Bryant is better than season of tough luck might indicate

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Bryant’s season may be best symbolized by a play in the last minute of Thursday night’s 66-63 loss to Fairleigh Dickinson. Down 62-58, Frankie Dobbs made a great hesitation move and drove uncontested to the basket for a layup that rolled out. Despite that, Bryant still had a chance late, but came out on the losing end.

The Bulldogs’ 2-19 record is a little deceptive. While they have been blown out a few times, with four losses by 25 points or more, they have had their share of close games like Thursday night. The Bulldogs are 2-6 in games decided by single digits and 1-4 in games decided by five points or less. Those are stats that can sometimes determine the course of a season for a team.

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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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Robert Morris’ win at Bryant couldn’t have gone better

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Although it might seem obvious from the final score, simply watching Robert Morris’ 84-53 thumping of Bryant on Thursday went about as well as the coaching staff could have drawn it up. The Colonials won with defense and getting points from it, played a disciplined game and also look like a team continuing to develop the kind of depth that will give them a chance when the Northeast Conference Tournament rolls around.

“I was happy with a lot of it, for sure,” said head coach Andy Toole. “I was happy that we were able to keep some guys’ minutes in check, because when you go Thursday and Saturday, having a little bit of depth definitely helps.”

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Sacred Heart coach tries to send a message in visit to Boston College

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – With just one non-conference game left after Wednesday night’s game at Boston College, Dave Bike wanted to get a point across to his team and his best player. The long-time Sacred Heart mentor has a team with some offensive ability, and a few players in particular, but in the losing effort, they made a big rally without their best player on the floor.

In the first half of the Pioneers’ 83-73 loss, Gibson could hardly miss. He was 6-7 from the field, including 3-4 from long range, en route to 17 points. There was some buzz among those on press row about his shooting, especially since a couple of his three-pointers were not just barely behind the arc.

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Central Connecticut looks like an NEC contender in manhandling Bryant

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Northeast Conference play opened up on Thursday night, and one team sent notice that a championship is going to have to go through them. Central Connecticut manhandled an improved Bryant team 83-51 in a game that was never competitive, and did so with a complete effort. To boot, it was on the road and with a crowd that was not hostile but certainly up for the game.

The fans saw a good game, all right. It just wasn’t by the team they were rooting for.

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LIU wins two for a successful Connecticut Trip

UNCASVILLE, Conn. – Long Island came to Connecticut without a win on the season, but emerged with their first two that included a Springfield Bracket title in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic. And along the way, they continued to do what head coach Jim Ferry said they would in the first few weeks: learn about their team and move forward towards another NCAA Tournament appearance.

LIU opened up with three games on the road, something which will be a recurring theme as Ferry noted the difficulty in getting non-conference home games. They lost all three, but none were against bad teams as they lost at Hofstra, Old Dominion and Penn State. While Ferry, like most coaches, isn’t into moral victories, he felt like the team got much of what they needed out of them.

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Bryant Turning a Corner With Recent Winning Streak

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Exactly when this was going to happen was an unknown. But there wasn’t really any question it was going to happen. Bryant’s turn for the better in the win-loss column has come in the new year, as the Bulldogs’ often bumpy transition into Division I is getting smoother in 2011. It continued with another win on Thursday night, a 74-71 decision over Fairleigh Dickinson thanks to a clutch three-pointer in the final seconds.

Late last month, it seemed like wins were not far away for this team, even though they were hard to come by. They were clearly improving, especially at the offensive end and with their backcourt. The offensive improvement is important because there have been plenty of occasions during the first two seasons where the defense was fine, but the Bulldogs’ struggles to score kept them from winning games. But now, the Bulldogs have shot 50 percent or better from the floor in three of the last four games. … Continue Reading

Unselfishness, Road Success Make Long Island a Contender

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Long Island might seem like an unlikely team to contend for the Northeast Conference title at first glance. Although they were picked third in the conference’s preseason poll and got a first-place vote, it’s a team with six sophomores and five upperclassmen, so it’s not the kind of very experienced team that tends to win a conference like the Northeast. And while leadership can be a concern, the Blackbirds are off to a 10-4 start, including 2-1 in the conference, and have the look of a team that can contend. … Continue Reading

Bryant Ready to Pick Up Wins

One team that appears to have better days ahead as Christmas approaches is Bryant. Wins have been elusive for the Bulldogs, but that’s not entirely surprising considering who they have played and their inexperience. There is no denying the progress that has been made, not only since last season when they struggled mightily, but just in the last month.

“If you look a the production we’re getting out of our freshmen and sophomores, we’re a lot better,” head coach Tim O’Shea said.

