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Around
the Nation

Posted Feb. 9, 2006

E-mail: mark@d3hoops.com

Sorting out
the NESCAC
pile-up
The NESCAC regular season concludes this Saturday, a week earlier than most leagues, and the finish figures to be rather frantic.

There is a logjam at the top of the standings with Bates, Amherst and Trinity all even at 6-1 in league play. Tufts and Williams are only a game out of first at 5-2. That each team only plays its league opponents once may not be viewed upon favorably by others, but it does make head-to-head tiebreakers easy. Of course, in this scenario, there looms the possibility of having to sort out something tougher, which the NESCAC did for women’s volleyball when it waded through a five-way tie for third place.

The NESCAC has dominated New England men’s basketball this season. The league is 84-29 in non-conference regional play, including a 51-8 mark from its top five teams. That could play a major role in the selections for the expanded NCAA Tournament field, where the mathematics indicate the league has a really good chance to get three or more teams in.

Here’s how the schedule plays out: Bates plays its co-leaders on the road in successive games, knowing that a sweep wins them the regular-season title and homecourt advantage. Trinity, which draws Tufts at home before Bates, is in a similar position in that a Bantams sweep clinches the league title. Amherst, which hosts Bates and Tufts, most easily wins the league with a weekend sweep and a Trinity loss.

An Amherst-Trinity tie gives the title to Trinity, which rallied from a double-digit deficit to beat Amherst earlier this season. That’s the easiest of the many scenarios to break down.

Tufts and Williams can also put themselves in the thick of things with good weekends. Williams has a favorable schedule, but still has to go on the road against Colby and Bowdoin. The bottom line is that a team that feels it is the leagues best could finish as low as fifth and be forced to open the conference playoffs on the road.

“We know that to win the NESCAC, you have to be good enough to win a national championship,” said Bates head coach Joe Reilly, citing the back-to-back title game appearances by Williams (including a national championship in 2003), and Amherst’s Final Four and Sweet 16 showings the last two seasons.

Bates is a relative newcomer to this kind of success. Three of the best seasons in the 70-year history of the program have been the last three, including last year’s record-setting 19 wins. The Bobcats were NESCAC runners-up last season and graduated three three-year starters, but have not missed a beat. They’ve won three in-season tournaments, something that required beating conference leaders William Paterson and Trinity (Texas) just to reach the finals and had a 16-game win streak, one snapped by Tufts on Saturday. Getting homecourt advantage in any round is particularly significant for the Bobcats, who are 10-0 at tiny, sweltering Alumni Gymnasium.

The Bobcats win with defense, yielding 58.9 points per game (they’ve only allowed 70 or more twice). Junior point guard Zak Ray and junior forward Rob Stockwell have drawn praise from coaches both in and out of the league for their performance this season. Ray, a former Mr. Basketball in Maine, averages 11.4 points and 5.5 assists. Stockwell tallies 16.0 points and 10.3 rebounds.

“Rob’s an inside-outside threat with 3-point range,” Reilly said. “His best strength is his versatility. Zak is a team leader. When we need him to score he does, and on defense, he never takes a possession off.”

Trinity started the season slowly, adjusting after losing two starters unexpectedly. Robert Taylor decided not to play (he took acting classes in Los Angeles this year and is still enrolled) and guard Patrick Hasiuk tore a tendon in his foot. Losses to Curry and Eastern Connecticut caught many who know the Bantams by surprise

“I didn’t know where we were going,” said Trinity head coach Stan Ogrodnik.

The direction turned out to be onward and upward, though Ogrodnik admitted he still hasn’t figured out his team’s biggest strength yet. The Bantams still can be puzzling at times like in their most recent contest, a 77-52 loss at Williams.

“I don’t know what we do real well, but we play hard, with a lot of intensity, and have some very good character guys,” Ogrodnik said. “We were starting (several) new people and they were able to put it together.”

The one familiar face is Tyler Rhoten, an All-American forward who cleared 2,000 career points earlier this season, and has had another terrific season (21.3 points per game). The Bantams have also gotten solid play from junior point guard Pat Martin, a transfer from Division I Boston University whose cousin Russ is a reserve forward, and junior guard Kino Clarke.

