Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - USC In NCAA 53- A real life MP dynasty

Vince, Pt. II · 07-31-2015, 02:32 PM

1954-55 Wrap Up: The Dartmouth Indian Post-Mortem

Prestige: 33
Record: 11-19
Conference Record: 6-8
RPI: 151
vs. Top 50: 0-4
vs. 51-100: 3-6
vs. 101-200: 8-9
Points per Game: 61.8
Points allowed per Game: 65.4

Season MVP: SF Sonny Freeman (Fr.) - 15.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.5 blocks

1954 Recap

Dartmouth was all over the place this year. The season opened with an absolute demolition of Drake in the MSG Holiday Festival, followed by close losses to #20 St. Joseph's (4 points) and Syracuse (8 points). Freshmen frontcourt duo Charles Smith and Sonny Freeman immediately made their presence known, averaging 17.3 and 17.0 points per game in the tournament, giving Indian fans a lot of hope for what could be a fantastic Ivy League season. Unfortunately, inconsistency was the theme of the whole year. Outside of a signature (and inexplicable) victory over Columbia, Dartmouth did not beat a single team with a winning record all year. There were, of course, plenty of close losses to quality teams (St. Joseph's, St. John's, Cornell twice), but there were also inexplicable losses to cellar dwellers like Hardin-Simmons (3-26), Brooklyn (4-25) and Maine (9-19). The culprit? Defense. Dartmouth was near the bottom of the entire NCAA in points, rebounds and fouls against. Despite leading the Ivy in steals and being third in blocks, they simply gave their opponents too many opportunities. What is heartening is that they were getting the steals and blocks - as the very young team matures, hopefully the egregious fouls (we're looking at you, Sonny Freeman) and turnovers will lessen, and the steals and blocks will mean more. On the plus side, Freeman and Smith are not at all afraid to bang around under the basket, and helped Dartmouth draw the 3rd most fouls in the entire nation.

When it comes to individual performances, look no further than freshman SF Sonny Freeman. Despite being only the #222 ranked recruit in the nation last year, he lit up the Ivy League in his freshman year, coming in 3rd in scoring, 5th in rebounding, 10th in steals and 9th in blocks. Even more impressive is his efficiency - he managed all of this on .454 shooting. He should easily win Ivy League freshman of the year, and has a pretty legitimate argument for player of the year as well (though in all honesty we expect Columbia SF Chris Telles to pull down that honor). With all that being said, Freeman is a fouling machine and turns the ball over with some regularity - something we can attribute to his youth, but hopefully will be cleaned up as he grows. One has to wonder how disappointed Yale is to watch Freeman - they seemed to have the upper hand in recruiting him, being tops on their list early in the season despite interest from Dartmouth...until he flipped Yale for us in August. Freeman isn't the only reason for optimism for the Indians, as fellow frontcourt freshman PF Charles Smith had a stellar introductory year as well. Ranked #540 in the US coming out of high school, Dartmouth got him on the call list early, and started courting him in earnest in July. Largely overlooked early in the year, by September he was garnering a lot of interest, most notably from Cornell. Early investment was key, however, and he ended up coming to Dartmouth. If not for Freeman, he might easily have been the Freshman of the Year in the Ivy League. His 13.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game were good for 6th, 8th and 8th in the conference respectively. Like Freeman, he turns the ball over and fouls a little excessively (though not as bad on either count as Freeman), but we'll hopefully attribute this to his youth. The biggest disappointment of the season for the Indians was without a doubt Junior PG David Bratcher. Despite solid ratings across the board, he struggled both offensively and defensively, turning the ball over nearly twice per game and only managing 2.5 assists per contest despite having both Freeman and Smith to distribute to. Not only that, he managed a meager 6.7 points per game on .328 shooting - simply unacceptable numbers. He'll have to show some pretty big improvement in the offseason; the only reason Bratcher didn't lose his job this year was the lack of an alternative.

The bench was, like Stanford, a weakness. Unlike Stanford's two-deep bench, Dartmouth went three deep, and had two other guys with decent minutes. Unfortunately, the talent just simply isn't there. In 1955 Dartmouth will have four new recruits and will also get the services of 1954 redshirt Marin Dutries, so hopefully will not have to lean on the starters as much.