In particular, the perimeter is driving this improvement. It was a given that Frankie Dobbs, who followed O’Shea over from Ohio and sat out last season as a transfer, would make an impact right away. He would give them some quickness at the point guard spot and be a difference-maker against a press. One could also figure that senior Cecil Gresham would provide an experienced scorer now that he’s healthy again. The pleasant developments have come from a couple of freshmen, and that’s not all. … Continue Reading

A Tempo Free Look: FDU Stops Bryant in NEC Opener

TEANECK, N.J. – On Thursday, Fairleigh Dickinson defeated Bryant 78-68 in the Northeast Conference opener for both clubs at the Rothman Center. We take a look at a tempo free breakdown of the game.

The efficiency:

Possessions, Offensive Efficiency
Bryant 67, 102
FDU 68, 115

The Four Factors:

Observations:

• About the only negative in FDU’s Four Factors was the 22 percent turnover rate. The inside game was so dominant, though, it didn’t matter as much. The Knight owned the lane with an incredible 46-18 points in the paint edge. The Knights were 25 of 42, good for 61 percent on two-point shooting. Granted not every two point field goal attempt is in the paint. But tonight virtually everyone for the Knights was.
• FDU’s inside prowess was reflected in offensive rebound percentage and free throw rate as well, as the Knights shot 31 free throws to Bryant’s 12. As the Knights pounded it inside, Bryant settled for threes. They did shoot 12 of 27 (44%) from beyond the arc and were able to trim two double digit-deficits to a two possession game.
• Bryant’s turnover rate was a step in the right direction. Under 20% is the target and the Bulldogs met it. Nice improvement for a club that entered with a (too high) 23 percent rate.
• FDU coach Greg Vetrone was very pleased with the play of Kamil Svrdlik. The 6-8 junior was dominant on the blocks with a career-high 24 points to go along with rebounds. A native of the Czech Republic, Svrdlik is providing a much needed low post game with Alvin Mofunanya graduated.
• Keeping a shot chart the last 12 minutes, you can see FDU’s inside prowess. The Knights had eight field goals, all in the paint (four in transition). Bryant had seven field goals. Among them five were three-pointers, one on the three-point line and one in the paint.
• Cecil Gresham, Bryant’s senior forward, had a “breakout game” per coach Tim O’Shea, leading all scorers with 28 points. O’shea would like more contributions from sophomore center Vlad Kondratyev, who played very well last year but has not been contributing as well to date.
• FDU improves to 2-3, Bryant falls to 1-6.

Quick Hitters – November 25, 2010

Some quick hitters as we reach the holiday and head into the long weekend:

• Steve Donahue is throwing his freshmen right into the mix at Boston College, and it’s helping in the immediate. In particular, Danny Rubin started against Holy Cross and had 14 points and six rebounds, going 4-9 from long range and making a couple of key shots during a run where the Eagles first broke the game open. … Continue Reading

Deane Out at Wagner

Mike Deane has been fired by Wagner after the young Seahawks finished 5-26 this season.  Deane, who has 26 years experience as a college head coach, was 95-113 in seven seasons at the school.

The Seahawks finished 11th in the 12-team Northeast Conference this season with a 3-15 mark.  They ended the season with an 81-76 win over St. Francis (Pa.), a win that snapped a seven-game losing streak.

We’re No. 346!

Two more chances, that’s all Alcorn State has to get this season’s bragging rights.

Bryant? All it can hope for is that the Braves (1-28) keep tumbling so it doesn’t have to go alone with the worst Division-I team title.

Heading into the last week of the regular season, Alcorn State will have two shots to move past the Bulldogs (1-29) in the 2009-10 season win column. Not being the team with the least wins wasn’t exactly what the Braves were looking to brag about this year, but at this point, they’ll take it.

It’s not like they have much else to hang on to. Just like Bryant, the Braves won’t have post-season play.

The Braves knew from the very beginning it was going to be bad. Their season opener was a 40-point defeat at the hands of Ohio State, followed by a 62-point humiliation to Arkansas. Check, please?

Alcorn State kept on playing. Ten games later, it was 10 more double-digit losses, including a couple more 60-point losses. By the time the Braves won their first game — in their 25th try, 55-54, against Mississippi Valley State Feb. 13 — only 750 fans showed up to see it.

Bryant‘s path was a bit less embarrassing. The Bulldogs started off with 43- and 24-point losses before dropping a close one, 59-56, to Bucknell. Five of their next 23 losses were by six points or less before finally becoming the last Division-I team to win a game. Bryant defeated Wagner, 53-51, on the road Feb. 18.

The Bulldogs closed the season with three more losses, including an overtime one, 69-60, to St. Francis, N.Y., Thursday.

The résumés are alarming for both squads, although Bryant seems to have a slim edge just because Alcorn State was blown out in all but three games this season. And even in that one, the Braves tried to give it away. They led 54-47 with 32 seconds to go, but Mississippi Valley State was within one point 26 seconds later.

Alcorn State clanked two free throws to give Mississippi Valley State a last chance at the winner, but it didn’t go.

A few more close games, a road win and being a team in transition from Division II are the sad edges Bryant has over Alcorn State even though the Braves still have two games to go and could potentially end up with three times as many wins as the Bulldogs. But it isn’t happening.And even though the Braves score nine points more per game than Bryant did this season (51.9), defense matters more when you’re trying to find an identity. The Bulldogs held opponents to 69.5 points per game while Alcorn State has allowed them to score 82.5.

