MBB: Great Northeast Athletic Conference

[pjunito]

Just a thought... a win over St. Joe's by Albertus Magnus won't carry as much weight as many think... but a loss to them will kill their chances in the Top 25 probably for the rest of the season.

Dave, I think we all understand now that the GNAC is a weak conference. A conference lost looks very bad regardless of the circumstance. No real big wins but a lot of bad losses. The top 25 is a fun thing to talk about, but I think all Albertus fans would prefer to see a nice run in the show.

[pjunito]

Ohhh Noooo PJ say it aint so??? Go Red Storm? It cant be true???

Appreciate the comments towards the Falcons ECSU. I sure hope you are right about the Falcons making some noise this year in the big tourney if we are fortunate enough to make it there. Good luck to Eastern as well. One of the most respected and consistent teams in the state. Maybe one of these years will be able to schedule a nonconference game against each other. I know it would be a great matchup

Yea.. Red Storm Junkie..I know, I know, let the jokes begin. lol. ECSU, good luck to your team as well. They are solid and should be in contention for the little east title again. I remember the ECAC game a few years back, ECSU beat Albertus up in Willimantic. Great atmosphere and good game to watch. Hopefully, they can play in regular season. It would fun to watch those games.. would also bring our SOS up.

[pjunito]

Albertus 100 Anna Maria 66.. Not much to say.. Wilson was back, but maybe not at 100%. Next game at home vs St. Joe's.

[7express]

St. Joes may keep them competitive for a half or maybe even 30 minutes, but AMC should pull away at the end.  Looking forward to that huge contest against Purchase in a few weeks.

[GnacBballFan]

Yea we know Dave thanks, jeeeez. Lol jk

7 going to be a great matchup, hopefully we both stay perfect in D3 til then!

I will say the albertus crowd, while big, needs to step it up a little. The student section was weak last night. I woulda had that crowd going 5 yrs ago if we were a top 25 team lol I mean I did before the days of Mitch Oliver. Little disappointed, but hopefully they show up as the season goes on

[GnacBballFan]

And it shouldn't be too hard to get going when your PG is throwing down alleys two mins into the game, as well as several other monster dunks along the way lol

[lildave678]

Yeah us Falcon fans have come to grips with the fact that a conference loss pretty much seals our fate to play the host team of a pod (Willy P 09-10 or Alvernia last year) while winning all the games we should gets us the neutral game like up in Middlebury two years ago...obviously assuming we win the GNAC tournament.

[Saint-Paul]

Final Score :  Rivier  57  -  Emmanuel  69

     The Saints finally played what I considered to be a smart game.  They did not come out full court pressing Rivier, and therefore did not give up easy transition baskets and wide open threes.  They packed in their defense into a 3 - 2 zone below the arc, took away driving opportunities, force Rivier into taking uncomfortable shots, and then rebounded the ball. For once, they did not try to run with every rebound and jack up quick shots.  They walked the ball up the court and ran 15 - 20 seconds off the shot clock looking for a good shot.  The result was a game in the high 50's instead of the high 80's, and a very nice road win.  Not sure why it took 13 games and 10 losses to understand the Saints are not a pressing, running team.

     Unfortunately, once again the final score of this game is not the big story for the Saints team.  It appears that two more players have left the team, although I cannot be 100% sure because this time there was no public announcement. That would make it numbers 4 and 5 to leave the team so far this year, exactly the Saints average for yearly roster defections.  Two players, one freshman guard and another junior college transfer, both of whom started a few games in the first semester have disappeared from the team.  They are not in uniform for the games and are not sitting in a shirt and tie on the end of the bench like injured players would do.  They just disappeared from the team.  The strange thing is that their names still appear on the public roster but they have not been seen on the bench for the last four games.  Is it possible that the SID has been ordered not to update the public roster for fear of more bad publicity?  I have never heard of such a thing in D-3 basketball.  In the past as soon as a player quit the Saints team they would immediately remove his name from the roster. I am sure about that because I have followed all the Saints roster changes for the past five years. Maybe the coach doesn't want any of the future recruits to see how many players keep leaving his program so quickly.  What a mess this program has become.  The only question remaining is will there be enough players left to finish the season? Will it end up like the Piedmont College situation from last year?

