MBB: NESCAC

[JEFFFAN]

NESCAC1 - you nailed it in terms of my very high level of skepticism over Sears, but as one of the other posters has noted - and something I have been saying for two years - he has abandoned the big man model and the new one is certainly better.   I am pretty sure he was on his way out after his first contract ended, but this season has likely changed that scenario.  No one ever expected him to be Hixon - the GOAT at least at Amherst - but they had to show progress.   Regardless of how the season plays out, it is indeed progress.

[D3BBALL]

NESCAC1 - you nailed it in terms of my very high level of skepticism over Sears, but as one of the other posters has noted - and something I have been saying for two years - he has abandoned the big man model and the new one is certainly better.   I am pretty sure he was on his way out after his first contract ended, but this season has likely changed that scenario.  No one ever expected him to be Hixon - the GOAT at least at Amherst - but they had to show progress.   Regardless of how the season plays out, it is indeed progress.

I was one of those skeptical people. He is my Coach of the year with the win against Tufts. No one thought they could be 2nd in the league with 2 games left. If Tufts, Trinity and Amherst win out this weekend and with a coin flip Amherst could get the 2 seed. Coach of the year!!!

[jayhawk]

My observation is that the previous players recruited by the Amherst coach had an inability to make shots, particularly 3 point shoots. You looked at the scoresheet and people were 1 for 10 or whatever in their shots.  It seems now that the present Amherst coach has adopted Hixon's mantra about importance of good guard play in D3 bball with players who can score. One person who has really helped Amherst this year is Drew Martin. Previously modest statistics but this year often double digit rebounds. Also Elias Chin just does alot not necessarily scoring points but settling the offense, getting assists, and not uncommon to be leading rebounder.

[NEhoops]

Amherst is rolling! They have won 6 in a row and 10 of their last 12. The two (close) losses were on the road against Trinity and Wesleyan. Definitely playing like a tournament team. Credit to Coach Sears and his staff.

Seems like the magic is running out for Bates. Hosting Conn this Friday in what seems like a must win. 

[Greek Tragedy]

For fantasy league purposes, I print out the NPI rankings according to d3datacast.

On January 29, Amherst was ranked 68th and held the Pool C43 spot. Yesterday, they were ranked 23rd and held the Pool C10 spot. Quite the meteoric rise.

[SpringSt7]

I am not quite ready to give Sears a ton of credit for engineering a miraculous turnaround at...Amherst. Yes the adjustments have been impressive and the guard play is much improved but I don't know how much of it was an intentional philosophical shift and how much was being forced to adapt to losing Randall and Tam - which is impressive and should be lauded! But they also brought in a 6'10 center this same year so I don't know that there is a sign that this happened on purpose.

Next year will be a big test without Hammond and Martin, I will be curious to see what that group looks like before thinking Amherst is back where they belong

[D3BBALL]

After 5th week of Conference play. The below Strength of Schedule is from Massey and out of 409 teams.
Based on NPI, 5 teams make NCAA Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Bates and Amherst. Don't think the league will get all 5 in. With potential losses this weekend and upsets in other conferences championship play, will be tough to get 5 in.

Bottom 3 teams are out

1) Wesleyan 17-5 (7-1) (NPI #16) Pool A (Overall Seed 16) – No Change - Strength of Schedule 29 was 30. Most likely going to win the regular season. Pohlman should be in consideration for POY.

2) Trinity 20-2 (6-2) (NPI #2) Pool C #2 (overall Seed 2) - Up 1- Strength of Schedule 85 was 98. Beat Bates, still have big bench issues. Starting 5 played much better against Bates then they did against Tufts or Conn.

3) Tufts 18-4 (7-2), (NPI #10) Pool C #4 (overall Seed 10) - Down 1 – Strength of Schedule 24 was 40. Lost to Amherst, big game against Bates to end the NESCAC regular season.

4) Amherst 17-5 (6-2) (NPI #31) Pool C #10 (overall Seed 24) – No Change – Strength of Schedule 106 was 135. Huge win against Tufts. I would have moved them to 3 but the game was at home. Biggest surprise of the league by far. Last game against Williams, might be to keep Williams winless!

5) Bates 16-6 (4-4) (NPI #31) C Pool #16 (overall Seed 31) – No Change - Strength of Schedule 61 was 112. 2 losses against teams they should have probably lost to, but neither game close and Pouye's play took him out of any chance at POY. Does not look like he has his legs or conditioning back after the injury layoff. Must win against Conn and maybe against Tufts. Will need to win at least 1 game in Championship playoffs if they lose to Tufts and then hope there are not many/any big upsets in other conference play playoffs.

6) Conn 16-7 (4-5) – (NPI #64) Poole C #39 – No Change – Strength of Schedule 95 was 105. Beat Hamilton lost to Amherst. Has to beat Bates or needs to win conference championship to get into NCAA,

7) Bowdoin 15-7 (5-3) (NPI #57) Pool C #57 – No Change - Strength of Schedule 73 was 74. Beat Middlebury and Williams, didn't help them at all. On the road against Trinity and Wesleyan Cuevas might just be playing for POY against Pohlman and Vetter. Need to probably win the NESCAC conference championship to have any chance at NCAA.