One can compare attempting to give an edge to either of these awful teams through the previous statistics to trying to find light in two black holes, though. The bottom line is neither one will be bragging. Bryant already left the 2009-10-season room very quietly; Alcorn State will follow soon, tip-toeing.

Rice’s Formula For Success Continues to Work

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – Since Mike Rice took over at Robert Morris, the program has had nothing but success.  The Colonials have won back-to-back regular season titles and could be on their way to a third in a row.  There’s been a formula that he has stuck to all along, and it’s seen good success again this season as he works with a mix of freshmen and upperclassmen, although there have been bumps in the road.  They came close to having another one on Saturday before some late defense bailed them out in a 52-42 win at Bryant.

Rice’s formula involves defense and having a bench.  From the moment he had the job, developing a bench was paramount, so he worked guys into the rotation early in the season with the idea of being ready for later in the season.  He doesn’t want his players wearing down from having to play too many minutes, especially at the defensive end, and the results thus far speak for themselves.  The Colonials are 44-6 in Northeast Conference play in the two-plus seasons with Rice at the helm.

“It’s the way we play,” said Rice.  “You play four minutes as hard as you can, and then get out, and then somebody plays as hard as they can.  It helps us out at the end of the year maybe to grind somebody out.”

This year’s reserves average over 23 points per game and give the team a bench scoring edge of almost eight points per game.  They go about eight deep solidly as a result and work a few other players in as well, and the win over Bryant was their tenth straight NEC win.  It also shows in the team’s defensive statistics, as opponents shoot just 41.3 percent from the field against the Colonials and turn the ball over nearly 16 times per game.  In NEC games, opponents shoot below 38 percent and turn it over more than 16 times per game.  And all the while, their leader in minutes averages 26.3 per game.

The bench certainly helped last year, when the Colonials won the conference tournament to reach the NCAA Tournament.  A year earlier, a loss before the championship game made them the team with the most regular season wins in NIT history.

The Colonials are doing it this time around in part with freshmen guards, something that doesn’t happen often.  They start redshirt freshman Velton Jones at the point and true freshman Karon Abraham at the shooting guard spot, although size-wise one would figure the other way around.  Since moving into the starting lineup on December 30, Abraham is averaging over 15 points per game and shooting over 44 percent from long range.  The team’s leading scorer, he has won the conference’s Rookie of the Week honors four times this season.  Jones, for his part, has won the award once while starting most of the season, and although he struggled on Saturday he hit the Colonials’ only three-pointer of the game, a dagger with 1:20 left that basically sealed the game.   Neither had their finest hour on Saturday, but players have off games and there are several explanations.

The Colonials left town a day early for a 12-hour bus ride to beat a snowstorm that hit the Pittsburgh area.  The game was also the back end of a Thursday-Saturday trip, and was their fifth game in over a week.  While they played five games in a shorter stretch from time to time in high school, those games were all in one spot or all within a short drive of one another.  The five games in this stretch were played in five different gyms in five different cities.

“They’ve been so consistent in NEC play, so for them to not come through for us may be a thing of us playing Thusrday-Saturday-Monday-Thursday-Saturday,” Rice said of his young guards.  “Maybe on that back end, maybe some of them have their legs taken from them a little bit.”

The Colonials have gone with the lineup of freshman guards in part out of necessity, as senior Jimmy Langhurst – who Rice described as “my perimeter rock” – suffered a season-ending knee injury in December.  Langhurst was a steady player and a career 40.6 percent shooter from long range.  While Abraham has certainly played well, he is still a freshman, as is Jones, and there’s always some acclimation to the college game that happens in that first year.

On the other end of the spectrum is the senior leadership the Colonials get from Rob Robinson, Dallas Green and Mezie Nwigwe in the starting lineup and Josiah Whitehead off the bench.  Green is long and primarily gives them defense, while Nwigwe complements the young guards and Whitehead has been better of late.  Rice especially singled out Robinson for Saturday’s game, as he was the only double-digit scorer for them with 12 points.

“You need those seniors who have been through it and don’t get nervous, who make those plays,” he said, adding about Robinson, “He’s had an up-and-down senior year, probably not had the numbers as good as he should have, but the last 8-10 games in all the leadership things, he’s really stepped forward.”

Rice’s formula certainly appears to be working, and he’s been able to juggle his mix of personnel with success thus far.  Saturday’s game will look like an aberration, a game they had a chance to lose before the defense picked it up in the latter part of the second half.  The important thing is that they won the game.

A Little Tougher Loss For Bryant

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – This one probably hurt a little more than many of the others.

