hoopsfan
Masters Student
Posts: 644
Reg: 12-26-04
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06-13-17 04:02 PM - Post#230052
http://www.gocolumbialions.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB...
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Columbia 37P6
Postdoc
Posts: 2173
Reg: 02-14-06
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06-13-17 05:20 PM - Post#230060
In response to hoopsfan
Very impressive incoming class that appears to have the skills level to make history at Columbia. My guess is that Faulds and Bibbs will start immediately and Hanson, Brumant and Gabe will be in the rotation. Have to see more of Brumant, but Fauls, Bibbs, Hanson and Gabe look like impact players.
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cc66
Postdoc
Posts: 2203
Reg: 10-09-09
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Incoming Class
06-13-17 06:10 PM - Post#230061
In response to Columbia 37P6
I agree--it's a strong class. When we get antsy next summer, let's remember that this is the second year in a row they've announced the class on June 13th.
Edited by cc66 on 06-13-17 06:11 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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Chet Forte
Postdoc
Posts: 2966
Reg: 03-02-08
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06-13-17 07:51 PM - Post#230062
In response to cc66
Great athleticism in this class and good size in Faulds. If I am correctthe incoming players usually start working out on campus in late June.
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Dr. V
PhD Student
Posts: 1537
Reg: 11-21-04
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06-14-17 06:37 PM - Post#230094
In response to Chet Forte
This is a very fine class. Two stats that stand out for me are Faulds's averaging 4 blocks a game and Hanson's averaging 10 rebounds a game. That and the fact that we now have much more shooting.
Mr. James has tried to convince everyone that Faulds is overrated as a 4 star. Even if so, then only slightly. He has played other 4 stars in MI and has held his own against them. He is very agile for a big and can do everything, i.e., rebound, block, pass and shoot, well. He can shoot up to the foul line.
If we're talking about players being overrated or underrated, then Bibbs and Stefanini were pretty clearly underrated as 2 stars, even though both received plenty of mid-major offers. Both were late bloomers either actually or in terms of attention. Bibbs went from being 6'1" and averaging 13 ppg. as a junior to a 6'3" senior who averaged 26 ppg. His athleticism jumps out at you, and one of the players on whom he seems to want to pattern his game is Russell Westbrook.
Stefanini only played in the US his junior and senior years, and spent his summers playing for the Italian 16 and under national team. That put him somewhat under the radar here. I saw him play against college players last summer in pick up games and he certainly held his own both offensively and defensively (he's surprisingly crafty on D). He played against great competition in h.s. and was second team combined classes all state in NJ. It's hard to compare one year against another, but this year's ROY from Harvard was similarly a second team all classes all state in NJ last year.
Hanson has great size, athleticism and versatility (shooting, rebounding and passing). He hit for over 40 pts. several times this year, and seems to be equally comfortable taking it to the hole and hitting long 3 pointers. What I don't have is a feel for the quality of play in MN h.s., so that leaves me with a bit of an open question.
I haven't seen any or enough tape on our remaining two recruits, so don't have anything to offer on them but am certainly looking forward to seeing them in action.
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cc66
Postdoc
Posts: 2203
Reg: 10-09-09
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06-14-17 07:46 PM - Post#230096
In response to Dr. V
Then the starting lineup is Smith, Bibbs, Meisner, Castlin, plus Tape dividing time with Faulds?
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Dr. V
PhD Student
Posts: 1537
Reg: 11-21-04
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06-15-17 10:48 AM - Post#230110
In response to cc66
The easy answers are Smith at the 1 and probably Faulds/Tape sharing the 5. The rest is much, much more difficult to anticipate.
Who knows whether/how much players already on the roster will improve, stay static or regress from this year to next? Who knows which first years will adjust basketball-wise and academically how well and how quickly? Who knows which first years will demonstrate an ability to play Division 1 quality D? Right away? By Ivy season? And, which combination of players may show a special ability to play especially well together? I have a partial answer only to one of those questions, i.e., I saw Stefanini play against Division 1 players and believe he can hold his own defensively.
That about which I would hazard a guess, which obviously is a pretty safe guess based on what we know, is that 3 to 4 of the incoming will get significant PT as the season progresses.
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Chet Forte
Postdoc
Posts: 2966
Reg: 03-02-08
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06-15-17 11:27 AM - Post#230113
In response to Dr. V
While I admire mrjames for his devotion to Harvard basketball, he seems to have become the Asia Sunset of the basketball blogs ( for those who follow voyforums on Ivy football Asia Sunset is a well known Penn apologist). Mike James resorts to unverifiable back channel sources to pretty much damning us with faint praise while extolling Harvard and to a lesser degree Princeton and Yale. So his unwillingness to,concede the verifiable fact that Faulds is the highest rated Ivy recruit is part of a pattern. In fact, I think we have the best overall class in the Ivies, with Bibbs, Hanson, Stefanini and Brumant as instant comtributors, a tremendous PG in Smith, and a potential first team Ivy swing man in Castlin if he is healthy.
