CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – You could be forgiven if you had some basic information on Vermont’s success in recent years and their 4-1 start this season and asked, “How do they do that?” By almost any conventional measure or appearance, what this team is doing and has done appears to be lacking a clear answer at first glance.
First, take a look at the team. There isn’t a natural point guard on the roster; Sandro Carissimo is the closest to it, and while he’s grown in that role since arriving in Burlington, his scoring instinct is never far away. They have at times run the offense through his prep teammate, Brian Voelkel, over the last two-plus seasons from the wing. Voelkel, by the way, doesn’t exactly pass the “look” test of a Division I basketball player at all, let alone one of the best players in his conference and his conference’s leading rebounder the past two years. The Catamounts aren’t very athletic as a whole.
Then look at a few numbers. Entering Tuesday night’s game, they didn’t have a single player whose scoring average was in double digits. That’s not entirely surprising, considering they had a veteran team last year and America East Rookie of the Year Four McGlynn transferred to Towson. They are out-rebounding opponents, but not in dominating fashion as the margin is just three per game.
It’s easy to say that you win with defense, especially with the lack of a good offense. Vermont is doing that, but they aren’t shooting much better than they’re allowing their opponents to. And on Tuesday night, they didn’t do that in the first half, when Harvard shot 52.4 percent from the field and Vermont led by 14.
So we’ve talked about what the Catamounts don’t have and what they aren’t. What do they have and what are they?
Vermont is a well-balanced and deep team. They legitimately go about 10 deep, with only Voelkel topping 30 minutes per game, and they welcome having a lot of threats without having one obvious go-to guy. They do focus on being a good defensive team and are certainly achieving that, although they had some trouble there on Tuesday night as Harvard shot over 51 percent from the field, including 9-16 from long range.
But the Catamounts shot over 73 percent in that frame, including 6-9 from long range, and looked better defensively than the numbers suggested.
“I thought our offense executed very well,” said Carissimo, who had a career-high 25 points on 8-11 shooting to go with six assists. “I felt we got pretty good shots, good looks at the basket, and we converted on them.”
The team that didn’t have a double-digit scorer entering the night had three reach that. Besides Carissimo, Luke Apfeld, who has had three ACL injuries in his career but seems poised to close it out on a good note, had 13 points on 6-10 shooting, and Clancy Rugg matched Apfeld’s shooting line en route to 16 points.
“I think that’s been the staple at Vermont over the last couple of years,” Carissimo added. “We’ve never really had one player that was consistently scoring 20 a night. I think last year, we had three or four people average 10 points.”
And Carissimo symbolizes this team in how he has grown. A shooting guard in high school, the junior has been pressed into duty at the point and consistently improved since arriving. Tuesday night was a career night, but it hasn’t happened by accident given the work he’s put in and how the game comes to him. An excellent student in the honors program at the school, head coach John Becker said they call him “The Natural” because the game comes to him so naturally.
The Catamounts have also had plenty of road success in recent years. Their 3-1 start to this season on the road is nothing new and no accident considering it was their 40th road win since the 2009-10 season. Certainly, it helps that they have to go on the road often, as getting non-conference home games is almost impossible. Teams at their level are lucky if they can get four; Vermont has five this season.
“We’ve had a lot of whacks at this, because we have to play a lot on the road,” said Becker. “To win at Siena, to win at Northeastern, and now to win at Harvard, is a great way to start. This team is tough and continues to find ways, especially on the road in hostile environments.”
Vermont will soon get more home games, as they play at Rhode Island on Saturday before playing four of six at home, and the rest of the non-conference schedule is very manageable. That’s not to say they’ll run up a good record and become an NCAA Tournament at-large candidate; they simply won’t have the quality wins. But they should go into America East play with a good record and looking like the team to beat along with Stony Brook.
The first five games have shown that Vermont has a lot going for it. They have experience, balance, depth, are well-coached and know how to win on the road as well as any team. Carissimo added that, “It’s a very unselfish team, all about winning.” The intangibles are a big reason why they continue their run of success in recent years and may not stop anytime soon, even if at first glance it might seem hard to believe.