8) Colby 16-6 (4-4) (NPI #45) Pool C #26 – No change – Strength of Schedule 104 was 105. 2 wins against Middlebury and Williams, again does not move the needle for them. Need to win the NESCAC conference championship to have any chance at NCAA or 2 huge upsets this weekend against Trintiy and Wesleyan.

9) Middlebury 8-14 (1-7) (NPI #209) Pool C #167- No Change – Strength of Schedule 50 was 42. Playing last 2 games to stay out of last place.

10) Hamilton 5-17 (1-7), (NPI #275) Pool C #232 - No Change - Strength of Schedule 52 was 66. 2 losses this past week, game against Williams probably for last place.

11) Williams 11-11 (0-8) (NPI #149) Pool C #108 – No Change – Strength of Schedule 68 was 81. Interesting that going 0-8 in conference play and they still have a NPI just around 100. Playing for pride, need to beat Hamilton, not sure they will beat Amherst. Both games at home so you never know.

[D3BBALL]

POY, All Conference, Freshman of year, Coach of Year and Defensive player of the year.   

POY Candidates - there are 4, Vetter, Okorougo, Pohlman and Cuevas. Vetter and Okorougo voting going to hurt one or the other. Right now my pick is Pohlman.
I know about Cuevas, in conference, which is all I look at, he has the following: 21.1 points/game, .443 FG%, .407 3 Pt%, .763 FT%, 3.8 rebounds/game, 18 assists, 19 turnovers. Last year Morgan 26.3 points/game, .570 FG%, .511 3 Pt%, .859 FT%, 5.3 rebounds/game, 22 assists, 13 turnovers. Cuevas is having a good year, but nowhere close to Morgan last year, Morgan beat him in every category and it is not even close and I didn't think he was better than Regan. Hamilton was the 4th best team in the league last year, Bowdoin not in top 5. Right now Cuevas would be my 4th pick.

1st team - Vetter, Okorougo, Pholman, Cuevas, Gyimesi, Wollinski, Pouye
2nd Team - Espinosa, Civello, Garraud, Lazarre, Chin, Reilly, Hauser.                       
                                   
FOY - Neville                                   
             
COY - Sears, with Reilly a close 2nd.

DPY - Lazarre, not because Okorougo has not been good, but way more a guard year to defend, than forwards/bigs.                 
                                   
                   

[nescac1]

We've been having different iterations of essentially this same POTY debate on this board going all the way back to the Rhoten-Bedford wars of 20 years ago. 

I think Pohlman is having an awesome, all-league sort of year.  I liked him immediately as a FY as you don't see many of these throwback types of point guards anymore.  He's always been underrated because he was stuck behind two all-Americans and he's also improved a ton.  But if you look at his conference stats (per your focus), it's just not POTY material - 12-8-8, and frankly I significantly discount the 8 assists per game. Wesleyan has notoriously inflated its home assist stats for years, if you pass the ball vaguely in the direction of a basket you get an assist - they did it for Nicky Johnson too (credit to SpringSt7 who I think was the first to pick up on this trend).  In Pohlman's five road games against NECAC opponents he's averaged a more-accurate (and still very good!) 5 assists per game as opposed to the sort of comical 9.5 assists per game he is credited for in home league games. Pohlman's league splits are 40/29/84 shooting, plus three turnovers a game against only two total steals and zero blocks (Cuevas gets a lot more steals and blocks).  Nine more points a game on significantly better shooting efficiency is too big a difference to ignore. 

Also, Pohlman is just not guarded the same way as Cuevas. He usually is surrounded by 3-4 capable scorers and guys shade off of him as an outside shooter when he's off the ball, Wesleyan has big guys who can space the floor and Wolinski is a threat from everywhere which lets Pohlman go to work off the bounce.  Cuevas always has a guy stuck right on him when he's off the ball because of his gravity as a DEEP shooter, and many teams shade two in his direction when he has the ball.  His efficiency is remarkable considering that, the guy nails crazy shots routinely including some really clutch ones this year.   

To me it comes down to Okorougo and Cuevas and I still think Cuevas should be the guy but if not him, Okorougo is so elite as a two-way guy and critical to Trinity's three year run that I'd be fine with him. Vetter and Okorougo are certainly close as players but they are very close in terms of offense while Okorougo is POTY material on defense. 

Beyond that, I think your teams are really strong, especially your first team which seems locked in stone barring a really dramatic change-up down the stretch.  The last two spots on the second team could go to a slew of different guys and will come down to the last few games. 

