Commonwealth Coast Conference

Started by Hoops Fan, March 01, 2005, 04:20:50 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)


If you haven't seen it already, ENC is leaving the conference for the NECC for the 2018-2019 season.
Lead Columnist for D3hoops.com
@ryanalanscott just about anywhere

D3ball1845

And the first post for the 2017-2018 CCC Season commences. This conference begins the season making some serious noise attempting to keep pace with last season's surprising 2 bids to the NCAA tournament.

First off, congrats to an Endicott team who lost their entire starting five to graduation at the end of last season for beating defending national champs, Babson, in the second game of the season. Big props to sophomore Keith Brown, leading the nation in scoring after 2 games (41 ppg) and winning National Player of the Week. Tough game tonight against a very good Middlebury team where he was essentially shut down going 5-13 from the field with 5 TOs. An emerging question at the beginning of the season is does all that it takes for a team to beat Endicott is shut down Keith Brown? We will certainly see as the Gulls take on the frontrunner of the conference, Nichols, this Wednesday. My prediction, it's going to be a shoot out that Endicott can't keep up in and Nichols gets the win by 10+ points.

Next up, I'd like to discuss the team I think will win the CCC this year, Roger Williams University, who are off to a 5-0 start in non-conference play. They already have racked up two wins against the NEWMAC and one against the NESCAC, including a very convincing win over Connecticut College earlier today. The team is led by junior swingman Austin Coene who is averaging 22.5 ppg and 8 rpg along with a very impressive backcourt in playmaker Nick Marini (13 ppg and 5 apg) and a JJ Redick esque sharp shooter in Rich Pugliese (3 3pfg mpg, 50% 3pfg). Rounding out the starting lineup are two hungry and aggressive senior captains in Conor O'Brien and Jaylen Jennings. While there have been opportunities for some of the freshmen to play minutes off the bench, a worrisome stat is the bench overall is scoring less than 15% of the ppg for the team. While this may not affect them at the beginning of the season, down the road this could cause some trouble come conference tournament time if the starters are required to play big minutes throughout the entire season. Additionally, while RWU is a defensive minded team they have never excelled in rebounding the ball...I can see this being their Achilles heel in games against teams like Nichols or Gordon who average almost 10 rebounds more than RWU a game. In any case, I expect to see RWU, Nichols, and Gordon in the top 3 spots of the conference at the end of the regular season.

That being said, I expect to see Curry, UNE, and Salve Regina at the bottom of the barrel in the CCC come the end of the season. Although, I will admit it has been intriguing to hear about and see the Grinnell system implemented by UNE. While their record hasn't indicated the system is working out in the win loss column, they are certainly dictating the pace of the game and almost beat Bates tonight, an okay NESCAC team. This system has certainly had people talking in the Northeast and I can actually see them get a few surprising CCC wins this year with their high pressure, pedal to the medal, 50+ 3pfgs a game. I am particularly interested in seeing them play RWU this upcoming Saturday. RWU plays at a slow pace and likes to run a half court offense. It will be interesting to see the two styles of play clash as I could see this being a very close game or a complete blowout in favor of RWU.

This has certainly been an exciting start to the beginning of the year for the CCC and I expect that the this conference will continue to make noise and turn heads in the Northeast this year. We can only hope that we have another 2 team bid coming for the NCAA tournament!





D3ball1845

And the opening night of CCC conference play begins with some very interesting matchups! I will be making predictions on the 3 of the top games, in my opinion, that can be seen below:

Roger Williams (RWU) @ Western New England (WNE), 5:30 PM:

This matchup features two of the prolific scorers in the conference, Coene (RWU) and Pettway (WNE). The last time the two played at the conclusion of last season, Coene dropped a career high 38 points and 12 rebounds. Expect the two dominant players to battle all night in this one. It will be interesting to see if there is some tension in this game as the last time these two teams met both Coene and Pettway received technical fouls. The undefeated RWU squad has been playing very well this year and I expect this trend to continue against a young and inexperienced WNE team. Of note, Coene, a junior, could hit the coveted 1000 career point mark tonight, as this will be something to keep an eye out for. Prediction: RWU 85 WNE 70

Gordon @ University of New England (UNE), 7:30 PM

While I don't expect this to be one of the closest matchups in the opening night of conference play, it is a very intriguing one! Gordon plays with a very controlled and strict style which highly contrasts to UNEs newly implemented Grinnell System. While UNE has certainly dictated the pace of play this season, it has not resulted in wins as they currently sit at 1-4. I can see Gordon's top player, Duvivier, easily obtaining a double-double tonight and would not be surprised to see a 20-20 game from him. Additionally, expect Gordon player Demers, a versatile scorer, to excel in this one. It is difficult to predict who will produce for the UNE squad as not a single player averages over 20 mpg given the full-squad substitutions every 4-5 minutes of play. Prediction: Gordon 105 UNE 88

