MBB: Conference of New England

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

ENC is not known for comebacks this year.  You can usually see pretty quickly if they have it or not.  I hate to make assumptions mid-way through the first half, but ENC is not playing well.  In previous meetings ENC has succeeded by limiting Sedale Jones; they're not doing it today.  They've been pretty good with the ball, lots of turnovers already.  Also they're shooting poorly from the arc.  Ezeigbo is in foul trouble and the pace is way too fast.  ENC hasn't been to the line yet.

32-16 Curry with 5 to go in the first half.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

45-18 Curry at the half.  Jones is acting like the player of the year and his team is playing with an intensity the ENC freshmen haven't seen yet.  ENC shooting about 25% from the floor, the PGs have a ton of turnovers and even more missed shots.  Not being aggressive in any sense of the word.

I should have gone to watch Salisbury-Wesley tonight.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Credit the ENC students, though, the Curry play-by-play guys keep referencing how Curry has to take the crowd out of the game.  Way to travel.

I can't get the live stats to work for the Gordon-WIT game, but they gave an update on the Curry broadcast that GC was up 15ish.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

ENC down only 11 with 2 minutes to play.  Sedale just fouled out.  Improbable comeback?  Yes.


Reverse jinx.  Reverse jinx.  Reverse jinx.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Now Ezeigbo fouls out.  Curry by 7 with 1:47 to go.  Papalambros just missed two FTs.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Curry wins 82-76.  ENC scored 58 second half points to make a game of it.  Valiant effort.

Gordon at Curry Saturday night.

[Chantastic]

Congrats to ENC - great season

[Chantastic]

This will be a great championship and the first time in my memory where I would say that two of the top ten teams in New England are playing each other for the NCAA bid.  It is interesting that the quality of the league as a whole seems down, given the strength of the top two teams. 

I think Curry has to hope for a tightly officiated game where they continue to enjoy their usual advantage at the FT line.  If Miersma comes out assertively as he did last night against WIT, and does not get in foul trouble, Gordon will win the game.

[CCC Talk]

There is 0 chance on planet earth that Gordon is one of the 10 best teams in New England... They've played exactly one good team all year in MIT who beat them, they've lost to Curry (twice) and they lost to UNE. The following teams are all better than Gordon:

Amherst
Williams
Middlebury
Tufts
RIC
East Conn
Keene
Albertus
Anna Maria
WPI
Springfield
MIT
Babson
Brandeis
Curry
and maybe Westfield and MCLA

thats just the eye test, looking at the regional rankings:
1 Amherst 23-2 23-2
2 WPI 23-2 23-2
3 Williams 20-3 22-3
4 Rhode Island College 22-3 22-3
5 Middlebury 19-2 22-2
6 MIT 19-4 20-4
7 Springfield 18-7 18-7
8 Brandeis 17-7 17-7
9 Curry 18-7 18-7
10 Westfield State 19-4 21-4
11 Eastern Connecticut 18-4 18-7
12 Tufts 16-5 17-8

I don't see Gordon

[Chantastic]

Yeah, it is always hard to compare d3 teams because that don't play each other and don't have many common opponents.  I'm not really arguing that they should be in the regional rankings - their conference is too weak and they didn't play well in non-con.

However, Gordon has won 19 of 21 albeit in a down year for the league.  I expect them to win tomorrow on the road against a team that is in the top ten in the regional rankings.  I'm not arguing about resume - just saying that if the game was tomorrow I would expect them to beat Curry, or the likes of Brandeis, Springfield, Babson, Anna Maria, WPI, Keene.

Certainly debatable and we'll see what happens on Saturday - and whoever wins, we'll see if they look like they belong in the first round of the NCAAs.  My larger point was that it is an odd year in the historically balanced CCC - you have two teams playing excellent basketball and eight that, with all respect to ENC, WIT, etc. really struggle

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I picked Gordon to win the tournament.  They're much, much better than they were in November.  They're playing great.  Curry was better in November than they are now.  They're still damn tough and super talented, but they wouldn't be pushing Amherst today the way they did earlier in the year.  I don't know what the difference is.  Unless Wynn can reclaim some of that (which we saw a glimpse of in the first half last night), it's going to be a Gordon win.  Not saying it won't happen, but the trajectories are going in the opposite direction.

The big saving element for Curry is that they're the only team in the CCC that matches up well against Gordon.  Should be a great game.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Curry over Gordon 69-63.  It looks like Gordon managed to slow the overall pace of the game down, but Sedale Jones really turned it on - 23 points on 9-18 shooting.  Dempsey, with 22 and 12 tried to keep it close, but it was not enough.

Congrats to Coach Wynn and Curry and hopefully they can be the one to break through the national tournament win barrier.  They should get a decent seed given their regional ranking.  Who knows?

[CCC Talk]

as usual: soft doesn't win.

Curry too tough- congrats on the title

[Chantastic]

Congrats to Curry.  They played well enough to win, and as Hoops Fan said, definitely do match up well against Gordon.  They did a nice job spreading the floor and taking advantage of their athleticism vs. Gordon's height.

Neither team was great, but Curry seemed to come out of the gate with significantly more urgency than the Scots.  Sedale Jones made a number of great individual plays and looked like the PoY.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Curry will be heading up to Vermont on Saturday to take on Middlebury.

I feel like they got a much tougher first round game than they deserved.  Regionally ranked the whole way through and all.

If Curry plays locked down (which they've yet to do for a whole game this year) they can compete.  They proved they could hang with Amherst in a scoring race early in the year - they're going to run into one of the more efficient teams on both sides of the ball in d3.  The turnovers that come with Curry's aggressiveness will have to be prevented.

It will take their best possible game to win.  I don't see that happening.