MBB: Landmark Conference

[Great Day to be a Royal]

Not taking anything away from the Royals opponents this weekend, and who knows, come Monday I might be saying, "so much for that", but it would be nice to see the Royals play 19th ranked York, and see how they stack up entering the heart of conference play.

Regardless, hoping for 2 wins this weekend

[ronk]

Livestream for the York-Nazareth game has been delayed til 2:30 instead of 2 pm; expecting the Scranton game will be delayed til 4:30, correspondingly.

[ronk]

 Sounds like there might have been a power problem, resulting in the York game starting about 3:15 pm instead of 2.

[NEPAFAN]

Thanks, audio is off too.

[ronk]

 After a tie at halftime, the Royals lead most of the 2nd half in defeating Ursinus. Brendan Carr made all 8 2-pt attempts and half his 3 pt-ers to lead the way with 28 points; Nick Ruisi had a double-double and Sammy Tornabene added 13 2nd half points after only playing 4 mins in the 1st half(foul trouble).
  Refs called 50 fouls. Next up - Nazareth at 2 PM tomorrow(no WUSR broadcast).
  Catholic loses to #6 Chicago 76-66.

[NEPAFAN]

Sammy played 4 minutes in the 1st  half, just a ton of fouls all around. Royals bench looks thinner than in the beginning of the year.

[ronk]

 The Royals finish 2-0 in the York Classic, defeating Nazareth 76-66. Tornabene has a double-double(30 points, 13 rebounds), Carr has 16 points, Ruisi 10, Spatola with 10 rebs, 3 asts, 3 steals, Roth and Carbon with significant contributions off the bench.
 Ursinus defeats #19 York in the other game today.
 Elsewhere in the Landmark, Catholic over Illinois Tech, and Susque over Johns Hopkins.
 Next Royals' game is at Kings 3 Jan, the final nonconference game.

 At this point, the Royals are playing better than originally expected and there should be much competition for the  conference playoff spots. Tornabene is a force with his overall game(inside the paint, drawing fouls, shooting, and rebounding). Carbon and Marion are effective off the bench, but they'll need a couple more to join them in the rotation.

[Great Day to be a Royal]

It will be interesting to see if the 9-1 Royals get a few votes in the top 25, especially after d3datacast has them in top 35.

The squad is looking impressive, as is much of the conference as a whole.

[Great Day to be a Royal]

Additionally, the Royals board game has been impressive

[saratoga]

The Royals are certainly off to a much better start than previous years when they were just plain bad.
However...the teams they have played have a combined record of 45/46 (49%).
Waiting in the wings is a bad King's team currently at 3 & 7.
Very hard to tell the true potential of the Royals with this schedule & essentially a 7 and sometimes 8 man rotation.
They may get a few votes in today's upcoming Top 25 simply based on the record & no real deep dive beyond that.
Are they an NCAA tournament bound team?
Unless they win the Landmark qualifier...just don't see it happening.

PS.
Sammy is well on his way to being the most consequential Royal in the past decade.
As he goes...so do the Royals.

[NEPAFAN]

Ronk:

Happy Scranton-Kings day. I know you have a lot of memories about these games.


Scranton -14 is the Vegas line

[ronk]

 Yes, it was 1 of the top rivalries in small-college(pre-D3) basketball: bigger attendance(4000+) than the combined student bodies of the 2 schools plus support from our sister women's schools(Marywood and Misericordia). Remembering that they had to shut the doors at the 1st Kings game in the Long Center history because of no more room.

[saratoga]

Don't think they had the crowd control issue today...paid attendance at Kings, 121. 

[Great Day to be a Royal]

No one had the Royals at 10-1 heading into the new year.

Top of the conference has looked solid, and they are in the top quarter of conference ratings. Looking forward to conference play kicking into full swing.

Royals' first test of the new year Wed evening.

[saratoga]

Anyone know why the Royals are playing at E-town prior to the Lady Royal game at 7:00?
Usually, if the Scranton women are on the road on Wednesday, then the men are home.
Saturday has always been the double-header day.

PS.
Still no love sent the Royals way in this week's Top 25.