MBB: Little East

[ECSUalum]

ECSU's Brian Salzillo sizzled in the fist half hitting 7 out of 8 tres to give the Warriors a 12 point lead at half.  Eastern and Salzillo then go cold, but Robitaille steps up and scores 24, and 8-9 on the stripe to secure the victory over New Palz State 78-74.  ECSU leads 36-27 on the boards and kept the TO's to just 9!!!!!!  GREAT JOB !!!!!!  Top scorers for NPS were Matt Devine with 17 and Shereef Taylor, (NPS's 3 point specialist), with 26.  Good Defensive effort for the Warriors as NPS averages 85 ppg.  Re FG%/3PT%/FT%, NPS 46/50/71, ECSU, 44/43/89.

New Paltz State web site video crashed before half and Live Stats would mysteriously reset to 0-0 during the game

[7express]

You know what's funny?  I origionally had Eastern winning 78-74 in my predictions then changed that 78-74 score to New Paltz when I saw how efficient New Paltz was on the offensive end.  Damn.  At least I had the winning score right though for the first time in like 3 yeard 

[LECFAN32]

happy for- eastern, good win over an athletic talented new paltz team. looks like a shakeup in the starting lineup lit a fire under salzillo and robataille, garrow starting to get it and show leading man aggression. ric well deserved new ranking, this team is rugged in a good way.

not happy about- keene, plattsburgh is athletic but new paltz is probably better ..looks like keene tried something new by putting martin off the ball, and leading with tipton, wonder what happened to mariano. martin only guy that showed up by a long shot with an incredibly efficient big scoring night, they play no defense..plain and simple, and needs to shorten the rotation, there are a few guys playing 10 plus minutes that cant stay in front of a house.. very laxed attitude in victory or defeat, result of colbert imo.
WESTERN...giving up 86 points to mitchell and losing is unbelievable...almost impossible to believe, i know these guys are new, but you have to play with some pride at some point. mitchell has been a division 3 school for 10 seasons, and this was the first time that they have EVER beat western...unless something changes quickly this will be the first sub .500 team in coach cambells career.

im so surprised im almost speechless.. express what was the coaching blunder, kind of odd to me that groski played 15 min n had 4 pts n 7 rebounds in the first half, then only plays 3 min in the second half, i again think that the rotation is all out of whack in relation to the level of talent of the guys that are getting the most minutes.

[AllStar]

happy for- eastern, good win over an athletic talented new paltz team. looks like a shakeup in the starting lineup lit a fire under salzillo and robataille, garrow starting to get it and show leading man aggression. ric well deserved new ranking, this team is rugged in a good way.

not happy about- keene, plattsburgh is athletic but new paltz is probably better ..looks like keene tried something new by putting martin off the ball, and leading with tipton, wonder what happened to mariano. martin only guy that showed up by a long shot with an incredibly efficient big scoring night, they play no defense..plain and simple, and needs to shorten the rotation, there are a few guys playing 10 plus minutes that cant stay in front of a house.. very laxed attitude in victory or defeat, result of colbert imo.
WESTERN...giving up 86 points to mitchell and losing is unbelievable...almost impossible to believe, i know these guys are new, but you have to play with some pride at some point. mitchell has been a division 3 school for 10 seasons, and this was the first time that they have EVER beat western...unless something changes quickly this will be the first sub .500 team in coach cambells career.

im so surprised im almost speechless.. express what was the coaching blunder, kind of odd to me that groski played 15 min n had 4 pts n 7 rebounds in the first half, then only plays 3 min in the second half, i again think that the rotation is all out of whack in relation to the level of talent of the guys that are getting the most minutes.

What's the point of saying Keene plays no defense whatsoever?  Keene's defense is not the problem.  Look at the shooting percentages...they actually shot for a higher percentage than Plattsburgh.  Turnovers are the problem!  I don't necessarily agree with your point about being "lax" in victory or defeat, either.

Plus, I also think Plattsburgh is better than New Paltz.

