Yeah, a very quiet off-season in NESCAC especially with the returning national champion as well as a second Final Four team ... no reason to think that Trinity won't return as the overwhelming favorite in the league and a sure-fire preseason number one nationally. 

Two small bits of NESCAC hoops news:

Middlebury's 6'11 center Scott Schmitt, who played limited minutes as a FY, transferred to Union.

Zane Adnan, a 6'4 guard who saw limited action at D1 Albany, transferred to Amherst for his final two years. 

Updated list of Williams 2026 commits, including other offers they announced via social media:

Ryan Murray - 6'4 225 Edge, Fairfield Prep (Middlebury and Hamilton)
Walker Moore - 6'5 230 TE/DE, Bronxville (Middlebury and Amherst)
Jack Fabiano - 5'11 190 RB/LB, Masconomet
Flynn Collins - 6'4 315 OL/DL, Jesuit H.S. (Air Force and Middlebury)
Finn Ryan - 6'1 195 DB, St. Paul's (Wesleyan, Amherst, Middlebury, Colby and Bowdoin)
Evan Sood - 6'1 230 LB, Williston
Jack Kripke - 6'3 230 DE, Brentwood School
William Machnik - 5'10 180 CB/WR, Deerfield
Danny Montesano - 6'4 240 TE/LB, Saint Joseph (Middlebury)
Benjamin Quinn - 6'3 250 DE/OL, Randolph H.S. (Trinity and Hamilton)
Michael Ballan, 5'10 WR/CB, Ramapo H.S. (Bates)
Joe Capasso, 5'11 185 QB, Notre Dame H.S.
Luke Backes, 6'0 185 QB/ATH, Upper Arlington H.S. (Middlebury and Bowdoin)

Amherst has also had a good number of announced recruits, including recently a particularly interesting commitment from Ben Curtis, a LB/RB from Loomis who had four low D1 offers.  Both Williams and, in particular, Amherst have fallen off their historical highs in recent years but both seem to be bringing some good talent in. 

Regarding Colby, they also lost to graduation 4 of their 5 all-NESCAC players, including Keon Smart, who was responsible for nearly all of their TB rushing yardage, and Julian Young, who was easily their best defensive player, as well as six of their top seven receivers, their entire starting DL, and three starting OL.  That's a LOT of talent to replace for a team that was 4-5.  Drake should be one of the better QBs in the league, and Jack Nye is a big-time talent, but he's gonna be blanketed on every single snap, especially early in the season.   

This year will be the true test for Nescacman's prognostication skills because outside of Trinity at (or at worst near) the top and probably the bottom two it truly does feel wildly unpredictable.

Is this triple-option Amherst thing a joke / speculation, or for real?  On the one hand their offense could hardly be any worse, but on the other, I don't really see the personnel on hand for that - unless they have brought in some real burners, there is to put it mildly not a lot of high-level speed or game-breaking talent in the offensive backfield, and while I like Marek Hill's potential I didn't really see him as a triple-option type of QB (though maybe he was in H.S. or something?).  And OL has not exactly been a strength for that program in recent years as well. One guy on Amherst who did look interesting to me was Christian Moore, who played some snaps on offense very late in the season.  I'd try to get him more involved offensively as a weapon in whatever scheme they utilize. 

Speaking of NESCAC recruits listed on Instagram pages, I noticed that Wesleyan has fifteen incoming FY recruits - that has to be some sort of record!  If all eligible players return, they will have 38 guys on the roster, including 24 (!) underclassmen. 

Interesting insight, thanks lumbercat.  Beltran and Lynskey doing a lightning and thunder thing in the backfield could be fun. 

Some super-niche Williams commentary here - the Ephs often seem to have some of their best athletes at the H-back / TE positions, but it's crazy how loaded up they are there right now.  At least five very capable guys who saw real PT are all (presumably) back at those spots: Owen Johansen, who is likely to be the best weapon on offense and needs to be on the field whenever possible as a slash sort of player, but who primarily plays at TE / H-back, Sam Jaffe, who has five career TD receptions as a pass-catching tight end, Danny Montesano, a huge-framed red zone target who scored on two of his three receptions as a first year and who I expect will play a much bigger role as he bulks up, Riley O'Connell, a converted QB who started last year and plays more of a fullback sort of role, and Will Baker, another huge, good athlete who is also a converted H.S. quarterback.

I expect the Ephs to play a lot of sets with two tight ends and a FB, and pretty much always have at least two of those flex sort of positions on the field, as they clearly value versatility and big mobile guys who can block as opposed to spreading the field with speedy receivers (never a particular positional strength in the Raymond era).  But even still, that's a lot of capable bodies for, in base sets, two spots on the field and I wonder if any of those guys will convert to other positions. 

With all those big guys out there on the edges, a workhorse TB returning in Jon Oris, and three full-time / two part-time starters returning on the offensive line, but (as per usual it seems) big question marks at both QB and WR, I expect that the Ephs will play even more of a pound-the-ball style offense than usual.  Hopefully that will prove effective in a transition year for the DL position in the conference - all ten all-conference d-linemen, and lots of other very good ones, have departed since last season.  More generally, the top returning running backs, a loaded position that includes Oris, Ryan Lynskey, Tyler DiNapoli, Christian Shapiro, Connor McClellan, and Matt Diaz, all of whom are all-conference level backs, have to be licking their chops. 

Another impact transfer for NYU, David Petrusev, an all-Centennial league player at Dickinson.  NYU still has a LOT more talent going out than coming in, but should at least be decent next year thanks to the ability to bring transfers in to quickly fill voids in the roster. 