“The league is like it usually is,” Ogrodnik said “You know there gonna be something you didn’t expect.”

In this case that was Trinity’s unexpected comeback win over Amherst, but other than that, the Lord Jeffs have been basically flawless at 20-2 overall and are first in the NCAA’s New England regional rankings. Amherst, the defending league champ, is not the same style squad last year’s team, which relied heavily on forward Andrew Schiel. His scoring and inside presence has been replaced by tandems — at the position by blue-collar big man Dan O’Shea and in points by John Bedford, Dan Wheeler and John Casnocha. Amherst’s four leading scorers can all shoot, with each hitting better than 40% from 3-point range.

“We have good depth and good size,” said coach David Hixon. “We’re pretty mobile and we shoot the ball well. We’ve now got three pretty good go-to guys, so we do things a little differently.”

This isn’t that unusual a finish for the NESCAC. Hixon remembered a similar scenario unfolding about 10 years ago, but until recent years the NESCAC didn’t even declare a champion, let alone have a postseason tournament. He knows better than to try to figure out what is going to happen with this weekend, and then with eight solid squads in the mix for the conference tournament.

“If anyone can pick what’s going to happen, God bless ’em,” Hixon said.

ON THE MOVE: Union senior guard Erika Eisenhut doesn’t like to waste time. When she was choosing a major, she figured why not pick two (math and psychology), since that would make every class more worthwhile. (She’s on the verge of finishing both and hopes to take graduate classes in the spring.) When she tried to decide which sport to play, she initially chose to play just soccer and basketball, but realized that left her with too much free time when the weather was as its best. That meant adding softball to the mix.

“I was only going to play the two sports in college, but then I decided I didn’t want to sit at home and watch Oprah all spring,” Eisenhut said with a laugh earlier this week. “I try to use my time wisely. It’s a challenge for me not to waste time.”

Eisenhut has made the most of her time on the basketball court and athletic fields. She leads Union (13-7, 7-3) and the Liberty League in scoring at 17.7 points per game, and that’s just the beginning of a lengthy list of athletic accomplishments. Consider that …

Her 1,175 career points rank fourth in the school’s women’s basketball history.
Her 48 goals and 30 assists rank third in the school’s women’s soccer history.
She’s one of six Union softball players with at least 25 career stolen bases.

Eisenhut has been a team captain (soccer and basketball), a Rookie of the Year (basketball), team MVP, an All-League first or second team selection (all three sports), an All-American (soccer), an ECAC scholar-athlete (all sports) and an Academic All-American (soccer). Her teams were good enough such that in her sophomore season, she played in the NCAA Tournament in all three sports, a feat she has a chance to repeat this season. And she loves being involved with every minute of every one of them.

“I love the atmosphere that our coach makes for soccer,” Eisenhut said. “It’s very competitive. Every second in practice is competition. In basketball, there’s a different atmosphere. The bonding with the other players is different. Softball is more laid back. It’s not in-your-face intense. It’s definitely a more relaxed atmosphere.”

Such multitasking requires the ability to work speedily and that is Eisenhut’s best athletic skill. Her speed has made her tough to defend as a soccer forward and basketball guard, and have been to best use on the basepaths, where she admits to enjoying “messing with the opposing catcher.” In basketball, teams have taken to face-guarding her now, but Eisenhut has fought through it. She’s shooting 45% from three-point range, leads the team in assists and ranks second in rebounds. Union last made the NCAA Tournament two seasons ago, falling to NYU in the second round. The program got off to a slow start this season, starting 0-3, but rebounded

“One of my favorite things is that, when I got here, in soccer and softball, our programs were really well respected (nationally), but our basketball program wasn’t,” Eisenhut said. “We were the underdogs. I like being the underdog. When I watch sports, I’ll switch who I’m rooting for in the middle of a game, to root for the team that’s losing to come back.”

