Will definetly be interested in some of the games today, USM and Surgin Salem, would be a good win for the LEC. Also Keene State (who seems to be rolling at the perfect time of the season despite a depleted pitching staff and a tough week, 5 games in 5 days, 3 vs. regionally ranked teams) takes on Framingham State today, and 11-9 team (respectable). If the Owls can pick up another W today, they have to feel good heading into this weekends monster matchup with Eastern Connecticut. Let's not forget the Owls are doing this after losing two very important pitchers for the season!

All right,

So as far as the "youth movement" in Keene, don't look to much into it.

Check the box scores in after a few games in Florida, you may seem some familiar faces back in the Keene lineup. These are college teams, stuff happens, people miss games. That's how I see it. Longo, Bergstrum, Bates, are all guys that started for them last year and are returning, and would be more than shocked if they arent back a couple of games from now.

Good to see the young guns, non the less, step in and contribute in crappy weather, in their first college games. Seems like there is a lot of talent up and down on this Keene team. Hopefully the pitching can get the job done, I think that's where Keene's conference title hopes lie!

SALLLLZILLLOOO, what a HUUUGE SHOT for Eastern. I'm a Keene fan but have been rooting for LEC teams all night. Unfortunate breaks for RIC and WCSU, but all the credit in the world to East Conn. What a tough group of kids, after looking like they had won the game twice, to be down with seconds remaining and still pull off the victory. ALL GUTS.

Can' say anything bad about the conference awards this afternoon. Tough choice on the Second team between Hamilton Levy and Jamie Kohn, but Kohn made the all defensive team.

Great recognition for Daquan! Quite a resume. I'm not sure if I am ready to grant him the best player in Little East history. Hard to question that he's not the best SCORER in league history. No doubt. But best player is so much more than that. Non the less quite a career, that hopefully has a few more games left in it!

Quote from: WPI89 on February 27, 2012, 04:03:35 PM
Eye - no logic to it - just didn't like the way some of the LEC team's were playing down the stretch.  I saw Westconn in person twice in late jan/feb and just thought they looked tired and vulnerable.  Opposite holds true also - WPI beat up on Castleton, Becker, and Salem - all 3 of them are playing much better than they were 3 months ago when we beat them.

I wish all 3 of your teams and all the New England teams nothing but the best.

Potential games I would love to see:

1)  F&M vs. West Conn  (My nephew played at Dickinson the last 4 years and I have seen F&M a couple of times - Westconn will have the far superior athletes if they match up in a second round game.............)
2)  Magnus vs. Middlebury   Stating the obvoius but if Middlebury lets Magnus get up and down the court - watch out!
3)  MIT vs. Amherst (way ahead of myself but I have been talking up this match-up for 3 months)!

WPI vs. Worcester State (NEXT NOVEMBER!!!!!!)

Very true about West Conn. On some days they were world beaters, some days (Plymouth and USM) they looked like they were playing pickup in a local Rec league. Points well taken!

Quote from: WPI89 on February 27, 2012, 11:20:37 AM

Quote from: Eye in the Sky on February 27, 2012, 11:05:57 AM

Quote from: CCC Talk on February 27, 2012, 09:53:54 AM
I know Hugenerd will surely have some sort of equation that disproves everything I'm saying as I'm pretty sure he has an alarm hooked up for whenever anyone says anything less than complimentary about MIT Basketball. All I know is they played TWO teams all year that will make the tournament (if WPI gets in) which is a joke. Have some pride and schedule someone.

I know everyone will hate it but well put CCC. MIT is a good team and deserves their league title and trip to the NCAA. But their schedule is very week. And everyone wants to say they are a top 5 team in the country? Would love to see how they would have held up playing in the Little East or NESCAC this season, where everyother game is playing a tournament caliber team.

You guys are acting like MIT is getting some kind of break - they won their way in - what is the complaint?  HugeNerd likes to talk on the boards - I find him entertaining.  Where else is the whining?  Any other team had a "posting-advocate" like HN and went 25-1 (or whatever) - they would get lots of attention as well.

Really hoping WPI (if??) and MIT get LEC match-ups early - I love our chances........................

Without having any clue as to the circumstances, Springfield walking off seems bush league?

Sorry I may have been on a little different page than CCC, in that, MIT is a very good team, and of course earned their way to the tournament! They are definetly a tournament team. I have just noticed that people have had them ranked very high nationally which I think was a little off, very good team, can make some noise, but as high as top 5 in the country at some points this season struck me. But certainly don't want to take away from what they have done this year.

