Quote from: Kuiper on October 09, 2025, 08:03:57 PMWhile Messiah's results thus far this season may constitute a historical low for the program, they are not the only traditional powerhouse to be arguably under-performing their lofty standards this year.  Just to name a few:

Messiah
Johns Hopkins
Franklin & Marshall
Redlands
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps
Amherst
Mary Washington
Babson
Kenyon

Some of this is cyclical.  In some cases, there may have been school-specific factors, like coaching changes or injuries etc. And, to be fair, some of these schools are still going to make the NCAA tournament this year, so relatively speaking they will be just fine. 

Are there, however, common explanations? Here are a few possibilities

Players: 

Some had valuable 5th years/grad students who departed after last season.  Not only do they miss those players, but those players may have limited development opportunities for younger players or led typical recruits to look at other schools where there was more playing time available. 

Similarly, the roster restrictions at D1 may have led to an infusion of talent across D3, which could have jump-started the ability of other programs to challenge the traditional D3 powers. 

Rule changes: 

The elimination of overtime didn't just increase ties.  It enabled some of these upstart teams to develop defensive playing styles that allowed them to better compete with the top teams and those playing styles may have taken a few years to develop and spread across D3. 

Also, the advent of NPI changed how you might schedule.  Some traditional powers are still playing very strong opponents originally scheduled prior to NPI, while other schools were more easily able to pivot to more NPI-friendly schedules.

Changes in athletic priorities/recruiting:

The increasingly competitive environment for students has led some schools to change their approach to athletics.  In the SCIAC, for example, Pomona College made a major investment in new facilities, athlete-only weight room, etc, started recruiting nationally while the old coach was on medical leave, and hired a new coach from DII.  Whittier pivoted to a much more aggressive recruitment strategy for international students and focused on developing a pipeline to Sweden.  Both schools are starting to see returns on those investments and they are starting to challenge traditional conference powers like CMS and Redlands.

With regard to Babson it's what you've listed under Players, although I'd go further (probably implied) that the end of the Covid era has come to the fore.  They are not "down" in the historical sense.  They are either 1-2 in the conference, but no longer have the infusion of 2-4 impactful grad xfers to which they became accustomed.

Quote from: Kuiper on September 17, 2025, 08:04:39 PM

Quote from: Kuiper on September 17, 2025, 07:38:32 PMUPSET ALERT

Roger Williams 1 - Babson 0 (73rd minute)

Field looks like it may be wet (not sure), so the weather may be affecting this game, but interesting to see Roger Williams out-shooting Babson 12-3 (6-1 on goal) with 3 corners to 0 for Babson

FINAL:  Roger Williams 1 - Babson 0

Not sure if this is a major upset, but Rogers Williams is now 5-0-1 and Babson suffers its first loss.

On this night RW was unquestionably the better team and deserved the W.  Even after the early second half goal they largely controlled play and dispossessed most every attack through the midfield.  Until the final 10 minutes or so Babson looked very lackluster.  Credit to RW.

Nice give and go between Modiano and Martinez at the top of the box to get Babson the W @ Oglethorpe 1-0.

Babson started 4 freshmen and 3 sophs after massive losses through graduation. FYs Boecher and Hanrahan already look like they belong.

The back line has been a bit shaky but has been playing without 3-year starter Araujo and center back Thiam.  I'd feel a lot better with them back.

Quote from: nescac1 on June 18, 2025, 09:50:48 AMInteresting Bates to Babson pipeline going!  Begin is a very talented player who seemed to not really fit in with what Bates was trying to do, especially as a sophomore.  But he certainly has the ability to be a lead scoring guard who can create with offense with the ball in his hands a lot. 

Not another xfer, but another Bates-Babson connection:  incoming Babson FY Thomas Ferdinando is the son of Keith Ferdinando, Bates '93 who scored 1140 career points.

Gavin Aydelotte, 6'10" reserve has transferred from Lincoln Memorial University (D2) to Babson.  Played just 19 minutes at LMU as a FY, but is a former FL All-State with some much needed interior skills.

Marc Begin II (Bates), former NESCAC ROY has transferred to Babson.

Unforced error by the NCAA scheduling both men's and women's finals on the same day and hour.
Maybe it's a 1st world problem for NYU, having both teams make it this far, but really an unnecessary set of circumstances.

No shame for WPI to lose to the #1 team in the country.  The PBP guy was understandably talking a lot about the constant play stoppages, but unless I missed it never mentioned that Marelli came out after taking a 3-pt shot with about 17 minutes left and never returned.  Had to be an injury.  He had a quiet NEWMAC tournament, but you've got to let this guy play unless he was injured.  A senior playing his last game.  Then, they were already missing Margetson, so they had limited bench for guys who were part of the core group.  Marvillo before Pebley?  Another head-scratcher.  Was that to go small?  But Marvillo struggles from the outside.

But Wes was the better team.

WPI brings back a solid core for next season and should be at or very close to the top again, along with Clark and I think Emerson (particularly if McNamara returns to play and is on form).

Best of luck to the NEWMAC representatives, WPI and Clark.

