MBB: Little East

[warriorcat]

Mike Garrow has always been a streaky player.  When he is on, he has a unlimited ceiling.  He can drive, he can shoot, he can rebound, he can drive.  At other points, he is a non-factor.  Since he came to Eastern, Coach Geitner has tried to get the best out of him and to get him to be more consistent.  If (a big if) he ever harnessed all of that potential he would be one of the most dominant players in the Region. 

This is a different type of Eastern team then we have seen in the past three years.  The graduation of Chris Robitaille has left them with no dependable low post option.  The continued improvement of Tre Preston and the torrid outside shooting of Brian Salzillo has more than made up for the lack of inside scoring. 

I am impressed with the variety of contributions that the new forwards have made so far- Lindo and  Kaczenski - as well as the always inexhaustible Brandon Yarborough. 

Under Coach Geitner's leadership, I am confident that the Warriors will be in the thick of the Conference and Regional picture in 2014.

[AllStar]

Nothing overly surprising to me from today's results.

I thought Eastern would beat RIC at home, and they did 77-74 in what seemed to be a very entertaining game.  Salzillo and Preston combined for 46 of Eastern's 77 points on 13-26 shooting overall from the floor.  Hopefully Coach Walsh is OK, as he was not at the game.  Eastern off to a very very good start to their season.  RIC is just 4-4 and his been inconsistent.

Western held off Southern Maine in Gorham 86-76.  The Huskies, much like they did in their first conference game vs. Keene State, fell behind by double figures in the first half (39-19).  They were able to come all the way back and tie the game 54-54, but Western pulled away some after that again.  You can't consistently fall behind by double figures in the first half and expect to come back and win, certainly in conference play.  Good win for Western.  Colonials certainly appear to have put last year's disaster behind them.  Not sure what to think of Southern Maine so far this season.  Last year they got off to a very good and surprising start but faded quickly down the stretch.  Remains to be seen if that happens again this year.

Plymouth beats UMass-Dartmouth 71-61.  The Corsairs got off to a bad start and never recovered.  UMD shot 36%, while Plymouth shot at a much better clip of 50% and used a balanced scoring attack to win.  Corsairs have been up and down since winning their first two games.  Plymouth is 6-1, albeit against not the best competition.

Keene blows out UMass-Boston 93-76.  Highest scoring game for the Owls so far this season.  The game was never really close in the second half, as Keene led by double figures pretty much the entire time.  Boston has competed in some of their games (like vs. MIT for example), but this one really wasn't.  Beacons are 3-4.

[LECFAN32]

Some of my observations- ric although has some nice players and young talent, don't appear to be at the same level as usual.  Giving up a boat load of points to lasel doesn't bode well for their defense, and their offense lacks much flow and has a lot of quick shots going up, sanders is a eat combo guard for this league but he's also a combo guard, which is basketball talk for small 2 guard who dribbles a bit too much. I've noticed some of their young talent sitting out, the small shooter, as well as the. It guy I have spoken of Brian Daniels (knowing his attitude, this is not a huge surprise)

Eastern has an interesting team, again they lack their usual flow and continuity which is a shame, but appears to have brought in so e forwards who love to rebound, too compliment their two all league level guards.

Keene- overhauled everything, couple nice freshman that are playing more the they should, Howard developing nicely, Doyle and wolcott not developing as nicely. Seeing them get blown out like they did was a surprise, no matter who against. Looks like a serious rebuild job.

Western-looks like their overhaul was a success one year after complete disaster.have to hand it to the coaches, they seem to be working their asses off to a) bring in that much contributing talent and b) completely change a system that was your bread and butter for 20 years. Their very deep, and see to be in great shape.the dribble drive offense their using seems to fit their talent, no surprise there. I have seen them go back and run some flex when some time needs to be taken off, which I'm glad to see, should utilize that more often. Shame about laportes good kid, had talent, but seemed to fall behind on the depth chart, last year when given the opportunity he wasn't nearly as effective as he should be. Traditional teams like Bowdoin will give western a huge problem, they slow the game down, and  will kill them on the glass, not much they can do about it besides try and dictate tempo. I think they can compete, I will say the league seems to be pretty down, but wins are wins.

[ECSUalum]

Interesting table comparing all D-III Conference Stats from NCAA.com:

http://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-men/d3

then click on custom reporting then trends

[7express]

Tuesday schedule:

Plymouth 74 @ Tufts 85.
Tufts is 5-4, the teams they beat have combined for a record of 13-24 record while they teams they've lost to have a combined record of 23-10.  Plymouth is 6-1 and has won 5 in a row after starting 1-1.  Tufts has lost 3 in a row after racing out to a 5-1 record, however the Jumbos are averaging 84 ppg this year while the Panthers are only averaging72.7 ppg.  The Panthers haven't topped 87 points this year, while the Jumbos have topped 87 points 3 times including 2 games at 96 or more points.  In their 5 wins, the Jumbos are averaging 91.6 ppg, while in the 4 losses, they are only averaging 74.5 ppg.  Tufts won in Plymouth 79-63 last season.  I like this Panthers team, and have been playing great, but if this turns into an offensive game, they can't keep it.  If they can play in the 60's or mid 70's, I think they can win, anything higher than high 70's and I'll take the Jumbos.
USM 73 @ Maine-Farmington 75.
Each team beat SJME: USM beat them on the road, Farmington beat them at home, and each team lost to Bates: Bates beat Farmington at home, USM lost to Bates at home.  Farmington has yet to play a game outside the state of Maine this season, and won't go outside the state borders until a January 10 game @ Colby-Sawyer.  Their 4 road games have been @ Maine-Augusta, @ Bates, @ Colby & @ Maine-Maritime, all schools located in Maine.  They also have road games @ Bowdoin & @ Thomas, also both located in Maine.  USM won by 17 in Gorham last year, holding Farmington to 52 points in that game.
Dartmouth 85 @ Roger Williams 68.
The Hawks have some UGLY losses this season: Mount Ida & Vassar (by 10) at home, Coast Guard at home by 1, and @ Nichols by 31.  Granted losing to Vassar isn't that bad this year, but by double digits on your home court is pretty bad.  Mount Ida & Coast Guard are a combined 4-11, and even though the Hawks lost each game by 1, they were still losses.  The Hawks lone win this season is over 4-3 Wheaton, and the Hawks have given up 81+ points in 6 of 8 games this year.  The Corsairs, meanwhile, have some nice symmetry going: They started off winning their first 2, before dropping their next 2, before rebounding to win their next 2 after that.  They are currently on a L1, and this symmetry streak has to end eventually.  They last played December 14, 2010 with Dartmouth winning by 2.
Salve 73 @ RIC 78.
Hopefully Bob Walsh is back on the bench for the Anchormen this game.  RIC is only 1-1 at the Murray Center this year, while Salve is 6-0 vs. D-3 opponents this year (only loss is to division 1 Bryant).  Even with how bad RIC is offensively, I think this comes down to the last couple of minutes, and I'll take RIC at home.  RIC won by 24 in Newport last year.

[ECSUalum]

Watching two streams tonight, RIC vs Salve Regina, which, besides being blurry, the person running the camera would be pointing it at one basket when the action was going on at the other!!!!!   All I can say is go back and learn how to run a video camera or get off your iphone and pay attention to the freaking game.  Switched over to Live Stats it was soo bad!!!
Maine Farmington stream vs USM was in High def, with excellent play by play and a competent camera operator, like night and day.

[warriorcat]

RIC came back after trailing Salve Regina by seven in the second half to win going away 80-67.  They forced 25 turnovers and shot 14-15 from the free throw line.  Four players in double figures led by Sanders and Burton with 15 points each.

[7express]

Tuesday results:

Tufts over Plymouth 76-62.  As expected, Tufts got into the mid 70's and they won the game.  The Panthers freshmen of Curtis Arsenault and Logan Kesty lead the way with 12 & 20 points respectively. Uche Nwokeji had 9, Petey Skevas finished with 7, no one else finished higher than 4.Kwame Firempong had 17 to lead Tufts, while Hunter Sabety had 15 points & 10 rebounds.
USM in double overtime 85-75 over Farmington 85-75.  Kyle Plachino had 28 points (18 from 3) on 8-12 shooting to lead the Huskies.  Sean Caddigan chipped in 15 points off the bench for the Huskies while Tyler Penney (18 points) and Conor Sullivan (10 points, 10 rebounds) also finished in double figures for the Huskies.  Andrew Dickey & Nate Carson each had 16 to lead Farmington.  Tyler Penney hit a layup at the regulation buzzer to force overtime, and Pet Sumner hit a game tying 3 for Farmington at the end of the first overtime to force the second OT and USM pulled away as they scored 10 points from the free throw lije the final 50 seconds to ice the game.
Dartmouth hangs on vs. Roger Williams 80-76.  They matched last season's win total already, and a lot closer then I thought it would be.  5 double digit scorers for Dartmouth lead by Tucker Bouchard with 19; Joseph Henry lead RWU with 19 as well.
RIC 80-67 over Salve.  Salve's first D-3 loss this season.  Patrick Dinneen had 16 points for Salve, and Jeff Bielefeld had 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Seahawks.  Nyheem Sanders & Chris Burton each had 15 to lead RIC.

35-20 LEC; 45-14 me

1 game Thursday:
Salem @ Plymouth State 7:30.  I'll be back with a prediction after I finish my paper that's due Wednesday.

[7express]

Watching two streams tonight, RIC vs Salve Regina, which, besides being blurry, the person running the camera would be pointing it at one basket when the action was going on at the other!!!!!   All I can say is go back and learn how to run a video camera or get off your iphone and pay attention to the freaking game.  Switched over to Live Stats it was soo bad!!!
Maine Farmington stream vs USM was in High def, with excellent play by play and a competent camera operator, like night and day.

That's strange.  Usually outside of the blurriness, RIC's coverage is normally pretty good.  Was this off of the LEC.tv website or 1 of the school's sites alum??

