A mixed bag of results for the NEC

For the third Monday night of the season, it was a mixed bag of results for the four NEC teams in action. Here’s the recap for all four games:

Mount St. Mary’s 65, George Washington 56: No matter the opponent – Big East, Patriot League, America East, A-10 – the Mount has shown the ability to turnover the opponent at alarmingly high rates. Tonight was no exception, as the Mount Mayhem stifled the GW offense by forcing 25 Colonial turnovers and not allowing GW to hit a single three-pointer in the game. Jamion Christian shortened his rotation a bit tonight, playing eight guys more than 17 minutes. Nine different players scored for the Mount with their trio of wings in Julian Norfleet, Rashad Whack, and Sam Prescott combining for 35 points. Whack was once again impressive off-the-ball, leading the team in both rebounds (four) and steals (four). Sure, GW is coming off a ten-win 2011-12 season, but a win versus an A-10 team is impressive nonetheless, especially when Ken Pomeroy had GW as an 84% favorite prior.

Monmouth 65, Lafayette 60: Coming into tonight’s contest, Monmouth had the second best turnover rate in the nation at 30.7% (yes you read that correctly). That had to be a key concern for Lafayette, but they did little to tame the Hawks’ pressure defense, as they committed 27 turnovers. A plus-15 turnover differential was enough to overcome the Leopards dominance on the boards. Jesse Steele and Andrew Nicholas each had 18 points. Tony Johnson, Lafayette’s senior leader, who is perhaps the best point guard in the Patriot League, filled up the stat sheet with 14 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, and five steals, but also a game high eight turnovers. Playing offense against Monmouth or Mount St. Mary’s will not be fun for NEC teams this season.

Savannah State 61, Robert Morris 52: Robert Morris came into tonight’s road matchup as the slightest of underdogs according to Ken Pomeroy, but these are the games you want an upper level NEC team winning in November. Despite a late rally, the Colonials offense failed to show up for most of the night, shooting a paltry 29% from the floor. Lucky Jones had his best game of the season scoring 18 points on only 11 shots, but no one else really had an efficient game for the Colonials. Coming in, Savannah State found themselves in the top 50 nationally in adjusted defense, turnovers forced, and effective field goal percentage defensed. Tonight, Robert Morris failed to break the Tigers defensive pressure. (This is one good MEAC team. Expect the Tigers to compete for a league title once again.)

Albany 66, Wagner 63: When John and I were making our preseason predictions, we both brushed off the head coaching changes for Wagner and LIU Brooklyn. With both teams now a combined 1-7, perhaps we failed to fully respect the job performed by Jack Perri and Bashir Mason’s predecessors, Jim Ferry and Dan Hurley. After all, each coach led their respective teams to a 20+ win season last year. Specifically for Wagner, struggles on the offensive end have crippled the Seahawks’ ability to win games in the early going. Jonathan Williams was once again sensational, scoring 26 points on 11 shots to go along with seven rebounds. Unfortunately, the rest of the offense hasn’t caught up to Williams, as the Seahawks are scoring an unsightly 0.71 points per possession in their first four games. Maybe replacing the production of the super efficient Tyler Murray and sixth man extraordinaire Chris Martin was more difficult than originally thought. The injury to Latif Rivers certainly hasn’t helped and freshmen Dwaun Anderson and Eric Fanning still need time to develop into solid contributors.