Hoboken, N.J. - The Colby Men's Basketball team continues its season with an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament. This marks the first time since 1997 that Colby enters the NCAA brackets, as they look for their first NCAA tournament victory.
SEASON IN REVIEW:
For the majority of the year, the Mules have been ranked in D3Hoops.com's top-25, climbing as high as 9th. There are over 400 Division III men's basketball programs in NCAA, and the last time Colby had been ranked was in 2010 when the Mules squeeked into the rankings for one week in 25th.
Colby started the season 18-0, including wins on the road against Middlebury and Williams, and posting a 6-0 record to begin conference play. The only two regular season hiccups came on the road against eventual NESCAC Champion Tufts University on February 1st, and then a week later to Amherst at home, and the Mules ended the regular season with a 22-2 record and second seed in the NESCAC tournament.
The Mules would get a second chance to avenge both losses in the semifinal and final rounds in pursuit of their first ever NESCAC title. Colby beat Bates 102-94 in the first round of the tournament in triple overtime after trailing the majority of regulation. In the semifinal matchup against Amherst, Colby once again trailed for the majority of the game before skipping ahead in the final minutes to top the Mammoths 65-61. The Mules found themselves in familiar territory in the finals against Tufts, trailing for most of the game before coming back and forcing double overtime. The Jumbos outlasted the Mules 102-94 for their program's first NESCAC title, and Colby was left eyeing the NCAA Selection Committee to see if their season continued.
Hoping for an at-large bid for the NCAA torunament with potentially a hosting pod, Colby was instead delivered its longest road trip of the year, heading to Hoboken, N.J. where they join Christopher Newport University (21-6), Nichols College (20-8), and host Stevens Institute of Technology (23-4) for first and second round action. Colby will face Christopher Newport in the first round Friday afternoon at 4:00pm. The winner of that contest takes on the winner of Nichols vs Stevens on Saturday at 2:30pm.
NCAA TOURNAMENT INFORMATION:
For those looking to attend the games in person, tickets go on sale at the Stevens gymnasium an hour before game time (3:00pm), $12 for adults and $7 for students/seniors. Children two and under are free. For those looking to stream the game, please click the following link https://portal.stretchinternet.com/stevens/. To visit the NCAA Bracket page, please click the following link https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/basketball-men/d3/2020.
COLBY'S NCAA TOURNAMENT OUTLOOK:
NCAA tournament play is intriguing for a few reasons. Extending seasons and rewarding good teams with extra games is great for the athletes and coaches, for the programs, and also for the institutions. Many people follow March Madness at the Division I level and know how elevated the pressure can get when it is "win or go home" mentality, and at the Division III level it's no different. One of the most exciting pieces is that teams are facing opponents that they know little about and haven't faced yet. Coaches will scout and break down recent video, but in the end its a matter of adjusting to your opponents strengths and exposing their weaknesses on the fly. To that end, Colby matches up as well as any.
Colby's ability to spread the floor with peripheral shooting and using that space to attack the lane is impressive. The Mules boast two scorers over 400 on the year (Sam Jefferson - 445, Matt Hanna - 420) while Christopher Newport's highest scorer, Jason Aigner, has 376. In fact, Alex Dorion (366) and Noah Tyson (348) also have more points than CNU's second highest scorer Dalon McHugh II, who has 301 on the season. Rebounding will be a key, as Colby's smaller lineup gives up size to almost any opponent, but Damien Strahorn's coaching staff has shown us that the Mules can adjust to size as well. In the conference tournament rematch with Amherst, a team who's size was a clear mismatch in the regular season loss, the 3-2 zone implemented in the second half of the semifinal game erased a 13 point deficit by holding Amherst to 23 second-half points on 6-26 shooting from the floor.
Sam Jefferson is getting healthier too. The NESCAC leading scorer for most of the season has been extremely limited over the last month of the season, missing four games before attempting to come back for the conference tournament. His time in the three playoff games weren't empty minutes, but he had only four points to show in 30 minutes spread out over the three games. The good news: Jefferson played 24 of those 30 minutes in the championship game and another week of recovery should see more quality minutes and hopefully a few more three-pointers added to his Colby career record of 281 made 3's.
The best thing about this Colby team is how deep the bench is and how many key players there are. In addition to the four leading scorers, so many others play a role. Tyson is the fourth-leading scorer for the Mules and leads the team in rebounding with 236. First-year Will King leads the team (and NESCAC) in assists with 152. Dean Weiner leads the Mules (and NESCAC) in blocks with 67. Ty Williams leads Colby in steals with 37. On the season, there have been seven different high scorers, and seven different Mules who have recorder at least 20 points in a game. This team is deep, and their expectation is for everyone to be prepared to step up.
After this weekend there will be 16 teams left in the country, and the Mules are poised to keep running.
