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WILLIAMSTOWN, MA-Williams (12-0) beat back a scrappy Nichols
squad (3-8) on Sunday during the championship game of the Williams
Invitational. Senior Eph co-captain Chris Rose knocked down 4
of 4 from three-point land in the second half to spur Williams to
victory, 83-66.
Said Eph Coach Dave Paulsen, "number one I think Nichols is the
best 3-8 team you're going to see, they had some very good
players...I thought we were half a step behind defensively early
on, and we were in a little bit of a funk offensively, but part of
that's playing five games in eight days."
Leading the Bisons early on was sophomore guard Chris Paquin,
who eclipsed his season average in points by the end of the first
half by pouring in 11 points, including a big runner off the
backboard at the nine-minute mark. The play resulted with a
tie score at 19-19.
For the Ephs, it was Chris Shalvoy who refused to let the
momentum swing to the Bisons. Shalvoy knocked down four
threes in the first half, each one coming when the Ephs seemed to
need it most.
With 7 minutes to go in the half Coach Paulsen received a
technical foul in response to some questionable no-calls. The
call seemed to invigorate the Ephs, as Williams started attacking
the basket with renewed energy. Williams would take a 35-28
lead into the half.
Williams would open up the second half with an 11-4 run, but
Nichols would negate that with a 10-4 run of their own, and as the
Eph offense briefly faltered the Bisons were able to draw to within
five. In trying to answer back, the Ephs would let the shot
clock dwindle all the way down to 3 seconds before a timeout was
called by Coach Paulsen. During the timeout, a play was drawn
up for sharpshooter Rose to take an open three, however as the play
broke down Rose ended up having to hoist the ball up off the
dribble with a defender in his face, but as fate would have it the
ball swished through the hoop and gave Williams a huge mental boost
at a crucial point in the game.
Said Rose, "We drew up the play for me to get the ball in the
corner and hopefully get a quick shot off, but he (the defender)
got a hand on the ball so I sort of had to regroup before I could
get the shot off."
Rose would hit three more such daggers in the second half en
route to a 24-point performance and 6 of 8 from beyond the
arc. Rose also pulled down 7 rebounds as his play earned him
the honor of MVP for the tournament. The 6'5", 215 pound
guard has really started using his size lately, branching out from
the pure shooter he started out as. Rose attributes the
change to a preseason captain's goal between him and Chris Shalvoy
to "breed a real mental state of toughness on this team, and
obviously it has to start with the captains."
Coach Paulsen added "it's not coincidental that he's shooting
the ball much better from three at the same time he's driving the
ball more aggressively - he's getting more open looks because now
he's a threat to drive the ball."
Now near the halfway mark of the season, Paulsen - though wary -
had high praises for his team:
"We've been able to play not at our best and still win, and
that's a sign of a mature team. But with no disrespect to the
teams we've played, the teams we're going to play in our conference
are going to be better than a good number of the teams we've played
so far, and there are some things we've gotten away with that we
won't be able to once conference play starts. This was a good
game to learn some things from and hopefully help us prepare for
Amherst."
Garrett Bishop and Bryan Riley kept the Bisons in the game with
14 and 10 points respectively. Both were named to the
All-Tournament Team.
For the Ephs, Chris Shalvoy finished the game with 17 points and
5 assists while Matt Weisbrot came off the bench to score 8 points
and grab 6 rebounds.
Sophomore Eph forward Joe Geoghegan added 12 points and 10
boards, and was named to the All-Tournament Team.
Williams will visit archrival Amherst for a non-conference game
on Saturday at 4:00 pm. The last two times Williams headed to
Amherst with an undefeated record, the Ephs lost (both of those Eph
teams, however, advanced to the NCAA National Championship Game,
with the '02-03 Ephs winning it all).
Williams Invitational Consolation Game:
Nick Harrington scored 37 points and grabbed an astounding 33
rebounds in SVC's (2-10) victory over Mitchell College (0-12),
88-77. Harrington was named to the All-Tournament Team, and
so was Mitchell's Eric Murray.
