MBB: NESCAC

[ItsATuftSituation]

Tufts is releasing its first-year players, and it looks like they have a good mix of guards and big men. Liam Simpson was the RI Gatorade Player of the Year and looks like a big body inside, while Jake Agolli is a 6-11 player was a highly ranked player in Georgia last year.

Watching film of this international guard they got, Mert Gocer looks like a complete scorer. He's 6-5 and has a great handle, is creative around the rim and can shoot it. He was very good at Loomis (All-NEPSAC), and played internationally for Turkiye including the FIBA U18 EuroBasket tournament. That's no joke. There is a log jam at guard for Tufts, though the "scorer" guard role is somewhat vacated with Morakis moving on.

I've heard good things about the other first-years as well. Jack Coco played for the best team in NY in Stepinac. He's a winner, and looks built in the Kennelly mold. Total gamer.

Excited about this class.

[nescac1]

That Deerfield team must have been really fun as they have kids going to Emory, Williams, Tufts, Endicott, Keene State, and Hamilton, all rock-solid D3 programs, all from the same class! 

ItsaTuft, surprised you didn't mention the Jersey recruit for Tufts, not that I know anything about him, but just because Tufts has done SO well pulling from NJ in the past, with Gyimesi, Savage and Pace, as well as this year's FY Linstra, who I imagine will very much be in the mix next season.  NJ has certainly been Tufts' best recruiting source ...

[SpringSt7]

That level of NEPSAC Class A/B has been a really good level for NESCAC recruiting. It is high enough competition where you clearly have to be a college level player to succeed and you are playing against other college level players but it is not so high that these kids are playing limited minutes and you are projecting what they might do in college.

Just in the last 3 years that covers (in no particular order):

Henry Vetter, James Morakis, Josh Bernstein, Hank Morgan, Sam Stevens, Nate Karren, Shane Regan, Nicky Johnson, Max Poulton, Ray Cuevas

From this year's incoming class that would be:

Amherst:
Hunter Stoll, Choate

Bowdoin:
Zach Baum, Nobles and Greenough
Josh Belcher, Phillips Exeter

Colby:
Riley Clarke, Brooks
Mekhi Simmons, St. Paul's

Conn College:
Finn Brennan, Holderness

Hamilton:
Jameson Stockwell, Deerfield

Trinity:
Rowan Introzzi, Greenwich CDS
Alexander Echeverria, St. Mark's

Tufts:
Liam Simpson, Deerfield

Wesleyan:
Treyvon Miller, St. Paul's

Williams:
Elijah Webb, Deerfield
Devan Williams, Milton Academy

This is a more or less arbitrary cut off that doesn't include guys in AA (the higher level) or C (lower level)

[nescac1]

As predicted by some folks here, Corey Begley named head coach at Conn College. Congrats! 

[SpringSt7]

Begley seems highly regarded by former players judging by some of the Instagram comments and I would imagine the administration feels the same given the hire but I am having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around hiring a coach with a 5-39 league record.

[midrangepullup]

I've heard good things. Think the washington college situation was especially bad, they had barely had a winning record in 20 years before he joined.

[nescac1]

It could definitely be a very tough situation at Conn College for a few years depending on exactly how many guys in the transfer portal (and otherwise) end up returning, at this point it looks close to a total rebuild. 

The top two scorers on the team are definitely gone (LaFrance transferred and Espinosa graduated).  Last year's FY class was not very impactful, and one of the FYs who got some minutes here and there (Josiah Wright) also transferred out (to D2 D'Youville).  Soph Edward Harrison, who played spot minutes as a FY before barely playing last year, transferred to Johns Hopkins. The incoming FY class doesn't seem to have much in the way of impact players.  Quron Zene was a senior and is using his last year of eligibility at RIC.  All-conference forward Dylan Watson and fifth-leading scorer PJ Johnson were also in the transfer portal, although I didn't see news of either landing anywhere; if still up in the air, Begley's first job will be persuading them to stick around.  If either or especially both are gone then it's a pretty dire situation heading into next season, and even if they return, Conn still has to replace a ton of guys. 

