MBB: Little East

[AllStar]

Dartmouth wins by 6 or so not sure of the final as I was eating dinner
USM up by 5 at the half.  Extended halftime in Gorham this evening as it's Gorham town night, and a bunch of elementary school kids are playing basketball.  I'll have full recap of both games when this game goes final.
USM up 65-64 3:07 left.  Plymouth is getting hosed in the foul department here, moving screens on Plymouth's end, no calls on the same plays on USM's end, but since it's in Maine it shouldn't be that surprising, should it??

Dartmouth was up 61-40 but barely hung on, as UMass-Boston got it all the way down to 1 but couldn't complete the comeback.

[7express]

I thought they only got it down as far as 2 Allstar??

[AllStar]

I believe it got to 75-74 or something like that before UMD sealed it with free throws.  Regardless...not a good finish for Dartmouth despite the win after having a 21 point lead.

[AllStar]

By the way ... Southern Maine getting hometown calls up there?  No way.  Really?   

[7express]

Tuesday results:

Dartmouth survives vs. Boston 80-74.  Ryan Walsh had 26 for the Corsairs (for you scoring at home, that's 55 points for Walsh the last 2 games), while Gregory Young had 20 to lead the Beacons.  Dartmouth lead by 21 with 10:41 to play, but the Beacons got it as close as 2 with 31 seconds to go, but free throw shooting gave the Corsairs the close win.  Definitely not a good look for them though.
Plymouth defeats USM 73-69.  Send out the SOS as the HMS Husky has officially hit the iceberg and is sinking.  Plymouth is decent this year, but if you want to get back in the thick of the race, this game at home is a game you HAD to win, and USM was doing a good job of that for most of the game leading by 5 at the half, but poor free throw shooting (55.6%), bad late-game execution, and horrific press defense may have contributed to USM's season getting sunk.  Petey Skevas was one of 5 Panthers in double figures and lead the team with 13, including the final 6 points for Plymouth, while Conor Sullivan had 30 points, but missed what would have been the game winner with 19 seconds left down 1, and then only hit 1-2 free throws a couple seconds later in a 3 point game.  Speaking, of the end of the game, let's get to that.  Plymouth had the ball with a 1 point lead, 40 seconds to play.  Petey Skevas turns the ball over to USM with 35 seconds left.  The shot clock is still on, but the time difference between the shot clock and game clock is like .06 seconds, so realistically USM can hold for the last shot with I believe still a couple timeouts in their pocket.  So, with 19 seconds to go, Sullivan takes this awful fade away jumper from the elbow which misses badly, and Skevas gets fouled for Plymouth and knocks down both free throws to go up 3.  On the ensuing USM possession, Sullivan gets fouled, hits 1-2 free throws to make it a 2 point game, but on the ensuing USM trap, the Husky defenders didn't know who to guard, so Skevas got behind the defense for an easy layup to put the game away, the final margin, and quite possibly the season for USM.

44-33 LEC; 1-1 on the day; 68-29 me

Wednesday games, the 2 postponed games from Tuesday:
RIC @ Western 7:30
Keene @ Eastern 7:30.  Keeping the same results & scores I predicted on Monday.

RIC 65 @ Western 67.
Can never seem to defeat RIC.  Last year in Western's 5-21 campaign they lost to RIC in 2 relatively close games.  In the game in Providence RIC won by 5, but trailed most of the second half and only 21 offensive rebounds was able to sneak out the win.  In the game in Danbury, Western had a lead as high as 9 in the second half, and only RIC free throws in the final minute made it a 9 point RIC win, as the game was a lot closer than the 9 points would indicate.  As I said last week vs. Keene, there are just some teams that have your number, and RIC is another team that has Western's number.  This is a start of 3 straight home games vs. RIC, USM & Eastern.  I think if Western wants to be taken seriously for the championship, they can't do any worse than 2-1 on this home stand, and they have a better chance at beating RIC than beating Eastern, imo.  RIC seems to turn it on this time of year, but this team hasn't looked as good as the RIC teams the last couple years.
Keene 68 @ Eastern 81.
For as much success as Keene has had vs. Western, they've had an equally amount of failure against Easter.  Keene did win in the semifinals last year which ended a streak of something like 9 Eastern wins in the last 10 games of the series.  Eastern will look to start a new streak vs. the Owls.

