WBB: Little East

[7express]

Sat results:
Lyndon 61-50 over Plymouth.
I think hope is lost for this Plymouth team this year.  Bry Bennett & Kristyn Corliss lead the Panthers with 12 each, Donna Lawson lead all scorers with 15 for Lyndon.  Their off until January 3 they could use the break.
34-20 OOC record.

Sunday schedule:
RIC 46 @ University of Rhode Island 62.
Nice competition for the RIC ladies.  With old coach Marcus Reilly on the URI bench this year, you know if the score gets out of hand URI will empty the bench and play the bench because Marcus Reilly isn't going to run up the score against players he coached last year, the RIC coach this year was an assistant under Reilly at RIC, and RIC assistant coach Cynthia Gaudet played for Reilly at RIC last year.

[7express]

Sun results:

RIC 60 URI 89.
10 of the 11 players for URI played double digits minutes, and none of the Rams starters played more then 25 minutes.  Ashley O'Dell had 14 points to lead the way for RIC, the other 4 in the RIC lineup combined for 15 total.  URI finished shooting 62.5% for the game.

1 last game before Christmas and thats RIC @ Johnson & Wales on Wednesday.

[7express]

Wed schedule:

RIC 77 @ Johnson & Wales 45.
J&W has played 1 LEC team this year; they lost by 28 to Dartmouth last week.  RIC has 3 losses: Babson (top 25 team), Emmanuel (top 25 team) and University of Rhode Island (division 1 team).  RIC wins this easily.

[7express]

Wed result:

RIC 62-41 over J&W.
Cara Paladino had 12 to lead RIC.  RIC held J&W to 10 field goals and 18.2% shooting. 
LEC goes into the Christmas holiday with a 35-21 OOC record.

Conference is off until Saturday, December 29 when Western hosts Staten Islandand USM plays D'Youville at a tournament in Salem.  Have a good holiday!

[7express]

Hope everyone had a good holiday, but back to action Saturday with 2 games:

D'Youville 47 vs. USM 80 (@ Salem state).
D'Youville is located in Buffalo and plays in the AMCC conference.  Their 3 wins are against teams that are a combined 7-21 this year.  In 5 losses their getting outscored by 23 and have averaged a combined 51.2 points per game in those 5 losses.  In 8 total games their only averaging 56 ppg. 
Staten Island 53 @ Western 67.
Staten Island is 5-5 out of the CUNYAC.  It's too bad we scrimmage Baruch since their the only CUNYAC team worth playing in an actual real game since they completely dominate the league.  CSI started the year 0-4 including an embarrassing 35 point loss to 1-8 York college of NY, but since that loss they have won 5 of 6 to even their record at 5-5, including an impressive win over Brooklyn college who's only loss prior to that was by a respectible 25 against Amherst, and who have beaten the likes of Stevens, Farmingdale state & NYU this year.

[7express]

Sat results (I'll update this throughout the day):

Western leads CSI 40-27 at halftime
Western wins 77-56.
Carly Murphy had 18 to lead Western who never trailed and lead by as many as 23.  Interesting starting lineup as coach Rybczyk started both point guards this afternoon, Nicole Eanniello and Marisa Delzio. 
USM beats D'Youville 75-55.
Pretty much right at D'Youville's average (they were at 56 ppg coming in).  Jordan Grant had 22 points to lead the Huskies and Rebecca Knight had 16.  Once again everyone played.  Most minutes a starter played was 27 minutes.  Its always nice to get blowout wins, but they've just had 3 weeks off, and with all the blowouts USM is involved in, the starters are gone by the 8:00 mark.  Are they going to have enough conditioning to last the whole LEC season against a very good league this season??  5 of the 8 teams are 7-3 or better and 6 of the 8 have a positive point differential, so USM should get challanged a little coming up, and that should start against Maine rival UNE on Wednesday evening.
Unlike the men's side, the women's side is putting together a very great and overlooked season: 37-21 in OOC play.  If you take out Plymouth state who is pretty much a guaranteed win for the opposistion that total is 36-15 for the other 6.

Sunday schedule:
USM 89 vs. Dominican 43 (@ Salem state).
Dominican, out of the Northern Atletic Conference and Lake Forest, IL is 0-11 on the season and has lost it's last 3 games by a combined 32.7 points.  They have only lost 3 games by less than 10 points this season.  I say leave Knight and Jordan grant out of the lineup and USM still wins by 15.
Boston 56 vs. Maine-Maritime 53 (@ Key Largo, FL).  Maritime is 3-3 out of the North Atlantic Conference.  The 3 teams tied for first above them are the only 3 teams in the conference with a winning record.  This is only going to be the third team Maritime will have played with a winning record: they lost to Bridgewater state by 20 in November, and in their last game before Christmas lost to Castleton by 3. 

