Happy New Year's Eve, everyone. Day #2 of the NEC Schedule. Today's Games (All games on NEC FrontRow): Sacred Heart at Bryant, 1pm Long Island at Merrimack, 2pm Fairleigh Dickinson at St. Francis (PA), 4pm Central Connecticut at St. Francis-Brooklyn, 4pm Canceled: Wagner at Mount St. Mary's; MSMU forfeits SHU at BU Three-pointers are going to be raining down at the Chace on NYE; 47.1% of Bryant's field goal attempts come from beyond the arc, which is 24th nationally. However,

As the NEC's league schedule opened last night, the story continued to be about covid. In case you missed it, Mount St. Mary's, despite having a 100% vaccination rate, had to forfeit its first two league games, both at home against FDU (originally scheduled for Wednesday night) and Wagner (Friday). But if you were thinking that those would be the only games affected by Omnicron, you'd be wrong. Central Connecticut played last night without its best player in Nigel Scantlebury

Day 1 of the NEC schedule. Who's excited? Yesterday, the league announced one cancellation; due to a covid outbreak within the Mount St. Mary's program, its game against Fairleigh Dickinson today, as well as Friday's matchup with Wagner, is canceled. The Mount starts out 0-2, which is brutal considering both games were at Knot Arena, and Mount St. Mary's was an 8 point favorite tonight according to Kenpom. But we still have 4 games tonight, so let's go! Today's Games (all gam

I prefer to look at the season in two parts; the non-conference season, and the part that counts. That's not how we're conditioned as college basketball fans, especially if you're favorite school is in a multi-bid league. But quite frankly, if you're an NEC program, anything that happened prior to Christmas ultimately does not matter unless you've performed historically strong non-league like, say, Wagner. The Seahawks were so good in the non-conference that getting off the 1

Around our parts, the big news yesterday was not Wagner winning at Fairfield (though that was big, as Bashir Mason got career win #150). It was the announcement that the NEC approved a one-time expansion of the 2022 NEC Men's and Women's Tournament fields to include all nine eligible teams (Merrimack remains ineligible as it transitions to D1), while also maintaining the league's cancellation and forfeit policy. Here's the release. As far as the forfeiture rule goes, I get it

Outside of the scheduled game between Central Connecticut and Rutgers on New Year's Day, today is the final day of the non-conference schedule for NEC programs, as Wagner heads to Bridgeport to take on Fairfield. Before we dive into that one, as well as yesterday's games, a few words on the covid situation in college basketball. Initially, many conferences (including the NEC, I believe), implemented forfeiture rules in cases where teams were unable to play due to a covid outb

With 41 seconds to go, Mikey Watkins drained a three-pointer from the right wing to give Merrimack a 49-47 lead, and they'd hold on to knock off Maine on Tuesday night. For Merrimack, as we all know it's all about the defense; the Warriors held Maine to 5 of 18 from deep and forced the Black Bears into taking 15 mid-range jumpers (making just 4), which correlated with 0.85ppp. However, the Warriors continue to have issues scoring the basketball; after making 11 of 29 from dow

Can anything slow down Wagner? They bounced back perfectly find from a covid pause, then after not playing a D1 game for 12 days due to final exams, the Seahawks went out and absolutely destroyed a bad Delaware St. team 93-51. Wagner winning the game was expected; DSU is ranked #357 at Kenpom, and the Seahawks, which were playing at home, were favored by 22+ points. However, it's safe to say that WC exceeded expectations in this one. Alex Morales went for 15 points, 7 rebound

Fewer than 10 days until we get to see NEC on NEC action. Man, the non-conference season flew by.. Standings: As always during non-conference play, sorted by Adjusted Efficiency Margin (aka Kenpom rankings). Note: I've added Net Rankings into the graphic. NEC Team of the Week: Long Island Generally I try not to give this award to a team that only played once during the week, but it was light week schedule-wise, plus the Sharks were really good on Sunday in a 90-65 home win. L

So maybe the LIU staff is figuring out how to utilize their three bigs in an efficient manner after all? The Sharks jumped out to an early 35-18 lead and never looked back, blowing out Army at the Steinberg Wellness Center 90-65. It's the 2nd time in two home games that LIU won by 25 points or more, and despite starting the season 0-4 and 1-7, Long Island has jumped to #255 at Kenpom (4th in the NEC), which is 2 spots higher than they were in the pre-season. LIU, which came i