[7express]

No disrespect to RIC, but Keene has the most talented roster in the conference.................by a mile.  Martin, Rashard Wright, Wolcott, Tom Doyle, etc.  I'm pretty sure I said defense is going to be the main thing that holds them back.  I'm amazed at how a team has a 7 footer (Wright), 2 I think 6"10 guys, and 2 division 1 players (Wright & Martin) and they STILL cannot play defense.  Unbeliavble.  And its been this way for the last 3,4 years or at least when I started following the conference (10/11).  LECfan, has Keene always been this bad defensively under Colbert??

[7express]

Tuesday schedule:
Even though Western is first on the schedule I'm going to save them for last:

Tufts 79-63.
No suprise there.  About the only thing surprising for Plymouth this year is that they were able to beat Becker for their lone win.  How'd that happen??
Eastern 78-74.
Perfect score!  Had the wrong team winning though      As I said earlier I originally had this 78-74 before I saw how proficient New paltz was on offense.  This is why you never doubt yourself.
Worcester by 1 over Dartmouth 68-67.
Well, their 0-6 like Western, but unlike Western they were actually competitive against a much better team.  Crap way to lose though.  Up 1 with the ball and 20 seconds left to play and they turned it over which lead to Worcester getting a layup with 6 seconds left to play, and Dartmouth ended the game with another turnover.  On second thought, maybe getting blown out is better...
Plattsburgh beats keene 70-64.
27 turnovers??  Really??  Martin with his "DaQuan brooks" game of the year and probably another reason they lost: Martin had 35 the next highest total was 6.  Whever DaQuan did that, we never won either.
RIC 62-44.
Not the most talented team in the world, but they work hard on both ends of the court, and along with an excellent coach make up for some of the talent disparity they have on other teams in the conference (Keene being a good example).  I honestly believe if Bob Walsh was coaching Keene instead of RIC, Keene would be in the top 10 right now (worst case top 15) instead of a perennial underachiever like they are.  Still a long way to go, but I can;t believe I picked that Keene team to pretty much run away with the conference.  And RIC without Walsh??  Woof.  I don't think they were anything before he got there, and will be interesting to see what happens when he retires/moves on (hopefully not for another 25-30 years for RIC fans though).
MIT over Boston 54-44.
You can't expect to win much scoring only 44 points, but they played them well, close game throughout like I thought it would be.  Boston's 11 point, 4-23 shooting, 15 turnover first half really killed them in this game because MIT was flummoxed (sp) in the 2nd half. 
Mitchell 86-70 over Western
Yikes!  A couple things before we get on with this monstrosity:
1) This team has no fundamentals: no leadership, no transistion d, no help d, no nothing and the main thing no leadership!!  This team needs a leader on the team and until they find one will continue to put out stinkers like this game
2) Can we officially end the "Mark LaPorte" at PG experiment??  The thing is a science experiment gone horribly, terribly wrong.  The kid is NOT a PG.  I happened to be sitting next to his AAU coach at the game vs. Boston Saturday and he's telling me he should be on the wing a catch and shoot guy, and he can't handle the ball.  Aside from Shawn Mobilio, who has his own issues but at least takes care of the ball and runs plays, nobody else can run the point, and hopefully in the 2nd semester that becomes addressed because it's a glaring black hole on the team.  Coach Campbell tried Pelletier at PG for a bit on the 2nd half, but really I don't think he's any better then LaPorte is and Phil Starks (also used him somewhat) rould rather shoot but really I can't blame him because he's the only one that can make baskets from outside the paint.  But outside of those 4 I don't think there's a player that can play PG, and you certainly can't play Mobilio for all 40 minutes so you have no choice, but man that posistion is terrible for us this year.  LECFAN, anything you disagree with/want to add here??  But the main thing is to get LaPorte off the 1 and into a 2/3 posistion where he has the potential to thrive.