That team has been Union, on occasion and Eisenhut has stepped up when needed. When the Dutchwomen were 0-3, she played a major role in fixing things, leading the team to an early 19-1 lead over Rochester in a game in which Union held on for a two-point win that got the team headed in the right direction.

“This year, she’s taken some of our younger kids and brought up their level of play,” said Union coach Mary Ellen Burt. “With the Rochester game, she took us on her back and told us ‘We’re better than this.’ She gets things together for us and makes sure everyone is on the same page. She wants to get into coaching and teaching, and wants to learn that aspect of the game. I think that’s made her a better player.”

Eisenhut is the third athlete in her family to have athletic success, and the second at Union, following her brother, Cliff, who played football and baseball. Eisenhut’s sister Meredith also was a three-sport star and was the Division III Player of the Year when the St. Lawrence women’s basketball team was national runners-up in 2001-02. The two never went head-to-head on the basketball court, but in both softball and soccer, the younger Eisenhut had the upper hand. As to who’s better, Erika offered this analysis

“She was way better than me — All-American in all three sports,” she said. “But I’m not done yet!”

WINTRY MIX: The battle for the top spot on the women’s side of the Northwest Conference is one that winds through some nasty mountain passes along a six-hour bus ride from Tacoma, across the state of Washington, where Whitman and Whitworth (two teams with a total of one home loss this season) await. The road to a championship is a harrowing journey.

Neighborhood rivals Pacific Lutheran and Puget Sound are tied for first place in the NWC with two weekends remaining in the regular season (the good news is that there is a playoff system this season, unlike the last few, in which the top three teams qualify) and this is a league race worth following. If you’re familiar with the mathematically based Massey Ratings, you might have noticed that the Northwest Conference ranks as the No. 2 league in Division III behind the University Athletic Association and is the only league in which two squads are ranked among the Top 10 teams. This might be the first year since 2000 in which more than one team makes the NCAA Tournament from the NWC, which is eager to show why it should not be overlooked.

PLU and Puget Sound have had their share of success both past and present. They’ve been virtually even this season, splitting the head-to-head matchups with each winning on the other’s home court.

“This team is as talented as any I’ve had,” said Pacific Lutheran head coach Gil Rigell. “We’ve relied on talent to get it done rather than stopping teams in their tracks. It’s definitely a contrast to the (prior PLU teams with 6-3 center Courtney Johnson). This team doesn’t know how good it can be. We’re deep, but we’re young. What you get on one night, you may not get the next night.”

The Lutes have battled injuries, most recently point guard Mallory Mann, whom Rigell called the heart and soul of the program (and who averages almost seven assists per game), has had issues with a bad back, while the team’s top post player, sophomore Emily Voorhies tore her ACL in preseason and is done for the year. Senior guard Kelly Turner (14.1 points) is the team’s leading scorer and a dead-eye sharpshooter (42% on three-pointers, 91% from the foul line) and right behind her are junior wing Nikki Johnson and junior forward Kezia Long, who combine for 25 points a game

“We were a young team last year, and we’re young again this year,” Rigell said.

Puget Sound could say the same, having graduated 75% of its scoring and rebounding from last year’s squad and one that went to the Elite Eight two seasons ago. The Loggers are small, comparatively speaking, with only one six-footer on the roster. A team whose primary scorers were posts has had to adjust to that, and to an injury to one of its best players, 6-foot forward Jessica Roberts, just eight games into the season.

“Our Elite Eight team was an inside-outside team,” said coach Suzy Barcomb, whose current team hits three-pointers at a 41% clip. “This year’s team is outside and further outside. We’re a surprise team. I’m not sure people anticipated that we’d do this well.”

Puget Sound’s top all-around player is point guard Sarah Carnahan, the team’s second-leading scorer (12.0 points) behind Kilty Keaton, and, despite being only 5-9, its leading rebounder (6.7). Barcomb noted that Carnahan has taken her game up a level this season.

“My role has been different this year and it’s been exciting to step up,” said Sarah Carnahan, Puget Sound’s senior point guard, who also happens to be a finalist to be a Fulbright Scholar, with the intention of going back to teach English in her native Germany. “We have a lot of guards on this team. All of our guards have to rebound.”

