MBB: Little East

[7express]

Worcester up 37-30 at half.  Playing a lot better then Tues and the team actually has emotion, but Worcster shooting 45.5%.

[ECSUalum]

It was a Warrior basketball game I have never seen before.  First, apparently Brian Salzillo has been suspended indefinitely for breaking University and team policies UNBELIEVABLE ?!!!!! must have incured an injury during practice as he did not play.  Nichols lead scorer Ryan Sheehan had 19 points, 10 below his average, however, he fouled out with +/-7 minutes left in the game.  Nichols used a full court press most of the game and during the second half proved somewhat effective, with a 15 Warrior point lead vanishing over a 5 min period late in the 2nd half, however, IMO, the play of senior Joe Ives, and freshman Trechon Preston made the difference, scoring 25 and 18 points respectively and leading the Warriors to a 95-86 victory !!!! Brandon Yarborough also had a great game posting a double /double with 16 rebounds and 10 points.  ECSU dominating the backboards, 44-23.  Darryl Best had three more rejections in 12 minutes of play.  Eastern was sloppy with the ball during that bad spell and ended with 23 TO 
Eastern scored a majority of their points on breaks off the Nichols press and generally this game looked more like a Keene State game with scoring predominating and defense taking a back seat. Preston really did it all tonight with great ball handling, and a combo of excellent penetration and outside shooting!!!

[ECSUalum]

Nice comeback by WCSU in last couple minutes to defeat Worcester State in Worcester 74-71   Brittner and Starks were huge tonight, with Brittner's 3 pointer with 19 sec left dealing the final blow. I'll let 7express do the write-up. Maybe the Colonials can now turn this around for the 2nd half 

[7express]

Thurs result:

Eastern 95-86 over Nichols.
What's more suprising: The fact that Eastern won giving up 86 points, or the fact they actually gave up 86 points??  And that stinks for Salzillo, I was wondering why I didn't see him in the boxscore, I figured he just got injured, that's a big blow for them.
In the battle of unbeaten's WPI prevails over RIC 79-68.
The difference in the game: both teams had 19 3 point attempts.  RIC made only 5 of their 19 attempts while WPI made a ridiculous 13 of their 19 3 point attempts.  Ball game right there.
Curry 89-74 over Dartmouth.
Curry shot 50% from 3 (6-12) and 56.1% overall.  Not gonna win many games when the opposistion shoots over 55%.
Western 74-71.
The Brooks-Robinson play last year to beat Eastern was great, but I think this is the most satisfying win in my 3 years.  We trailed for the majority of the game and about 19:35 of the second half.  Someone on the team must read this board and saw my comment about the no emotion part on Tuesday because the bench was in it from the opening tip, and even when we were down double digits in the 2nd half they were in the game unlike Tuesday at Mitchell.  I hope the LEC is ready for Phil Starks, remember he's only a freshmen and I think by the time he's a senior he has the potential to be the best player in New England and 1 of the better one's in the whole country.  Mark Laporte started the game at PG but got 2 quick fouls (1 on defense and one on offense in about the first 3 minutes) which was probably a blessing in disguise.  I don't think he ran the point at all in the 2nd and if he did it was only for 1 or 2 possessions.  In the 2nd half Campbell had him waiting on the wing and a couple LaPorte catch and shoot 3's (where he's the most deadly and can really thrive) was key in the double digit 2nd half comeback.  Not sure what Campbell said at halftime, maybe he threatened to have them walk home or do suicides when they got back to campus but the defense really stepped up in the second half.  Granted, Worcester did miss a lot of layups, but they really had to work on their offensive end.  Transistion defense really improved.  Rebounding still sucks, but I'll let that slide because we won and our team is short.  Never seen coach Campbell without the jacket and he took it off before the game started, so maybe the 0-6 start is Campbell's jackets fault  .  This win is a great confidence booster, so hopefully we can take this and finish the first half strong.  Lots of basketball, and lots of LEC games left, but you never want to start your conference season 0-2
22-26 OOC record

Saturday round 2 of conference play: Boston @ Keene, Western @ USM, Dartmouth @ Plymouth, Eastern @ RIC.  All games begin at 3, will have predictions tomorrow

[7express]