Now onto the game, but geez where the hell do I start??
As I mentioned earlier Phil Starks had another good day shooting the ball, pretty much the lone bright spot this year.  7-16 shooting, 4-9 from 3, 20 total points.  If we can get Jensen back in January, that would be a nice outside combo to have.  Tre'Von Perry only had 6 points, but he played great defense and had 5 blocks.  Once again like Starks only a freshmen, so there's plenty of potential.  Would like to see the offensive game improve, get an outside shot, so you can space the floor like Kennedy did last year gives you more room to work.  Worked on cutting down the turnovers (only 14) so that's another area of improvement.
Between 2009/10 & 2010/11 seasons Mitchell went a combined 5-41 those 2 seasons and even this year at 4-3 will probably only be a middle of the pack team in the awful NECC conference, so losing by 1 to them would have been bad, but losing by 16 is absolutely atrocious.  Mitchell shot 54(!!!!!!!!)% for the game and 60.6% in the first half (I was way off on my "they're shooting about 55% prediction I posted at halftime).  Not going to win games, got beat constantly down the floor which is inexcusible.  Even though Mitchell had 7 more turnovers then we did (21-14) they had 7 more points off turnovers (24-17).  The second string that came in about 2:30 into the second half down 49-36 (Derek McIntyre, Ryan Angeloszek, Ryan McLaughlin, Mark LaPorte & Ryan Pelletier) really played well and great on the defensive end.  Now that I think about we probably would have lost the game anyways, but we were still within striking distance (62-51 10:12 to play) when my play of the game happened.  LeRoy Mayers got called for a blocking foul, that with maybe with 3 different sets of officials is a charge and with 3 other ones its a non call, but like most breaks with Western men's hoops this year, it went against us.  The block/charge in college I think is the toughest call in sports.  However, Mayers was there and planted, but really can't blame the 3 guys in striped shirts.  As I said with 3 other guys (or if we were 5-0 instead of 0-5) it goes as a charge call or no call.  Coach Campbell was not happy and was screaming at the officials why it wasn;t a charge.  Anthony Epps makes the first free throw to go up 12 and in between him hitting the first and the 2nd Campbell is screaming why he's shooting 2 which by now is useless because even though Mitchell was in the bonus (we had 8 team fouls then) since he made the first he was going to be shooting the 2nd anyways whether it was called a shooting foul or called on the floor.  Shawn Mobilio is trying to get him quiet, but it doesn't work, Campbell gets T'd up, Epps is shooting the 2 technicals makes those both and makes his final free throw, goes 4-4 from the line to baloon the lead from 11 to 15, and from that point the game for all intents and purposes was over.  Even the bench pretty much knew it was over.  They were emotionless over there for the final 10 minutes after that technical.  even on rebounds or the Starks 3 with about 4:30 to go that got Western within 14, absolutely no excitement.  it's like they saw their dog get hit by a truck.  Western never got closer then 13 and most of the time the lead stretched between 16-18.  As I said we probably end up losing anyway but that technical took the wind out of the sail.  I just hope these next 120 minutes against Worcester, USM & Clark can go by quickly because I'm not sure I can watch anymore of this, painful.

