Welcome to Bizzaro World: Maine is 3-0 (Wrap 11/19)
When was the last time<span style="font-style:italic;"> that </span>happened? I'd like to know.
Hats off to Maine, who needed overtime to secure a victory on the road against Princeton 58-55. Looks like it was a very sloppy game especially for Maine at the free-throw line, not shooting the ball well from the floor, only handing out nine assists and getting outrebounded. Yet, the Black Bears gritted out a win over an Ivy League opponent. Winning games the league needs to win, Maine is doing their part. Again, kudos to them for getting it done, and for not making me do research for the first installment of the second season of Replacing Ted. Unfortunately, I don't think the win streak lasts against Providence this Sunday. The road gets tougher from here on out.
The Ivy sweep did not happen tonight as UNH lost 80-69 to Harvard. Tyrone Conley led the way with 21 points off the bench, but Harvard was much more balanced shooting 61% from the floor and 66.7% from three! Not many teams stand a chance against that. It doesn't help that UNH's big men didn't see many touches at all. Also, eight assists as a team will not get it done. Harvard is tough, make no bones about it, but UNH will have to put together some wins if anyone wants to take them seriously as a sleeper this season. Their next game is against Penn State, which is an unlikely win, but they do have games against Marist (who is awful), Brown, LIU and Fordham (who is also awful). Those will be telling on what we can expect from the Wildcats.
Binghamton had two players score 20 points tonight. DJ Rivera went for 20 and 10. Dwayne Jackson scored 20. Too bad the team was downright terrible otherwise shooting 31.4% from the field, 33.3% from three, and 59.4% from the free throw line. 17 turnovers too. So you would expect that they would lose, which they did to George Washington (2-0, 2-0 AE) 71-57. They outrebounded the Colonials by 14, that might be the only good thing. Binghamton just seems undisciplined. They have two, three guys running around (Mayben had 6 assists, but 7 turnovers) try to score every possession and taking ill advised shots and just not functioning as a unit. That kind of sounds like another former GW assistant's program. It is game one, so maybe the kinks get worked out. Bing has talent here, they just don't play any real semblance of basketball. That is not much of a surprise.
Anthony Raffa got his first assists tonight! Three of them! He equaled that production in the turnover category though. Albany beat D1-newbie Bryant 76-67. It was the Tim Ambrose show tonight, as he put in a 10-for-17 performance to score 24 points. He had eight rebounds too. The rest of the team did good things, but nothing spectacular. Louis Barraza went 3-for-4 from distance and had nine points. Would now be a good time for <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
http://americaleast.spreadshirt.com/us/US/Shop/Article/Index/article/Viva-Barraza-3168758">a plug[/url]? Still, lots of turning the ball over (15, though Bryant had 21)and not enough on the defensive end, especially the perimeter (Bryant was 40% on the night). The Danes have a good makeup, but will experience their fair share of trouble this season. I think everyone knows that. Good to get win number one out of the way, and it should be 2-0 against Bryant this season as well, since they play again in Albany later in the schedule.
2-2. Not bad, right on par with what was probably expected. I'm out for the weekend on business, we should have a guest weekend editor lined up hopefully to keep us all on track with the games, as I will be nowhere near a computer until Monday.
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