The 2015-2016 Jumbos will go down as the best team in Tufts men’s basketball team history. At 23-7, Tufts tied their ’05-’06 team with the most wins in school history, and their Elite Eight appearance is the first ever for the program. Following back-to-back 13-12 seasons, expectations were unclear for Tufts, but given their plethora of returning players, Coach Bob Sheldon’s squad hoped to improve on recent years.
Tufts started out on a good note, and were 9-2 heading into conference play. Then they walloped Bowdoin by 33 and smacked around Colby by 27 – things were looking good for the ‘Bos. The following weekend, Tufts headed to Middlebury and lost in OT, and after a blowout win against Hamilton, they lost their second straight overtime game to Wesleyan. They barely scraped by Connecticut College the next day, and the way the NESCAC was shaping up, Tufts was looking like a team that might just beat up on the bottom half while they failed to finish games off against the top half. A Bates beat down and a bad loss to Trinity seemed to align with this trend, but everyone’s perception of the Jumbos changed when Amherst rolled into town the next day. Tufts dominated Amherst, winning by 11 points and never trailing after the 16:05 mark in the first half. Tufts finished the regular season with two more wins, putting themselves at third in the NESCAC heading into the playoffs and with a lot of momentum.
After a good first round win against Williams, Tufts played pretty poorly against Amherst in the semi-finals. Vinny Pace ’18 was really the only bright spot for the Jumbos, as he dropped 33 points, but Tufts could not stop the balanced attack of Amherst, and ended up losing by three. Regardless of this loss, it was pretty clear that Tufts was going to make the NCAA tournament based on their 20-6 record and a handful of quality wins. The NCAA Tournament committee decided that Tufts’ resume was pretty impressive, and as result, Tufts hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.
On the first possession of the opening round game against Southern Vermont, Pace drove to the hoop and came down awkwardly, injuring his knee pretty badly and ending his season. With their top scorer out, Tufts’ first option obviously became big man Tom Palleschi ’17, and Palleschi sure did impress. Over the last stretch of the regular season, Palleschi carried the Jumbos, and he continued to do so once Pace went down. That night against Southern Vermont, Palleschi scored 17 and followed that with 19 points, 16 points and 20 points in the next three rounds. But just one scorer wouldn’t have been enough for Tufts, so who else stepped up? The answer to that was senior tri-captain Stephen Haladyna ’16. Haladyna scored his 1000th point against Amherst in the NESCAC semi-finals, and with Pace down he was the obvious answer for the next shot-taker. Over the four NCAA games, Haladyna averaged 23.0 ppg on 45.7 percent shooting from the field and went 26-30 from the free throw line. Though the Jumbos ran out of juice against Amherst in the last three minutes in the Elite Eight, this team showed some extreme resilience by winning three games without their top scorer. Palleschi and Haladyna were two of the biggest contributors on both ends of the court during that stretch, while the rest of the squad clearly stepped it up as well.
Highlight Moment: 78-76 Win vs. Southern Vermont in the NCAA First Round
When Pace went down on the first play of the game, the packed house in Medford went dead silent. Everyone in the gym knew that Pace was an integral part of getting the Jumbos into the tournament, and a little doubt crept into everybody’s minds when he was helped off the court. Well, the Jumbos responded with one of their best all-around performances of the season. Palleschi was the anchor, totaling not just 17 points, but also eight blocked shots. Haladyna led the way scoring the ball with 24 points while also grabbing 10 rebounds. Fellow tri-captain Ryan Spadaford ’16 was not to be outdone however, as he added to the effort with 12 points and a game-high 14 boards – pretty impressive for a guard against the big bruisers of Southern Vermont. The well-rounded effort didn’t stop there, however. Tarik Smith ’17 didn’t shoot the ball particularly well on this night, but he found his niche and led the game with six assists. The bench also played an integral role in this win for Tufts: Ben Engvall ’18 played well, totaling his pretty consistent eight points while also grabbing seven boards, but the spotlight shined on freshman sharpshooter Ethan Feldman ’19 in this one. Despite his limited minutes during the rest of the season, Feldman stepped in and put on a clinic on how to shoot the rock, dropping 10 points in 11 minutes. This was a huge win for Tufts, and an extremely emotional one at that. They played as one unit, and it was truly impressive to watch.