Young Guns Report:

There isn't much to be said that hasn't been said about Dartmouth's impressive youth. The 'other two' recruits from the 1953 class, #196 PF Marin Dutries out of Canada and #307 SG Rodrick McFall out of North Carolina, show equal signs of promise. Dutries is a defense first big who will be a tremendous add to a team starved for defense this year. He redshirted in 1954 and has shown some impressive development thus far. At 6'8", he's a bit undersized, but will probably be the starting center come the fall. McFall actually played more minutes than anyone on the team in 1954, manning the starting SG slot all season long. He had a solid, if unspectacular, year that would garner a lot more attention had he not been overshadowed by the stellar performances of his fellow freshmen. 7.6 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 0.9 steals on .455 shooting as a freshman is a line to be proud of. We had two walk-on freshmen as well - SF Ike McMullen was a mediocre contributor off the bench, and PG Kenny Hansen actually looks like he has some talent...not realizing Bratcher was going to be so awful, we let him redshirt in 1954, so he'll look to take the floor in 1955 and challenge Bratcher for that starting slot.

Happy Trails Report:

After watching fan favorite German Vargas ride off into the sunset with fellow All-League 1st Teamers Neal Vanderpool and David Molloy last season, this year Dartmouth fans get to watch...no one of real note leave. Starting center Andres Theodore was quietly underrated all season despite being the only player on the team to post a positive +/- for the season. Other than Theodore, graduating seniors Hickman, Keefe and Fletcher played a combined 225 minutes all season long, with the bulk of that going to SF Charles Hickman. None will be missed.

New Faces Report:

Like Stanford, Dartmouth aimed a little higher on the recruiting trail this season. Despite garnering recruits 196, 222, 307 and 540 last year, this year we look to bring in #'s 134, 201, 204 and a player-to-be-named-later (who looks to be ranked lower than the rest of the recruits). #134 is C David Omara out of Florida. He's undersized for C at 6'7", but weighs in at a robust 248 and is strong as hell. Our scouts...well, they actually kind of hate him. But what do our scouts know?!!? He projects to be a defense-first big with a decent mid-range jumper. #201 is 6'6" SF Christopher Morehead. Mr. Basketball from Maine, Morehead was a nice snag to steal him from Harvard who led on him all the way until October. Perseverance paid off, and now he wears the Dartmouth green! He looks to be a solid all-around player eventually, who is slightly more polished on the defensive end at this point (could you tell there was a theme to recruiting this season?). The #204 recruit is SG David McMullin, who played high school ball against current freshman Rodrick McFall. Also, we may be looking into changing from the Indians to the Irish, considering our roster next year (McMullen, McMullin, McFall and McLaughlin). David is another all-rounder who projects to have a dangerous outside shot once all is said and done. There's still one scholarship to fill, and we have a pretty good idea who it will be...but we'll wait until it's a lock to mention him here. One player to keep an eye on - we went after SF Douglas Russell hard for a lot of the year, and he was simply not moved by our overtures. He signed with Brooklyn, and we'll definitely be keeping an eye on him. We'll more than likely play him next season, as we definitely want revenge for the loss to them this season.

1955 Preview:

C Marin Dutries (Fr*)
PF Charles Smith (So)
SF Sonny Freeman (So)
SG Rodrick McFall (So)
PG David Bratcher (Sr)
6th Tony Buford (Sr*)
7th Kenny Hansen (Fr*)
8th David Omara (Fr)
9th Christopher Morehead (Fr)
10th David McMullin (Fr)

Returning four starters in 1955, Dartmouth looks primed to be a whole hell of a lot better than they were in 1954. Dutries looks to be an outright upgrade over Theodore. Smith, Freeman and McFall are all going to have an extra season of development, and Bratcher will have Buford and Hansen breathing down his neck if he doesn't clean up his act. There's a good chance one or more of the recruits (likely Morehead) gets a redshirt, if only because we have much more depth (and sort of a logjam in the frontcourt). The unfortunate thing is that we have lost any semblance of size. Our biggest player next season will be 6'9" 215 pound Charles Smith...who plays like a stud, but not exactly an interior-dominating behemoth. The talent will have increased significantly, so hopefully that can offset the size discrepancy we're likely to face a lot of the time.

As for the rest of the Ivy, Columbia looks to be taking a huge step back in terms of talent on the floor. They lose their #2 and #3 scorers in Creekmore and Evans, and their first two players off the bench in Jackson and Davidson. They've got some decent young talent, but not a lot of it has seen much action, and it frankly doesn't look like they will be a team of the same caliber next season. Cornell loses two starters and their sixth man, but only Reams was a true impact player. Jones, Garrett and Martin will be back with some more development. They could be trouble again next season. Brown is in...trouble. They lose Schmuck and Long, so they better hope Lindstrom is as good as advertised. Harvard is losing any semblance of talent they may have had on the roster to begin with outside of Unknow. Then we get to the interesting teams: Penn, Princeton and Yale. Between the three of them they're only graduating one or two seniors who were impact players, and each of them has a young cadre of players who are already getting important minutes. With a few recruiting bumps, any of these teams could kick up to the top tier of the Ivy. 1955 should be an interesting year for our little brainiacs.