Puget Sound is the hotter team at the moment, having won nine in a row, including that road win at Pacific Lutheran last week, but a lot hinges on this road trip for both teams. Neither team uses the tough travel as an excuse, but it’s a factor that is unique to this league.

“There have been avalanches, and mudslides, and we’ve had to go three to four hours out of the way to avoid those,” Rigell said. “It alters everything you do.”

Both teams hope to dodge the feelings of weariness this weekend, but both admitted there’s a certain unpredictability to what’s left in the schedule. What is predictable, in their minds, is that those within the league will greatly appreciate their champion when all is said and done. They hope that is a feeling that spreads, pardon the phrase, around the nation.

“We’re like the Seahawks,” Rigell said of the NWC. “We don’t get the recognition we deserve, but we prove (the caliber of the league) every year.”

TWO-STEP: Through this recent stretch in its 13-game winning streak, the Howard Payne men’s basketball team has found success to come in pairs. The Yellow Jackets lost point guard Jamarcus Jackson to academic issues at the semester break and have since filled in with two young replacements who to that point had seen very little playing time — freshman Victor Hayes and sophomore Lee Scott, with the minutes split virtually evenly. Howard Payne doesn’t go very deep, but this is one case in which a platoon has worked out well. Sean Wheeler and Cliff McGuire have been the best post tandem in the American Southwest Conference this season, which has helped to offset Johnson’s loss.

The Yellow Jackets can’t push the ball up the floor like they did when Jackson was on the court, but they’ve managed to get better in halfcourt sets with the new regulars in the rotation. They’ve been able to win during this streak scoring anywhere between 67 and 113 points.

“They work in combination pretty well,” said head coach Charles Pattillo. “One is a really good shooter and the other is very good as a ballhandler, and defensively. There were concerns when we lost, but we have really good team chemistry. (The players) didn’t let it get them down."

Although McMurry put an end to Howard Payne's win streak Thursday night, the Yellow Jackets remain a game and a half ahead in the ASC West Division race.

PONDERINGS: Ramapo and Franklin and Marshall, two teams which have made multiple Sweet 16 appearances in the Pools era, are in danger of missing their conference tournament, let alone the NCAA Tournament. But no fall is more shocking than Millikin's, bringing nearly everyone back from last year's women's national title team but sitting at 4-6 in the CCIW, two games out of the final playoff spot, and 12-9 overall.

Season's over for a handful of teams after this weekend. The CUNYAC and NESCAC start their tournaments early, and those who don't qualify are back to the books. The CCNY and NYCCT women are going to be done after Saturday. (Kudos if you know what they both mean.) On the men's side, Brooklyn and Hunter will be done. Colby and Connecticut College's women are in danger of missing out, though not a lock, and similar with the Wesleyan and Middlebury men. You might remember the Middlebury men: They started out 7-0. Now they're 12-10. The Lake Michigan Conference also goes into tourney season early, but everyone in the league makes the bracket.

Are you a fan of regional rankings? In Division II, the No. 5 East team is Wheeling Jesuit, the No. 9 East team Salem International and the No. 7 North Central team St. Cloud State. Scoreboard junkies will recognize that all three of these schools lost to Division III teams this season, Bethany, Lincoln and St. John's, respectively.

Ponderings by Pat Coleman and Gordon Mann.

Notes for Around the Nation are compiled with the help of sports information directors across the country. If you have suggestions or information for this column, please send it to mark@d3hoops.com.

2008-09 columns
Feb. 20: York (Pa.), no cliche
Feb. 13: St. Thomas writing history
Feb. 6: George Fox on hunt
Jan. 30: Brother, brother
Jan. 23: Growing a program
Jan. 16: Dudek's rare feat
Jan. 9: Ravin' about Anderson
Dec. 18: Chicago marooned at 0-9
Dec. 12: De Luca back on track
Dec. 4: Ithaca surprises
Nov. 21: Augie gets some delp
Nov. 13: Is repeat possible?

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