Northeastern is not yet a contender in the CAA

BOSTON – Wednesday night was an opportunity for Northeastern to show something. One way or another, we would find out if this Husky team is a contender or pretender at the moment, as they hosted Drexel. And after a 61-53 loss, one thing is clear: this team is not a contender right now in the Colonial Athletic Association.

Northeastern is now 7-5 in CAA play, which is a respectable mark. But take a closer look, and one notices problems. One is that they are now three games out of fourth place, which means they need some help if they are to ultimately get a bye in the conference tournament next month. That has meant everything over the years, and it’s very difficult to win four games in four days. Perhaps more importantly, the Huskies have put that record together only against the teams they “should” beat. The Huskies are 0-4 against the teams that are ahead of them in the standings.

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Harvard asserts itself in the opening weekend of Ivy League play

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The first full weekend of Ivy League play is in the books, and one thing that wasn’t too surprising happened: the league favorites asserted themselves as just that. Harvard looked like a team on a mission, and coming away with two convincing road wins is what was desired.

“I think it’s a team on a mission this year,” said junior Kyle Casey, who led Harvard with 20 points and eight rebounds in Saturday’s 68-59 win at Brown. “Last year, we got down early, and being a veteran team, we learned from those experiences and tried to nip them in the bud.”

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Quick Hitters – January 27, 2012

Quick hitters as we get ready for the weekend:

• Boston University was not rebounding well in the early portion of their seven-game winning streak. But in the last two games, the Terriers have dominated the glass, and keeping that up will only help. Granted, it came against two of the worst teams in the conference, but one of them (UMBC) is normally a decent team on the glass. Part of that has come from an emphasis on rebounding of late, but not just at the defensive end. … Continue Reading

Quinnipiac finally pulls one out to close road swing

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Quinnipiac can now head home with the hope that their last game in the current road stretch does more for them than add one into the left-hand column. The Bobcats had a few tough games recently, and had another one in which they managed to pull out a 78-71 win in overtime at Bryant on Saturday.

“I can’t stress enough how much we needed it, because this team is young,” head coach Tom Moore said.

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Quick Hitters – January 21, 2012

Quick hitters as we head into a busy Saturday:

• If there was any doubt as to the value of a point guard, look no further than Boston University and floor leader D.J. Irving. There are a few reasons the Terriers have now won five games in a row and is tied with Stony Brook (who they beat last Saturday) atop the America East Conference, but Irving’s return to health following a concussion last month is chief among them. That was readily apparent to one opposing coach, who thinks he’s the Terriers’ best player.

  “I think they’re at their best when the ball is in his hands and getting guys shots,” said Albany head coach Will Brown.

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Ron Hunter is already changing the culture at Georgia State

BOSTON – Ron Hunter knew what he inherited when he took the head coaching job at Georgia State. He knew he had a culture to change, and he knew he was in a different place. But thus far, he’s loving every minute of it, and the early results don’t hurt. Now he has a different issue on his hands with his team, which stands 5-2 in CAA play after a 60-57 loss at Northeastern on Wednesday night.

Hunter, who loved that he was able to walk to Fenway Park during the team’s trip to Boston, is full of energy and positive vibes. He’s pleasant to talk to and all along has felt good about this team, as well as the job itself. It would be easy to dismiss it as coach-speak, but he felt like a few players were ready to be better and liked the experience on the team, although it wasn’t winning experience. You can tell his confidence in the team is not misplaced by a long shot.

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Boston College off to a surprising start in ACC play

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Don’t look now, but there’s a big surprise near the top of the ACC standings. With only Duke sporting an undefeated record, one team in the logjam at 2-1 is the very young Boston College Eagles, who beat Virginia Tech 61-59 on Saturday to claim both home games that had a quick turnaround.

Before the season, and even recently before conference play started, the question was being asked: will BC win an ACC game this year? The easy answer was “yes”, especially since the ACC is not a great conference this year. After Duke, North Carolina and Virginia, there’s a noticeable drop-off. And as the Eagles progress over the course of the season, chances are they might knock someone off at home. It’s already happened, and with two straight wins they have likely surprised just about everyone except for the people in their locker room.

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Boston University hopes to regain confidence with losing streak over

BOSTON – It was just a little over a month ago that Boston University looked like they were about to get untracked. The Terriers started the season with four straight losses, including a couple that were tough to take, but then won two of three in Rhode Island and knocked off local rival Boston College less than a week after that. Then they hit a wall in the form of a six-game losing streak that they snapped on Sunday, and now they are hopeful they can get back to where they were after the Boston College victory.

