MBB: Little East

[ECSUalum]

Eastern Connecticut moves into the Top 25 poll as they come in 22nd place with 90 points. Just in time for the Florida Tournament. The Warriors will be the only one of the four teams in the tournament sporting a Top 25 ranking. North Central is in the others receiving votes category (10 points), while Carthage and Buffalo State get no mention at all.  Here's the link to the complete poll:

http://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2013-14/week4

I hope the Warriors ranking is justified, maybe a little premature, but as I always say, just keep winning and the D3 Hoops top 25 rankings will come.  Lose games and the same is true.  The only important ranking is the final one!!   

Magic, I wish ECSU could play more SUNYAC teams, but the distances make that generally difficult. Maybe if we both get into the "show" 

[magicman]

Eastern Connecticut moves into the Top 25 poll as they come in 22nd place with 90 points. Just in time for the Florida Tournament. The Warriors will be the only one of the four teams in the tournament sporting a Top 25 ranking. North Central is in the others receiving votes category (10 points), while Carthage and Buffalo State get no mention at all.  Here's the link to the complete poll:

http://d3hoops.com/top25/men/2013-14/week4

I hope the Warriors ranking is justified, maybe a little premature, but as I always say, just keep winning and the D3 Hoops top 25 rankings will come.  Lose games and the same is true.  The only important ranking is the final one!!   

Magic, I wish ECSU could play more SUNYAC teams, but the distances make that generally difficult. Maybe if we both get into the "show" 

ECSUalum,
You're right the distances are just to far to make frequent matchups realistic. Outside of Keene vs Plattsburgh and New Paltz for you guys the other schools are mostly 6 hours or more in travel time. Tip off Tournaments and Holiday Tournaments are the other way to go. Perhaps I'll push Coach Curle to try and get the Warriors to come to Plattsburgh for our Cardinal Classic and we can go to Willimantic the following year for the  Warrior's Tip Off Tournament. One thing about Coach Curle and Coach Geitner is they are not afraid to play anybody at any time. That's always good for the program. I'd rather my Cardinals play a good team and lose in a close, hard fought game, than beat some cupcake by 40 or 50 points. I've seen some games this year that were absolutely ridiculous because the disparity between the 2 teams was so great. The better team would get more benefit out of a team scrimmage than the 50 point win over dessert.

Good luck this weekend, I'll be rooting for Eastern to win both their games. 

[amh63]

Did some "armchair scouting" again last night when I watched an available video of the Dec. 7 barnburner between
RIC and ECSU.  Surprised that RIC has found some offense this season   Surprised to learn that both HBCs are graduates of Hamilton College..a nescac school.
On the subject of coaches....any info on why the RIC coach missed the game? 

[7express]

Friday schedule:

North Central 67 vs. Eastern 61 (@ Orlando).
North Central, if going by number of votes would be #40 this week, and Eastern has jumped into the 25, currently residing at #22 after rattling off 6 straight wins to get to 7-1.   North Central is 6-2 on the season losing to 5-3 DePauw, and 8-3 Aurora.  NNCU finished 28-4 last year and made it all the way to the final 4 before losing to eventual national champ Amherst, but graduated All-American Derek Raridon, the coach's son, however there's a lot of talent still left there.  As Mr. Ypsi said earlier, Landon Gamble can be as good as Raridon was, but he is less consistent.  The CCIW is better then the LEC, so the talent of competition NCCU faces in the conference slate is better then Eastern does (outside of RIC, there's not much the LEC has to offer, while the CCIW churns out Illinois Wesleyan and Augustana two perennial top 25 teams yearly, as well as Elmhurst, Wheaton & Carthage who are likely all top 100 teams), so I say NCCU gets the win because of that.

[amh63]

7Express....no love for WCSU! ...in the LEC?  Have a good and fruitful Holiday Season.

[7express]

7Express....no love for WCSU! ...in the LEC?  Have a good and fruitful Holiday Season.

Our first half schedule was atrocious.  7-2, but lost to 2 of the 3 best  teams we played, including 25 to the best team on that putrid schedule (Bowdoin), so they need to do work in the second half. 

You and your family have a good holiday season as well too Amh!!   