Endicott @ Nichols, 7:30 PM:

This is by far the biggest game of the night in the conference. Both of these teams have made noise nationally in the past few seasons, both appearing in the NCAA tournament last year. However, Endicott has essentially lost all their experience and scoring from last year as the entire starting five graduated at the end of the season. On the other hand, Nichols returns a veteran squad that has one of the most talented backcourts in all of Division 3, in players Echevarria, Bruton, and Dion. Also, be on double-double alert for Nichols' forward Cunningham in this one. While Endicott lacks experience they have already proved to be a tough team with a win over last years national champion, Babson, and a tough loss to a very good Middlebury team. Do not expect them to be a pushover in tonight's game. The real question is are we going to see a big game out of Endicott's sophomore phenom, Keith Brown, who is currently averaging 33 ppg. I'm not convinced Nichols, and offensively minded team, has anyone that can guard Brown effectively. However, I predict Nichols guards and homecourt advantage will just be too much for this young Endicott squad. Prediction: Nichols 88 Endicott 79

Greek Tragedy

I noticed U of NE's boxscores and I was going to ask if they went System. Entertaining stuff, especially for us fantasy league players!
Pointers
Breed of a Champion
2004, 2005, 2010 and 2015 National Champions

Fantasy Leagues Commissioner

TGHIJGSTO!!!

deiscanton

Quote from: Greek Tragedy on November 30, 2017, 09:17:53 AM
I noticed U of NE's boxscores and I was going to ask if they went System. Entertaining stuff, especially for us fantasy league players!

It certainly looks like UNE men went System based on the boxscores and play by play sheets, and I count them as such.

Greek Tragedy

Based on the boxscores, their forced turnovers need to go up considerably.
Pointers
Breed of a Champion
2004, 2005, 2010 and 2015 National Champions

Fantasy Leagues Commissioner

TGHIJGSTO!!!

D3ball1845

I knew that UNEs new style of play was going to be an interesting matchup with Gordon and they ended up coming out with the win at home. What puzzled me is that UNE continued to utilize the Grinnell system up 25+ points with ten minutes remaining in the second half. You'd think at that point you could turn to a half court offense for the remainder of the game, get some solid possessions, and play solid defense. This was not the case and Gordon actually came back to within two points behind with a minute remaining. While I predicted that Demers would have a big scoring night and that Duvivier would  come close to a 20-20 game I was not able to predict the upset win for UNE.

It will be very interesting to see UNE play at home against RWU this Saturday. I will be at that game and am excited to witness the Grinnell system in person. I will have predictions for that game along with two other conference games tomorrow.

The rematch for the conference championship between Nichols and Endicott didn't turn out to be much of a game at all. The duo in the backcourt for Nichols, Bruton and Echevarria, scored 30 and 21, respectively. Keith Brown struggled for the second game in a row and I am beginning to question if all it takes to beat Endicott this year is to shut down their sophomore phenom. They clearly need to find some offense elsewhere on the team or this could be a tough year for them in conference. Then again, Nichols is arguably the best team in the conference and could be ranked nationally in the next few weeks so I shouldn't be giving Endicott that hard of a time with their 2-2 record against the competition they've faced thus far.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)


The System is all based on math, so the traditional thinking is that you have to keep it going no matter what.  Dave Arseneault Sr really focused on instilling a way of playing - he worked tirelessly to get "other" kinds of basketball out of his players' minds.  If Silva is really selling out to the System, he's going to make sure the player don't learn "bad" habits by playing "regular" basketball.  I'd be surprised, though, if he's doing it wholesale - there were a lot of elements of this style in what they were already doing.  It seems like his experience would allow him to tweak it in ways that are beneficial to the team, but maybe they're just working to get it implemented right now.
Lead Columnist for D3hoops.com
@ryanalanscott just about anywhere

Greek Tragedy

Yeah, they play the system the whole game. I have no doubt there have been times when Grinnell was down 25 midway through the 2nd half and came back to win.

For entertainment purposes, it really is fun to watch, especially if U of NE has some good shooters on the team. If their system is anything like Grinnell's, youll still be scratching your head after the game wondering why they are passing up open layups for 3s.
Pointers
Breed of a Champion
2004, 2005, 2010 and 2015 National Champions

Fantasy Leagues Commissioner

TGHIJGSTO!!!

