MBB: Little East

[7express]

Sat predictions:

Keene 78-76
Western 88-63
Eastern 78-61

[AllStar]

Saturday results:

Western Connecticut hammered Western New England, 83-57.  The Colonials actually trailed 31-30 at halftime and by 4 with 18 minutes left, but certainly turned it on and ran away from there despite shooting just 38.5%.  WCSU improved to 8-1 with the win and the Golden Bears fell to 3-6 and 0-2 against the Little East.  Western placed five in double-figures, led by Tony Seldon's 17 points.  Philkwan Tate posted a double-double off the bench with 15 points and 12 rebounds.  Overall, the Colonials reserves outscored WNEU's bench 31-5.  Western Connecticut also dominated points off turnovers, 32-16 (WNEU had 24 turnovers).  Mike Gelineau scored 16 to lead Western New England.  The Golden Bears travel to play Gordon on Tuesday, while Western Connecticut will host one-win Mitchell on Tuesday in Danbury.

Keene State rebounded from their first loss to blow out Castleton State, 84-65.  Of note, Nate Howard missed this game due to personal reasons.  Jeff Lunn filled in and got a start and scored 22 points, including 16 in the first half that saw the Owls race out to a 51-36 lead at the break.  The Owls shot 59.5% in the first half and made 6-of-10 threes.  Despite a more disjointed second half, Keene was never seriously threatened by the Spartans in the second half and pulled farther away at the end.  Keene State improved to 9-1, while Castleton fell to 4-5.  Tom Doyle scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half.  Carnelius Green, Chad Copeland, and Rob Coloutti scored 10 each to lead Castleton State, who was pounded on the glass 42-23.  The Spartans fell to 1-1 against the Little East this year and return to NAC play on Tuesday when they host Colby-Sawyer at Glenbrook Gym.  The Owls travel to Providence next weekend to take on Rhode Island College.

No. 19 Eastern Connecticut had no trouble with Plymouth at home, rolling 66-41.  The Warriors trailed by one very early on but held a 38-15 lead at halftime over the struggling Panthers.  Eastern was never threatened at all in the second half and led by as many as 30 in the non-competitive game.  Hugh Lindo and Trachone Preston each scored 15 to lead the Warriors.  Uche Nwokeji led a sad Plymouth offense (if you can call it that) with 8 points.  The Panthers were crushed in the paint by Eastern 34-12.  The Warriors are now 10-2 and 2-0 in the conference, while Plymouth has lost four straight and is 3-7 and 0-2 in the LEC.  The Panthers' three victories have come against Rivier, Daniel Webster, and Lesley.  Eastern Connecticut has a big game on Tuesday, hosting Amherst at Geissler Gym.  Would be good for the conference if the Warriors could get that one!  The Panthers travel to play wretched Johnson State (1-9) on Tuesday looking to snap their losing streak.

[7express]

Bowdoin over USM 72-59

[7express]

Bowdoin over USM 76-61. 
I had this at 72-59 so just missed.  John Swords lead the Polar Bears with 19 points and 12 rebounds while Jacob Littlefield lead all scorers with 23 to lead the Huskies.  Both teams are back in action Tuesday night playing MASCAC opponents: Bowdoin is @ Bridgewater, USM hosts Salem.

46-24 LEC: 55-22 me

Next games scheduled for Tuesday night:
Mitchell @ Western 6 PM
Amherst @ Eastern 7 PM
Salem @ USM 7:30 PM
Plymouth @ Johnson State 7:30 PM
Framingham State @ Boston 7:30 PM

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

Going back over all the teams this week, now that we're in the New Year, I'm particularly impressed with the LEC as a conference.  Massey has them ranked #7 overall right now, which is not at all shabby.  It's a strong league this year.  Let's hope the SOS numbers bear that out come tournament time.

[7express]

Keene & Western have played nobody.  Good way to pad your win-loss record when your beating up on the # 420th team in division 3. 

Still think if Eastern wins the conf tourney they are the only team that gets in.  Time will tell.  Hopefully the teams don't canniblize each other, that'll be the worst thing possible that can happen!

