America East Basketball News & Notes: Four Weeks to League Play

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The start of league play is now four weeks away. Teams in America East are winding down their non-conference schedules with the holidays approaching. Once the new year arrives, league play will be on and the road to the conference tournament will be in overdrive. It was a good week for the league with six teams picking up wins. As of this writing, half the league members are over .500. Let’s see how it went.

The Net Ranking for the week is a little better. Bryant College has the best ranking at #167, and UMass Lowell moved up as well to #174. This was helped out by a nice win on the road last Saturday at UMass Amherst. The team that took a bit of a nose dive was the Maine Black Bears who dropped 30 spots from #148 to #178. In the Ken Pom, the River Hawks are at #126, Bryant at #181, and Vermont at #193.

UAlbany (6-3) was one of those teams that grabbed a good win last week. Behind a double-double from Justin Neely of 18 points and 13 rebounds, the Great Danes defeated Columbia from the Ivy League by an 88-73 score. The Lions came into that game unbeaten. UAlbany shot the ball very well in this one shooting 47.8% from the field and 45.5% from 3-point land. Six players finished the game in double figures. The 27 points off of Columbia’s turnovers did not hurt. 20 assists on 32 made baskets is a good sign too. It was the Great Danes’s only game of the week.

The UMass Lowell River Hawks (6-4) had only one game last week. But it was a big one as they made the trip to Amherst to take on the UMass Minutemen. Led by this week’s America East Rookie of the Week Martin Somerville (his fourth of the year), who had 22 points off the bench. The River Hawks took care of business on the road with a 96-83 win. It was UMass Lowell’s first road win of the season. Quinton Mincy had 27 points and Yuri Covington added 19. The River Hawks would shoot 58% from the field and an even more impressive 88.2% from the foul line. UMass Lowell is now home for their next five games.

It was a 1-1 week for UMBC (6-5) that they began by losing to Georgetown. Josh Odunowo had 18 and Marcus Banks had 16. UMBC only got 8 bench points and 36 in the paint. On Saturday, they bounced back with a nice win on the road at Towson, 84-71. Four of the five starters finished in double figures. UMBC led this game from start to finish and they shot 51.7% from the field.

A team that has really struggled is the UNH Wildcats (2-11) as they have lost five in a row and sit in last place in the league. The Wildcats went 0-3 last week losing last Sunday by a 83-61 count on the road at Fordham University. Anthony McComb had 20 points in the contest. They never had the lead in this one. On Tuesday night, the annual in-state game with Dartmouth College took place at Lundholm Gym. The Wildcats only shot 43% from the field and an even worse 29.2% from 3-point land. What kept UNH in the game was 34 points in the paint. On Sunday, they hosted Harvard and lost by a 72-62 score. Turnovers again were a problem; they committed 16 and again did not shoot well from 3-point land at 21.7%. In a game that featured 9 ties and 17 lead changes, making a few more shots could have been the difference.

Tarriq Francis of NJIT leads the league in scoring averaging 20.3 points per game. On Saturday vs Navy, Francis went for 23 points in a 69-64 Highlanders win. Francis was one of three players in double figures. Sebastian Robinson added 19 and Tim Moore had 10.

The America East Player of the Week is Chris Walker of Binghamton. The senior guard from West Palm Beach, Florida went for 30 points on 10-of-14 shooting, including 6-of-8 from 3-point land in a win over LeMoyne. For Walker, this is his first weekly award.

Next week, we will be back with more from the America East Conference.