D3ball1845

I was laughing to myself when Greek Tragedy made that fantasy player comment when anyone plays UNE. As you'll see in my upcoming post, I can almost guarantee a dominant game by RWUs Austin Coene and Nick Marini against UNE on Saturday. And maybe I wasn't clear but it was the exact opposite, UNE was actually up 25 points against Gordon with ten minutes, not down. That is why I was inquiring about the possibility of teams that run this type of system returning to a normal style of play if they are up big in the second half. Based on the team stats, they are shooting a dismal 30% from three point range with an average of 61 attempts per game, ranked 3rd to last percentage wise in the CCC.

Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)


1) He's not joking about fantasy - check out the Fantasy Board in Multi-Region.

2) There's a huge growing pains period putting in the System.  It took Rhodes until about February before they really got it last year.  You just have to get the reps in and hopefully you've got the shooters to get it done.
Lead Columnist for D3hoops.com
@ryanalanscott just about anywhere

D3ball1845

Missed the predictions for the Saturday in conference 5 game slate. No real surprising results from this weekend except maybe the road win for Salve Regina over WNE. I did expect Salve's Rodney Morton to produce more points for the team with the departure of Nicholas Bates. Additionally, I have been impressed with WNEs freshman center, Zach Tavitian, who is an early candidate for CCC rookie of the year. RWU handled the newly implemented Grinnell system of UNE with ease and held them to a season low 76 points. Congratulations to RWU swingman, Austin Coene, who surpassed the 1000 point milestone early in his junior season. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up becoming the all-time leading scorer at RWU by the end of his career. He is putting up stellar numbers this season at 23 ppg with 9 rbpg and I think is a dark horse for an All-American this season. In the other games, Endicott handled Curry with ease...it's disappointing to see such good competition throughout most of the league and then have teams such as Curry who essentially ruin the SOS of the stronger teams in the CCC. Wentworth handled ENC at home and continues to be a defensive stalwart as they are only allowing 60.2 ppg, leading the category in the CCC by more than 7 points. I will focus on predictions for three of the in-conference matchups tomorrow in a separate post.

D3ball1845

The second week of in-conference play begins in the CCC tomorrow. Thus far, the only surprising conference record is that of 0-2 Gordon who was predicted to finish second in the preseason poll. There are three games that interest me tomorrow and predictions can be seen below:

University of New England (UNE, 2-5, 1-1) @ Endicott (3-2, 1-1), 5:30 PM:
UNE visits Endicott in this matchup where we will again get to see the Grinnell System of the former team. Thus far, the system has worked against one superior in-conference opponent, Gordon. This is going to be a very interesting matchup as it will be a test for Endicott's youth. While we know they have a phenomenal scorer in sophomore, Keith Brown, I am concerned that Endicott may have difficulty finding other sources of scoring in what is likely going to be a high scoring game. Additionally, Endicott has an average rebound margin of -7 per game and this game features a team that shoots 60+ 3s a game which results in more rebound opportunities. Keith Brown certainly could be in for another 35+ point game in this one. Hohwever, he will need all the help he can get and I expect the likes of Jordan Pettway, Rob O'Brien, and Nick Thibeault to help share the scoring load. Unless UNE has a hot shooting night like they did against Gordon I do not see them coming away with a win at the nest.
Prediction: Endicott 109 UNE 96

Salve Regina (4-2, 2-0) @ Wentworth (4-2, 2-0), 7:30 PM:
This game features two teams that give up the least points per game in the conference and have undefeated conference records. Expect a defensive battle to ensue in this one as I predict the winner will barely eclipse 70 points. This game will come down to who can control the boards and hit clutch shots. Wentworth has a very good frontcourt in Ganley and Azums and I can see both going for double doubles in this one. If WITs 1-3-1 zone proves effective against Salve's backcourt of Morton and Kelly we will see them come out with a win at home. If Morton finds a way to get hot in this game we could see this one come down to the last possession.
Prediction: Wentworth 71 Salve Regina 65

Nichols (5-1, 2-0) @ Roger Williams (RWU, 7-0, 2-0), 7:30 PM:
This is the game of the week in the CCC as the top two teams of the conference faceoff at RWU. Of note, Nichols is 4-0 against RWU in the past two years. RWU is going to have to prove themselves in this one to be considered legit contenders for the conference title this season. The key in this game for RWU is controlling one of the nation's best backcourts and hitting/defending the 3 ball. Echevarria has had less than a stellar season thus far and it would be unfortunate for RWU for him to have his first breakout game against them. Roger Williams leads the CCC defensively against the 3 only allowing 23.9% attempts in from deep. On the other side of the ball, RWU is shooting 41% from 3-point range. For them to beat Nichols, Austin Coene will need a 25-10 night and sharpshooter Rich Pugliese will need to hit at least 4 treys. If they can also contain Nichols one dominant forward, Cunningham, they should be able to pull their first win off against Nichols in over two seasons. However, if the four guards from Nichols who all average over 10 ppg have their way this could be another 10+ point win for Nichols.
Prediction: Roger William 87 Nichols 83