Bryant hasn’t had an easy second season of Division I; one can probably figure that just from a look at their 0-26 record.  A big part of why it hasn’t been easy isn’t the wins and losses per se, but how they got there.  It’s not like they haven’t played hard, or can’t play.  But they came in without a huge margin for error, and what little they had just about evaporated as soon as Cecil Gresham sustained a knee injury that would ultimately end his season.  It’s one thing to be a team in a conference like the Big East or ACC and lose your best player to such an injury, but another to be a team like Bryant and have that happen.  In the Big East or ACC, that might be the difference between going 24-8 or 18-14 because there are other very talented players around your best player; in a conference like the Northeast, where Bryant is, it could make the difference between going 16-12 or 3-25.

Given the record, most probably didn’t give the Bulldogs a chance, even on their homecourt, against Northeast Conference leader Robert Morris on Saturday.  Even when the teams went into the locker room tied at 25, many probably figured the deeper Robert Morris team would probably wear them down and win going away.

Not only did that not happen, but Bryant scored the first five points of the second half and led for the majority of the latter frame.  They looked like a team that had answers, as they didn’t just hang on to a one-point lead the whole time.  Instead, they held a four-point lead on several occasions.  And as they continued to hold the lead, it looked more and more like they could pull this off.  Anytime the favorite allows the opponent to hang around or have the lead, the pressure goes up on the favorite.

And this was not against a bad team.  Bryant did this against Robert Morris, the defending NEC champion.

So when the Bulldogs went eight minutes without scoring, and never scored again after an Adam Parzych three-pointer brought them within 44-42, it wasn’t quite like every other loss this season.

“We’re really trying to play hard every game and give us an opportunity to be in every game,” said senior guard Chris Birrell.  “We did come out harder than they did, I thought.”

The Bulldogs have hit some scoring droughts this season, as putting points on the board has been a struggle.  This one struck a damaging blow.

Despite the lack of a win, the Bulldogs have shown improvement, and that includes their young players.  Vlad Kondratyev has clearly improved since the start of the season and has become the go-to guy in the frontcourt.  Raphael Jordan had a game on Saturday that he probably needed, as early on he looked good but hasn’t been the same player since then.  He was very much into Saturday’s game and played well at both ends with 11 points, four assists and three steals.

I think he knows now what it takes to play at this level, and I think he showed today,” Birrell said of Jordan.  “He came out with intensity.”

Robert Morris eventually got its act together and played like the conference leader in the latter part of the second half, which included the scoreless stretch for Bryant.  They won somewhat comfortably in the final box score, but know they got a scare put into them even after head coach Mike Rice warned his players about the Bulldogs’ record.

Most probably figured the Bulldogs’ best chance to get their first win in the final couple of weeks would be either St. Francis (Pa.) two nights ago or at Wagner next Thursday.  Few probably figured Robert Morris, even at home, would be such a close call.  And because it was a close call, where they led for a significant portion of the second half and against the conference leader, the loss to the Colonials probably hurts a little more than the others.

St. Francis (Pa.) Comes Along in Rebuilding Process

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – When you’re rebuilding a program, sometimes little milestones help more than one might think.  It’s also true that as meaningful as those milestones might be at the time, it doesn’t change what the bottom line goal is.  It’s not the end of the growth.  For Don Friday’s St. Francis (Pa.) team, that’s the story after their 60-34 win at Bryant, their first road win of the season.

“To get a win like this, yes, it’s a good feeling to walk out of somebody’s place with a win,” Friday said following the game.

In the same breath, though, the second-year head coach was thinking about something larger.  Friday thought back a few weeks earlier, when the Red Flash blew a lead at Fairleigh Dickinson and lost.  How they lost was indicative of a lesson he tried to teach the team, and one they seemed to get since they played better even in losses to Northeast Conference leader Robert Morris.  The big keys were being aggressive and tough, things that were lacking after they got the lead against FDU.

Learning experiences matter, and Friday is also trying to get his younger players to understand that the season is a marathon.  To that end, one way he’s bridged the divide that can sometimes happen between younger players and veterans with a new coach is by assigning mentors to different players for both on- and off-court matters.  He got the seniors to understand that they are needed because the newcomers would not learn simply by being on the court.

“Those guys have been pretty consistent with these kids off the court,” Friday said of the seniors.

Not only have they done that, but it seems the freshmen have done more than just show the potential of this team.  Added Friday: “They’re feeding off the freshmen.”

Two freshmen start for the Red Flash, as Chris Johnson starts at the point and Will Felder starts inside.  Felder had ten points and eight rebounds on Thursday and looks like he can develop into an anchor inside.  Johnson had an off night against Bryant but has a nearly 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, which is rare for a freshman.  He moved into the starting lineup for NEC games and has stabilized the position at both ends of the floor.

“The thing that Chris has done for us that he’s really hung his hat on is pressuring the basketball, and he sets the tone for us out front,” said Friday.  “Our steals and deflections are a lot higher now because of Chris.”

Anthony Ervin sees the most minutes off the bench among the freshmen, and he has some potential.  He can score from the wing, and as he improves he could become the kind of instant offense player teams need off the bench or make his way into the starting lineup.

