WBB: Little East

[7express]

Conference back in action with 2 games Sunday:

Worcester state 56 @ RIC 62.
Worcester is 1-2 losing to Clark and Dartmouth and blowing out Becker for their only win.  Suffered a 5 point loss to LEC school Dartmouth last time out.
St. Joseph's (ME) 53 @ USM 74.
USM somehow lost to them last year, I don't think that's happening this year.

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Sunday schedule:

RIC over Worcester 59-40.
RIC forced Worcester into 30 turnovers which included 19 steals to improve to a surprising 3-1 on the season.
USM over St. Joes 67-52.
Nicole Garland, Erin McNamera, Haley Jordan and Rebecca Knight all finished with 12 points to lead the Huskies and Jordan Grant was a missed free throw away (finished with 9 points) from having the entire Husky starting 5 finish in double figures.  Nash Billiew had 8 of USM's 10 bench points (Taylor Hawkins) had the other basket.
LEC improves to an impressive 20-7 in OOC action.
Monday schedule:
Manhattanville 67 @ Eastern 56.
Eastern only got 17 points from players on last year's team that was on this year's team in last season's 71-67 loss in Purchase.
Conn College 54 @ Western 62.
Western has won 5 of 7 in the series and 3 in a row in Danbury since the series resumed in 2005-06.

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24-22 Western leads at the half.  Conn College already has 33 rebounds.

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Monday schedule:

Manhattanville 63-60.
Eastern lead 31-30 at halftime.  4 of 5 Valiant starters scored in double figures lead by Jennifer McSharar with 15.  Shannon McCourt lead Eastern with a game high 18.
Western wins a snorefest over Conn College 54-38.
Some interesting facts from this brick fest in Danbury from this evening:
-Western used their 4th different starting lineup through their first 5 games.  The only 2 constants: Jackie Zilnicki (Co-LEC player of the week) and Nicole Eanniello are the only 2 that have started all 5 games.  Chelse Mone had started the previous 4, but she came off the bench tonight.  So far through the first 5 games only 5 oout of 13 players on the roster haven't started at least 1 game: Sha'qira Palmer (missed 2 games), Brittany Brandt (only played in 1 for 2 minutes), Amber Litwinko, Marisa Delzio (Nicole's backup) & Lydia Walter (hasn't even appeared in a game yet.).
-The teams were a combined 4-25 from 3 with Conn College a cool 1-11 from behind the arc.
-There were 43 offensive rebounds
-If the total rebound numbers were reversed, both teams would have had more total rebounds then points scored, as it turns out Conn College finished with 17 more rebounds then points scored.
-There were as many people with double digit rebounds (3) then double digit scorers (3, all from Western).
- If you take out Carlee Smith from Conn College (4-12) and Jackie Zilnicki from Western (4-11), the other 8 starters combined shot 11-61 (18.0%).

It doesn't matter how pretty it is, a win is a win.
Conference goes to 21-8 in OOC games.

Tuesday schedule:
Amherst 88 @ Keene 47.
This is not gonna be pretty.  Amherst lost a lot from last year's team, but they just recently ran over a great William Paterson team by 27 points who would run circles around Keene, and let's face it, Amherst is Amherst, they'll just reload.
Rivier 64 vs. Plymouth 60 (@ NH Tech, Concord, NH)
Rivier is 0-2 against the LEC, but Plymouth is the worst team in the conference.
Bridgewater 63 @ Dartmouth 67.
We need to include Bridgewater in the LEC standings this year.  As well as this game they have played RIC (loss), they play @ Western next week, play Eastern @ Springfield's tournament on New Years and plays Boston later on in January.
New Paltz state 65 @ Eastern 49.
New Paltz is 2-0 beating two good teams in Hartwick and NYU.  They haven't played in 10 days so they maybe a bit rusty.  Eastern last played 24 hours ago, so they may be a bit tired.  New Paltz is better and they'll pull away at the end.
USM 69 @ Bowdoin 51.
USM, from what I've seen, looks to be the best in the conference so far, and Bowdoin is still trying to figure out who fits where after they lost 4 starters from a year ago.  Bowdoin lost by 50 to UNE their last game so I assume they'll play better at home, but USM is going to have two much talent for them.

