MBB: Little East

[magicman]

Hey 7express,

Nice pick taking Eastern over Catholic. You snookered us in the Pick Em League as we all took Catholic. Good job. I almost went with Eastern myself just because Salzillo is back and I know how well he can stroke it. He hit his usual handful of 3 pointers but tonight was a nice team effort by the Warriors with 4 guys in double figures. I let the fact that the other 10 guys all took Catholic sway my final choice. I was afraid if I took Eastern they would all gain a point on me. Shoulda went with my hunch.  

[7express]

Friday's results:

Eastern over Catholic 76-70.  4 players in double figures for Eastern lead by Brian Salzillo with 17.  Jared Prince had a game high 25 for Catholic off the bench on 10-15 shooting. 
Nichols clobbers Boston 94-74.  Carl Joseph had 19 for the Beacons, and as the team's lone top 8 player back from last year the team will have to go through him a lot this year.  Ryan Sheehan had 31 on 11-22 shooting for Nichols.

12-10 LEC, 14-7 me

Saturday schedule:
Newbury vs. Boston (@ Amherst) 1:00
Dartmouth @ Salem State 2:00
Lyndon State @ Plymouth State 3:00
Keene State @ USM 3:00
RIC @ Brandeis 3:00
Eastern @ Manhattanville 3:00
Lesley @ Western 5:00

Boston 87 vs. Newbury 70.  Newbury is 0-3 losing to New England College and getting blown out by both Albertus & Amherst.  Newbury has given up at least 74 points in all 3 games.
Dartmouth 78 @ Salem state 80.  Dartmouth has played well this season getting 2 wins against Elms & Colby and playing a good Brandeis team tough at home.  Salem is 1-2 beating Rutgers-Newark and losing to Williams & WPI.
Lyndon 65 @ Plymouth 82.
Lyndon won at home last year 69-68.  Plymouth is another team playing well in the early going with a 2-1 record heading into the second weekend.  Lyndon shouldn't pose much of a threat to the Panthers in their home opener; Lyndon is 0-1 and just got blasted at home by a terrible WNEC team (the same WNEC that lost to Conn College by 23 earlier in the week) by 18 points.
Keene 79 @ USM 84.  The first LEC game of the season.  Keene has lost 2 games by a combined 8 points, but free throw shooting for them has been atrocious.  USM is also doing pretty bad from the charity stripe shooting free throws at only a 58.9% success rate as a team, but at least they have the wins.
RIC 68 @ Brandeis 86.  Brandeis has been clubbing teams this year, and RIC has been struggling to beat teams they should blow out.  I think Brandeis wins going away, they've been the much better team so far this year.
Eastern 78 @ Manhattanville 69.  Eastern beat Catholic 76-70, Manhattanville beat Medgar Evers 94-73.  manhattanville is 2-2, eastern is 3-1, but Eastern has played the better teams, they get the tournament championship.
Lesley 69 @ Western 87.  What's the point of this Western tournament??  There's 3 teams and 2 of them are in the same conference (Lesley & Mitchell), so you can't even do a little round robin.  So, really Lesley & Mitchell play 1 game each @ Western, and yet Western has to play games on back-to-back days.  I don't get it.  Why not play this Lesley game Friday so we're not playing back to back??  Also, why is this starting at 5 PM??  The girls game starts at 2 and will probably end at 3:40 or so, so what are we gonna go for that hour and 20 minutes??  Are they kicking everyone out and actually going to start charging admissions for this game??  Why not have a scheduled 4 PM start time and have this like a traditional men's women's double header??  Lesley is 0-2 losing to MIT and Endicott.

[AllStar]

6-3 on the predictions so far.

Saturday:
UMass-Boston 77, Newbury 68
This game will be a close game between two teams who have not gotten off to good starts at all. I'll take Boston by a little bit.  This game is at Amherst.