Now, if you like your chances against the LEC teams, I would say they would be great games! However, even though WPI didn't get in, if they did, you would still like them ? They played two games against LEC teams this year, and lost both. Those were against the 2 and 3 seed team in the LEC. So I find that interesting.

Quote from: CCC Talk on February 27, 2012, 09:53:54 AM
I know Hugenerd will surely have some sort of equation that disproves everything I'm saying as I'm pretty sure he has an alarm hooked up for whenever anyone says anything less than complimentary about MIT Basketball. All I know is they played TWO teams all year that will make the tournament (if WPI gets in) which is a joke. Have some pride and schedule someone.

I know everyone will hate it but well put CCC. MIT is a good team and deserves their league title and trip to the NCAA. But their schedule is very week. And everyone wants to say they are a top 5 team in the country? Would love to see how they would have held up playing in the Little East or NESCAC this season, where everyother game is playing a tournament caliber team.

all you can say is OH MY GOSH. That's it. Incredible first game. I will say this, I don't think as a Keene fan I can go to these games anymore for sake of serious cardiac issues.

Much credit to Eastern Connecticut. Great group of guys that play with a lot of heart and made great plays to win the game. Chae Phillips threes, and the tip, which by the way, shows why Nick Nedwick is one of the best players in the league. He could have "hero" shot it which would have been a difficult shot, but instead made one of the best plays I have seen, throwing the lob to Robitaille. I want to take nothing away from East Conn because they deserve it.

Keene just cant figure out how to win the game. Keene should be celebrating a second trip in a row to the LEC championship, but for the second year in a row, couldn't make the play to finish the game. One of the best free throw shooters in the country misses a free throw, with 30 seconds that maybe puts the game out of reach? I feel so bad for some of the Keene players, to go through this all over again. Ryan Martin has no reason to hang his head however, because at the time, I thought me made the most clutch play of the season for anytime draining a tough catch and shoot 3, that was well contested with 10 seconds left that looked like it would send the Owls to the ship. Ryan Martin, as I heard through the grapevine, may have a pretty bad injury issue that he played through, and he played bigtime.

However, I guess, for the second straight year, (The Ghost of Akinrola) the Owls come up short. I can only hope that with almost everyone coming back, except for Hunter, for the Owls they can finally get over the hump, because we all know they could very easily have made the ship two straight years.

Good luck to the Warriors, they need all the support they can get after having to use so much energy to get the W tonight. I hope adrenaline can get them going because they are taking on a tough RIC team tomorrow. I would hope with this victory though, that East Conn gets the at large now because they deserve it.

As for the 2nd game, which turned out to be very good, but not quite the same as the first. In the KSC, ECSU game, it was two teams making plays trying to win the game. In the RIC WCSU game, unfortunately, and it was what I worried about with West Conn, and Daquan, that he was great until he tried to be "Hero", and takes bad shots and gets sloppy. Those tournovers late were inexcusible, for a team trying to advance to the conference championship. The players didn't even look like it was a big deal that they were imploding over the final two minutes. (Sorry 7, I'm not trying to rub it in, was just sort of shocked I guess) After whatching all the energy and enthusiasm in the first game, couldn't believe that is how West Conn. Finished.

Signing out tonight, and saying a prayer tonight for my Owls that someone talks them off the ledge after another, gut wrenching, heartbreaking, fist clenching loss, for the second straight year. For a team that unfortunately didn't do enough at the end of the season to secure a bid and won't make it, however, is clearly an NCAA tournament team if I have ever seen one.Tomorrow's championship should be great, and goodluck to both the Warrios and Anchormen, because they both deserve it, and I look forward to both making deep NCAA tournament run. Come on boys, make the LEC proud!

Thanks a bunch guys, will have to check it out!

It must be a pretty mediocre place judging by the lack of recognition the place has, but I guess it will do! That's pretty amazing, how I have managed to miss this place the last few years is beyond me.

7,

Yes very true. I should have rephrased what I said. RIC's resume is much more impressive, since they an above 500 record against regionally ranked teams and one of the highest SOS. So if they were to lose, they would have a much better shot than West Conn would if they were to lose.

With atleast 3 of the teams very concerned about at large possibilities, it should make for an unbelieveable night of basketball tomorrow in Willimantic. After going to the RIC vs. Keene State game last year (Might have been the most crazy and exciting college basketball game I have personally been too) I can only hope for both games this year to be of that same quality. Although for fans of all the teams, I may suggest heart pills before the games, because it will be an emotional rollercoaster if the games play out that way. I think I lost years off my life after that game last year!

