Welcome to Linking Around the NESCAC, your hub for the top news around the conference. Here we go:
Men’s Basketball | Middlebury emerges as unlikely D-III powerhouse (via Sports Illustrated)
In 2008 Middlebury made its first NCAA tournament appearance in almost a century of fielding a basketball team. A year later the Panthers won their first New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) tournament title, the ultimate laurel in a league that has produced national champions in Amherst and Williams. In 2010 the Panthers reached the NCAA Regional finals; last season they made it to the Division III Final Four; and this season, again for the first time, they hit No. 1. An eight-week run atop the polls will end as a result of the team’s first loss of the season, by a point at Keene (N.H.) State on Tuesday. But Middlebury, 18-1, is still tracking an upward trajectory. “Every year there’s been improvement,” says Ryan Sharry, the Panthers’ 6-foot-8 forward and co-captain. “It’s pretty clear to me what’s next.”
Amherst and Williams had long dominated the NESCAC, playing the roles of what Middlebury coach Jeff Brown refers to as “North Carolina and Duke” in Division III’s ACC. “We were Clemson,” Brown says. “Now we’re striving to be North Carolina or Duke.”
Football | Recap the full list of NESCAC signees on NESCAC Insider
Ice Hockey | ECAC East/NESCAC picks: Feb. 3 (via USCHO.com)
Football | Hamilton alum and Giants receivers coach Sean Ryan traces his success to the Ivy Leagues (via New York Times)
In his most honest moments, the receivers coach Sean Ryan said Tuesday, even he never imagined he would see his charges break out the way they have. But then again, Ryan added, he never imagined he would already be seeking a second Super Bowl title, particularly because it was only six years ago that he was spending much of his time scouring high school scouting reports in search of the rarest of football prospects — the ones with grades good enough to get into Harvard.
“When there is a kid who is good enough that you want and has the grades to get in and you’re fighting for him with Yale? Now that’s challenging,” said Ryan, who came to the Giants in 2007 after serving as an assistant and the recruiting coordinator at Harvard. “The Ivy League doesn’t have all the hoopla of the N.F.L., but that doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.”
He added, “I think a lot of the skills I built there have helped me succeed in my job here.”