Everyone makes mistakes in prognostication, especially when it comes to the volatile and unpredictable Northeast Conference. This season I did a fair job at handicapping the teams, at least when compared to last season’s jumble that saw my ninth place team (Fairleigh Dickinson) play in the NCAA Tournament. Continue reading “LIU Brooklyn Emerges As a NEC Contender Despite Turnover”
Monmouth has entered a strange portion of its season which few have to deal with, and really – from a pure justice standpoint – doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Monmouth pummeled Fairfield, 82-62, Tuesday night at Webster Bank Arena for its 14th straight victory. The Hawks (24-5, 16-2) have already won their second straight MAAC title, yet still have two fairly difficult regular season games left: against Siena and at Iona.
Now in most of life’s pursuits, consistently over the long haul is rewarded. Monmouth is now 33-5 in MAAC play over the last two seasons, and as King Rice said afterward, if you watched the Hawks at the end of their time in the NEC or their first season in the MAAC, that is quite the accomplishment and deserves to be recognized as such by fans and the public at large.
Continue reading “Monmouth 82, Fairfield 62: Waiting For The MAAC Tournament”
Manhattan sent off senior Tyler Wilson with a flourish. The Jaspers put up 56 second-half points and routed Quinnipiac 95-74 in their home finale at Draddy Gymnasium Sunday evening. Continue reading “Manhattan Routs Quinnipiac On Tyler Wilson’s Senior Night”
Last Week in the Ivy League: Princeton stayed perfect, while Penn stayed in the race. Columbia is reeling from an overtime collapse at Dartmouth, even after getting a reprieve in regulation by a fraction of a second. The first Ivy League Tournament is taking shape, and everyone is still arguing about it. Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Return of the Killer P’s”
Even as things appeared to be spiraling out of control a month ago, Penn coach Steve Donahue continued to maintain that he believed in his team. Every coach says that, of course, but there was something a little different about the way Donahue said it. Or maybe he’s just more convincing than most.
Anyway, the facts (real ones) are that the Quakers were 0-6 in the Ivy League after a loss to Princeton at The Palestra on Feb. 7, some four games behind Columbia for the fourth and final conference tournament berth. The real culprits in that slide were not the defeats to Princeton, but a home loss to Brown and one at Dartmouth.
Continue reading “Penn 71, Yale 55: Quakers Making Own Path To The Palestra”
Barring the biggest upset in the history of American sports, the season will come to end in some fashion or another for all NEC teams in the next month or so. For most, it will be a defeat at some stage of the upcoming NEC Tournament. However, for Central Connecticut (and St. Francis Brooklyn) it’s all over next week, a fact made official after the Blue Devils lost to Robert Morris 74-64 Saturday afternoon at Detrick Gym.
Donyell Marshall hoped for better this season, but he knew he had one of the hardest rebuilding projects in the nation on his hands, and now that the season is winding down and his team is officially eliminated, he can finally speak with some candor about his plight and what he learned as he looks a little toward the future.
Continue reading “Robert Morris 74, CCSU 64: Colonials Complete NEC Tourney Field”
A mere eleven days after Fairfield squandered a 14 point second half lead against in-state rival Quinnipiac, the Stags nearly outdid themselves by letting a 16 point advantage slip away on the Bobcats’ home court. However, the heroics of Tyler Nelson and Jerry Johnson Jr. helped Fairfield avoid disaster and avenge their previous loss with an 89-86 overtime victory in Hamden Friday night. Continue reading “Fairfield 89, Quinnipiac 86 (OT) – Call It A Rivalry”
Devin Cannady’s minutes increased this season, as happens with many players who move from freshmen to sophomores in college basketball. His numbers have not, however. Last season, he torched opponents by shooting 45.6% on three-pointers (48.3% in Ivy League play) and 48.5% overall.
This season, although Cannady moved up from 11.6 to 12.6 points per game, he was shooting 37.9% from behind the arc and 41.0% overall. Amazingly, Princeton was winning anyway, 11 straight heading into Friday night’s game at Yale, which included a game two weeks ago at Harvard in which he was shutout on 0-8 shooting, and a 6-point performance at Penn three days later. In the first meeting against the Bulldogs, Cannady had seven points on 2-11 from the field as Yale nearly stole it before falling 66-58.
Offense isn’t everything, of course, and Cannady has helped the Tigers grab a two-game Ivy League lead in other ways, but there is one conference game that leaps off his stat page: the opener against Brown, where Cannady shredded the Bears for 29 points on 10-14 from the field, 7-9 from three. The result was a 97-66 bludgeoning for Princeton that set the tone for what it has done since.
Continue reading “Princeton 71, Yale 52: Complete Performance From Cannady, Tigers”
Columbia enters this weekend’s trip to Harvard and Dartmouth at 4-4, two games clear of the rest of its competition for the fourth and final spot in the inaugural Ivy League Tournament. Continue reading “Evaluating Columbia At The Ivy League Halfway Point”
Just a freshman with less than 30 games under his belt, E.J. Crawford may already be Iona’s most versatile player. Continue reading “Freshman E.J. Crawford Showcases Iona’s Versatility”
NYC Buckets Archive 