WBB: Little East

Started by Allen M. Karon, March 09, 2004, 03:53:08 PM

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7express

Quote from: SidelineHero on February 26, 2018, 05:35:11 PM
Absolute bull spit that MassD does not make the tourney!?  This reeks of favoritism.  How does a team that made the elite eight last year, which bettered themselves this year get left out?!!!!!!!! Shameful and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Last year's record, last year's elite 8 run has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on this year's team.  Does it suck??  Absolutely if you are a Dartmouth player or fan, especially a senior, but this team did it to themselves.  They swept every team in the league.  Beat the team they were playing in the finals by 30 points at home in the regular season, and by 15 on the road.  They didn't have to worry about whether or not they would get a pool C selection, and the team just blew it.  Simple as that.

7express

AFAIK Roger Williams actually beat Dartmouth during the season, so that seems to be grasping at straws.  I don't think head-to-head is an "official" criteria (Dave or someone else correct me if I'm wrong here), but I'm pretty sure its a part of the secondary criteria they use to select teams.  RWU was ahead of Dartmouth in the regional rankings the previous week, maybe because of the head-to-head, maybe because of something else, maybe a combination of things, but it would have seemed unlikely if both lost in the conference tournament that Dartmouth would have jumped, and that looks to be the case.  Obviously, I don't know the exact order they were picked, but Tufts got 1 bid out of New England (my guess would be the 1st), Bowdoin got the second bid, likely 1 right after the other, and than Roger Williams was next in line at the table, and than either 1 of 2 things happened since Dartmouth should have been right after Mr. Roger Williams.

1) RWU got picked so late in the selection process there wasn't enough rounds left to evaluate Dartmouth vs. the other Pool C contenders from the other 6 or 7 regions.
2) Dartmouth was on the table for a good length of time, but their numbers never quite stacked up to the other contenders, hence why NE never got a 3rd team in the field.

If I had to guess, since I don't know what the official order of pool C selections was, but I'm guessing it was more the former than the latter which RWU selected about rounds 17-19, and by that point there are only a handful of teams left to be selected.

deiscanton

#1082
Results in d3 "Head to head" are definitely one of the five primary selection criteria used to rank and select teams.

UMass-Dartmouth got a tough beat.  Why did the Ivy League hold on for so-long to their belief that the regular season champion should get the AQ (with a 1 game playoff at a neutral site if there are co-champions) instead of having a conference tournament?  There is a case to be made that regular season conference performance (especially going undefeated in regular season conference play) makes a team more deserving of a bid in a 1 bid league than having a team get some good breaks in a 1 week tournament and earning the AQ that way.

However, most of d3 adopted the belief that the conference tournaments are the fairest way to determine AQs-- primarily due to the situation that the d3 presidents and chancellors do not have the finances or are not willing to have athletic teams sacrifice academic class time for a national secondary postseason tournament (d3 philosophy of emphasizing the "student" in student- athlete something to do with it?).

deiscanton

Here is some honorable mention recognition from the outside polls:

1.). UMass-Dartmouth did receive some votes in the d3hoops.com Top 25 this week.

2.). Noontime Sports Top 10 DIII New England teams (just a regional top 10 outside poll-- similar to the top 25 national poll) for Feb. 26, 2018--

1.). Amherst
2.). Tufts
3.). Bowdoin
4.). St. Joe's Maine
5.). U New England
6.). MIT
7.). UMass-Dartmouth
8.) UMass-Boston

9.) Roger Williams
10.) WPI

On the rise:  Husson, Smith, Wesleyan, Westfield State

Source:  noontimesports.com

amh63

7Express....will support your judgement wrt UMass-Dart.  However, they may have been in the same path as UMass-Boston...where Amherst awaits.  Have a classmate that started his career in higher ed. as the Prez of UMass- Boston.

AllStar

St. Joseph's (ME) overcame a 38-25 halftime deficit and defeated UMass-Boston 61-56 at Amherst's LeFrak Gymnasium tonight in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.  With the Beacons' loss, the Little East women's season comes to an end as they were the only team playing in the postseason.

amh63

Watched the first half of the early game in LeFrak...dinner awaited.  Did not see the comeback by the players from Maine.  Was more concerned with the UMass- Boston team wrt the size.
Amherst won big last night in spite of playing everyone and slowing the game down.  Opponent only scored 3 points in the 2nd half and 12 for the entire game.  Amherst is the top defensive team in the nation.  Should be a better matchup tonight.

