In the final tuneup for many teams before conference play begins on Friday, NESCAC teams aced every test against a tough slate of teams on Tuesday night. The biggest wins were road victories by Amherst and Middlebury over #21 Eastern Connecticut State and Plattsburgh State, respectively. Overall, the league went 7-0, showcasing the depth and quality of middle tier teams like Colby and Bates. Both Maine schools won close games against quality teams (Colby beat #23 Husson and Bates vanquished Brandeis). In 2013-2014 the NESCAC went 2-3 when the same slate of teams met, so the league now enters conference play with fewer cumulative losses than last season. Here are a couple of other quick thoughts to get you through Wednesday.
1. We might have no more 1,000 point scorers in the graduating class: Graham Safford ’15 (Bates) and Dan Wohl ’15 (Williams) crossed the mark earlier this week, but they might be the only two members of the 2015 class to reach that mark. Below are some other players with a chance to top 1,000 points for their careers. Keep in mind that the games remaining and necessary PPG totals do not include postseason games.
Keegan Pieri ’15 (Bowdoin) – 779 points. 13 games remaining. Must average 17 PPG. Currently averaging 13.0 PPG.
John Swords ’15 (Bowdoin) – 725 points. 13 games remaining. Must average 21.2 PPG. Currently averaging 12.8 PPG.
Ben Ferris ’15 (Tufts) – 802 points. 14 games remaining. Must average 14.1 PPG. Currently averaging 5.8 PPG.
Hunter Merryman ’15 (Midd) – 759 points. 15 games remaining. Must average 16.1 PPG. Currently averaging 16.1 PPG.
Dylan Sinnickson ’15 (Midd) – 635 points. 15 games remaining. Must average 24.3 PPG. Currently averaging 19.1 PPG.
Though Ferris is the closest, he is averaging only 5.8 PPG this season and appears to be a different player than he was earlier in his career, possibly because of cumulative injuries. Merryman is probably the best bet to make it to 1,000 because he is averaging exactly 16.1 PPG this season, though if Middlebury makes a deep run in the postseason don’t count out Sinnickson. He can score from anywhere. The Bowdoin duo, however, is a longshot to make it to 1,000.
If Safford and Wohl are the only ones who do make it, the 2015 class would pale in comparison to the 2014 class that saw, by our count, at least five players score 1,000. Aaron Toomey ’14 (Amherst), Joey Kizel ’14 (Middlebury), Matt Vadas ’14 (Conn College), Taylor Epley ’14 (Williams) and Michael Mayer ’14 (Williams) all certainly eclipsed the mark.
2. Middlebury is best when they play fast: The Panthers are a weird team. Dylan Sinnickson ’15, at 6’5″, is far and away their best rebounder. His 12.1 boards per game ranks fifth in the nation. Hunter Merryman ’15 is the best shooter on the team but is also one of the biggest players on the roster. Before yesterday’s game (when Merryman went 0-5 from deep), the sharpshooter ranked fifth in the nation in three-point percentage. Their pieces fit best when they push the pace. Jake Brown ’17 is arguably the fastest player in the NESCAC and he has a very good 2.6 assist/turnover ratio. He causes havoc when he pushes it and can then kick it out to Merryman or Matt St. Amour ’17. In the halfcourt the Panthers often seem to be tentative and they lack an offensive post presence. Even as big man Matt Daley ’16 works his way back into the rotation after suffering a stress fracture, Middlebury should be able to continue to run because Daley is very good at running the floor for a center, and freshman Nick Tarantino ’18 has shown a similar ability to run and stretch the floor as a big man. Plattsburgh State was the best team Middlebury has played yet and the Panthers were resilient whenever Plattsburgh tried to make a run in the second half. Their trip to Lewiston to play Bates is the best matchup on the opening night of NESCAC play, especially given how last year’s match up ended in heartbreak for the Panthers. You can see Safford’s game-winning trey at the 1:30 mark in this video.
3. The Rookie of the Year race is over.
Even though conference play has not started, you can pretty much give Johnny McCarthy the NESCAC Rookie of the Year award.
— Nothing But NESCAC (@CACSportsBlog) January 7, 2015
Johnny McCarthy ’18 is really freaking good at basketball, folks. He is the best and most indispensable player on Amherst right now and he has an argument that he is performing at an All-NESCAC level. He leads Amherst in minutes per game with 32.3, the fourth highest in the league. He is second on Amherst with 12.8 PPG and has scored in double digits in each of the past four games. Where McCarthy really shines is on the defensive end. He uses his exemplary length to lead the NESCAC with 2.7 steals per game. Last night against Eastern Connecticut he played 38 minutes and matched up defensively for most of the game with Trachone Preston ’16 who came in averaging 20.2 points per game. McCarthy held Preston to 11 points on 5-20 shooting. In an overall weak freshman class, McCarthy is a stud.
4. Trinity is flying under the radar.
We say this almost literally because last night Trinity played a game that was not even on the NESCAC.com schedule. Only a notice from Trinity sports alerted us to the fact that they actually were playing against Manahattanville. After an easy win, the Bantams carry an eight game winning streak, the second longest streak after Middlebury, into conference play, but they have done so without registering any notable wins. Their formula is the same: beat teams up on defense, control the boards, and grind out points with Shay Ajayi ’16 and Jaquann Starks ’15. Whether they will be able to score enough against NESCAC teams is their biggest question. Trinity as a team is averaging a league worst 11.7 assists per game while it turns the ball over 15.7 times a game for a terrible 0.75 assist/turnover ratio. Unless they can improve on that, their eight game win streak will end Friday against Williams.
5. Conference play is going to be tons of fun: Usually in the NESCAC there is one or two signature games every weekend surrounded by mostly insignificant games. That is not the case at all this year. Viewing NESCAC games will be like the first weekend of March Madness where you are frantically switching between games trying not to miss anything crazy. Parity appears to be a very real thing. The top teams are worse, the middle teams are better, the bottom only has a couple of teams in it. Right now more than half a dozen teams are looking around the NESCAC landscape and thinking, ‘Why not us?’ Every team enters the conference season with some major question mark either related to personnel or lack of results on the court. The only thing that the first couple of months of the season have told us is that we don’t know what is going to happen next.