Beating WPI with a guard-centric offense will be a tall order for Husson.  The guard trio of Newman, Margetson, and Callahan (even Reidy) are very good at keeping their guy in front and not easily coming off screens.  And Marelli and Molen should be able to do damage inside. 

Clark is obviously up against it.  One guy to watch in this one and in years to come is FY Boluwasefe John.  He's still raw, but his meaningful minutes are increasing and he was a difference maker in the NEWMAC tourney, altering shots on the defensive end and a menace on the offensive boards.

Quote from: WashedUp1 on February 26, 2025, 01:23:36 PM

Quote from: BaboNation on February 25, 2025, 09:25:18 PMThere'll be no 3-peat for Babson.

Coast Guard takes them down in the NEWMAC first round 80-69, in a game that was much closer than the final score, but CG controlled for most of the night.

Babson hung with everyone on their schedule til the Wheaton game mid-January when they seemed to lose their mojo and never got it back.  They were never the same team again.

Luke Farrell 20-10 is exactly the kind of player Babson needs and doesn't have - a low post option on offense.  And the CG guards were quicker and posed matchup problems.  Not enough lateral quickness from the Babson guards opened up the lane and caused rotations to be late.  And CG hit their shots when it counted.

Early commits for Babson look promising, but a Nate Amado (20-9 tonight) doesn't grow on trees.

I wonder how much the fairly smooth win on Saturday against Coast Guard played into the struggles last night - having not watched the playoff game but seeing parts of Saturdays game.

I don't think Saturday was a factor at all.  Both teams liberally substituted in that game and Babson was already locked into the 3 seed.  They barely beat CG in the last minute at their place a month ago.  Yes, Kloman missed that game, but they have played down to the competition for a month.  After the Wheaton game all the flags were up that something wasn't quite right.
Very uncharacteristic for this squad, but they kinda peaked in early January.

They really need a natural 5 going forward.  They cobbled stuff together and it worked for a while, but it got exposed/exploited as time went on.

There'll be no 3-peat for Babson.

Coast Guard takes them down in the NEWMAC first round 80-69, in a game that was much closer than the final score, but CG controlled for most of the night.

Babson hung with everyone on their schedule til the Wheaton game mid-January when they seemed to lose their mojo and never got it back.  They were never the same team again.

Luke Farrell 20-10 is exactly the kind of player Babson needs and doesn't have - a low post option on offense.  And the CG guards were quicker and posed matchup problems.  Not enough lateral quickness from the Babson guards opened up the lane and caused rotations to be late.  And CG hit their shots when it counted.

Early commits for Babson look promising, but a Nate Amado (20-9 tonight) doesn't grow on trees. 

Is the Middlebury announcement the 1st of 3 NESCAC shoes to drop?

https://x.com/hd_dirtking/status/1894156630368964798?s=61

Quote from: WPI89 on February 18, 2025, 03:49:56 PM...........and Babo - comparing SOS within NEWMAC is not completely fair (especially since as you said, this is a down overall NEWMAC year) - as the other 8 teams "get" to play WPI twice - which is a big SOS boost.

WPI:  But that's not how it works.  If all of the NEWMAC (or any conference for that matter) played only conference games they'd all have the exact same SOS. Because Massey's SOS is (quoting from his site) "the records of opponents and opponents' opponents".

Not all the teams have to develop an OOC schedule like Babson had this year (sounding like the homer I am), but on January 1st Babson had something like the 7th toughest SOS in the country while WPI was around the 180's.  Now Babson is just under 100 somewhere, because of the relative weakness of the NEWMAC and the fact that 64% of their games are within the conference.  If the NEWMAC teams played each other more and more rounds we'd eventually see a regression to the mean (in the high 100's).

None of this should be taken as WPI bashing.  They are a terrific team.  They are so talented and well coached that they could easily take on a stronger schedule.

Meanwhile I think Bartley should make sure his team is well rested for the NCAA Tournament and rest some guys for the NEWMAC postseason.

Regarding WPI, first off they are pretty safely in this year.  They could probably lose their final regular season game and lose the NEWMAC semi, finish 22-4, and still get a Pool C, unless there's an unprecedented run of bid thieves.

And I have always respected their program under Bartley.  He develops players and gets guys to fit his system year after year.  Just look at how Marelli and Reidy have made huge leaps in their game this year.

But their SOS needs to get better by scheduling tougher out of conference.  Massey has them 6th out of 9 NEWMAC teams for end-of-season projected SOS.  And they barely beat out Wheaton (186 vs. 188).  The last 2 years they finished 22-4 and 21-5 and missed the tournament both years.  There's simply no margin for error with a 186 Massey.  And compounding the issue was adding the 9th NEWMAC team (Salve Regina) so that 16 out of 25 games are now conference games.  Then add the factor that the conference as a whole has gotten weaker in the last 3 years (I watch the games - I don't like to say this).

If it can't be Babson I'll be rooting for the NEWMAC entry, whoever that turns out to be.

What Ryan described is in play for the NEWMAC.  WPI wins the tiebreaker if Clark beats WPI (assuming no other losses and no major changes to the standings of other teams).