SidelineHero

So far the LEC is 14-2 against out of conference opponents! Let's keep the momentum going.


Does anyone know what happened to Curley from USM?  She didn't play last night against UNE. However, USM looked real good even without her.

7express

Quote from: SidelineHero on November 15, 2018, 08:25:59 AM
So far the LEC is 14-2 against out of conference opponents! Let's keep the momentum going.


Does anyone know what happened to Curley from USM?  She didn't play last night against UNE. However, USM looked real good even without her.

If she's still on the USM roster she probably just got hurt, if she's not it's probably academic related.

As to who they've played it really hasn't been much of a schedule.  Western opened the season with a 17 point loss at home to Stevens.  The Ducks are pretty good, so no problem losing that, but would've liked to see that be a little closer at least, and than won by 40 over a Purchase team that is horrible.  Castleton, Plymouth, & USM haven't played anyone of note.  Keene lost to Westfield and Maine-Maritime.  Not sure how good the Maritime is, but they play in a conference probably worse than the LEC (they are in Castleton's old conference I believe).  The 2 best wins are USM over UNE and Dartmouth over Bridgewater.  Good start yes, but let's see how they stack up against the power teams: Eastern hasn't played yet their first game is tomorrow against a Roger Williams team that made the NCAA's last year and added a couple impact freshmen, and than play Amherst & Williams next week, and also before the month ends the Owls will play Regis a great program the last 5 years plus, and USM gets a home game against St. Joseph's (ME) a team that ended last regular season on like a 23 game winning streak.

SidelineHero

Quote from: 7express on November 15, 2018, 07:21:35 PM
Quote from: SidelineHero on November 15, 2018, 08:25:59 AM
So far the LEC is 14-2 against out of conference opponents! Let's keep the momentum going.


Does anyone know what happened to Curley from USM?  She didn't play last night against UNE. However, USM looked real good even without her.

If she's still on the USM roster she probably just got hurt, if she's not it's probably academic related.

As to who they've played it really hasn't been much of a schedule.  Western opened the season with a 17 point loss at home to Stevens.  The Ducks are pretty good, so no problem losing that, but would've liked to see that be a little closer at least, and than won by 40 over a Purchase team that is horrible.  Castleton, Plymouth, & USM haven't played anyone of note.  Keene lost to Westfield and Maine-Maritime.  Not sure how good the Maritime is, but they play in a conference probably worse than the LEC (they are in Castleton's old conference I believe).  The 2 best wins are USM over UNE and Dartmouth over Bridgewater.  Good start yes, but let's see how they stack up against the power teams: Eastern hasn't played yet their first game is tomorrow against a Roger Williams team that made the NCAA's last year and added a couple impact freshmen, and than play Amherst & Williams next week, and also before the month ends the Owls will play Regis a great program the last 5 years plus, and USM gets a home game against St. Joseph's (ME) a team that ended last regular season on like a 23 game winning streak.

Curley is still listed on the roster.  The Huskies' win over UNE was definitely a quality victory.  They led start to finish. Their game vs. St. Joseph's is an intriguing one.  If E. Conn is competitive in either the Amherst or Williams game then it looks good for the depth of quality teams in the LEC this year.  UMB did not look that great against Coast Guard but Coach Baugh always does a good job of coaching her team up as the season progresses.  RIC continues to improve.  Their coach has things turned around and going in a good direction quickly. You are right, Plymouth hasn't played anyone yet but they have won the games on their schedule so far, something they have struggled with in the past. If you were to ask my opinion on W. Conn, I would tell you they are going in the wrong direction. 

I am excited for the weekend.  We will know more on Monday.

7express

It's nice there's actually some noise on this board besides me, AllStar & Alumn occasionally so welcome aboard!

