MBB: Little East

[AllStar]

Also to add onto Warriorcats list Rashard Wright, Derek D'Amours (though he got suspended the last half of that season) from Keene, and Collin Burns & Paul Rose from Dartmouth as well.  Even USM & Plymouth had a couple good players that year.  But I agree, we'll be hard pressed to see as good of a talent over a 2 year span then we had in the league between the 10/11 seasons and the 11/12 seasons.

I agree with this, although I hope we see it again soon...because this season in the conference has not been very interesting.

[7express]

Also to add onto Warriorcats list Rashard Wright, Derek D'Amours (though he got suspended the last half of that season) from Keene, and Collin Burns & Paul Rose from Dartmouth as well.  Even USM & Plymouth had a couple good players that year.  But I agree, we'll be hard pressed to see as good of a talent over a 2 year span then we had in the league between the 10/11 seasons and the 11/12 seasons.

I agree with this, although I hope we see it again soon...because this season in the conference has not been very interesting.

Compared to last season, this is pretty exciting, minus Eastern running away from the pack.  At least the conference has a legit regional team this year, last year, 4/8 finished sub .500 and 3 of those 4 finished with 7 wins or fewer.  The RIC team last season was not very good, better than this year's team obviously, but nowhere near where that 2011-12 team was.

[AllStar]

Also to add onto Warriorcats list Rashard Wright, Derek D'Amours (though he got suspended the last half of that season) from Keene, and Collin Burns & Paul Rose from Dartmouth as well.  Even USM & Plymouth had a couple good players that year.  But I agree, we'll be hard pressed to see as good of a talent over a 2 year span then we had in the league between the 10/11 seasons and the 11/12 seasons.

I agree with this, although I hope we see it again soon...because this season in the conference has not been very interesting.

Compared to last season, this is pretty exciting, minus Eastern running away from the pack.  At least the conference has a legit regional team this year, last year, 4/8 finished sub .500 and 3 of those 4 finished with 7 wins or fewer.  The RIC team last season was not very good, better than this year's team obviously, but nowhere near where that 2011-12 team was.

That was probably poor word choice.  Sure, the races are interesting, etc.  I agree the talent is not the same at all...where a few years ago you had 4 very legitimate teams battling it out in the semifinals with two great games that I remember in Willimantic.  It remains to be seen whether some of these teams are being inflated by beating up cupcakes.  The conference is badly missing marquee non-conference wins.

[7express]

Tuesday results:

USM over Boston 75-68.  Carl Joseph had 21 points off the bench once again for the Beacons, while Cole Libby was one of 4 Huskies starters in double digits.  Even though the Huskies turned it over 22 points, they made up for it with 50% shooting from the floor.
Plymouth beats Keene 68-64.  First time the Panthers have beaten the Owls since February 16, 2010, and the first time beating them in Plymouth since January 20, 2009.  Petey Skevas had a game high 18, and Uche Nwokeji had 11 points & 10 boards for the Panthers.  The Owls were lead by Nate Howard's 17, while Jaquel Edwards had a double double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
RIC over Dartmouth 72-66.  Victor Smith had 20 for RIC and Austin Cilley chipped in 18.  The Anchormen held Ryan Walsh in check for the most part with only 7 points on 2-10 shooting (2-8 from 3), but Tucker Bouchard had 20 on 8-17 shooting, and Alex Rodrigues was a perfect 7-7 for 14 points.  RIC only connected on 8-14 from the line, but Eric Alleyne went 4-4 in the final minute to keep the Corsairs at bay and pull out a win.
Eastern over Western 84-72.  Joe Groski was one of 5 Colonials in double figures as he put in 15 (11 in the first half).  Eastern was lead by Trachone Preston's 21 (15 in the first) and Brian Salzillo's 16 (I think all 16 came in the second).  Salzillo once again involved in the play of the game, and go figure it's him hitting a 3 pointer.  After kendall Marquez's 2 free throws wittled what was once a 19 point Eastern lead in the second half down to 9, Salzillo silenced the O'Neil Center crowd with a 3 from the top of the key to go up 14.  After a Preston jumper, sandwiched between a Gates jumper & 2 Groski's free throws for Western about 60 seconds later, some nice ball movement finds Salzillo open on the left wing.  And when I say open, he was open.  There was no Colonial defender even remotely in the vicinity of him.  Takes literally a 2 second pause, STILL nobody for Western rotates over to guard him, let's it go, swish, nothing but the bottom of the net.  The dagger that shut up the O'Neil Center crowd for good.  Eastern would get their lead as big as 20 before some incredibly stupid and boneheaded decisions gave Western some free and easy points to make the score look somewhat respectable to anyone that saw it on the conference page or the D-3 hoops scoreboard, but for anyone that was there and watched it, Eastern was in control of it.  Speaking of the boneheaded decisions??  They looked like the Western Colonials with Brooks out there.  I said it with him, and I'll say it here too....WTF were they doing the last 3 minutes?  Your up by 16 points, why are you chucking up off-balance jumpers with 26 seconds left on the shot clock???  They did the same exact thing on Saturday too @ RIC!  Once they got up by 14 or 17 with under 3 minutes to go, they started to take it into showtime mode there too: 3 pointers from Salzillo with 25 on the shot clock in a 14 point game, behind the back passes, trying to get Lindo on SportsCenter with an alleyoop dunk when a simple layup will be good enough.  So tell me, Alum, Warriorcat, anyone else that's been following Eastern basketball this year, have they been doing this crap all season, or did they just start it recently??