[nescac1]

Final recruiting list (I'm sure a few guys are missing, but not TOO many), including incoming transfers:

Amherst:
Hunter Stoll, 6'7 F, Choate
Dempsey Gonya, 6'4 G, St. Ann's (NY)
Grant Moses, 6'2 G, Meadows School (NV)
Seth Pryor, 6'8 F, Cheshire Academy (CT)
Bohdan Biekietov, 6'9 F/C, sophomore transfer from F&M

Bates:
Alexander Gordon, 6'0 G, Brewster Academy (N.H. #19)
Tyler Wells, 6'2 G, Branson (CA)
Noah Miller, 6'4 F, Berkeley (CA)
Brady Palladino, 6'3 F, Brimmer and May
Matthew Kollins, 6'1 G, Bridgton Academy (ME #8)
Tyler Smith, 5'11 G, Sam Ramon Valley (CA)

Bowdoin:
Zach Baum, 6'8 C, Noble and Greenough
Corey Baylor, Jr, 6'0 PG, Phelps (PA)
Josh Belcher, 6'0 G, Phillips Exeter

Colby:
Riley Clarke, 6'6 F, Brooks School (MA #39)
Max Vogel, 6'4 W, New Trier (IL)
Ty Lander, 6'8 C, St. Ignatius (CA)
Mekhi Simmons, 6'1 PG, St Paul's (NH #13)
Ben Miller, 6'0 G, sophomore transfer from Hartford

Connecticut College:
Sam Clachko, 5'11 G, Staples (CT #34)
Finn Brennan, 6'4 W, Holderness (N.H. #27)
Henry Simon, 6'4 G, New Canaan
Toshiro Mahtani, 6'0 G, Liberty (TX)

Hamilton:
Cyrus Hutchinson, 6'6 W, Brewster Academy (N.H. #25)
Colin Lamb, 6'5 G, Laney (NC)
Jameson Stockwell, 6'4 G, Deerfield

Middlebury:
Pharoahe Dixon, 6'3 G, Northern Highlands (NJ)
Cyrus Matia, 6'7 F, Albany Academy (NY)
Kawika Suter, 6'7 F, Rolling Hills Prep (CA)
Reeve Sysco, 6'7 W, Perkiomen (PA)
Jake Parmett, 6'1 G, sophomore transfer from Pomona (did not play last year)

Trinity:
Rowan Introzzi, 6'5 G, Greenwich CDS (CT #31)
John Spinoso, 6'5 W, Cheshire Academy (CT #30)
Justin Brown, 6'4 G, Cheshire Academy (CT #37)
Prosper Sonkoua, 6'6 W, Gil ST. Bernard's (NJ)
Alexander Echevarria, 5'10 G, St. Mark's (MA #37)
Dash Mabilon, 6'10 C, Canterbury (CT #27)
Trey Jones, 6'6 W, New Hampton (NH #10)
Connor O'Leary, 6'4 G, sophomore transfer from Assumption

Tufts:
Liam Simpson, 6'7 W, Deerfield (MA #45)
Jake Agolli, 6'10 F/C, Pace Academy (GA)
Jack Coco, 6'0 PG, Stepinak (NY)
Will Lesovitz, 6'4 G, St. Joe's Prep (PA)
Mert Gocer, 6'5 G, Loomis Chafee

Wesleyan:
Packy Doherty, 6'2 G, Scranton Prep (PA)
Nolan Weathers, 6'1 PG, Riverdale Country School (NY)
Treyvon Miller, 6'7 F, St. Paul's (NH #22)
Kyle Dillon, 6'1 G, Chaminade (NY)
Colin Callahan, 6'6 W, St. John's (TX)

Williams:
Joseph Terreri, 6'7 F, Hill School (PA)
Gavin Dodge, 6'5 G, Acalanes H.S. (CA)
Elijah Webb, 6'9 F, Deerfield (MA #48)
Alec Roumph, 6'4 G, Perkiomen (PA)
Dev Williams, 6'1 G, Deerfield (MA #27)

[nescac1]

So this is pretty cool, in his first significant run of summer league play, Hank Morgan put up 9 points in nine minutes on 3-4 from the field, including a plus 18 in a game the Celtics lost by 12.  Deep on the bench in summer league is a long way from a real NBA look but maybe that opens up more minutes for him. 

I assume he's playing in the G league again this year and if he really lights it up it's not impossible he gets a 10-day look late in the season, as every team is desperate for quick release three point shooters, which he's worked his way into by improving as a shooter immensely seemingly every year he plays. In all events he has a good chance of being paid to play somewhere for awhile if he keeps shooting it with the precision he showed in the G league. 

