No player on a New York City team made the AP All-America Teams this season, but three were named Honorable Mentions. Iona’s Scott Machado, LIU Brooklyn’s Julian Boyd and NJIT’s Isaiah Wilkerson were all included on the list. Considering these teams are made up of the best players in the country, being named is quite the honor. Also, Mike Glover is on JTM Basketball Blog’s Portsmouth Suggested Invites for 2012. I’m guessing that he has Machado as one of the seniors that wouldn’t accept an invite.
Category: LIU Brooklyn
Top 25 Players in NYC Metro Area: 25-21
There’s a lot of great talent in the New York City area. As it’s defined the metro region encompasses 23 schools from Princeton to Army to Yale and everything in between. That means there are a lot of players here. In this countdown I’m going to be revealing five each morning as we go from 25 down to No. 1.
New York Mid-Major 2011-12 Teams
What a year it was for college hoops in New York City. Both Iona and LIU Brooklyn qualified for the NCAA tournament and Stony Brook also won the regular season title. A number of players were named to their All-Conference teams and garnered postseason awards. In fact, those awards are still coming in. Here I’d like to name my New York Mid-Major teams for the 2011-12 season.
Dribble Handoffs – End of Season Edition
Just because the season is over doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of interesting links out there. One of the most interesting projects going on right now is the College Basketball Champions League. You might’ve seen the #CBBCL hashtag on twitter and wondered what it meant.
Season At A Glance — LIU Brooklyn
This is the eighth of what will eventually be capsules for each of the NYC teams when I’m sure their season has concluded.
Team: LIU Brooklyn
Record: 25-9 (16-2 in the NEC)
Season High: Winning at Vermont, Sweeping Wagner
Season Low: Losing at Norfolk State (though apparently that’s better than people thought)
Really Good At: Controlling the foul situation – LIU had both the best offensive and defensive free throw rates in the NEC this season. The Blackbirds took over 400 more free throws than their opponents.
Struggled With: Forcing turnovers – The skeptic might say defense in general, but the Blackbirds finished sixth in the NEC in total defense. They finished last in turnovers forced at just 17.7% of opponents’ possessions. It’s tough to have a good defense if opponents get chances for shots.
Key Losses:
- Michael Culpo (9.6 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 200+ career threes)
- Arnold Mayorga (2.8 PPG, 1.9 RPG)
Key Returnees:
- Jamal Olasewere (All-NEC First Team, 16.8 PPG, 7.5 RPG)
- Julian Boyd (NEC Player of the Year, 17.4 PPG, 9.5 RPG, 55.7% from field)
- CJ Garner (12.5 PPG, 3.4 APG)
- Jason Brickman (All-NEC Second Team, 9.7 PPG, 7.3 APG)
- Kenny Onyechi (5.4 PPG, 3.3 RPG in 14.9 MPG, key front court guy off bench)
- Jason Thompson (4.5 PPG, will probably take Culpo’s spot in starting lineup)
Outlook: Extremely positive. Most of the team that has now won two straight NEC championships will be back in 2012-13. The core of Boyd, Brickman and Olasewere is as strong as any in the NEC. The Blackbirds are equipped to weather the loss of Culpo by sliding Thompson into the starting lineup. It took a little while for the rotation to blend this season, but LIU should be able to get started right out of the game next season. That should help with seeding and keep LIU away from a tough 1/16 game in the NCAA Tournament. Of course once again the entire NEC is going to be gunning for the Blackbirds. They’ll have a number of competitors and the one-and-done nature of the NEC tournament means that nothing is for certain. Still, with the talented trio returning and the addition of two talented Texas recruits LIU looks to be as strong as ever.
Michigan State’s size too much for LIU
LIU Brooklyn came in confident and ready to play, but it just didn’t have the bodies to compete with Michigan State in the paint in a 89-67 loss in the NCAA Tournament.
LIU vs. MSU Round up
Tonight LIU Brooklyn will try to shock the world and take down #1 seed Michigan State. A lot has been written over the past two days about the game, so here are some of the highlights.
Q&A with The Only Colors about Michigan State
Friday night LIU Brooklyn will make another appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately the Blackbirds drew #1 seed Michigan State in the first round. It’s going to be a difficult game. The Spartans just finished a Big Ten season in which they tied for first with a 13-5 conference record. Then to quiet the doubters they captured the tournament title as well. Tom Izzo is regarded as one of the best tournament coaches in the country. I asked Pete over at The Only Colors to provide some insight into the Spartans.
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NCAA Brackets Revealed: Iona is IN!!
Iona is in the NCAA Tournament playing in the First Four against BYU. Congratulations to the Gaels.
LIU Brooklyn is in (we knew that) as a 16 seed playing Michigan State. Yikes!
I am shocked (and thrilled) that the committee took Iona.
Using Roland Ratings to Determine Team MVPs
I don’t believe in +/- too much at the collegiate level, but sometimes derivative statistics can provide some interesting jumping off points. One of those is +/- for lineups. Another is Roland Rating. Basically, Roland Rating is the difference between a team’s +/- when a player is on the court and off of it. It’s a way of judging how valuable player is if you’ve got a large enough sample size. Let’s see what it says about each of the NYC teams and who the most valuable players are.
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NYC Buckets Archive 