With their play and that of seniors like Devin Sweetney, the team’s best player, the Red Flash are now just a game away from .500 in NEC play.  They have already won three more NEC games than last season and the most since they went 10-8 in 2004-05.  Friday doesn’t want to stop there, naturally.  Just getting the first road win of the season or within a game of .500 in conference play is a small step toward larger goals.

“I want to win every game out of here that we can and make (the conference) tournament, so that I have a rallying cry for my freshmen and sophomores returning next year,” Friday said.  “This is what it’s going to take in the weight room, this is why you have to become stronger.”

He is already taking steps to help that happen in addition to what he’s done to help the freshmen grow and the seniors to be a big part of this.  Friday said that he’s cutting down the practices because he wants the team to have something left at the end of the season.  He’s using games like the FDU game as a teaching tool, as well as Thursday’s win as he wants the team to know how it feels to walk out of another team’s gym with a victory.

“You can’t take anything for granted when you’re trying to rebuild, so every opportunity is a learning opportunity,” said Friday, who was previously an assistant at Bucknell for nine seasons before spending five years as the head coach at Division III Lycoming College.

When Friday first got the job after the 2007-08 season, he started hustling.  He’s kept it up in the same way he tells his players now that everything is a marathon and not a sprint.  He knew he wasn’t in an established program like he had been during his last Division I stint, so he could take nothing for granted.  While patience is never easy because fans and alumni want to see their teams in the NCAA Tournament yesterday, Friday seems to be maintaining a balance between the impatience of wanting to win now and being patient in light of the youth of his team and the mission to build the program.

In the journey of building a program, sometimes small milestones help, even if not as much as one might think.  The Red Flash just reached one and might not be far away from getting another one in the form of a trip to the conference tournament, which would give the young players valuable experience in that setting.  That wouldn’t be a small milestone, but there’s no question it would help.

Central Connecticut Comes Alive Offensively

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – About a month ago, no one could have imagined Central Connecticut State doing what they did Thursday night.  It’s rare that a team’s first six field goals are three-pointers and that they start off 7-8 from deep, but that’s what the Blue Devils did in their 60-34 win at Bryant.  It’s another sign of a team that has changed drastically at that end in the last month.

For the first two months of the season, the Blue Devils struggled offensively.  They scored 60 or more points just four times in the first 13 games.  Against Holy Cross at Mohegan Sun Arena, they might have hit their low, as a Crusader team that has struggled to defend all year shut them down completely.  They didn’t reach a season low in points – that came two games later in a 55-42 loss at Monmouth – and by a slim margin it wasn’t their lowest shooting percentage (29.3; they shot 29.2 percent five games later in a 76-45 shellacking against Quinnipiac).  But they looked about as inept as they have all season at the offensive end.

Things got so bad that head coach Howie Dickenman said he told his team “no more threes” at one point.  A big part of it was that the Blue Devils had a tendency to take ill-advised shots, as they weren’t running bad offense all the time and they have players capable of making shots.

“We would keep count of bad shots when breaking the film down, and there were some times when we had 16 or 17 ill-advised shots,” said Dickenman.  “We stressed, don’t take that, pass it to your teammate.  We’ve been getting a lot of assists in our last couple of games that we won.”

The early start from deep was partly the result of the Blue Devils driving inside and getting rejected several times by Bryant big man Papa Lo, who blocked six shots in the first half.  Once the Blue Devils started to knock down shots from long range – they were 8-12 in the first half – other things opened up just enough for them to keep up a good lead, especially since they shut down Bryant and held them to a season-low point total.

Although they barely did it this time around, it marked the seventh time in nine games that the Blue Devils have scored at least 60 points.  While they are just 4-3 in those games, their season record is 8-14, so it’s clear that some offense will certainly help.  It hasn’t been easy to come by, especially with their best player, Ken Horton, sidelined for the season with a hip injury.  More recently, leading scorer Robbie Ptacek has sat out six games with an injury, another hit to the offense.

Of late, the main players who have picked up the slack are the perimeter duo of Shemik Thompson and Joe Seymore.  It’s easy to forget that Thompson was the Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year two years ago given that classmate Horton has become this team’s best player, but he’s regaining that form and is second on the team in scoring and now stands seventh all-time in career assists at the school.  Seymore had a game-high 19 points against Bryant and continued to shoot the ball well.  After going 11-44 from long range in the first 12 games of the season, Seymore has made 25 of 58 shots from deep in the last ten games.

“This is the best time for him to get hot,” said Dickenman, adding, “we need him.”

Central has also improved thanks to the play of a freshman point guard, which doesn’t happen often.  Devan Bailey had five assists and no turnovers against Bryant, giving him 24 assists with just four turnovers in the last five games.  In Northeast Conference games, his assist/turnover ratio is 2.5.  That’s in addition to his defense, an area where he’s long been able to hang his hat.