Sat predictions:

Eastern 63 @ RIC 67.
ECSUalum/Warrior/LECFan would know more, but it's been quite a while (6/7/8 years??  Even longer??) the last time Eastern won in Providence, and I think that continues for another year.  It should be close, but RIC rebounds from WPI's loss Thursday.
Western 72 @ USM 68.
Now that we got the W, I think we'll play more loose, and have some confidence now that we finally won a game, I think we can get a little streak going here.
Dartmouth 67 @ Plymouth 60.
If they can't beat Plymouth, who the hell are they going to be able to beat this year??
Boston 76 @ Keene 69.
Normally I would say I don't think they have the defense to match up with Keene's offense, but since Keene plays no D either they ain't going to be able to stop Boston, and Boston is like the only team in the league that can match Wright & Wolcott in terms of height and athleticism.  If their bigs (Benson, Clarke, Joseph) can stay on the court and they hold onto the ball, they'll win.

[ECSUalum]

Sat predictions:

Eastern 63 @ RIC 67.
ECSUalum/Warrior/LECFan would know more, but it's been quite a while (6/7/8 years??  Even longer??) the last time Eastern won in Providence, and I think that continues for another year.  It should be close, but RIC rebounds from WPI's loss Thursday.
Western 72 @ USM 68.
Now that we got the W, I think we'll play more loose, and have some confidence now that we finally won a game, I think we can get a little streak going here.
Dartmouth 67 @ Plymouth 60.
If they can't beat Plymouth, who the hell are they going to be able to beat this year??
Boston 76 @ Keene 69.
Normally I would say I don't think they have the defense to match up with Keene's offense, but since Keene plays no D either they ain't going to be able to stop Boston, and Boston is like the only team in the league that can match Wright & Wolcott in terms of height and athleticism.  If their bigs (Benson, Clarke, Joseph) can stay on the court and they hold onto the ball, they'll win.

7,

I think you are right, RIC owns teams when they are at the Murray Center, and with the confidence in there play these days, and of course Coach Walsh's keen insight into competitor weaknesses,  I think RIC will take it. Eastern will have to protect the ball,  play excellent D, and control the boards to pull this out. 
If WCSU can build on last nights win then they can take USM, however, I was surprised at how well the Huskis played D vs ECSU and frankly they seemed to throw the Warriors out of sink, (primarily with TO's), to disrupt ECSU's normally composed and methodical offensive sets.
Keene St vs Boston should be entertaining, primarily because IMHO, Keene St has two of the better play by play and color commentators in online D-III sports.  (WCSU's play by play guy is one of the best, with RIC's guys do a very good job as well).

[7express]

I agree.  USM has a good record and its always a pain (especially the CT schools) to play up there because the trip takes about as long as a flight to California.  And the team leaves late too, last year I think they left Danbury about 7 PM Friday night, so its a late night .
Keene/Boston I'd vote for best of the day, especially if you like offense.  I want to see if their able to break the 116 total first half points Keene & Western combined for last year.  My pick in that game is whoever gets 75 first wins, and the winner might get 75 in the first half.

[7express]

Halftime scores Eastern 34-32, Boston 42-41, Dartmouth 34-31 and USM is embarrassing Western leading 50-31.

[7express]

Finals: Keene 81-76, Eastern wins 76-68 I think.  RIC is going to take a tumble.  Plymouth rallies to defeat Dartmouth 69-67 USm 93-81(??). Ill have full recap later on when I get back 

[ECSUalum]

ECSU over RIC 76-68 in a game where Eastern lead for 95 % of the game.  Eastern shot 55% from the field and in the 70's (cant find a Box score) from the stripe.  Mike Garrow led with +/-24 points but was also guilty of a few too many TO's. Eastern had 25 TO's .   Trechon Preston is going to be a star for the Warriors, with another double digit score, (12 points?), great defense, 100% on the stripe and excellent ball handling.  Great poise for the freshman against a very good defensive RIC team.  Joe Ives also had a nice game as well.  Overall, ECSU played very good D, limiting RIC to a low FG%. Nice LEC win for the Warriors in an extremely difficult place, (Murray Center), to win    probably could have won by 15 if they could have protected the ball better!!
Coach Walsh was livid in the post game interview, stating the team had no intensity.

