MBB: Little East

[warrior]

Well, we're heading down the home stretch! In exactly two weeks we'll all know where we stand!  Western will need to lose two to make things interesting.  Right now, of course, they are looking very good! Hopefully we can get Boston again today for some momentum going into a big away game at UMD on Tuesday after our tough buzzerbeater loss on Thursday.

It was nice to see us, along with RIC and Western in the regional rankings.  Hopefully we can stick around!

[KSCfan]

Keene fell to RIC this weekend and it is looking like the owls will def be hitting the road for the LEC tournament.  Keene was ahead most of the first half until a couple of RIC runs tied the game at half, and then RIC pulled away in the second half.  Keene really struggled getting the ball down low, and didnt really have any inside outside game.  Also RIC controlled the tempo and pretty much showed at this point and time that they are a very good team and prob a little more seasoned than the owls. 

Keene is at Eastern on Tuesday in a very very important game for both of them.  Seeding is at stake and if Eastern wants to stay in the regional ranking then they are going to have to beat Keene, which i am thinking they are not going to.  Im smelling upset city in Willimantic! (is Keene over eastern an upset?... yeah prob but with this league this year who the heck knows!)

[leelowlang]

Curious of the posters thoughts of who is the league's best:

Best Team:

Best Coach:

Best Player:

Best Point Guard:

Best Low-Post Scorer:

Best Shooter:

Best Dunker:

Best Defender:

[WcsuAlum]

Can't really say too much about other teams in the Little East, but I can throw out some nominations from what I've seen from West Conn. Best player would have to be Daquan Brooks leading the league in points and assists without playing the point. For point guard, I really like the point guard play of Martin from Keene and Gray from RIC. Bentil and Addy could be thrown in the mix with Addy being number 2 in the league in Assist to Turnover ratio while Bentil is 5th. For best rookie or newcomer, I'd have to go with Russel Payton who's racked up the LEC rookie of the week awards. Best shooter, I would nominate Brooks and Jengodgi Gates from Westconn and for Best defender, I would have to go with Addy.

[ECSUalum]

Curious of the posters thoughts of who is the league's best:

Best Team: WCSU

Best Coach: RIC Walsh

Best Player: Daquan Brooks WCSU

Best Point Guard: Ryan Martin KSC

Best Low-Post Scorer: Mike Akinrola RIC

Best Shooter: Ryan Martin KSC

Best Dunker: Dont see many!!

Best Defender:  Bill Roveto ECSU

[KSCfan]

Eastern tops Keene 76-66 last night.  Owls seem to be struggling a little bit of late.  They had some steam and momentum going but have lost back to back conference games, and three overall(WNEC).  Things dont get any easier as they have Western on sat.  I know nothing about the game last night as I had some things to do and didnt get a chance to watch the game.  Did any of you Eastern guys get a chance to see the game and could offer some insight on it.  According to the story on the Keene website, slow first half followed by a frenzy in the second. 

[ECSUalum]

KSCFan,

The difference in last night's ECSU win over Keene was, in essance, and IMHO, Nick Nedwick!!  He was really outstanding and pumped last night, he scored his 1000th point, and seemed to do everything.  Had 4 steals, 5 rebounds, and 10-16, 4-5, and 4-7, (FG%, 3PT%, FT% resp.) for 28 points. When Nedwick plays like this the Warriors are hard beat. Eastern is playing great Defence this year, but need the scoring of Nedwick to spark the team.  He is a VERY intense player all the time, but when he is in the zone, he is unstoppable.  Brod Sawyer was also outstanding inside last night.

Rebounding was even on both sides, but the killer for Keene was 34% FG % and 59% FT shooting.  D'Amours was great but they need Ryan Martin to shoot well from outisude to keep the inside game effective.  Fazio, Demasco did not play that well and these are key guys in the Keene offence. Nicco, however, was game rebounding leader last night.  Orlando Echevarria was great off the bench in the 8 min he played!!!  I dont know, Keene just could not put together a good run like they typically have.

Valente and his partner came down and as usual did a great job with the play by play and color commentating.  First Class all the  way!!!  Without a good second half Keene run and some run and gun 3 pointers by the Owls, Valente could not get excited, which REALLY makes his broadcast fun to listen to.

PS, I apologize for forgetting the color guys's name as he really does a great job for the Owls broadcast!!!!

[LECFAN32]

western was downright outplayed by ric.. choice, lee and akinrola are tough matchups for them as western usually goes with a 5 out offense, which means that if the opposing team has a banger like akinrola there is a mismatch in the post, choice has been up and down and despite the turnovers last night he made his team better in multiple ways. if their playing like thye were last night ric is a very difficult team to beat, gray and manson were hitting from the outside which really opened up the lane for lee and choice..

hope western gets it togethor finishing the season with ric and keene, have heard their are some internal issue and it seems to show on the floor with alot of individual play.. hope they are able to regroup

nedwick is a great player and seems to have turned up his play a notch in conference play, very well rounded..along with sawyer scoring on a consistent basis, getting bench help makes them very tough to beat.

[7express]

West Conn @ Keene state, East Conn @ Mass-Dartmouth two biggest games this weekend.  Really can't see RIC losing to Southern Maine at home, even though they lost in Gorham last month.  Could be a 3 way tie for first at 5:00 PM tomorrow.