[D3BBALL]

I would say, if you shoot lots of shots, 1st in the league per game, you are going to have the most or close to the most points per game. IMO that should not be the only or even the most important criteria for who is POY. Cuevas is 3 points per game better than the next player Wolinski, but takes 1 shot more per game. So points per shot, the difference is more like 2 points per game, not that much of a difference.  But where else are Cuevas stats so much better than anyone else or POY like. They aren't, he scores more because he takes more shots. That is why I thought Regan deserved it more than Morgan last year, better passer, better defender and much better at the end of games. But Morgan last year compared to Cuevas this year is night and day, Cuevas stats this year wouldn't even be in consideration for POY compared to Morgan and Regan last year, IMO. Morgan was 6 points better than Regan and 9 points better than the 3rd. That is a huge difference. Cuevas is 3 points and 3.5 points better than the next 2 players and the 3rd Civello takes 2+ less shots per game.
Yes, he is defended by the other team's best player or doubled teamed, so are a number of other players in the league. Cuevas against Colby was 5-19, against Williams 7-17 and against Bates 8-18, sorry but not sure any of those teams have great defenders or are great defensively.  And if you are guarded so tight, why doesn't he have more assists? The rest of the Bowdoin team shoots it just a little lower percentage wise than Cuevas.
Pohlman in the Trinity game was guarded by Lazarre a lot and in the first half couldn't be stopped. So that was against the best defensive team in the league, IMO.
Pohlman is 12th in scoring, 3rd in rebounding, 1st in assists, take away 10 assists for inflation or your number, he is still 1st in the league by a good margin.
Cuevas is 1st in scoring, not even in top 20 in either assists or rebounds.
Cuevas shoots it at .443, 12th in the league, Pohlman shoots it at .417 18th in league. Morgan was second in the league at .570% last year. And you made the same point last year how Morgan got the other team's best defender or was doubled a lot. That is a huge shooting percentage difference.
Does Pohlman have a better surrounding cast of course he does. They also beat at the time the best team in the country, they beat Tufts a top 10 team in the country.  I don't think Bowdoin has beaten a team that is even top 25.
I am not trying to knock Cuevas, if he was on a better team maybe his scoring average stays the same, and all his other numbers go way up, and he would be my pick for POY. But he is not so you can't count something that we may or may not think would happen.
I think you are just mad I didn't put any Ephs up for any of the awards      .
Anyone fun to disagree!!!

[SpringSt7]

I don't know if this is the best metric or the worst metric to decide this but Cuevas, Vetter, Okorougo, are just better at basketball than Pohlman. I think we get way too bogged down by stats when doing these. If you asked 100 D3 basketball fans to watch these teams play without knowing who was who and then asked them who the best player was, Pohlman would get the 4th most votes. I don't know that people would think he is better than Wolinski either

[Stickthe3]

I agree with you SpringSt, and I would also add I can't imagine giving the POTY award to a player that is on a 5-5 team (assuming Bowdoin loses both this weekend. We'll see how the games shake out and can revisit once league play concludes).

[D3BBALL]

I don't know if this is the best metric or the worst metric to decide this but Cuevas, Vetter, Okorougo, are just better at basketball than Pohlman. I think we get way too bogged down by stats when doing these. If you asked 100 D3 basketball fans to watch these teams play without knowing who was who and then asked them who the best player was, Pohlman would get the 4th most votes. I don't know that people would think he is better than Wolinski either

Spring I agree that Pohlman would be picked 4th if anyone were to choose him compared to the 4 others, but we are really talking about a 10-game comparison/league season. If POY/MVP was determined on who is actually the best player, then Jordan would have won like 13 straight MVP's and not just 5. Pohlman is probably not better than Wolinski, but I would say more important than Wolinski and does way more for the team, not just scoring. And last year, I am not sure many would take Morgan over Regan picking a team. I thought Regan should have one last year, but I can see it going to Morgan, he had a great year scoring, shooting percentages were off the chart and yes teams tried to shut him down. But there are clear differences between Morgan last year and Cuevas this year. Cuevas numbers are not close to Morgan's in any fashion.
Let's take Cuevas and Vetter and switch them on their teams. I think we would be having the same argument. Vetter would be taking way more shots and Cuevas would be taking way less. So, Vetter would be looked at like the better player this year because he would be scoring 20+ points per game, while Cuevas probably would be well less than 20 points per game? I would have the same opinion as I do now.
In the end take Pohlman off Wesleyan, I think they are 5-5 at best, that should count for something. He is 3rd in the league in rebounds, plays the point handles the ball more, is the heart of that team, etc. POY or MVP, to me, is not the most talented player. If that was the case, I think Okorougo or Vetter would win hands down.

[D3BBALL]

I agree with you SpringSt, and I would also add I can't imagine giving the POTY award to a player that is on a 5-5 team (assuming Bowdoin loses both this weekend. We'll see how the games shake out and can revisit once league play concludes).

Cuevas could come out this weekend and light up 2 of the better defensive teams in the league, which could move my needle, but as you say, hard to give it to a player on a 5-5 team.

[nescac1]

D3bball, I understand that YOU consider only the 10 official league games, but I've never understood that to be the actual criteria used by the coaches in determining player of the year.  It's not "best player exclusively in league games."  It's certainly fair to weigh those more heavily but if someone was brilliant for those ten games and stank in the other 14 games, they would not, and should not, be POTY.