Team MVP: Center Tom Palleschi
He might not have been the top scorer, but without this highly skilled big man, Tufts would not have been nearly as good as they were this season. That is not a slight to the rest of the team, but rather a nod to Palleschi. It’s pretty incredible how much attention Big Tom demands from opposing defenses, and his passing ability is a perfect complement to this. I haven’t seen a team play Tufts that doesn’t try to double down on the big guy, but Coach Sheldon intelligently surrounds him with shooters, so just one ball fake eliminates the possibility of a double team. Palleschi is so shifty down low, and his ability to step out and shoot the three-ball this year was huge for Tufts. On the other end of the court, he might be even more important. Palleschi’s 3.90 blocks per game ranked second in all of Division III, and he was one of just two players to block over 100 shots this season (he had 113 blocks in 29 games). Due to his redshirt year during what would have been his sophomore campaign, the Jumbos will get Palleschi back for another year, and they sure are happy to have him returning.
Biggest Surprise: The loss of Hunter Sabety was addition by subtraction
Entering the season, there was lots of talk about Sabety’s transfer to Hofstra. Many critics thought that Sabety’s departure would be a huge loss for Tufts, but it actually opened things up for Coach Sheldon, who took advantage of having a more guard-heavy lineup and incorporated a new fastbreak-based offense. The Jumbos dropped buckets at a crazy rate, and were head and shoulders above everybody else in scoring with an average of 86.0 ppg. Allowing other players to get more involved took away the ability of opposing defenses to collapse on Palleschi, and gave shooters like Spadaford, Haladyna and Pace to get more opportunities to reign down threes from deep. The fast-paced offense also served Palleschi’s shooting ability well, as he was often the last one up the court when they set up in their half-court offense. When opposing centers backed off of Palleschi, he made them pay, and he actually ended up leading the team in three-point shooting percentage at 47.6 percent. The new high-powered offense served the Jumbos very well, and I expect more of the same out of them next year.
Most Interesting Stat: Tufts lead the NESCAC in FTA by a lot
Seriously, Tufts got to the free throw line about a million times more than their opponents. They were 626-841 from the line on the season, which totals to 74.4 percent. The next high number of attempts came from Middlebury, who shot 441-660 on the year. That is 181 extra free throws! I understand that in conference, this number comes down significantly (Tufts still led, with 262 attempts, followed by Wesleyan at 242), but still, this difference is crazy. In their four NCAA games, Tufts shot 131 free throws. The most drastic difference came in their second round game against Skidmore, when Tufts attempted 44 free throws and Skidmore shot just 17. This sky-high number of free throw attempts over the course of the season is definitely related to the high-speed offense that Coach Sheldon implemented, and it is definitely going to be something to watch when next season rolls around.
Other Thoughts
I think it’s also important to note that Coach Bob Sheldon was the Northeast Region Coach of the Year, and Palleschi was named to the All-Northeast Region Second Team. Congratulations to the two of them on these accomplishments. The only other schools to have two players/coaches recognized were Babson (Joey Flannery ’17 and Isaiah Nelsen ’17), Bowdoin (Lucas Hausman ’16 and Jack Simonds ’19), and Johnson & Wales (Quarry Greenaway ’16 and Tom Garrick ’16). What’s one common denominator that jumps out? Tufts beat all three of these teams. The most impressive part about the Jumbos’ season to me is that they went up against the best competition week in and week out and still amassed a record of 23-7. They beat the #11, #12, #15 and #16 teams in the country, and played a total of nine games against opponents that qualified for the NCAA tournament. That strength of schedule certainly paid dividends for Tufts in March, and it will benefit this team in the future, as they only lose three seniors this year. The young Jumbos will be a very scary team in the NESCAC in 2016-2017.