Little East

[7express]

Saw the Western Paterson scrimmage yesterday.  Not pretty, but it was only an exhibition game.  Once again like last year this will be a 3 point or bust team; can't make them we don't win.  Didn't do so well against Paterson who had equal or greater size to Carolina Brasa, Chelsea Mone, & Melissa DiNino which doesn't mode well for Dartmouth or USM. 
Still don't have a point guard either.  Nicole Eanniello started the game there along with Sciarra Brandt, Carly Murphy, Jackie Zilnicki and a freshmen (don't know the name yet).  I'd rather have Eanniello on the off guard spot, but none of the other 4 that started can play the point either.
Melissa Delzio (a freshman) backed up Nic and played pretty well..............................excep t she went like 1-6 from the free throw line.    Your PG can't miss that many free throws, but aside from that she really played well, wouldn't mind her having the start next Thursday.
Lydia Walter (another freshmen) was the backup for Delzio.  Didn't see much of her in the game (maybe like 3 or 4 minutes tops) but she handeled the ball well and ran the offense.
Speaking of people that didn't play much, Caroline Brasa & Carly Murphy, the 2 best off of last year's team saw a whole lot of the bench and not much of the court.  Hopefully it was just giving the freshman a look and not injury related for either of them, but Murph played less then 5 minutes the whole second half.
For the rest of the team about the same as last year: Hopefully Amber Litwinko can have a productive whole season instead of only half a season.  Chelsea Monet & Caroline Brasa, 5"10 & 5"9 respectively still would rather shoot from the perimeter then shoot from the paint.  Melissa DiNino is still a work in progress on the offensive end, but is probably the team's best post defensive player.  Can't say much about Sciarra Brandt she took like 2 shots.  Brittnany Brandt in limited action played well.  Jackie Zilnicki will be the hustle player: doesn't score a lot of points, but not afraid to get on the floor, and get her hands in there to deflect & intercept passes.  Anytime she tried to take the ball up the court however, she took it out.
How'd I make the lineup Thursday:
Marisa Delzio
Nicole Eanniello
Carly Murphy
Jackie Zilnicki
Sciarra Brandt

[7express]

Liz Stitch new coach @ Plymouth:
http://littleeast.com/sports/wbkb/2011-12/releases/20120712-wbkb-psu-stich

Living a few minutes up the street from Sacred Heart University, I've seen Stitch a few times with the Blue Devils.  Played under a great coach @ Hartford (Jen Rizzoti) and @ Central they had their best 4 year season in quite some time.  I think she'll do quite well up there @ Plymouth.

[7express]

Western roster up:
http://wcsuathletics.com/sports/wbkb/2012-13/roster

Surprised that Sciarra Brandt is one of the captains this year.

[7express]

LEC preseason poll:
http://littleeast.com/sports/wbkb/2012-13/news/20121113-wbkb-preseasonpoll

How is RIC picked 3rd?!?!?  They have virtually no one left from last years team.  And I like how Dartmouth gets pegged 4th, but they get the final first place vote.

[7express]

Now officially 48 hours until the season gets underway, seems like a good time for predictions:

The lone women's game Thursday has Oneonta state @ Western Connecticut.

Oneonta has 3 starters coming back from a team that went 19-9 (14-4 in the SUNYAC) a year ago and upset league champ Buffalo state (25-3, 16-2) in the SUNYAC championship game last year to advance to the NCAA tournament.  However, their leading returning scorer is Kristin Pappalardo who only averaged 6.8 ppg last season.  Pappalardo is also their leading returning rebounder, and leading 3 point shooter (both in number of makes and attempts).  Other red Devils to keep an eye out for are: Grace Schilling who is the second returning leader in assists and shot the ball at a 42.7% clip from the floor last season, Alyshia Crawford who was 31.1% from 3 last season, Kelly Mulligan who's 66 assissts lead the team and Kate Wilverding who was 13 of 49 from 3 last season.  Last season they outscored opponents by 5.4 PPG, and you don't not want to get into a free throw contest against them: they shot 70.3% from the line while their opponents only shot 67.1% and the Red Devils had 10 players that finished the season with a free throw percentage of 65% or higher.  Last seasons meeting in Oneonta saw Western scored 33 of 60 points from behind the arc and more then half of their field goals were three's (20 field goals; 9 two's, 11 3's) in a 2 point Western win.    The real winner of this game is me because it'll only take me like 40 minutes to get to the game instead of 40 hours like it did last year.  But I'm going with Oneonta 54 @ Western 60.