The Blue Devils’ improved offense has also coincided with Markeys Deans hitting his stride.  The junior college transfer averaged just 3.8 points per game in the first 12 games and never scored in double figures in that stretch.  Thursday night’s 12-point, seven-rebound effort marked the eighth time in ten games he has done that, giving them one more reliable scoring option.

Dickenman added that a more consistent starting lineup has helped in the last few games.  Throughout the season, he has had to mix and match, using 14 different starting lineups.  No starting lineup has lasted more than four games thus far.  But the current one is 3-0 and might last a little longer.

Central Connecticut has come along offensively to the point where they can win some games when their defense is good but not great.  That’s a marked change not only from earlier in the season, but earlier in the month.

The Notebook

TEANECK, N.J. – Earlier this week in a Big East matchup, Syracuse employed a 2-3 zone the entire game. No surprise as Jim Boeheim has been utilizing that signature defense with outstanding success since the days gas was under a dollar a gallon. No, this was actually the Syracuse women’s team who used in in a thorough 79-38 dismantling of Seton Hall at the Pirates’ Walsh Gym.

It seems coach Quentin Hillman, in his fourth year at the Big East school, was observing men’s practice his first year at Syracuse. “I looked up saw that (national championship) banner and thought about (Boeheim’s) years of winning and felt this was the way to go,” Hillman said. “I decided the 2-3 would be our main defense.” Hillman found early on that he has a friend and confidant in Boeheim. “Coach Boeheim has been great helping me with it. He has watched our practices, made suggestions and we both discuss it regularly.”

The women employ the zone in the same manner as then men. The guards and wings contest three-pointers and other perimeter shots. Seton Hall’s fine junior guard Ebonie Williams struggled through a two-point night on one for eight shooting. Williams was frustrated trying to get a decent look anywhere on the perimeter. Inside players like 6-2 Nicole Micheal and 6-4 Kayla Alexander clog the lane and use their length to break up passes in the paint.

The victory at the Hall left Syracuse at 13-1, the lone loss an OT setback at the hands of Georgetown. Life in the Big East conference for the women, as the men, is a succession of challenges and tough teams. Syracuse, with that patented 2-3, is certainly one of them.

Other Notes

• A little confidence goes a long way. Last week Fairleigh Dickinson rallied from 22 down with 12 minutes to play to earn an 88-85 victory over Sacred Heart. A few nights later Bryant got out to a 10-1 lead over the Knights. FDU interim coach Greg Vetrone called time out and saw a team unsure of what lie ahead. The Knights regrouped en route to a 66-50 victory over the Bulldogs.
  Three nights later FDU defeated Central Connecticut State 83-74 , behind Sean Baptiste’s 26 points, to run their conference record to 3-1. FDU ended 2009 with a 1-12 record. The Knights took advantage of a three-game conference swing at home and are very much in the thick of the NEC race.

  “We have a new coach, a new system and new point guard,” Vetrone said. “Some of the teams we played early we were not ready to face. I said it would take time but (the momentum) is definitely coming.”

  Mike Scott scored 16 against Bryant. The junior point guard has been on fire for FDU. In the Sacred Heart and Bryant games, Scott had a combined 18 assists and zero (no misprint) turnovers in 70 minutes.

• Bryant, in their second year of Division I, is in the Northeast Conference but not eligible for post season play. Tim O’Shea’s group has had a murderous schedule. Included were Boston College, Providence, St.John’s, Indiana and an improved Army club. There were two Ivies as well which happened to be Harvard and Cornell. Following the FDU game Bryant was 0-15. To make matters worse, leading scorer (14.5 PPG) Cecil Gresham, a senior swingman, was lost for the year with an injury in late December.
• There is an interesting doubleheader at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Cincinnati visits St. John’s and Fordham meets Dayton at the “World’s Most Famous Arena.”  Cincinnati faces another team in dire need of a conference win. The Bearcats faced Seton Hall at the Prudential Center and the Pirates took an 83-76 decision. Seton Hall earned their first win after losses in conference to West Virginia (overtime), Syracuse and at UConn.

  St. John’s is also 0-3 and in a must-win situation after having lost a tough one at Georgetown, a home collapse down the stretch to Providence and another road game to Louisville. Highly-touted freshman Lance Stephenson will make his MSG debut in a Bearcat uniform.

  Dayton survived a tough OT victory over Duquesne on Saturday and faces Fordham under interim coach Jared Grasso. The Flyers are the Atlantic 10 Conference favorites in the view of many experts. A pair of forwards, junior Chris Wright and senior Marcus Johnson, have been key players for Brian Gregory’s club.

• Seton Hall sharpshooter Jeremy Hazell had 33 points against Cincinnati, his fifth 30-point scoring game this season.
• The difference, from a tempo-free approach for St. John’s thus far:

              W-L	   OFF EFF	DEF EFF
  Overall	   10-5	     100	  93
  Big East    0-3	      90	  106

  The efficiency is the points per possession multiplied by 100. Offensively, the Red Storm overall average 1.00 points per possession on offense. The defense, at .93 is sound. In the Big East those numbers are reversed. The Storm is struggling overall on offense and a bit generous on defense.