07-31-2015, 02:32 PM	#84
Vince, Pt. II Pro Starter Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Somewhere More Familiar	1954-55 Wrap Up: The Dartmouth Indian Post-Mortem Prestige: 33 Record: 11-19 Conference Record: 6-8 RPI: 151 vs. Top 50: 0-4 vs. 51-100: 3-6 vs. 101-200: 8-9 Points per Game: 61.8 Points allowed per Game: 65.4 Season MVP: SF Sonny Freeman (Fr.) - 15.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.5 blocks 1954 Recap Dartmouth was all over the place this year. The season opened with an absolute demolition of Drake in the MSG Holiday Festival, followed by close losses to #20 St. Joseph's (4 points) and Syracuse (8 points). Freshmen frontcourt duo Charles Smith and Sonny Freeman immediately made their presence known, averaging 17.3 and 17.0 points per game in the tournament, giving Indian fans a lot of hope for what could be a fantastic Ivy League season. Unfortunately, inconsistency was the theme of the whole year. Outside of a signature (and inexplicable) victory over Columbia, Dartmouth did not beat a single team with a winning record all year. There were, of course, plenty of close losses to quality teams (St. Joseph's, St. John's, Cornell twice), but there were also inexplicable losses to cellar dwellers like Hardin-Simmons (3-26), Brooklyn (4-25) and Maine (9-19). The culprit? Defense. Dartmouth was near the bottom of the entire NCAA in points, rebounds and fouls against. Despite leading the Ivy in steals and being third in blocks, they simply gave their opponents too many opportunities. What is heartening is that they were getting the steals and blocks - as the very young team matures, hopefully the egregious fouls (we're looking at you, Sonny Freeman) and turnovers will lessen, and the steals and blocks will mean more. On the plus side, Freeman and Smith are not at all afraid to bang around under the basket, and helped Dartmouth draw the 3rd most fouls in the entire nation. When it comes to individual performances, look no further than freshman SF Sonny Freeman. Despite being only the #222 ranked recruit in the nation last year, he lit up the Ivy League in his freshman year, coming in 3rd in scoring, 5th in rebounding, 10th in steals and 9th in blocks. Even more impressive is his efficiency - he managed all of this on .454 shooting. He should easily win Ivy League freshman of the year, and has a pretty legitimate argument for player of the year as well (though in all honesty we expect Columbia SF Chris Telles to pull down that honor). With all that being said, Freeman is a fouling machine and turns the ball over with some regularity - something we can attribute to his youth, but hopefully will be cleaned up as he grows. One has to wonder how disappointed Yale is to watch Freeman - they seemed to have the upper hand in recruiting him, being tops on their list early in the season despite interest from Dartmouth...until he flipped Yale for us in August. Freeman isn't the only reason for optimism for the Indians, as fellow frontcourt freshman PF Charles Smith had a stellar introductory year as well. Ranked #540 in the US coming out of high school, Dartmouth got him on the call list early, and started courting him in earnest in July. Largely overlooked early in the year, by September he was garnering a lot of interest, most notably from Cornell. Early investment was key, however, and he ended up coming to Dartmouth. If not for Freeman, he might easily have been the Freshman of the Year in the Ivy League. His 13.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game were good for 6th, 8th and 8th in the conference respectively. Like Freeman, he turns the ball over and fouls a little excessively (though not as bad on either count as Freeman), but we'll hopefully attribute this to his youth. The biggest disappointment of the season for the Indians was without a doubt Junior PG David Bratcher. Despite solid ratings across the board, he struggled both offensively and defensively, turning the ball over nearly twice per game and only managing 2.5 assists per contest despite having both Freeman and Smith to distribute to. Not only that, he managed a meager 6.7 points per game on .328 shooting - simply unacceptable numbers. He'll have to show some pretty big improvement in the offseason; the only reason Bratcher didn't lose his job this year was the lack of an alternative. The bench was, like Stanford, a weakness. Unlike Stanford's two-deep bench, Dartmouth went three deep, and had two other guys with decent minutes. Unfortunately, the talent just simply isn't there. In 1955 Dartmouth will have four new recruits and will also get the services of 1954 redshirt Marin Dutries, so hopefully will not have to lean on the starters as much. Young Guns Report: There isn't much to be said that hasn't been said about Dartmouth's impressive youth. The 'other two' recruits from the 1953 class, #196 PF Marin Dutries out of Canada and #307 SG Rodrick McFall out of North Carolina, show equal signs of promise. Dutries is a defense first big who will be a tremendous add to a team starved for defense this year. He redshirted in 1954 and has shown some impressive development thus far. At 6'8", he's a bit undersized, but will probably be the starting center come the fall. McFall actually played more minutes than anyone on the team in 1954, manning the starting SG slot all season long. He had a solid, if unspectacular, year that would garner a lot more attention had he not been overshadowed by the stellar performances of his fellow freshmen. 