The Jumbos have a lot to celebrate after destroying two NESCAC opponents this weekend. (Courtesy of Tufts Athletics)
I hate to say I told you so … but I did. Of the 10 NESCAC games played this weekend, I correctly picked the winner in eight of those ball games, and one of the games I got wrong – Middlebury over Wesleyan – was in my favor anyway because my team won.
All gloating aside, it was a great weekend of NESCAC basketball for prognosticators and lay folk alike. Predictably, Amherst asserted their dominance over rival Williams, and on the other end Hamilton slumped to an 0-2 start, although both were close games. In the middle, though, there were any number of surprises. Middlebury beats Wesleyan, then loses to Conn? And Conn is 2-0? And so is Tufts, after scoring 194 points and allowing less than 70 per game? And the Ghost of Graham Safford ’15 inhabited Shawn Strickland’s ’18 body on Friday night? Vinny Pace ’18 is a star? Ed Ogundeko ’17 is a scoring machine? This is insanity!
Stock Up:
Tufts PG Vinny Pace ’18
Pace has been putting up good scoring numbers all season and it’s gone relatively unnoticed around here. No longer. The point man had two of his best games of the season and in limited minutes because both contests were blowouts. He’s become the main initiator of the Tufts offense, handling the ball and starting the motion, which is a huge testament to his abilities with a playmaker like Tarik Smith ’17 on the roster. Pace has good size and has been finishing around the rim, while also shooting over 40 percent from deep while taking 5.0+ three pointers per game. He’s our pick for Player of the Week.
Conn College
The Camels were 0-10 in the NESCAC a year ago, and now are miraculously 2-0. They beat Hamilton and Middlebury by a combined five points, but wins are wins, after all. They were able to outlast Hamilton down the stretch by making free throws and shut down the Panthers defensively on the last possession to prevent a game-winner from Middlebury. For a team that is relying heavily on a couple of freshmen, the poise they showed in their first two conference games goes a long way towards making the Camels a contender. They still have a long way to go before they can be considered serious threats to the top tier, but this was a good start.
Middlebury Freshmen
I’ve got to give some love to the youngest Panthers. Swingman Zach Baines ’19, guard Hilal Dahleh ’19 and forward Eric McCord ’19 all played significant minutes this weekend, averaging between 17.5 and 23.0 mpg. It began in the first half against Wesleyan on Friday when the Cards opened up the game with a double digit lead. Coach Jeff Brown immediately went to the youngsters, and they showed up. The Panthers have a top four that they can rely on – F/C Matt Daley ’16 and guards Jake Brown ’17, Matt St. Amour ’17 and Jack Daly ’18 – but Coach Brown is still hunting for the right combination of guys to share minutes with that unit. Perhaps he’s come a bit closer to finding that mix.
Stock Down
Bates Defense
Bates did well to slow down an explosive Colby team, but I’m more focused on the second game of the weekend. Lucas Hausman ’16 now has 43.0 ppg in his last two games against Bates. Excuse me? I don’t know who to blame. I would have expected Mike Boornazian ’16 to be tasked with stopping Hausman, but he wasn’t matched up with the NESCAC POY very often, perhaps allowing him to preserve his energy for the offensive end. The Bobcats could have tried more zone, to stop Hausman from getting eight looks from deep, and they sent him to the line 17 times, which is not a good strategy. Sometimes, great players just beat good defenses, but when it happens two match ups in a row it no longer looks like a fluke.
Colby Offense
As mentioned above, the Mules’ severely underperformed this weekend, particularly on the offensive end. Colby scored under 77 points just once in the Mules’ first 11 games, then put up 69 and 65 on the weekend. Of course, the defensive intensity is turned up in NESCAC play, but Colby failed to rise to the occasion. On the season, Colby is averaging 84.4 ppg on 48.5 percent shooting but shot just 40.0 percent this weekend. Their opponents, Bates and Tufts, have one thing in common – a dominant interior defender. Chris Hudnut ’16 struggled for the Mules, and perhaps Colby just isn’t equipped to compete with a team that has a strong front court.
I don’t feel like picking on anyone in particular, so we’ll end the stock report there. Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of mean things to say in the coming weeks.
PG Jake Brown ’17 is the engine that makes the Panthers go. (Courtesy of Middlebury Athletics)
Editor’s Note: Things can be a little confusing now that the season is underway. Consider the rest of our previews as season predictions based off of a compilation of conversations with coaches and players and observations from the first couple of games. All statistics that appear next to players’ names are from the 2014-15 season.
