MBB: Little East

[amh63]

Generous offer ECSUAlum!  My host lives in East Lyme/Flanders and he drives when I take the train up from DC.  When my wife joins me,  she and the host's wife goes shopping for fabric.  We are all familiar with Willi (nice new Frog bridge) and the old thread factories.  Better still, my wife grew up in the center of Easton Ct....and we have become familiar with Newtown.....nice restaurant of the name in the center of town...really like the town library building.
Anyway, have a thought for you.  If your wife can take a long afternoon of BB games....suggest you and your wife join me for the afternoon games with Middlebury (hopefully it will be for the no. 1 seed ).  I will treat you to lunch at the recently opened Lord Jeff Inn in the middle of town.  Need to check out the new restaurant for my wife.....when we come up for homecoming and reunion next year. The Inn was completely renovated and just reopened in Jan.....owned by the college.   Strange as it may seem, the only good Italian place in town is a small pizza place of great renown with few seats.  The game is one the 11th, a Sat. and the WBB game will start around 2PM.
Though your wife can go shopping....it can get pricey.

[warrior]

I could have sworn that last shot was going in!  (I had my arms up indicating a made 3 and of course looked silly when it popped out! It really was a GREAT game and I was very proud of our warriors battling back from an 8 pt deficit late in the 2nd half despite the home town team, crowd and bench doing all they could to prevent that. The key to the game was our inability to stop Weslyan's 4-man.  I would have liked to see us double down on him even though it would have meant leaving a good 3 point shooter open somewhere. (... better than watching that guy just keep backing it in on us!)

It was great to see Nick back in uniform and playing like his old self. 

Jamie reached another milestone - 800 rebs (3rd alltime at ECSU), but again, bittersweet coming on the night of a tough loss.  At this point, other than Nick's assault on the all-time scoring record, the only milestones left are team ones - namely most wins in a season (we need 6 more to break last year's record), and a first ever LEC title!

[ECSUalum]

Generous offer ECSUAlum!  My host lives in East Lyme/Flanders and he drives when I take the train up from DC.  When my wife joins me,  she and the host's wife goes shopping for fabric.  We are all familiar with Willi (nice new Frog bridge) and the old thread factories.  Better still, my wife grew up in the center of Easton Ct....and we have become familiar with Newtown.....nice restaurant of the name in the center of town...really like the town library building.
Anyway, have a thought for you.  If your wife can take a long afternoon of BB games....suggest you and your wife join me for the afternoon games with Middlebury (hopefully it will be for the no. 1 seed ).  I will treat you to lunch at the recently opened Lord Jeff Inn in the middle of town.  Need to check out the new restaurant for my wife.....when we come up for homecoming and reunion next year. The Inn was completely renovated and just reopened in Jan.....owned by the college.   Strange as it may seem, the only good Italian place in town is a small pizza place of great renown with few seats.  The game is one the 11th, a Sat. and the WBB game will start around 2PM.
Though your wife can go shopping....it can get pricey.

Amh63,
Unfortunately, my daughter is in town from Los Angeles that weekend!!  I am sure we will fiqure something out in the future, Many thanks
ecsualum

[7express]

Thursday reuslts:

Keene survives St. Joes 84-83.
I go back to what I post yesterday when I previewed this: "This sounds like one of those games they'd lose (last year after beating West Conn who was ranked #14 at the time, Keene went home and preceded to give up 106 points to Dartmouth their next game), but really would be embarressing if they lost this. "  Keene ended the game on a 39-21 run the final 13:50 to trim a 62-45 deficit into an 84-83 win, and bounced back from down 52-36 at halftime.  Doesn't sound like one of their better games, probably lucky to go home with the W to be perfectly honest.
Plymouth state 90-50 over Johnson state.
Plymouth outscored them by 28 in the 2nd half after leading by 12 at halftime.   13 players got into the scoring column for the Panthers.

