I haven't followed NESCAC basketball quite as closely this past decade as I did the decade before but I always have a hard time resisting any conversation about the best players or teams over a given period of time.  If I had to pick the best 5 NESCAC players over the past decade (not necessarily the best "team"), I would go with:

1. Alex Sobel (agree with nescac1 that he is the clear number 1 and perhaps the only lock on this list).
2. Hank Morgan (could be some recency bias here but I think it is hard to argue).
3. MSA
4. Shane Regan
5. David Murray

Four of my five picks are former Conference Players of the Year.  Regan was not and maybe Wes fans think Peek a better choice.  Anyway, always a fun exercise and as nescac1 rightly states, there are plenty of great players to choose from.  Here's hoping that my 2025-2035 All NESCAC team is filled with Jeffs!

The accolades keep rolling in for Coach Hixon.  Amherst has announced that Coach Hixon will receive an honorary degree during Commencement on May 25.  This will also mark the 50th anniversary of Hixon's own graduation from Amherst. Very fitting indeed!

https://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2025/march/internet-pioneer-hall-of-fame-basketball-coach-and-four-others-to-be-honored-at-amherst-college-s-commencement-on-may-25

NM,

Whose offense is worse, the Lord Jeffs or our Giants?

As for Amherst, I'd say the two standout players who never got all league recognition were Allen Williamson and Tim McLaughlin. Interesting both made all NCAA Tourney teams and Allen was named the most outstanding player.

Allen almost certainly deserved all league recognition but his senior year Toomey, Willy and Big Pete all got it and there was just no way Amherst was getting four guys on all league teams — especially back when the teams were five aside.

TMac was perhaps a lot like Nate. A very solid "role player" on excellent teams who was much beloved by fans of the team but didn't exactly light up a stat sheet

I guess I'll take one more shot at this but I really don't understand why the NESCAC keeps flipping back and forth on tie-breaking procedures.

In 2002 (when I was a student), Williams and Trinity each finished 7-1 and were named co-champions. My Williams friends (I have only a very select few) were upset because they beat Trinity that year (but lost to Amherst in a glorious upset for Coach Farley's last game!) and felt that they should win the tiebreaker. But there was no tiebreaker.

In 2018 Amherst and Trinity both finish 8-1 yet Trinity claims the sole crown based on its win over Amherst which all of a sudden counts as a tiebreaker. Now Midd and Trin both finish 8-1 but Midd's win over Trin is not considered a tiebreaker. What gives?? Why keep flipping back and forth on this? Is the rule that Trin wins regardless of the rules???!

I think Amherst should now claim a share of the 2018 title. Seems like we were robbed!

Unbelievable! They switched the tie-break rules again?? When did this happen? Any chance we can retroactively get Championship credit for 2018 now?!

Phenomenal win for my Jeffs against Williams yesterday!! It's funny how this rivalry works. A decidedly mediocre season can end on a magnificent note just by nudging out a win against our archrival (sadly, it is also the case that otherwise great seasons can leave a bitter taste in the mouth when we end the year with a loss).

Congratulations to Coach Mills and his staff and team for putting an end to Williams's recent winning streak against us. I know this isn't the best Williams team of recent vintage but all wins over the Ephs are sweet!

It's remarkable how many wacky plays seem to pop up during the Biggest Little Game and yesterday's tilt was certainly no exception. Three of the game's five scores came as the result of somewhat fluky defensive or special teams plays. Our first touchdown came as the result of an opportunistic INT when the Williams receiver bobbled the ball as it looked like he might walk right into our end zone. A 75-yard return set up a nice 20 yard TD pass a play later.

Our second TD came on a long fumble return after a short little Williams completion. On the flip side we all but gifted Williams a TD by airmailing a long snap to our own 3 yard line.

But when we needed a TD late in the game it was Mike Piazza who led us on a stellar drive the old fashioned way. Piazza has really played phenomenal ball the last few weeks. It's particularly nice to see from the Senior as we endured more than our fair share of struggles on offense over the past few seasons (and #11 is FAR from the only responsible party), but it counts most how you finish and it is hard to finish any better than he did. In fact, one wonders if we might have won an extra game or two if we turned to him earlier.

On defense Christian Moore (two picks and a fumble return for a TD), Andy Skirzenski and Luke Harmon were all over the field all day.