  A reason for the defensive slip, beside better talent in the Big east, is the turnover rate. Overall the Storm are forcing opponents into a 20 percent TO rate – that is, one-fifth of the opposition possessions are turnovers. In the Big East that rate on the defensive end is 16 percent. In conference, St. John’s has found it more difficult to force opponents to turn the ball over.

St. Francis Comes Together

Unity A Key For Red Flash

by Zach Smart

Adversity.

It’s an aspect of life that simply none of us can eschew. No matter how hard you try, nobody gets out of life unscathed.

Last season, the St. Francis (Pa.) men’s basketball team’s pursuit of the Northeast Conference post-season took a bone-crushing hit when center J.R. Enright left school after the sudden, tragic death of his girlfriend.

The 6-10 Enright averaged 12 points to go with 10 rebounds as a presence in the paint, but missed the final five games of the season as he returned home to Omaha, Neb.

A functional surrogate family situated in the Boondocks of Pennsylvania (the town of Loretto has a population of under 2,000 and is roughly 1.02 square miles), the Red Flash showed endless support for their teammate in the wake of tragedy and grief. The Red Flash managed just five NEC victories throughout the brutal 2006-2007 campaign, but grew closer as a team and hasn’t kept Enright far from their thoughts.

“They’ve continued to stay together through adverse times,” explained coach Bobby Jones, who’s now in his ninth season with the Red Flash. “I was a little bit surprised, particularly in the way we finished last season. Obviously going through that adversity with J.R. and his girlfriend (was a tough experience). But the team certainly rallied around, certainly pulled together.”

Jones admits he’d like to wash last season away from his memory bank. St. Francis slipped into a program-record 15-game free-fall and never smelled the NEC Tournament. Youth and lack of communication were two problems that surfaced during the drought.

Those problems have faded away quickly this season, as a young team with a well-balanced offense and the bit-by-bit burgeoning inside-outside tandem in Cale Nelson and Bass Dieng looks to re-write the script this season.

Despite falling into an early 0-6 hole, sporting a scanty 5-16 record (3-7 in conference play), St. Francis has their eyes pasted on a playoff spot. The new-look Red Flash is beginning to gel and have left a statement with recent victories over St. Francis (N.Y.) and Central Connecticut State.

“The chemistry has been real well,” said super sophomore Devin Sweetney.

Sweetney, a 6-6 wing and the cousin of Chicago Bull Michael Sweetney, is second on the team in scoring (12 ppg) and is averaging 5.1 boards per game. “These guys have been together. This is our second year together, we’ll be together next year as well. Every day that goes by, we’re just getting closer and we’re bonding together as a team. We know each other better than we did last year.”

Fitting, because Jones knows Sweetney better than he did last year.

“Devin is a tremendous athlete, he has great size, great anticipation skills,” Jones explained. “I think he’s at his best when he’s running the floor hard, when he’s defending hard, able to get a few deflections, and really rebound the basketball.”

Jones said that games in which Sweetney asserts himself are paramount to success this season. He was quick to add, however, that the Washington, D.C.-bred Sweetney too often gets complacent and settles for jump shots.

In the victories over the St. Francis (NY) and Central Connecticut State, Sweetney poured in 21 and 18 points, respectively. He shot a blistering 16-for-26 in those two games and grabbed a season-high five offensive boards against the Terriers, who the Red Flash took into three overtimes in a wild 92-84 triumph that made headlines.

“The last couple ball games, he’s really starting to play like Devin we all now that he’s capable of,” added Jones.

Jones pegged Sweetney and Nelson – a junior who’s averaging 12 points and a team-high 4.2 assists per game – as this year’s captains. It symbolizes a team that’s using youth as a charm this season.

“(Coach) tells us to go out there, lead by example,” said Sweetney. “Regardless of what happens on the court, we try to play through your mistakes, and keep the team together, you know?”

Junior off-guard Marquis Ford, the NEC Rookie of the Year in 2006, has come alive lately after playing a diminished role at the start of the season. Ford led the conference in three-point shooting last year, hitting a knot over 50 percent from beyond the arc. Ford has switched from the point to the two-guard to fully utilize his ability to score off the ball and come off screens and curls looking to shoot. Ford adds depth to a backcourt that also features Grant Suprenant (10 ppg).

Dieng, who hails from Dakar, Senegal, has discovered his niche in the paint this year, after looking raw and undeveloped for much of last season. Dieng is averaging 10 points and seven boards in an enhanced role this season. The 6-9 center has copped a pair of double-doubles this season and recently scored 18 points in a loss at Quinnipiac.

Down the road, however, Jones sees Nelson and Sweetney dictating destiny in a conference that features a surplus of guards.

“If you look around the league, guard play is so critical at every level – whether you talk high school, college – particularly Division I and certainly in the NBA. If you look at the teams that win consistently, I can show you good guard play.”

