By popular demand (Pete’s note: pretty sure I’m the only one who even requested this,) here are the first NBN power rankings of the 2016-2017 basketball season. I have finals to study for, so I’m not going to spend time on a long-winded intro. NESCAC basketball has been great so far, but I just can’t wait for January so that we can see where everyone actually stacks up. Now, here are the rankings at a point in the season that is far too early to make rankings.
1.) Amherst (8-0, 0-0)
They’re the number one team in the country, and they’re obviously the number one team in NESCAC as well. Amherst has been dominant so far this year against mostly far inferior competition, but they have also picked up the most impressive win in the country so far in a double-overtime thriller against #2 Babson last week. While Babson’s Joey Flannery ‘17 dropped 42 to put away Tufts just a few weeks prior, Amherst was able to withstand Flannery’s 41 thanks to some late-game heroics from Johnny McCarthy ‘18 and Jayde Dawson ‘17. Though it wasn’t the most efficient 32 (13-30 from the field), Dawson showed that he could put the ball in the basket when it counted. He’s now third in the league with 18.3 PPG, the leading scorer for Coach Hixon’s team. Amherst relies on Dawson and McCarthy primarily on offense, but the rest of their scoring is spread pretty evenly between the seven other players averaging 12+ minutes per game. Balance, balance, balance – that is what Amherst is about at this point in the year
2.) Wesleyan (9-0, 0-0)
Speaking of balance, Wesleyan is displaying just that through their first nine games. The Cardinals have four players averaging double-digits so far (Jordan Bonner, Salim Green, Harry Rafferty, and Joseph Kuo), and three others averaging over 7.0 PPG (Nathan Krill, Andrew Gardiner, and Kevin O’Brien). This widespread attack has given opposing defenses headaches, and these headaches have even carried over to the other end of the court. Wesleyan is allowing the fewest points per game so far this season. They’re not blocking an ungodly amount of shots, they’re not forcing a ridiculous amount of turnovers, the Cardinals are just baiting their opponents into tough shots, leading to league-bests in opponent’s FG% (34%) and opponent’s three-point FG% (28.5%). They also took down a strong Williams team at home on December 3rd, showing that the Cardinals are far from rebuilding, as we thought they might this year.
3.) Middlebury (7-1, 0-0)
If you’ve been keeping up with our sparsely posted articles, you know a lot about the Panthers since the Middlebury section takes up half of every one of Pete’s articles. Like Pete noted on Monday, the Panthers are a very solid 7-1 right now, with their lone loss coming to Endicott, who only just dropped out of the Top 25. What concerns me in the long run for Middlebury is that they allow opponents to shoot 42.5% from the field, the worst mark in the league. However, Middlebury’s own shooting percentage, 49.7%, goes for the best shooting efficiency in the league, so the Panthers will probably be alright. One reason they shoot so well is because they lead the league in assists. They are the only team in the NESCAC who can boast 20+ AST/G. If Jake Brown ‘17 and Jack Daly ‘18 remain among the ranks of the top 5 dime-droppers in the conference, Middlebury will be pretty tough to shut down offensively.
4.) Tufts (8-2, 0-0)
I’m not saying I jinxed the Jumbos in my most recent post, but I’m not not saying it. As soon as I posted about how Tufts and Amherst deserved more credit for their play, Tufts nearly gave away a game to Brandeis, they got worked by Joey Flannery and the Babson Beavers, and then lost on a buzzer beater to a far less talented UMass-Boston team. Nonetheless, Tufts bounced back against Wentworth on Saturday with a nice 15-point victory led by a four-pronged attack of Vinny Pace ‘18, Tarik Smith ‘17, Everett Dayton ‘18, and Tom Palleschi ‘17. One of the issues in their slide last week was that they relied far too heavily on Pace to bail them out, an issue that started all the way back against WPI. Well, Dayton must have realized this as well, because in the last two games he has gone for 16 and 14 points while shooting 50% from the field. If the Jumbos want to stop dropping in the rankings, Tufts is going to need Dayton to keep playing well, because so far they have lacked the consistent offensive punch in the interior that they possessed last winter.
5.) Williams (8-1, 0-0)
I feel bad putting the Ephs in the five spot since their only loss came against #22 Wesleyan, but for a very young Williams team, things are looking good so far. Dan Aronowitz ‘17 is leading the way once again for Coach App’s squad with 18.6 PPG, 2.2 AST/G, and 4.3 REB/G, and he has positioned himself nicely in the Player of the Year race as we head into winter break. Aronowitz is aided primarily by Cole Teal ‘18 and Kyle Scadlock ‘19 on the offensive end, while Bobby Casey ‘19 and James Heskett ‘19 have also chipped in quite a bit. The post is what we figured would be the weak spot for the Ephs, and in their lone loss to Wesleyan, they were outscored 34-18 in the paint. Now I know that not all points in the paint come via post players, but lack of an imposing defensive presence down low begs questions about whether Williams will be able to maintain their current success. If they can figure it out, however, the Ephs will be alright.
