MBB: Little East

[ECSUalum]

From ECSU Salibury box score
ECSU shot 65.2% from long range!!!!!

ECSU
---------------------
FG        3PT      FT
24-45  15-23   12-17
53.3%  65.2%  70.6%

Salisbury
---------------------
18-54   5-22    14-20   
33.3%  22.7%   70%

 

[7express]

ECSU.....Seems that your school has done the best out of conference scheduling, imho. That goes for the WBB team too!  Always find it benefits the team to play against teams from a different region. especially when one's team is composed of players from a different region.  Will try to catch some of tonight's game against Salisbury, a Maryland based team from the Eastern Shore part of MD...near the Ocean.  Has a strong athletic tradition/program in D3.  Why the dinner time start.  In the NESCAC, the MBB plays the dinner time start this year, with the WBB teams playing the "feature" game time.  Next year, it switches back.  Does the Little East do the same thing?

amh63,

When ECSU M/W baskeball play the same day, usually on Saturdays, women play at 1 pm, men at 3 pm

And to add to this: ALL LEC games the women play first and the women play second.
Tuesday: it's 5:30 PM for the women and 7:30 PM or 20 minutes after the women's game ends for the men's game.
Saturday: 1 PM for the women and then 3 PM/20 minutes following the conclusion of the women's game start time for the men.

I have NEVER seen an LEC game where the guys play before the girls do.

[Mr. Ypsi]

7express,

At 64, I might be forgiven for thinking of both high school and college players as 'girls'.  At your age, I suggest you refer to college players as 'women', unless you want to suffer the consequences!

Just a heads up!

[7express]

Wednesday results:

Bowdoin 75 53 over Plymouth.
Plymouth has 2 wins by a combined 5 points; Dartmouth has 2 wins by a combined 7 points, Western has 2 wins by a combined 8 points.  If Dartmouth and Plymouth hadn't already played the LEC could legimately have 3 winless teams, or at the worst case since those 2 already played 1 team with 1 win and the other 2 winless.   Plymouth somehow beating Becker is on my short list of "most surprising result" this year, and will probably stay that way for a while.
Western New England in double OT over Western Connecticut 93-85.
Damon Alston had 30 points for WNEU including 2 free throws to force overtime and the jumper which forced the 2nd overtime stanza.  WNEU never trailed in the 2nd OT stanza and lead by as many as 11.  What a terrible loss though.  After trailing 51-40 with about 10:00 minutes to play, we went on a 17-6 to tie the game at 57 on a Mark Laporte 3 then took a brief lead at 59-57 and 61-59, but each time we took the lead WNEU went to the other end and tied it up.  Derek McIntyre hit 2 free throws with 50 seconds left to give us another lead at 63-61, but Alston tied it up with 8 seconds to go with 2 free throws.  Ruyss Payton missed a buzzer beater and off we go to overtime.  In the 2nd overtime we had a 72-69 lead with 1:45 to play and were still up 73-71 with 14 seconds to play, but a Ryan Mickiewicz jumper (sorry, not Alston as origionall thought) put us into the 2nd OT with a jumper with 2 seconds to play.  WNEU won the jump ball in the 2nd OT, hit a 3 on their first possession and as a said never trailed again after that.  I'm starting to run out of hope with this team this year.  I thought Mitchell was rock bottom, losing back to back home games to TCNJ & WNEU (2 terrible teams) might be worse then that.  If we can't beat Plymouth at home on the 12th, this team is probably gonna finish winless at the O'Neil Center this year.
Eastern with a blowout over Salisbury 75-55.
ECSUalum and Magic did a good job with this one, so I'll let you read their recaps.  I'm gonna do my midseason LEC report in a bit and Eastern looks to be the best of the bunch this year.  Sure RIC has more wins, but I think 4 or 5 of their 8 wins have come by 9 points or less
USM 73-57 over UNE.
Is trailing at the half and rallying to defeat UNE really "righting the ship??"  They have a big week which will tell us about USM: @ Keene Saturday, home vs. RIC Tuesday.
OOC record 31-36.  Its bad when splitting 4 games constitutes a good night

Thursday schedule:
Eastern 55 @ Franklin & Marshall 70.
Eastern is gonna have to have Salzillio hot from 3 and have a big night from Chris Robitaile.  F&M is next to impossible to beat in Lancaster.
Wheaton 62 @ RIC 75.
Wheaton hasn't played in almost a month (December 8 was their last game) and have lost 3 of 4 after starting 5-0.  Of course RIC has lost 2 of 3 after starting 7-0.  At the Murray Center, I think RIC gets this by double figures.
Keene 75 @ Lasell 79.
A perfect storm for a Keene loss.  A team that plays no defense, has their star injured, constantly plays to their level of competition (Lasell is 1-8) and never beat against a team playing with house money on pure emotion.  2 weeks ago, Lasell guard and captain Sean Bertanza died in his sleep at his home, and this is Lasell's first game since that tragedy.  Lasell will be playing on pure emotion and has nothing to lose.  They come away with the win for the senior captain.  RIP Sean Bertanza 

[LECFAN32]

Bad bad loss vs wnec.. Giving up how many points in the two over times? Offensively team is starting to figure it out, but this last couple weeks was an opportunity to get back to respectability record wise..and they did not at all.. Losing to two bottom dwellers and not defending a wnec team that has had a lot of issues scoring.

