MBB: NESCAC

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Peek's really good.  Good size.  Great shooter.  The one G-League game I saw with him they were just ignoring him on the floor.  I will say, I'm not sure he's got enough quickness to keep up defensively at that level, but he's a great player.  Definitely improved from game 1 to game 2, as well.

[nescac1]

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.   

[nescac1]

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)!

[AmherstStudent05]

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!

[SpringSt7]

I don't know my team and maybe I'll get around to putting some thought into one but I would struggle to build a team that consists too heavily of guys that didn't play in the second weekend of the tournament and/or win the NESCAC. Too many great players and that would have to be the decider for me. Lot of post pandemic guys who put up numbers with little team success to show for it