Jackson Bloch ’15

Athlete of the Week: Shannon Brady ’16

Women's Basketball

Shannon Brady ’16 scored 14 second-half points to lead the women’s basketball team to a 62-57 win over Colby last Saturday, their 14th straight win of the season and seven straight against the Mules. Brady struggled early with foul trouble and Colby’s quick five-guard lineup but overcame the slow start to finish with 18 points, five rebounds and two blocks in 30 minutes.“One thing I really want to emphasize is her growth as a leader,” said Head Coach Adrienne Shibles. “She has an optimism and a competitive spirit. She really didn’t play exceptionally well. Her shots weren’t falling, Colby was being very physical with her, and she got into foul trouble. But I told her to keep shooting and she made adjustments.”
Brady is averaging 13 points, six rebounds, and 1.5 blocks and 23 minutes per game this season—a low minutes total thanks to the team’s considerable depth. According to Shibles, Brady could go all 40 minutes easily. Brady is also fourth in the NESCAC in shooting percentage.Six feet tall and long-limbed, Brady has always been a traditional back-to-basket player, feeling most comfortable posting up and using a righty jump hook that has become her signature move. In a college game that typically differentiates only between guards and forwards, Brady is one of few at this level that could be considered a true center.
“The hook has kind of been my thing since high school,” she said. “I don’t really know what started it. Sometimes people say stuff like, ‘That’s all she does.’ But it works.”
Brady has been in the starting lineup since the beginning of her first year at Bowdoin, and had a breakout sophomore season that saw her average a team-leading 14 points and seven rebounds on the way to an All-American Honorable Mention. Since then she has been a target of other NESCAC teams, who often double and triple team Bowdoin’s most consistent scorer.Brady is equally effective, somewhat paradoxically, as a target in transition. Her high school team ran an aggressive transition offense and the Polar Bears like to run one as well. Teammates have mentioned that Brady is often the fastest down the floor.
“A lot of the offense revolves around her,” said guard Sara Binkhorst ’15. “She plays well with other guards who like to push and she’ll beat pretty much any other post player down the floor.”
“She’s the fastest girl on our team,” Megan Phelps ’15 said. “She beats us all when we run sprints.”
Brady’s scoring threat dramatically affects the way defenses shift against Bowdoin.“Just having Shannon on the floor is good for us as a team,” said Siena Mitman ’15. “They have to collapse on her coming off a screen which opens it up for other people.”
“And on the rare chance she misses, there’s a good chance she’ll get her own rebound,” Binkhorst added.
Both players also noted Brady’s improvements at reading double teams and kicking the ball out. Still, Phelps thinks that Brady is going to score at least 70 percent of the time when she gets the ball.
“She’s always up for a physical game,” Phelps said. “They’re bringing constant double teams. She’s been doing a good job passing out of it, but more often scoring the ball anyway.”
Another area where Brady has improved is her shooting. Always considered a capable but not necessarily confident shooter, Brady has developed a face-up game and improved her in-game range to around 15 feet. She has also proven she can make three-pointers consistently in practice. Her goal now is to translate that into a game.
“It comes up a lot,” she said. “My dad and brother have bets on when it’s going to happen. I tell them if I’m in a pressure situation and it needs to happen, it will happen. But I definitely want to make one in a game during my Bowdoin career.”
The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Athlete of the Week: Lucas Hausman '16