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Tuesday results:

Amherst 65-42.
Considering Amherst clobbered William Paterson by 27, Keene should be happy they kept this to only 23.
Rivier beats Plymouth 78-71.
This Plymouth team is bad.  Krystan Corliss lead Plymouth with 20, Deanne Purcell lead all scorers with 24 to lead Rivier.
Bridgewater leads Dartmouth 45-34 with 15:05 left in the 2nd.
Eastern leads New Paltz 15-8 with 11:28 to go in the first
USM leads Bowdoin 35-28 with about 1:45 left in first
Dartmouth falls to Bridgewater 69-55.
Bridgewater was up by double digits most of the second half.  Dartmouth got it to 10 or 12 a few times, but whenever Dartmouth would get it close they'd turn it over, or Bridgewater would hit a back-breaking 3.
Eastern leads 26-22 at the half.
USM beats Bowdoin 72-58.
Rebecca Knight with her best game as a USM husky.  10-13 from the floor, for 25 points just as conference play is about to start.     Not that they needed anymore help though.  They had some close games in Maine last year and probably will this year, but can't see anyone beating them up there this year.
New Paltz comes back to beat Eastern 64-56. 
Eastern scored 15 of the games first 17 points and still lead by 4 at halftime, but New Paltz outscored them 42-30 in the second half.  Kristina Forsman lead Eastern with 24 and she was joined in double figures by Shannon McCourt with 10.  Maliqua Fisher lead New Paltz with 17.

Conference falls to 22-12.  No games Wednesday, action on Thursday includes: Emmanuel @ RIC, Plymouth @ Salem, Wheelock @ Boston, Western @ Trinity.

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Thursday schedule:

Emmanuel 62 @ RIC 58.
I really like what RIC has done this year, the most surprising team so far, but I don't like them with Emmanuel.  Emmanuel gave RIC half of its losses last season (RIC had 4, Emmanuel had 2 of them including in the tournament).  Emmanuel has remained the same, RIC got worse.  Big day of basketball at the Murray center tomorrow though, got this game and the men hosting #1 MIT right afterwards.
Plymouth 46 @ Salem state 63.
Salem has lost 2 straight after a 2-0 start, but those 2 were against Babson & Tufts 2 teams in the top 25.  They'll dispose of Plymouth pretty easily. 
Wheelock 35 @ Boston 59.
Wheelock hasn't beaten a non conference opponent since they beat Pine Manor January 5 of 2011.   Including this year they've been held to 40 or less points 12 times in non conference games including total outputs of: 20, 25 & 33 points this year meaning their ppg average is 26.  Last year Boston beat them 73-19 and actually I think the final margin is closer to that then my projected 59-35 score.  Wheelock has lost games by 64 (to Eastern Nazarene) and 57 (to Albertus) this year.  Yah, I don't think Boston is gonna have much trouble.
Western 65 @ Trinity 60.
Western has won 4 of 5 against Trinity since 2006 and the teams are a combined 7-2 this year with the 2 losses coming by a combined 7 points (Western @ Salem by 4, Trinity vs. Springfield by 3) so a couple extra possessions and they could be 9-0 combined heading in.

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Thursday result:

Emmanuel 60-35.
Good defense (27 turnovers forced, 28% shooting) a tall front line (43 rebounds) and a great scorer (Fiona O'dwyer with 22), this is a good team.  Which GNAC team loses more games this year: Emmanuel (women) or Albertus Magnus (men)??  Think each will end up with 1.
Salem 80-56 over Plymouth.
Combining the men's game, Salem won both games over Plymouth by a combined score of 167-113 this evening.
Western 60-57.
Not pretty, but it's 5-1.  Sha'Qira Palmer had her best game of the season 6-7 for 15 points and Jackie Zilnicki chipped in 12 including a jumper with 28 seconds left when we were up by 1 to put the game away.  I heard the team got their stuff stolen from the locker room as well, who steals stuff fron a team locker room???  They turn the ball over too much (19 turnovers) can't hit free throws (63% tonight) and aside from Jackie, nobody else has really gotten into the scoring department.  Nicole Eanniello is invisible at the point, Sciarra Brandt had a quiet 7 points, Carly Murphy and Caroline Brasa shot a combined 4-15.  Someone besides Jackie has to step up on Saturday.
Boston creams Wheelock 79-18.
Here's my quote from the preview from yesterday: "Last year Boston beat them 73-19 and actually I think the final margin is closer to that then my projected 59-35 score. "  I really screwed giving Wheelock 35 points.  The score at halftime was 43-4 (not a typo), so at that point Courtney Mattingly (Boston's coach) could've put in 5 little kids from the stands to play the second half and they would've won easily.  The fact that Boston actually won the second half by more then 20 as well (36-14) speaks to how truly awful Wheelock is.  Wheelock started the game down 22-1 and after their lone field goal of the half (a 3 no less; they finished the half 1-15) at 10:14 got the score to a "managble" 22-4, Boston scored the final 21 points of the half.  I know I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm gonna say their game on Saturday at Western is going to be slightly more difficult.

24-14 OOC record.

Friday's lone game is the beginning of LEC play: Keene 57 @ Dartmouth 69.
I'm going to try to go up here just to see what Keene & Dartmouth each have.  No clue why their playing on Friday and not Saturday like the rest of the conference is, but Dartmouth should get this pretty handily.  Keene is a young and not very tall team, so Erika Bordemann and Colleen Moriarty should both do some work in the paint.

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Dartmouth leads Keene 29-18 at halftime.
Siobhan Carnall leads the Owls with 7 points who are shooting just 26.9%.  Erika Bordemann leads the Corsairs with 9 points.  Colleen Moriarty picked up 2 early fouls and for the most part was ineffective (1-4 shooting, 4 rebounds, 2 points).  The teams are a combined 3-11 from the charity stripe.
Final from Dartmouth: Dartmouth holds off Keene 58-48.  Dartmouth improves to 4-1 and 1-0 in the LEC while Keene falls to 2-3, 0-1 in the LEC.
Conference schedule tomorrow is Boston @ Western, USM @ Eastern, and Plymouth @ RIC.  All games begin at 1:00 PM.

Saturday predictions:

Boston 53 @ Western 59.
The teams are a combined 9-1 with Boston a surprising 4-0 on the early going.  Taking out Boston's 79-18 thrashing of Wheelock their other 3 wins have come by a combined 13 points.  The last 2 games for Western have been ugly, but their W's.  I like Boston, I had them 4th preseason, so its not all that surprising to me to see them 4-0, but they come back to reality....at least for 1 game.
Eastern 43 @ USM 80.
My fault, this is at USM.  This isn't going to be pretty.
Plymouth 42 @ RIC 73.
Neither is this one.

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Western leads Boston 30-22 at the half.  This team aside from Caroline Brasa just CANNOT shoot in a half court offense.  In all my years watching basketball I have never seen a teams second unit performing better then the first unit, but that's the case here.  At least 12 of Western's points have come off Beacon turnovers in the backcourt.

In other scores RIC leads 37-26 and USM trails Eastern 31-30.  Eastern should take a picture of the scoreboard.

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Western wins 62-41.
RIC won 69-43
USM up 58-54 with about 43 seconds left so looks like they'll win