[nescac1]

Trinity adds yet another high-level wing recruit, Prosper Sonkoua, who was a key contributor on an elite Gil St. Bernard's team in NJ.   Looks like at a minimum he will be an elite defender in NESCAC.  Trinity brings in just a ridiculous recruiting class especially at the wing - five highly-regarded first year big guard / wing types plus a D2 transfer at that position.  Even with Trinity very thin in terms of returning wings, obviously there will not be room for all of those guys to make an impact down the road, but surely several are very likely to emerge as big-time players very early in their careers. 

Just a crazy deep recruiting class for Trinity with eight guys incoming all of whom seem like quality recruits, while everyone else has more like 4-5 guys including typically at least 1-2 who are marginal in terms of projected impact. Obviously trading out battle-hardened seniors for FYs means that Trinity can't expect the same sort of level next year, especially early in the year, but the overall talent level does not seem diminished going forward ...

[D3BBALL]

They may have the best freshman class in the NESCAC, at least on paper. Maybe similar to four years ago when Vetter, Okorougo, and McDonald all played a lot of minutes, 2-4 of these transfer/freshman are going to play a lot of minutes. With 8 transfer/freshman coming in and at least 4 sophomore/juniors battling for minutes that will be 12 players for 5 spots if Cosgrove plays his normal 10 players. And they only lose 2 seniors next year although 2 very good players. Good problem to have that many good players, but it also can cause problems with players not happy about playing time as it happened on the team 4 years ago.

[nescac1]

Interesting, in the rare NESCAC-to-NESCAC transfer, Parish Johnson (Conn's fifth-leading scorer last year) is transferring from Conn College to Colby.  Conn has now lost Johnson, James Lafrance (D2 Tampa), Josiah Wright (D2 D'Youville), Edward Harrison (JHU) and Quron Zene (RIC) to the portal.  Dylan Watson was in the portal, but I have not seen anything indicating that he has left; if he is returning he will likely carry a very heavy load for Conn next year, and would be one of the better players in a fairly depleted NESCAC top tier. 

Colby has done a strong job of recovering from the triple blow of losing its best player to Dartmouth, its coach to D1, and its top committed recruit to D2.  Colby certainly made what seems to be a strong coaching hire, kept (I believe) the remainder of a strong recruiting class, and has two quality D3 transfers joining the program. They have enough depth of talent to stick around the middle tier of NESCAC next season, just lack one clear go-to guy.  Conn, on the other hand, likely has a few rough years ahead of it with so many guys departing the program and a coaching transition of its own. 

[SpringSt7]

I don't think Johnson is going to be a huge impact player for Colby but it certainly speaks to a large commitment to doing whatever it takes to be good in the NESCAC. An August 5th transfer? Good for them.

Furthermore this sort of stuff makes me more bullish on the MacLaughlin hire because just as there are big growing pains going from D3 to D1 there are a lot of adjustments to be made in recruiting and roster building going from D1 to D3, but if Colby is able to play ball with transfers then they will be much more suited to something that MacLaughlin is more familiar with from all his years at D1

[D3BBALL]

I agree, not sure either transfer into Colby is going to make a huge difference. They both seem to be adding some depth.
Will be very interesting to see how this conference handles transfers going forward. Conn tried it for a couple years, didn't really help. Trinity has brought one in every year the last three years. Two years ago Paul Jordan played with the second unit as a junior, but wasn't in the top 10 as a senior. That move seems baffling to me as that second unit really needed another scorer this past year. The transfer from Rutgers last year barely played even before he got injured. He has a lot of potential. This year they bring the transfer in from D2, but it's not like he lit it up on that team. So far hasn't been a huge help for Trinity, and yes they had a ton of talent already.
Has there been many transfers in the league the last 3 to 5 years that have been a dominating player?
I think at the D3 level it's tougher to make it work like NYU has the last few years. Babson has brought in a number of transfers the last two or three years don't think it really helped them. This past year the team was mostly just recruits and they came 10 minutes away from beating Trinity in the second round.
Even at the D1 level, it looks great when teams are elite and playing well with transfers, but there are so many more teams that bring in transfers and the teams are not great. University of Chicago had a great run this year but they had to bring in two elite D3 players to get there. That's not easy to do every year.
To think you can bring in two or three transfers and are going to be an elite team just don't see it happening that often. In the end just look at Wesleyan, Tufts and Trinity the last three years.

[D3BBALL]

Incoming freshman from Canterbury that was going to Trinity now going to URI. Losing a 6 10 athletic big never good,  but more of a hurt down the road than this year.