[amh63]

ECSU.....like you I am looking forward to the game on Tuesday! Assume you will be in attendance.
Hope your players take it easy on the LJs...two of the starters in last season's game...Ben Pollack and Conner Green are nursing injuries...recovering from injuries really.  The other starters are young
Did see the program write-up of the game..very classy!

[ECSUalum]

ECSU.....like you I am looking forward to the game on Tuesday! Assume you will be in attendance.
Hope your players take it easy on the LJs...two of the starters in last season's game...Ben Pollack and Conner Green are nursing injuries...recovering from injuries really.  The other starters are young
Did see the program write-up of the game..very classy!

amh63,
I am sorry to hear Ben and Conner are not up to full strength!! They are both tremendous student-athletes. Hope they heal a bit before CAC conference games start next week?.
Yes, I am looking forward to tomorrow's game.  I saw Richard Freeland at a ECSU Foundation Silent Auction and mentioned that ECSU had the Amherst game coming up. Hope he shows with Dr Nunez.
Who ever wins, I am sure it will be well fought!

[magicman]

Keene & Western have played nobody. Keene &Western have played nobody other than Plattsburgh State.  Good way to pad your win-loss record when your beating up on the # 420th team in division 3. 

Still think if Eastern wins the conf tourney they are the only team that gets in.  Time will tell.  Hopefully the teams don't canniblize each other, that'll be the worst thing possible that can happen!

I have an issue with that remark, so I corrected it for you. I wouldn't want you to be accused of untruthful reporting.

[7express]

Fine.  Take Plattsburgh away from Western & Keene and AMC away from Albertus, that's still like 15 combined games against the dregs in New England.  Hell, even I said if Western was able to beat BOTH Plattsburgh and Albertus that may not have been enough to get them in because of how atrocious the other teams on the schedule was.  And the conference having a bunch of good teams works out 2 ways: If a Western, Keene, RIC, Boston, hell even a Dartmouth if a couple of them are able to separate themselves in the final 7 weeks of the regular season the LEC could very well get multiple teams in the tournament.  If they all beat each other up, because they inflated their record vs. inferior opponents than it's a 1 bid league. 

[7express]

Western 83-73
Eastern 79-76
Salem 84-65
Plymouth 65-62
Boston 86-74

[pjunito]

7, Happy New Year.

My only response is, it doesn't matter who you play, if you just keep winning!

[7express]

Eastern loses to Amherst 59-51.  THAT was a bad loss.  No bones about it.  Eastern was higher ranked, at home, Amherst was really struggling coming off a 4 game stretch where they:
1) Lost by 20.....at home to a Brandeis team that is 5-5
2) 2 days later lost at home............again by 19 to Babson.  Know Babson is a great team but coming off a 20 point beating in your own building you'd think they'd be competitive in that game
3) Break for Christmas and then go down to New Jersey and play Drew college (6-4) and win by 4.  Coming off 2 straight losses, you'd expect Amherst to win by a lot more than 4 points against a middling team
4) Travel down 95 to outside Baltimore to play 2-9 Goucher....and they escape Maryland with a 4 point win in overtime scoring only 80 points (Goucher had given up 83 earlier in the year to school named Convenant in regulation).  Luckily for Eastern Stevenson looks pretty good in the early going and they got York instead of Rochester who is also decent because they are 0-2 against ranked teams, and Colby isn't doing as good as I thought.  Eastern is also done with OOC opponents, so they can't help themselves outside the conference.  Not good.  If Stevenson loses a couple games, Eastern maybe in trouble...

...And speaking of bad losses, Western loses at home to 1-6 Mitchell.  I said even if they beat Albertus and Plattsburgh it may not be good enough for them, but they have been officially eliminated from pool C discussion with this embarrassing effort.  Luckily they are more than capable of winning the conference but they can't give up 95 points.  3 of their last 5 games they've given up 90+ points, just can't happen.  I'll have the rest of the recap later on.

