MBB: Little East

[7express]

Western loses 85-77.
Btw, an error in my earlier post when I said Western was leading 49-40 at the half, the score at the half was 49-40 Harrisburg.  F&M live stats had Western CT with the Penn State Nittany Lion athletic logo which got me confused.

Looking back on the year I should've raised an eyebrow or 2 with them losing to Harrisburg.  Harrisburg was 20-7 last year, but plays in the maybe the worst conference in D-3 in the NEAC.  Harrisburg is only 8-10 so far this team.  Now that I look back on it, no way an average at best team would have lost that game.

[ECSUalum]

ECSU....apology to not responding to your question of Williams use of the zone.  Do not really have a definitive answer. I believe that Williams' coach found that Amherst made adjustments to it and changed.  Maybe in the first half after watching Amherst go on a 15-0 run...maybe seeing Aaron Toomey and other starting to hit from outside....maybe seeing that his subs in the first half when Williams was ahead...failed in zone execution and allowed the run by Amherst.   There has been discussions of the zone usage by Williams on the "CAC" board...and my long post of defensive adjustments made in the game.

Thanks amh63,
For some reason I thought that Williams played the 2-3 zone the whole half, but I guess when JFs started to break it , ie the 15-0 run, Coach Maker decided to change up the defensive configuration.  Some more great CAC games coming up for the LJs!!!

[7express]

Western USM tied at 40 at halftime.  USM is clearly the better team, even though Western probably wins this game because USM has no answer for our inside game.  Western ended the half scorin the final 12 points including Joe Setaro beating the first half buzzer from half court, and ended the half on a 22-5 run after trailing 35-18.

[7express]

Eastern 26-24, Plymouth 29-21 and Keene 45-31 are your other halftime leaders.

[7express]

4-0 for the road teams as RIC, Keene, Plymouth and USM all pull off wins.
Western was down by 17 in the first and up as much as 11 in the 2nd but like most times this year can't find a way to close out a game.  That's now 3 straight games we've held a lead under 5 minutes (Boston, RIC and USM).

[ECSUalum]

Well, let's see, were do I start?  Lets do bullet points:

o Joe Ives was on the bench with his arm in a sling
o RIC 60 ECSU 50
o RIC played defense on steroids tonight and they get all the credit
o Warriors kept it close until 5 minutes left 2nd half RIC 44 Eastern 40
o With 6 min to go RIC goes on full court trap press, ECSU as usual cannot handle it, TO's start piling up, (ECSU end with 20, RIC with 9)
o then Palumbo hits 3 3 pointers,
o RIC plays slowdown, GAME OVER
0 ECSU shoots 20% from 3 pt range

[warriorcat]

No question that Joe Ives's absence made a big difference this afternoon.  Tre Preston looked like a freshman against the RIC pressure.  9 turnovers.  He will get better though.  All the credit has to go to Coach Walsh and his players.  They play the nastiest defense in the conference which masks their lack of shooting ability.  Palumbo's threes at the end put the game away but I do not think RIC can count on that happening every night.  A large number of RIC's points came in transition after they turned Eastern over. Eastern has had trouble with pressure all year long.  It has surprised me that teams do not press them in multiple ways as soon as the game begins.  Eastern could never get comfortable enough to run their offense to get easy hoops for Robitalle and open looks for Sazillo and Preston.  My feeling with Eastern is that they will need all of their top seven (Ives, Robitalle, Garrow, Hundley, Preston, Salzillo, and Yarborough) to be available for them to compete for the conference championship. They do not all have to play well on the same day but taking one player out upsets their rhythm.  With Wesleyan and the balance of the conference schedule ahead, how quickly Ives can return will be crucial.  With all the close calls RIC has had in the conference it will be interesting to see if they can win out.  If they do they certainly deserve to be the Champion and to host the tournament.

[ECSUalum]

Well, let's see, were do I start?  Lets do bullet points:

o Joe Ives was on the bench with his arm in a sling
o RIC 60 ECSU 50
o RIC played defense on steroids tonight and they get all the credit
o Warriors kept it close until 5 minutes left 2nd half RIC 44 Eastern 40
o With 6 min to go RIC goes on full court trap press, ECSU as usual cannot handle it, TO's start piling up, (ECSU end with 20, RIC with 9)
o then Palumbo hits 3 3 pointers,
o RIC plays slowdown, GAME OVER
0 ECSU shoots 20% from 3 pt range

Ives with sprained shoulder obtained in practice this week

[ECSUalum]

