MBB: Little East

[LECFAN32]

Preseason prediction. Definitely.

[wcsu91]

WestConn's 2013/2014 Roster is up on their site. 5 returning players from last year's team: Bridtter, McIntyre, Laporte, Groski and Setero. Also the 2011/2012 Little East rookie of the year Jengodji Gates is back on the roster. 3 Freshmen and the other 5 must be transfers. 16 guys on the roster which is a high amount for Western.

[7express]

Western roster FINALLY up: http://wcsuathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2013-14/roster

Spud Gates back on the team, Payton off (thought he was gonna be back).  Ronnie Underwood who I believe played the first semester in 2011-12 is back on the team.  I think he showed a lot of promise this year.  4 people from out of state seems like an usually high number too.  Jerry Washington was the guy I head about back in September that could be better than DaQuan Brooks.

[7express]

WestConn's 2013/2014 Roster is up on their site. 5 returning players from last year's team: Bridtter, McIntyre, Laporte, Groski and Setero. Also the 2011/2012 Little East rookie of the year Jengodji Gates is back on the roster. 3 Freshmen and the other 5 must be transfers. 16 guys on the roster which is a high amount for Western.

And the women's team has 10 which seems like a low amount for them.  1 significant injury for them and they can't even have a full practice.

[7express]

Now seems like a good time for my LEC preview.  LEC record in parenthesis.

1) RIC (12-2).  Can never count out a Bob Walsh team.  Will probably struggle early on, but Western always gets them late in the season when they've found their groove.  Defense was superb last year, if they want to get over the hurdle and make that next step in the NCAAs, they have to get better on the offensive end, which is what held them back last year.  They'll be great on defense again, but can they score enough to win some of these close games vs. Eastern, Amherst, Brandeis, etc??
2) Eastern (11-3).  Last year they weren't supposed to be as good as they finished up.  They'll be right up there with RIC again for the whole season.  Eastern/RIC games will be the 2 games to watch in the conference this year and I have a feeling we'll be seeing more than the 2 scheduled meetings this year.
3) USM (9-5).  As I've stated before was USM's gaudy LEC record last year the product of a terrible conference, or are they building something up there in Gorham??  Only time will tell, however they look to be the best of the rest and I still don't think the conference will be that good.  Better than 2012-13 definitely, but definitely not as good as it was in 2010/11 or 2011/12.
4) Boston (8-6).  The last half of the 2 tiered conference I see this year.  I don't see much difference between finishing 3rd and 4th this year (both will win their home quarterfinal games, and both will lose to Eastern/RIC in the semifinals).  I can't see Boston finishing higher than 3rd and can't see them finishing lower than 4th, so whether them & USM swap spots really doesn't matter all that much in the long run.
5) Western (6-8).  Who really knows with this team and the rest of the 4 teams in general??  We basically did a roster overhaul from last season, and can't finish that much worse than we did.
6) Plymouth (5-9).  Will be tough to beat in Plymouth.  If they can go 6-1 at home in LEC games than sweep the road games against the bottom of the barrel teams (Western, Dartmouth, Keene, then get a win @ Boston & USM) they could possibly crack the top 4, but I just don't see it.
6) Dartmouth (5-9).  Much like Western, can't be much worse than they were last season.
8) Keene (4-10).  They've been so inconsistent for the past 3 years and they lose arguable their 2 most important players: Ryan Martin & Rashard Wright both playing professional right now.  If they couldn't win the conference with those 2, good luck trying to win it with Martell Walcott, Tom Doyle and Tre' Tipton.  Not bad players by any means, but compared with Martin & Wright, those guys are horrible.

LEC finals: RIC over Eastern; LEC back to a multiple bid league as Eastern joins RIC in the NCAAs.

Preseason player of the year:
Brian Salzillo-Eastern

All conference first team:
Martell Wolcott-Keene
John Genkos-Dartmouth
Conor Sullivan-USM
Alex Burt-Plymouth
Nyheem Sanders RIC
Salzillo-Eastern

[lildave678]

Wonder what happened to Tre-Kel Douglas? Was supposed to go to Western...

[7express]

Looks like Boston had an unusually higher roster turnover from last year.  Injury or did all these guys transfer/not play??  They lost 6 of their 7 leading scorers from last year and only 1 (Mike Mitchell Jr) was a senior.  Outside of Carl Joseph (who finished 2013 at 8.8 ppg), not one single returning Beacon averaged more then 3.6 points per game.  Looks like I overestimated this team in the preview.

[ECSUalum]

Video of SID Bob Molta interview with ECSU Coach Bill Geitner on outlook for this 2013/14 Warriors squad.

http://gowarriorathletics.com/sports/mbkb/index


LEC Preseason Poll still not out

[7express]

LEC poll out: http://littleeast.com/sports/mbkb/2013-14/releases/201311147h9a81

Before I start on where I agree/disagree, I'm gonna go on a rant so if you don't want to hear why I think having coaches pick this is a dumb way to predictions, skip ahead 2 paragraph's, to the line of asterisk's (*).

