MBB: Little East

[ECSUalum]

Eastern makes first appearance on the d3poll rankings with 15 votes!

Well to be honest, they didn't appear on the rankings... they appear in the category of receiving votes.

Come on Dave, the receiving votes teams are just an extension of the top 25, ie ECSU is ranked 30th, aren't you nit picking a bit? Have you ever heard of a top 30 national ranking?  The number of teams you list is arbitrary!  The way I interpret this poll is that if you get votes your ranked!!  30 out of 430 some odd D-III teams is good enough for me

While I know your tongue is firmly in your cheek... it is the Top 25 ... not the Top 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. LOL We can only vote for 25 teams

I think if ECSU beats Keene St tonight away and RIC @ home, they should break into the top 25!!  That would make a 14 out of 15 and 11 in a row winning streak!!

Not likely.

Looks like I jinked them, they just lost to Keene 99-93

[AllStar]

Very entertaining game.  You guys have a very, very good team.  NCAA tournament quality in my opinion, no doubt.  That being said, I hope there's some room for Keene in that tournament too.   

[ECSUalum]

Very entertaining game.  You guys have a very, very good team.  NCAA tournament quality in my opinion, no doubt.  That being said, I hope there's some room for Keene in that tournament too.   

Thanks AllStar but Edwards, Nichols and Ozzella were outstanding tonight! Keene upset Eastern's rhythm tonight, and they did not play their normal defense based game, which now shows a glaring weakness. If the Warriors cannot contain the aforementioned players, they will have problems beating the Owls!! As I mentioned to you a while ago, when Keene faces ECSU, and tournament time, they are a whole different team, they proved it again tonight!  However, it might be good that Keene beat the Warriors in the regular season, as that will get them pumped for the rematch in Willi, and the LEC tournament!  Its wide open between Keene, Dartmouth and ECSU!

[7express]

And Western loses again to RIC in Providence!!  Even when Walsh leaves we STILL can't beat them in that building!  Last year they finished 6-21, yet Western was only 1-1 against them.  Only Boston hasn't won there since Walsh departed, and that's only because the first game this season was in Boston, they'll get a chance to get a win there Saturday afternoon.  Every other team in the conference has at least 1 win in that building in the last 2.5 years which includes Plymouth state who's last win against RIC in Providence before this year came at least 2 coaches BEFORE Walsh even arrived!!  Last year's overtime loss, and really they were lucky that game last year even went to overtime: They never had a single lead in the game (regulation OR overtime), aside from the opening tip they were only tied 4 times: 3-3 (for 12 seconds), 7-7 (for 109 seconds) both in the first half, 59-59 the final 12 seconds of regulation, and for 59 seconds at 69-69 in the last 1:45 of overtime.  For the other 42 minutes and 46 seconds of that game the Colonials were playing catchup and actually trailed by 14 with 16 minutes to play and 6 with 3 minutes to play, so as I said last year they were fortunate to even get the 5 extra minutes and they STILL couldn't take advantage of it!  And since I LOVE to play "what ifs" here's what really happened in the 2016 LEC tournament, and here's what could have happened if Western was able to beat a 6-21 team on the road.

What really happened:
Western, Keene and Dartmouth all finish tied for 3rd at 8-6 and all finished 2-2 vs. each other as each team swept an opponent and got swept by the other: Western swept Keene & got swept by Dartmouth while Keene swept Dartmouth and got swept Western, and Dartmouth swept Western and got swept by Keene.  Since you can't eliminate 1 team with a superior winning percentage, it goes to "head-to-head results" against the team in first and than all the way down the line.  Since Keene was the only 1 of the 3 that got a win over #1 Eastern, they placed 3rd, get out of the tie, than it goes back to head-to-head results, and we are left with Dartmouth vs. Western in the 4/5 game.  Since Dartmouth swept the season series, they get the 4 spot, the final home quarterfinal game, and a double digit win in the LEC quarters, and than go on to beat Eastern in the semi's to knock the Warriors out of the tournament, and than lose an epic championship game to Keene who had a complete cakewalk to the finals beating the overmatched 6th seed Plymouth Panthers and a 7 seed in RIC after the Anchormen beat what is probably the worst #2 seed the conference had ever seen in Southern Maine.  Keene wins that great LEC championship game (marred by horrible officiating for both sides IIRC), and than surprises everyone wins 2 games in the NCAA tournament, makes a valiant effort in their sweet 16 game, falls about 10 points short, brings back almost everyone who contributed on that team including the coach who had his interim tag removed, and another scoring threat in Dizel Wright coming back from knee surgery, high expectations for the 2016-17 Owls starting preseason #19 in the D3hoops poll, and here they are in late January stuck in neutral, but let's see if this win over Eastern tonight can get them started.
What could have happened with a Western win that game:
Western and USM finish tied for 2nd at 9-5.  USM wins the tiebreaker anyways since they beat Eastern, so that stays the same (and they probably still would have lost to RIC who still would have finished 7th with a loss), but here's where things get interesting.  Now we have Dartmouth & Keene instead of playing in the championship game as the 3 & 4 seeds play in the first round as the 4/5 game (hosted by Keene since they swept the series).  Now I'm not sure it would have been as exciting as the championship game turned out to be but Keene did win the matchup in Keene by 21 points, so we'll split the result down the middle: Keene wins by about 9-13 points.  So for the semifinals we still have a 3 vs. a 7 and a 4 at a 1.  We'll take care of the 3/7 Western/RIC game first.  Western would have swept them (remember in this scenario they win @ RIC instead of losing like they did) including winning the game in Danbury by 23 points.  I think Western wins by double figures fairly easily.  The 4/1 game (Keene @ Eastern) is more interesting.  The season series was tied 1-1 with Keene losing by 2 @ Eastern but winning by 26 at home, so naturally you would think Keene would have an advantage....but I don't think so.  The 26 point beating Eastern took was 10 days prior, so they would want revenge, plus we still had the Keene factor the last 5 years or so, always failing in crunch time, plus I still didn't know how good of a coach Cain was going to turn out to be.  So, factor all that in, and I think Eastern wins by 5 points or less in a terrific game.  Now we have Eastern/Western in the championship game, and even though you throw records out in that rivalry game with Preston & Lindo & Brown Eastern wins by 15 points or so on a no defense Western as they were clearly the better team that year.  Do they win the 2 games in the tournament Keene won??  I think they would have beaten Stockton, but I don't think they would have beaten Middlebury.  It was a nice win no doubt, but I think what helped Keene in beating Middlebury was that they had already played them during the season, so they knew what Middlebury was going to do to them, and Eastern, having not played them during the regular season wouldn't have had that luxury that Keene had.  Seeing stuff on film, and seeing it run against you are 2 completely different things.  Eastern lost some talented players to graduation, but they still had Brown & Lindo coming back, so with that I think they would have gotten some votes for the top 25.  Maybe not ranked top 20 like Keene was (and really shouldn't have been top 20 anyways), maybe in like the 30-40 range in the "receiving votes" category like they are now.  Starting 1-4 would have knocked them off everyone's ballot that had them ranked anyways, but the 3 wins might have gotten them a look.  If any case, Amherst might pay more attention to them, and in the worst case since Eastern's probably only 30 (I do a fan poll for Connecticut high school basketball.  We send in 15, but I put 5 extras, so I have a place to start for the next week) they may be able to jump into the top 25 with the win over Amherst.  In any case, keep winning and they were almost certainly a top 25 team this week, though obviously that won't last.