[ECSUalum]

Watching two streams tonight, RIC vs Salve Regina, which, besides being blurry, the person running the camera would be pointing it at one basket when the action was going on at the other!!!!!   All I can say is go back and learn how to run a video camera or get off your iphone and pay attention to the freaking game.  Switched over to Live Stats it was soo bad!!!
Maine Farmington stream vs USM was in High def, with excellent play by play and a competent camera operator, like night and day.

That's strange.  Usually outside of the blurriness, RIC's coverage is normally pretty good.  Was this off of the LEC.tv website or 1 of the school's sites alum??

7,
I really do not remember RIC streams being this bad, however......when you watch High Def obviously you get spoiled.
LECTV for RIC and UMaine-Farmington web site for USM game.  Anybody know what it cost to incorporate High Def for college streaming?  Cameras, connections etc etc

[amh63]

ECSU.....smiled over your posts wrt the camera operator and watching TWO streaming games.  Remember you are particular about viewing the action   I smiled because, I posted on trying to watch two Amherst games on-line...one WBB and the other the MBB game...both started at 7PM.  My ability to focus on two games at the same time was not good....so put the WBB game on live stats.  My compliant was the scheduling of the games.  How we forget when we had few webcast of games.  I posted that my priorities of webcasts are....that they are free, then have good announcers and lastly the quality of the webcast.  Still it is often tough to follow games when you miss the action or do not have clear pictures.
A number of the NESCAC schools have a professional outfit..NSN out of VT handle select webcasts.  To date the Middlebury, Williams and Bowdoin games are being covered.  Still with professional announcers there are problems.  Missing pictures at times, fuzzy pictures, etc.  Someone pointed out that the problem with some schools is that the cameras, etc. maybe limited by the out of date and limited electronic hardware they are plugged into.  I watched the Hamilton game where there was no running score of the game and the camera coverage was too far away from the action.  The single announcer was good with names but often left out the time.
Oh yes, I am still annoyed when I go to see a webcast of a MIT game and see that it cost money.  MIT has the 4-5 largest endownment in the country!  I still give donations to MIT.

[ECSUalum]

amh63,
I should have mentioned that the RIC play by play guy is excellent and very objective.  I was surprised that the UMF stream was HD, perhaps they have a new facility equipped with the state of the art streaming gear.

Such a treat to watch an HD stream these days!!

I find it frustrating that many times a school will have someone behind the camera who could not give a .... about doing a good job and must be distracted by text messaging or something else....COME ON!!!

I should be grateful for the number of very good streams available these days which I can view without leaving  my house.

Yeah, I remember I gave the Williams guys some crap, a couple years ago, on how we had to pay to watch their athletic team's stream.  Thankfully they are now gratis!!

[7express]

Thursday schedule:

Salem State 79 @ Plymouth 74.
In Salem's 4 wins they have an average victory margin of only 7.3, however in their 4 losses they have an average loss margin of 14.  3 of their 4 wins have been by 5 points or less (only win that was greater than 5 points is their 16 point win over Dartmouth), while 3 of their 4 losses have been by 12 points or more (only loss that was less than a 12 point loss was a 4 point L vs. MIT).  Unfortunately, for Plymouth another team that can put up a bunch of points as Salem is averaging 78.3 ppg this year.  Even though they give up a lot of points as well (82 ppg), Plymouth right now is a more of a defensive team.  Just like I said vs. Tufts, if Plymouth can hold Salem below 75 I think they'll get the win, if the Vikings get above 75 Salem likely wins.  Last year this was an 87-57 Salem victory in Salem, MA.

[amh63]

ECSU...I consider your Williams related comment on the pay to watch to be the one that started the ball rolling in the NESCAC
It is interesting to me that the availablity of good webcasts for D3 viewers seems almost independent of the ability of a school's financial strength.  Public schools vs. private schools, etc.  It seems that it depends on the conference and the conference's priority to their fans.  Last night, there was a big battle in the midwest between the new #1 team and another ranked conference team...UW-Whitewater vs. UW-SPoint.  It was a game that caught my interest...but it was not available on-line.  On that subject, I agreed that RIC's broadcasts are first class...the ones that I have watch over the years that Amherst has battled RIC in R.I. 
FYI, Amherst faces Babson tonight in an away game.  Amherst's teams seem to be the only teams to have games tonight.  Classes ended yesterday and exam period has started....so games in the "CAC" are few and far between...as they say....maybe a preview before your team's visit to LeFrak.

[ECSUalum]

amh63,

just looking at the LJ mens stats...... WOW!!!!
Hard to beat the FG, 3FG% and Reb , total point differentials!!!


                                                 |---TOTAL---|  |---3-PTS---|                        |----REBOUNDS----|
                         GP-GS  Min        FG-FGA    Pct 3FG-FGA   Pct  FT-FTA     Pct    Off Def  Tot  Avg  PF FO  A  TO    Blk Stl  Pts  Avg
  Total..............      8    1601      240-477  .503  77-197  .391 176-251  .701   92 227  319 39.9 157  1 136 101  38  49  733 91.6
  Opponents..........  8    1600      210-490  .429  44-132  .333 126-183  .689   80 176  256 32.0 179  - 103 102  10  64  590 73.8

Hope ECSU can give them a decent game up at LeFrak