Tag: Neil Fuller

Clash of the Titans: Friday 1/30 Preview

Hayden Rooke-Ley '15 returned in a big way against Hamilton last week, going 7-10 from deep in a Williams loss. Rooke-Ley and the Ephs welcome the Middlebury Panthers into Chandler Gymnasium tonight. (Courtesy of Williams Athletics)
Hayden Rooke-Ley ’15 returned in a big way against Hamilton last week, going 7-10 from deep in a Williams loss. Rooke-Ley and the Ephs welcome the Middlebury Panthers into Chandler Gymnasium tonight. (Courtesy of Williams Athletics)

We are just a few hours away from a full slate of Friday night NESCAC action. The top two teams in the conference meet in Hartford tonight, but every game is important and will have conference implications. Because of the driving snowstorms around the northeast, no team in action tonight has played since last weekend. Hamilton was the only team able to get any games in this week, but they are off until Sunday when they will travel to Middlebury (an exciting matchup given the upset that Hamilton pulled in the regular season last year).

Players to Watch Tonight

1. Forward Jacob Nabatoff ’17 (Amherst)

Nabatoff has seen his numbers wax and wane this season. He was playing 30 minutes or more for a period but as other players like Eric Conklin ’16 have returned from injury, he has played less in recent weeks. Nabatoff can be a frustrating player for Amherst fans to watch because he has the size at 6’8″ and skill to be a very productive player. But he is still a young player and he barely played last season so he is inconsistent. Colby’s defensive woes are well-documented, so Nabatoff could have a solid game tonight against the Mules.

2. Guard Reid Berman ’17 (Amherst)

Not to load up on Amherst sophomores, but in case you missed it, Berman has stolen the starting point guard role away from transfer Jayde Dawson ’18. Whether this move becomes permanent remains to be seen, but Berman has had two solid games in a row. The youngster is a pass-first type, who racked up 12 assists against just two turnovers combined against Williams and Trinity. Dawson’s minutes have shrunk in the last few games with Berman’s emergence, and with another solid game the sophomore could solidify his place as the starter.

3. Guard Matt St. Amour ’17 (Middlebury)

The Vermont native has been out since January 18 when he suffered an ugly-looking ankle sprain against Conn. College at home late in the game. The sprain wasn’t as bad as it looked, and St. Amour was able to limp to the locker room after the game, but it did keep him off the court for two games, and likely would have held him out on Tuesday if the snow hadn’t caused a postponement of Middlebury’s game against Lyndon St. The sharpshooter’s return will be huge for the Panthers this weekend. St. Amour has been a much better player this year than in his freshman campaign which is all the more impressive given that he had to recover from a torn ACL in the offseason. Williams’ opponents have jacked up 393 treys on the season already, third most in the NESCAC. If the shots are there for St. Amour, he’s going to take them. He’s been more effective getting to the lane so far this season (45.5 percent from the field) than shooting from deep (24.6 percent from 3PT), but this could be the game where he gets his long distance stroke going. As for the ankle, St. Amour isn’t showing any signs of it bothering him, but these things do linger so if he comes up gingerly at any point during the game, we’ll know why.

Game of the Night

Bowdoin (13-4, 4-1) at Trinity (14-5, 4-1)

John Swords '15 was the only player for either side in double figures in last year's game against Trinity. The big man had 11 points, six boards and four blocks in the Bowdoin win. (Courtesy of Bowdoin Athletics)
John Swords ’15 was the only player for either side in double figures in last year’s game against Trinity. The big man had 11 points, six boards and four blocks in the Bowdoin win. (Courtesy of Bowdoin Athletics)

If you like high-scoring basketball, I’d look elsewhere. Last year’s matchup ended 46-39 in favor of Bowdoin. Only one player ended up in double figures. Bowdoin’s 46 points were the lowest in a Polar Bear victory since 1949. However, if you’re a NESCAC fan (or player) this game holds a lot of meaning.

Who had this late January game pegged as a matchup of conference leaders? Not me, although I have said all year that Bowdoin would be in the running for a conference title (though with the losses of Neil Fuller ’17 and Keegan Pieri ’15 I’m a little less confident nowadays), but I never thought that Trinity would find the offense to win four of their first five conference games.