44-34 LEC; 75-31 me.  probably my best day of the season, correctly picked Keene AND Dartmouth's point total in addition to getting all 4 games correct.

Standings:
1) Eastern 8-0 (14-4)
2) RIC 6-2 (12-6)
3) Dartmouth 5-3 (12-6)
4) Western 4-4 (11-6)
4) Plymouth 4-4 (10-8)
6) Keene 3-5 (6-11)
7) USM 2-6 (6-12)
8) Boston 0-8 (5-13)

Wednesday schedule:
RIC @ Amherst 7 PM

RIC 53 @ Amherst 72.
Why are they playing this game when they are??  Couldn't they have played this on Monday, or even the Dartmouth/RIC game on Monday??  Or better yet, how about February 13??  Both have that day available.  RIC plays the 11th & the 15th, Amherst has from the 8th to 16th off, so it looks like they could fit that game in there.  Another, more logical date would be February 20.  RIC plays the 18th and the 22nd, Amherst is off from the 16th to the 22nd.  Why would Bob Walsh play this game on a back to back??  Did Amherst give him an ultimatium "take this day ONLY or your not playing us??"  No matter how awful Dartmouth was/wasn't going to be coming in, why would you want to go on the road to a likely top 10 or at worst top 20 team 22 hours after you finished a grueling conference matchup??

[7express]

The conference is badly missing marquee non-conference wins.

RIC has the last chance to pick one up tomorrow @ Amherst.

[amh63]

7....thanks for your response to my inquiry.  Even read your prediction wrt to the game tonight...along to your rant about the scheduling.  Several years ago, a scheduled game was put off due to weather and never rescheduled to other things coming up late in the season.  It is possible that a late season game would again be never played.  This way, if weather causes a postponement, there is time to reschedule later...as you so pointed out.  Back to back?  The Nescac always have such games...Amherst goes up to Maine this weekend and will play a top 25 ranked team in Bowdoin on Sat....having played Colby on Friday night.  Good prep for post season Tourny play.
In a any case, thanks again.  We should plan watching a live game together again sometime, if Amherst keeps winning and gets to host a sectional.

[ECSUalum]

ECSU Alum,

I agree with you about Eastern and the press.  That has been their weakness for the past 4 or 5 years.  While I think they are the class of the LEC this year, it appears to be a down year as it is across the region.  Even though they have a realistic shot of going undefeated in the conference this year, I am not sure this team would have finished in the top four two years ago.  The Conference was stacked that year.

Probably true mainly due to this year team being pretty young and no dominating post player.