One word describes Middlebury’s 2014-15 season: disappointment. I know that’s terribly harsh, but there was no one around the league that would have predicted that the Panthers would miss the NESCAC tournament for the first time since 2005 – especially after the team’s 9-0 start to the year. Once NESCAC play began, though, it was all downhill, and fast. Panther-killer Graham Safford ’15 once again finished off Middlebury in the NESCAC opener. In 2013 Safford drilled a three-pointer with 11 seconds left to steal a win in Pepin Gymnasium, and last season it was four made free throws down the stretch to ice a home win for Bates. Next came the Tufts Jumbos, who sent the Panthers back to Vermont with a 80-63 loss.
The Panthers finished 17-7 and 4-6 in conference. The rotation lost forwards Hunter Merryman ’15 and Dylan Sinnickson ’15 (now playing with UVM), who accounted for 40 percent of Middlebury’s points last season. Without those two in the lineup, there is a serious lack of outside shooting, and the biggest question will be how to replace two 6’5″ bodies with range and the athleticism to get to the rim.
Middlebury’s reign of dominance – eight consecutive NESCAC appearances from 2007-14; six consecutive NCAA appearances from 2008-13; NESCAC titles in 2009 and 2011; an Elite Eight trip in 2013; a Final Four in 2011 – feels pretty far in the past these days. The Panthers are going to be fighting to finish in the top half of the NESCAC this season.
2014-15 Record:
17-7 overall; 4-6 NESCAC (t-8th); did not qualify for NESCAC tournament
Coach: Jeff Brown, 19th season, 291-174 (.626)
Returning Starters: Two
PG Jake Brown ’17 (7.2 ppg, 6.3 apg, 1.5 apg) SG Matt St. Amour ’17 (12.5 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.8 apg)
This should really say 2.5 returning starters. The “.5” comes from F Connor Huff ’16. Huff had a 12-game stretch last season where he started every game, and early on this year he’s come off the bench in the Panthers’ first two contests but played 19.5 mpg. Huff is a bit undersized in the front court, but plays with heart and has a high basketball IQ. That’s about as cliché as it gets, but Huff is dependable and you know he will play smart basketball. He’s efficient from the field and from the stripe and will rarely turn the ball over.
Projected Starting Five:
PG Jake Brown
Brown is a traditional pass-first point guard. His quickness and ball handling skills are unmatched, and with the way uncle and Head Coach Jeff Brown likes his teams to run, Jake Brown is perfect for this offense. He learned under the tutelage of future Middlebury Hall of Famer Joey Kizel ’13, and even though Brown is a much different style of player, he’s made this team his the way Kizel once did. I think he’s the most critical piece to the Panthers’ success, but the passing, running and defense are a given. It’s the shooting that’s the issue. Middlebury fans have heard about how great of a scorer JB was in high school, but he seemed to have lost his jumper before arriving in Middlebury. He’s worked extremely hard on that part of his game, and the early returns are great – Brown is 10-16 (62.5% FG) from the floor and 2-3 from deep. He needs to be an outside threat to make up for the losses of Merryman and Sinnickson.
SG Jack Daly ’18 (2.2 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.7 apg)
The two and three guard positions are interchangeable, and if you want to stretch the definitions a little bit, the point guard position is fluid, too. Middlebury will probably run with four guards on the floor at points this season, and they’re able to do it because they have another true point in Jack Daly. At this point, Daly is a bit like a Brown-light. He was hampered by an ankle injury for most of last season, which lead to some pretty poor shooting numbers, but is now healthy and has stepped into a major role. He’s a strong perimeter defender, too, which might provide Coach Brown with an opportunity to take Jake Brown off the toughest match ups sometimes, which could further lead to an offensive boost for the younger Brown.
SF Matt St. Amour
St. Amour is quite the enigma in Vermont. A two-time Gatorade Player of the Year and 2,000-point scorer in high school, coming from a high school so small it wouldn’t even fill up an intro econ class at Middlebury, he couldn’t have had much higher expectations. St. Amour got a good amount of playing time as a freshman, but he struggled to adapt to the college game and his shooting percentages were ugly. Then his season ended prematurely with a torn ACL in February. His sophomore campaign started off decently, but it was a miracle that he was even able to play 20-plus minutes just nine months after blowing out his ACL. It was an up-and-down year for St. Amour … until the last six games of the season. Something clicked for the sophomore, and, in the words of Coach Brown, St. Amour “dominated”. For Middlebury to be competitive in the NESCAC this season, St. Amour might have to be the team’s top scorer and be a multi-faceted threat on offense. He has the ability to shoot from deep, mid-range, and get to the hoop. He has a tendency to get into awkward positions when finishing, though, which has resulted in some brutal landings. If he can stay on the floor, 2015-16 could be St. Amour’s coming out party.