[ECSUalum]

SID Bob Molta's interview with Coach Denise Bierly, on this years squad/recuits, and the difficulties of the 2011/12 "lost" year!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFq2pm2wRZA&feature=plcp

[7express]

Western finishes a dreadful 55-40 win over Oneonta.
its a win, and a win over an NCAA tournament team from last season, but that was ugly basketball.  We had 55 points, but 28 at halftime and only 41 at the 4:35 mark, and its never good when you score more points the final 4:35 (14) then you did the first 15:25 of the half (13).  If Oneonta doesn't foul late down 13 we probably only end up with around 49 or 50.  The 3 big keys of the game which resulted in the Western win: Oneonta was 7-17 from the free throw line including starting the game 0-8.  They didn't hit their first free throw until there were 12:06 left in the game, while Western only took 8 free throws (mainly because they took 21 three pointers) but they made 6 of those 8.   Western had 14 points off of 19 Oneonta turnovers while Oneonta converted 19 Western turnovers into just 4 points.   Finally, the Western bench outscored the Oneonta bench 20-6.  Not pretty and we still have a lot of work to do, but we hit over 30% from 3 (33.3%), that'll be our benchmark and got a win over a 2012 NCAA tournament team.  I just don't know why shoot so many outside shots were gonna become 1 dimensional as the season wears out.  6 of our 13 players listed on the roster are 5"10 or taller so we probably have one of the tallest teams in the league, lets start to work the ball inside more.

[7express]

Friday schedule:
River 47 @ Dartmouth 67.
Colleen Moriarty and Erika Bordeman should have a field day as Rivier only has 2 players that are 5"10 or taller.
Southern Maine 88 vs. Maine-Farmington 42 (@ Dartmouth). 
The second game of the Dartmouth classic.  Rivier plays USM & Farmington plays Dartmouth Saturday.  I'm interested to see how D-1 transfer Rebecca Knight does for the Huskies.
York 37 @ Keene 60.
York finished 3-22 last season, and needed to use their gym as evacuees for hurricane Sandy.  The 3 other teams in this tournament; Mount Holyoke, York & Mount Ida, combined to go 24-51 last season, so even short handed and young, Keene should still be favored to win their tournament for the 15th straight year and 16 times in the 17 years they've had it.
Eastern Nazarene 65 @ Plymouth 52.
No Colleen O'Hara OR Kellie Walsh this year for the Panthers, so maybe they can go 1-13 for the 3rd straight season.  Liz Strich saw the largest turnaround at the D-1 level with the 07-08 Blue Devils finishing with 4 wins and the next year them finishing with 19, so there is hope on the horizon for Plymouth, probably won't be this year.  Norwich vs. Elms is the second game of the tournament.
Bowdoin 65 vs. RIC 60 (@ Babson).
The battle of the 2 teams that lost a lot of scoring.  The Polar Bears graduate 4 starters and lose 38.5 ppg from last year while RIC also loses 4 starters, 2 all conference selections, the player of the year, their coach and 46.1 ppg.  Framingham state vs. Babson is the first game of this tournament.

[7express]

Dartmouth is up 66-60 with 9 seconds to go, so looks like they'll be 1-0.

[7express]

USM wins 73-45.  Nicole Garland had 18, Rebecca Knight had 7 points and lead the Huskies with 10 rebounds

[7express]

Sat schedule:

Mount Holyoke 47 @ Keene 80.
I don't think they'll win by 60 again like they did Friday, but they should win fairly comfortably.
Middlebury 62 @ Boston 68.
Plymouth failed their opening test against Eastern Nazarene....badly.  Mid finished 7-17 last year, 0-10 in the NESCAC and lost 7 of their 10 conference games by double figures.  Much like Plymouth, this game could decide how their season goes.  I have Boston finishing 4th in my preseason poll while the coaches have them finishing 7th, so this game could go a long way in deciding who's dart ends up closer.
Elms 67 @ Plymouth 52.
Both teams were blown out in the semi's: Plymouth at home by 29 to Eastern Nazarene, Elms by 25 on a neutral court.  However, Elms finished last year 20-9 while Plymouth has back to back 1-13 LEC seasons.
Southern Maine 88 vs. River 59 (@ Dartmouth).
Rivier suffered a 6 point defeat at Dartmouth, so is Dartmouth worse then advertised or is Rivier better then advertised?
Bates 56 vs. Western 58 (@ Salem state). 
Bates finished last year 11-13 their first losing season in the last 5 seasons, so they'll look to start the 12-12 season out right.  Western gets the slight advantage in having already played a game, but with how awful they looked Thursday it may not be much of an advantage.
RIC 62 @ Babson 72.
RIC had a great win vs. Bowdoin Friday, Babson isn't nearly as good as they've been in the past, but at home Babson should win, hopefully I'm wrong.
Simmons 45 @ Eastern 67.
Simmons finished 13-34 the last 2 seasons.  Keene didn't have much trouble against York, I think this is about the same.

[7express]

Western loses to Salem state 74-71 in the Salem tournament.  They didn't deserve to win that game or even be close in all honesty, but because Salem state couldn't get rebounds on the defensive end and couldn't hit free throws down the stretch, the Vikings left us with a chance to win, but then we gave it right back to Salem.
After a Nicole Eanniello runner tied the game at 71 with 10.6 seconds left, Salem state, without a timeout at its disposal, got trapped in the corner so it looked like either Western was gonna get a final shot off or go to overtime, but we bailed Salem out with a bad foul by Jackie Zilnicki (though she had a great game that was the only bad thing she did).  After 1 of 2 free throws gave Salem a 72-71 lead we threw the insuing inbounds pass out of bounds at midcourt.  Salem hit 2 free throws for the final margin with 9 tenths of a second left, and the desperation attempt was intercepted by the Vikings to end a dissapointing loss.  They have a big game Tuesday @ Mount St. Mary who split 2 games at Emerson college over the weekend.

[7express]

Tuesday schedule:

Trinity 56 @ Keene 63.
They've outscored their opponents 163-86 so far this year, but Trinity is a step up in competition from both York & Mount Holyoke.  Trinity is 1-1 losing by 4 to Springfield and beating Mitchell by 46.
Boston 54 @ Fitchburg state 63.
Boston has had 2 nice wins to start the season over Middlebury & Manhattanville, the latter of the 2 who will probably competete for its conference's regular season & tournament titles.  Fitchburg state, the last couple of seasons has started off great and collapsed down the stretch.  Last year they started 11-0 and 14-1 receiving votes in the top 25 poll before they ended the season losers of 8 of 10.  In 2010 they started 6-3, lost to Western in Florida by 37 and went in the tank after that dropping 10 of their last 15 games that season.
Bridgewater 56 @ RIC 62.
Bridgewater is 2-0 beating Maine-Maritime and by winning by 1 against a Colby who was great last year but lost a lot of points.  RIC is 1-1 against Bowdoin (win) and Babson (loss) 2 teams that also suffered greatly. 
Southern Maine 67 @ Bates 51.
Saw Bates in Salem lose a close one to Western (lost 69-62) and get blown out against MIT.  MIT scored on their first 7 or 8 possessions, never trailed and aside from a few points in the second half where they trimmed a 10 point halftime deficit down to 4, MIT was never really threatened.  They didn't shoot the ball very well in Salem and don't have a lot of height, even on the road I don't think USM has much trouble with them.
Worcester state 53 @ Dartmouth 62.
The Lancers are 1-1 suffering a 5 point loss to Clark and clubbing Becker (24 point win).  This is the first of 2 straight for the Lancers against LEC opponents as they play RIC Sunday and they only have 2 winning seasons in the last 6 years.
Western Connecticut 60 @ Mount St. Mary 59.
The last 3 meetings in this series have been decided by a combined 9 points, all MSM wins, so I guess were due for a win, especially if its close.  2 years ago in Newburgh we lost by 3 and last December in Danbury we lost by 2 on a Mocanau buzzer beater after we turned it over with a chance to win.  Taking out Steph Slonski since she graduated, the other 4 that started last December will probably be starters again tomorrow scored a combined 15 points in 77 minutes or 1 more then Caroline Brasa had in 20 minutes off the bench (14).
Plymouth 54 @ Castleton state 67.
Castleton state is 2-0 beating Regis & Westfield state both better teams then Plymouth has played so far (Eastern Nazarene & Elms) and Plymouth is only 1-1.
Eastern Connecticut 55 @ Emmanuel 67.
Emmanuel thrives against the LEC, 4-1 against the LEC over the last 3 seasons.  Much like the Western men, the Eastern women are still looking for an identity and will struggle in the early going. 

