The men’s basketball team secured a home playoff game set for this Saturday, Feb. 20 against Wesleyan with a couple of conference wins in February. In their first meeting of the season, Middlebury won 86-76 on the road in Middletown, Conn. against Wesleyan. Overall, the Panthers finished 3-3 (2-3 NESCAC) over the final six games, good enough to earn the fourth seed in the eight team NESCAC tournament. The semifinals and finals of the tournament will be played at the home site of the highest remaining seed after this Saturday’s quarterfinal action.
The Panthers finished off January with a road trip to Clinton, NY, where they took on Hamilton College and fell to the upstart Continentals 64-62 on a last second tip-in from freshman Andrew Groll. It was a frustrating result for the Panthers after they controlled the game for much of the first half and took a seven-point advantage into halftime. In the second frame, though, the Panthers went ice cold from the floor. They shot 10-34 (29.4 percent) from the field, going 2-8 (25 percent) from beyond the arc and went the final 6:04 of the contest without a basket.
Hamilton fought back and finally evened the score at 62 with 4:28 to play, and that was the last basket until Groll’s tip-in winner. Matt St. Amour ’17 led Middlebury with 14 points, while center Matt Daley ’16 had 12 and seven rebounds, and Adisa Majors ’18 racked up eight points and nine boards.
With a few days to get over their last second defeat, the Panthers took to the road on Tuesday, Feb. 2 and took on the Keene State Owls. Though an out- of-conference matchup, this game held particular significance for the team’s leading scorer, Matt St. Amour. Two years ago, St. Amour’s first-year campaign was cut short when the shooting guard blew out his ACL at Keene State. With that on his mind, St. Amour exploded for a spectacular 32 points on 8-15 (53.3 percent) shooting, 5-9 (55.6 percent) from beyond the arc and 11-11 from the charity stripe.
“I wouldn’t say there was extra pressure,” St. Amour said, “I was just very anxious. It brought back a lot of memories, just little things like the locker room and the spot I tore [my ACL]. After three quick fouls, I was starting to I’d never actually get the chance to play at Keene State. Luckily, the second half went very well.”
Coming out of halftime with the game knotted at 31, the Panthers went on a 17-5 run in the first five minutes, led by St. Amour with eight points and point guard Jack Daly ’18 with six points. Keene State. shrunk the lead to six with 5:05 to play, but otherwise the lead remained at a comfortable distance, and Middlebury finished off the 83-74 victory.
“It was a big win for us,” St. Amour said, “because it proved that we can travel on the road to a tough place to play and beat a tournament level team on their home court. It showed our toughness that we have developed throughout the season.”
The following weekend was very kind to Middlebury, as the seniors celebrated their final regular season home series with a pair of victories over Maine rivals Colby and Bowdoin.
The Colby Mules did not make it easy on Saturday, Jan. 6, and the Panthers had to claw their way to a two-point win, 67-65. In many ways, the Mules outplayed Middlebury, making nine three-pointers to Middlebury’s two and outrebounding the Panthers 45-28, but ultimately the difference came in the shape of 22 turnovers for Colby and just nine for Middlebury. The Panthers tallied 18 points off of those turnovers; Colby just one. The game featured a staggering 15 lead changes and eight ties. When St. Amour made a layup with 6:57 left in the first half to tie the game at 21-21, there had already been seven lead changes and the deficit had not gone beyond five points. St. Amour’s tying lay up came just moments after center Daley made an early exit from the ball game. The big man suffered an elbow to the mouth that caused a chipped tooth and some dizziness, but the injury seemed to spur the Panthers, who then finished the half on a 14-1 run to go up 35-22.
It took Colby nine minutes and 21 seconds to close the gap, tying the game at 47-47 after a 25-12 start to the half. Colby then proceeded to go up 54-47, capping a 32-12 run for the Mules. Middlebury chipped away for the remainder of the half, getting contributions from multiple different players. Majors and Daly scored the final two buckets, both assisted by point man Jake Brown ’17, that pushed the Panthers ahead for the 67-65 win. Brown had one of his best offensive games of the season with 18 points and six assists.
The Panthers had a slightly easier time on Senior Day the following afternoon when they bested the Bowdoin
Polar Bears 78-69. Bowdoin boasts the reigning NESCAC Player of the Year and top scorer in the league in senior guard Lucas Hausman and an electric freshman forward by the name of Jack Simonds. Stopping Hausman is usually a losing proposition, but Daly and his backcourt mates did well to force him into tough shots all game. The talented Hausman finished with 29 points but shot under 50 percent from the floor, while Simonds tallied 23 points. The rest of the Bowdoin roster scored just six field goals. For the Panthers, St. Amour matched Hausman shot-for-shot and finished with 26 points of his own and nine rebounds.
“We had a job going into that weekend,” Forward Connor Huff ’16 said, “and that was to sweep the weekend.
Middlebury’s final NESCAC weekend of the regular season saw the Panthers on the road against the league’s top two teams, Amherst and Trinity. Middlebury came into the weekend with the chance to secure the No.1 seed in the NESCAC tournament with a weekend sweep, but that proved too tall a task. While the contest between Middlebury and Amherst stayed competitive throughout, the home team never let the Panthers get too close, and Middlebury eventually fell 83-70. Amherst has maintained the best three point field goal percentage defense in all of Division-III for much of the season, and Middlebury was unable to overcome that strength, shooting just 2-11 (18.2 percent) from deep. On the other end, Amherst’s 10 made three pointers made the difference. Amherst sharpshooter Jeff Racy was lights out from beyond the arc, going 6-6 for 18 points. Amherst led by as much as 12 halfway through the first half and continually rebuked any Middlebury challenges over the remaining 30 minutes. Racy, of course, put the game away with two three-pointers in the final three minutes. St. Amour and Majors lead the Panthers in scoring with 20 and 18 points, respectively.
The following day’s trip to Hartford, Conn. had a similar feeling, as a 17-7 run by the Bantams midway through the first made the score 33-23 in favor of Trinity and the home team never looked back. The Bantams could not miss from the field or the stripe and wound up with the 97-86 victory. For Middlebury, guard Bryan Jones ’17 did his best to bring the Panthers back late in the second half. Jones entered the game with 6:13 to play and Middlebury down by 16, then proceeded to pour in 14 points in a four and a half minute span. The onslaught from Jones was not enough, however, as Trinity could not be stopped offensively. Majors lead all Middlebury scorers with 15 points while also hauling down eight rebounds, and St. Amour tacked on 12 points of his own.
The Panthers are set to host the Wesleyan Cardinals on Saturday, Feb. 20 at 2 p.m. The last playoff meeting between these two programs came in the 2013 NESCAC Championship quarterfinals, a game won by Middlebury 61-49, when this year’s seniors were first-years. Middlebury has defeated Wesleyan in the last 13 meetings between the two teams, two of which have come in NESCAC playoff tilts. The Cardinals’ last win came on Jan. 15, 2005. With a win, the Panthers will likely have to hit the road to either Trinity, Amherst or Tufts in pursuit of a third NESCAC title.
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