagging injuries / illnesses for a lot of the season and has only very sporadically reached last season's POY level.  He just hasn't looked fully comfortable for several big stretches of the season.  Kyle Scadlock isn't quite the same level of explosive player he was before the ACL injury, he's not clearly limited in any way, but like Tim McCarthy on Amherst (who had the same injury at the same point of last season, I believe), he maybe really gotten all the way back - and it is especially tough to have to change positions coming back from an abbreviated off-season.  If Heskett can be 100 percent with a bit of rest heading into the post-season, that would be huge for Williams.  The Ephs need Heskett at his best to start turning around some of these close losses. 

- The team isn't really built in an ideal way for modern basketball.  Scadlock should be a 4, ideally, and has played out of position as a 2 because that's how Williams gets its five most talented guys on the floor.  As a consequence Williams only has two real floor spacers in the starting lineup and once Taylor got hurt, the spacing off the bench has been just about non-existent against the top teams.  The Ephs have had a lot of wide open corner 3s that haven't gone in in recent weeks.   

- What's most cryptic to me is the defense, which has been absolutely stellar for much of the season but has really fallen off.  Quicker teams have been able to expose the Ephs and Williams hasn't been closing out on outside shooters the way it did earlier in the year.  While very quick guards are always going to pose a challenge, if Williams is going to turn things around in the NESCAC tourney, it will need to do a better job using the tremendous length to limit three point looks for opposing teams. 

- One positive from the Hamilton game -- with Heskett out and Scadlock limited by foul trouble, some of the role players were able to step up and play well.  Jovan Jones made some really athletic plays on both ends of the floor, his outside shooting and finishing touch need work, but if he can improve that skill set he could be a very impactful player as he evolves, as physically, he already belongs out there.  Marcos Soto had a really good game against Hamilton, and Henry Feinberg finished the season with his best three game stretch of the year.  But ultimately, Williams need Heskett, Karp, Casey and Scadlock to all have really big games to beat the top opponents, or at the very least three of them together, and that hasn't happened for awhile.  If however the Ephs can get their stars locked in, and continue to get good contributions from the Jones/Soto/Babek/Feinberg group, this team has the potential to play a lot better, I still very much believe.