WBB: Little East

[7express]

Lots of tournament scenerio's clinched today:

As mentioned USM clinched the #1 seed yesterday and the live in-game practice against Plymouth state in the quarterfinals that comes with it.  It became official when they lost to Keene last Tuesday, but has been unofficial since December, Plymouth is the 8 seed and will be playing USM in Gorham next Tuesday in round 1.
In today's action Western clinched the 2 seed (they'll win tiebreakers over both Eastern & Dartmouth) and Keene clinched the 7 seed (they got swept by Boston so even if they catch them they can't pass them) so we have 2 of our final 4 matchups set for next Tuesday:
Plymouth @ USM in the 1 vs. 8 game
Keene @ Western in the 2 vs. 7 game.
3 to 6 are still a mess (and even at 5-7, Boston still has a chance to host a first round game) but 1 RIC win (@ Western) OR 1 Boston loss (@ Dartmouth) locks Boston in as the 6 seed so you pretty much just have Eastern/RIC/Dartmouth fighting it out for spots 3-5.  If I had to guess I'd say Eastern ends up 3rd, Dartmouth 4th, RIC 5th.  As long as we leave Dartmouth in the 4/5 spot I could care less who finishes 3rd.
As for Boston hosting a quarterfinal game: IF they sweep this week (@ Dartmouth @ Eastern), and have Dartmouth lose twice (end @ USM) AND have RIC lose twice (@ Keene is the Saturday game) Boston would clinch the 4 seed since they'd have a sweep of Dartmouth

[7express]

I'll have Thursday/Sunday/Monday & Wednesday results coming up Wednesday or Thursday, next post I'll have clinching scenerio's and what each game means:

Keene @ Eastern.
Eastern still fighting for that home spot, Keene locked in at 7th and will be facing Western next Tuesday in Danbury.  It's funny because the Western men and Keene men still have a pretty good chance of meeting up in the quarters up in Keene
Eastern 65-54
RIC @ Western.
RIC like Eastern fighting for that home spot.  Western is locked in, and since they lost last Tuesday pretty much took themselves out of pool C discussion.  This game means absolutely nothing for Western, so if we lose, who cares.  Pretty much a scrimmage for us.  RIC's had 2 tough losses to Dartmouth & USM in overtime I think they take it.  I'd actually prefer if RIC wins tbph.  Its all about matchups in the semifinals.  I want Dartmouth as far away as possible so if that means we have to take a conf loss to have RIC keep pace with them, so be it.  Edit scratch that, I'll just be the Beacons biggest fan tonight.
RIC 56-55
USM @ Plymouth.
This game will be over the moment USM steps onto the court for pre-game warmups.  This will be the 1-8 matchup next week in Gorham bench probably gets A LOT of minutes in this blowout.
USM 89-30
Boston @ Dartmouth.
Boston loss, or RIC win officially locks the Beacons in at 6th.  Dartmouth is the last of those 3 teams fighting for the last 2 spots.  I believe Dartmouth owns tiebreakers over both Eastern (Eastern 1-1 vs. RIC Dartmouth is 2-0) and RIC (season sweep), so they are in the drivers seat.  As I said yesterday, Boston sweeps this week they are still in the running for the 4 seed.  Go Beacons!!
Dartmouth 76-54

[7express]

Tournament scenerio's:

USM has clinched the #1 seed.  No one else can claim it
Western has clinched the #2 seed.  No one else can claim it
Dartmouth clinches the 3 seed with: a win AND Eastern loss AND RIC loss
Dartmouth clinches at least the 4 seed with: A win OR A RIC loss
Eastern clinches at least the 4 seed with: A win OR RIC loss
RIC clinches the 5 seed with: A loss AND Eastern win AND Dartmouth win
RIC clinches no worse then the 5 seed with: A win OR Boston closs
Boston clinches the 6 seed with: A loss OR RIC win
Keene has clinched the 7 seed.  No one else can claim it
Plymouth has clinched the 8 seed.  No one else can claim it

Where they can end up:
USM.  Has clinched #1
Western.  Has clinched #2
Keene.  Has clinched #7
Plymouth.  Has clinched #8
Dartmouth can finish anywhere from 3rd to 5th.  Own tiebreakers over both Eastern and RIC
Eastern can finish anywhere from 3rd to 5th.  Lose the tiebreaker to Dartmouth own the tiebreaker over RIC
RIC can finish anywhere from 3rd to 6th.  Lose tiebreakers to both Eastern & Dartmouth, own the tiebreaker over Boston
Boston can finish anywhere from 4th to 6th.  In the event they go 2-0 this week they'll own a tiebreaker over Dartmouth but lose tiebreakers to both Eastern & RIC.