After by 45 hours worth of cents: Hopefully this Western loss to RIC (albeit a much better team than the 2016 edition, but a "bad" loss none-the-less) doesn't cost them this year.

[7express]

Looking at the standings: I just noticed that after Saturday we'll be 65% of the way through the conference season, and only 3 of the 8 teams will have a winning conference record: Eastern (7-1), Dartmouth & Keene (both 6-2) currently will be the 3 teams with winning records no matter what happens.  The next closest would potentially be 4-5, but could be as worse as 3-6.  You know if Southern Maine beats Western this weekend, & RIC and Boston lose (to Eastern & Keene respectively) the 3 seed would have a conference record of 3-6??

[amh63]

7express.....for what it's worth.....the Nescac conference is a little "screwed" up too! Cannot blame it on Climate Change or Coaches.  Maybe it is just that the talent pool is starting to be spread around.  Didn't WConn get a new coach as well as Keene?  RIC's coach is sort of new I guess.  Amherst's coaches are having a tough time figuring out a the play of experienced talented players.  I believe it is this generation of players...talented offensive players.  Defensive skills require HARD work.  Too many games are lost due to a lack of defense...especially when shots do not drop.

[AllStar]

7express.....for what it's worth.....the Nescac conference is a little "screwed" up too! Cannot blame it on Climate Change or Coaches.  Maybe it is just that the talent pool is starting to be spread around.  Didn't WConn get a new coach as well as Keene?  RIC's coach is sort of new I guess.  Amherst's coaches are having a tough time figuring out a the play of experienced talented players.  I believe it is this generation of players...talented offensive players.  Defensive skills require HARD work.  Too many games are lost due to a lack of defense...especially when shots do not drop.

Keene's was last year.

[AllStar]

Trying something new here...(season results so far)

[magicman]

Trying something new here...(season results so far)

Easy to see in a quick glance who can win on the road and who's protecting home court. Good job AllStar.

Big game tomorrow for your Owls at Middlebury. I'll be watching that one on the Northeast Sports Network video.   Here's the link: http://www.nsnsports.net/colleges/middlebury/

[AllStar]

Trying something new here...(season results so far)

Easy to see in a quick glance who can win on the road and who's protecting home court. Good job AllStar.

Big game tomorrow for your Owls at Middlebury. I'll be watching that one on the Northeast Sports Network video.   Here's the link: http://www.nsnsports.net/colleges/middlebury/

Thank you!  Those NSN broadcasts are great.  I'm going into that game with low expectations for the Owls...but hopefully they can surprise me.  This is their last non-conference regular season game.  After this, they have five LEC games left.  Of course, looking at my own chart, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that right now the Owls are being hindered significantly by that bad loss at RIC...hopefully they can overcome that while avoiding any other bad losses.

[7express]

Western looks like they are in trouble.  They already lost home games to Eastern & Keene with the games on the road still left to play.  They play Dartmouth at home, but Dartmouth has owned them recently.  They still gotta take the overnight trip to upstate New Hampshire & Plymouth to close out the regular season.  Their lone "easy" game left is at home vs. RIC a team they have beaten only like 4 or 5 times in the last decade.  Their home loss to Boston to open the LEC schedule, and their loss last week @ RIC were terrible and combined with the remaining schedule will probably leave the Colonials on the road in the 4/5 or 3/6 game, not a good place to be.

[AllStar]

With the last non-conference games coming up, here's how the teams have fared (click to view larger and you can use the scroll bar). 

[magicman]

Allstar loves his new toy.

[magicman]

Tonight's game between Amherst and RIC at Rhode Island College has been postponed due to inclement weather. The Amherst website has a brief article when you click on recap of the game on their schedule. No makeup date has been announced yet.

[AllStar]

Allstar loves his new toy.

I do