[ECSUalum]

 So tell me, Alum, Warriorcat, anyone else that's been following Eastern basketball this year, have they been doing this crap all season, or did they just start it recently??

Just recently since I recommended Coach Geitner run an alley-oop to Lindo a couple of days ago on this thread

Seriously, I think the constant Western press precipitated the up tempo, (run and gun), game last night, in essence disrupting the ECSU slower offense.   I don't remember who initiated the alley-oop pass, maybe former HS teammate Preston?  But Eastern has executed a few of them over the last 2-3 games, home and away,(they performed one up at Le Frak), so it must be an approved Coach Geitner play due to Lindo's ability to elevate. It certainly is a popular play at the Francis E Geissler Gymnasium, when they have 1200 people in attendance

[ECSUalum]

Nick Aconfora interview with Mike Garrow,Brian  Salzillo, and Huge Lindo after RIC game last weekend.  Lindo talks briefly about dunks.

http://gowarriorathletics.com/sports/mbkb/index

[AllStar]

RIC and Amherst tied 36-36 at halftime.

[AllStar]

RIC led 49-40 but has been outscored 30-5 since and trails 70-54.  Second straight bad second half for RIC.

[7express]

Amherst clubs RIC 80-60.  Tom Killian and Aaron Toomey lead the way for the Lord Jeffs with 26 & 22 points respectively, while Nyheem Sanders and Chris Burton lead the way for RIC with 16 & 15 respectively.  After going into the half tied at 36, RIC ran off a 13-4 run the first 5 minutes of the half to hit their high water mark of +9 at 49-40 with less than 15 minutes to play, but got outscored 40-11 the final 14:55 of the game to get killed.  They probably still would've lost anyways, but playing on back-to-back nights definitely didn't help them sustain that lead.  However, giving up 40 points in less than 15 minutes is dreadful.

44-35 LEC; 76-31 me.

No games Thursday, so next round of games on Saturday:
Western @ Dartmouth 3 PM
Plymouth @ Eastern 3 PM
RIC @ Boston 3 PM
USM @ Keene 3 PM.  Western/Dartmouth looks like the best game, but that's a bad slate of games.

[pjunito]

7 and ECSU

From what you can see.. who gives Eastern the biggest threat the remaining of the season? It looks like the Little East tournament will be fun to watch, so many teams playing at the same level. Would it surprise you to see anyone win (or lose) in the tournament's first or second round (other than eastern).

[ECSUalum]

7 and ECSU

From what you can see.. who gives Eastern the biggest threat the remaining of the season? It looks like the Little East tournament will be fun to watch, so many teams playing at the same level. Would it surprise you to see anyone win (or lose) in the tournament's first or second round (other than eastern).

pjunito,

Re the LEC tournament, I think RIC is always in the back of Coach Geitner's mind, especially since ECSU has won both regular season games. Winning both reg. season games can be sort of bad luck for the winning team IMHO.  Additionally, a big rivalry has developed over the last 4-5 years between RIC and Eastern and Coach Walsh will have the Anchormen "on steroids",, (to coin a phrase of course) for any final game vs the Warriors.

I think the Warriors will be OK at Geissler Gym, as they have had big crowds, (900-1100), this year so, essentially, we have maintained a "6th" man advantage, so to speak (knock on wood ).

Re the rest of the season...., there has been talk of the long drive to Portland/Gorham Maine vs Southern Maine, (last regular season game), so maybe USM, but  I think if the guys get to the USM game undefeated in LEC play, there will be a huge incentive to focus on getting a "W" up there.  I think, mentally the team is in a good place right now, focusing only on getting the next win, and working hard in practice.

[amh63]

7Express....nice prediction of the spread of last night's game in LeFrak.  Heard a rumor that the Amherst coaches got wind of your prediction and told the players to step up    You must give the LJs credit for their defense in the second half....held the Anchormen to only 24 points in the second half after giving up 36 in the first.  Amherst was held to 80 points...below their average to date...some credit to RIC here.
a karma point for your accuracy.