All the games have been played and the final weekend provided a big shake up! Not only did LIU Brooklyn fall at Monmouth, a bunch of other teams got knocked out too. Fascinatingly enough, Robert Morris almost caught LIU after the Blackbirds’ disaster, but since it only mattered in tempo-free world LIU will still hang onto home court throughout the conference tournament, which at least gives Jim Ferry’s team a fighting chance at repeating as champions. I’ve also included my All-NEC First and Second Teams and conference awards at the end of this post.
Category: St. Francis Brooklyn
Recapping 10,000 sims in the NEC
Way back in December I simmed 10,000 NEC conference seasons as a prelude to what may happen using Ken Pomeroy’s data. In those simulations Robert Morris and Wagner dominated the top of the league. It looked after non-conference play that those two were going to run away with things and people who said that LIU Brooklyn and Central Connecticut were serious challengers were crazy. Well that’s why they play the games.
Third seed slips through St. Francis’ fingers
St. Francis (NY) got the chance it needed. It just couldn’t capitalize.
Coming into Saturday the Terriers needed two things to happen in order for them to grab the #3 seed in the NEC conference tournament. First, Robert Morris had to lose to Quinnipiac on EPSNU at 11 a.m. Second, SFC had to win at Fairleigh Dickinson, a team that was 2-26 and 1-16 in the NEC on the season.
Once the Bobcats knocked off the Colonials 73-69 to claim in the #5 seed in the conference tournament the possibility of the Terriers earning the third seed, and avoiding a pretty hot Quinnipiac team in the first round, seemed likely.
Except that in the NEC nothing is ever guaranteed. St. Francis shot 28% from the field and just 4-21 from three (19%) as they fell 45-44 at FDU. It’s a bad loss that leaves Glenn Braica’s club at 15-14 and 12-6 in the NEC on the season.
This loss is going to have long reverberating effects around the NEC. First off, it means that the Pope Center is going to host what should be the best game of the first round of the NEC tournament. SFC vs. Quinnipiac is going to be a great game. Yes, the Terriers just won by eight the last time these two teams played a few weeks ago, but the Bobcats are still one of the most dangerous teams in the league.
I also wonder if this is going to cost a few St. Francis (NY) players postseason awards. Obviously those shouldn’t be the main concern, because making the NCAA tournament is the ultimate reward, but Braica and Jalen Cannon are definitely in hotly contested races for Coach of the Year and Rookie of the Year. This slip could cost them both.
If (and this is a big if) Wagner can get past Central Connecticut today Dan Hurley’s Seahawks would be 16-2 and have a full four-game lead on the Terriers in the standings. I understand that Hurley has a lot of talent on Staten Island, but he also recruited and developed most of it. It just makes the decision that much harder. The other guys in the race here are Monmouth’s King Rice (record won’t be good enough, but he’s done amazing stuff) and LIU’s Jim Ferry (the victim of expectations). It still comes down to Braica vs. Hurley and that four-game edge in the conference standings would be difficult to reconcile.
Then there’s the ROY award. Jalen Cannon is just one of many players that could win the award. Unfortunately the loss to the Knights highlighted his biggest strengths (he had 20 rebounds) and weaknesses (five points). Cannon still needs to work on his offensive game. Most of his points come from tip-ins and dunks in transition. It’s possible that a freshman with a more developed offensive game, like Kyle Vinales of CCSU or Lucky Jones of RMU, might be able to sneak into this spot instead. Ultimately I think Cannon still deserves the award (despite what Ryan said).
Now Robert Morris will wait for the conclusion of two games tonight before it learns its opponent. The Colonials though can wait a little longer with the knowledge that they’ve got the #3 locked up.
Probabilities for conference seeding
It’s the final weekend for most college hoops leagues and there’s still a lot to be determined. I’m going to run down the percentages of some important things happening for the teams from the area still competing for conference positions. I’m include the % chance, determined via the Ken Pomeroy odds of a certain scenario coming true.
Tempo-free NEC: Almost home edition
A couple Senior Nights have been played, most of the conference race has been decided and the NEC is getting wrapped up. As we go into the final week of the regular season what do people need to know about the league? Well, thanks to Ken Pomeroy’s new conference statistics we can take a look at some general trends. For one, like I’ve been saying all season, the NEC is a fast league. The fifth fastest paced league in the country in fact. This is driven by LIU Brooklyn, St. Francis (NY) and Sacred Heart, but it’s also a product of there not being any particularly slow teams in the league. There’s no Wisconsin here. The slowest paced team in the league in conference play has been Robert Morris at 65.8 possessions per game.