[7express]

Sun results:

USM rolls Dominican 76-53.
Nash Billew had 19 to lead the way in her first start of the season, replacing Taylor Flood in the starting lineup.    Erin McNamera was the only other Husky in double figures with 17.  Rebecca Knight and Jordan Grant had 12 combined points on 2-16 shooting.  Laura Kniepes had 18 to lead Domican who fall to 0-12 on the season.
Boston wins in double overtime over Maine-Maritime 69-60.
4 of 5 Beacons scored in double figures lead by Olivia Murphy's 20.  Teresa Pina forced overtime with a layup, and Murphy forced the second overtime with a layup.  The Beacons never trailed in the second overtime stanza.
39-21 OOC record.

Monday schedule:
Rivier 64 @ Keene 61.
Rivier has won 6 of 7 after starting the season 0-2 against Little East teams.  They also played LEC opponent Plymouth state earlier this year.   Keene has gone the opposite direction dropping 5 of 6 since starting the season 2-0.  This is Keene's first game against a GNAC opponent.
Fitchburg 58 vs. Boston 65 (@ Key Largo, FL).
1 of those rare rematches at a tournament of a game that took place earlier in the year.  Fitchburg is riding a 4 game winning streak, but as you may remember from my previous recaps, Boston was able to snag a 70-67 win against Fitchburg IN Fitchburg on November 20.  Much harder to beat a team in a true road game then on a neutral court some 1,000 miles away.  Boston is good, since they already won @ Fitchburg, they should complete the sweep.

[7express]

At the half Western leads Regis 37-30.  Regis is doing well on the break and almost points have come in the paint.  I don't think they can play in the half court.  If we can cut down on stupid turnovers which lead to easy Regis points, we should win this by 15-20.

[7express]

Monday results:
Keene lost to Rivier 72-67.
Rivier only made 18 field goals, but they forced 22 Keene turnovers.
Boston clobbers Fitchburg 76-39.
Thought Boston would win, no idea it would be this lopsided.  This is a very good team HOWEVER for the most part their schedule has been littered with cupcakes and the LEC is very good this year.  It's obvious they can play defense: they average 54.8 Oppg, and have only given up 65 or more twice in 11 games, but question for them is can they score enough when they get matched up against a good team??  They faltered at Western last month after playing well for a half, and they were never in the game against Tufts their only 2 losses, but in those 2 they only scored 41 & 42 points easily their lowest point totals of the season.  They have RIC @ RIC Saturday, a good team, but a beatable team assuming Boston can score some points.  Taking out their 2 guaranteed losses to USM (since no one is beating USM this year minus Dartmouth, RIC or Western at home), this a team that could finish with only 4 or 5 LEC losses and get a high seed.  I picked them high preseason, and were my team to watch, but they can really put the conference on notice their here to compete with USM & Dartmouth with a statement win Saturday
Monday's OOC record was 40-22

Tuesday results:
Keene survives Colby 58-57 on the consolation game of their tournament.  No boxscore available.
Bridgewater over Eastern 56-53.  Eastern isn't winning the games, but they sure are playing them tough.  Also, it's nice to know Western isn't the only LEC team from Connecticut Michaela Crosby abused this year.  Combined against the 2 CT schools: 18-31 shooting and 41 points.  She ended the Eastern game on her own personal 4-0 run after eastern had taken a brief 53-52 lead late in the game.  Bridgewater now 3-1 against the LEC this year (including Dartmouth's lone loss of the year) and concludes their LEC tour on January 10 with a game @ Boston.  Could end up being one of the best non LEC games this year.
Tuesday's OOC record: 41-23