Well, turns out, they really haven’t, as they rank ninth in the league in points per conference game. But the defense has turned it up in big games, allowing three less points per conference game than overall. Maybe this is a result of Trinity taking air out of the ball, but the Bantams are going to have to score some points tonight against a Bowdoin team that seems to be getting hot offensively despite the injuries. Bryan Hurley ’15 and Lucas Hausman ’16 are one of the league’s best offensive backcourts and John Swords ’15 should be good for a few put-back buckets, though expect George Papadeas ’15 and Ed Ogundeko ’17, the NESCAC’s leading rebounder in conference games, to neutralize Swords offensively.

On the other end, Swords’ presence is the main reason why teams have shot 433 three pointers against Bowdoin this season, the most in the NESCAC. Wesleyan is next on that list. Cardinals’ opponents have shot 414 threes in one more game than Bowdoin has played. That means that the offensive pressure for Trinity lands mainly on the likes of Jaquann Starks ’16 (41.5 percent 3PT, 4.9 attempts per game), Chris Turnbull ’17 (35.9 percent 3PT, 2.6 attempts per game) and Andrew Hurd ’16 (31.2 percent 3PT, 2.5 attempts per game).

This is a difficult matchup for Trinity, and therefore I have to give the advantage to the Polar Bears. Prediction: Bowdoin by 10.

Hard to Kill a Polar Bear: Bowdoin Update

Bryan Hurley '15 goes to the hoop during the Bowdoin comeback against Colby. (Courtesy of the Kennebec Journal)
Bryan Hurley ’15 goes to the hoop during the Bowdoin comeback against Colby. (Courtesy of the Kennebec Journal)

Through a combination of injuries and the flu, Bowdoin walked onto the bus last Saturday, the 24th, to head to Colby with only nine healthy players, including Stephen Girolamo ’16 who walked onto the team this fall and has barely played all season. John Swords ’15 was the only starter still standing from last season’s team that went to the NCAA tournament. Colby won the teams’ first matchup of the season 61-48 in Brunswick, at which a promotion helped to bring the biggest and loudest student crowd at Colby in years.

Despite all of that and a nine point half time deficit, the Polar Bears scratched and clawed (apologies for the pun) their way to a huge win over their rival Mules to move to 4-1 in the NESCAC, tied for first with Trinity. Now the hardest games on the Bowdoin schedule still remain and the early gains they have made in conference play will be put to the test. This weekend against Trinity and Amherst will be huge in deciding whether Bowdoin will again host a home NESCAC game.

At this point, before we go any further, I should probably say that I care more about the Bowdoin basketball team than, frankly, any other basketball team, professional included. Heck, I traveled all the way to Pennsylvania last season to watch the Bears lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament. I have a completely irrational affection for this basketball team. With that being said, I think that the following analysis of Bowdoin is fair.

A three game losing streak, all by double digits, in December looked like a signal that Bowdoin simply did not have the same chutzpah that got them through so many close games last season. For the first time, I had actual doubts about whether Bowdoin was going to be able to contend. So, two weekends ago I came back to campus early to watch Bowdoin play Williams, a game that I thought had terrible match ups for Bowdoin nearly across the board. Then the first half happened and Bowdoin raced out to a 17-point halftime lead. Yet even when Bowdoin was up 20 with under 14 minutes to go, I knew Williams was going to come back because the Polar Bears don’t win games easily. More often than not, they win right when you begin to think the possibility that a loss is eminent. Even though the Ephs came storming back and almost won the game, what the win over Williams did was pull me back into believing whole-heartedly that Bowdoin could compete for the NESCAC championship.

More Adversity

Then, later last week the devastating news of the injury to Keegan Pieri ’15 came out. Pieri had just started playing his best basketball of the season according to Coach Tim Gilbride. He averaged 18.0 points per game and 8.0 rebounds per game in the wins over Hamilton and Williams. Even in a league suddenly overflowing with 6’6″ forwards capable of taking over games offensively, Pieri was a mismatch for teams. He could hit open threes and put it on the floor when needed. But where he really shined was when he was isolated one-on-one in the mid-post. Pieri is a lethal shooter from the 10-15 foot area where he uses his length to shoot over defenders. If defenders got up too close he was able to exploit them with a lefty hook shot. He is a really crafty offensive player that has a great feel of the game. More often not, when Bowdoin needed a bucket, their offense was going through Pieri and he was creating either his own shot or the Polar Bears would swing it around the perimeter to a guard.

The loss of Pieri is even worse because Bowdoin already lost another forward, Neil Fuller ’17, to injury back in December. Bowdoin was a team that lacked depth when the season began, but forward was the one position where the Polar Bears could actually say they had plenty of impact players. Without Fuller, Matt Palecki ’16 moved into the starting lineup and saw his minutes increase while bench players Liam Farley ’18 and Jack Hewitt ’17 saw a little uptick in their minutes. Suddenly Farley and Hewitt move from secondary pieces to critical rotation members. Even though Bowdoin is not going to need their bench to produce much, those guys need to do enough to keep Bowdoin in the game and keep Gilbride comfortable with resting his starters.

