Thank you.

I have a question for the Bates crowd. The announcer said during yesterday's Tufts-Bates game that the Bobcats will be playing at Underhill Arena next season. What is the reasoning behind this? Thank you.

Some thoughts in no particular order:

1. Bowdoin was out-rebounded by 25 today at Amherst. It's tough to win when that happens.
2. Congrats to Tufts for getting over the hump with Trinity, and Conn for their biggest win in years by taking down Wesleyan. No more undefeated teams in conference play.
3. Is Trinity's not so challenging pre-NESCAC schedule catching up to them? It's a different deal being the defending national champs. Also, I think they are missing Dorion and Marcharchuk more than most would have believed.

It is shaping up to be a fun final two weeks leading into the tournament.

Another throttling, this time by Bates.  Pouye has 25 points, 11 rebounds, six blocks and four steals, looking like a POY candidate.  Robinson has 18 points in 21 minutes looking like a ROY candidate.  Colby was up five at the half and outscored 52-29 in the second half.  Bates out-rebounded Colby 49-41.  Mules need to tighten things up by next weekend when Conn and Tufts come to town.

Bates with wins over Bowdoin and Colby is now the CBB leader.

Uneven game from the Mules, but they knock off previously undefeated Endicott, 93-89.

Just checking in...Nescacman, are you okay?  I am looking forward to your week 7 picks.

Great job, guys, as always.  Big weekend!

Is anyone else having issues with the Bates stream of the Colby game?

Senior Jack Perry comes off the bench for Bates and throws for three touchdowns.

I believe the last Mule win over the Bants was 1995.

It appears Trinity's message to the league is they need some D1 transfers on the offensive line.  Credit Colby's injury-depleted defense with the win. 

Brad Moore also scored 1,935 career points.

One of the outliers would be Brad Moore (Colby '75) who had 1,392 career rebounds, or an average of 15.3 per game.

Jamie Arsenault, Colby '88, played football, basketball and baseball and played them all very well. 

"My question is when did the "rich and famous" (Choate, Taft, Deerfield, Mt Hermon, etc) decide to go this route - and why?"

As to the when, it has been going on since at least the early 1980s.  Choate, Andover and Exeter each had at least a couple PGs on their basketball teams at that time. 

I completed a PG year at Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) in that timeframe and played on the basketball team.  Nine of the 13 players on that team were PGs and four ended up playing at Wesleyan, Hamilton, Conn College and Colby.  Of the other PGs, one ended up being All-Ivy at Columbia, another played at LeMoyne and another at Suffolk. At that time, NMH was an extreme case for the group of schools you mentioned. 

Deerfield had no PGs that year, or if they did, they chose poorly as we defeated them by 45 points in the first game of a home and home and the second game was cancelled (not postponed) due to a phantom snow storm that didn't leave a flake on the NMH campus, but somehow buried South Deerfield a mere 15 miles away.  I know Deerfield later took PGs for basketball because Gregg Frame completed a PG year before moving on to Dartmouth.

A few years prior to that Rick Boyages PG'd at NMH before taking over point guard duties at Bowdoin and a few years later Matt Hancock PG'd at Exeter before re-writing the record books at Colby.

As to the why for the player, I think it is probably a combination of factors, some of which have been mentioned: the time to mature physically and academically; the opportunity to compete at a higher level athletically and academically than they could at their hometown high school and the hope to play Division 1.  Speaking from my own experience, that one year can do a lot to clear "delusions of grandeur" out of an 18 year-old's head, bring clarity to the greater long-term benefits of attending a NESCAC school and getting playing time versus playing Division 2, or Division 1 at a low to mid-major at a less academically challenging school.

As to the why for the "rich and famous" prep schools, I suspect they likely got tired of playing the Cushings, MCIs and Bridgtons who had PGs and losing to them by wide margins.  At some point, one of the "rich and famous" prep schools started taking PGs just to be competitive with the PG factories and the others followed to a certain extent.  It may have been NMH that started this, but I do not know for sure.