The announcement was made official on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. Duncan Robinson is leaving Williams to take a scholarship at Michigan. NESCAC fans everywhere, except for a certain corner of Massachusetts, had a little more pep in their step knowing their teams wouldn’t fall victim to Robinson’s devastating shooting over the next three years.
This was really an unprecedented offseason in NESCAC basketball because the two top underclassmen, Robinson and Matt Hart formerly of Hamilton, both transferred to Division 1 programs. Hart received a preferred walk-on spot at George Washington in the A-10 conference where he will have a chance to win a scholarship while sitting out a year because of NCAA transfer rules. Robinson’s transfer has received a lot more press nationally (SI.com and YahooSports.com have run stories) because he is receiving a guaranteed scholarship and Michigan is a much more high profile program. Writer Peter Lindholm covered some of the potential impact on the NESCAC 2014-2015 season, and we will have much more about the effect of those two leaving as we get closer to the winter.
How Robinson went from a lightly regarded high school senior to the NESCAC Rookie of the Year and subsequently a Big 10 recruit is a story of hard work and a different developmental curve. At this point it is pretty well documented how coming out of high school Robinson had offers from other schools but choose Williams early and stuck to that because none of those offers gave him nearly the combination of athletics and academics. His game, already underrated, kept getting better and better while playing for the Middlesex Magic and Phillips Exeter.He submitted one of the finest NESCAC freshman seasons ever last year. After Mike Maker left to take the head coaching job at Marist, Division 1 coaches knew they had one last chance to make right on their mistake of missing Robinson before.
We gave our take on how we see Robinson’s game as he leaves Williams over at UMHoops.com so feel free to check it out here. Robinson himself has said that he is still growing and definitely has a lot of muscle that can still be put on his lean frame. When news broke on Robinson possibly transferring we reached out to a couple of NESCAC players and coaches to get an idea on how they felt Robinson projected and the general level of play in the NESCAC. The responses we got back were remarkably similar in their assessment of Robinson. Both Bowdoin guard Lucas Hausman ’16 and assistant coach Brandon Linton noted Robinson’s high basketball IQ. Hausman added that “He was also a very smart player and he made very few mistakes. He knows how to space himself and use screens to get open shots even if the defense is focusing on him.” Everyone I talked to obviously touched on Robinson’s greatest strength as a player, his shooting ability. Linton put it simply after noting Robinson’s basketball IQ and shooting that “there is always room for players on any team with that skill set.”
Their opinions of the jump that Robinson would face in moving from the NESCAC to the Big 10 centered primarily around the athleticism gap. Colby point guard Luke Westman ’16 told us that “Division I players, for the most part are quicker, faster and stronger. Division III players may be just as skilled, but could lack the explosiveness of a Division I athlete.” When we asked him exactly how the NESCAC level of play compares Westman said, “I think there are a few other NESCAC players that could play Division I basketball (primarily upperclassmen). I do not think any of them have the potential to be as good as Duncan though and achieve at a high level.” Hausman echoed this sentiment saying, “I think there are definitely some other players in the NESCAC that could be scholarship players at the D1 level (mostly Ivy or Patriot League), but have already used two or three years of eligibility”
At this point it is hard to project how Robinson will do at Michigan given the jump in competition, but merely the scholarship is a huge endorsement of the overall level of play in the NESCAC. Remember that Robinson was not even the best player on Williams at points last year. That would have been senior center Michael Mayer ’14 who caused NESCAC defense fits over the last few years. This isn’t an indictment of Robinson especially given the three year gap in college experience, but it shows how good some NESCAC players are.
Perhaps no player has seen Duncan Robinson grow quite like Wesleyan point guard Harry Rafferty ’17 has. They first played together way back in seventh grade, but they really became close friends when they played first together on Middlesex Magic and then at Exeter. Rafferty is very excited to see his friend take his game to a new higher level. Before he heard Robinson’s decision Rafferty told us, “if he leaves I think he will be great. He will continue to work hard and prove the doubters wrong. That’s just who he is. He loves being the underdog because he has been one his whole life.” He still thinks Duncan has a lot of room to grow as a player, and more importantly the desire and work ethic to achieve that level of play. “He is one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever met. He lives in the gym and takes a professionals approach to the game. Most importantly though, he is an absolutely GREAT person.” For Rafferty and others that have known Robinson for a while, there couldn’t have been a better person to have such a confluence of events happen to them.
We leave you with one final story from Rafferty about Robinson’s final game at Exeter in the NEPSAC Class A championship game. We wish Duncan Robinson the best of luck over the next four years at Michigan.
“We were playing Choate in the championship game. It was a pretty anticipated match-up. Both teams were good. A lot of scholarship talent. We had guys going to Wisconsin, Stony Brook, and San Francisco. They had guys going to Columbia, Yale, St. Mikes so there were a lot of guys who were theoretically suppose to be better than this D3 guy going to Williams. On top of that Duncan had his worse shooting game of the season the first time we played Choate. So he had a lot of motivation. I’ll never forget, we got off the bus at Endicott, and as we walked into the gym he told me he was ready. You could tell he was locked in. He went out and dropped 24 points and 11 rebounds on 9-9 from the field and 5-5 from three. He dominated and did it in the most efficient way I had ever seen. A lot of high level college coaches were at Endicott that day and I think that’s when a lot of people started to realize how good he actually is.“