Obviously 4-5 is not ideal but any season that ends with a win is fine by me. As for next year, hard to know yet what to make of things. The defense should be stout (particularly the secondary), and we still have some questions on offense. Either way I am looking forward to it.

But for now, congrats to our Seniors for ending their Amherst careers in style!

Quote from: lumbercat on November 12, 2023, 08:18:11 PM
Good point Bucket

Trinity is a great, dominant team and when they get the lead they'll kill you - but in close games they play a little out of character
but that seldom happens because they are too good to be in close games in this conference.

If you kill everyone on your schedule for years, when you do get into that infrequent close game, like Middlebury this year, it's unfamiliar territory. Kind of like fighting the big kid in the neighborhood, he's bigger and tougher but he's not used to taking that random punch.

it's a different dynamic to play 9 games and dominate 7 or 8 of them, EVERY YEAR......a territory most teams don't know and will never experience.

Sometimes I wonder if there is ever any debate in Hartford that the Bantams have outgrown the NESCAC and should move on to a conference where they can compete for national recognition but actually have a reasonable chance of losing every week.......or maybe it's more fun always being the big kid on the block.

At the end of the day congratulations to the Trinity program for their standard of excellence and another NESCAC title barring something crazy next weekend.

Wait, doesn't Middlebury win the NESCAC crown outright if they take care of business next weekend? Or have they changed the tie-break formula again?

Quote from: ephoops on October 24, 2023, 10:00:28 PM

Quote from: nescac1 on October 17, 2023, 08:35:38 PM


AmherstStudent05, I wish I could remember Williams' 2003 non-league schedule as well as you do, but I have no idea, and alas, the Sports Info archives don't go back that far, which is a shame!

https://web.archive.org/web/20041225112352/http://www.d3hoops.com/school_info.php?school=Williams&team=m&year=2003

Above is the link to Williams 2003 schedule.  I believe Hamilton (coached by Tobin Anderson) was ranked that season in addition to Amherst.  The Ephs beat Hamilton twice that season (once in the regular season and again in the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 game -- both games were at home).  In 2003, Hamilton was in the Liberty League, not the NESCAC.

I took the liberty of going through all 15 d3hoops polls from 2002-03 (available here if anyone wants to double check me, https://d3hoops.com/top25/men/previous).  Hamilton was never ranked that season (although they did start getting some votes at the very end of the season).  As an aside, I was actually at that NCAA Tournament game between Williams and Hamilton in Chandler (Amherst was in that same pod against Rochester).

To be clear, I have a ton of respect for that Williams team -- a team I was fortunate enough to see play live several times (not that they need my respect, they won a national championship!). I do not want to be seen as knocking them at all.  I was just trying to point out that to the extent Williams supporters want to argue that Coach Hixon "loaded up on creampuffs" (which is not true) they should be prepared to say the same about their own vaunted teams of that era.

Whether Hamilton was ever ranked in 2002-03 or not (they don't seem to have been), you will have a hard time convincing me that that regular season schedule posted by Ephoops was materially more challenging than any schedule Hall of Famer Coach Hixon put together for his legendary teams.   

Quote from: SpringSt7 on October 18, 2023, 07:36:13 AM
Personally I find nescacman's Wesleyan bias a stark and quite frankly, disgusting, contrast to the rest of the unbiased and truly neutral posters on this board.

I assume this is sarcasm?? I'm not sure why a true "neutral" would ever bother posting on a NESCAC football board.  As has been mentioned before, at the beginning of his posting career, Nescacman tried to mask his Wesleyan bias behind a supposed "consortium" of partisans from all (or was it nearly all?) the NESCAC. But in recent years he has been open about his rooting interests. While some of the snark might sometimes cross the line in my eyes, has anyone contributed more to this board in recent years?  The man knows NESCAC football (but less about how pass interference is enforced). To boot, like nescac1, Vandy, myself and presumably many many others, he is a diehard NY Giants fan!

Quote from: SpringSt7 on October 17, 2023, 06:57:59 PM
Just because we could use some hoops talk - the Amherst strength of schedule (or lack thereof) was a total moot point in the Hixon era given their consistent postseason success. They loaded up on creampuffs but they won the NESCAC every other year, won multiple national championships, and competed deep into March just about every year. He could do whatever he wanted and clearly whatever he was doing worked.

Sears does not get that benefit of the doubt, it should be a new conversation with him. To me, getting some confidence built up with a young and unproven group seems like a good strategy. The cynic in me says it's a coach under pressure trying to inflate his W-L.