In addition, UC-Redlands got a D1 transfer from UC-Davis (started out at Princeton), 6'7 Derek Sangster.  Bridgeland (who is prone to hyperbole with all of his recruits) says he is a "potential national player of the year," so even assuming SOME hyperbole, presumably he's at least a very strong addition to the starting five for a team which was already likely to be in the top ten heading into the season. 

So I looked at the Bates roster (I think the only roster posted?) and while Pierotti is listed, Seneca Moore, the presumptive starting QB, is not.  It sounds based on public reporting that he was pretty disenchanted by his treatment by Bates last year (not the football program, the school) so if indeed he did not return, it would not be shocking. 

Clearly would be a significant blow to Bates losing one of its top athletes on offense and add yet another school starting, from one reason or another, from scratch at QB this fall: Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams, Bates, and Trinity all figure to have fairly wide-open competitions at QB after graduating virtually all of the arms responsible for pass completions (well, probably not Trinity with that superstar transfer coming in, but you never know until he gets on the field as not every uber-hyped transfer immediately pans out).  My suspicion is that we will see several FY starters at QB this fall, including at Bates. 

I don't think Koy Price could possibly be coming back for Bowdoin, he played four full seasons. 

If you look at the results over time they really should have been given a second seed each of the past three years.  Going forward, I would assume they will be. 

Very cool that the last four NESCAC POTYs are all playing on the squad together, and that three of the four were involved in last night's game-winning play. I suspect one of the Trinity guys may be joining them next year! 

Not only did WeAreD3 beat the UConn team last night, but they did so with a Hank Morgan to Sam Peek to David Murray game winner.  Murray had a big game off the bench for the D3 squad.  It's pretty wild that four NESCAC guys from four different teams are competing at this level, and none of them are from the three NESCAC teams who have won national titles (including the reigning champ)!

With Peek, it's not what you'd assume for a NESCAC perimeter player succeeding at higher levels, but I think what's really holding him back from reaching the next level as a player is actually his outside touch.  At Wesleyan and Stetson, he never shot over 35 percent from 3 or 73 percent from the line, and he's never been a volume three point shooter so it's not like guys are blanketing him defensively on the perimeter.  He's got great positional size and strength, he's crafty off the dribble, he's very athletic, and he really rebounds the ball, but as Ryan said he isn't going to burn guys off the bounce at the highest levels of hoops, so his three point shot will really need to improve - if it does, he could make money playing hoops for a long time. 

Drafting a post-2015 NESCAC team as SpringSt7 alluded to would be fun.  I think Alex Sobel as a national POTY and then a D1 starting center who utterly dominated the league for two years has to be a lock for the first spot.  After that, you look at guys who have made all-American teams and it's a long list: Peek, Hank Morgan, Shane Regan, Nicky Johnson, Matt St. Amour, Bobby Casey, Kena Gilmour, Ed Ogundeko, Lucas Hausman, Jack Daly, Luke Rogers, Sam Jefferson, David Murray, Jarrel Okorougo, Ben Callahan-Gold, Dylan Thoerner, James Heskett.  But after Sobel, I'd have a really hard time picking four from that group who stand out among all the rest.  I think I'd probably go with Gilmour, Hausman, and Peek, and for the last spot, it's a very tough call. Maybe one of the Trinity guys locks it up this year.   

We Are D3 stunned Boeheim's Army, which is comprised of some very well-known Syracuse alums, in second round of The Basketball Tourney.  We Are D3 has a lot of NESCAC representation, featuring the last four NESCAC POTYs - Sam Peek and Alex Sobel are in the starting five, and Hank Morgan and David Murray are also on the roster:

https://tbthoops.com/teams/we-are-d3-2/

It doesn't get any easier next round as they play a team of mostly UConn alumni. 

I feel like Trinity is operating in probably a 80 percent different pool than Williams/Amherst/Midd, which seem to have a huge amount of mutual overlap. It's rare that I've seen a recruit come down to Trinity or Williams, though it does occasionally happen. Tufts and Wesleyan seem sort of in the middle - a good amount of overlap, but also looking at other types of prospects. 

Colby, Hamilton and Bowdoin seem to look at a good number of the same recruits as W/A/M but rarely beat the three of them out for those common recruits. I think of lot of their top players must be coming from other pools. 

Bates, I'm not sure, but obviously they are seriously ramping up their talent.   

Williams has what seems like a nice group of early commitments in the first few weeks of 2026 recruiting, lots of size certainly.  The committed players (including other schools who offered, when they've posted that info):

Ryan Murray - 6'4 225 Edge, Fairfield Prep (Middlebury and Hamilton)
Walker Moore - 6'5 230 TE/DE, Bronxville (Middlebury and Amherst)
Jack Fabiano - 5'11 190 RB/LB, Masconomet
Flynn Collins - 6'4 315 OL/DL, Jesuit H.S. (Air Force and Middlebury)
Finn Ryan - 6'1 195 DB, St. Paul's (Wesleyan, Amherst, Middlebury, Colby and Bowdoin)
Evan Sood - 6'1 230 LB, Williston
Jack Kripke - 6'3 230 DE, Brentwood School
William Machnik - 5'10 180 CB/WR, Deerfield
Danny Montesano - 6'4 240 TE/LB, Saint Joseph (Middlebury)
Benjamin Quinn - 6'3 250 DE/OL (Trinity and Hamilton)