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Sat results:
RIC 69-43 over Plymouth.
Taylor Perry had 16 to lead Plymouth who shot only 15-50 for the game.  Stephanie Prusko had 15 off the bench to lead RIC
USM 59-54.
That wasn't pretty.  With all the bigs USM has how do they get outrebounded 48-31 including 18-4 on the offensive glass??  That +14 advantage on the offensive glass is probably the only reason this was actually a close game.
Western 62-41.
I think Sha'quira Palmer might actually be the team MVP this year.  When Melissa DiNino is in they play a man-to-man defense which isn't impressive, but it gets the job done.  When Palmer subs in for DiNino they go to a full court press with Palmer on the inbounder because she has ridiculously long arms and usually the last 2 or 3 games the person that gets the pass gets trapped in the corner (the worst place to be on the press), and Western gets steals which go for easy basket.  However, I'm only cofident in 2.5 people shooting the ball this year (I'll get to the 2.5 first).
In regards to the 2.5, Palmer is only effective 2 feet or less from the basket where she can use the window for easy layups, you want her to get away from the basket and make her beat you shooting jumpers.......she can't right now but she's only a freshmen so she still has 3.5 years left to work on a jumper.  Now that I took care of the half Jackie Zilnicki & Carolina Brasa are the only 2 I'm even remotely cofident in taking the last shot of a close game.  Have no clue what happened to Carly Murphy & Sciarra brandt this year both have been pretty bad so far, Melissa DiNino is a liability on the offensive end, Amber Litwinko is hurt, Chelse Mone even though she's 5"10 only shoots from outside, Marisa Delzio never looks up at the point and never pushes tempo, and Nicole Eanniello wasn't in uniform or even on the bench.  According to Carly after the game she had some "issues" and "should be back."  Hopefully this isn't anything serious.
2 things I really don't like about this team however:
1) This team is absolutely awful in a halfcourt set and pretty much Zilnicki & Brasa are the only ones that can shoot.  Those 2 were a combined 15-32 today shooting the ball (rest of the team was 10-34).  They got 29 of their 62 points off of 24 Boston turnovers, so getting almost half of your total points off of opposistion turnovers isn't very good.
2) In all my years watching basketball, this is the first team I have EVER seen where the second unit is better then the first unit (Palmer & Brasa being the 2 keys).  This isn't very a bad thing except the team has used 5 different lineup combinations in a total of 7 games so you don't even have consistancy.  However, I like Palmer & Brasa coming off the bench.  The starters (minus Zilnicki) had a total of 14 points and would have been 6 except Murphy got a couple baskets in garbage time to booster her point total from 2 to 8.  Those 2 off the bench are great sparks, but do you really want to be down 10-0 because nobody can shoot the ball in the starting 5 when Brasa & Palmer come in and wreck havoc on the press??

1 game Monday: Brandeis @ Dartmouth.

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Brandeis 54 @ Dartmouth 67.
Brandeis is 3-3, but lets dig deeper into their 3-3 record.  Their 3 wins are against: Daniel Webster (0-6), Mitchell (0-6) and Springfield (1-4) so they have 3 wins against teams that are a combined 1-16 this year.  Take into account Springfield started the year 1-0 before losing their next 4 and Brandeis 3 wins are currently on a 16 game losing streak combined.  Not good.  They got blown out by Emmanuel & Tufts, but only lost by 1 to Babson 3 teams in the top 25 so this team has played some decent competition in the early going to prepare them for the rigors of the UAA.  Dartmouth has played 3 teams with a winning record.  They won 2 of those games by a total of 11 points: Rivier by 6 (4-2) & Worcester state by 5 (3-3) and got crushed by Bridgewater (5-1), but I like Dartmouth at home.

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Monday result:

Dartmouth 50-49.
Brandeis lead for exactly 8 seconds of the first half; a Kasey Dean basket with 8 seconds to go in the first half broke a 18 18 tie and gave Brandeis a 20-18 lead into the break.  The largest second half lead for either team was 6.  Colleen Moriarty lead all scorers with 22 pointers including the game winner with 5 seconds to go and block a Brandeis layup at the buzzer to preserve the win.
25-14 OOC record