The reason I think this is dumb much like how I think coaches polls in division 1 football and basketball are dumb as well is because the coaches are voting, and the only thing they care about is: A) their own team and B) the team coming up in the next game.  You really think Randy Edsall at Maryland (not sure if he's one of the coaches that votes, but let's use him for arguments sake) is going to stay up until 2:30 AM on Saturday morning to watch Fresno state beat up on some hapless Mountain West conference team just to see if he has them rightly slotted at #15??  Of course not!  He's more worried about what went wrong that day during his team's game and how he can fix it in time for the next one.  Now, there are some coaches out there, that actually do take the voting relatively serious, try to watch what they can and make a uniformed decision based on what they see from their own 2 eyes, but for most of the coaches, they wake up Sunday morning, look at the scores from the week, look up their ballot from the previous week, find out which teams (if any) lost and if so to whom.  Than rank them based on the rankings from the previous week, and which team's lost and to whom and go from there.  It's the same with the LEC coaches filling out a preseason prediction.  The only thing they base their prediction on are A) how/where they finished last year and B) what comes back.  The coaches usually don't scout teams in season (though I have seen them on occasion), so they see each team for 2, possibly 3 games out a 25+ game season and place them on what they saw during those 2 games (which by the way they were more concerned about how their own team was doing) and A & B above, usually nothing else;  I have a great team example of this which I'll talk about  a little later.  Now there's holes for everything, but the conference commissioner or someone in the LEC office should handle the predictions (or hire me, either or), because usually the people in the conference try to pay attention to how teams are, who/what returns, bitten by injury, etc.  Why else do you explain that over the past 4 years my predictions have usually turned out better then the coaches??  It can't be a coincidence for 4 straight years, can it??  It because I'm actually seeing all 8 teams more then 2/3 teams I year, I pay attention to scores, try to get roster updates.  Can I screw up that way (and I probably did with Boston)??  of course I can. but I least I have a better sense overall, of how the conference is going to play out then the 8 coaches do.  With that out of the way, let's get onto business.

****************************

Now that we're all back together, let's get to work.  I'll have what the coaches pick first, and what I had second for each spot:

RIC 1, Eastern 2.  I had the same order.  Could potentially flip flop, but those 2 are clearly the best this year, so no arguments to start out with.
Keene 3.  I had USM 3.  Uhmmm....no idea here.  If you were reading the rant part, this is where I use the team example part.  The coaches probably looked at the roster and said, "Gee, Keene finished 3rd last year, made it to the LEC championship game.  Let's check out their roster.  Ok, they only had 4 seniors last year so of course they'll finish in 3rd again, behind the 2 teams they finished behind last year."  What the coaches probably failed to realize is 2 of those 3 graduating seniors were Ryan Martin & Rashad Wright who combined to average 26.3 ppg last year.  When you include Eric Fazio & Anthony Mariano the other 2 seniors, this is a Keene team that lost almost 50 ppg from last year (49.8) to be exact and will be tough to get those 50 points back.  Meanwhile, USM swam under the radar all of last year, finished 4th after being predicted 8th, and have their 2 best players back (James Odneal & Conor Sullivan) and picked them 6th this year??  Do you want be embarrassed by their high finish again this year??
Plymouth 4.  I had Boston 4.  I said in my Plymouth 2 sentence preview IF they could finish 6-1 at home AND finish no worse than 4-3 on the road that would probably be good enough to finish in the top half, but I just don't see it when I look at the roster.  The fact that the coaches gave them a first place vote is even more mind-boggling then their predicted 4th place finish.
Dartmouth 5.  I had Western 5.  The same Dartmouth team that finished 5-21 last year, and didn't win a game by more than 2 possessions since the middle of January, with roughly the same cast of characters??  You can very well make the argument that with a year of college ball under their belt that they'll trend upwards this year and another thing that bodes well for an upwards finish is their record in close games (6 points or less I'll use in this case).  Last year in games decided by 6 points or less they were 2-9 and those things tend to even out from year to year.  I'll repute that and stat that the kids aren't that particually good, and bad coaching is what lead them to the 2-9 finish.  In my 4 years at Western, this team has never finished higher than 5th.  Those teams with Paul Rose, Collin Burns, Lance Greene, etc, came in the 4 years when the Colonials trotted out DaQuan Brooks, Keene trotted out Derek D'Amours, Wright & Martin, RIC trotted out Tahkrike Carter, Mason Choice, Mike Akinrola, and Eastern trotted out Nick Nedwick, Chris Robailtaile, and Jamie Kohn, so that was bad luck on their part, but to never get over the hump into that 3 or 4 spot says a lot of about the coaching than anything else.  Remember, Keene played no defense what-so-ever with that team, and Western was a Brooks or bust team.
USM 6.  I had Plymouth 6.  I talked about USM earlier when I talked about Keene.  The team finished 3rd last year and is pretty much guaranteed no worse than a 5-2 LEC record in Gorham, what out of this screams "6TH PLACE" to the coaches??  Do they think their going to finish winless on the road??  That seems unlikely given the quality of the competition at the bottom and they finished 8-8 last year.
Western 7th.  I had Dartmouth 7th.  As I said with Western when I previewed them, that team is a big wildcard.  I though they were going to have Payton & Starks.  I think it's a little low, but really anywhere from 4-8 wouldn't surprise me with that team.
Boston 8th.  I had Keene.  Even with the losses to Keene I probably underrated Keene, but they've killed me in years past.  Had Boston 4th before I realized half the people that were supposed to be there aren't there anymore, and if I had done that I would have slotted them lower (probably 7th or 8th) and moved everyone else up.  This Boston pick is probably gonna end up being the pick I regret in February when I look back on this.