I've got to defend my man Coach Hixon here, Spring. Hix put together competitive schedules for Amherst. I think there were a few years there where we may have led the league in wins versus ranked opponents in Region (back when that was a thing). We had rivalries against Brandeis, Rhode Island, Eastern Conn, Babson, Springfield who were usually good teams. Now, did Coach Hixon sprinkle in some "creampuffs" in the schedule? Absolutely he did. Particularly early in the season to make up for the NESCAC's truncated preseason schedule. I think this was very smart strategy by a very smart man. There's no need to play only a murderer's row. But make no mistake, those legendary Amherst teams were all battle tested come NCAA tourney time — both from NESCAC teams and beyond.

And, while we are on the subject, let's not make it out like Williams historically plays a murderer's row either. For instance, take that vaunted, one-loss (to Amherst!) national championship team. Someone can correct me but I believe Amherst was the only ranked team you guys played (whether in conference or not) prior to the NCAA tournament.

Like I said, the pass interference rules are complex. But based on what you have posted here, I was entirely correct in correcting you about the (very limited) application of the "half the distance" enforcement of defensive pass interference.

You are also wrong about your read of (h). (H) seems to embody the well known rule that pass interference cannot occur once the forward pass has been touched in the field of play. This is why football officials have a mechanic for signifying a tipped pass — once the pass is tipped there can no longer be pass interference.

"Double passes" have nothing to do with this. I am no rules expert (but I do know a lot about football) but there can be at most only one forward pass on any play from scrimmage. So a "double pass" is itself an illegal play there is no need or opportunity to enforce DPI in such an instance.

I don't see why DPI couldn't be called on a flea flicker type play, but if there is a rule against it I am pretty sure it isn't (h).

To be clear, I didn't see any of the Wes game so I know nothing about this particular play. Surely, if the Wes defender didn't make contact with the Colby receiver or if the pass was deemed uncatchable then the refs were absolutely correct not to throw a flag. But, if PI had been called it wouldn't be enforced as a half the distance infraction (unless this razzle dazzle play started at the Wes 2!) and if there was a "double pass" then only Colby committed an infraction.

Although it is not our style to get into back and forth with other posters, we have to respond:


3. Not sure you understand how the pass interference rule works in college. It is different than the NFL. Even if that double pass was pass interference in the end zone (which it was not) it would not have put the ball on the 1 yard line. This is not the NFL. In college, it's either a 15 yard penalty (if the play is longer than 15 yards...if less than 15 yards, the penalty goes to the spot of the foul) or half the distance to the goal line, which is what it would have been in this case. In all cases, it is an automatic first down.

As we said, congratulations to the Mules. They played well, came away with the win, and broke the 10-game Wes winning streak against them.
[/quote]

I'm not sure anyone understands the pass interference rules! I don't think your explication is quite right either.  My understanding is that Defensive PI is exempt from the traditional "half the distance" enforcement except in the corner case where the ball is snapped at the PLUS 2 (eg, a team in the redzone snaps the ball at the opponent's two-yard line, defensive PI is committed in the endzone, the team on offense now gets first and goal at the 1). But if the team snaps the ball at the opponent's 15-yard line and defensive PI is committed in the end zone, the team on offense gets a first down at the 2, not half the distance.

Obviously a disappointing 21-7 defeat for Amherst at Middlebury but I was perhaps a little more encouraged by this performance than my fellow Jeff posters.

To me the offense showed the first signs of life in God knows how long when they finally turned to the first year Collier at QB. I thought he Gaydos and Roberge formed a nice trio that showed promise. Now, the caveat here is this all happened while we were down 21 points so it is possible Midd took their foot off the gas a bit. Of course I don't have the luxury of being at practice, but I really hope Mills lets Collier take the reins of the offense from here on out.

Unfortunately our oline just got manhandled all day by Midd. Come to think of it, we really struggled in the trenches on both sides of the ball today. Hopefully that is just an aberration or a testament to Midd.

Anyway, congrats to Midd. Their qb in particular is very impressive. If he made a bad decision with the football today, I must have missed it.

On to Hamilton!

Congratulations to Aaron Toomey on being named Head Basketball Coach at the University of Hartford!  I am very happy for him and will be rooting him on.  I suspect the Hawks have made an outstanding hire.

https://hartfordhawks.com/news/2023/4/21/aaron-toomey-selected-to-lead-hartford-mens-basketball-program.aspx