NESCAC Counseling: Five Talking Points to Diffuse Family Tensions This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has long been a major danger zone for family arguments, as alcohol, football and repressed anger combine to create the potential for lasting damage. And the current political climate will only exacerbate that danger. No matter which side of the aisle your family members sit on, there will be fights around the table this year. When those fights spring up, you’ll need something to diffuse the tension. That’s where we come in. NESCAC basketball has been helping my dad and I resolve arguments for the last five or six years, and we here at NbN want to help you do the same. Here are five NESCAC basketball storylines from the opening weekend to help distract the table from the inevitable political conflict that will come along with Thanksgiving 2016.

1: Zach Baines’ Jumpshot

The fact that Baines is an important player for Middlebury this year is no surprise. He had an impressive freshman season, and many extremely well-informed figures in the NESCAC basketball analyst community (such as myself) had him as a dark horse All-League candidate. However, the three pointer was not the weapon that we expected him to be wielding so early in the year. In his MVP performance in the Eastern Connecticut Tip-Off Tournament, Baines averaged 18.5 points and 9 rebounds per game on 60 % shooting. He also took four threes and made three of them, including the dagger in a hotly contested final against host Eastern Connecticut. Jump shooting was identified early in the season as the key to Baines making a sophomore leap, and it looks like he is ready and willing to take over games from the perimeter, as well as defensively.

2: Jack Simonds’ Lucas Hausman Impression

Star guard Lucas Hausman got Bowdoin used to having the best all around scorer in the league. But once he graduated, it seemed likely that Bowdoin would take a break from watching people light it up every night. However, sophomore Jack Simonds seems to have other ideas. Simonds put up 60 points in Bowdoin’s opening tournament, on 51% shooting and 38.5% from three. As the only big time scoring threat on his team, Simonds should have his pick of shots throughout the year and has a real chance to lead the league in scoring, picking right up where his illustrious teammate left off.

3: Amherst’s Depth

At my dinner table, this would be almost as distressing a conversation as any political talk, but I guess people in Amherst may enjoy talking about this. National preseason number one, the Purple and White enjoyed their usual easy opening weekend tournament, beating up on Green Mountain and St. Lawrence 83-41 and 90-68 respectively. What stands out about these games though is the balance and depth exhibited in Amherst’s lineup. The leading scorer for the weekend was Michael Riopel, a junior guard who only played 17 minutes per game. Amherst’s starting lineup is experienced and dynamic, led by guards Jayde Dawson ‘17 and Johnny McCarthy ‘18, as well as center David George ‘17. But Riopel, Reid Berman ’17 and Eric Conklin ‘17 give Coach David Hixon many options off the bench. Amherst could concievably run 8 or 9 deep all season, something that is rare among NESCAC teams.

4: Trinity…Yikes

First of all, thank you so much to the Trinity website for not yet updating their statistics from the weekend. I had to do the stats for this column myself, and i’m an English Major! Math is not my strong suit. Anyway, I can excuse them for being slow on that becuase they had a rough weekend in other regards. Trinity went 0-2 in their opening weekend, losing in overtime to UMass-Dartmouth and Southern Vermont. This was not the fault of senior center Ed Ogundeko, who ripped those two teams apart to the tune of 25 points and 16 rebounds per game. Ogundeko was the Defensive Player of the Year last season, but it looks like his offensive game has caught up to his defense in a big way. It was finding him help that the Bantams struggled with over the weekend, as the rest of the team shot roughly 35% from the field, compared to Ogundeko’s 70%. Trinity struggled to score at times last season, and two of their leading scorers, Jaquaan Starks and Player of the Year Shay Ajayi, graduated. They will need more production from players other than Ogundeko if they want to stay in contention with deep teams like Amherst and Middlebury.

5: Colby!

If I gave you three guesses as to which NESCAC team had the most impressive offensive performance of the weekend, I’m willing to bet that Colby wouldn’t have been in the mix. But the Mules kicked and brayed, and averaged 89 points over their two game opening weekend, winning both games. Colby was lights out from three point range at 44% as a team.

Senior forward and wheelchair-bound leader of a superhero team Patrick Stewart was particularly impressive, averaging 17 points and 7 rebounds per game on 53% shooting from 3. It seemed possible at the beginning of the year that the bottom three teams in the league would be the three Maine schools, but Colby might have more fight in them than we thought.