[ECSUalum]

Ohhh Noooo PJ say it aint so??? Go Red Storm? It cant be true???

Appreciate the comments towards the Falcons ECSU. I sure hope you are right about the Falcons making some noise this year in the big tourney if we are fortunate enough to make it there. Good luck to Eastern as well. One of the most respected and consistent teams in the state. Maybe one of these years will be able to schedule a nonconference game against each other. I know it would be a great matchup

Yea.. Red Storm Junkie..I know, I know, let the jokes begin. lol. ECSU, good luck to your team as well. They are solid and should be in contention for the little east title again. I remember the ECAC game a few years back, ECSU beat Albertus up in Willimantic. Great atmosphere and good game to watch. Hopefully, they can play in regular season. It would fun to watch those games.. would also bring our SOS up.

Coach Geitner has upgraded his schedule this year with games vs Amherst, Catholic, North Central, and SUNY-Purchase!  I agree a game with Albertus, ( perhaps in a early Tournament in NH), would be great and continue the improvement in schedule quality.  Lets hope Coach reads this!!

I think as long as the Falcons stay healthy, a ticket to the show , to me, is a no brainer!!

[7express]

I wish Western scheduled them again instead of creampuffs like Lesley & Western New England.  What does beating Lesley by 30 points do you for??  Absolutely nothing, except give some end of bench guys some playing time, but since Western's rotation goes 10 or 11 deep anyways, what's the point of that??  Same with WNEC.  Even though we'd likely lose @ AMC, I'd rather lose @ AMC this year than beat WNEC by 20 points, because you can judge your team off a top 25 caliber opponent and see how you stack up.  You can't do that with Fitchburg State (1-12 now), Lesley (2-11), Worcester State (3-11) or WNEC (3-10), all OOC opponents for Western this season.

[pjunito]

There is a lot of season left. They are playing well so far, so hopefully it keeps going. I think they should handle St. Joe's at home on Saturday.

GNAC, I agree, student section should be fired up. I think most Albertus fans remember the days of 8 players on a team.. Timmy Russell scoring 50 and Albertus losing by 12. lol. Hopefully, now that classes are back in session, there will be a good lively crowd.

7 and ESCU, you guys make great points. I would love for Albertus to play the Eastern schedule. Those losses, in my opinion, make a team tougher throughout the year. And if you win, should instill a confidence that last a long time. Especially when the conference is considered a weak one.

Saint, good win... sorry more guys are leaving. Sounds like a very disturbing situation. Keep us informed.

[GnacBballFan]

Pjunito, the student section at albertus has always been known to be rowdy and rambunctious, and some of Oliver's early teams fed off of it. Just seemed dead Wednesday.


7, this is the first yr I can't remember playing west conn. We always have seemed to play one another, and they were always great games. I remember getting Daquan Brooks angry in pregame warm ups back in 08 or 07. And he went off for about 30 or so and stared me down after every 3 lol as west conn won by 15. So those games were always fun. And if we added ECSU to that it'd be even better.

[pjunito]

DaQuan Brooks was very close to coming to Albertus. He had gone to North Carolina or somewhere in the south for a while (for high school) but knew Byron Reeves (Half Court Shot Man). Bryon was trying hard to get DaQuan to Albertus. Mitch had him on campus and DaQuan played ball in the gym a lot. But, it came down to instate tuition. 

GNAC, Could imagine Brooks with Askew in 2011-12?

Starting 5 would have been:
Brooks
Jackson
Watson
Askew
Lora

Pretty good. lol.

And the brooks beat down game, as I like to call it, was in Nov 2009. I just read box score.. Brooks had 39; scoring 12 out of the last 15 points for West Conn... WOW!

[GnacBballFan]

PJ, 39 sounds about right lol

1 vs 2 in the gnacs today. I know Dave mentioned how st joes won't be looked at as a significant win nationally, which I agree with, they did give Bowdoin (top 25 team) all they could handle earlier in the yr. almost pulled off the win. Somewhat of a nice measuring stick for albertus in this one

[GnacBballFan]

49-34 albertus at half. However starting pg Eian Davis went out with 6 mins left on a hard screen. Looks like his shoulder. He was having the best game of anyone on the court up until that point. Was basically unstoppable. Doesn't look like he'll be back so we will see