7.6 points, 2.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 0.9 steals on .455 shooting as a freshman is a line to be proud of. We had two walk-on freshmen as well - SF Ike McMullen was a mediocre contributor off the bench, and PG Kenny Hansen actually looks like he has some talent...not realizing Bratcher was going to be so awful, we let him redshirt in 1954, so he'll look to take the floor in 1955 and challenge Bratcher for that starting slot. Happy Trails Report: After watching fan favorite German Vargas ride off into the sunset with fellow All-League 1st Teamers Neal Vanderpool and David Molloy last season, this year Dartmouth fans get to watch...no one of real note leave. Starting center Andres Theodore was quietly underrated all season despite being the only player on the team to post a positive +/- for the season. Other than Theodore, graduating seniors Hickman, Keefe and Fletcher played a combined 225 minutes all season long, with the bulk of that going to SF Charles Hickman. None will be missed. New Faces Report: Like Stanford, Dartmouth aimed a little higher on the recruiting trail this season. Despite garnering recruits 196, 222, 307 and 540 last year, this year we look to bring in #'s 134, 201, 204 and a player-to-be-named-later (who looks to be ranked lower than the rest of the recruits). #134 is C David Omara out of Florida. He's undersized for C at 6'7", but weighs in at a robust 248 and is strong as hell. Our scouts...well, they actually kind of hate him. But what do our scouts know?!!? He projects to be a defense-first big with a decent mid-range jumper. #201 is 6'6" SF Christopher Morehead. Mr. Basketball from Maine, Morehead was a nice snag to steal him from Harvard who led on him all the way until October. Perseverance paid off, and now he wears the Dartmouth green! He looks to be a solid all-around player eventually, who is slightly more polished on the defensive end at this point (could you tell there was a theme to recruiting this season?). The #204 recruit is SG David McMullin, who played high school ball against current freshman Rodrick McFall. Also, we may be looking into changing from the Indians to the Irish, considering our roster next year (McMullen, McMullin, McFall and McLaughlin). David is another all-rounder who projects to have a dangerous outside shot once all is said and done. There's still one scholarship to fill, and we have a pretty good idea who it will be...but we'll wait until it's a lock to mention him here. One player to keep an eye on - we went after SF Douglas Russell hard for a lot of the year, and he was simply not moved by our overtures. He signed with Brooklyn, and we'll definitely be keeping an eye on him. We'll more than likely play him next season, as we definitely want revenge for the loss to them this season. 1955 Preview: C Marin Dutries (Fr) PF Charles Smith (So) SF Sonny Freeman (So) SG Rodrick McFall (So) PG David Bratcher (Sr) 6th Tony Buford (Sr) 7th Kenny Hansen (Fr*) 8th David Omara (Fr) 9th Christopher Morehead (Fr) 10th David McMullin (Fr) Returning four starters in 1955, Dartmouth looks primed to be a whole hell of a lot better than they were in 1954. Dutries looks to be an outright upgrade over Theodore. Smith, Freeman and McFall are all going to have an extra season of development, and Bratcher will have Buford and Hansen breathing down his neck if he doesn't clean up his act. There's a good chance one or more of the recruits (likely Morehead) gets a redshirt, if only because we have much more depth (and sort of a logjam in the frontcourt). The unfortunate thing is that we have lost any semblance of size. Our biggest player next season will be 6'9" 215 pound Charles Smith...who plays like a stud, but not exactly an interior-dominating behemoth. The talent will have increased significantly, so hopefully that can offset the size discrepancy we're likely to face a lot of the time. As for the rest of the Ivy, Columbia looks to be taking a huge step back in terms of talent on the floor. They lose their #2 and #3 scorers in Creekmore and Evans, and their first two players off the bench in Jackson and Davidson. They've got some decent young talent, but not a lot of it has seen much action, and it frankly doesn't look like they will be a team of the same caliber next season. Cornell loses two starters and their sixth man, but only Reams was a true impact player. Jones, Garrett and Martin will be back with some more development. They could be trouble again next season. Brown is in...trouble. They lose Schmuck and Long, so they better hope Lindstrom is as good as advertised. Harvard is losing any semblance of talent they may have had on the roster to begin with outside of Unknow. Then we get to the interesting teams: Penn, Princeton and Yale. Between the three of them they're only graduating one or two seniors who were impact players, and each of them has a young cadre of players who are already getting important minutes. With a few recruiting bumps, any of these teams could kick up to the top tier of the Ivy. 1955 should be an interesting year for our little brainiacs.