Quote from: Jersey42 on August 26, 2025, 06:23:25 PM

Quote from: UfanBill on August 25, 2025, 01:39:44 PM. . . One name noticeably absent is punter Hayden Hall. Hall burst onto the scene last season as a surprise D1 transfer (Monmouth/UConn) and his booming punts were instrumental in the Garnet defense. He averaged a 10th best in the country 41.5 yds/punt which repeatedly changed field position in Union's favor. Hall was named All-Liberty League second team and D3football.com All-Region 2 Third Team (2024) I'm guessing his punting prowess enabled him to get a better offer. Good luck to Hayden but he'll be missed.

D2 Post University in CT.  Probably got some money.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFtqD7hMCLk

I also see that 2024 all Liberty League honorable mention Quadir McEachin has transferred to D2 Shaw University in NC. He was a freshman LB last year at Buffalo St.  I see he went into the portal in December and it looks like he had a few D2 offers.

Based on probably incomplete information, RPI's recruits are mostly from NJ, NY or MA.

• NJ – 13
• NY – 12
• MA – 9
• Other – 9

Some of the interesting ones based mostly on prior school accolades:

• Super 26 all state LB from MA
• 2x Class AA first team all state DL from NY
• Class 5A all state QB from PA
• 2nd team all state LB from NJ
• DL/LB brother of Gagliardi finalist from NJ
• Jr OL transfer from Cortland State who started several games

Often it will be others who provide positive surprises.

Quote from: UfanBill on August 25, 2025, 01:39:44 PM. . . One name noticeably absent is punter Hayden Hall. Hall burst onto the scene last season as a surprise D1 transfer (Monmouth/UConn) and his booming punts were instrumental in the Garnet defense. He averaged a 10th best in the country 41.5 yds/punt which repeatedly changed field position in Union's favor. Hall was named All-Liberty League second team and D3football.com All-Region 2 Third Team (2024) I'm guessing his punting prowess enabled him to get a better offer. Good luck to Hayden but he'll be missed.

D2 Post University in CT.  Probably got some money.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFtqD7hMCLk

RPI announced their four recruits last week.  Two were previously reported by stlawus.

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) men's basketball team, led by 11th year head coach Mark Gilbride, will welcome four freshmen to campus this fall. Noah Daniel, Kellen Driscoll, Zach Hart and Payne Wood all recently signed Division III Celebratory Forms in honor of their intentions to attend RPI and join the men's basketball program.

It is a talented and well-balanced class," said Coach Gilbride. "Most importantly, these are young men of high character who will make Rensselaer proud. We are excited to welcome this tremendous group of student-athletes to our basketball program."

Daniel is a 6'2 guard from Portsmouth, NH.  While at Berwick Academy he was a three-time All-NEPSAC Class C selection. As a senior Daniel averaged 26 points, six rebounds and six assists per game on his way to being named Eastern Independent League Player of the Year.

Driscoll comes to Rensselaer from Glens Falls High School in Glens Falls, NY. The 6' 3" guard led Glens Falls to back-to-back undefeated seasons in his junior and senior year. He was named Tournament MVP twice during his two Class A state championship campaigns and was named Foothills Council League MVP in both of those years as well. As a senior Driscoll scored 19 points, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out seven assists, and was awarded New York State Class A Player of the Year.

Hart is a 6'7 forward from Poughkeepsie, NY. Hart led our Lady of Lourdes High School to back-to-back New York State Class AA Section 9 Championships. Hart was named Mid-Hudson Athletic League Player of the Year and Section 9 AA Player of the Year in both his junior and senior seasons. As a senior Hart averaged 23 points and ten rebounds on his way to being named Poughkeepsie Journal Player of the Year.

A 6'3 guard, Wood comes to Rensselaer by way of Spartanburg Day School in Spartanburg, SC where he earned South Carolina Independent School League All-Region II honors three times. As a senior Wood averaged 17 points and five assists per game. Wood was honored as an SCISL All-State selection and a High School Sports Report All-State selection in his senior season. 

https://rpiathletics.com/news/2025/8/21/four-sign-celebratory-form-for-mens-basketball-class-of-2029.aspx

Only a few of the LL teams have posted their 2025 schedules.  With publicly available information,  I have tried to piece together the non Liberty League schedules for all 8 teams.  It looks like Buffalo and Hobart will play three Empire 8 teams. I made the assumption that the week one games for those teams will not be one of the official crossover games with the E8.  Here is what I have deciphered.  The missing games for Buffalo and St Lawrence will be against either Hartwick or Fisher.