Wednesday results:
Swathmore 63-46 over Eastern.
Swathmore was undefeated before they somehow lost to a 1-7 Springfield team a team that came in losers of 7 straight, so you know that was going to be a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong trip back to surburban Philly if Swathmore lost 2 games to teams with a combined 3-15 record.  Wish Eastern would've kept it a little closer, but the expected the end result.
USM 73-62 over UNE.
Well, at least USM actually played someone halfway decent.  UNE was only 5-3, but lost 2 games to Bates and Colby by a combined 2 points, so that 5-3 could've been 7-1.  UNE is also a team that has won 20+ games the last 4 seasons and has beaten USM the last 3 years.  Jordan Grant continues her rennaissance with 19 points.  Rebecca Knight was a huge addition to this team, gave them a much needed weapon on the wing, but I don't see how you could give POTY to anyone on USM other then Jordan Grant with the way she is playing right now, and is probably the front runner for conference player of the year with Colleen Moriarty of Dartmouth.
Dartmouth over Eastern Nazarene 68-39.
That's 6 straight wins since their loss to Bridgewater and taking out the Brandeis game which they won by 1, the other 5 have been won by an average of 20.4 points.  Like their neighbors to the North in Boston, this is a school that hasn't tasted much success and have a put up game Saturday against Western.  With Sha'qira Palmer, Moriarty and Bornemann won't have much of an advantage, so our their guards quick enough to beat the Western defeanders off the ball and either get Palmer out of the lane or have the defense collapse and kick it to the outside??  Regis did that tonight and was one of the big reasons why they won.  Time will tell.
Keene 66-60 over Worcester.
Keene's 3rd game in 3 days, why are they playing a non tournament game the day after finishing a tournament??  There's no LEC tournament or that reason NCAA tournament's (not that Keene will be going that far though), so not sure what Keene accomplished by playing 3 games in 3 days.  Siobhan Carnall finished with a game high 21.
Regis 66-61 over Western.
I'm still trying to figure out how we lost this game.  Regis did a great job speeding the game up.  Of their 27 field goals only 1 was from 3, and I'd say at least 18 were in the paint maybe even more.  Beat Western off the dribble which is why they got so many opportunities in the paint.  Pressured Western into 13 turnovers, but got 15 points off those turnovers, most of them fast break opportunities.  Definitely the quickest team I've seen them play this year.  However, I'm still searching for the reason we lost this game.  We had a 50-37 lead with 13:45 to play and got outscored 29-11 to the final 13:43.  Hopefully that was an abberation, and not a sign of things to come from a team who's calling card is on the defensive end.  Good teams don't get outscored by 18 to end a game however.
Wednesday's OOC record: 44-25

Thursday schedule:
Plymouth 54 @ Lasell 60.
If they can't beat Emerson at home, good luck here.  Lasell actually has a decent 4-5 record.
Roger Williams 53 @ RIC 68.
Jekhly & Hyde for RWU.  start off 1-4, and are currently on a 4 game winning streak to get back over .500.  Win @ Colby by 23 two weeks after losing to Smith at home by 28.  Tough team to gauge.   This is the 7th game of an 8 game road stretch for RWU whose last home game was November 20 and who won't see the home confines again until January 8.

[AllStar]

7express:

Scheduling forced the postponement of a high school tournament the previous week, pushing everything back a day from then on, leading to that 3 game in 3 day stretch for KSC.   It was not originally scheduled that way.

[7express]

Ahh I see.  So the tournament was supposed to be Sunday to Monday off day Tuesday, Worcester game Wednesday??

[AllStar]

Ahh I see.  So the tournament was supposed to be Sunday to Monday off day Tuesday, Worcester game Wednesday??

Yes

[7express]

Thursday results:
Lasell 69-52 over Plymouth.
Plymouth actually had a higher field goal percentage (44.0 to 38.6) however, Lasell had 20 more shot attempts (70 to 50) mainly because Plymouth turned it over 23 times compared to just 11 for Lasell, and Lasell recored 20 offensive rebounds to only 7 for Plymouth.
RIC 67-35 over RWU.
Not counting URI, RIC has held 6 of their last 7 opponents to 43 points or less and in 10 games against D-3 teams RIC has help the opposistion to 54 points or less 8 times.  That's going to win you A LOT of games.
45-26 OOC record

Sat starts round 2 of conference play:
USM @ Keene.  Will USM be tested??
Western @ Dartmouth.  How will Q handle Bornemann & Moriarty??  She's prone to foul trouble, so if she sits were screwed.
Boston @ RIC.  Best game of the day: Boston's 3rd best scoring offense vs. the conferences #1 scoring defense.
Plymouth @ Eastern.  Someone has to win, right??

[7express]

Expresses LEC midseason report card:

