Close Losses Becoming Familiar Theme for Northeastern

SOUTH KINGSTON, R.I. – Bill Coen’s first words after another tough loss said it all.

“For us, it seems like Groundhog Day,” Northeastern’s head coach said after Rhode Island beat the Huskies 79-76 on Thursday night.

Northeastern has had a rough go of things as they reach a long break for final exams.  The Huskies have played seven games, all of which have been decided by six points or less.  They have been outscored by 14 points all season long and haven’t had a clunker all season, as there hasn’t been a game in which they played poorly and somehow managed to stay close or win.  And this has come against a very difficult schedule that hasn’t had a single game one could look at and say they should almost certainly win.

But they stand 2-5 through those seven games.  That’s the kind of start that can take a toll on a team, especially a young team.  The Huskies aren’t very young – though they have seven freshmen, they have a senior core of players and a junior in Chaisson Allen who starts and is a key to the team – but dropping game after game like this can add up.  They are competitive athletes and naturally want to win.  While Coen said he doesn’t see any residual effect from game-to-game – and there’s no reason to dismiss that since they have been in every game – the frustration can add up.

The players are certainly frustrated, but keeping optimistic.  They still feel they will get going, and maybe the 11-day layoff before they play again comes at just the right time.

“It’s probably a good thing mentally,” said Coen.  “I don’t think our guys are changing their approach or anything like that, but to step back a day or two will probably do us a little good.”

One thing that hasn’t helped the Huskies is a lack of depth.  Only one reserve averages double-digit minutes, and production has been severely lacking off the bench.  Their regular starters average just over 52 of the team’s more than 63 points per game.  Add in senior Baptiste Bataille, who averages 9.4 per game and basically plays starter’s minutes – he averages more minutes (26.1) than starting wing Alwayne Bigby (18.0) – and almost all of their points come from the top six.  With every game being tight, it has been difficult for Coen to play some other players to try and develop depth.

In fact, of the remaining players only Mathiang Muo and Vinny Lima have played in at least six of the Huskies’ seven games thus far.  Muo hasn’t been much a factor as of yet, and they have been waiting for Lima to develop for a couple of years now and he’s had little more than a few good moments.  He is a career 42 percent shooter from long range, but on 33 career attempts, and he hasn’t done much else.

The lack of depth has undoubtedly hurt at the defensive end, as the guys playing can easily get worn down later in games.  The Huskies are allowing opponents to shoot nearly 46 percent from the field, including 39 percent from long range.  Rhode Island went 10-20 from long range against them, and in the second half the Huskies just couldn’t stop the Rams as they shot nearly 62 percent from the field.

An additional key has been the play of Allen.  While he is second on the team in scoring and leads in assists, he’s been up-and-down in what was thought to be a potential breakout year.  He has two more turnovers than assists and hasn’t controlled games like he’s shown the potential to earlier in his career.  The hope is that Thursday night’s game, where he scored 20 points on 7-12 shooting, including 6-9 from long range, is the start of something.  His value has been clear in several of the losses, as Thursday night was the first loss one could say he played reasonably well in.

On the plus side, a major issue early on has been solved of late.  The Huskies’ starting big men, Manny Adako and Nkem Ojougboh, were in foul trouble often in the first few games, but of late that hasn’t been the case.  Both have been able to log big minutes of late, and while Ojougboh fouled out on Thursday he wasn’t hampered by early foul trouble.

Things don’t get any easier for the Huskies.  After an 11-day layoff for final exams, they play in the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu before heading to Santa Clara after Christmas for the Cable Car Classic.  They open in Honolulu with a good St. Mary’s team, then play either USC or Western Michigan in the second of three games.  In Santa Clara, they play a true road game against the Broncos and then either Kent State or Wofford.  After that, they open the meat of the CAA schedule with four games in eight days.

“We have a good team, but we don’t have a good record,” Coen said.  “We obviously have to get better, and our guys know that.”

This isn’t very new for the Huskies.  They have played a demanding schedule in every year of Bill Coen’s tenure, although none quite compare to this one.  The senior core has played plenty of challenging games and had some tough losses along the way.  They have also bounced back from them, including the first two years when they didn’t have a good non-conference record but went .500 in CAA play.  In that sense, Groundhog Day for this team later on might be a good thing.