No question that Joe Ives's absence made a big difference this afternoon.  Tre Preston looked like a freshman against the RIC pressure.  9 turnovers.  He will get better though.  All the credit has to go to Coach Walsh and his players.  They play the nastiest defense in the conference which masks their lack of shooting ability.  Palumbo's threes at the end put the game away but I do not think RIC can count on that happening every night.  A large number of RIC's points came in transition after they turned Eastern over. Eastern has had trouble with pressure all year long.  It has surprised me that teams do not press them in multiple ways as soon as the game begins.  Eastern could never get comfortable enough to run their offense to get easy hoops for Robitalle and open looks for Sazillo and Preston.  My feeling with Eastern is that they will need all of their top seven (Ives, Robitalle, Garrow, Hundley, Preston, Salzillo, and Yarborough) to be available for them to compete for the conference championship. They do not all have to play well on the same day but taking one player out upsets their rhythm.  With Wesleyan and the balance of the conference schedule ahead, how quickly Ives can return will be crucial.  With all the close calls RIC has had in the conference it will be interesting to see if they can win out.  If they do they certainly deserve to be the Champion and to host the tournament.

Warriorcat,
Welcome to the LEC board  +1k
Yes, Preston and Hundley has problems protecting the ball tonight.  I have seen the RIC trap press vs ECSU in previous seasons.  It is a nasty one and Walsh knows he can get results vs ECSU especially when underclassmen are in the game.  Highlight of the game was the inbound allyoop to GArrow for the slam dunk, which I thought would be a turning point, but the pressure from RIC was unrelenting.
RIC also has a deep bench so they were rotating 3-5 players in and out of the game on a regular basis.  Eastern has a much less experienced bench, so I think RIC wore them down by the end of the game.
Again fantastic game by RIC, great intensity, (which Walsh accused his team of having a lack of in the ECSU/RIC game at the Murray Center).

[7express]

No question that Joe Ives's absence made a big difference this afternoon.  Tre Preston looked like a freshman against the RIC pressure.  9 turnovers.  He will get better though.  All the credit has to go to Coach Walsh and his players.  They play the nastiest defense in the conference which masks their lack of shooting ability.  Palumbo's threes at the end put the game away but I do not think RIC can count on that happening every night.  A large number of RIC's points came in transition after they turned Eastern over. Eastern has had trouble with pressure all year long.  It has surprised me that teams do not press them in multiple ways as soon as the game begins.  Eastern could never get comfortable enough to run their offense to get easy hoops for Robitalle and open looks for Sazillo and Preston.  My feeling with Eastern is that they will need all of their top seven (Ives, Robitalle, Garrow, Hundley, Preston, Salzillo, and Yarborough) to be available for them to compete for the conference championship. They do not all have to play well on the same day but taking one player out upsets their rhythm.  With Wesleyan and the balance of the conference schedule ahead, how quickly Ives can return will be crucial.  With all the close calls RIC has had in the conference it will be interesting to see if they can win out.  If they do they certainly deserve to be the Champion and to host the tournament.

Welcome Warriorcat.  Hopefully we can get some more discussions on here in the final couple weeks.  Its getting kinda boring talking to myself all the time here, lol.

[7express]

Sat results:

USM in OT 90-77.
Once again, a game we lead with under 5:00 minutes to play and failed to close out.  It's becoming a recurring theme this year.  They say basketball is a game of runs, and this certainly qualified as a game of runs: USM started the game with a 35-18 run, after that between the first and the second half Western went on a 44-13 run to cut that 17 point deficit into their largest lead of the game at 11 (62-51), USM ended regulation on a 20-9 run to force OT at 71.  After a Phil Starks 3 at 2:05 which made the score 77-76 USM, USM scored 13 of the games final 14 points to win by double digits.
Keene 91-82.
Keene had two 20 point scorers, but Vinny DeLucia lead all scorers with 26.  Both teams shot over 43%.
Plymouth 69-40.
How the hell did Dartmouth beat Boston??  If we lose at home to them Saturday, then you know our season is officially over.  I also want to know how you lose on the road to them by only 2 and lose at home to the same team by 29!?!?!  That's absurd.
RIC takes control of the conferencd with a 60-50 win at Eastern.
Their defense is really, really good, but are they going to able to score consistanly to win games where the defense might have an off night giving up 55 or 60 points??  That's my only concern for them.  In 14 of 18 games this year RIC has been held to 69 points or below including winning 2 games where they scored in the mid to high 40's.  RIC's highest point total this season is only 72 and have given up 76+ 2 times (both losses).  In 3 of last 5 games RIC has been held to 60 or fewer points.  I don't think it's going to matter in the LEC season (with the exception of Keene and maybe USM/Boston) because the teams aren't that good, but it'll be a problem once they get into March.  Tuesday vs. Amherst will be a good test to see how far that defense can carry them once they get into March, but imo, if they want to advance deep into March their gonna have to start getting the offensive point total up into the mid 70's.

