February 28, 2010
Williams Wins 2010 Men's Basketball Championship
Courtesy Williams Sports
Information
Box
Score
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Top-seeded Williams downed
defending NESCAC Men's Basketball champion Middlebury on Sunday
afternon 64-58 in a contest where Williams once led by as many as
17.
The Ephs win their first NESCAC
title since 2007 fourth conference crown overall. Middlebury won
its only title in 2009.
A Jake Wolfin three off a Williams
miss at 3:06 drew Middlebury within six at 60-54, but from there
the Ephs used good defense and clutch free throw shooting by
sophomore guard James Wang to seal the victory. Wang converted all
four of his free throws on two 1-and-1 attempts in the final
minute.
Wang was the lone Eph in double
figures netting a game-high 19. Senior center Joe Geoghegan added
eight points and a game-high 15 rebounds.
Williams won the battle on the
glass with a 40-34 margin. Ryan Sharry and Tim Edwards led the
Panthers with seven.
Middlebury did not help itself at
the free throw line making just 7 of 17, while Williams converted
12 of 16. The Ephs out shot the Panthers from the floor 44% (23-52)
to 34% (21-61).
Williams improves to 26-1 on the
year and extends its win streak to 17, while Middlebury is now
24-3.
Williams opened up the game with a
10-0 lead and it took Middlebury a timeout and until 3:42 to get on
the board and the hoop was a three pointer by Tim Edwards.
The second Middlebury timeout of
the first half came after Blake Schultz found Ethan
Timmons-Schiffman for a wrap-around lay-in at 12:16 to put Williams
on top 18-12.
At 7:19 of the first half Tim
Edwards stole the ball and became the Panthers’ all-time
leader in steals with 191.
Trailing 32-15 Middlebury mounted a
comeback and went on a 13-4 run with Edwards hitting a three,
making 2 of 3 free throws, and Jake Wolfin, Jamaal Davis Andrew
Locke converting layups and Davis added two charity tosses to pull
the Panthers with eight with 36-28.
The Ephs’ Joe Geoghegan
netted the final points of the half with a layup with 31 seconds
left.
Williams had nine players score in
the first half with sophomore guard James wang the leader with
seven. Middlebury was led in scoring by Tim Edwards who posted a
game-high 11.
Williams held Middlebury to 30%
shooting from the floor making 10 of 33 and 3-11 from distance. The
Ephs shot 48% hitting on 14 of 29 and 3 of 10 from beyond the arc.
Both teams collected 20 rebounds in
the opening half with Ryan Sharry tops for Middlebury with five and
the Ephs Joe Geoghegan notching a game-high nine.
2010 NESCAC MEN'S BASKETBALL
CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Saturday, February 20
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 27
at Highest Remaining Seed
2:00 p.m./4:00 p.m.
Championship - Sunday, February 28
12:00 p.m.
Format
The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC
Basketball Championship. First round games will be conducted
on Saturday, February 20, 2010 with the semifinals and championship
games conducted on Saturday, February 27 and Sunday, February 28,
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 Saturday, February 13.
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.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Top-seeded Williams downed
defending NESCAC Men's Basketball champion Middlebury on Sunday
afternon 64-58 in a contest where Williams once led by as many as
17.