On a second note, any suggestions on  really good places to grab food in Willimantic or that area. Have been a few times and haven't landed on a place that takes the cake yet and am kind of a food junky. Warrior or ECSU Alum, any suggestions. Much Appreciated!

I agree with WPI. Whoever wins on Friday, West Conn or RIC, they should be feeling good. But whatever team loses, should be nervous as heck. Two teams in from our league is a definite lock. No question. We are hoping and praying for 3, which, like WPI said, is going to hang largely on how to top teams do in their conference. Any of them lose or get upset, and a team who is on the bubble or outside gets that at large, then that knocks off one of our teams.

It sure would be unfortunate to have everyone look at our league as a secondary league. 3 teams with 20 wins? Thats pretty darn good. Those top 3 teams are looking pretty as far as an at large bid. With Keene dropping the last 3, they have to win out to make the tourny.

RIC should easily, eassssily handle Plymouth at home. Plymouth, to me, has the least ammount of talent and athleticism in the league, which is why I give a ton of credit to their new coach for getting them to the tournament. How Boston and USM didn't finish ahead of them is beyond me.

Keene will have their hands full with Dartmouth. Lance Green is one of the best players in the league, and Dartmouth has been playing better of late. If Keene comes out like they have the past two games, uninspired and uninterested (are they still hungover from the tough loss at West Conn?) they could be in for a dog fight. However, if Keene plays with some energy, they should take this one in front of their home crowd.

7express is right, quite a fall from grace for the owls. However, I can't say that this Owls team doesn't play defense. Even in their last 2 loses, they gave up 65 in each game. Not exactly poor defense. Their biggest problem is not the defensive end, nor rebounding, its tourning the ball over. They can't continue to turn it over 25 times and expect to win these tight games.

If everything plays out like one would expect, Friday night will be a great night for basketball, one in which I will be in attendance for!

Quote from: Hoops Fan on February 16, 2012, 11:45:31 AM

Quote from: warrior on February 16, 2012, 10:20:12 AM
I had a very enlightening conversation with a member of a regional committee.  What we forget is the fact that the goal of each regional committee is to get as many teams from that region into the NCAAs as possible.  The problem is, they line up all the # 1s and all the #2s, .... from each region and compare them.  If your region's number 1 is not taken initially, they 'block' the rest of the group, who can't move until that teams in their region above them  are taken.  As a  result, league standing and head to head games are pretty meaningless.  The key is, how does a team match up statistically/mathematically to their counterparts in the OTHER regions!  That's why Keene started out so low.  Yes they were #1 in our conference, and beat head-to-head some of the team in OUR region that were ahead of them, BUT their weak SOS and the fact that a bunch of their games this year were out of region and therefor don't 'count' make them a poor match-up vs. other regions.  If they were ranked higher, they would block the rest of the teams in the region.  Anyway- the conversation was very enlightening and made me understand that first regional ranking, that, at first glance, didn't seem to make sense.

It's interesting that someone would even admit this.  They're supposed to rank teams in region by a specific criteria (and ability to be selected nationally isn't one of them).  You've basically got a committee member saying they don't follow the rules for regional rankings.  Heavy stuff - but that might explain the big disparity between this year and previous years.

Hoopsfan is right. Basically they were hurting one team because they wanted to get more teams in. So they are basically saying, despite the fact that the one team (Keene I guess in the example) seemed to have a very good resume, one that seemed better (at the time) than some others voted higher, but because they were "blocking" other teams from getting in, they got voted lower. This is interesting. Fortunately that first poll hasn't decided anything, and we still have a couple more coming. I have faith they will get the right teams in come tournament time....I HOPE.

OMG....those are really the rankings. This is really starting to confuse me. Now they put Keene at 5? They were at 8 when they were winning all their games and playing really good. Now they go on an awful stretch and can't win tight games against two teams in the regional rankings and they jump up to 5? I'm so confused. And East Conn, drops to 9? WOW.

Quote from: 7express on February 15, 2012, 11:20:36 AM
Eastern has the tiebreaker over Keene
Western has tiebreakers over Eastern, Keene & RIC
If Keene loses to RIC Saturday, they lose the tiebreakers to everyone.

Since Eastern is a game up on Western,tied with Keene but owns the tiebreaker, it doesn't mater what Western (or Keene) does for that matter.  Beat Boston, and the tournament goes through Willimantic.  Lose, and that's where things get interesting.

You are correct. These scenarios always screw me up. Eastern win, and they got it. Which having Boston at home plays out well for them.