[magicman]

Eastern Connecticut and North Central go down to the wire and the Warriors trail by 3 with 4 seconds left. Brian Salzillo is fouled on a three point attempt and goes to the line makes the first one and North Central takes a time out to try and ice him. Salzillo is not fazed at all and calmly makes them both to tie it up. North Central with a good look at a three pointer that almost goes in, bounces and almost goes in again. Overtime coming up.

I have a friend that is sitting courtside in Orlando for this game and as I was typing he called me to tell me that it has been a great game. As we're speaking he informs me that Garrow is called for a foul and has fouled out of the game. A technical has also been called and North Central grabs the lead, 65-62.  The Cardinals stay in front 67-64 but Salzillo nails a 3 pointer to tie it up once again at 67 with 2:47 to play. North Central scores to go back up 69-67 and Salzillo make a layup to knot the score again with 1:46 to play. The Cardinals turn it over and the Warriors come down with a chance for the lead but Salzillo misses a triple. North Central rebounds , but turns it over once again. Eastern's ball with 47 seconds left and they take a timeout.

Salzillo misses again out of the timeout with 33 seconds left, but Hugh Lindo gets the rebound and is fouled with 29 seconds to play. He goes to the line but misses both free throws. North Central rebounds and takes a time out with 19 seconds left.

North Central's Brandon Williams is fouled with 2 seconds to go and makes 1 of 2 free throws to give the Cards a 70-69 lead.  Eastern rebounds with a second left but can't do anything and this game is over.

Mike Garrow was the Warriors' leading scorer with 25 points and 7 rebounds. it would appear that he got the better of North Central's preseason All American, Langdon Gamble, who finished with 14 points and 5 rebounds. North Central's other big man Jack Burchett had 13 points and 8 rebounds. Brian Salzillo had 20 points for Eastern but wasn't as deadly as we've seen him in the past, only shooting 7x18 from the field and 3 for 9 from long distance. Not terrible but he's definitly had better days. Trachone Preston also had double figures for the Warriors with 14 points along with 5 assists. Vince Kmiec led North Central with 24 points. he was 7x16 from the field and 4x8 from downtown

Stats were fairly even as both teams shot 44 % from the field. Eastern was 37% from 3 point range and North Central was 33%. The Warriors were 71%from the line to 61% for the Cardinals, but the 2 biggest free throws of the night for Eastern were the ones that Lindo missed with 29 seconds left and the score tied at 69. Knock those down and this game probably has a different outcome.
Eastern had 1 more rebound then the Cardinals...33-32 and both teams had numerous turnovers, 18 for the Warriors and 19 for North Central.

Tough loss for the Warriors and tomorrow won't get any easier with the other CCIW team, Carthage up next.   

[ECSUalum]

Magic,
Thanks for the  summary +k.  Did not get to tune in as my daughter just arrived today from LA, so we are spending time with her
That is too bad, I clicked on Live Stats just as the game ended.  Good that the game was exciting and the Warriors played well!!!

[amh63]

ECSU...your warriors played well in the OT lost.  Followed the last 5 minutes and OT of the game.  Posted a little about the game on the "CAC" board.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Eastern Connecticut and North Central go down to the wire and the Warriors trail by 3 with 4 seconds left. Brian Salzillo is fouled on a three point attempt and goes to the line makes the first one and North Central takes a time out to try and ice him. Salzillo not fazed at all and calmly makes them both to tie it up. North Central with a good look at a three pointer that almost goes in, bounces and almost goes in again. Overtime coming up.

I have a friend that is sitting courtside in Orlando for this game and as I was typing he called me to tell me that it has been a great game. As we're speaking he informs me that Garrow is called for a foul and has fouled out of the game. A technical has also been called and North Central grabs the lead, 65-62.  The Cardinals stay in front 67-64 but Salzillo nails a 3 pointer to tie it up once again at 67 with 2:47 to play. North Central scores to go back up 69-67 and Salzillo make a layup to knot the score again with 1:46 to play. The Cardinals turn it over and the Warriors come down with a chance for the lead but Salzillo misses a triple. North Central rebounds , but turns it over once again. Eastern's ball with 47 seconds left and they take a timeout.