[amh63]

ECSU....Congrats to your team for its big win in a difficult place...on the road too!  Hope Amherst will do as well in RI later in the year.

[ECSUalum]

ECSU....Congrats to your team for its big win in a difficult place...on the road too!  Hope Amherst will do as well in RI later in the year.

Thank You Sir,, Amherst continues to roll

The LE Conference is wide, wide open this year, I have a feeling by season end we could have a 3 or 4 way tie!!!!

BTW here is ECSU/RIC Box:

http://www.d3hoops.com/seasons/men/2012-13/box_scores/20121208_kxof.xml

[7express]

Weird 2 games in the conference so far:
USM is at the top of the standings, Dartmouth & Western are on the bottom and Boston, USM and Plymouth have the same number/more conference wins then RIC, Western, Eastern & Dartmouth.  Strange year, could be in for a wild season as ECSUalumn mentioned earlier.

Keene 80-76 over Boston.
This is what I wrote Friday, "If their bigs (Benson, Clarke, Joseph) can stay on the court and they hold onto the ball, they'll win."  Even though they shot 49%, they were done in by turnovers (18) and free throw shooting (50%) once again.  Has haunted them this year and will continue to haunt them, especially the free throws.  Inexcusible to shoot 56.9% from the free throw line in 2 LEC games which is what their averaging.  Turnovers I can live with especially with a young team like the Beacons, but free throws I can't.  All it takes is spending 10 minutes before/after practice.
Plymouth 69-67.
Plymouth was without Petey Skevas and they still won somehow.  Who exactly is Dartmouth going to beat this year??  Western at home??  Plymouth at home??  Alex Burt had 33 to lead Plymouth.
Eastern 76-68.
Great win for the Warriors.  Very uncharactoristic for a Bob Walsh lead RIC team to have the opponent shoot at or above 50%, but Eastern was able to connect on 55% of their shots.  RIC connected on only 6 of their 20 3 pointers and when you add that to their 5-19 effort Thursday, their only 28.2% from 3 their last 2 games.  Could be a weakness as we get going later on in the season.
USM 92-80.
DON'T be fooled by looking at the score and think this was actually a close game.......................................it wasn't.  USM had as big a lead as 33 in the second half when Karl Henrickson decided to empty the bench with about 7:45 left, which let Western get back in the game and make the score look about 7,000 times closer then it really was.  If Henrickson wanted too, he could've easily won this by 30 or 40.

Sunday game:
MCLA 67 @ Keene 92.
Don't know why they scheduled this for when they did because both teams played Saturday.  MCLA isn't playing again until Thursday while Keene is off after this until December 28, so they could've played Monday or Tuesday.  Anyways, MCLA's win over SUNY-Canton today gave the Trailblazers their second win of the season.  In 6 of 7 games this year MCLA has given up 86+ points and the eyes for Keene just got bigger & larger.

[7express]

Keene 89-86 over MCLA.
Not good.  They were up 82-67 with 1:45 to play.  5 players scored in double figures for Keene lead by Martin with 16.
23-26 OOC record.

Next set of games Tuesday, the last big day before Christmas.  2 LEC games next Saturday, Eastern going to Florida for a tournament the 21st & 22 and USM, RIC & Boston have a couple, but for the rest, after this, a week break for Christmas.
Western @ Clark, Maine-Farmington @ USM, Dartmouth @ Johnson & Wales.  LEC will be lucky to get 1 win.  Neither Western nor Dartmouth should win on the road (though I give Dartmouth better odds) and Farmington is 7-1 on the year, but thats the most likely game I'd predict for the LEC to win.

[magicman]

Keene 89-86 over MCLA.
Not good.  They were up 82-67 with 1:45 to play.  5 players scored in double figures for Keene lead by Martin with 16.
23-26 OOC record.

Strangest thing is the play by play shows 2 layups being scored by the same player, John Jones, at the exact same time 1:12. I can only guess that he must have scored on a layup, stolen the inbounds pass, and scored again on a layup. No time elasped as the clock must have been stopped for substitutions. Not often you'll see those entries in a play by play. A 15 point lead at 1:45 went down to 6 in 33 seconds.