Salem State 79, UMass-Dartmouth 76
The Corsairs have had some success in this head-to-head matchup over the years.  UMB beat the Vikings 73-61 last year in North Dartmouth for one of their five wins.  The year before that they fell in a close 83-80 game in Salem.  I'll take the Vikings in their home opener.  Salem State is coming off back-to-back losses, being blown out by Williams 106-80 and losing at WPI 84-72.

Plymouth State 73, Lyndon State 55
The Hornets were blown out by Western New England and I'd presume the same thing will happen here.  Lyndon won the game against Plymouth last year in Vermont by a point.  Not this time.

Keene State 76, Southern Maine 72
The Huskies have won 2 games, but neither against very good teams.  They needed a big second half to avoid an embarrassing loss to UNE (trailed by 9 at the break) in their last game.  This game could go either way based on the results so far and I wouldn't be surprised to see either team win honestly.

Brandeis 83, Rhode Island College 72
Brandeis hasn't scored below 96 points in any of their games so far.  They have pummeled Curry and Framingham State at home, one by 52 and the other by 38.  They also beat UMass-Dartmouth on the road 96-90.  I don't like this spot for RIC, I'll take Brandeis (even though I don't think they'll get 90 and I don't think the game will be that lopsided).  The Anchormen won last year's match-up 48-46 in Providence.

Eastern Connecticut 79, Manhattanville 71
The Warriors have gotten off to a good start.  Very nice win vs. Catholic and I think they'll beat Manhattanville too.

Western Connecticut 78, Lesley 60
The Lynx have lost their first two games, both on the road, by double digits (68-52 at MIT and 80-70 at Endicott).  I think they'll lose by double digits again.

[7express]

Hey 7express,

Nice pick taking Eastern over Catholic. You snookered us in the Pick Em League as we all took Catholic. Good job. I almost went with Eastern myself just because Salzillo is back and I know how well he can stroke it. He hit his usual handful of 3 pointers but tonight was a nice team effort by the Warriors with 4 guys in double figures. I let the fact that the other 10 guys all took Catholic sway my final choice. I was afraid if I took Eastern they would all gain a point on me. Shoulda went with my hunch.

IF I've learned anything in school its always trust your instinct.

[magicman]

Hey 7express,

Nice pick taking Eastern over Catholic. You snookered us in the Pick Em League as we all took Catholic. Good job. I almost went with Eastern myself just because Salzillo is back and I know how well he can stroke it. He hit his usual handful of 3 pointers but tonight was a nice team effort by the Warriors with 4 guys in double figures. I let the fact that the other 10 guys all took Catholic sway my final choice. I was afraid if I took Eastern they would all gain a point on me. Shoulda went with my hunch.

IF I've learned anything in school its always trust your instinct.

I learned that same thing when I was in school. Unfortunately that was so many years ago I have trouble remembering "always trust your instinct".

[ECSUalum]

RIC over Brandeis 73-72 on a Mike Palumbo buzzer beating lay-up.  RIC had a 10 pt lead with 3 min left and almost blew it!!!

ECSU game with Manhattanville, was relatively close for most of the game, but Salzillo's 3 pointers and Mike Garrow's 100% FT shooting, (10 out of his 18 pts), allowed Eastern to pull away with about 4 min left and win comfortably 78-63,  M. Garrow had 15 rebounds and ECSU shot 83 % from the line !!

[7express]

Sat results:

Boston over Newbury 77-68.  Carl Joseph had a game high 26 and Gregory Young added another 23 for the Beacons who finished the game shooting 49.1%
Salem over Dartmouth 89-73.  Ryan Walsh lead Dartmouth with 20 points on 7-15 shooting.  Hamed Akanni had a game high 21 for Salem, and Chris Parenteau chipped in 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Plymouth in overtime over Lyndon 87-84.  Surprised this game was so close.  Plymouth has down at halftime by 5 and would've been an awful loss.  Alex Burt finally got rolling with 20, Curtis Arsenault added 17, including the game tying 3 pointer which forced overtime with 1:11 to go and Shomani Morgan had 14 off the bench.  George Carle had 19 to lead the way for Lyndon.
USM wins the first LEC game of the year 74-67 over Keene.  4 of 5 starters for USM scored in double figures lead by Conor Sullivan with 20 points.  Nick Gagliolo lead Keene with 15, while Nate Howard grabbed 22 of Keene's 51 rebounds.
RIC over Brandeis 73-72.  4 of 5 starters in double figures for Brandeis lead by Ben Bartoldus with a game high 19.  RIC did hold Brandeis leading scorer Gabriel Morton in check, but he still went for 16 and picked up 11 rebounds.  Michael Palumbo had 16 for Bob Walsh off the bench including the winning layup at the buzzer.
Eastern over Manhattanville 78-63 to win that tournament.  Brian Salzillo with a game high 30, and Mike Garrow with 18 points & 14 boards.  Anthony Maestre had 17 to lead the way for Manhattanville.  Eastern was up 5 at halftime and methodically pulled away in the second.
Western over Lesley 85-62.  No boxscore for this, if I find one I'll update with a sentence or 2.

17-11 LEC, 20-8 me

Sunday schedule:
Mitchell @ Western.

Mitchell 74 @ Western 88.
Mitchell was playing Purchase tonight, no score update on that game.  Mitchell's only loss so far is to Albertus, and even though they gave up 99, they were able to put up 89 on the AMC Falcons.  Through 3 games they are averaging 86 ppg.  Mitchell blew them out last season, losing to them back to back years would be even more embarrassing than the Florida Gators losing to Georgia Southern without GSU completing a single pass which is what happened today.

[AllStar]

10-5 on the predictions so far...but look at that...I nailed the UMass-Boston/Newbury score somehow.  Of course, that was probably the least intriguing game of the day.  RIC had a very good win...maybe their first real good game of the year.  Keene is very young and needs to develop...can't blow big halftime leads and look so bad in the second half.  Good win for Eastern and a surprisingly close game between Plymouth State and Lyndon State can't exactly instill confidence in the Panthers.  Western rolled over Lesley pretty much as predicted.

Sunday:
Western Connecticut 83, Mitchell 72
Colonials should win this home game.  Purchase beat Mitchell 78-64 tonight at the Western Round Robin tournament, but didn't pull away until the final few minutes despite leading for the vast majority of the game.  I think a similar script is followed in this game.

[AllStar]

Western beat Mitchell 106-100 in a game that featured 81 free throw attempts between the two teams.

11-5 on the predictions so far.

[7express]

Sunday:
Western in an offensive slugfest over Mitchell 106-100.  206 combined points, and 81 combined free throws.  Jerry Washington was one of 6 Colonials in double figures with 22 and Luis Briddter had a double double with 15 boards and 12 points.  Joshua Ford had a game high 30 to lead 4 Mitchell players in double figures.  Mitchell ended up shooting 53.0% from the floor, but likely lost the game on the boards.  Mitchell got outrebounded 50-32 (23-9 on the offensive glass) and 23 Western offensive rebounds lead to 20 second chance points for Western while the 9 offensive rebounds for Mitchell lead to only 5 second chance points.

18-11 LEC, 21-8 me.

Next games Tuesday:
Keene @ Springfield 5:00
Western @ Vassar 7:00
RIC @ Bridgewater 7:00
Eastern @ Conn College 7:30
Castleton @ Plymouth 7:30
Bates @ USM 7:30
Boston @ Suffolk 8:00

[7express]

Tuesday predictions:

Keene 76 @ Springfield 85.
Keene is 0-3 but has been in all 3 of their games, Springfield is 2-0 with 2 blowouts winning by an average of 30.5.  They have 1 common opponent in Elms: keene lost by 3 at home, Springfield won by 36 on the road.
Western 84 @ Vassar 72.
Western is on a 4 game winning streak albeit against mostly bad competition.  Vassar after being terrible the last couple years looks like they are doing a program turnaround as they are 2-1 and are only a 3 point loss to Clark away from being 3-0.  Western is giving up 81.4 ppg so far, that'll have to change come conference play, but they are playing well, and should get another W.
RIC 67 @ Bridgewater 62.
Last year in Providence RIC won 56-53.  This is the first of 2 straight games Bridgewater plays against LEC opponents as they'll play Dartmouth in their next game next Thursday and also play Boston later on in January.  Bridgewater is 1-2, but defeated MIT @ MIT over the weekend.  They have losses to Richard Stockton & Plattsburgh.
Eastern 76 @ Conn College 50.
Conn College lost to Bard of all teams!   And also lost to Salve by 34, scoring just 34 points in the process.  Scoring is a problem for the Camels this year, scoring just 61.7 ppg, but if you take out the 92 they scored against WNEU which skews the total, that total dips to just 46.5 ppg in their 2 losses.  I don't think eastern has too much trouble.  This was a 5 point win @ Eastern last year.
Castleton 86 @ Plymouth 87.
Plymouth lost last year 95-89, the 89 points the most they scored all season and they lost the game!  It's tough to get a read on Castleton as they've only played 2 games.  In 1, they got trounced by Skidmore (lost by 15) and in the other they beat #9 WPI by double digits.  Since I have no idea, I'm giving the edge to Plymouth at home.
Bates 68 @ USM 75.
USM is 4-1 beating their opponents by an average of 38.3 points with the closest win by 18.  Those 4 wins include: Maine-Augusta (USCAA team), Maine-Farmington (1-2), Thomas (0-3) & UNE (0-4).  Speaking of Thomas, how did they only lose to RIC by 9?  Their other 2 losses have been by 49 & 53.  Both Bates & USM played @ UNE: USM won by 12, Bates by 18.  But USM is at home and has played the better teams, so they get the edge.  Last year USM won by 5.
Boston 67 @ Suffolk 69.
Boston won by 14 at home last year.  Suffolk is 1-3, but 2 of the 3 teams they've lost too are currently undefeated in the early going.  I say they get the win at home.

[LECFAN32]

Would've rather seen western play purchase then mitchell. Panthers beat eastern at eastern, and has some talented quick guards and good size wings with a solid coaching staff with the Charneys. Nice matchup and a comparable one with an ric type of team, that plays worse defense.

Overall however I like what Ive seen from the colonials outside of the consistently bad defense, but again this style of play is by design, and I think it matches their personal very well, one of the downsides of maximizing possessions by keeping the floor spread and taking some quick shots is that the other team alsoooo gets a lot of possessions, it is what it is. Seems like western has the right players to play this way which is a huge part of it.

Like Washington a lot, athletic do it all wing, Bynum Maybe a gem in this league if he realizes that this is the right level for him. I know he was a all state point at hill house and what not but he's a talented undersized combo guards, and those guys tend to succeed at western. Big guys not as solid as the guards, glad to see Britter rebounding instead of shooting face up jumpers because he's a guy with a ton of physical tools. Groski has gotten himself in great shape, and he's rebounding like it. Wish he would be with Britter starting though, as I feel they compliment wax eachother the best.


Eastern had a couple good wins on the road this weekend playing at manhattanville in their basement dungeon uhhh I mean gym is always tough, and catholic has about as solid as a program as they can get. Garrow having that redshirt year really helps them this year, combo of him and Salzillo will be very dangerous. Also looks like they brought in big physical forwards who ready to play right now.

[7express]

Would've rather seen western play purchase then mitchell. Panthers beat eastern at eastern, and has some talented quick guards and good size wings with a solid coaching staff with the Charneys. Nice matchup and a comparable one with an ric type of team, that plays worse defense.

