MBB: Conference of New England

[gullfan]

 Nice comeback win for my Gulls! Granted, Laseel isn't the test that RIC was, but they took care of the ball. Defensive intensity was there today. Still some growing pains but they responded pretty well after last night.
Saw Mike Sullivan step up and be the take charge guy in running the "D". If he takes his foul line jumper more, he could be the MAN!!!!

[heythere]

wow another loss for curry last nite to rutgers camden. rutgers is one of the worst programs in that area. dont know what is going to happen to curry this year.

[Maq Diesel]

Well its late but I am up so I figured I would weigh in on the Gordon College Tip-Off tournament.  We have a couple of recaps of Friday nights game so I wont bother doing another but in my opinion I would give Gordon a D+ for their performance on Friday night.  Logan, Kaufman and Herr all had big nights on offence but the team effort on defence was terrible.  Mt. Ida is bad Gordon allowed them to stay close by playing poor defense but that is a bad team that fouls way to much and has poor coaching, an example is keeping Otis Thopmson in the game with three fouls and allowing him to pick up his fourth with five minuets left in the first half.  Saturday was a different story for the Scots.  GC competed much harder against a much more tallented and a better coached team and beat MIT 78-71.  Mike Herr and Justin Kaufman again led the way with 26 and 20 respectively but it was amuch better team effort especially on defense.  MIT is a much better team than I was expecting and Gordon rose to the challange and came away with a good win.  Kaufman was named MVP and Herr also made the tournament team.  Both player look like they are poised for great years so the CCC had better watch out.  Logan looks to be playing much more under controll which is bad news for opposing teams.  As for Marstaller, he will be fine, he missed the first two weeks of preseason with a foot injury and missed another week because of a death in the family so he is basically playing with a little over a week of practice time.  Gordon still not quite there yet but they showed some signs of being a very good team this weekend.

[akirk]

There is just one word to describe Gordon's play this weekend.  SLOPPY.  Maybe because it's the beginning of the season but something has to change if they are going to compete regionally.  Two areas that are down from last year are Free Throw shooting and Defense.  Both areas were strong last year but need drastic improvement.  They should be fine but they can not slack because they are not a sleeper anymore.  Everyone is gunning for them.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Hey Chris.  Thanks for clarifying my stats earlier, but you might also want to mention those to the official statistician, because I took all of those straight from the box score.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Saturday Round-up:


AMC (1-1) lost to Rivier 49-51 in Nashua.  As always there is nothing even resembling stats for this one.

CSC (1-1) beats Newbury 74-70 in the consolation game at Brandeis.  They needed free-throws at the end to win, because again they played no defense allowing Newbury to shoot 48% from the floor and an amazing 56% from three.  They started similarly slow on defense last year, but the big difference is that they don't have Andy St. Clair to bail them out anymore.  No one could hit free throws and they had 19 turnovers.  Fouriner led the way with 23 points, Szelinga had 14, Trunciletto had 11 and Ryan Murray had 10.  Josh Carter balanced his 5 assists with 5 turnovers.  Foti is going to have to get it together quick or the South might actually become the more dominant division for the first time since, well, since they've been in divisions.

Curry (0-2) goes down to Rutgers-Camden 51-53 in the consolation game at Alvernia.  Curry played good defense, but committed 33 turnovers and relied heavily on Brittian (15 points) and Robbins (17 and 12) again.  Still no sign of Bowers or Jones.  This killer line-up could be derailed already if Jones doesn't get back quickly.  Mastrullo, who is filling in at the point had 10 turnovers.  Ugly, ugly, ugly.  We need to find out where Tim Jones is.

ENC (0-2) goes down to Marymount 55-66 in the consolation game at Keene State.  This was not nearly as bad a loss as was expected.  I couldn't find a box score on this one.

Endicott (1-1) beats Lasell in the consolation game at Tufts 73-63.  They dropped the turnovers down to 19 and picked up the rebounding, also playing great perimeter defense, holding Lasell under 40% shooting from the floor and under 20% from the arc.  Scoring is again spready around with Sullivan leading the way with 15 points, Marinkovic had 14, Burgos had 12, Stewart had 11 and Burton had 10.  Millette must have had them at the strip Saturday morning because they bumped their FT% up to 80%.  This is probably a much more typical showing for EC this year.  I think they are solidly the #2 team up north.

Gordon is now 2-0 with an impressive 78-71 win over MIT in the championship game of Gordon's tip-off tournament.  Herr seems to be back on form after a decidedly off year last season.  He led the way with 26.  Kauffman pitched in 20 and Marstaller 14.  GC got this victory even without rebounding really at all.  They shot 50% from the floor and 45% from three while holding MIT to 37% shooting.  Free Throws were again a big deal for them, although they didn't quite get to the line 52 times.  Trigg seems to be the only freshman getting minutes right now and he seems to be contributing well.  Gordon appears to be well settled already with few turnovers.

NEC (2-0) won their tip-off tournament with a 92-79 win over Framingham State.  Another scoring display from NEC in another easy victory.  Quinn had 31, Jaziri put in 26 and Tonkovich had 13.  It looks like they are adjusting fine without Onyechi and Montrod.  I assume they will have a much tougher time against bigger and better opponents, but they certainly seem to be firing on all cylinders right now.