Thursday schedule:
Nichols @ eastern, RIC @ WPI, Curry @ Dartmouth, Western @ Worcester
RIC @ WPI clearly the best of the slate.

[magicman]

not happy about- keene, plattsburgh is athletic but new paltz is probably better ..looks like keene tried something new by putting martin off the ball, and leading with tipton, wonder what happened to mariano. martin only guy that showed up by a long shot with an incredibly efficient big scoring night, they play no defense..plain and simple, and needs to shorten the rotation, there are a few guys playing 10 plus minutes that cant stay in front of a house.. very laxed attitude in victory or defeat, result of colbert imo.

LECFAN32,

I read this board on a daily basis and usually find that you and most of the posters seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I follow a number of conferences and as a member of the National Pick Em League (of which 7express also participates in) I get to look at a ton of games over the course of a season. I know you were a pretty darn good player in this league (and probably can still play at a high level. ) but I just had to comment a bit about your New Paltz vs Plattsburgh statement. New Paltz hasn't beat Plattsburgh in over 3 years, and in the past 6 years we've won 13 out of 14 against them. Most importantly last year we beat them both times we faced them, 86-72 and 65-58. We returned almost our entire lineup from that team. We added 3 transfers and a decent group of freshman to go with 9 returning lettermen. One of those transfers started for New Platz last year as a freshman and is the 11th man on this year's Cardinal team in terms of minutes per game. Plattsburgh has a much deeper bench than New Paltz and may be the deepest in the entire SUNYAC conference. We're averaging over 30 ppg from our bench and at least 5 bench guys average double digit minutes per game. I'm not talking just the weaker teams either. We had 29 bench points against Middlebury and the same number tonight against Keene. We've had 5 different bench players score in double figures this year in 7 games. New Paltz has a much shorter bench both in points and minutes as they only average 16 ppg and and a lot of those came in 3 blowouts. In their other 4 games the bench averaged under 10 ppg. New Paltz has 2 outstanding players in Matt Devine and Shareef Taylor but I don't think they have enough talent to finish any higher than 6th place in our conference. They got Taylor back, who missed last year, but lost another All Conference performer in Harris Wichard. I actually think they will miss the playoffs as this year the SUNYAC switched from taking the the top 8 teams, to only taking the top 6. They'll fight it out for that final spot but I picked them to come in 7th. Our conference is deep this year and road wins will be at a premium. Last week Plat,tsburgh went to defending champion Oswego's house and ended Oswego's 32 game regular season conference winning streak. Oswego and Cortland were the 2 favorites to win the conference this year. The night after beating Oswego we lost at Cortland. I was happy to go 1-1 on that trip!! Tonight Cortland traveled to Geneseo and lost 70-66. I know it's no different in the LEC as the regular season leader usually comes down to the final week as it did last year and home court is huge.

Incindentally I picked New Paltz to defeat Eastern Connecticut tonight 81-78 and had Plattsburgh losing to Keene 75-70. I initially thought the Warriors would be too much for New Paltz but not knowing a ton about Eastern's team this year other than the fact that they lost of couple of big parts from last year's team I went to this board to look at what 7express had to say about the matchup. I was a bit surprised that he took New Paltz so I reformulated my thinking and also took the Hawks. I'm blaming him. I did read his explanation after the fact. I also wanted to take my Cardinals over Keene. I figured we hung with #3 Middlebury, we can hang with the Owls. After looking over their roster, seeing how big they were, especially Wright and his 30 minutes per game plus Fazio and the other bigs I thought we might get killed off the boards. Plus we were short one of our 6'6" bigs. I also hate to pick my Cards in a big game. I'd rather pick against them and hope I'm wrong. So I took Keene to win 75-70. At least I had Plattsburgh's total right. And Eastern Connecticut's also. Our 6'3" forward/guard, John Perez, actually won the opening tip over Wright and did a pretty good job on him. Tonight's Cardinal lineup was the smallest lineup we've started all year.

Sorry for being so long winded. At least I filled up the page, unlike someone else I know who listed a few teams that was a yard long. Just wanted you to get a SUNYAC viewpoint and not feel so bad that it was Plattsburgh instead of New Paltz that beat the Owls. Trust me New Paltz wouldn't have beaten Keene tonight.  By the way which guy from Plattsburgh did you coach? I'm guessing Hodgson or Mitchell. They both played a solid game tonight.       

[7express]

Magic, how does a 6"3 guy beat a 6"10 guy on a jump ball??  Wright could've just stood there and he should've gotten the tip.

[ECSUalum]

No disrespect to RIC, but Keene has the most talented roster in the conference.................by a mile.  Martin, Rashard Wright, Wolcott, Tom Doyle, etc.  I'm pretty sure I said defense is going to be the main thing that holds them back.  I'm amazed at how a team has a 7 footer (Wright), 2 I think 6"10 guys, and 2 division 1 players (Wright & Martin) and they STILL cannot play defense.  Unbeliavble.  And its been this way for the last 3,4 years or at least when I started following the conference (10/11).  LECfan, has Keene always been this bad defensively under Colbert??

I agree with your commentary 100%.  Coach Colbert even stated at the beginning of the season in an interview on Keene St web site, that defense will be key for the Owls. I watched the game last night and agree with the "lax" descriptor for Keene.  Very talented , but no D period.
Re WCSU, It is still early , so don't fret too much with the performance.  I know its tough to watch, for a passionate fan like yourself, but hopefully Coach Campbell will turn things around 2nd half.  I am still looking forward to a great cross state rivalry game on Jan 15 at Feldman Arena with the Colonials!!!! 
WRT Mitchell College, they are new to D-III, but I have noticed a slow and steady improvement in the quality of all their team sports, including basketball.