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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06-15-17 01:02 PM - Post#230114
In response to Chet Forte
Just because you don't like the news I share doesn't make it wrong.
You can believe me or not. My track record is very public.
I'm not a journalist, and I have zero interest in revealing who I talk to. If you don't like that, you can feel free to ignore what I say. I don't get paid to cover the league, so I'm not going to apologize for anything.
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Chet Forte
Postdoc
Posts: 2966
Reg: 03-02-08
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06-15-17 02:32 PM - Post#230115
In response to mrjames
Actually Mike, I love what you do. I just think that you have a blind spot for Harvard and tend to talk down Columbia. But then again this is what makes reading this blog interesting. And I will make no bones about the fact that I basically lack objectivity when it comes to Columbia basketball.
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Chet Forte
Postdoc
Posts: 2966
Reg: 03-02-08
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06-15-17 02:41 PM - Post#230116
In response to Chet Forte
CC66, I think you are probably right about the starting five. I agree that a healthy Castlin will beat out Hickman, although Hickman will be in the rotation along with Killingsworth if he has gotten stronger and Adlesh and possibly Davis.
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PennFan10
Postdoc
Posts: 3583
Reg: 02-15-15
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06-15-17 04:38 PM - Post#230119
In response to mrjames
Just because you don't like the news I share doesn't make it wrong.
You can believe me or not. My track record is very public.
I'm not a journalist, and I have zero interest in revealing who I talk to. If you don't like that, you can feel free to ignore what I say. I don't get paid to cover the league, so I'm not going to apologize for anything.
Seems like a pretty strong reaction to a post I found pretty accurate. Virtually everyone on here reads your stuff and enjoys your analysis. There are times, however, you present things as fact that are simply your opinion.
Chet, I think Tai Bibbs is a Mike Smith type recruit for Columbia, in that he was under recruited and is much better than people realize.
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Columbia 37P6
Postdoc
Posts: 2173
Reg: 02-14-06
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06-15-17 05:38 PM - Post#230121
In response to PennFan10
I agree with PennFan10's comments about Tai Bibbs. Smith and Bibbs are almost certain to start in a very strong backcourt where the third guard could be anyone of several players. Castlin, Hickman, Davis, Stef, Adlesh, Killingsworth all seem to be in the mix, but we know that Coach Engles is not shy about making substitutions so it may not matter who is the third starting guard given the deep rotation. I also share Dr. V's feelings about Myles Hanson. On film, he looks terrific, but Minnesota high school basketball has its detractors so we have to wait and see how he does against stronger competition. Still, how well the Lions do next year might depend on what happens at the forward position. There should be some nice competition with Meisner, Andrew P, Hanson, Brumant and Sica. Everyone knows that Meisner has the skills set to be a star in the Ivy League and beyond, but it hasn't happened yet. I can see Hanson competing with him for the starting forward spot with Brumant helping out on defense.
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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06-15-17 07:45 PM - Post#230122
In response to PennFan10
The read on Faulds, if that's what you are referring to, is not my opinion. I've never seen him play.
Columbia fans are really upset with me because I told them their 2015-16 team was going to be horrible defensively and no matter how good they were offensively, their defensive woes would keep them from winning an Ivy title. That was an amazing offensive team, but alas, the defense was terrible and it finished a distant 3rd.
Then, last year, I said that the defense wasn't going to improve (over loud objections) and that the offense was going to crash back down to earth. I also said after Caitlin was ruled out that they weren't clear favorites for the fourth spot.
Yet after providing objective coverage and analysis (check my projections for any Harvard bias - good luck) of this league, year-after-year, including running the content of this site for some time, people trot out this "Harvard" point to discredit my coverage and sourcing. It's a lot like what Jake received about Penn, due to his ties there. Penn, at the time, was one of the two best teams - by a large margin - in the league, so a lot of what his site talked about was Penn. During the recent time, Harvard has been pretty noteworthy in basketball, so it's going to garner a lot of the attention regardless of where I have ties.
Some of this frustration is from the Voy boards as well, so if it seems out of the blue here, some useful context is over there. I'll direct you to the post where my sharing of info I've received from others was compared to that of Donald Trump.
I'm an insider in this league. Believe that, don't believe that, I don't care. Asia is too. I don't know how he is, but I know he is, and I don't discredit him because I don't like what he says. My goal is to leverage that status to generate more interest in the league. But if it's just going to make me the subject of pot shots and jeers, I'm just as happy not to share. I care about the success of the entire league deeply and personally and care about sharing what I know far, far less so. Between my growing family and work responsibilities it's been harder and harder to do so over the past few years anyway.
No one had the conf tourney news earlier than I did. Still no one has reported the AI floor going up to 183. Or that we were very close to handing ILDN over to ESPN prior to its layoffs and that deal still could happen in the very near future.