Eastern is playing well however and sold be an interesting test vs f n m. Love watching games on the diplomats site..suggest everybody check it out, as its incredibly clear. Warriors shaping up to be a league contender buts f n m is a very impressive team, beating up a good Plattsburgh Squad from the get go..Agree with express prediction, if its within 10 they would have played well, as their is not enough interior defense to keep the diplomats from going high low time and time again.

[7express]

Express midseason LEC report card.

The only thing saving Western this year is the fact the conference is terrible this year.  Take a look at their next 5 opponents: @ Dartmouth (Saturday), home vs. Keene (Tuesday), home vs. Plymouth (Saturday the 12th), home vs. Eastern (Tuesday the 15th) and @ Boston (Saturday the 19th) take us up to the game @ RIC on Tuesday the 24th.  Not ONE of those 5 opponents am I automatically going to write a loss down to like I did for F&M and Albertus.  Can we lose all 5??  Probably, especially the way were going right now.  Can we win all 5??  Doubtful, but not entirely out of the question.  Would've liked their chances a lot more beating TCNJ & WNEU, however.  Let's break down each of those 6 (includin RIC even though I didn't put them in the next 5) and we'll throw in USM for good measure to round out the conference.
Dartmouth: A terrible team which I predicted since the beginning of the season (remember I picked them 7th in my preseason poll).   On a 2 game winning streak, but that's via an overtime win over a good but not great J&W team, and by 4 over an 0-11 Regis team.  Both of Western's wins (Worcester state & Clark) are better then either of Dartmouth's wins, however Dartmouth is on a bit of a roll.  Western's chances of winning: 55%.
Keene: If they were an NBA team Colbert would be long gone by now.  Terrible sub patterns, laxadasical on both ends of the floor, no motivation, just an atrocious defensive team even though they have a 7 footer and I believe 2 6"10 guys on the team.  A complete travesty and a total waste of talent from this group to be a measley 6-4 on New Years.  Can they turn it around??  Absolutely, they did it just last year, but I don't see it from this year's team.  I see Western taking USM's place as the "underdog most likely to steal a home win from a top tier team."  My bold prediction of 2013: Western beats AT LEAST 1 of: Keene, Eastern or RIC at home even though they'll have no business doing so.  If Keene actually wants to play and win this game, they'll do so easily, but with Keene you never know.  That's why I'm placing Western's odds of winning this game as high as 43%.
Plymouth: Another awful team, but has the best win of the 2 win teams over Becker.  Have gotten whalloped lately: 30 point L @ Salem, 14 point L @ RIC, 16 point L vs. Tufts, a terrible loss @ Lyndon state, and most recently (Wednesday night) an 18 point L at home vs. Bowdoin.  All good teams, but they've been blown out.  If Western loses this game, its officially a lost cause for the season.  Western's chances of winning: 97%
Eastern: My pick for best team of the year, but likewise with Western have some flaws.  Their better overall and have more scoring options, but they have most of their scoring from the backcourt, and their a very thin and light bench.  ECSUalum and maybe Warrior can attest to this, and correct me if I'm wrong, but looking at the boxscores from the last 4 or so games Eastern's only going 3 or 4 deep from the bench.  If they can get the front court guys (Robitaile, Yarborough, etc) consistancy on the offensive end, and a little bit of help from the bench, I see them winning the title again.  The toughest opponent in that 5 game stretch for Western.  Western's chances of winning: 28% (but 2% if they lose to Plymouth).
Boston: Having a good year so far, and very athletic, but that team is filled with first and second year players.  Don't think their going to be able to hold up in LEC play when teams are going to be seeing them twice in a relatively short amount of time (usually twice in less than a 3 week span).  They've won 9 games after January 1 the last 5 seasons.  Had a good first half, I think their in for a second half swoon.  Western's chances of winning: 54%
RIC: Last year's RIC squad would beat this year's squad by 10+.  That win over MIT is nice, but it was without Noel Hollingsworth & Jamie Karraker for the Engineers.  They don't guard the 3 very well (last 3 opponents are 24-40 from downtown hitting on 60% of their attempts) while at the same time their not hitting the 3.  In that last 3 game stretch, while the opponents are connecting on 60% of ther 3's, RIC is only hitting on 25% of their attempts.  Usually I'd say it evens out, but they don't shoot them often.  Their 6th in the conference in 3 pointers attempted with 175 ahead of only Keene state (172) and Plymouth (148), but their next to last in 3 pointers made (51) ahead of only Plymouth state (49) and dead last in 3 point field goal percentage 29.1%   So even though they've attempted almost 30 more 3's then Plymouth they've only made 2 more then the Panthers.  The last 5 games, RIC has chucked it up from 3 85 times for an average of 17 3 point attempts per game even though their next to last in made 3's and last in percentage.  That will be their downfall this year.
USM.  Another team doing surprising well in the early going.  Their a bad road team and 6 of their last 9 games (5 of last 8 LEC games) will be taking place on the road.  They've done well so far in holding serve at home, but can they get some road W's this year.  Wheels have started to fall off the bus these last few weeks, but a 5 game stretch of @ Keene, home vs. RIC, @ Dartmouth, home vs. Boston and @ Eastern will see whether their a viable contender for the whole season, or a team that got hot playing teams they only play once per season if even that much.