Meaningful games (in order of importance):
Dartmouth/Boston.  Half of the LEC field seedings could be decided at about 7:15 Wednesday night.  Dartmouth can also do no worse then a home quarterfinal game if they win and have Western win
Eastern vs. Keene.  Another team that can be the final host if they win and get help by their westerly neighbors across Connecticut
RIC/Western.  RIC needs wins to have a home game, but probably too late.
USM/Plymouth.  The only thing semi-important about this game is that USM can win the outright regular season title with a win.

[7express]

RIC wins 61-54.  Lead for majority of the game, got a 3 from half court by Megan Sewell at the first half buzzer which set the tone for the rest of the game.
USM 81-39, Eastern leads 53-47 after trailing 31-22 at the half and Dartmouth leads 52-50.  Both of those have about 4 minutes to go

[7express]

Boston clinches the 6 seed.  And I take back what I said yesterday Western isn't "officially" locked into the 2 seed yet, but since they play Plymouth it might as well be official.  Dartmouth would win a tiebreaker if they both finished 9-5.  Eastern loses a tiebreaker to Western at 9-5 and in a 3 way tie I believe Dartmouth would win that tiebreaker.
in the 3/4/5 seeding Dartmouth own the tiebreaker over RIC as well as Eastern, Eastern owns the tiebreaker over RIC and in a 3 way tie at 8-6 Dartmouth wins that one I believe.  Eastern owns the tiebreaker over RIC so those will be your final 2 home quarterfinal participants.  So, here's how it shakes out:

#1 USM.  Cannot change
Western gets the 2 seed with a win OR Dartmouth loss
Western gets the 3 seed with a loss AND Dartmouth win
Dartmouth gets the 2 seed with a win AND Western loss
Dartmouth gets the 3rd seed with a win OR Eastern loss
Dartmouth gets the 4th seed with a loss AND Eastern win (note Dartmouth cannot finish lower then 4th)
Eastern gets the 3rd seed with a win AND Dartmouth loss
Eastern gets the 4th seed with a loss OR Dartmouth win
RIC is locked into the 5th seed (they lose tiebreakers to both Eastern & Keene)
Boston is locked in at 6, Keene at 7, Plymouth at 8.

[7express]

Doing Sat predictions because I have a busy day tomorrow before heading up to Plymouth not sure I'm going to be able to get them in:

Western @ Plymouth.
Western last 3 games since finishing the RIC/USM/New Paltz/Dartmouth gauntelt not very good.  Terrible basketball, lethargic, and this is a different team without Caroline Brasa.  If this is within 15 we have major trouble heading into the tournament.  Put them away earlier and hold them at bay.
Western 83-32
RIC @ Keene.
2 teams that can't improve their posistion (5th & 7th they'll finish) and 2 teams that can't score.  Lovely game!
RIC 54-50
Boston @ Eastern.
Eastern will be playing a home game on Tuesday just to be decided whether its the 3rd or 4 seed.  Actually, this could very well be the 3/6 matchup on Tuesday.  Boston's already the 6, a Dartmouth loss to USM leaves Eastern 3rd.
Eastern 58-46
Dartmouth @ USM.
USM hasn't looked very good, but win or lose they should be safe for a tournament bid.  A Dartmouth win leaves them with the 3rd seed and a matchup with a Western team in the semifinals they can easily beat on a neutral court while a loss (assuming Eastern beats Boston) leaves them with the #4 and another date with USM next Friday.
USM 69-62

[7express]

Halftime scores:
RIC 32-20, USM 34-19, Boston 29-20 and Western 40-22.  First 12 minutes weren't good as Plymouth was within 3 at 20-23 but Western ended half on 17-2 run