6.) Hamilton (6-2, 0-0)
I’ll be honest, Hamilton has been the biggest surprise for me so far this season. I know they have not been too competitive in NESCAC play in recent years, but I truly believe this is a different Continentals team than we’ve seen in awhile. The Hamilton offense is led by a very young cast: Tim Doyle ‘19 (20.0 PPG, note that Doyle has only played in three of Hamilton’s eight games), Peter Hoffman ‘19 (16.3 PPG), and Michael Grassey ‘19 (16.0 PPG) do the bulk of the damage, while Kena Gilmour ‘20 also chips in with 10.0 PPG. The Continentals are a pretty solid rebounding team, led by Grassey and Andrew Groll ‘19, who are 7th and 9th in the NESCAC respectively. Hamilton is one of the youngest teams in the league, but they were last year as well, which allowed the class of 2019 to gain valuable on-court experience. I think that Hamilton will have at least one big upset this year, but I don’t think they’re quite mature enough to topple some of the beasts at the top of the conference. I suppose we’ll see when league action begins.
7.) Conn College (7-1, 0-0)
Conn College looked pretty good at this point last season, but they fell off when NESCAC play rolled around as they were unable to finish some games the way they wanted to. However, Conn looks to be a much more cohesive unit thus far, and they’ve been scoring in bunches this year. The Camels lead the league with 86.8 PPG, and it has a full team effort on the offensive end as six (!!) different Conn players are averaging at least 11 PPG through their first eight contests. However, one cause of concern, and maybe where the challenges of NESCAC play will catch up to Conn, is that their bench is not very deep. It’s more or less a seven man rotation for Conn, which will be thin when conference action begins in January. Additionally, the Camels are fully reliant on their ability to score the ball – they are last in the league in points allowed, and as we saw against Wesleyan, when Conn doesn’t score well, they don’t play as well (Pete’s Note: Pretty sure this is how it works for most teams.) Conn looks to be a potential threat as of now, but unless they figure out their defense they will struggle in NESCAC play.
8.) Trinity (5-4, 0-0)
Very classic Trinity allowing just 64.8 PPG so far, but what’s a bit uncharacteristic is that they have not had the scoring to reward their defense. I will admit, their losses have not been the worst defeats in the history of Division III hoops – Southern Vermont was an NCAA tournament team last winter and Susquehanna is currently ranked 18th in the country, but regardless, I think the Bantams are scarily dependent on Ed Ogundeko ‘17. Trinity plays 9-10 deep, but Ogundeko is the only consistent scorer, and when he struggles, so does the team. In two of his three lowest scoring games, Trinity has lost. Their biggest issue offensively is without a doubt ball control. The Bantams are committing a dreadful 19.8 TO/G,and if this type of sloppy ball security continues, it would be hard-pressed to envision Trinity in the playoffs.
9.) Bowdoin (5-3, 0-0)
Though Bowdoin looked very pretty solid early on, it has become clear after eight games that this team is completely reliant on Jack Simonds ‘19. To a certain extent, this is fine – Simonds does lead the NESCAC in scoring after all, with 23.6 PPG – but it is to the point where Bowdoin refuses to even take him off the court. Simonds plays 35.1 minutes on average…I believe that that’s simply an unsustainable amount of playing time. What’s worse, Bowdoin doesn’t really have anyone else who can take over the scoring duties if he has an off day, and in the one game the sophomore scored less than 19 points (he scored 12), Bates handed Bowdoin their biggest loss of the season. The Polar Bears are just not that deep, and while Simonds has explosive potential on the offensive end, relying on one player is generally not the formula for success in the NESCAC.
10.) Bates (5-3, 0-0)
Marcus and Malcolm Delpeche are currently leading the Bobcats with 15.0 and 13.3 PPG respectively. Marcus is also second in the conference in rebounding (10.5 REB/G) while Malcolm is tied for fourth (9.4 REB/G), and Malcolm leads the NESCAC with 3.3 BLK/G. With all these positive signs, I can’t help but think back to previous years where the Delpeche twins have been solid during the non-conference portion of their schedules and then fallen off once January rolled around, but I’m hoping that this is the year that the two finally get over the hump and lead Bates back to the playoffs. The Bobcats did trounce Bowdoin by 14 last week, but they then suffered a devastating loss to Colby on Saturday after the Mules’ Patrick Stewart ‘17 converted an old-fashioned three-point play with 0.2 seconds left in regulation. Bates is a decent defensive team, but they rank last in points scored, so expect Bates to show off their Lewiston toughness come conference play.
11.) Colby (5-4, 0-0)
After losing what feels like a million seniors that graduated in May, the Mules are young. Really young. They only have two seniors and two juniors. They have eight (yes, eight) freshmen. So as not to leave out the class of 2019, I’ll note that there are three sophomore Mules on their roster, but I think my point is clear – this team lacks maturity, and that is one of the most important features for a NESCAC basketball team. Patrick Stewart ‘17, however, has captain(Kirk)ed Colby this season to the tune of 16.2 PPG. Unfortunately, he’s really been the only consistent threat for Colby, leading to some pretty inconsistent play. When the Mules took on Bowdoin in a nonconference matchup (who obviously know each other pretty well), Stewart was just 2-18 from the field with 7 points. Conference opponents are going to be able to shut down Stewart, so someone else is going to need to pull some of the scoring load. In each of their four losses, Colby has been outscored in the paint. That’s only happened one time when Colby has won, so they’re either going to need to figure out how to keep teams out of the paint, or they are going to have to start shooting higher than 32.8% from three-point land.