[wcsu91]

Just read that Phil Starks Western's leading scorer last year is attempting to be back on the team the 2nd Semester.

[7express]

Just read that Phil Starks Western's leading scorer last year is attempting to be back on the team the 2nd Semester.

Here we go again.  The roster merry-go-round has officially started out.  Any word on Payton??  When I saw him in September, he was pretty excited to play this season and played in at least 1 of the scrimmages, so really surprised to see him not on it.

[7express]

The best post of the year: The Friday Schedule!!  This means basketball has officially begun!!!!

Plymouth state 54 vs. St. Joeseph's (LI) 67 (@ Westfield State).
Last year was a big disappointment for the Eagles as they had to replace 5 starters and they struggled out to a 6-19 finish last year, ending a streak of 5 straight years with at least 20 victories.  Every starter from last season's 6-19 team return as well as their top 9 scorers.
Worcester state 58 @ Eastern 65. 
Worcester state finished a pedestrian 12-14 last season and went 1-1 against the LEC winning at the buzzer against Dartmouth 68-67 and blowing a late second half lead at home against Western and ended up losing 74-71.   This is the first of 3 games against LEC opponents for the Lancers who play Dartmouth & Western twice in a 3 day span in December.  The Lancers are (supposedly anyways) opening up a new arena this year as well.
Husson 73 @ Keene 66.
Husson has had 7 straight winning seasons and hasn't finished lower than 4th in the Northern Atlantic Conference.  Last year Keene won in Bangor 90-78, but of the 90 points the Owls scored last November 15, 61 of them were scored by graduating seniors.
Bowdoin 74 vs. Western 65 (@ Regis).
Bowdoin has 5 players that 6"5 or taller that can pose some problems.  That along with the uncertainty of the roster and I like Bowdoin.  Hopefully we get 1 win up there.
Elsm 78 @ Dartmouth 67.
Elms won 82-69 last year in the middle of when they won 12 of 13 to end the regular season and clinch a spot in the NCAA tournament.  They also play @ Keene, @ RIC and @ Albertus this year.
Southern Maine 76 @ Westfield 74.
Last year Westfield won 8-79 on a Lee Vazquez half court buzzer beater.  The Owls finished last season 21-6 with a loss to Eastern in the ECAC finals, but graduate 2 of their 3 leading scorers from 2013 including Vazquez who put up 21.1 a game last year.  Nice to get them the first game of the season, I think USM opens with a W.
RIC 65 vs. Skidmore 62 (@ Babson).
A nice little game up there @ Babson park.  Skidmore is a very talented young team who was picked second in the Liberty League.  They are lead by reining LL rookie of the year, and first team all LL selection this year Aldin Medunjanin who lead the team in scoring (15.6 ppg), rebounding (5.6 rpg) and assists (4.9 apg).  He is joined in the backcourt by fellow classmen and all-rookie selection Tanner Brooks who was second on the team in both scoring (14.2 ppg) and assists (2.9 apg).  Junior Connor Merrill also returns for the thoroughbreds this year.  He was 3rd in the team in scoring (13.5 ppg), second in rebounds (5.3 rpg) and first in blocked shots (2.7 ppg) and was named to the second team all LL.  RIC lost some pieces to graduation, but I say Bob Walsh and RIC are able to slow down the big guns for the Thoroughbreds and do just enough on offense to get the win.  This looks to be the best game of the day.

[ECSUalum]

7,
Great job on the 2013/14 preseason commentary!!!! +k

[ECSUalum]

Eastern Athletics Weekly returns Friday 11/15 on Little East TV with chat with Coach Geitner and 11/16 with  women's Coach Denise Bierly:
http://gowarriorathletics.com/releases/EAW

Also see Fox Toyota Scion Inside Rhode Island College Athletics Show archived broadcast from today:
http://www.littleeast.tv/

[wcsu91]

Just read that Phil Starks Western's leading scorer last year is attempting to be back on the team the 2nd Semester.

Here we go again.  The roster merry-go-round has officially started out.  Any word on Payton??  When I saw him in September, he was pretty excited to play this season and played in at least 1 of the scrimmages, so really surprised to see him not on it.

I have not heard anything on Payton.  From what I heard last year with him being off the team was that he was done playing at Western. Him and the coaches could not get on the same page and I thought he was transferring to play somewhere else???