As I told someone the other day, I can see 7 teams winning this championship (only team I can't see winning is Plymouth), but any of the other 7 I wouldn't be surprised to see them win the title (yes, even Western).  All it takes is one 5 or 6 game stretch to go 5-1, 6-0 to go in the drivers seat and this year its entirely possible.  You don't have the dominant teams we've had in the past (RIC, Western with DaQuan Brooks, Eastern the last couple years) and each team has major flaws.  I'm still sticking by Keene, mainly because they have all that talent to NOT get up and run through the league, but I'm about to jump on board the lifeboat if the Keene ship starts to sink.  Its already approaching the iceberg.

Overall conference grade gets a C-.  Conference will be lucky to have a bubble team in discussion come selection Monday.  if RIC ends up winning the tournament, it's almost likely their the only LEC team in the tournament.

[amh63]

ECSU.....Realized late that the dinner schedule was a tournament based time.  Thanks for the greetings....likewise to you and the family.
Anyway, the HD/with replay is indeed nice.  Have not tried streaming games on my "smaller/older" smart TV yet.  The previous webcast have been such that it was not worth it.  Now, with many of the NESCAC schools going to HD, I will try it.....especially if Amherst follows this semester as rumored.  Franklin & Marsh. also has the benefit of a fine announcer where as the student announcers on "CAC" webcast  can be lacking.
The team that your team will be facing today is a fine one but also one that has struggled a bit early in the season.  Watched F&M against Gettysburg and they were pushed to the limit by a smaller and less talented team.  Another conf. team pushed them also and F & M has dropped in the rankings of late.  It is basically the same team that Amherst lost to and MIT beat in the quarter finals last season in Lancaster......minus their best guard and leading scorer.  Surprised that their senior front court star has developed an outside shot...as seen in their win over Plattsburgh yesterday.  It was their other front court player...Solandra(?) that helped beat Amherst last year and impressed me.  Not much of a scorer but a good defender and great rebounder.  He got a number of OF rebounds that gave F&M second chances to score.  Gettysburg did play some zone against F & M that caused problems. 

[ECSUalum]

7,
Excellent analysis as usual on the first half results of LEC teams.  You are correct, ECSU's bench is not deep, with So Yarborough, Fr Preston, and  Sr Hundley all posting in at 22 avg. min per game and after that Fr Darryl best has the most with 8 min. So it is obvious which bench players Coach Geitner feels comfortable with.  6'3" Forward Brandon Yarbourough is a fantastic rebounder, second on the team with 6.9 r/g not far behind 6'5" Chris Robitaille's 7.3r/g.  He some times has difficulty finishing on the easy layups, but plays very good defense for a sophmore. He will be a very good LEC player by his Senior year, most likely a rebound leader.
Hundley, can shoot the 3 , but some times seems like he has difficulty fitting into the ECSU offense,  and is can be unsure of himself with the ball.  He needs to step up a bit as he is a Senior. 
Freshman Trechone Preston, has been a huge upside surprise for the Warriors, actually playing hurt for the first couple games he played. Obviously he still has a bunch to learn about playing basketball at the college level, but I believe he could be LEC Rookie of the year if he continues on his current track. If he can learn to drive the baseline like Daquan Brooks did.... HE WILL BE DANGEROUS
Overall, based on what I see, Eastern's weaknesses at least in the first half, has been protecting the ball with a -56 differential on TO's vs competition, and a full 10 point higher avg. points per game they give up on defense vs last year, so they are missing the outstanding defensive prowess of Kohn and Nedwick and Chae Phillips.  They are scoring approx the same number of points they did last year, so the 10 point differential, may translate to 4-5 more losses vs 2011/12 IMHO.
Positives this year are their FT shooting, (which by the way was a pet peeve with me last year), and 3 pt shooting abilities. So, if they can balance that with Robitaille post play, they will have a nice "rebuilding" year after losing an excellent Seniors class of Nedwick, Kohn, Phillips and Levy.
BTW 6'6" 245 lb C/F Darryl Best looks to be a diamond in the rough, so if Coach Geiter can get him to improve his offensive skills, ( he already has shown he can block shots), he could be very good big man.