Standings:
1) RIC 16-2 (8-1)
2) Eastern 13-6 (7-2)
2) USM 12-7 (7-2)
4) keene 11-7 (6-3)
5) Boston 9-10 (3-6)
6) Western 4-14 (2-7)
6) Plymouth 4-14 (2-7)
8) Dartmouth 3-15 (1-8)

Schedule:
No Tuesday night LEC game this week, so we have OOC games Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday this week, and this week is LEC-NESCAC week
Tuesday:
Colby-Sawyer @ Plymouth 6:00
Keene @ Middlebury 7:00
Amherst @ RIC 7:00
Western @ Conn College 7:00
Tufts @ Dartmouth 7:00
USM @ Colby 7:30.  Amherst/RIC best LEC/NESCAC matchup.  I'll be shocked if the LEC wins more then 2 games.  Both Western AND USM should win, but I have a feeling at least 1 of them lose if not both.

[ECSUalum]

No question that Joe Ives's absence made a big difference this afternoon.  Tre Preston looked like a freshman against the RIC pressure.  9 turnovers.  He will get better though.  All the credit has to go to Coach Walsh and his players.  They play the nastiest defense in the conference which masks their lack of shooting ability.  Palumbo's threes at the end put the game away but I do not think RIC can count on that happening every night.  A large number of RIC's points came in transition after they turned Eastern over. Eastern has had trouble with pressure all year long.  It has surprised me that teams do not press them in multiple ways as soon as the game begins.  Eastern could never get comfortable enough to run their offense to get easy hoops for Robitalle and open looks for Sazillo and Preston.  My feeling with Eastern is that they will need all of their top seven (Ives, Robitalle, Garrow, Hundley, Preston, Salzillo, and Yarborough) to be available for them to compete for the conference championship. They do not all have to play well on the same day but taking one player out upsets their rhythm.  With Wesleyan and the balance of the conference schedule ahead, how quickly Ives can return will be crucial.  With all the close calls RIC has had in the conference it will be interesting to see if they can win out.  If they do they certainly deserve to be the Champion and to host the tournament.

Welcome Warriorcat.  Hopefully we can get some more discussions on here in the final couple weeks.  Its getting kinda boring talking to myself all the time here, lol.

Well what am I chopped liver!!!!?

[amh63]

ECSU...yes,   ...7Express has been quite feisty and insensitive of late.  Had to point it out on the "CAC" board.

[7express]

Sorry ECSU, didn't mean to leave you out always like your contributions we've just lost a lot of pster on here it seems the last couple years: Used to be a few other Western fans that would post periodically, Argylle (RIC) guy I haven't seen in a while, LECFan still posts, but its usually only once a week or so, what happen to that Keene state fan from a few years back??  Now that Jamie's playing over in England Warrior doesn't chime in as much.  So for the most part it's just me doing the daily recap, and you doing Eastern bits.  Would like to have more discussions, but its hard to do when you can only be at 1 game a day and can only get so much from the boxscore.  I do try to watch every game on LEC.tv that I missed that week, but can't watch all 3 games in 1 night, however.

[7express]

With no conference games Tuesday, that leaves the LEC with 5 conference games left (Saturday February 2, Tuesday the 5, Saturday the 9, Tuesday the 12 and the final game Tuesday the 16) and the top 4 of: Keene, RIC, USM, and Eastern are pretty much set order to be decided.  Plymouth, Western and Dartmouth are all officially eliminated from hosting the tournament.  and AFAIK, Dartmouth is officially eliminated from hosting a quarterfinal, while Plymouth and Western have a tragic number of 2 of getting eliminated from hosting a quarterfinal: 1 Keene win AND losses by Plymouth and Western would eliminate the Panthers and the Colonials from hosting. 
In the 4/5 spot, Keene is 3 up on Boston in the standings, but officially their 4 up with 5 to play because Keene swept the season series, so they get the tiebreaker.  IF that top 4 gets broken up, it'll be by USM and the ONLY way I can see that happening is: Boston beating RIC & Keene beating USM Saturday, and the following Tuesday Boston beating USM.  In that case, USM would be 7-4 and Boston would be 5-6, and assuming USM loses the following game to RIC and Boston beats Plymouth at home that would leave USM at 7-5 and Boston at 6-6 for the last 2 games, and since Boston would have the win in their pocket over RIC they'd win the tiebreaker over USM if they finish tied.  However, it doesn't look very good.  A Boston loss to RIC on Saturday will pretty much set the top 4 even though it won't be "official" just yet.