So would I.  Only problem is that Lesley & Mitchell are in the same conference, so those 2 couldn't play, so they had to leave Western & Purchase on the same side.  Personally I wish they would've done 2 things differently:
1) Left Lesley at home and made this a true round-robin where each team plays the other once, i.e Western plays Mitchell Friday, Mitchell plays Purchase Saturday, Western plays Purchase Saturday OR
2) replaced Lesley with a team in a different conference (someone out of the MASCAC, GNAC, NEWMAC, Wesleyan, Trinity, there's about 100 schools that'll fit there) and made this is a true tournament where the 2 winners from Saturday play Saturday.

Having Lesley there did NOTHING for them except pad their stats and slightly lower their opponents PPG number.   Mitchell maybe just as bad, but at least they gave us a competitive game (of course from the boxscore it looked that way.  May have looked different in person, but I had no transportation up there this weekend).

[AllStar]

Tuesday:
Springfield 81, Keene State 73
This is a tough test for a young team that hasn't gotten off to a very good start even though they've been in every game.  You could say with some made free throws they'd have a few wins but they didn't make them.  Will be interesting to see if they improve as the season goes along.  They did make 10 threes in the loss at Southern Maine in which they played a really bad second half.  Springfield has gotten of to a good start, albeit against pretty weak competition.

Western Connecticut 75, Vassar 67
Vassar hasn't had a winning season since 2007-2008 when they went 18-8.  They are off to a 2-1 start this year.  Meanwhile Western Connecticut is one win away from equaling last season's win total for the whole year.  The Colonials have scored 82 points or more in all their wins and scored 55 in their 80-55 loss to Bowdoin.  Vassar hasn't given up more than 71 in any of their games.  This is Vassar's first home game of the year.

Bridgewater State 67, Rhode Island College 64
This is Bridgewater's first home game of the season.  The Bears are 1-2 but have played some tougher competition, losing close games to Richard Stockton and Plattsburgh State.  They then won at MIT while holding the Engineers to 49 points.  RIC probably played their first good game of the season against Brandeis on Saturday, winning 73-72 on a buzzer beater.  It is worth nothing the Anchormen were very close to blowing a late 10 point lead.  I'll take Bridgewater here in what you might call an upset.

Eastern Connecticut 73, Connecticut College 48
Connecticut College has held all three of their opponents in the 60's (of course Bard and Western New England were two of the three teams they've played, so how much does that really mean).  They beat up a bad Western New England team by a lot, but lost to Bard at home (!) and got waxed by Salve Regina 68-34 in a pathetic offensive performance.  Bard has since lost to Marymount by 58 points.  Who knows if the Camels get 50, but Eastern should win this game...and win it pretty comfortably.

Castleton State 88, Plymouth State 83
This matchup has traditionally been a high-scoring one.  The Spartans haven't scored as much this year, although they certainly were impressive in defeating Top 10 nationally ranked WPI 77-65 at home last Saturday.  I can see some potential for a letdown in this scenario coming off that game, but I think Castleton will make enough plays in the end to win.  Plymouth was not impressive in needing overtime to beat Lyndon State at home (87-84) the other day.

Bates 73, Southern Maine 69
Southern Maine has trailed at halftime in back to back games, including embarrassingly by 9 at UNE.  Even though USM won the matchup last year, I'll take Bates in a close game.

Suffolk 83, UMass-Boston 80
This might be the least intriguing game of the night.  Boston was hammered by Nichols and then pulled out a close win against Newbury.  Suffolk is 1-3.  They too have lost to Bard (as well as Eastern Nazarene and Daniel Webster).  I think this game will be close, similar to the last matchup these teams played at Suffolk.  UMass-Boston won that matchup 100-98 in overtime, but of course they had Isaac Jenkins and Vinny DeLucia then.

[warriorcat]

Eastern Conn    69
Conn College    45

Eastern moves to 5-1 with an easy road win over NESCAC's probably weakest team.  Tre Preston (6-13 on threes) and Mike Garrow led the Warriors with 22 pts each.  Brian Salzillo was held to 8 pts (2-7 on threes) 17 points below his average.  12 of ECSU's 23 field goals were threes.  Conn College shot 23.6 % from the field.