I found the Buffalo St and St. John Fisher schedules to complete the missing games. - 5/5/25

If anyone has better information, please post.
 

School	OOC	E8 1	E8 2
Buffalo	Brockport	Hartwick	Alfred State
Hilbert	St. Vincent	Alfred State	Hartwick
Hobart	Alfred	Brockport	Utica
Ithaca	Johns Hopkins....	Alfred	Cortland
Rochester	Olivet	Morrisville	St. John Fisher....
RPI	WPI	Utica	Brockport
St Lawrence....	Norwich	St. John Fisher....	Alfred
Union	Susquehanna	Cortland	Morrisville

Quote from: ICAlum16 on March 13, 2025, 09:28:19 AMDoes anyone know if there have been any FBS or FCS transfers into any of the LL teams? I feel like there are usually a few in any given offseason which I always find interesting. Curious if anyone is up to speed on this.

RPI has been posting their recruits over the past two weeks on X.  I noticed one grad transfer from FCS Penn and one soph D2 transfer from Franklin Pierce.  The first is a defensive lineman and the second is a linebacker. Both are local Capital District kids. Neither saw much playing time at their former schools.

Quote from: stlawus on February 22, 2025, 05:10:52 PMFirst minute of the game against Ithaca Shea Fitzgerald with a nasty ankle roll on the landing from a shot contest.  Something to keep an eye on.

Big loss for Vassar if he can't play next week.  When he is on, defenses need to guard him closely well beyond the NBA three point line. He single handedly was responsible for Vassar's first victory over RPI.  While Vassar's swarming defense had a lot to do with their second defeat of RPI, it seemed like any time RPI tried to come back, Fitzgerald would hit a long range three.  I did not see the injury, but I wish him well. Excellent player and only a sophomore.

Quote from: stlawus on February 21, 2025, 09:30:27 PMThe playoff field is set with Bard and Clarkson getting eliminated.  Seedings are still very fluid.  After losing at home to Hobart Vassar needs to win tomorrow AND have RPI lose to SLU to finish in first place. There are so many seeding implications tomorrow it's not even worth typing it all out. Union having the season sweep of RPI gets them the tie breaker in a lot of these scenarios.  Union winning tomorrow gets them a home game regardless.  SLU will need multiple combinations of results to get into 5th place which could see Hobart dropping to 6th.  I believe that hinges upon Clarkson losing to Skidmore/Bard beating RIT as crazy as that sounds. 

Quote from: stlawus on February 21, 2025, 09:56:42 PMAlso, if Ithaca beats Vassar and RPI loses to SLU RPI will get the 1st seed by virtue of sweeping Ithaca.

I had a lot of time on my hands this morning and I tried to wade through the seedings and expand on what you have already posted. In a few hours, all of this will be decided.  But I believe these are the possibilities.  It reminds me of a logic puzzle without enough information to completely solve.

RPI, Vassar and Ithaca get the top three seeds in some order.
·        RPI can finish 1 or 2.
·        Vassar can finish 1, 2 or 3.
·        Ithaca can finish 2 or 3.

Hobart, Union and SLU get the last three seeds in some order.
·        Hobart can finish 4, 5 or 6.
·        Union can finish 4, 5 or 6.
·        SLU can finish 5 or 6.

Head to head sweeps that could affect seeding
·        Vassar over RPI
·        RPI over Ithaca
·        SLU over Bard
·        Clarkson over SLU
·        (Union and RPI split)

Today's games with first game results
·        SLU @ RPI – RPI won first
·        Hobart @ Union – Hobart won first
·        Ithaca @ Vassar – Ithaca won first

RPI – 1 with a Win or a Vassar Loss.  Otherwise 2.
Vassar – 1 with a Win and an RPI L. 2 with a Win and an RPI Win. 3 with a Loss.
Ithaca – 2 with a Win. 3 with a Loss.
Hobart – 4 with a Win. 5 with a Loss and an SLU Loss.  **
Union – 4 with a Win. 5 with a Loss and an SLU Loss. **
SLU – 6 with a Loss. **

** If SLU wins today, they are in a tiebreaker for 5 with the loser of the Hobart/Union game.  As you have said, it gets crazy but I believe you got it correct.  If Bard finishes ahead of Clarkson in the standings, SLU gets 5.  Otherwise they get 6.