What else happens in the NEC? A lot of turnovers, a lot of offensive rebounds and quite a few assists. I think this is why Andrew Chiappazzi likes to say that this is a guard’s league. The teams that have good ones are able to rise above the pack. Of course, talent always rises to the top and that’s why once again LIU is sitting at the top of the league standings (or Jason Brickman). But it’s the team they’ve beaten twice, Wagner, that’s still hanging tough atop the efficiency rankings.
NEC Efficiency Standings:
1. Wagner (14-2) — +0.188
2. LIU Brooklyn (15-1) — +0.123
3. Robert Morris (12-4) — +0.106
4. St. Francis (NY) (12-4) — +0.054
5. Quinnipiac (8-8) — +0.052
6. Central Connecticut (8-8) — +0.018
7. Sacred Heart (7-9) — -0.008
8. Monmouth (8-8) — -0.041
9. Mount St. Mary’s (5-11) — -0.057
10. St. Francis (PA) (5-11) — -0.065
11. Fairleigh Dickinson (1-15) — -0.185
12. Bryant (1-15) — -0.207
Superlatives:
Best Offense: LIU at 1.13 points per possession
Best Defense: Wagner at 0.89 points allowed per possession
Worst Offense: Fairleigh Dickinson at 0.83 points per possession
Worst Defense: Bryant at 1.12 points allowed per possession
Luckiest: LIU at 2.4 wins above expected
Unluckiest: Quinnipiac at 2.3 wins below expected
Highest Variance: Quinnipiac
Lowest Variance: LIU
I think those last two things are related. (And are important moving forward!)
Three teams have significantly outplayed their pythagorean records: LIU, Monmouth and St. Francis (NY). All three of those teams have won a number of close games in conference this season and I think their coaches have a lot to do with it. On Twitter there’s been a lot of discussion lately about who should be the NEC coach of the year. I think in any other season King Rice would actually have a great argument, but it should come down to Dan Hurley and Glenn Braica. I think the fact that the Terriers have played so well in close conference games is a mark in favor of Braica’s candidacy for the award. It’s worth noting that Quinnipiac is the only NEC that’s “unlucky” by more than a game in conference play. According to Ken Pomeroy the Bobcats are 322nd in luck in the entire nation. That’s a painful way to go through the season.
St. Francis (NY) finds a new way to win
St. Francis (NY)’s stunning NEC season continued on Saturday, but it wasn’t the typical formula for the Terriers. Even though the shots weren’t falling, SFC found a way to come back from an eight-point halftime deficit and grit out a victory on their final shot. Travis Nichols’ short put back off an offensive rebound of Brent Jones’ miss gave St. Francis a 58-56 victory over Sacred Heart at the Pope Center.
“He missed the shot and I wanted it more and I went to go for it and it made it in,” Nichols said about the final play.
That final shot also put a damper on a stellar 21-point, 12-board performance from SHU’s Shane Gibson. The star shooting guard was chased by Stefan Perunicic most of the night on Perunicic’s final regular season game at home. It took Gibson 17 shots to get the 21 points and he also committed five turnovers. It was an assist to Luis Montes to tie the game at 56 that was Gibson’s biggest play of the game.
“I felt [Perunicic] did as good a job as you could do on [Gibson],” said SFC head coach Glenn Braica. “The kid’s a great player.”
Gibson was just one of four players that scored in the game for the Pioneers. A game after playing great against LIU Brooklyn Justin Swidowski struggled against SFC. That forced Dave Bike to go small and play zone, a strategy that worked surprisingly well against a cold-shooting Terriers squad. SFC shot just 6-24 from three in the game. The Terriers didn’t score from the field during the final seven minutes of the first half.
But unlike most games where SFC has struggled to shoot the ball, the Terriers fought through it. Akeem Johnson was big inside with 16 points on 5-9 shooting from the field and a perfect 6-6 from the line. Perunicic added 11, Jones 10 (on 13 shots) and Nichols eight key points, including to big threes and the game-winner.
“We starting settling for jump shots,” Braica said. “Then we got it inside a couple times. I thought it got us going. We really didn’t get great shots. They did a good job. … We kind of weren’t ourselves tonight. We didn’t hit shots.”
The Terriers are now guaranteed of playing at least one more game in the Pope Center this season in the quarterfinals of the NEC tournament. Due to their head-to-head victory over Robert Morris, SFC is currently the third seed and would host one of Quinnipiac, Central Connecticut or Monmouth.