Additionally, I liked that Coach Geitner started freshman Best, Preston, and Soph Yarborough yesterday at tip off.  I also agree that it motivated a few players who looked uninterested at times vs USM!!! I actually think Best/Preston should get more playing time then they are currently getting.  So far Best looks great on D and has a bunch of blocks in the little he has played.  Preston will be another star for the Warriors in the future.

BTW how is Daquan doing in the Celtics farm system? Hope he is making progress.  I heard J. Kohn is playing in London, not at prestigious as the Celtics, but still professional.

[7express]

I don't think he's playing with the Maine Red Claws (Celtics affiliate anymore).  He tweeted a couple weeks ago he was going over to Europe, but haven't heard anything since.  I think he's just chillen out in Bristol right now for the time being waiting for his opportunity.

[magicman]

Magic, how does a 6"3 guy beat a 6"10 guy on a jump ball??  Wright could've just stood there and he should've gotten the tip.

Perez has some terrific hops!! Forgot to add...His alley oop slam dunk in the 2nd half would have electrified the crowd, if it hadn't been in Spaulding Gym.

[7express]

Thursday schedule;  Forgot to post conference record, but the conference continues to dissapoint overall with a 20-24 record after Tuesday night.  RIC is saving the conference, both in number of wins or that 20-24 record would be even worse and quality wins.  Keene has lost to the only 3 good team's they played (WPI, Springfield & Plattsburgh).

Nichols 65 @ Eastern 73.
Ryan Sheehan is the Bisons main scorer and if you can limit his point production (say around 23 or less) you have a great chance to win.  Of course earlier this year Eastern played the same type of team (Clark with Vayda) and they lost so we'll see what they do here.  Nichols isn't as good as Clark is, so I think they pull out of the win.
RIC 62 @ WPI 61.
RIC puts their 7-0 and top 14 ranking on the line against 8-0 WPI.  Both teams are exceeding expectations so far in the early going, continuing to win even after losing big, key pieces from last year's edition: WPI graduated Matt Carr, and RIC lost Akinrola & Choice.  WPI has lost 3 of their last 4 to LEC teams (Western twice & RIC once), but has won 2 of their 3 games against RIC dating back to 2008.
Curry 78 @ Dartmouth 70.
Curry's schedule is ridiculous, but they played all those teams extremely tough.  Curry has played: Williams, Amherst, MIT & WPI.  They lost to Williams by only 4, MIT by only 8, WPI by 7, and even though they lost to Amherst by 21, they did score 96 in the loss.  Dartmouth has to wait until Saturday @ Plymouth to pick up win #1...
...speaking of teams looking for win #1 Western 65 @ Worcester state 82.
Win #1 for Western maybe a while.  Really, if we can't beat Mitchell what hope is there that we win this one??  Even though Worcester should have lost to Dartmouth, Dartmouth would beat this team by 10+.  This is only Worcester's second home game of the year, and in their lone home game they beat equally awful and winless Regis 82-58.  I say Western gets more points, but the result is the same: a double digit loss

[LECFAN32]

magic,

my comment was by no means definite, as i said probably. however i was LEANING in that direction based on experience, i understand the hawks lost a good player last year, but they certainly gained one with experience back, as well as returning two other experience starters with talent in devine and jenkins, along with a freshman big from stepinac who had 23 pts n 17 boards in one of his first college games. Plattsburgh was more of a question mark, coming off a rough year, with lots of young players not yet established, and last years leading scorer missing the first couple of games, and then playing a reserve role. nobody was around for those games 5, 6, or 7 years ago except for the plattsburgh head coach, who as I mentioned was coming off a rough 11-12. So my "prediction" of sorts was based on those factors, along with eastern going ont he road led me to believe that it was a good win for them.