Speaking of tie's, anyone know the tiebreakers for the LEC, especially 3 way tie's??  Tried surfing the LEC website, but no mention of tiebreakers.

[warrior]

Regarding 3 way tie-breakers, the way the LEC policy is written is vague:
- First of course is the "head-to-head" tie-breaker,
- Next they go to "competition vs. higher seeded teams."
- Next is overall road record in the conference
it goes on, but normally, that should be enough.

The question is, what do they mean exactly by, "competition vs. higher seeded teams"?  If we're talking about a 3 way tie for first, there are no 'higher seeded' teams.

Take ECSU, RIC and Western for example. If ECSU beats Western on Tuesday, there could be a three way tie for first.  The way I see it, by virtue of RIC's sweep of Eastern, Eastern would be automatically third. Then, between RIC and Western - RIC's sweep of the highest remaining seed (Eastern) would give them the home court!  But, to be honest, because of the vagueness of the policy, I'm really not too sure about that!

What do you guys think?

Actually, right now, I'm more worried about getting by UMD!  They are very tough at home, and we didn't look so hot on Thursday!  Hopefully we can pull it off, and help make for an exciting finish to, what has already been a great LEC season!

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Regarding 3 way tie-breakers, the way the LEC policy is written is vague:
- First of course is the "head-to-head" tie-breaker,
- Next they go to "competition vs. higher seeded teams."
- Next is overall road record in the conference
it goes on, but normally, that should be enough.

The question is, what do they mean exactly by, "competition vs. higher seeded teams"?  If we're talking about a 3 way tie for first, there are no 'higher seeded' teams.

Take ECSU, RIC and Western for example. If ECSU beats Western on Tuesday, there could be a three way tie for first.  The way I see it, by virtue of RIC's sweep of Eastern, Eastern would be automatically third. Then, between RIC and Western - RIC's sweep of the highest remaining seed (Eastern) would give them the home court!  But, to be honest, because of the vagueness of the policy, I'm really not too sure about that!

What do you guys think?

Actually, right now, I'm more worried about getting by UMD!  They are very tough at home, and we didn't look so hot on Thursday!  Hopefully we can pull it off, and help make for an exciting finish to, what has already been a great LEC season!

I think you're probably pretty close to right.  I didn't look at all the schedules, but your logic is consistent with the way most conference break ties.

[7express]

Scores from today:
Keene state over West Conn 82-78.  I'd like to know what happened with Brooks, didn't make the trip with the team.  I hope this wasn't the "internal problem" someone was talking about earlier this week.  Was a 9 point deficit at halftime, started the second half on an 18-8 run to take our only lead of the game at 49-48.  Keene scored on the next trip down the court and never trailed again after that, though it was close.  Too bad we couldn't buy a basket the first 5 minutes of the game.

Plymouth beat Boston 73-41, that means the LEC tournament is set (West Conn, Keene, East Conn, RIC, Dartmouth, Plymouth) order to still be decided.
East Conn over Dartmouth 79-76 and RIC was an 85-54 winner over Southern Maine.  Both East Conn and RIC are now tied with West Conn for first.  Western better beat Eastern on Tuesday otherwise they'd go from looking like hosting the tournament to playing on the first day all in a week's span.

[warrior]

Three way tie for first!  7express - you called it!  That was an incredible game at Dartmouth! Both teams shot over 50% and the game kept going back and forth with different players taking over at different times.  Too bad someone had to lose, because both teams played with great heart.

Regarding Daquan Brooks, he was apparently suspended for "actions detrimental to the team", but is expected to be practicing on Monday and playing against us on Tuesday.

Does anyone know what those 'actions' were?

I guess you have to give the Western coach credit as he suspended his best player for one of the biggest games of the year. 

Two more games left to decide the title!  It's going to be very tough to beat Western at home.  Hopefully we can play as well as we played today and pull another one out.

[ECSUalum]

WILLIMANTIC, Conn. - Jamie Kohn (Columbia), a junior guard on the Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team, has become the program's first selection to the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Capital One College Division Academic All-District 1 team.

CONGRATULATIONS JAMIE!!!!!!!   Fantastic Job on an off the court!!!!

[7express]

Does anyone know what those 'actions' were?

I wish I knew. 

I guess you have to give the Western coach credit as he suspended his best player for one of the biggest games of the year. 

I wouldn't have called this the biggest game of the year.  Even had we won this game, I still think Eastern on Tuesday would've been bigger.  It just gets magnifined because we blew this game.  Not saying we would've won today with him, but the 20-5 defecit we started out with certainly didn't help matters.

Two more games left to decide the title!  It's going to be very tough to beat Western at home.  Hopefully we can play as well as we played today and pull another one out.

Ask RIC and Keene state how tough it is.  Keene beat us during Winter break when there were more Keene fans there then West Conn fans which was embarressing.  RIC, for the most part, totally dominated the game last Tuesday.  Should be fun a night.  Normally at home contests I expect a sweep, but with how good of a teams Eastern's got I'd be more then happy with a split, even though a sweep would be better, even though I'm sure you East Conn fans are saying the exavt opposite