[7express]

Western wins 74-42 to officially clinch 2 seed.  Eastern loses to Boston 57-49 so that leaves Dartmouth 3 and Eastern 4.  Keene plays @ Western Tuesday at 7, RIC at Eastern at 5:30 and Boston at Dartmouth at 7.  Not happy about having Dartmouth in our half but they've had trouble with Boston this year so hopefully the Beacons can knock them off

[7express]

Official LEC tournament pairings:

#8 Plymouth (1-23, 0-14)
@
#1 Southern Maine (24-1, 13-1)

#5 Rhode Island College (15-10, 8-6)
@
#4 Eastern Connecticut (10-15, 8-6)

#7 Keene (9-16, 3-11)
@
#2 Western Connecticut (18-7, 10-4)

#6 UMass-Boston (14-11, 6-8)
@
#3 UMass-Dartmouth (18-7, 8-6)

I'll have official predictions Monday, but I like at least 1 road team advancing (probably RIC).  And as I said earlier Dartmouth has had problems with Boston this year so I wouldn't be totally shocked if they pulled it off.
USM/Plymouth will be over by the 15:00 minute mark and Western should beat Keene by 10-15.

http://littleeast.com/sports/wbkb/2012-13/news/20130216-wbkb-lecpairings

[7express]

Tuesday predictions:

#8 Plymouth state @ #1 USM.
This game is the real reason why they should've stuck with the top 8 because Plymouth has absolutely no chance to win this.  None, 0.  If Plymouth were to miraculously win this I'll walk from my house to Plymouth, NH (google map says it takes more then 3 days to walk) and get a tattoo of the Panther logo.  In 2 games against USM this year Plymouth has lost by 39 & 42 points.
USM 89-36
#7 Keene state @ #2 Western.
Western won by 19 in Danbury and by 6 in Keene.  This game probably more likely to be like the one in Danbury last month compared to the one in Keene 8 days ago.  This team hasn't looked very good the last couple games, but I think we should pull this out by double digits.  I'm probably gonna end up going to the men's game at Eastern, so there won't be much of a recap on this until I watch the game on littleeast.tv.
Western 64-42
#6 Boston @ #3 Dartmouth. 
Like Keene Western, they just played last Monday and the Corsairs have had problems with the Beacons this year.  Dartmouth lost by 3 in Boston, and only won by 7 in Dartmouth, but were trailing at halftime.  Hopefully, the Beacons can pull this out because I think we get beat by Dartmouth on Friday, and we won't have much trouble against the Beacons.
Boston 64-63
#5 RIC @ #4 Eastern.
RIC has won 2 straight on the road to end the year, Eastern finishesd the year 1-1 at home lucky to survive against Keene and losing to Boston.  Both teams are young, but Eastern is more up and down then RIC is.  I don't know how you kill Western at home and beat Dartmouth, yet you lose at home to Boston after beating them by 17 on the road??  RIC has averaged 49.5 points in 2 games vs. Eastern this year, if they can get to 55 points, I don't see how Eastern is going to be able to outscore them. 
RIC 57-51

[7express]

Southern Maine up 4 spots to #9:



#

School (1st votes)

Rec

Pts

Prev.



1

DePauw (22)

25-0

621

1



2

Hope (3)

24-1

594

3



3

Calvin

22-2

553

2



4

Ohio Northern

24-1

537

4



5

Montclair State

25-0

530

5



6

Amherst

24-1

508

6



7

Thomas More

24-1

489

8



8

Lewis and Clark

23-2

414

11



9

Southern Maine

24-1

392

12



10

Catholic

24-1

381

13



11

Tufts

23-2

378

7



12

Simpson

23-2

338

9



13

Messiah

22-3

324

10



14

Cornell

22-1

288

15



15

Williams

21-4

267

17



16

Emory

21-3

224

21



17

Babson

23-2

170

19



18

Christopher Newport

23-2

154

22



19

Lebanon Valley

21-4

128

20



20

UW-Whitewater

20-5

113

24



21

UW-Stevens Point

20-5

110

23



22

Washington U.