PF Nick Tarantino ’18 (3.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 0.9 bpg)
Tarantino reminds me of the guy below, C Matt Daley ’16. Tarantino has a bit more range in his game, but they’re both long and athletic. Right now, Tarantino is effectively splitting time with Huff, and I think that continues pretty much all year, but with such a guard-heavy rotation, it’s almost necessary to keep Tarantino’s height out there on the floor. At 6’7″, he can adjust shots and discourage interior passing. Can he guard thicker big men, though? And will he be able to slow down the stretch-4’s of the league? I don’t envision that being much of a problem, because there aren’t really many of those guys established in the league right now (maybe Williams’ Kyle Scadlock ’19 is that guy, but only time will tell), but it could definitely be a problem in non-league games.
C Matt Daley (8.3 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 56% FG)
Matt Daley, the perennial X-factor for the Panthers. I don’t think that he’s had a month during his entire career where he’s been healthy the entire time. He dealt with a lower-body soft tissue injury at the start of the preseason, but for now, at least, the athletic big is cleared and ready to go. Daley has a lot of finesse in his offensive game – think Tom Palleschi ’17, but more style – but he can get feisty, too. His frame reads as pretty slender (6’8″ 215 lbs), but he’s not an easy matchup for any opponent. My favorite example – the Middlebury game versus Tufts two years ago. Daley was – predictably – battling back from an injury, and so was only able to play 15 minutes, but 10 of those were some of the hardest fought minutes in the second of a game that I’ve ever seen. Hunter Sabety went 8-8 in the first half with a bevy of defenders failing to stop him. He went 0-1 in the second half and got so upset with Daley’s defense that he nearly spear tackled the Panther at one point.
Daley can be one of the game’s best offensive big men and rim protectors … or he could get hurt and miss a long stretch of games. He’ll be needed if Middlebury is to return to relevance this year.
Breakout Player: C Matt Daley
Daley has probably been my pick for Middlebury’s breakout player four years running. I think this is the year he finally makes me look good. Health is really the only question. If healthy and able to play hard for 30 minutes, he will put up numbers. Big ones.
Everything Else:
In case you didn’t figure it out, Middlebury has a lot of guard depth, but not much when it comes to the front court. Expect a deep rotation until New Year’s, as Coach Brown tries to figure out the best combination. Other guys in the mix will include guard Bryan Jones ’17, guard Hilal Dahleh ’19, guard/forward Zach Baines ’19, forward Adisa Majors ’18 and forward Eric McCord ’18.
Jones is another very athletic player. He was great for short stretches last season off the bench, coming in to provide energy, and he can shoot pretty well. However, Dahleh is more likely to amass minutes in the backcourt. The freshman can stretch the floor with a nice, lefty three-point shot, and can handle the ball if Brown and Daly need a breather, but his defense might be a question.
There is a lot of hype around the super-athletic Zach Baines. We throw around the term “athletic” a lot when talking about “student-athletes”, but if there was some kind of superlative suffix that I could throw on that word to describe Baines, then I would. Baines is “athletic-est”, if you will. He throws down with ease. He’s got about a 10-foot wing span. But he’s skinny and his game might take time to develop. With Baines at the four, Middlebury will have a tough time defending opposing frontcourts, but as the three Baines could be a matchup nightmare.
Majors and McCord round out the frontcourt rotation. I’ve gone back and forth on my prediction for McCord. Hampered by an injury in the preseason, McCord hasn’t had much of an impact in the team’s first two games, but he’s unique to the Middlebury roster at 6’7″ 254 lbs. Since the graduation of Pete Lynch ’13, the Panthers haven’t had a strong interior presence to both score the basketball and play tough defense. McCord, who hails from the same high school as Lynch, could become that player. However, with Tarantino and Daley both healthy – and strong minutes from Huff cleaning up the boards – there might not be a need for McCord right now. The Panthers have actually out-rebounded their opponents in the first two games. The bigger issue has been perimeter shooting and stopping their opponents from putting the ball in the hoop.
The beginning of the season is always tough for NESCAC teams, with games against opponents already three weeks in to practice and with two to three games under their belts. Heck, NESCAC Champion Wesleyan lost to Lyndon St. in its opener. Lyndon State! The 2013-14 Williams team that went to the National Championship lost to Southern Vermont in its season opener that year. Something about those pesky little Vermont schools … Panther fans, don’t be too disheartened just yet, but if shots still aren’t falling at the end of Christmas break, they might want to start figuring out what it will take to get Sinnickson back from UVM and Merryman from Spain. Furthermore, one front court injury for Middlebury and it could be a field day for teams like Tufts, Williams, Amherst and Bates that have talented front courts.
And lastly, I know I’m going to catch some heat around campus for being so critical … good thing it’s almost Thanksgiving break.
