HARVARDDADGRAD
Postdoc
Posts: 2692
Loc: New Jersey
Reg: 01-21-14
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11-29-16 11:17 AM - Post#214306
In response to mrjames
Hopefully, Dartmouth's freshmen will become relevant in league play. I feel that rim protection is the key to long term success, especially on defense.
For instance, without Kuakamensah, a small Bryant squad penetrated effectively against Brown last night. Mika (BYU), Travis (Stanford), and Young (Pitt) each destroyed Princeton, Harvard and Yale respectively. Last year, when Zena went down - injury and/or fouls - Harvard's defense fell apart. Guards and forwards can't play aggressive perimeter defense without a back line behind them. Sure, there are other factors, but this one is easy to spot.
Strides in Ivy recruiting resulted in Yale's strong (for an Ivy team) inside presence last year and Harvard's this year (leading league in rebounding margin and blocked shots). However, finding athletic bigs is still a rare Ivy commodity. I'm convinced that our league recruits talented 6'6" to 6'9" guys who, if a few inches taller, could be at Power 5 schools. Currently, Dartmouth, Brown and to some extent Penn and Cornell are without rim protection (although Onourah helps if he's healthy and can avoid fouls). Columbia has size, but when Coby missed a few games apparently the back line suffered as guys like Meisner and Petrasek like to play away from the basket. Princeton has size also, but Brase, Miller, Brennan haven't proven to be shot blockers and Brase likes to play away from the basket while Miller/Brennan haven't established an offensive option against players of their own size. Regardless, many of the Ivy's larger defenders are liabilities on offense.
Yale has size and good post play in Downey, and some aggressive forwards and a large guard in Oni. Bruner will help.
At Harvard, with Zena riding the bench, even the freshmen and Egi have been vulnerable. Welsh, Baker and Egi haven't shown much, and Lewis fouled out against UMass in 10 minutes. I fully expect Amaker to reinstall Zena.
Anyway, against strong OOC competition, I believe the league's lack of rim protection becomes exposed. On the rare occasions when it doesn't, the league performs very well.
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