I'm in my summer break from Ivy basketball, and as I do every year, I re-evaluate whether I can handle writing, podcasting, tweeting, etc. A younger me relished arguing with fans about this league. The current me finds it tedious. I think I'm going to keep my Twitter feed up for another year, but I'm going to continue to pare back my visiting of these fan boards. My goal is to enlighten, not be misrepresented. The latter seems to be all I face in this medium.
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6400
Reg: 11-22-04
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06-15-17 09:28 PM - Post#230123
In response to Chet Forte
I don't really get these criticisms. My impression is that mrjames has under predicted Harvard's results over the Amaker years, and over-predicted Columbia's. So I just don't see the bias -- I can't recall anything that he 's been particularly wrong about regarding Columbia.
Perhaps Faulds will be it.
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6400
Reg: 11-22-04
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06-15-17 09:34 PM - Post#230124
In response to mrjames
In support of your point about being an advocate for the league (and at the same time I suppose opening another front for argument), if anything I think you have over-hyped a couple of the non HYPP incoming classes (mainly Brown, whose class looks ok but I think around 6th in the league if I have to rank classes) and Dartmouth, whose class is well behind Brown. I'm of the opinion that for now the gulf is widening, at least between the top 3 and the bottom 3.
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hoopsfan
Masters Student
Posts: 644
Reg: 12-26-04
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06-15-17 10:42 PM - Post#230125
In response to Columbia 37P6
I agree with most that has been said about the incoming guys. It's fun to speculate about new incoming talent. These few comments meant to add to the discussion where I haven't seen anything much said.
First, the various freshmen-heavy lineups that have been mentioned if they happen at all will happen later in the year I believe. It is hard to move out upper classman who have started. When Mullins (28 minutes) and Lo (20 minutes) were freshman we needed them badly. Lyles had left. I think that was the year Agho had eligible but did not return. We have Smith and Hickman and Castlin who will have first dibs. So while there is better talent coming in I believe it will as always takes time to work people in.
Second, while Bibbs like Stefanini adds shooting and athleticism we badly need and has terrific talent and upside, I would not be shocked if it was Stefanini who got the earliest time. Either way would not shock me, but stefanin has the most advanced midrange game which is so valuable plus he appears to possibly be a more advanced passer than Bibbs at this point. If this happens I don't think it will be due to talent or athleticism, it will overall game and toughness. Obviously they will both ultimately play a lot and also play together if they are as good as they appear to be.
Also regarding lineups, it would not shock me if we tried at times going small, ie realy small, With Meisner at the 5, Castlin at the 4, with some combo of Brumant, Hanson, Hickman, Bibbs, Stefanini, and Smith rounding it out. I think the pro game is intriguing to college coaches who see the value of being athletic and fast and able to shoot at all positions. Plus it may suit our talent. I am not saying we won't play with Tape and Faulds etc. I just would not be surprised to see a smaller lineup at times as well.
Finally, two years ago we had some swagger. Last year we had it early and totally lost it late. Who is going to be the leader of this team, and will that person be our hardest worker? One thing I like about the incoming talent is that it includes guys who like to take clutch shots and guys from winning programs. But we all know college is different. In conference play you can make pretty moves but if you don't play hard defense you will lose. These freshman are a real upgrade but almost always a team is lead by upper classmen and who they are and how well they succeed as leaders as much as players will be as important as our talent.
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SomeGuy
Professor
Posts: 6400
Reg: 11-22-04
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06-16-17 06:44 AM - Post#230127
In response to Chet Forte
As best I can tell, only one recruiting site (ESPN) rates Faulds as the top recruit in our league. The other two main ones, Rivals and Scouts, do not. I guess if you really want to you could include verbal commits, which combines the three. Regardless, the demonstrable fact is that one service says Faulds is the highest rated incoming recruit. I don't think mrjames would dispute that fact. What he disputes is whether that one rating actually means he is the best incoming recruit.
The info he adds is usually good. He was up on Oni last year, which is one you wouldn't see coming by just looking at the ESPN ratings. Like many on these boards, he was up on Smith too.
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Chet Forte
Postdoc
Posts: 2966
Reg: 03-02-08
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06-16-17 11:05 AM - Post#230138
In response to SomeGuy
Engels in his comments which accompany the announcement of the class emphasizes the length and upside of Faulds. But he seems equally upbeat on the other recruits.
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palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32784
Reg: 11-21-04
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06-16-17 01:23 PM - Post#230147
In response to Chet Forte
There's really no need to launch personal attacks on anyone here. Asia is a Penn football fan first---and that team's track record speaks for itself. Mike James is a Harvard fan, but does this site for nothing--why on earth would you attack him personally for his opinion? I have disagreed with him at times, but that's what we're all here for. His integrity behind his opinions should not be attacked.
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