Men's Basketball

As a sophomore, Lucas Hausman ’16 scored 9.5 points per game despite averaging 17 minutes off the bench. This season, his first as a starter, Hausman has proportionally increased his impact, leading the team with 19 points in 31 minutes per game, along with 3.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists.
“My job was to be the scoring punch of the bench,” Hausman said. “Now I’m doing that in the starting lineup.”
Hausman has reached double-digit scoring in 13 straight games and scored over 20 points in nine of them. He has scored 30 points twice in his last four games.
“The fascinating thing about Lucas is that he can score from anywhere on the court,” said center John Swords ’15. “Well, except the backcourt. He’s never tried, thankfully.”
The two guard has earned his points with a quick first step, a smooth pull-up jumper and creative finishes around the rim. Hausman has earned more free throws than anyone else in the NESCAC and has converted nearly 90 percent of them.
“I want to attack whoever’s guarding me and get all the way to the basket,” he said. “I can either pull up or get into the lane and be crafty.”
Hausman’s style of play has changed very little during his time at Bowdoin, though it is clear that he has improved his attacking skills. Hausman stands at 6’3” with long arms, which helps him shoot over smaller defenders and draw fouls. His speed also allows him to blow by bigger defenders.
As his athleticism has improved, Hausman has developed a deeper repertoire of dribble moves that keep defenders honest. Rarely an outside shooter, Hausman is nonetheless shooting almost 50 percent this season, a result of his ability to beat his man for easy baskets and finishes in traffic.
“He throws up a lot [of shots] that, if I didn’t trust him, I wouldn’t call good shots,” Swords said. “But it’s calculated risk. He has a different calculus than the rest of us.”
“He can go and get his own shot at any time,” said point guard and captain Bryan Hurley ’15. “He’s probably one of the only guys on the team who can. You know he can go and get a high-percentage shot for him that isn’t going to be a high-percentage shot for anybody else.”
Hurley added that the team has taken advantage of Hausman’s skill in transition by playing at a more up-tempo pace since the start of the second semester.
Head Coach Tim Gilbride agreed.
“The team is looking to him a little more and creating opportunities that are good for him,” he said. “Teams are starting to key on him more over the course of the season. John was the focus early on.”
Hausman’s play and Sword’s seven-foot frame in the post have made the Polar Bears a difficult team to defend.
“If he gets into the paint and can pass it to John down low or kick it out, it’s huge at the beginning of games because teams won’t be able to collapse on him,” Hurley said.
Hurley, the team’s best three-point shooter, noted that Middlebury was forced to roll its better on-ball defender over to Hausman, which freed up Hurley who scored 17 points.
Even with the switch, Middlebury still could not stop Hausman from dropping 21 points. His constant presence in the paint forces the post players to collapse off Swords as well, leaving him open under the basket. Hurley also believes that Hausman’s play has reduced the number of double teams Swords has seen.
Swords was not ready to concede that, but acknowledged that because he and Hausman are such different players, the offense can look very different over multiple games or even throughout a game.
“He’s up tempo,” he said. “That’s great when we need up-tempo, especially down the stretch in games. Usually when I’m in we tend toward slow, patient offense. It’s refreshing to have someone like Lucas come in and destroy all of that.”
The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.
To suggest an athlete, email Sports Editor Jono Gruber at jgruber@bowdoin.edu.

Athlete of the Week

Nordic Skiing

Alex Vasile

Orient Staff

February 6, 2015

Jackson Bloch ’15 has been one of nordic skiing’s most competitive skiers this season, with two top-25 finishes and an additional top-30 finish in five races so far this season. His lowest finish was 44th in races that can include as many as 90 skiers. Bloch also helped a relay team including Hannah Miller ’17, Tyler DeAngelis ’15 and Shelby Aseltine ’15 take 22nd place.

Bloch, a Falmouth, Maine, native started skiing in fifth grade and skied for a club team in high school. Bloch walked on to Bowdoin’s team as a firstyear with low expectations and earned a spot on the carnival team, comprisd of the six fastes skiers. He has held one of those spots for his entire Bowdoin career.

Nordic skiing has two different styles that are tested in carnivals: classical and freestyle. Classical requires more upper body strength and involves what Bloch calls “double polling,” which describes how the skiers move their bodies with their arms. Freestyle uses the legs to move as if skating. Bloch had performed significantly better in freestyle races until this season.
Bloch’s adjustment to college distance—high school races are only 5K while collegiate races are between 10 and 20 kilometers—was all the more unusual given his small frame. However, he believes that rather than hindering him, the increase in distance has contributed to his improvement.

“I’m a small guy,” he said. “I’m not as powerful so I had to learn efficiency of technique and endurance. It gave me an area to excel in that I wasn’t exposed to before.”

Shorter races allow bigger, stronger, skiers to essentially sprint. Longer races equalize that natural advantage by changing the skills necessary for success.

“With a 10K, everyone is very capable of doing it, so I’m always finding places on the course where I can make up time on other people,” Bloch said. “[The 20K is more] grit and determination. After 15K, after you’ve been racing for 45 minutes, everyone’s tired. A lot of it is a mental game, especially in the last 5K.”

Bloch also credits Head Coach Nathan Alsobrook for exposing him to new training routines and additional ways to improve his technique, calling him the largest force behind his improvement. Alsobrook developed a 550-hour per year training regiment that Bloch starts each May.

Training lasts through the summer. Bloch runs and roller skis when there is not snow on the ground. In addition to building up his strength, Bloch has worked on maintaining forward body position and starting races faster.

One of Bloch’s favorite offseason activities is skiing a marathon. He enjoys these 50K races because they are often raced in groups of around 15 people, who will travel together until the competition necessitates trying to pass each other.

“He’s really good at finding efficiency in his skis,” Alsobrook said. “It’s almost unnatural how he is able to squeeze every last bit of energy out of his efforts. “

Alsobrook also praised Bloch’s natural ability.

“A lot of it is sort of natural athleticism, and he has a very thoughtful approach to the sport. His brain is a finely tuned instrument that helps him calibrate how much effort he needs for each movement,” he said.

Bloch will look to finish the second half of his season strong. He hopes to finish no lower than 30th and will attempt to earn a top-20 finish against Dartmouth College and University of Vermont skiers who rank among the best in the country.

The sports editor of the Orient chooses the Athlete of the Week based on exemplary performance.

Comments are permanently closed.