MBB: Little East

[7express]

I'll make Saturday predictions and try to figure out placements.  Regardless of what happens Saturday Eastern is the #1 seed, USM is the #2 seed, RIC is the #7 seed and Boston is the #8 seed.  Dartmouth, Keene, Western & Plymouth are fighting for the final 2 home spots.

I'll take Western over Plymouth, Eastern over Boston (the who cares game of the weekend.  Neither team can move and Eastern's no show the other night up in Keene means they have to win the conference tournament to get in anyways), Dartmouth over USM, and RIC over Keene.  That should leave: Eastern 1, USM 2, Dartmouth 3 (they have the head-to-head sweep on Western), Western 4, Keene 5, Plymouth 6, RIC 7, Boston 8.

Notes: ONLY Dartmouth & Keene control their destiny!  If BOTH of those teams win, those 2 teams would get the final 2 home spots as Keene would win the 3 way tiebreaker between Dartmouth & Western (since Keene was the only one to beat Eastern) and then Dartmouth would get the 4 seed due to the sweep.
The ONLY way Plymouth gets a home game is if they beat Western AND Dartmouth loses (Keene results doesn't matter).  Plymouth loses 2 team tiebreakers to everyone BUT Dartmouth, but would win a 3 team (or 4 team tiebreaker if Keene loses) between Dartmouth, Western & Plymouth HOWEVER the Panthers would not win a 3 team tiebreaker between Plymouth, Keene & Western (that would go to Western).
Western really screwed the pooch losing to RIC the other day as they would've only needed to win to lock up a home game instead of a win AND needing help along the way.

[7express]

BTW, I'll be out until like 10 or 10:30 tomorrow night so hopefully Alum, Warriorcat, AllStar or someone else can post the final tournament standings (hey!  I probably screwed up somewhere!) in the evening.

[AllStar]

BTW, I'll be out until like 10 or 10:30 tomorrow night so hopefully Alum, Warriorcat, AllStar or someone else can post the final tournament standings (hey!  I probably screwed up somewhere!) in the evening.

I'll try to do that for you at some point!  Hopefully I don't forget.

[AllStar]

Finals:
Eastern Connecticut beats UMass Boston, 69-64
Keene State drubs RIC, 62-48
UMass Dartmouth knocks off Southern Maine in OT, 102-94

Western and Plymouth going to OT tied 69-69.

[ECSUalum]

Well, here we go again, Tarchee Brown with the cast on his ankle today! Did not play, Last year it was Preston   Unbelievable!!!!
They were lucky to get by UMB today .  What a huge disappointment to what was supposed to be a top 20 team

[warriorcat]

The closeness of the games today - 2 OT games, a come from behind 5 pt victory by the number 1 team over the number 8 team, and one double digit victory- make me think we are in for a very competitive tourney beginning on Tuesday. 

The LEC website lists both the men's and women's tournaments semi finals on Friday, Feb 26.  Will this be the case if both ECSU teams win on Tuesday?  I seem to remember that last year the women's tournament was played on a Saturday/Sunday format when both tournaments were hosted by ECSU. 

[AllStar]

Western beats Plymouth 86-74 in OT.

Standings:
ECSU 11-3
USM 9-5
KSC 8-6
UMD 8-6
WCSU 8-6
PSU 6-8
RIC 4-10
UMB 2-12

Tuesday Matchups:
(8) UMB at (1) ECSU
(5) WCSU at (4) UMD
(6) PSU at (3) KSC
(7) RIC at (2) USM

[7express]

Why are the first round games now back on Tuesday when the league dropped playing games on Tuesday night and moved them to Wednesday??

[AllStar]

Why are the first round games now back on Tuesday when the league dropped playing games on Tuesday night and moved them to Wednesday??

Doesn't make any sense to me, but that's what they decided for some reason.

[warriorcat]

My guess would be that the semi final games are scheduled for Friday and it was decided that the winning teams needed two days (Wed/Thurs) of rest and between games.

[warriorcat]

It appears that it was the Men's turn to move their games to Sat/Sun this year. 

The schedule at ECSU this weekend is:

Friday night: Women's semifinals
Saturday afternoon:  Women's Final
Saturday night: Men's Semifinals
Sunday afternoon:  Men's Final

Good luck to all

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Final public regional rankings are out: http://www.d3blogs.com/d3hoops/2016/02/24/third-ncaa-regional-ranking/

[ECSUalum]

Congratulations to Keene State as repeat LEC champions.  One thing you can say about Keene is they may be a bit inconsistent in regular season play but they overcome adversity and more importantly when it comes to LEC Tournament crunch time they kick ass, unlike other teams I know!!  Good Luck in NCAA tournament this year!!

[7express]

I'd like to know how for the biggest game of the conference season, we got stuck with atrocious officiating??  I know Connecticut officials suck anyways, and any good ones the state have were in Hartford @ Trinity for the NESCAC championship, but there have to be at least semi-decent officials around the state we can bring in.  I obviously didn't have a dog in the fight but they were a joke.......for both teams.  For anyone watching on the computer were they as bad on the computer as they were live??

[AllStar]

I'd like to know how for the biggest game of the conference season, we got stuck with atrocious officiating??  I know Connecticut officials suck anyways, and any good ones the state have were in Hartford @ Trinity for the NESCAC championship, but there have to be at least semi-decent officials around the state we can bring in.  I obviously didn't have a dog in the fight but they were a joke.......for both teams.  For anyone watching on the computer were they as bad on the computer as they were live??

Truthfully, I'm not sure they're all from Connecticut.  I see a lot of them floating around the whole region in various places.  But they were not good for either team in the game today.