Very good conference this year as evidence with the OOC record I post after each day.  USM is head and shoulders above everyone else, however.  I say the next in line is probably Dartmouth based on the expierence from last year, the height they have and the guards are quick.  Rounding out the rest of the top heap is Boston/RIC/Western each have strengths that the others don't.  Boston's the best offensive team of the bunch; RIC is the best defensive team of the bunch, and Western shoots the 3 better (and more) then the others.  All games between these 4 or 5 teams are going to be very exciting and we get the benefit of having a few right out of the game: RIC and Boston and Western & Dartmouth play each other this weekend, USM plays RIC Tuesday and USM plays Dartmouth next Saturday.  Team by team capsules:
USM: Very good.  Even with the conference as powerful as it is, they should get through it unscathed.  Maybe a loss @ Dartmouth, maybe a loss @ Western, maybe a loss @ RIC won't be many more then that.  Rebecca Knight gives them another threat on the wing, but my player of the year is Jordan Grant with the December she's played.
Eastern: The good news for them is Plymouth is terrible and Shannon McCourt and Krystana Forsman both have another 2.5 years.  Have played most teams tough, but haven't pulled out the wins, and with the league this year will probably be hard to do.
Western: Still shoot to many three's.  If they aren't falling were in trouble.  Free throw shooting is worlds better this year then it was last year.  Perimeter and half court defense is worse this year then last year, can be beaten off the ball easily via a quick team.  Interior defense is a strength with Sha'Quira Palmer and Melissa DiNino, however their a freshmen and sophmore respectively and still make inexperienced plays, especially late.  Both are prone to foul trouble and if both are on the bench our interior defense is virtually non-existant.  Need for them to stay on the floor against teams with height: Dartmouth/USM/Boston.  Still think we'll finish well, but will have problems against those teams.
RIC: Great defensive team.  #1 scoring defense in the conference averaging 50.5 points allowed per game, however if you take out the loss tor URI, and you should because its a non-division 3, that total drops dramatically to 46.7 ppg.  In 8 of 10 games against Division 3 schools, RIC has allowed 54 or more points twice, and hasn't allowed more then 43 since December.  Defense wins you championships, however offense wins you games.  Can they score enough on the offensive end to give their defense a chance to close it out??  RIC is only 6th in the conference in scoring offense, has no double digit scorer, and whose leading scorer appears way down at #17 on the list of ppg.
Plymouth: At least Bry Bennett and Kristyn Corliss look like good players.  After going 1-13 in conference each of the last 2 years they'll be lucky to just get to 1-13 again this year.
Keene: Tied with Boston & Dartmouth for most players on the scoring list (each team has 4 players represented).  2 of those 4 are in the top 6, 2 of those 4 are underclassmen, and 3 of those 4 will be back next year.  The problem with them is that they don't do anything spectacularly well: they don't lead in a single offensive or defensive team category, and are only #2 in 1 category: offensive rebounding.  Everything else they're 3rd or lower.
Boston: Of their 4 players represented on the scoring list 3 of the 4 will be back next year and 2 of the 4 are underclassmen.  As I've said their offense is one of the best in the conference, and they can score, but are they going to get enough against the tough defenses like RIC/USM/Western Dartmouth.  I like this team to make the semifinals though.
Dartmouth: Probably the biggest threat to unseat USM this year with the height to match them in the front court and the speed and quickness in the backcourt.  They have never been successful, so how will they handle the pressure of being a favorite.  Unless they totally go south their probably an NCAA team and probably an LEC final participant.

Conference grade: A+.  The only team that's really bad is Plymouth.  Eastern has a bad record, but they've been competitive in most of their games this year.  USM and Dartmouth are right where I thought they'd be.  Keene & RIC are exceeding expectations, Boston's playing very well, Western has dissapointed this year, but thats still a good team with a good 7-4 record, so can't be too dissapointed about that.
Number of NCAA teams: 2 (Dartmouth & USM) with the slight possibility of a 3rd if Boston keeps winning and things break right in other conferences.  Only reason I don't think it's going higher then 2 is because teams will start to beat each other up now that LEC play is mostly here in earnest, and Dartmouth and USM are the only 2 teams that can withstand that.  As for beating each other up, this is Western's schedule between January 19 and February 2: @ Boston, @  RIC, home vs. USM, home vs. New Paltz, home vs. Dartmouth.  That's brutal.  That's 4 of the top teams in the conference sandwiched between a very good New Paltz team out of the SUNYAC a team that's currently 9-0.  If Western can get through that stretch 3-2 they should be rewarded.

[bsc73]

I enjoy reading your posts 7 express and most of the time i find you are right on. I do, however have to disagree with you that Dartmouth and/or Boston have a chance for an NCAA berth. I feel the only way they would get in would be as an AQ. Besides USM, RIC would be the only school that would have a chance for an at large. Dartmouth and Boston's non conference is weak to say the least. The NCAA isn't going to take a team or teams that play Wheelock, Mt. Ida, Eastern Nazarene, Wheelock, Lyndon state etc. If you look at the at large births that have been given out in the past, they all go to the NESCAC schools and the LEC schools like ECONN, WCONN, RIC and USM. All those schools play much tougher schedules than Boston or Dartmouth. Last year UNE received an at large bid and their out of conference games included Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, USM etc. I'm not saying that Boston and Dartmouth aren't excellent teams, only that they need to beef up their OOC schedule.