Men’s Basketball Successful in New Year

The men’s basketball team has played its best basketball of the season since the calendar turned to 2016 and, after a recent weekend sweep, are in the hunt for a home playoff game in NESCACs with a 3-1 conference record and 9-7 mark overall.

Middlebury ended its 2015 schedule with a blowout over usually tough Plattsburgh State. To begin the new year, the Panthers fell on the road against a tough Endicott team on Jan. 2, but since then have gone 4-1 and established themselves as contenders in the NESCAC. The highlights have come against last year’s NESCAC Champion Wesleyan, No. 18 Tufts and a Bates squad that the Panthers had not beaten in three years. In defeating Tufts and Bates, Matt St. Amour ’17 was named NESCAC Player of the Week by averaging 17.0 points and 5.0 rebounds per game. Middlebury also took down in-state opponent Southern Vermont on Jan. 4.

The Panthers opened NESCAC play with an 86-76 road win over Wesleyan University. The Cardinals entered last season’s NESCAC tournament as the No. 6 seed, but went on an incredible run and won the tournament. After their postseason success, Wesleyan was expected to compete once again for a NESCAC title. A year ago, Middlebury’s 97-60 beatdown of the Cardinals in Pepin Gymnasium seemed to galvanize Wesleyan on their championship run. This time around, the Panthers 86-76 victory over Wesleyan on Friday, Jan. 8 seems to have initiated the Cardinals’ recent struggles.

Wesleyan took a 14-2 lead less than five minutes into the game. At that time, Head Coach Jeff Brown brought all three of his first-years into the game and sparked a Panther comeback. Hilal Dahleh ’19, Zach Baines ’19 and Eric McCord ’19 combined for 24 points and 12 boards off of the bench.

The Panthers began the second half down 37-30 but quickly tied the game at 39 and went back and forth with the Cardinals for most of the second half. With 6:40 left in the game, Wesleyan stretched the lead to five, but that was as large as the lead would get as Middlebury began to chip away. An 11-3 Panthers run sparked by a pair of Jack Daly ’18 free throws that put the nail in the coffin of the Cardinals. A 22-25 performance from the charity stripe helped finish off Wesleyan and seal the 10-point victory, an anomalous performance for the team with the worst free throw percentage in the NESCAC.

“(Free throw shooting) was huge in our Wesleyan win, at Wesleyan,” Coach Brown said. “But it is a weakness of our team right now, just getting to the line and consistently making one-and-ones.”

After taking down the Cardinals, the Panthers were favored to best the Connecticut College Camels the following afternoon, but the upstart Camels surprised Middlebury with an 82-81 win. Despite perennially being at the bottom of the NESCAC, Conn. College has played the Panthers tough the last two seasons, losing by a combined seven points. This time around, the Camels finally got by the Panthers.

Once again, Middlebury started slow, falling behind 21-13 less than halfway through the first half. The Camels ran their lead all the way to 16 points with 4:08 to go in the half and went into the break up by eight.

St. Amour made a bevy of three-pointers early in the second in an attempt to bring the Panthers back into it and, with 59 seconds remaining, led 81-80. With 16 seconds remaining, Conn College Point Guard Tyler Rowe scored the deciding bucket on a runner, and the Panthers were unable to respond on the other end, sealing their fate.

With almost an entire week off to prepare for a home weekend, Middlebury was ready for the nationally-ranked Tufts Jumbos on Friday, Jan. 15 and just outlasted the visitors 85-82 in a thrilling overtime game. With top big man Matt Daley ’16 out with a foot injury, Middlebury had its work cut out for it. Tufts boasts arguably the best post player and second-best scorer in the league in junior center Tom Palleschi and sophomore point guard Vinny Pace. The Jumbos were bit by the injury bug, as well, as senior guard Ryan Spadaford - averaging 11.9 points per game - had to sit out with an ankle injury.

Jack Daly ’18 did a great job slowing down the lethal Pace in the first half, holding the sophomore to seven points on 2-5 shooting. Without Daley, McCord, Nick Tarantino ’18 and Adisa Majors ’18 were asked to fill the void and did so admirably. Coach Brown rotated the trio of young big men frequently to keep them fresh, and their tenacity paid off on the defensive end. Tarantino snagged nine rebounds in as many minutes, and all three did well to stymie Palleschi.

“The biggest thing (without Matt Daley),” Coach Brown said,” is that we were looking to double team Palleschi inside ... and just not allowing him to work one-on-one.”

Also on the defensive end, the long and athletic Baines introduced himself to the Middlebury faithful with a pin against the backboard on a Vinny Pace layup attempt midway through the second half.

“(Zach Baines) is an elite talent athletically, and a piece of that is his wingspan,” Coach Brown said. “He’s got the wingspan of a seven-footer.”

The game was incredibly balanced throughout as neither team lead by more than eight and both squads performed comparably in nearly every statistic. At halftime they were knotted up at 40 apiece, and a block by McCord prevented a three-point attempt from Pace at the end of regulation, sending the game into OT.

St. Amour put the team on his back in the extra period, scoring nine of the team’s 13 points. The Jumbos would not go quietly, though, and relied on their stars in the final period. Pace scored five points and Palleschi made a three-pointer, and Tufts had a chance to tie on the final possession. Pace had the ball beyond the arc but passed up a contested shot attempt to a wide open Stephen Haladyna in the left corner. Haladyna’s shot looked good but it ended up slightly right of the mark, clanged off the rim, and bounced away, clinching an 85-82 victory for the Panthers.

Riding high off of this upset, Middlebury stormed into Pepin the next day, took the lead a little over halfway through the first half, and got the best of a pesky Bates team. Bates has frustrated the Panthers recently. A year ago, a gastrointestinal infection decimated the Panthers roster on the day of the game against Bates, and still Middlebury battled to a four-point loss. Two years ago, since-graduated Graham Safford of Bates drilled a game-winning three from straightaway in Pepin to finish off the Panthers. The previous year’s game was a three-point win for Middlebury. On this Saturday, though, the Panthers got their revenge by defeating the Bobcats 73-61.

Still without Daley, Coach Brown leaned on a similar strategy as the night before, relying on a revolving door in the front court against Bates’ Delpeche twins who each stand over 6’6,” and on Daly to shut down the opponent’s top scorer, senior Mike Boornazian.

“We wanted to double team some in the post because of the Delpeche teams,” Coach Brown said, “who really have a lot of length and athleticism, but again I thought Jack (Daly) did a terrific job on Boornazian. He really made (Boornazian’s) offense really tough to come by.”

On the offensive end, St. Amour was his usual self, canning three three-pointers en route to 17 points while Daly and Jake Brown ’17 combined for 11 assists. Majors tallied 10 points off of the bench.

The Panthers remain at home this weekend and will welcome the currently 11-5 Williams College Ephs, who pummelled the Panthers last season, 87-62.