[7express]

Eastern leads Keene 41-26 at halftime.  Brian Salzillo has 13 for the Warriors, and Tom Doyle leads Keene with 12.
Western looks dreadful down 41-27 vs. RIC.  The fact their only down 14 at the half should be considered a moral victory since RIC was up by 19 with less than 2 minutes to play.  RIC already has 16 turnovers, but their shooting over 50% (15-29) and holding Western to just above 30% (9-29).  Bobby Bynum has 8 for Western, Austin Cilley leads all scorers with 14 for the Anchormen.

[ECSUalum]

WCSU makes a valiant comeback but just cannot get past the Anchorman 82-78
RIC has 28 TO's   Coach Walsh must have gone freaking zonkers!!!
DeCiantis and Sanders with 15, Cilley with 23.
For Western 16 for Washington, 13 for Marquez
RIC won the rebounding 44-37, and the Colonials only shot 18.5% from 3pt range

[7express]

RIC avoids an implosion and Eastern rolls to head into their Saturday showdown in Providence.

RIC holds onto win 82-78.  The last 15 seconds of this game could be the first chapter in "how not to close out a basketball game."  First, RIC does a Boston impersonation by missing 3 of their final 5 free throws in the final 15 seconds with them up 2.  Then, after being given second life by Jacob Paige converting only 1-2 free throws, Western, down 3, with the shot clock off, works the clock down to 5 seconds before Jerry Washington attempts a 2 point jumper.  What???    Nyheem Sanders grabs the rebound, gets fouled misses both free throws on the opposite end to keep it at 3.  The only smart thing the final 20 seconds occurred with Bob Walsh ordering a foul with 1 second to play because knocking down a free throw, missing on purpose AND grabbing the offense rebound and put back is a whole lot harder to accomplish than a 3 pointer in transistion.  So, Walsh sends Jerry Washington to the line who can rebound from his gaffe a couple seconds earlier.  Misses the first, doesn't entirely put them away, but makes it a lot harder as now you need an offensive rebound AND 3 pointer just to tie all in like 1.5 seconds.  Anyways, it makes it a moot point as Washington misses the second, but Tom DeCiantis grabs the rebound, gets fouled, and makes 1-2 for the final 4 point margin.  Considering they were up 19 with less than 2 minutes to play in the first half, and got outscored by 15 the final 22 minutes, I'm not very happy if I'm Bob Walsh.  Sure, you take conference wins especially on the road, but Western had no business winning that game, and if they make some smarter decisions, they may very well have won the game.  Jerry Washington had 16 points, and Kendall Marquez had 13 points on 6-10 shooting off the bench.  Austin Cilley had a game high 23 for RIC.
Eastern clubs Keene 84-53.  Mike Garrow had 20 to lead Eastern, Tom Doyle was the only Owl in double figures as he put in 23.  Eastern was up 15 at the half, had the score in the 20's the majority of the second half, and got their lead as high as 33.

44-33 LEC; 69-30 me.

Standings:
1) Eastern 6-0 (12-4)
2) RIC 5-1 (11-5)
3) Dartmouth 4-2 (11-5)
4) Western 3-3 (10-5)
4) Plymouth 3-3 (9-7)
6) Keene 2-4 (5-10)
7) USM 1-5 (5-11)
8) Boston 0-6 (5-10)

1 game Thursday and that's Tufts @ Boston 7 PM

Tufts 68 @ Boston 59
The Jumbos are one of the regions most disappointing teams.  Coming off a season in which they finished 17-9 overall and a top 4 seed and semifinal trip of the NESCAC tournament, they are limping into this matchup coming off a disappoint sweep at the hands of Amherst & trinity last weekend.  Now, losing to Amherst is nothing to be concerned about, but losing at home to Trinity is a bit of a head scratcher however.   The Jumbos are 1-1 vs. the LEC this year beating Plymouth at home, and choking against then Anchormen down in Providence.  They also face Dartmouth later on in February.
Keene's game scheduled for today against MCLA will now be played Thursday, February 13 and Western's game @ WNEC scheduled for today which was pushed back from January 2, will now take place Thursday, February 20.  At this point, I wish they would just cancel it all together.  I'd rather the Colonials get the rest heading into that last weekend, than beat a punchless opponent into a pulp.