I probably have missed something.  But by 6:00 this evening it will all be decided.

Quote from: Bartman on February 08, 2025, 06:05:55 PMUnion is the hottest team at the point in the season, but it looks like RPI and Ithaca have the edge to gain byes for the playoffs,

Since losing a close one at then #1 Emory, Union has been playing very well. They have three losses to the top dogs - Ithaca, RPI and Vassar.  But they have beaten each of those teams in their last three games.  Matthew Garside has emerged as the player they thought they were getting out of high school.  He had 21, 21 and 23 points in the last three games.  He has also shot 14/24 from three point range in those games including the long buzzer beater today. 

I still like the position RPI is in with four games remaining.  They control their own destiny with all four games at home where they are undefeated. If they beat Vassar, RPI could lose one of their other three games and still win the league. I believe Vassar also controls their own destiny if they win all of their remaining games including the one at RPI next weekend.  They finish with Ithaca and Hobart at home.

Quote from: stlawus on January 22, 2025, 02:14:34 PMLeague is just tough. It's bad for the league's pool C aspirations but good for entertainment purposes.

Unfortunately I still believe the Liberty League will be a one bid team.  Even if a bunch of the LL teams could win some games in the NCAA tournament, it his highly likely that the only team that will have an opportunity will be the LL tourney winner.  Matt Snyder's computer simulation (https://d3datacast.com/npi/mbb-projections/) currently gives RPI an extremely longshot chance at getting a pool C bid.  For that to happen, they would pretty much need no more than one loss the remainder of the season.  Then they would have to lose in the LL tourney and lots of other games across the country would have to fall in place.  In his simulation, no other LL teams had any shot at pool C.

Yes, the games have to be played and it is only a simulation.  But the longer we go into the season, the more accurate the simulation becomes.

Quote from: LLFan23 on January 24, 2025, 11:33:52 PMShocking result from RPI - Ithaca, Ithaca is inarguably a top 3 offense in the league this year and to see them get blanked like that shows how well RPI can defend when they are at their best. Tomorrow will be a huge day in the league I think we may gain some clarity as to what the playoff picture will look like.

I have seen many of RPI's games and I expected this one to be a mail biter.  Like everyone else I was wrong. 

Here is my take on what you always get from RPI this season.:

• Excellent defense
• Excellent coaching
• Well disciplined

This has been enough to win many games.  Unfortunately while they have some excellent "basketball players", they are not a consistently good shooting team.  Seven of their top eight can all hit the three, and when one or two get hot, RPI is tough to beat. But you can't count on it every game.  When RPI struggles from three point range and their opponent is lighting it up, RPI can be in trouble.

When RPI is hitting their threes and their opponent is struggling to make shots, blowouts can happen.  Last night Logan Wendell had two threes in the first 3 minutes for Ithaca. Ithaca as a team had two more threes the rest of the way. For RPI, Andrew Deppe and PJ Scalisi went 7-11 combined from three point range.  RPI's smothering defense bothered Ithaca and Ithaca had a lot of shots that rolled off the rim.

RPI also blew out Hobart in Troy, but Hobart got revenge in Geneva.  In the win,  RPI shot 9-14 on three pointers.  In the loss they were 5-21, including 0-9 in the second half.

Union plays at Emory today.  Union would be a huge underdog if there was a betting line.  Matt Snyder has them as a 33 point underdog and Massey makes them a 21-23 point dog.  Emory is currently ranked #1 in the d3hoops.com poll.  According to  Snyder's calculation, Emory currently has the best NPI in D3. So a victory over Emory on the road would currently be the best possible way to increase a team's NPI.  I hope Union play's well and I wish them luck.

Quote from: stlawus on December 04, 2024, 04:16:34 PMNot only are there standings implications but Pool C as well.

