MBB: Little East

[ECSUalum]

Thanks to all the posters over here for your moral support.  I posted over on the CAC board my observations of the game and our experience at Amherst College, which was great.

As All Star stated, too much fire power by the Lord Jeffs, and too little D by the Warriors.  Coach Geitner will need to get the Warriors to work on this as giving up 94 points is IMO unacceptable.  The 2nd period "press" put on the LJs was completely ineffective.

On the positive side, freshman Hugh Lindo was outstanding on the boards, and I thought Mike Garrow played a very gritty game and challenged the Amherst big men effectively.  Aaron Toomy plays outstanding D and was guarding Brian Salzillo last night.  Trechon Preston showed some nice movement to the basket last night which I hope he continues going forward.

[ECSUalum]

Just now listened to ECSU @ Amherst radio broadcast archive, ( on LEC TV site), by Nick Aconfora, Matt Bossy et al and have to say they did a outstanding job on this broadcast.  Amherst does not have a media booth/press box in LeFrak, so the boys were sitting high in the bleachers with only a table in front of them with their broadcast equipment.

[7express]

Thursday schedule:

Tufts 73 @ RIC 69.
One of the games on the NCAA pick 'em slate Magicman has selected for this week's slate.  Tufts has been off for almost a month as they last played December 10 up in Plymouth, NH.  RIC is 0-1 coming out of the break, a shocking home loss to city rival Johnson & Wales.  They rarely lose 2 in a row at the Murray Center, but there's just no consistency yet with this group.  Tufts, has struggled this year (6-4, losers of 3 of their last 4), but that is a veteran team that has competed in the upper half of the NESCAC the last couple seasons.
Dartmouth 68 @ Western 82.
After this game, everyone will have played 2 conference games.  Dartmouth is 0-1 in the conference with a loss @ Plymouth state, Western averted a horrific disaster up in Maine to hang onto beat USM.  That was actually the last game they played too as the schedule January 2 game @ WNEC was postponed to January 23.  I thought Phil Starks was eligible, but he's not listed on the roster.  These are 2 of the surprising teams in the conference in the early going as each team went into the New Year either matching (in Dartmouth's case) or surpassing (in Western's case) their 2012-13 win total as each school finished 5-21 last season.  This is Western's lone LEC home game until the 21st and we already played @ USM and play @ Plymouth state, @ Keene State, and @ UMass-Boston in the coming week.

[wcsu91]

@ 7 Express:  Just went to the Western Men's Site and Phil Starks is back on the roster which is great news for them. They need his 3's.

[7express]

@ 7 Express:  Just went to the Western Men's Site and Phil Starks is back on the roster which is great news for them. They need his 3's.

Not happy that Jerry Washington is off.  In the 1 game I saw the fall semester he looked pretty good.  Grade issue with him LECFan??  Gonna try to make the game tonight but I've been out all day and my whole family is out of the country this week so I'm on pet duty at the house, lol.

[7express]

Dartmouth leads 35-26 at halftime.  There's been about 50 fouls combined in the half, neither team can get in rhythm due to all the stoppages.

[magicman]

Rhode Island College leads Tufts 32-23 at the half.

Jumbos shooting themselves in the foot way too much. Already with 16 turnovers. Down 18-16 with 8:17 left in the half the Jumbos committed 8 turnovers, 4 fouls and went 3x10 from the field allowing RIC to open up a 10 point lead. RIC's full court press is bothering the Jumbos and they are also allowing themselves to get trapped against the sideline or endline way too much. The Anchormen don't even have their two best players, Nyheem Sanders and Tom DeCiantis in the game.

Hunter Sabety leads Tufts with 10 points and 5 rebounds.  Michael Palumbo is high man for RIC with 10 and Austin Cilley has 9.

[magicman]

Tufts down by 1, 56-55,  RIC with the ball 33 seconds left.

Jumbos get a steal with 23 seconds left and call a TO.

Tufts Kwame Firempong turns it over as he's called for an offensive foul with 10 seconds to play.

RIC inbounds the ball but Firempong steals it and fires up a 3 pointer with 2 seconds to go, that is off the mark. Tufts gets the rebound but the shot is after the buzzer goes off and isn't close anyways. 

RIC survives.  56-55

Victor Smith leads the Anchormen with 14 points and 4 rebounds. Austin Cilley with 13 points and 5 assists. Mike Palumbo with 12 points.

Nice win for RIC

[7express]

RIC beats Tufts 56-55.  Hunter Sabety lead the Jumbos with 16 points, Victor Smith lead RIC with 14 off the bench.  Magicman recapped the end well enough, so the 2 people that actually read this, I'll let you read that.
Dartmouth ends up LEC record at 1-1 with an 80-66 win over Western.  Ryan Walsh lead the Corsairs with 17 points, Kendall Marquez had a game high 20 for the Colonials.  I only saw the first half before I had to leave, but Dartmouth outplayed them in the first and sounds like they did the same in the second too.  Dartmouth got their lead as high as 22 in the second and cruised home after going up 9 at the break.