Nichols (1-1) goes down to WPI 64-83 in the championship game at Becker.  It seems they rebounded competitively and got to the line, but WPI's post presence was too much to overcome.  Chris Paquin put in 17 points off the bench in just 16 minutes of playing time to lead Nichols.  Lewis had 16 and Vallee had 14.  No one expected NC to win this game, but they did play one good half, trailing by only 7 at the break.  THe second half, however, got away from them.  Good news perhaps for better conditioned teams in CCC?

Roger Williams (2-0) won their tip-off tournament with a victory over a highly touted Salem State squad.  This is a great victory for RWU.  Freshman Laughton is contributing right away with 14 points.  Billy Barrett had 20 and Barranger went for another double-double with 17 and 11.  This was a game of runs with RWU allowing a 10-0 run by Salem only to pull away with a 15-0 run of their own.  Good way to start the year for RWU.

Salve (1-1) goes down to the hosts at Bridgewater in the championship game 62-75.  Bridgewater is the defending MASCAC champion, so this isn't a horrible loss, but the margin may be a sign of trouble for SRU.  Grendal had 21 and 11 and Goodridge chipped in 15 and 10, but there weren't too many positives.  26 turnovers and 50% free throw shooting is bad news.  Deryk Largesse, formerly of Curry has shown up on the bench for Bridgewater.  He didn't play much, but the bench did well and won the game for BSC.  I think Salve can and will play better, but they do have to worry about PG play.

UNE (0-2) got pasted by Hartwick in the consolation game over at Hamilton 40-63.  Stickney had 10 rebounds, no one scored in double digits.  This team is bad.

WIT (0-2) loses the consolation game at Drew to Hunter 61-70.  Neither team could hit threes, but WIT did rebound well which kept the game close.  PB&J had 18 and 8, Gaine and Doyle each had 12 points.  This squad seems to be streaky, but it is a good sign that they were able to rebound well; they certainly lack size.

[Maq Diesel]

Akirk,

While I agree there defense wasnt great this weekend on the year there foul shooting is actually better than last year, being at the game it seemed bad but 39 of 52 on friday night is 75% which is a little better than last years average.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

You're right.  I said FTs were a "big deal" meaning important, not an issue.  Obviously anytime you get the line 52 times it's going to be key, but with the shooters they have, if the guards can keep driving and drawing fouls, they will be a tough out for anybody.

[James]

I was at the RWU tournament this weekend. Boy they look deep and everyone can score (80 + pts both games).

Their drawback is there size. Gumb is coming off of a horrific broken leg last year (Joe Theisman) and is only about 70% at the moment. That leaves just Barranger and with a 25 plus game schedule they will need Gumb back at or near full strength.

Otherwise they look great in the 1,2 and 3 positions. Good to be Tully right now.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Just got some info:  Tim Jones broke his hand two weeks ago.  No idea when the ETA is for him to be on the floor.  They need him bad though.

[CCC Talk]

Just ran through the CCC box scores from the past week. Not sure when the real CSC is gonna show itself, are they really a team that only beats  Newbury by 4

Hoops Fan not to come after you but the reason your stats for the 2nd wentworth game were the same as the first is you were looking at the first games stats again, in game too they shot 0-16 from 3. That's a real stat, they better start shooting straight if they want to win games.

Roger Williams could be the team to beat in the south. If Gumb gets back running and jumping they are very dangerous

UNE will beat someone mark my words

Anna Maria will not


I am out

[akirk]

Mag,

I guess I really only meant Kaufman.  If he is going to be the floor general that he is, he can not be missing critical free throws through out the game.  Over all the team shot well but Kaufman needs to pick it up.  He did much better in the second game.  Also, wasn't Logan the one that took technical shots last year.  I seem to remember that he was the best on the team.  Why did coach have Kaufman taking them?

[jj]

CCC Talk-
I think we are seeing the "real" CSC team right now. First it takes new players, and we are dealing with three or four new starters, a while to adjust to new roles or a new system.  Second they are simply not even close to as talented as last year or the past several years.  Foti will make them better by the second semester but they will be significantly down this year.

Roger Williams could be the team to beat in the South but they may have to be without Gumb at 100% all season.  The RWU folks are worried that he may never be 100% after an injury like that which has ended other playing career's before.
For Dan's sake I hope he does come back to 100%.

Lastly Anna Maria will win a game, and probably against UNE.  Mark that game down on your calendars and buy your tickets early.   

I am out.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

First of all CSC started out just as poorly last year, guys.  This is nothing new; we just don't know how much talent they have when they start to get it together.


I fixed the WIT write-up, probably before you posted.

AMC has already won a game.  They beat Bard in the first game of the year.  This AMC team is much better than last year, whereas UNE lost their leading scorer.  Stickney is good, but not enough.  UNE doesn't have a pushover non-con opponent and they have to travel to both AMC and ENC.  So if they do win a game, it will have to be on the road against two teams they could barely beat at home last year.  AMC has Becker and DWC on the schedule still, along with Bard again.  They might not be good, but they know how to schedule.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

On the docket tonight. (And you'll have to wait on the recaps from me.  I'll be flying all day Wednesday.)


AMC hosts Newbury
CC @ Springfield
ENC hosts Lesley
EC hosts Keene State
GC @ Philadelphia Bible (is this Herr's trip home?)
NEC hosts Rivier
RWU hosts Johnson & Wales
SRU @ Mitchell
UNE hosts Bowdoin
WIT @ Mt Ida (If there was every going to be a Pistons-Pacers type brawl in d3; this would be the game.)