This year, pool C bids are all about a team's NPI.  NPI is a defined formula and their is no human intervention.  My understanding is strength of schedule, determined by opponents NPI, will have a huge impact on a team's NPI.  I doubt the non conference schedule of any of the LL teams, with the possible exception of Ithaca, will help improve the team's NPI.  Beating a team with a good NPI is the best way to improve your NPI.  Beating teams with a low NPI will probably not help.  Losing to a team with a high NPI is sometimes better than beating a bad team.  

Sure, St. Lawrence's victory over Oswego will be a boost, but the rest of their NC schedule will not help. Ithaca's NC schedule is definitely the best in the LL, and future wins against Hamilton and Carnegie Mellon would potentially put them in a good pool C position.  It does not look like any of RPI's opponents will help their NPI. Hobart's schedule is a little better than RPI's, but Rochester needs to win games against good UAA opponents to help Hobart.

The games need to be played and things will change, but I think a second LL team in the NCAA tournament will be a longshot.  If there is a second team, Ithaca is the probably the only team that can control their own destiny.  They need to have a good LL season with some wins over RPI/Hobart/St. Lawrence, win their remaining NC games, and lose the LL tournament.

Matt Snyder (d3datacast) posts the current NPI's on a daily basis.  They don't mean a whole lot now.  But when we get into February, the numbers should be a lot closer to what we can expect at year end.

RPI beat Hobart 72-55 in the Liberty League opener for both teams.  RPI lead most of the way in a close first half.  They continued to extend the lead throughout the second half to as much as 22 points.  The teams were much more evenly matched than the final score might indicate.  Free throws and three pointers were the big difference. If you take away Monty Nedd's 6-9, the rest of the Hobart team shot 2-16 from the free throw line.  RPI was 23-28 after shooting only 62% in their first three games.

RPI shot 9-14 from beyond the three point line after shooting 29% if their first three games. Hobart was 7-20 from three point range, but two of those came in the last 40 seconds. If the free throw and three point stats were closer to each team's norm, the game would have been much closer.

RPI opens their season at 4-0.  Avery Eugster led the Engineers with 16 points. RPI has had a different scoring leader in each game.  They have not given up more than 55 points in any of those games.  I can't see RPI blowing out many teams, but with their defense they should be in most every game this season. If they can get some clutch shooting, they will have the opportunity to win a lot of those games.

RPI posted their roster the other day.  It includes 19 players. Here are few armchair observations.

• Four of five starters return.  The one that does not return is LL POY Jonny Angbazo.
• As mentioned previously by stlawus, Avery Eugster returns as a grad student.  His brother Ben is the only player with meaningful minutes besides Angbazo that does not return.  Ben has moved on to Carnegie Melon for grad school.
• There are only two other seniors/grad students on the roster.  Chuck Clemons sat out last year with an injury although he played a lot as a junior. The other sat out his sophomore year with an injury and saw little time last year.
• There are seven freshmen and five sophomores on the roster. Two of the sophs started last year and two more played a lot.  It is very tough to predict freshman production based on high school.  A few had stellar HS careers at small schools.  The one that intrigues me the most is a 5-10 PG from Fordham Prep in the Bronx. He led his team to first place in the CHSAA "A" league and was named the league MVP.

I got to watch most of the Rochester-RPI game via pay per view.  Rochester proved they belonged in the hunt for the LL NCAA bid.  They did just enough on offense and stuffed the RPI running game to start the season at 5-0.  While I think Rochester has a chance to win all of their remaining games, they get Ithaca, Hobart and Union on the road so it will be tough.

Penalties once again killed RPI.  They had 9 for 100 yards including one offsetting penalty.  Critical ones included:

• Facemask on Rochester's opening play. Rochester then marched 59 yards down the field to go up 7-0.  Best drive of the day for Rochester.
• Three 15 yard penalties which lead to Rochester's second touchdown.
• False start on 3rd and 7 from the Rochester 15 in the fourth quarter.  RPI turned the ball over on downs.

RPI couldn't run the ball.  They had less than 25 yards net rushing and most of that was in the second half.  RPI did not dress their top two RBs.  That did not help, but even with White or Buckley, it still would have been a struggle.

Also, Kazanowsky had two interceptions. I did not see the first one that was deep in Rochester territory in Q1.  The second one was on RPI's final drive with about 30 seconds in the game after he had completed six passes in a row.

Like with the Endicott game, RPI had their opportunities, but they just couldn't finish. Ithaca and Hobart should be prepared for a dog fight when they play Rochester.