19-5

105

14



23

Ferrum

22-3

97

16



24

Louisiana College

21-3

90

18



25

Whitman

20-4

48

--


Dropped out: No. 25 FDU-Florham.

Others receiving votes: Carthage 47; Rochester 29; Baruch 28; Ithaca 22; Maryville (Tenn.) 21; UW-Oshkosh 17; Widener 16; Castleton 12; Wisconsin Lutheran 12; Bridgewater State 12; Howard Payne 12; St. Thomas 9; Marymount 5; Smith 5; New Paltz State 4; George Fox 4; Trinity (Texas) 4; FDU-Florham 1; Wheaton (Ill.) 1; Rhodes 1.

[7express]

Tuesday results:

RIC 66-54 over Eastern.  The Eastern bench consisted of 1 player playing 1 minute meaning 4/5 Eastern starters played all 40 minutes and the other played 39 minutes.  They were gassed at the end, lots of missed shots from in close when they were down 10 after getting demolished for most of the game.  Ashley O'Dell lead RIC with 21 off the bench; 7-8 from the floor, 5-5 from 3.  RIC will need O'Dell to get going on Friday vs. USM
USM 63-31.  Something tells me they could've won by a lot more if they wanted too, but when your already leading 31-8 at halftime against a team that's 1-23, why run up the score??  Nicole Garland was the only starter that played more then 18 minutes.  Jordan Grant only played 8, hopefully for them she didn't get injured.
Western 52-34.
Siobhan Carnall had 12 points to lead the way in her final game.  Carly Murphy & Nicole Eanniello each had 10 for the Colonials.  Doesn't sound like this was very exciting, but I'll have to catch it on littleeast.tv
Dartmouth 71-59 over Boston.
This boxscore seems a little strange: Moriarty 2-15 shooting, Kelsey Garrity 20 shot attempts (has she even shot the ball 20 times the whole year??), but how can your PG have 5 more shot attempts then the conferences leading scorer, and then Olivia Murphy shooting 10-27 for the Beacons.  Something doesn't add up.

Semifinals set:
#5 RIC @ #1 USM 5:30 PM
#2 Western vs. #3 Dartmouth.  Will make predictions Thursday.

[7express]

Semifinal predictions:

#5 RIC @ #1 USM.
USM won by 8 in Maine, and won by 2 in overtime in Providence.  Taking out Plymouth state, USM has beaten exactly 1 opponent by double digits since suffering the loss to Western and that was Dartmouth the final game of the year.  Usually when a teams wins all these close, I'd say their due for a loss, but the fact they keep winning them actually bodes well because they know how to close out games.  With the defense RIC plays their capable of beating anyone in the league, the problem with them is whether their able to score enough points.  If they can hold the potent USM offense under 60 points I say RIC wins.
USM 62-54

#2 Western vs. #3 Dartmouth.
Each team won the home game against each other by a pretty large margin (don't be fooled by Dartnouth ONLY beating Western by 14 at home.  We were down by 26 midway through the second half and only got back in the game because Dartmouth kept turning it over on our press).  As I have stated the whole year Dartmouth is not a good matchup for this team.  Moriarty in the post, Kelsey Garrity running the show conference leader in assists and steals.  Hang onto the ball for the most part.  Sha'Quira Palmer injured her ankle Tuesday, but looks like she'll be ready to go.  No Caroline Brasa is a huge loss and I think that's the difference.  Even with Care, I probably would've picked Dartmouth.  We need Carly Murphy, Jackie Zilnicki & Nicle Eanniello to make some shots.
Dartmouth 64-62

Since my predictions were awful last week (4-4), I'm using the reverse psychology effect because I would love to see/hope to see a RIC/Western final on Saturday.  No matter what happens any matchup on Saturday will be good.

[7express]

USM leads RIC 31-21 at halftime

[7express]

USM won by about 10 and Dartmouth won in overtime 74-64, out scoring Colonials 10-0 in overtime.  Had the ball with 7 seconds left in regulation, but missed 2 from in close.  Great careers from Carly Murphy, Nicole Eanniello, Carly Murphy, and Courtney Burns from RIC, all who likely played their final games this evening.  A pleasure to watch the Western seniors the last 3 years, just sucks we don't have another game or 2.