Saturday schedule (predictions later Friday):
Western @ Dartmouth
Plymouth @ Eastern
RIC @ Boston
USM @ Keene

[magicman]

Thursday reuslts:

Keene survives St. Joes 84-83.
I go back to what I post yesterday when I previewed this: "This sounds like one of those games they'd lose (last year after beating West Conn who was ranked #14 at the time, Keene went home and preceded to give up 106 points to Dartmouth their next game), but really would be embarressing if they lost this. "  Keene ended the game on a 39-21 run the final 13:50 to trim a 62-45 deficit into an 84-83 win, and bounced back from down 52-36 at halftime.  Doesn't sound like one of their better games, probably lucky to go home with the W to be perfectly honest.

Embarrassment wouldn't be the half of it. It's embarassing enough that this team held a 17 point lead over the Owls. A loss after beating Middlebury on Tuesday would probably have been Massey's least likely outcome of the year in D III. St. Joe's has one 6'6" player, one 6'4" player, and two 6'3" players, (one of whom didn't play). Everyone else on the team is 6'1' and smaller. The school must not care much about their basketball program. The team's website doesn't even give you the scores of the games they played, and forget about player statistics. They're non-existant. You were certainly right about a letdown. Just as the guy who hasn't walked into church for decades risks it falling down on him when he does go, if the Owls had lost this game I think Spaulding Gym would have collasped on the team the next time they walked into it.

[7express]

Oh yah Magicman, thanks for that part about their athletic site.  Tried to go to the SJ website to find out SOMETHING about them since their a non D-3 school (schedule/roster, etc), but it was non-existant.  Couldn't find a link for roster, stats, schedule nothing.  Had to go the conference website their in to find their schedule.  Even NJCAA schools have at least a schedule link, and most even have a roster link as well.

[AllStar]

I doubt KSC was really very interested in that game.  It almost burned them.

[amh63]

ECSUAlum.....Family first is always good.....Still bring her along.  There are a ton of stores in Northhamptom.... and there are museums on campus,,,art and geology,,,,Emily Dickerson's home (fee there)...further down on the road  in Amherst, there are two museums among the apple orchards of Hampshire College..Eric Carle Museum and the National Yiddish Library...etc.  There is an upscale local food market with a cafe and bakery and chocolate bar and sushi bar even around the corner from Hampshire college. There is a Whole food market and Trader Joe's store and a number of big box stores less than a mile from the town center of Amherst.  These are things for the ladies of the household to do while you take in the games.  They shouldn't hurt you in the wallet much.

[ECSUalum]

Amh63,
Will definitely have to check it out up there in Northampton MA.  I also admired how the 5 or so colleges/universities in the area work so well together, sharing their courses, (professors), and facilities.  Must be, (have been), a wonderful place to obtain (to have obtained) a college education!!!!

[7express]

Sat predictions:

Western 84 Dartmouth 86.
Even though I've said time and again this is the best team in the conference when all healthy, I'm still not sold on them winning on the road, and sometimes go through stretches in games where they just seem disinterested.  Losing this game, and we can all but forget about finishing #1 and hosting the semi's and finals.  Last meeting, it took 6 Michael Jensen 3's to escape with a 4 point win (but we probably win by more if he plays the whole game though).  The last 2 meetings (both in Danbury) have been decided by a combined 5 points.

Plymouth 54 @ Eastern 67.
The last time Plymouth was in Willimantic they lost by 1 in the opening round of the LEC tournament.  Eastern wins, but is probably closer than they think.

RIC 87 @ Boston 52.
Easily the worst game of the day.  RIC won by 37 in Providence last month, expect more of the same here.

Southern Maine 56 @ Keene 75.
I think Keene just flat out didn't care playing St. Joseph's college last night.  i'd expect them to bounce back at home.

[amh63]

ECSUAlum.....I take it as a strong maybe for the 11th of Feb.  Let me know by the morning of the the 10th on-line before 9am.  Have a flight to Hartford soon after.  Otherwise, expect three to join me for lunch on the 11th at around 1PM at the Lord Jeffery Inn.  Hope to make reservations in the name of King.