I'm not sure about Western.  I knew they employed some of the "Grinell" offense tendacies last year but weren't all in on it.  Through 2 games it's tough to see if coach Rybyczk is going back to it or not.
Plymouth won those games last year too and got killed once conference play started, I've said this for seemingly 6 years but they seem a couple years away.
Same with RIC, though I love the coach and she has a couple good assistants that were league players for the RIC in Vandell Andrade and Alex Moore.
Keene I'm not sure but they should be better than they were last year.
I don't have a clue either about the newbie Castleton State.  They've dominated their conference, but as mentioned last night that conference was pretty bad so I doubt they'll be quite as dominant.  Plus, the conference schedule will be completely different.  Their old conference (the NAC) most of the teams were in Southern to Central Maine, Vermont & New Hampshire, so even if you were an outlier for a conference like Castleton was (outside of Rutland, VT), the travel wasn't that terrible.  In the LEC outside of Keene, Plymouth, and USM the rest of their trips might be further than any trip they took in the NAC.  Plus, in the NAC they played back-to-back Friday and Saturday's and now will be doing a Wednesday-Saturday schedule.  I don't think they'll be as bad as the conference picked them preseason (I think 7th or 8th) but I also don't see them finishing higher than 3rd.
Boston should still be a player, but once again for the billionth year in a row they have NOBODY on their OOC schedule, so once again when they get out to a 20-4 record and aren't even receiving votes for the top 25 or ranked in the regional rankings don't be surprised, and once again will likely need to win the auto bid to get into the tournament even if they finish with 20+ wins.  Even at 22-3 in the regular season last year that Boston team is NOT going to the tournament if they end up losing to Dartmouth.  And with the graduation/transfer losses the Beacons had they aren't going to be nearly as good as they were last year.
USM had a rough couple year transition stretches in between the Erin McNamera & Rebecca Knight years but seemed to have found a gem in Curley and look to be on the rebound.
My preseason favorites come down to Dartmouth & Eastern.  Both have good coaches in Matt Ducharne and Denise Bierly so those cancel out.  Dartmouth has the best player between the 2 (Examond), Eastern probably has more depth than the Corsairs, but most of them are freshmen.  I'll give Dartmouth the edge because they have been the more consistent team the last couple of years....they've shed the choking dog moniker that they had with Erika Borneman, Colleen Moriarty and Kelsey Garrity teams earlier this decade but through no fault of their own.
BTW, with the addition of Castleton any idea how the conference is going to make the playoffs??  Stay with the top 8 and only the bottom team misses??  Give the top 7 a bye to the quarters and have 8 & 9 play a play-in game??  Give the top 5 a bye and have 6 play 9 and 7 play 8??  Go back to the top 6 only they used prior to I think 13 or 14??  Other??  I think giving the top 5 the bye and having 6 play 9 and 7 play 8 seems like the best way to go.

Here's my predicted order of finish:
1) Dartmouth
2) Eastern
3) USM
4) Boston
5) Castleton
6) Western
7) Keene
8) RIC
9) Plymouth

Player of the year:
Nakira Examond- Dartmouth

All LEC team:
Examond-Dartmouth
Joie Grassi- Boston
Kristen Curley- USM
Brooke Raiche- Castleton
Mya Villard- Eastern
Ornela Livramento- RIC

Rookie of the year:
Julie Keckler- Eastern

ronk

 I remember Joie Grassi from AAU ball a few years ago. Scranton could play Boston on the 2nd day of the WPI New Years tourney.

AllStar

QuoteBTW, with the addition of Castleton any idea how the conference is going to make the playoffs??  Stay with the top 8 and only the bottom team misses??  Give the top 7 a bye to the quarters and have 8 & 9 play a play-in game??  Give the top 5 a bye and have 6 play 9 and 7 play 8??  Go back to the top 6 only they used prior to I think 13 or 14??  Other??  I think giving the top 5 the bye and having 6 play 9 and 7 play 8 seems like the best way to go.

Hi, 7.  The conference has gone to a 6-team tournament format for several sports now, including both basketballs and soccers.  The 1 and 2 seeds will get byes (with 1 hosting the semifinals and finals).  3 will host 6 and 4 will host 5 in the first round, with the 3/6 winner playing 2 and the 4/5 winner playing 1.  Baseball is still the same double-elimination, 6 team format.

7express

May actually make the regular season worth watching now AllStar.
And Grassi was a great player for Boston last year Ronk and I only look for her to improve even more.

amh63

#1094
Just checked the Amherst schedule....seems there will be a game this Tuesday worth watching.  Believe Amherst will meet ECSU in LeFrak.  Amherst's first two games were blowouts in spite of inserting five FYs throughout the games.
Hope the Lady Warriors are as good as 7 predicts.