[7express]

Massey ratings: Not all games are calculated, and the number in parenthesis is the percentage Massey thinks that teams win by.  Obviously the higher the number, the more likely it is that team wins.  47%-53% is virtually a toss up.

RIC beating Bridgewater 68-59 (76%)
USM beating Bates 73-68 (64%).  Massey has both Bates games calculated, but neither of USM's 2 wins are calculated
MSM beating Western 59-56 (Western has a 45% winning percentage)
Keene beating Trinity 70-62 (73%).  Neither of Keene's 2 wins are calculated)
Dartmouth beating Worcester 62-58 (625).  Neither of Dartmouth's 2 wins are calculated
Fitchburg beating Dartmouth 68-63 (64% for Fitchburg).  Only 1 of Boston's 2 wins is calculated
Emmanuel beating Eastern 68-53 (90% for Emmanuel)
Castleton beating Plymouth 73-51 (96% for Castleton).  It's still early, and these rankings will change, but as of now Plymouth is only favored in 2 games the rest of the season: @ lasell on January 3 (51%), and home vs. Johnson state on January 31 (74%).

[7express]

Tuesday results:

Keene loses by 2 to Trinity 51-49.  Trinity got a layup as time expired to win.
Boston 70-67 over Fitchburg.  Middlebury, Manhattanville & Fitchburg state, not 3 great teams, but not 3 bad teams by any means and Boston has 3 wins.  Its still early, but I think the LEC coaches really sold them short picking them 7th.
RIC gets the sweep of Bridgewater, women win 63-54.
Colleen Hanscom, Michaela Cosby, Elisha Homich and Jenna Williamson 4/5's of Bridgewater's starting 5 combined to shoot 7-43 (16.3%).  The team shot just 30.6% (19-62).  Courtney Burns had 11 to lead RIC
Castleton rolls Plymouth 82-48.
After tying the game at 11 all, Castleton went on a 39-18 run between the first & second halves to blow the game open.
USM 68-54 over Bates.
It looks like McNamera is actually shooting this year.  Only scored 8 points, but shot the rock 10 times which seems like more then she had all of last season.  Nicole Garland lead them with 16 on 6-15 shooting.  Haley Jordan had a double double with 12 and 12.
Dartmouth 69-64 over Worcester state.
Erika Bornemann had a double double with 10 points and 11 boards, Colleen Moriarty poured in 15, but the star for the Corsairs was Kelsey Garrity.  Lead the team (and the game high tally) with 18 points, but contributed 6 assists and had 7 steals to also lead in both those departments.
Eastern loses to Emmanuel 65-47.
Shannon McCourt lead the way for Eastern which she will for most of the season: 17 points and 14 rebounds.  Fiona O'dwyer lead Emmanuel with 30 points and 16 boards and Jennifer Bujnowski also had a double-double for Emmanuel with 10 points and 12 boards
Western 55-43 win over MSM
Not there because I was at the guys game, so can only look at what the boxscore says but looks like the whole team shot horribly.  The team was 18-52, but if you take out Jackie Zilnicki who went 7-11 and finished with 20 points the team shot a dismal 26.8% (11-41).  The other 4 in the lineup with Jack (Chelsea Mone, Melissa DiNino, Carly Murphy & Nicole Eanniello) combined for 9 points.  Not sure what happened to Carly Murphy.  She only had 1 foul, but only played 16 minutes, missed both of her field goal attempts and finished with 0 points, hopefully she didn't get injured.

5-3 for the conference on the night.  Going into the Thanksgiving most impressed with Boston so far.  Conference race looks to be wide open, but USM looks to be a cut above the rest, however