Not only did the Terriers start winning games over a month ago, but they looked ready to win more. They seemed to have adjusted to new head coach Joe Jones more by that time, for starters. It also looked like they had found a post scorer to complement the perimeter duo of D.J. Irving and Darryl Partin, something they desperately needed.

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Harvard continues to live dangerously in Ivy League opener

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Harvard improved to 13-2 on Saturday by winning the first Ivy League game of the season. While the bottom line is all positive, the Crimson also lived dangerously for a while, more so than the 16-point final margin of victory might lead one to believe. Saturday’s game is not an isolated event, and with the full remaining slate of Ivy League games not far away, that is a concern for this team.

The Crimson didn’t start slowly, but Dartmouth was able to hang around and then took a seven-point lead early in the second half as they won the first four minutes coming out of the locker room. With the Big Green still up by six, Harvard went on a 16-2 run to take over the game, and offensively-challenged Dartmouth never seriously challenged them the rest of the game.

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UMBC’s non-conference struggles don’t matter with conference-opening road win

DURHAM, N.H. – Part of the beauty of conference play in college basketball is that teams get a fresh start. A bad non-conference run with one loss after another doesn’t matter on the bottom line, although that can weigh on a team’s psyche and affect their play in conference games. One example of that is UMBC, a team that won one game in non-conference play but is tied atop America East after an 82-76 win at New Hampshire on Monday night.

The young Retrievers haven’t exactly had a memorable season thus far. They entered Monday night’s game with just one win on the season, back in December against winless Towson. Only three of their 11 losses had come by single digits. Their best holdover, Chris De La Rosa, left the team in late November. They came in surrendering almost 77 points per game and turning the ball over nearly 17 times per game. And the shooting numbers on offense were nothing to brag about, either.

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Boston College gains confidence before the break

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Boston College has come back from the Christmas break in a better place than they were before it. In fact, it’s better than where they were over a week before their last game, as their 83-73 win over Sacred Heart last Wednesday was their third straight.

With a young team, confidence is big, and head coach Steve Donahue has been talking about that all along. He knew the wins would be hard to come by and keeping up confidence would be a battle. There was no question the players would get better, and Donahue has constantly said that the players are doing what he has asked of them and then some. There hasn’t been a complaint about the effort and work ethic, and that’s not to be underestimated.

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Stony Brook hopes more practice time helps

Stony Brook probably welcomed the relative break in the action they are coming up on the end of. Their loss at Rutgers in the MSG Holiday Festival is their only game in a 17-day stretch surrounding final exams and the holidays, giving them a time with a lot of practice and few games that will allow players to get better physically and the team to iron some things out. After their 66-51 loss at Boston College almost a week earlier, it was clear that this comes at a good time.

The lowlight of that day was in the final 12 minutes of the first half. After the Seawolves went up 11-6, they went the final 11:50 of the half without scoring as Boston College scored 22 unanswered points. While the second half was more of a normal frame, the Seawolves dug themselves too deep a hole to get out of.

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Providence quietly develops in non-conference play

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – With their 67-52 win on Tuesday night, Providence improved to 10-2 on the season. The record is nice, but it doesn’t tell the whole story in more ways than one. This team is showing improvement, while the record is also a little deceptive.

Providence started the game with a 14-5 run, but New Hampshire stayed at least within striking distance the entire half. The Wildcats took a two-point lead early in the second half, but Providence regained the lead and New Hampshire stayed right with Providence for a while. As the half went on it looked like the Wildcats wore down and Providence eventually built the lead up to 19 at one point.

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Northeastern needs answers in the backcourt, and fast

BOSTON – Heading into the home stretch of non-conference play, Northeastern’s 71-62 loss to Princeton doesn’t portend good things. It’s not so much the loss as much as some of what could be seen in it, and given that this is college basketball, the backcourt questions that are raised are troublesome.

The Huskies only played two true guards on Sunday, and spent some time with just one on the floor. At times, the shooting guard spot was occupied by sophomore Alwayne Bigby or senior Kashief Edwards, neither of whom is a guard. While freshman Quincy Ford has some guard skills, he’s more like a big wing, with better ball skills than Kauri Black, who handled the ball a little too much on Sunday as he led the Huskies with five turnovers.