They’ve had a lot to overcome. The Red Flash is still St. Patrick’s day-green. The nation’s hotbeds have been scoured for talent, and the seeds have been certainly been planted for the future. A playoff appearance, however, would be testament to the harmonious hard work and perseverance.

Northeast Notebook

Northeast Conference Notebook

by Zach Smart

Ah, to be an NEC team during this juncture of the season. This is when the league begins to turn up the volts, when the top-of-the-line team floats down to the middle of the pack before the blink of an eye. The NEC world is where out-of-conference action rarely affects your team confidence. Even freefalling into an 0-5 non-conference hole and suffering a brutal, 37-point whopping to the cross-town rival won’t derail post-season aspirations. The morale of the program is fully counting on you during these evenly-matched, unpredictable battles.

Teams that live in the NEC know that there is no established food chain here. There is no top-flight team in the up-for-grabs, free-for-all conference. Last year, Central Connecticut ripped through the conference as the clear-cut favorite, their season culminating with a loss to Ohio State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

Not this year.

Robert Morris did what few teams at this tier of basketball can do back on Jan. 7, stamping a 57-51 victory over Boston College in a game that surely dropped jaws of hoop junkies throughout the nation. But just when the Colonials thought they had put themselves on the map, they were shellacked, 82-69, by Sacred Heart.

On top of the world one moment, funneled down to fifth place the next. That’s life when you’re battling for mid-season supremacy in a wide-open conference that will instantly vault one team to titanic exposure and NCAA college basketball lure when all is said and done.

“Right now, I think it’s really too early to determine which teams are going to come out on top,” said Mount St. Mary’s coach Milan Brown last week.

As of right now, Wagner (12-5, 5-1 NEC) and eccentric head coach Mike Deane appear to be the team to beat. They are currently tied for first place with Quinnipiac (9-8, 5-1), who have ripped off four wins in their last five games. Sudden success is something you’d expect from a team whose head coach is earning a king’s ransom to revitalize the program and establish a basketball culture.

As for Deane, who can be seen sporting sunglasses on the sideline, a new aspect of his quirky coaching tools has emerged: A seatbelt.

The Seahawk coach with a penchant for jumping out on the court and becoming easily animated has implemented a seatbelt that straps him to his chair throughout the game. Hopefully Wagner’s group of assistants won’t have to tighten the screws too often.

Deane has subscribed to this new method of restraining himself after the officials have made it clear they will be less tolerant this season.

“After a turnover, I’d expect him to be up yelling at me,” says Wagner guard Joey Mundweiler, who must have felt like a punch-drunk fighter when he first saw that his coach was seated.

But Deane doesn’t have much to yell about at Mundweiler these days. The off guard is averaging 11.1 points and shooting 52 percent from the floor. Mundweiler is just a key cog in the Seahawks’ well-balanced offense that has allowed them to surface as the top team.

No player averages more than 14 points a game, with Mark Porter leading the way with 14.4. The 6-2 point guard has also orchestrated this well-oiled machine effectively, handing out a team-high 5.6 assists.

Notes

• Showing Some Heart: After a dreadful 0-6 start, the skeptics began to surface, as Sacred Heart – who the coaches pegged as the conference favorite – appeared to be suffering from identity theft. The team that advanced all the way to the conference finals last season has re-emerged, behind the play of Brice Brooks, Chauncey Hardy, and Drew Shubik.
• DA’s World: After scoring 16 points the first few games of the season, DeMario Anderson has been on a tear for the Quinnipiac Bobcats. The 6-foot-4 swingman is one of nation’s elite scorers, averaging 20.8 per game. This past week, Anderson was named Choice Hotels NEC player of the week after averaging 23 points, eight boards, and three steals while shooting an efficient 53 percent from the floor. The Bobcat boat will only go as far as Anderson, who played for Central Connecticut his first two seasons, steers them.
• Dolla, Dolla U-Billa: With graduation claiming top scorers Andre Harris (18.8 PPG, 7.5 RPG) and Michael Peeples (11.9 PPG, 5.6 RPG), FDU knew that they would need someone to jump in and fill the void.
  Enter Manny Ubilla. Ubilla is averaging 21.4 points and 6.3 assists in what is easily his best season as a collegian. The senior, who hung 39 on nationally-ranked Rhode Island in a 94-63 loss, has upped his scoring average by nearly 10 points from last season. He has emerged into one of the conference’s premier point guards and is playing like a sure-fire first team all-conference selection.

Power Rankings

• 1. Wagner: Free throw shooting has hurt them, but if the ‘Hawks balanced offense continues to work the way they have, Deane will need to buckle up his seatbelt because it’s going to be a ride.
• 2. Quinnipiac: Bobcats are sizzling as of late, will need to continue to shoot the ball and not rely too heavily on Anderson should the NCAA tournament come calling.
• 3. Robert Morris: The trio of A.J. Jackson, Tony Lee, and Jeremy Chappell could drive this team deep into the post-season for first-year head coach Mike Rice.