D3ball1845

I was pretty accurate with my first two predictions of last nights conference games. Endicott proved it could handle the "system" of UNE and won in an essential blowout. Maybe Endicott players Keith Brown and Matt McDevitt, who shot a combined 13-19 from 3 point range, should transfer to UNE as both would thrive in the Grinnell System with the stats they put up this game. Freshman McDevitt was very impressive dropping an efficient 31 points (11-14 shooting) in just 26 minutes. Also, Jordan Pettway (Little brother of WNEs Mike Pettway??) putting up an impressive 6 pts-8rb-6asts in just 17 minutes. While the "system" has not proven to be effective for UNE in their last two conference games I can see it thriving against teams like Salve and Wentworth, both of whom prefer low scoring, defensive games.

Speaking of those two teams, I predicted this contest between Salve and Wentworth very accurately. The game went down to the last minute in regulation and Salve's best player, Rodney Morton, had two chances to win it in the final minute but missed both shots. I'm honestly surprised that Salve was able to keep up in this one as Morton shot a dismal 3-18 from the field, likely taking out his frustration on the defensive end as he fouled out in OT. WITs Jason Ganley had a field day (13-20 FGM-A, 9-15 FTM-A) against the Gulls, dropping 37 points in the win. Wentworth held a 47-38 rebounding advantage and shot almost 20% better than Salve from the field.

In the final game between RWU and Nichols, a matchup of the two best teams in the conference, Nichols was able to pull off the victory 91-79. I was personally at this game and really felt strong about RWU coming out with a victory. It was a big time opportunity for RWU to prove themselves against a Nichols team that's getting votes in the Top 25 poll of the country, but they simply did not show up. What I am trying to say is that this was a game that RWU was easily capable of winning. As I predicted, to win they needed to control Nichol's backcourt and the deep ball. Echevarria had his first good shooting night of the season, dropping 25 points (7-14 3PM-A), finally demonstrating why he was CCC POY in 2016-2017. He also may be the the fastest player in the league, as it was amazing to see his elusiveness in the final two minutes of the game when RWU pressed full court. While RWU actually did a decent job against Nichols other two guards, Bruton and Dion (21 points combined), they lost this game because of turnovers and giving up second chance opportunities.

I cannot recall the last time I saw a team being called for so many travels, as RWU may have been called for at least 6 of them in the first half. I'm not positive if it was the jitters of being in a big game but they looked truly lost on some of their offensive possessions in this one. Additionally, Nichols' Antoine simply couldn't miss in the first half, going 5-5 from 3 point range, where at least 3 of them were uncontested treys in the corner. Nichols was able to turn RWUs turnovers into 28 points, many being wide open transition 3s. RWU could not defend the high pick and roll or handoffs that Nichols utilizes in their offense which often translated to open 3s or open layups for their big, Cunningham. As you can see, the recurring theme of the night was open 3 point attempts for Nichols. Nichols shut down sharpshooter RWUs Pugliese (2-6 3PM-A) and really only was weak against the driving abilities of RWUs Marini and Coene, who scored 17 and 21, respectively, as they were outscored 42-22 in the paint.

It seemed every time RWU made a run and cut the deficit back to single digits Nichols would respond with a 3. While RWU shot a better field goal percentage for the game they only went 5-18 3PM-A versus Nichols, who went 17-34 3PM-A. If RWU can figure out how to compose themselves on the offensive end and stop playing help defense on the Nichols guards resulting in wide open 3s we will see a very competitive game when they face each other the second time around.

D3ball1845

Five non-conference games for the CCC tonight. Thus far, the conference has shown great improvement in non-conference play compared to last year, as they are currently 22-18 versus 18-22 last year. The five games tonight are listed below and the bolded team is the one I predict will come out victorious. Regardless of my predictions, I'm hoping the conference can come out 5-0 on the night! Keep it up CCC!!

Roger Williams @ uMass Dartmouth, 7:00 PM
Connecticut College @ Western New England, 7:00 PM
Nichols @ Becker, 7:00 PM
Wentworth @ Emmanuel, 7:30 PM
Dean College @ Eastern Nazarene, 7:30 PM