MBB: Landmark Conference

[OUVan59]

Royals are 5-1 and actually have a positive rebound differential.

Nick Ruisi is averaging 5.5 rebounds and has scored 19 and 23 in his last two games.

Spatola leads the team in rebounding at 5.8

Real test will be Saturday 12/6 @ Susquehanna! No matter what team Danzing(Bessior also had problems in that sand box)brings in or what team Frankie has it is a hard place to win especially for the Purple/White/Gray. For some reason Frankie loves beating Scranton, hopefully this weekend changes that.I am very surprised of the start for the men and how  young this team is. Keep the momentum going and good luck

 Susque game is 1/10; this Saturday they are @ Juniata.

I'm not sure what I waz looking at I thought it was at Susquehanna but yes at Juniata. Should be another place that is hard to win at. Has anyone seen Etown play yet and if so how good are they?

Etown blew the doors off of Susquehanna the Saturday before Thanksgiving. The River Hawks have one of those games a year it seems (see @Scranton last year) so that might have been it. But Etown seems greatly improved on the defensive end. Last year they only held two teams under 65 points. This year they've already done it three times including F&M and Susquehanna. The emergence of Zuri Harris as a scorer to go along with Finarelli also helps. This is the first time since I started following the conference five years ago that a good team may miss the tournament.  Even the bottom three teams are greatly improved with Lycoming and Juniata already matching their win totals from last season. Makes for an interesting season.

[Great Day to be a Royal]

Years back, the Landmark was a 3-bid conference one season. I wonder if we see that again in the coming years

[ronk]

 Don't see the Landmark attracting enough quality players to get an at-large bid in addition to the AQ. Those bids will continue to go to the NESCAC, UAA, ODAC, and CCIW.

[NEPAFAN]

Through 7 games Scranton has seemed to solve their rebouding woes from last year.


Outrebounded Junaita by a healthy margin on Saturday. Kudos.

[saratoga]

Right now I'm having a hard time deciding if the Royals have actually improved or if their schedule in general & the Landmark in particular are just really bad.

Certainly some positive improvement on the boards.
However, they have consistently been one of the worst rebounding teams in all of D3 for the better part of a decade so the bar is pretty low.

One thing I have noticed is their offense seems more organized & under control.
In the few times I've watched them, they appear more comfortable making an extra pass for a better shot as opposed to so many previous years where they ran it up & just fired away with virtually no one in good rebounding position for second chance opportunities.

Long season...after so many under-achieving years, the jury is still out.

[Great Day to be a Royal]

The Royals are definitely better than in years since last trip to NCAAs. They move the ball, look for better shots, play defense, and overall look far more athletic. They have depth on the bench that hasn't been there in the past, and, yeah, they rebound! Just a handful of games in, the conference does seem stronger. Massey has the Landmark at 16. I typically only look at individual schools on there. Is this a typical placement for the conference? 

[OUVan59]

Right now I'm having a hard time deciding if the Royals have actually improved or if their schedule in general & the Landmark in particular are just really bad.

The Landmark is significantly improved IMO. Last year the conference went 33-37 in OOC games. This year the conference is 28-8 in such games.  Only one team (Goucher at 1-2) doesn't own a winning record OOC. The OOC SOS looks to be very similar to last year and that's before some upcoming matchups against some tough teams. Susquehanna has Chicago and Johns Hopkins down in Puerto Rico. Catholic has Chicago (also in Puerto Rico) and Mary Washington. Most teams have some good competition before January.