[7express]

WCSU makes a valiant comeback but just cannot get past the Anchorman 82-78
RIC has 28 TO's   Coach Walsh must have gone freaking zonkers!!!
DeCiantis and Sanders with 15, Cilley with 23.
For Western 16 for Washington, 13 for Marquez
RIC won the rebounding 44-37, and the Colonials only shot 18.5% from 3pt range

He probably went more crazy the fact they went 19-28 from the free throw line and after being up 19 in the first half had to hang on to win a game that was a lot closer than it should've been.

[AllStar]

I see Keene turned in another poor performance.

[7express]

Jumbos steamrolling the Beacons 41-22 at halftime.

[AllStar]

Tufts 78-56.

[7express]

Tufts beats Boston 78-56.  Game was essentially over at halftime when the Jumbos lead 42-21.  Carl Joseph lead the Beacons with 19 points who shot only 31.8%.  Hunter Sabety lead the Jumbos with 21 points and 7 blocked shots.

44-34 LEC; 70-30 me.   10 more LEC games this year which means we only have to win 1 of those final 10 games to gives us a winning record.  Worse case scenario is we end the year at .500.

Saturday schedule:
USM @ Western
Boston @ Keene
Plymouth @ Eastern
Eastern @ RIC.  Game of the day is Eastern/RIC.  I'll be in providence for that Eastern/RIC double header Saturday afternoon if anyone wants to say hello.

[7express]

Sat predictions:

USM 68 @ Western 85.
It would be nice to jump on them early, and keep the pressure on.  In December, we jumped out to a 21 point lead in the first half before settling for a 16 point lead at the break, but took the foot off the gas in the second, and let USM actually tie up the game late before Western pulled away in the final 3 or 4 minutes.  USM is looking for their first win since December 10.
Boston 72 @ Keene 94.  Keene won the first matchup in Boston 93-76, and the rematch in Keene should be about the same score.  Boston is able to hang around in games by being physical in the paint because usually they have the size advantage over the other teams they are playing but against Keene that's not the case, and the Beacons don't do much else very well.
Plymouth 75 @ Dartmouth 85.
Plymouth won in New Hampshire 71-61 back in December.  Last year, the Corsairs lost by 2 in New Hampshire, and then lost by 29 at home.  I think they'll get the win and salvage the split, probably a pretty good game actually.  This is probably the game I'll watch on the LEC TV archives when I get back from Providence.
Eastern 65 @ RIC 70.
The game of the year in the conference??  Maybe not as Eastern still has to play Western twice and RIC still plays Dartmouth twice, so those 2 teams will have something to say, but should be a pretty good game none-the-less.  Eastern won the first meeting, and would definitely go in the drivers seat with a victory, and they don't have that many stumbling blocks left after this (@ Western, @ Keene, @ USM are the only 3 I see.  Should be Dartmouth & Western at home).  RIC still has a couple left (Dartmouth twice, and Dartmouth has played them extremely tough in Providence over the years, and the dreaded trip to Maine).  If Eastern is able to pull this out, with all due respect to RIC, Western & Dartmouth I don't see how they'll get caught, they'll have to implode like the Metrodome in Minnesota just did to get caught if their able to pull out this victory in Providence.  I'll 99% likely be in Providence for this game if anyone wants to come by and say hello.

Massey ratings:
Eastern 69-64 (67%)
Dartmouth 73-66 (75%)
Western 77-70 (76%)
Keene 82-77 (68%)

[7express]

RIC Eastern tied at 33 halftime.  Horrible close out for the Warriors who were up 5 with 20 seconds remaining and allowed a layup and a 3 pointer following a turnover.   Western, Dartmouth and Keene are your other leaders still about 9 mins left in Westerns game.