Courtesy Amherst Sports Information

Box Score

AMHERST, Mass. - Less than 24 hours after upending second-seeded Trinity College in a grueling back-and-forth semifinal match-up, the Williams College men's basketball team dug itself out of a deep hole early in the championship game to storm back to win the 2007 NESCAC Men's Basketball Championship, its third NESCAC title overall, defeating archrival Amherst College 70-69 in LeFrak Gymnasium.

The Lord Jeffs came out of the gate firing, sprinting out to a 15-0 lead in the first six minutes of action with hot shooting and tenacious defense. Sophomore Brian Baskauskas (Palo Alto, Calif.) picked up a pair of blocks early on to lead Amherst's defense, which forced five turnovers during the run. Sophomore Kevin Snyder (Littleton, Colo.) put the Ephs on the board with a three-pointer, but Amherst senior quad-captain Dan Wheeler (Bloomington, Minn.) responded with a three of his own. The Jeffs followed up with a Kevin Hopkins (Greenfield Center, N.Y.) layup, increasing their lead to 20-3 after 7:48, forcing a third Williams timeout.

Amherst senior quad-captain Mike Salerno (Shrewsbury, Mass.) knocked down a three to bring his team's lead to 16 points with 10:26 on the clock, but junior quad-captain Chris Shalvoy (Rochester, N.Y.) responded with a three of his own to ignite a 14-2 Williams run, cutting the deficit to just four points with 4:29 remaining in the half. The teams traded buckets the rest of the way, with a Wheeler free throw bringing the Amherst lead to 34-28 heading into halftime.

Despite starting the game ice cold, Williams shot 44 percent in the first half, including 45.5 percent (5-for-11) from beyond the arc. Williams junior quad-captain Chris Rose (Middletown, N.Y.) led all scorers in the first frame with 13 points on 5-for-9 shooting, while junior Andrew Olson (San Diego, Calif.) scored nine points to lead the Jeffs. Amherst shot 40.6 percent from the field and knocked down eight of 16 three-point attempts, but only shot 50 percent (4-for-8) from the line.

The Amherst lead hovered between six and eight points for the first four minutes of the second half, but Shalvoy connected for threes on consecutive Williams possessions to cut the Ephs' deficit to just two points, marking the closest they had been to the Jeffs since the opening tip.

Wheeler knocked down his second three of the game to give Amherst a six-point advantage with 13:12 remaining, but sophomore Tommas Golia (Lo Jolla, Calif.) matched him with three points of his own. The Jeffs went right back to Wheeler on the next possession, and the senior buried another shot from downtown. Not to be outdone, Golia matched Wheeler once again on the next possession, bringing the score to 49-46 with 12 minutes to play.

After an Olson free throw, Shalvoy buried his fourth three-pointer of the game to cut the deficit to one point, but junior Fletcher Walters (Ann Arbor, Mich.) scored the next four points of the game to bring Amherst's lead to five points. Shalvoy continued to dominate, however, knocking down his fifth three to tie the game at 56-56 before the Ephs took their first lead of the game on a jumper by Snyder. Olson drove in for a layup to reclaim the lead, but Shalvoy once again silenced the Amherst crowd with a bomb from downtown, giving Williams a 63-61 lead with five minutes on the clock.

The Ephs took their largest lead of the game when first-year Blake Schultz (Atherton, Calif.) connected from downtown to give Williams a 66-61 lead, but a pair of free throws from Amherst senior quad-captain Tim McLaughlin (Chatham, N.J.) tied the game at 66-66 less than a minute later. A Shalvoy jumper handed the lead back to Williams, but Hopkins came up huge by putting in a layup and drawing a foul in the process, giving the Jeffs a 69-68 lead with the made free throw.

Williams came out of a timeout and worked the ball around to Shalvoy, who spotted up for a go-ahead three, but was unable to connect. First-year Joe Geoghegan (Cape Elizabeth, Maine) was there for the clean-up, and his lay-up gave the Ephs a 70-69 lead with just 16 seconds remaining. The ball made its way to Wheeler after an Amherst timeout, but he was unable to connect on his jumper, as Rose came up with the rebound and was put on the foul line with just four seconds on the clock. Rose missed his one-and-one attempt and Baskauskas came up with the defensive rebound, but the Jeffs were unable to get a shot off. The Ephs erupted in celebration and their fans stormed the court, as Williams won its third NESCAC title in school history.

Shalvoy led all scorers with 23 points, 21 of which were delivered from three-point land. Rose finished with 15 points, while Geoghegan totaled 12 points an eight rebounds. Hopkins led Amherst with 16 points, McLaughlin added 11 and Wheeler finished with 10. Olson scored 10 points while picking up five rebounds and a pair of steals, with his 11 assists giving him 27 for the tournament, which sets a new NESCAC record.

2007 NESCAC MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, Feb. 17 at Higher Seeds
at No. 1 Amherst 72, No. 8 Bates 68
at No. 2 Trinity 77, No. 7 Bowdoin 67
at No. 3 Williams 84, No. 6 Tufts 72
No. 5 Colby 91, at No. 4 Middlebury 79 - OT

Semifinals - Saturday, Feb. 24 at Amherst
at No. 1 Amherst 82, No. 5 Colby 55
No. 3 Williams 91, vs. No. 2 Trinity 89

Championship - Sunday, Feb. 25 at Amherst
No. 3 Williams 70, No. 1 Amherst 69

2007 NESCAC MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 17
3:00 p.m. at Higher Seeds
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 at No. 2
No. 6 at No. 3
No. 5 at No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, February 24
at Highest Remaining Seed
2:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, February 25
12:00 p.m.

Format
The top 8 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Basketball Championship.  First round games will be conducted on Saturday, February 17, 2007 with the semifinals and championship games conducted on Saturday, February 24 and Sunday, February 25, respectively.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship. 

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play.  The top four seeds will host quarterfinal games with the number one seed drawing the number 8 seed, the 7th seed will play at the 2nd seed, the 6th seed will play at the 3rd seed, and the 5th seed will play at the 4th seed.  Teams will be re-bracketed with the highest remaining seed after quarterfinal action hosting both the semifinal and final rounds.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Sunday, February 11.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).

• Most conference wins (in games that are part of the conference schedule and count toward league standings).

• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).

• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).

• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.

• Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.

• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.

• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.