Farley was a huge part of the second half comeback against Colby. He scored seven of Bowdoin’s 12 points during a huge 12-1 run to take the lead. His confidence was clear when, after shooting 0-4 in the first half, he stepped into an open three that gave Bowdoin a 48-47 lead. That offense and shooting is going to be critical going forward to keep the Bears in close games. From day one, Farley has been serene with the ball, never looking like an overmatched freshman. He does not have the same post game as Pieri, but he should be able to replace most of his outside shooting and slashing. Gilbride says a big reason Farley belongs on the court now is that “he has a better idea of team principles, especially defensively which require a lot of vision and idea of what other guys are doing.” Learning defensive rotations at a new level is often the hardest thing for a freshmen to do, and though he is still capable of freshmen mistakes, the 10 minutes in the second half Farley played against Colby shows that Gilbride thinks he will makes the right play more often than not.

Guard Leadership

Even though Bowdoin graduated their entire starting backcourt from last season, Gilbride knew going into the season that he had a more offensively talented duo this season in Bryan Hurley ’15 and Lucas Hausman ’16. Hurley of course was injured for most of last season but was the starter for his entire sophomore year. At the beginning of the season Gilbride could see that Hurley was pressing somewhat because he wanted to win so badly. He forced things too often as a point guard instead of having things come to him. Since Christmas break, Hurley has turned it around and gotten his swagger back. He is getting into the lane more and had eight assists three games in a row two weeks ago. He uses his body exceptionally well when he is in the paint to shield defenders from swiping at the ball. Hurley says the team is running more pick and rolls, something that the senior guard welcomes.

His partner in crime in the backcourt is Hausman, a junior who has had to bide his time as a scorer off the bench before becoming a starter this season. He is unique to this Bowdoin roster in his ability to finish in traffic because of his athleticism. His skill set is even changing up the way that Bowdoin tries to play. Hurley says that, “now with the loss of Keegan and Neil still out, we have been trying to push more in transition because Lucas is such a great finisher.”  Watching Hausman on the fast break is awesome. Despite being only 170 pounds with a full stomach, he has no fear in barreling into multiple defenders. You can see the defenders think they have him stopped before Hausman twists and contorts until he finds some sliver where he pushes through and gets off a quality shot. He is admittedly more comfortable shooting off of the bounce than in catch and shoot situations which explains why he is only hitting on 25.9 percent of his threes. Though he is not always the most efficient player, when he gets hot, teams are in deep trouble.

Challenges Ahead

Now Gilbride has to figure how to stretch this thin roster out over two tough road games on back-to-back days. With the short bench Gilbride says the coaching staff has a plan for how to manage everyone’s minutes, but once Bowdoin is in a game situation, things are always capable of changing. Guys that I’ve barely mentioned here like Palecki, Jake Donnelly ’16 and Hewitt will all have to make huge contributions for Bowdoin to win at least one of their games.

The game tonight against Trinity is a rematch of last year’s NESCAC quarterfinal triple overtime thriller that saw the Bantams prevail in Brunswick.  The Polar Bears know all about Trinity’s strengths on the defensive end. “Trinity is good in one-on-one matchups,” says Gilbride. “They have good length, strength, and athleticism to make it tough that way. Then they are very well coached as a team so they are good at rotating down and getting an extra guy in the paint.” The game tonight will not be an aesthetically pleasing one, and whoever can make just enough shots will pull it out.

Remember also that Bowdoin is doing all this even though Swords is scoring less this season. Though his scoring is down, Swords remains a huge presence in the paint that teams fear. Teams are shooting 28 threes per game against Bowdoin in conference play. Williams, who would shoot a three before they took an open layup, is averaging 27 threes per game for the season. Guards are loathe to try to challenge Swords at the rim, and he is so big that he clogs up a lot of lanes by simply being in the paint.

The hardest games on Bowdoin’s schedule are still in front of them. The Polar Bears wore down last season losing five of their last seven games, albeit in very close games against good competition. It will be a challenge for Bowdoin to bring it every game, but they have shown their reslience thus far. Yes, losing Pieri hurts a lot. But Palecki says, “[Pieri’s] injury is just another large bump on what has been a pretty bumpy road so far.”