Nichols is excited for the postseason.
“I know this is our year this year,” he said.
Comparing Sacred Heart and St. Francis (NY)
I want to say that you should go check out this post by Ryan Peters over at Pioneer Pride that compares this season’s St. Francis (NY) team to the 2006-07 Sacred Heart Pioneers. It’s a really cool analysis and a nice walk down memory lane. Interesting side note: Those teams were very close in strength as well. St. Francis is at 193 in Pomeroy this season and Sacred Heart finished at 202 that season. The flip side is that SHU got it done with offense that season, but because of SFC’s fast pace no one realizes they’re really getting it done with a defense ranked fourth in the NEC. Great post and highly recommended reading.
Fun facts you should know about the NEC
This post may sound like I was smart enough to read the weekly notes from the NEC where Jamal Olasewere was named the co-player of the week. If that’s the case that’s fine because here are some fun tidbits that the conference office figured out the time to share and I thought were pretty awesome. Note: If you think you could’ve written this post it’s probably true. Read the full notes here.
Fun fact #1: This could be just the second time in conference history that the NEC has three 20-game winners. Wagner has 21 victories, LIU Brooklyn and Robert Morris each currently have 19 and seem good bets to get that final one. The last time this happened? 1995-96 when Marist, Mount St. Mary’s and Monmouth all cracked 20 wins. The NEC put two teams in the NIT that season along with an NCAA bid. It’s certainly possible that Wagner, LIU and RMU will all get postseason invitations of some sort (NCAA/NIT/CBI/CIT) when this season is over.
Fun fact #2: Wagner’s 21-4 record is the reverse of its 4-21 record just two years ago. That’s ridiculous. In the past 19 seasons Wagner has won 20 games two other times in 2002-03 (the school’s only NCAA appearance) and 2007-08.
Fun fact #3: Olasewere went 11-11 from the field to earn Battle of Brooklyn MVP honors. His 11-11 from the field tied Luke Apfeld of Vermont for the most made shots without a miss in a game this season. Note: Apfeld was also 1-1 from the free throw line and scored 24 points. Olasewere was just 9-12 from the line. Of course Olasewere also made his 11 shots against St. Francis (NY) whereas Apfeld was playing Towson.
Fun fact #4: Shane Gibson of Sacred Heart currently has the highest per game scoring average in conference play for all NEC players since 1998 at 25.9 points per game. I can only imagine that will probably go up in a shootout against LIU Brooklyn on Thursday, a game I’m excited to be attending. Gibson is using 28.7% of SHU’s possessions (72nd in the country) and has a 113.3 offensive rating (313, but 11th amongst players using at least 28% of their team’s possessions). He’s carrying that offense.
Fun opinion #1 (Technically not a fact): Kyle Vinales of Central Connecticut is the leading scorer amongst NEC freshman and probably the leader for the NEC’s Rookie of the Year award, but I’d take two players – St. Francis (NY)’s Jalen Cannon and Robert Morris’ Lucky Jones – over him.
Oh yeah, NYC NEC still lives as thanks to Wagner’s two wins over Mount St. Mary’s last week the three city schools are now 29-1 against NEC competition. The road gets a little tougher this week as St. Francis has to go to suddenly scorching Quinnipiac and LIU Brooklyn hosts the Bobcats on Saturday.
Tempo-free NEC: Ready for the tournament?
Is it time for the NEC conference tournament already? After six sweeps during rivalry week the playoff picture has become awfully clear. I’d like to recommend that you check out Ryan Peters’ breakdown of the current league standings and what teams have left. I’ve also got the tempo-free standings and final projected conference records according to the 10,000 sims, which are much less random now.
Continue reading “Tempo-free NEC: Ready for the tournament?”
Jamal Olasewere and Julian Boyd lead LIU past St. Francis (NY)
Jamal Olasewere went a perfect 11-11 from the field and scored a career-high 32 points to take home MVP honors in LIU’s 81-78 win over St. Francis (NY) in the Battle of Brooklyn. It was teammate Julian Boyd who scored 20 points, grabbed 10 boards and hit the eventual game-winning shot. Here’s some video that I took of the shot from the stands with my Flip video camera.
“That’s a shot I practice every day in practice,” Boyd said. “I don’t know if coach likes it. But it’s something we do everyday, just a little turnaround jump shot. I thought it was going to come off on the left side of the rim. Thank God pushed it in. It was falling off and it went in. I was happy it did.”
NYC Buckets Archive 