Williams vs. Whitman NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 Preview
We have a powerhouse matchup in the northeast this weekend between #19 Williams Ephs and the favored #2 Whitman Blues. Although Hamilton is hosting the regional due to their favorable location relative to the rest of the teams remaining in the NCAA tournament, Whitman is undoubtedly the favorite in this regional pod. The perennial best out of the west, the Blues haven’t lost since November 24th. They avenged that loss to Pomona-Pitzer last weekend in the round of 32 and cruised on to the sweet 16. Williams is cruising in their own right too, as they head into the sweet 16 with back-to-back blowout wins in the first rounds of the tournament. The Ephs blew by Husson and Gwynedd Mercy by a combined 176-116 and find themselves back into the deep rounds of the big dance.
While Williams has had their ups and downs this season, finding their record at 22-6, significantly worse than their opponent’s 28-1, they have the talent to go all the way. They are, however, mostly an outside shooting team and undergoes their share of hot and cold streaks. Luckily, it seems that they are hitting a hot streak right at the ideal time as they shot over 50% from deep in their second round victory. James Heskett and Bobby Casey as the go-to scorers for Williams and drained a combined 51 last game and joined forces to shoot 9-17 from three-point-range. They also showed that they can scrap their way to a win on an off shooting night as they did in the first round, shooting just 7-26 from beyond the arc, yet still put up 86 points as they were efficient from the field. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Casey, Heskett, and Kyle Scadlock all in double-digits for points, each with the potential to drop 20 or more.
Whitman seems to always be in the final four and is surprisingly more experienced than this veteran Williams team that has had more success in the big dance in the past few years than any other NESCAC team. Their seniors have lost in the elite 8, final 4, and sweet 16 in their three years of college basketball and are hungry to make it to the finals. They have four seniors in their starting lineup, and their top scorers average 16.5 PPG, 12.4 PPG, 11.1 PPG, 11.5 PPG. They have a major deep shooting threat in Jack Stewart who has made 76 threes on the season at a 47% clip, but only have one player with more than 5 REB/G. They beat a good Pomona-Pitzer team in the second round and had all five starters score in double-digits. Guard Austin Butler, presumably playing as a ‘2’ or a ‘3’ as he is listed as a wing, had five steals in the win and shows that the Blues are skilled at forcing turnovers. This should be difficult against Casey though as he is an experienced and skilled ball handler in his own right. Whitman is shooting nearly 40% from deep on the season and looks to match up pretty evenly to Williams.
Williams X-Factor: Kyle Scadlock ‘19
I keep trying to push the idea that Scadlock is going to blossom in the postseason. He has scored in double-digits in 7/8 games and has scored over 20 twice in that month and a half span. He hasn’t been taking a huge volume of shots (4-7 and 4-6 in the last two games), but has the potential to take over the floor. Against such a balanced team like Whitman who can give the ball to any of their starters to score, balance is a much needed element for the Ephs this weekend. While C Matt Karpowicz and F Henry Feinberg have had their share of scoring heavy games, the only logical addition to the Heskett-Casey scoring duo is Scadlock. They’ll need to turn their dynamic duo into a three-headed monster to win this weekend in their opening round.
Whitman X-Factor: Jack Stewart ‘19
Stewart has had a magnificent shooting season as previously mentioned, draining 76 threes on the season. He has nearly identical shooting numbers to Heskett for the Ephs who also has made 76 three, although Stewart completed the task on 25 less shots. If Heskett or Casey start getting hot and shooting the high volume of shots that we have become accustomed to, Stewart may have to step up in order to keep the Blues on pace in scoring. If he does so, his efficiency will be do-or-die, a skill that has been unbelievable in 2019. Nobody else on the Whitman team really stands out as especially dangerous as their top scorer, Joey Hewitt, has never dropped more than 24 points in a contest this season. Balance is the name of the game for the Blues and if Williams can break away early, Whitman may struggle to keep up.
Final Thoughts:
The most important thing to consider in this game is season strength of schedule. Whitman has played against #11 Pomona-Pitzer, #21 Whitworth, and #16 Wooster, winning 5/6 of those games. While six games against ranked teams isn’t terrible, it’s also worth noting that those teams’ strengths of schedule were also weak. Yes, I realize that this is going really deep into who played whom, however, Whitworth had such a weak resumé that they didn’t even get an at-large bid into the tournament. Williams has been playing experienced and ranked teams all season which gives them a definite edge at this point in the tournament. With four teams from the NESCAC making the tournament, when Williams didn’t play a ranked team, it was a nice treat. The Ephs are locked and loaded and ready to return to the elite 8 this weekend and they have to tools to accomplish it if they have a good shooting night. I’m not uber-confident in Williams as they’ve shown how cold they can get, which led to losing 4/5 games before the tournament, but hopefully they’re past that phase.
Score: Williams 85, Whitman 82