41-32 LEC: 55-25 me.

Saturday schedule (all LEC games):
RIC @ Keene
Dartmouth @ USM
Boston @ Eastern
Western @ Plymouth.  All games start at 3 PM.  None of the games look that overly exciting, but I'd give best dibs to Western/Plymouth followed by RIC/Keene.

[7express]

Saturday action:

RIC 74 @ Keene 78.
Are students back yet Allstar??  Keene had been playing well before laying a stinker vs. Lasell the last time out, RIC has looked awful since coming back from Christmas break and is very lucky not to be 0-2 since coming back from vacation.  I see this as a coin flip, but I'll give the edge to the Owls at home.
Dartmouth 67 @ USM 59.
The archives on D-3 only go back to the 07/08 season and neither school has stats that go back prior to that season, but in the stats D-3 has available Dartmouth hasn't lost yet @ USM.  They probably have at some point, except the archives don't go that far back, so what we have available to us is at least 7 straight Corsairs wins in Gorham and maybe even more (if anyone has the last Huskies win at home, let me know).  Win #7 was the final game of the 2012-13 season when USM had their best record in about 5 or 6 years and Dartmouth had one of the worst seasons in quite some time.  Since that game February 16, USM has gotten worse and Dartmouth is one of the better surprises.  Win #8 in Maine for the Corsairs.
Boston 54 @ Eastern 86.
Eastern has had a couple close losses to really, really, good teams.  They'll get back on track.
Western 67 @ Plymouth 73.
Western looked rusty last night playing their first game in more than a month.  That is a very, very tough trip, and even when we had the all-star teams with Michael Jensen, DaQuan Brooks, Gary Robinson, Michael Kennedy, Mark Redding, etc they ALWAYS gave Western problems up there.  The long, overnight trip definitely doesn't help, and like Dartmouth this Panthers team is a greatly improved team from the 2012/13 version. 

[AllStar]

7,

No.  The students are not back yet.  I contend that the atmosphere when they are there at Spaulding Gym is very good...after all just look at that Middlebury game from a few years ago.  There is still a pretty decent local following...but the atmosphere isn't the same.

[7express]

Saturday results:

Eastern over Boston 81-60.  Carl Joseph lead the Beacons with 19.  Eastern put 4 in double figures lead by Brian Salzillo's 22 and Mike Garrow had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Warriors who attempted 27 three pointers making 13.
Dartmouth wins another in Maine 73-57 over the Huskies.  Tucker Bouchard lead all scorers with 19 for the Corsairs and Wale Abraham had 10 points and 9 rebounds.  Conor Sullivan lead the Huskies with 18 points.
Western with a 59-46 road win at Plymouth.  Joe Groski with 19 points on 7-10 shooting, and Spud Gates with 16 off the bench.  Curtis Arsenault lead Plymouth with 12.  Western held the Panthers to 30.4% shooting overall, and outscored them in the second half 34-19 shooting 46.2% in the second while they held the Panthers to just above 20% in the second (20.2%).  The Western defense has been much maligned the last couple years, nice to see them get at it on the defensive end.
RIC clobbers Keene 95-69.  Austin Cilley had a game high 26 for RIC; Tom Doyle had 19 to lead Keene while Nate Howard had 15 points and 14 rebounds.

41-32 LEC; 57-26 me

Tuesday schedule:
Eastern @ Dartmouth
RIC @ USM
Western @ Keene
Plymouth @ Boston.  All games at 7:30 PM.  Eastern/Dartmouth is definitely the night's best.

Standings:
1) Eastern 9-4 (3-0)
2) Dartmouth 8-4 (2-1)
2) Western 8-3 (2-1)
2) RIC 8-5 (2-1)
5) USM 5-8 (1-2)
5) Plymouth 7-6 (1-2)
5) Keene 3-8 (1-2)
8) Boston 5-6 (0-3)

[warriorcat]

Congratulations to Mike Garrow for scoring his 1000th point in the first half of today's game.  As I have said in an earlier post, Mike is the key factor in Eastern's team this year.  When he is on, he can take a game over.

[ECSUalum]

Nice win by the Warriors over the Beacons today, Salzillo was outstanding and Garrow was a beast on the boards.  I hope Hugh Lindo is OK as he did not play today.  Nice to see a few of the bench players get some minutes, Nunez, in particular, Canny still a work in progress but the more time and minutes he sees, the more he will have an opportunity to gell.

Off to UMD on Tues.

[amh63]

ECSU....this is a backhanded compliment to your Warriors.
Seems the 5th ranked Williams team had the same problem in LeFrak as your Warriors.  A double digit loss to the LJs.  Seems that ECSU is getting their mojo again.  Congrats to your latest wins in the conference.