[ECSUalum]

ECSU.....Realized late that the dinner schedule was a tournament based time.  Thanks for the greetings....likewise to you and the family.
Anyway, the HD/with replay is indeed nice.  Have not tried streaming games on my "smaller/older" smart TV yet.  The previous webcast have been such that it was not worth it.  Now, with many of the NESCAC schools going to HD, I will try it.....especially if Amherst follows this semester as rumored.  Franklin & Marsh. also has the benefit of a fine announcer where as the student announcers on "CAC" webcast  can be lacking.
The team that your team will be facing today is a fine one but also one that has struggled a bit early in the season.  Watched F&M against Gettysburg and they were pushed to the limit by a smaller and less talented team.  Another conf. team pushed them also and F & M has dropped in the rankings of late.  It is basically the same team that Amherst lost to and MIT beat in the quarter finals last season in Lancaster......minus their best guard and leading scorer.  Surprised that their senior front court star has developed an outside shot...as seen in their win over Plattsburgh yesterday.  It was their other front court player...Solandra(?) that helped beat Amherst last year and impressed me.  Not much of a scorer but a good defender and great rebounder.  He got a number of OF rebounds that gave F&M second chances to score.  Gettysburg did play some zone against F & M that caused problems.

Amh63,
6'7" Hayk Gyokchyan looks to be a player who could play professional basketball at some level either in Europe or perhaps in the US. I seem to remember his outsude shooting when WCSU played F/M last year in the NCAA tourny.  It will be a good learning experience for the younger players to compete against F/M, but unless ECSU plays their top game and F/M somehow struggles, the bet is an ECSU loss, probably by 10-15 pts.
I was just amazed while watching the ECSU/Salibury game last night, how nice it is to watch my Warriors in HD, on a wide screen LED TV, with an excellent announcer and with camera people who know what they are doing.  Instant replay was icing on the cake.  Student announcer idiosyncrasies I can understand as they are natural homies and are most likely communication majors learning the ropes, what drives me bananas are the people behind the camera who seem to be distracted and/or do not know how to use a video camera, (ie focus in/out, follow the ball etc etc).
Maybe i am wrong, but it seems that it should be straight forward to me.
I have tuned in to Wesleyan University for a couple of HD streamed games which are excellent, so congrats to Amherst for going HD.  I hope the LEC will follow suit.

[magicman]

Good luck tonight to Eastern Connecticut in their matchup against Franklin and Marshall. It'll be tough to come away with a win in this game on the Diplomats home court but I'll be rooting for the Warriors to do just that. Will need Salzillo and Hundley to come off the bench and nail those three pointers like they did yesterday.

[magicman]

Chris Robitaille with a layup at the end of the half to pull Eastern Connecticut to within 3 as they trail Franklin & Marshall 25-22 at the break. Robitaille leads the Warriors with 8 points in this defensive minded game.

[ECSUalum]

Good luck tonight to Eastern Connecticut in their matchup against Franklin and Marshall. It'll be tough to come away with a win in this game on the Diplomats home court but I'll be rooting for the Warriors to do just that. Will need Salzillo and Hundley to come off the bench and nail those three pointers like they did yesterday.

Thanks magic, but someone on ECSU is going to have to get hot to pull this one out. Gyochin (spelling), has been kept under control but could bust out at any time. ECSU not shooting well, but playing some good D!!!

[7express]

This isn't OT because it involves RIC.

I'm here at the Long Island vs Sacred Heart game and someone here was the coach that preceded Bob Walsh at RIC.  Ill give people until 9:30 to figure out the answer

[magicman]

This isn't OT because it involves RIC.

I'm here at the Long Island vs Sacred Heart game and someone here was the coach that preceded Bob Walsh at RIC.  Ill give people until 9:30 to figure out the answer

That would be Long Island University coach Jack Perri. Coached at Rhode Island 1 year,  2004-05 went 20-9, won the regular season title for the first time ever (co-champs), but missed the NCAA tournament. They made it to the finals of the ECAC's and Perri was named the LEC's Coach of the Year.

[7express]

And as usual Magic is correct.  The following season went to LIU as an assistant under former Keene state grad Jim Ferry.  Got promoted to associate head for the 07-08 season, and when Ferry left for Duquesne, Perri got the job.

I had no idea he finished with 20 wins.  I always thought Bob Walsh did the turn around, but it turns out the pieces were already there and the person who started RICs turnaround was Jack Perri.  Wonder if they have the same success 8 years later then they do if Perri decides to stay there.