[ECSUalum]

ECSUAlum.....I take it as a strong maybe for the 11th of Feb.  Let me know by the morning of the the 10th on-line before 9am.  Have a flight to Hartford soon after.  Otherwise, expect three to join me for lunch on the 11th at around 1PM at the Lord Jeffery Inn.  Hope to make reservations in the name of King.

Thanks you kind sir, I dont think we can make it this time.  Have fun and good luck to the Jeffs vs the Panthers.

[AllStar]

Saturday Results
Western Connecticut clubs UMass-Dartmouth, 88-70.

Keene State drubs Southern Maine, 92-57.

Eastern Connecticut dispatches Plymouth, 72-52.

Rhode Island College beats UMass-Boston, 75-51.

Updated Standings
1.  KSC         9-1
2.  ECSU       8-2 (1 GB)
3.  WCSU      7-3 (2 GB)
     RIC         7-3 (2 GB)
5.  UMD        4-6 (5 GB)
6.  PSU         2-8 (7 GB)
     USM        2-8 (7 GB)
8.  UMB         1-9 (8 GB)

[7express]

As expected, none of the 4 games were even that close.  Dartmouth got it to within 10 a couple times late in the 2nd, but were trailing by 8 at the break, and were down by 15+ the majority of the 2nd before Western fell asleep at the wheel a bit there to allow Dartmouth to momentairly get back in the game.  After Dartmouth got it to 10, and got the crowd involved for the first time all day, Brooks hit a 3 to get it back to 13, Western forced a stop on defensive, and 2 free throws made it a 15 point game, and Dartmouth never severely threatened again.  Men's game were the total opposite of the women's game though: Aside from the expected RIC pouning of Boston, the other 3 women's games were decided by a combined 8 points.

[7express]

Sat results:

Also what I forgot to add in my last post was today just proved how much of a gap their is between the top 4 teams and the next 4 teams.

Eastern 72-52 over Plymouth.
So much for my "Plymouth will keep it close" prediction.  Warriors shot 43.6% and were lead by Ham Leavy's 19.

Keene 92-57 over USM.
As thought, it looks like they just flat out didn't care Thursday night.  Keene shot 60.7% in the 1st half on their way to 54.7% for the game.

RIC 75-51.
Akinrola lead 3 Anchormen in double digits with 19.  Not gonna lose many games shooting 52.7% from the floor.

Western clubs Dartmoutn 88-70.
You know it's a bad weekend when an 18 point game is the week's "closest" game.  DaQuan only had 22 points in what was probably his worst game of the season to date.  Only 17 shot attemps (making 6), and 4 of the 6 were from 3 including that dagger I mentioned earlier.  Says a lot about what a player he is when his "bad game" is 22 points.  That would be a "great game" for a lot of other players in the conference....hell I think he ended up scoring the most anyways, Peter Skeveys for Plymouth finished 2nd with 21.  Jengodji Gates was not with the team, hopefully he didn't get suspended/thrown off again.

Tuesday schedule:
Keeene @ Plymouth
RIC @ Dartmouth
Boston @ USM
Eastern @ Western.  Predictions Monday.

Here are the updated standings:
1) Keene 17-4 (9-1)
2) Eastern 17-4 (8-2)
3) Western 17-4 (7-3)
3) RIC 16-4 (7-3)
5) Dartmouth 10-11 (4-6)
6) Plymouth 7-13 (2-8)
6) USM 9-11 (2-8)
8) Boston 5-16 (1-9).

Tournament picture remains unchanged from last Saturday.  Keene hosts it, Eastern joins them with the bye, Western (by virtue of beating RIC head to head) hosts Plymouth (by virtue of beating USM head to head) in the 3/6 game; RIC hosts Dartmouth in the 4/5 game.  A RIC win over Dartmouth would set the top 4 as Dartmouth would be mathmatically eliminated from finishing higher then 4th.  RIC & Western officially clinched spots to the LEC tournament today joining Eastern & RIC.  That leaves only 2 spots for 4 teams with 4 games to go.  No spots can be clinched Tuesday.