Tuesday schedule:
Boston 67 @ Mount Ida 44.
Mount Ida has won 3 games beating 2 of the worst team in basketball in the process (York & Wheelock, Daniel Webster also 0-6 is the other win), and when they lose they lose bad: 26 to Mount Holyoke, 29 to Westfield state and 45 to Wheaton.  Not gonna be Wheelock, but with Tufts on Thursday, they get the offense and the team back on track after Saturday.
RIC 62 @ Salve 48.
This is Salve's first game against an LEC team this year but plays Keene later this month, likewise, this is RIC's first game against a CCC opponent, but plays Roger Williams in January.
Keene 52 @ RPI 59.
RPI's 2 losses are @ Emmanuel (no shame there) and @ Williams (no shame there).  They're 5-0 in their other 5 games.  They'll make it 6-0.
Eastern 56 @ Westfield state 72.
In their 2 losses Westfield has combined to average 39.5 points; in 3 wins their averaging 62.3 points.  Eastern is only allowing 56.6 ppg this season. 
Salem state 54 @ USM 63.
My bold prediction of the season: If USM can get out of this week 2-0 (they have Salem state & Western Connecticut both at home) USM will be undefeated and ranked in the top 10 when they come to Western Connecticut January 26.

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New top 25 poll.  USM is the only LEC team checking in at #23 on this week's poll:

Through games of Sunday, Dec. 2:



#

School (1st votes)

Rec

Pts

Prev.



1

DePauw (24)

6-0

623

1



2

Mount Union

5-0

586

2



3

Calvin (1)

5-1

545

4



4

St. Thomas

4-1

504

5



5

Washington U.

4-1

472

8



6

Lewis and Clark

7-0

471

6



7

Hope

5-0

455

9



8

Messiah

5-0

450

10



9

Amherst

5-0

412

11



10

Tufts

6-0

375

12



11

Thomas More

6-1

342

13



12

UW-Stevens Point

3-2

333

3



13

Lebanon Valley

5-1

296

7



14

York (Pa.)

6-0

261

15



15

Illinois Wesleyan

4-2

249

17



16

Emmanuel

6-0

238

16



17

Simpson

7-0

218

20



18

Emory

6-0

182

19



19

UW-Whitewater

4-2

133

14



20

Ohio Northern

5-1

125

24



21

Scranton

6-0

104

--



22

Babson

6-0

90

23



23

Southern Maine

6-0

74

--



24

George Fox

3-2

71

21



25

Mary Washington

6-1

70

22


Dropped out: No. 18 Williams; No 25 St. Norbert.

Others receiving votes: Williams 65; Monmouth 61; Carthage 51; Montclair State 42; Louisiana College 40; Moravian 37; Redlands 33; Cornell 30; Christopher Newport 20; Catholic 20; UW-Superior 9; Howard Payne 7; UW-River Falls 6; St. Norbert 6; William Paterson 5; Rochester 5; Rhodes 4; Ferrum 2; Ithaca 1; Baldwin Wallace 1; Wheaton (Ill.) 1.

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Tuesday results:

Boston 72-55 over Mount Ida.  What's the average height of Mount Ida as a team, 4 foot 3??  How else do you explain Boston outrebounding them 72-31 including a ridiculous 45-9 on the offensive glass??  Those 45 offense rebounds lead to an equally ridiculous 93 field goal attempts.
RIC 50-39.
LOL RIC shot 21.4% from the line (3-14).  So in 1 game we saw a team attempt 93 shots from the floor which is probably one of the highest totals in a regulation game this year, then in the next game we have a team that missed 11 of 14 free throws which is probably one of the worst free throw percentages of a team that attempted at least 10 free throws.  Basketball is a strange game.
Eastern 72-66. 
4 of the 5 Warriors started scored in double figures lead by Kristina Forsman with 15. 
USM 83-61.
Rebecca Knight had 27 points and hit 12 of 14.  Very dangerous club, I sure as hell wish we didn't have to play them this week.
Live stats seems to be stuck at RPI 54 Keene 40 13:49 of the 2nd. 
RPI beats Keene 83-68.
Siobhan Carnell had a game high 27 points.  Keene outshot them 72-54, but RPI made their shots count hitting on more then 45% of them (46.3%).
Conference a 4-1 day and goes to 29-15 on the year OOC.

Wednesday's schedule:
Bridgewater 62 @ Western 60.
Bridgewater is 5-1 on the year with their only loss by 9 to RIC, but they made up for that by defeating Williams @ Williams last week.  Also last week they destroyed Dartmouth @ Dartmouth.  Western hasn't looked very impressive and we actually play a good team.