I liked Plattsburgh beforehand (and I believe I wrote that in the same post I mentioned that I had coached one of the players), After watching the game (had not seen them on video as of yet, and box scores vs sage does very little for me) I was very impressed with them, they are fairly disciplined despite the 21 to's last night, moved the ball very well, had alot of talent coming off the bench, and got after it defensively, played very hungry and have alot of potential..So I take back my probably comment. It was a great win for them going away straight off a very long bus ride, and my disapointment was more with keene who despite their talent is fairly inconsistent. I was an assistant coach for Jordan Moody, who played a great game, was very happy for him. Didnt get the best coaching n guidance from our head coach at the time so to see him starting to figure it out is great.. oh and just to let you know, I played in the sunyac for a season, have been to alumni hall, and know that it is a strong league n have sene it up close.

Allstar,

The point is that its a constant theme, the announcers mention it all the time as well, multiple people on this forum with no affiliation to the team or school seem to see it to, looks like they have trouble guarding the perimeter n closing out on shooters, so why not mix in a matchup zone. the oppositions guards are allowed to walk the ball up n get into whatever theyd like more often then not. if the shots arent blocked by wright or wolcott it is usually a pretty clean look.

Now what would be the point of bringing up keene having a higher shooting percentage? their a team that relies on their offense so they probably should shoot the ball better then a team better suited for slashing and pressing and scrapping like plattsburgh did.  Im pretty sure being sloppy with the ball fits in with not defending, and a laxed demeanor so Im not sure what your getting at. Plattsburgh was what a hungry team looks like.

express- their defensive intensity has decreased over the last few years, when i first became familiar with the league they were more big, strong and rugged, with shooters mixed in, seems like they have gravitated more towards more skilled options, although tipton looks like he has alot of promise. and I agree about laporte, should be on the wing absolutely, you take him away as a weapon and do very little in terms of running the team.

[magicman]

LECFAN,
Thanks for the comments. I certainly understand where you were coming from. Last year was a learning experience for Plattsburgh, for sure. Was Coach Curle's worst record in his time at Plattsburgh. The silver lining was they were mostly freshman and sophomores. As I mentioned he brought in 3 transfers and 4 freshman (2 of whom are going to be solid starters in the future).  The transfers are valuable new additions. One of them, point guard Chris Manning, came from D2 and was the MVP of the Cardinal Classic back in November. The other one, 6'4" Shalik Parker, is a JC transfer and was the leading scorer last week against St Lawrence. He really has a problem trying to keep everybody happy with playing time. Perez was the starter from last year that missed the first 2 games. He was the 2nd leading scorer and leading rebounder last year. He's only 6'3" but plays much bigger, as evidenced by his defense on Keene's big man Tuesday night. He tweaked his back in practice and they kept him out of the first 2 games. Shavar Fields was the leading scorer last year and he's been coming in off the bench (not sure why) in the 2nd wave so to speak. Last year at home against New Paltz, Fields started the game with 21 of Plattsburgh's first 22 points in 12 minutes of the opening half.

Glad you got a chance to see Jordan Moody play. He brings a ton of energy to the team. He's a slasher and can get to the rim and has a decent outside shot as well, evidenced by the 3 pointer he hit late in the game that was the dagger for the Owls. I wanted to see him on the floor more often last year but his minutes were limited. He really goes after the loose balls and generally causes havoc with the opposing team. Curle is using him a lot more now and has even started him a couple of times this year. He's 7th on the team in minutes per game, shooting 50% from the field and scoring 6.7 ppg. With 2 more years after this one he's only going to get better.

Just so you know, Plattsburgh now has a great video feed for all their home games in case you're interested in watching. They signed a contract with a professional company, Northeast Sports Production I think it's called. Great video, never jumpy, real clean with professional announcers that do a solid job. I've never watched the basketball videocast as I'm always at the game but I watched a number of Plattsburgh's soccer games this fall and it was 2nd to none. They even had instant replay which I've very seldom seen. The link is always on Plattsburgh's Men's Basketball home page which can be accessed off D3hoops team page.

One last thing. You mentioned Alumni Hall, I think you meant Memorial Hall, as that's Plattsburgh arena. Unless you were referring to Clarkson's Alumni Gym. (You may have been there as well.) Who did you play for in the SUNYAC that year. Let me guess....New Paltz?   No, I remember now it was Cortland. Good old Spanbauer.     

[7express]

Ryan Pelletier in a sweater and jeans tonight, lose a key scorer off the bench