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Boston College more confident as finals come to a close

It hasn’t been a banner season for Boston College if you look solely at the bottom line. Even after last Sunday’s 66-51 win over Stony Brook, the Eagles are 3-7 after breaking a four-game losing streak. The bottom line doesn’t reflect it, but there’s a feeling that this team is growing and it seemed evident on Sunday while the bottom line did reflect it this time around.

BC head coach Steve Donahue admits he’s been preaching to his team about winning four-minute stretches – covering the time between media timeouts in a game. Sometimes that’s what you have to do when wins are hard to come by, and it’s been known for a while that they were not likely to be plentiful for this team. Freshman forward Ryan Anderson talked about this a little more, noting that even though they’re competitors and thus don’t like losing, they are looking away from the bottom line when evaluating where they are.

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Fairfield fulfills missions in Springfield and gets better

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Like fellow MAAC counterpart Siena, Fairfield looks like they got better in their trip to Springfield for the Hall of Fame Holiday Showcase on Friday. The Stags have had some ups and downs in non-conference play, but one of the MAAC favorites looks to be improving as final exams near and showed it in their 59-51 win over Old Dominion on Friday.

Friday’s game was far from a thing of beauty, especially in the second half as it was tightly called and neither team shot well. Fairfield won despite shooting just 37.3 percent for the game, but the bright side along with the win was that they won the rebounding battle 41-40 and got just about every loose ball.

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Injuries, eligibility issues hurt Brown out of the gates

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The 2011-12 season hasn’t exactly gone the way Brown drew it up thus far. The Bears come up on their last game before a break for final exams with a 4-7 mark, but more than that, not playing well. They were annihilated at cross-town rival Providence on Monday, then lost to New Hampshire on Wednesday.

Brown has been hit hard in the personnel department since school began. Rafael Maia, who figured to change the frontcourt lineup by giving the Bears a better big man, was declared ineligible for the season by the NCAA. Joe Sharkey, who figured to give them some backcourt depth, injured his hip and will redshirt, with surgery coming near the end of this month. Tucker Halpern, who was ready to blossom further now that he would be able to play his natural small forward position more, caught a bad case of mono and is going to redshirt as well, as he’s not improving much. And Dockery Walker, another who figured to contribute up front, is on the shelf.

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Holy Cross may be turning a corner after pulling out a close one

WORCESTER, Mass. – Holy Cross may have conquered a demon in Saturday night’s 62-57 win over New Hampshire. The Crusaders appeared to have the game locked up in the final minute, leading by ten, but they allowed the Wildcats a couple of extra chances that suddenly made it a ballgame. A year ago, they might have ultimately blown this game, but the Crusaders pulled it out by doing just enough late.

The Crusaders led 60-50 with 38 seconds left after two free throws by Justin Burrell. The game was all but in hand at that point, especially since the Crusaders fought back rallies all night long. Then two missed free throws and two missed turnovers, one in their own end, helped New Hampshire suddenly get within 60-57. Burrell then sank two more free throws to finally seal the game and get the Crusaders over the hump.

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Terriers continue to bounce back en route to two wins

SOUTH KINGSTON, R.I. – Boston University is establishing an identity as a resilient team in the early going. Adversity has been present early and often, in the form of deficits in games and tough losses. But new head coach Joe Jones and his team knew it wouldn’t last, and although they had to overcome adversity again this weekend, they did just that in finishing with a 2-1 record in the Legends Classic subregional.

The Terriers didn’t exactly start out the weekend on a good note. They lost a heart-breaker to Cleveland State on Friday afternoon, a game that was more than just there for the taking. But they bounced back to take out the host team on Saturday and then pull out a 68-61 decision over Hofstra, and that’s the biggest thing they will take out of this weekend.

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Young Hartford could use some confidence to go with other positives

WORCESTER, Mass. – Hartford needs some confidence, and they’re not getting it on the bottom line. An 0-5 start, thanks in large part to a lack of baskets at the offensive end, has made that hard to come by. The latest example was Wednesday’s 80-66 setback at Holy Cross, where the Hawks fell behind in the first half and couldn’t rally enough in the second.

The Hawks are shooting just over 34 percent from the field on the season. Wednesday night’s 36.1 percent boosted it by a small amount, but they shot below 30 percent in a first half that saw them fall behind by as many as 18 after Holy Cross ran off 18 unanswered points to take the lead for good. In that run, the Hawks missed seven shots, four of which came from behind the arc.

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