Salzillo misses again out of the timeout with 33 seconds left, but Hugh Lindo gets the rebound and is fouled with 29 seconds to play. He goes to the line but misses both free throws. North Central rebounds and takes a time out with 19 seconds left.

North Central's Brandon Williams is fouled with 2 seconds to go and makes 1 of 2 free throws to give the Cards a 70-69 lead.  Eastern rebounds with a second left but can't do anything and this game is over.

What he said!  NCC should have won this easily in regulation, but for the great ECSU FT defense!  The Cards were up 5 with 85 seconds to go, when ECSU started fouling.  NCC obliged by missing 3 of 4 FTs over the next 50 seconds.  Little used Tyler Sutton bailed NCC out by going 4 for 4 from the line (his only points of the game) in the waning seconds.  I couldn't believe they fouled on a 3-pointer with 4 seconds remaining!  I assumed they subscribed to the foul them before a shot with a 3 point lead theory, and was stunned when ECSU got a third FT to tie it up!

[magicman]

Here are some quotes from posters on the CCIW board concerning the Eastern Conn.-North-Central game.


"With the game tied at 69 and 2 seconds left in overtime, Brandon Williams sinks 1 of 2 FTs to give NCC the victory!" 
Posted by AndOne



"And since NCC took a time out between Brandon's FTs, I suspect he was instructed to deliberately miss the second to kill the clock." Posted by Mr.Ypsi


"Brandon was indeed instructed to miss the 2nd FT. However, the Eastern CT head coach got tossed so NC had 4 FTs coming, which Vince Kmiec would have shot. Then their assistant coach also got tossed so NC actually had 4 more coming after that. However ECSU said just call it because they were leaving the floor.   

Additionally, on the Brandon Wiliams "foul" that was called with 4 seconds left in regulation allowing ECSU to tie the game on 3 FTs, the ECSU player "fouled" told one of the NCC players during the OT period that "#4 never touched me." " Posted by AndOne


Apparently there were some last minute fireworks by the Eastern coaches that failed to make the live stats page.

[7express]

Friday results:
North Central in overtime 70-69 over Eastern.  Magic did an excellent job recapping this, so I'll let you read this, since I turned on live stats at about the 7:00 mark, than my sister and her husband came over for dinner so didn't even see the result until now.  So no need to steal Magic's thunder since I paid attention to all of about 20 seconds of this game.

35-24 LEC: 50-14 me

Sat schedule:
Carthage vs. Eastern (@ Orlando) 2:00 PM

Carthage 57 vs. Eastern 65. 
Carthage is 6-4 and lost to Buffalo state by 2 in the other game in Orlando.  The game before that, they beat a very good UW-Platteville team 112-104.  They also lost by 1 to Cardinal Stritch, one of the better teams in the NAIA circuit.  The overall record (6-4) isn't good, but the team is pretty good.  Will come down to the final couple minutes I think.

[AllStar]

So, did Coach Geitner get tossed???  Wow.  He usually does not say much to the officials...it seems rare that he actually picks up a technical.

[magicman]

So, did Coach Geitner get tossed???  Wow.  He usually does not say much to the officials...it seems rare that he actually picks up a technical.

Apparently Coach Geitner and his assistant got tossed at the same time, but with 1 or 2 seconds left in the game it hardly mattered and the box score doesn't reflect the fact that they were tossed. I'm sure they were a little upset at the zebra that called the foul against Eastern with 2 seconds left in the game and basically handed the win to North Central. Can't say as I blame them for giving the ref a few words of wisdom.

In the game following the Eastern-North Central contest the refs or I should say one particular ref, called double technicals not once but twice against Carthage and Buffalo State. A friend of mine with Buffalo State said the officials for these games were D1 and D2 refs and the ref calling all the technicals was also warning the players on numerous occasions. He appeared to want to show everyone he was in charge whenever the opportunity presented itself.  In the 2 games on Friday the Florida refs called 8 technical fouls.    

[ECSUalum]

Yes, This is the first time I ever heard or seen Coach G get the boot on a T, never mind both Geitner and Coach Wilde.
Something must have been very wrong with the call.  However, learn from the game and move on, now the Warriors now have to focus on Carthage.