[7express]

Tues results:

Mitchell edges Western 95-92.
Bobby Bynum and Jerry Washington each had 14 to lead the Colonials and Luis Briddter had 13 points and 11 rebounds.  Parris Hill lead the Mariners with 35 points, Joshua Hill had 21 rebounds and 11 points and Donovan McClean added 31.  Those 3 contributed 77 of the team's 95 points or they accumulated over 80% of Mitchell's total output.  Pathetic!  The Mariners shot 53.8% overall, while Western shot themselves in the foot with missed 3 pointers (attempted 29, made only 9 [31%]) and shot themselves even further shooting under 50% from the free throw line.  I can't stress this enough on here: free throws are supposed to be free points, and complete inexcusiuble to shoot at under 70% from the free throw line at your own gym, yet alone under 50%!  The Mariners got 66 combined points from 2 players, shot 54% and still would've lost had Western ONLY been 68.4% from the free throw line (13-19) which as stated above would still be an awful percentage anyways.  This wasn't quite as pathetic as the December 2012 loss @ Mitchell, the first time in forever Western had lost to them, but this ranks right up there in the top 5 of most pathetic Western losses I've witnessed.  Western (8-2) has a short turnaround as they go to Dartmouth Thursday evening; Mariners (2-6) get Southern Vermont Saturday afternoon.

Amherst over Eastern 59-51.
Tarchee Preston had a game high 19 points to lead Eastern while Hugh Lindo added a game high 21 rebounds.  For the Jeffs, Johnny McCarthy lead them with 15 points and they got contributions from Jacob Nabatoff (10 rebounds) and David George (13 points, 11 rebounds).  The Jeffs (8-2) go on the road to Hamilton Friday before playing @ Williams Saturday; Eastern (10-3) ends the non-conference portion of their slate 8-3 and will now be playing strictly LEC teams from here on out starting on Saturday @ Boston.

Salem over USM 88-74.
Jacob Littlefield had a game high 23 points for the Huskies (3-9) while Nicholas Grassa lead the Vikings (8-5) with 21 points while Marcus Faison added a game high 12 rebounds off the bench.  USM hosts Dartmouth on Saturday, while Salem travels to Fitchburg Thursday evening for some MASCAC action.

Plymouth over Johnson 77-56.
Asim Khan lead the Badgers (1-10) and tied for a game high with 18 points.  Alex Burt lead the Panthers (4-7) with 18 points and Uche Nwokeji had 13 points and 10 rebounds.   Johnson plays Lyndon Saturday afternoon, and Plymouth's next opponent is also Lyndon they play them Thursday before venturing down south to Connecticut for a second straight weekend.

Boston over Framingham 60-45.
Bertholyn Alexandre lead the Rams with 13 points, while Gregory Young had 20 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Beacons and Carl Joseph also added 11 rebounds to go along with 9 points.  Beacons (8-3) play Eastern on Saturday, while the Rams (5-6) host Westfield State Thursday.

48-27 LEC (it's sad when Plymouth & Boston save the conference from being a complete wipeout); 58-24 me

Next games Thursday:
RIC @ Tufts 7 PM
Western @ Dartmouth (LEC game)
Plymouth @ Lyndon 7:30 PM

[ECSUalum]

Amherst over Eastern 59-51.
Tarchee Preston had a game high 19 points to lead Eastern while Hugh Lindo added a game high 21 rebounds.  For the Jeffs, Johnny McCarthy lead them with 15 points and they got contributions from Jacob Nabatoff (10 rebounds) and David George (13 points, 11 rebounds).  The Jeffs (8-2) go on the road to Hamilton Friday before playing @ Williams Saturday; Eastern (10-3) ends the non-conference portion of their slate 8-3 and will now be playing strictly LEC teams from here on out starting on Saturday @ Boston.

Was in Willimantic last night for this game and I have to say the Jord Jeff defense is one of the best I have seen this year holding the Warriors ( Preston, Brown and Lumene), to 10% 3pt shooting %. Make a few more 3s and you win this game.  Eastern was also a bit sloppy as well with 15 TO.  The positives were ECSU rebounding and defense!  ECSU out rebounded a much bigger team, (48-36 with Lindo snatching 21!!) and held the lord Jeffs to under 60 points, (they average 76).

The 6'5"freshman Johnny McCarthy, is going to be a great player for Amherst, both defensively and offensively!!!  The Lord Jeffs actually have a very young team, with only 1 Sr, a couple Jrs and the rest SO/FR. And, with Coach Hixon, Amherst will certainly continue to be one of the best teams in the country going forward.