While several of Tufts' fall sports teams are still in action, the winter season is fast approaching. Today is Nov. 1, when winter sports rosters will be finalized and released across the conference. Here the Daily takes an early look at the state of the NESCAC in men's and women's basketball and men's ice hockey this winter.
Men's Basketball: Are the National champion Jeffs better than ever?
It's not too often that a team can lose its winningest class in program history - and still improve.
But that may be exactly the case for Amherst men's basketball, which returns for the 2007-08 season without a four-man core - quad-captains Dan Wheeler, Tim McLaughlin, Dan O'Shea and Mike Salerno - that led the team to 111 wins in four years and a Div. III national championship this past March.
The Lord Jeffs are as scary as ever. They return senior Andrew Olson, the nation's best point guard, who propelled last year's 30-2 team into the national spotlight. Olson is joined by a star-studded group of five classmates - center Kevin Hopkins, forwards Brandon Jones, Fletcher Walters and Matt Goldsmith, and guard Adolphe Coulibaly - who are well prepared to bring another title to the trophy case.
So is this year's team, with all its returning talent, even better than last year's champs?
"In some respects, I think they might be," coach David Hixon said. "If you can believe it, I think even Olson's better. I've not seen him better than he is this year. He's put on 10 or 15 pounds, and he looks good."
Olson's supporting cast features one of the nation's best shot blockers (Hopkins), a captain of the Ivory Coast national team (Coulibaly), and two former NESCAC Players of the Week (Walters and junior swingman Brian Baskauskas).
"With all this talent, it's really going to be critical that people buy not into who's starting and who isn't, but the end result," Hixon said.
The end result may well be a NESCAC championship, but the defending champs in the conference tournament are actually the Williams Ephs, who stormed into March Madness with a dramatic NESCAC title game win over Amherst. The Ephs return a pair of senior co-captain sharpshooters in Chris Shalvoy and Chris Rose, as well as two talented sophomores, swingman Blake Schultz and big man Joe Geohegan.
"I think they're going to be very good," Hixon said. "They'll be better, they'll be older, and they'll be mature. I think they really found the secret when they inserted Blake Schultz into the starting lineup, and they'll have a healthy Chris Rose."
The Jumbos will be strong with their top three leading scorers, seniors Jake Weitzen and Ryan O'Keefe and junior Jon Pierce, returning, and Trinity is always a threat as well. The Bantams return All-NESCAC big man Russ Martin along with a host of other talented seniors.
Middlebury looks to be one of the league's up-and-comers this season,featuring one of the league's best guard combos in junior Ben Rudin and senior Andrew Harris, as well as a top big man in junior Aaron Smith. Conn. College and Bowdoin also have the talent to contend as well.
"I think it's going to be a strong conference," Hixon said. "The minute you take anything for granted in this conference, you're going to lose."
-by Evans Clinchy
Men's Ice Hockey: Who will be the ice king in a deep NESCAC pool?
This winter season, NESCAC hockey fans will be treated to another year of exciting competition on the ice. In just over two weeks, the Jumbos will open the 2007-08 season, knowing they can only get better from last year's last-place finish, which left the Jumbos with just six total wins.
On the other end of the standings, however, are three teams in the national spotlight that tied for a conference-best 11 wins last year. The Bowdoin Polar Bears just captured the NCAA Div. III title over national heavyweight Middlebury, national champion in three of the past four years. In the NESCAC Tournament finals, however, the Panthers' experience shined through, as they defeated Bowdoin in the NESCAC finals.
Colby ranked alongside the two other top squads as one of three teams with 11 conference wins.
"We feel very fortunate that we were able to do what we did last year," Bowdoin coach Terry Meagher said. "We believe in ourselves and we respect the opponents we're facing. We graduated some talented leaders, and now it's an opportunity for the next group to step forward and make their mark."
The talent at the top is exciting, to be sure, but keep an eye out for last year's lower-placing teams to give more established teams a run for their money. Seven teams finished the year with eight or more conference wins.
In particular, last year's eighth-place Trinity team could rise up the NESCAC ladder. The retiring of 33-year coach John Dunham at the end of last season allowed longtime assistant David Cataruzolo to take over, beginning a new generation of Bantam hockey.
"In my opinion [the NESCAC] is as deep and as challenging a league as there is in the country," Meagher said. "We are getting stronger every year."
-by Jeremy Strauss
Women's Basketball: Can anyone knock Bowdoin off top spot?
NESCAC women's basketball can hardly be considered the paradigm for parity.
Last year, Bowdoin won its seventh straight NESCAC championship, remaining the only team to have captured the conference title since the tournament's inception in 2001. Other traditional powers maintained their hold near the top of the conference, as Bates and Williams both advanced to the NESCAC semifinals for the sixth consecutive season. Upsets, once again, were few and far between; for the seventh straight year, no team seeded lower than fifth advanced past the first round of the NESCAC Tournament.
Last season's biggest surprise may have been Tufts. The Jumbos, who entered the 2006-07 campaign having never won a game in the conference tournament, advanced all the way to the NESCAC finals before bowing out to the powerhouse Polar Bears.
For the Polar Bears to extend their reign atop the conference to eight seasons, they will have to overcome the losses of three starters who helped them to a 112-9 mark over the past four years. The team graduated the most prolific scorer in its history, the Women's Basketball Coaches' Association 2007 Player of the Year Eileen Flaherty, as well as the NESCAC Co-Defensive Player of the Year in point guard Katie Cummings and a key three-point threat in Julia Loonin. Bowdoin will rely heavily on junior forward Jill Anelauskas, the team's second-leading scorer and a First-Team All-NESCAC selection last year. But despite all their losses, nobody doubts that the Polar Bears are the team to beat in the conference.
"They've lost key players to graduation every year - they still win," Bates coach Jim Murphy said. "Until somebody knocks them off, they're still the seven-time reigning NESCAC champions."
Bates, on the other hand, will boast a key addition to its squad this season, when 2006 NESCAC Player of the Year Meg Coffin returns in January. The center missed all of last season, which would have been her senior year, with a knee injury, but now returns to complete her fourth and final year of eligibility.
The Bobcats will also bring back junior forward Val Beckwith, who led the team with 16.8 points per game last season, as well as senior forward Matia Kostakis and senior guard Sarah Barton, the NESCAC's leaders in rebounds and assists, respectively.
But for all its offensive prowess, Bates will have to clamp down on the defensive end this season if it has any hopes of winning its first NESCAC championship. The Bobcats were ranked ninth out of 10 conference teams in scoring defense last season, yielding 62.5 points per game.
"Getting Meg Coffin back doesn't change the fact that our defense, particularly on the perimeter, was exceptionally poor," Murphy said. "I know we have some players who made All-NESCAC, and that's great, but I'll have to wait and see what the players did in the offseason to make themselves better defenders."
-by Sapna Bansil
