Rush The Court

Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the NEC and MAAC conferences.   Click here for all of our 2009-10 Season Preview materials..

Predicted Order of Finish:

1. Mount St. Mary’s (15-3)
2. Robert Morris (14-4)
3. Quinnipiac (13-5)
4. Central Connecticut (12-6)
5. LIU (10-7)
6. FDU (9-9)
7. Monmouth (8-10)
8. Sacred Heart (7-11)
9. St. Francis (NY) (6-12)
10. Wagner (5-13)
11. St. Francis (PA) (4-14)

 All Conference Team:

• Jeremy Goode (G), 5′9 Sr., Mount St.Mary’s
• Jaytonah Wisseh (G), 6′1 Sr., LIU
• Rob Robinson (F), 6′8 Sr., Robert Morris
• Ken Horton (F), 6′6 Jr., Central Connecticut
• Justin Rutty (C/F), 6′7 Jr., Quinnipiac

6^th Man of the Year. Julian Boyd (F), 6-1 So., LIU Newcomer of the Year. Mike Scott (G), 6-0 Jr., FDU

What you need to know.

• The Northeast Conference is composed of 12 members. Eleven compete for the championship as newest member Bryant will not be eligible for the NEC title or NCAA tournament appearances until 2013.
• The NEC is primarily a guard/small forward conference. Solid big men ruling the blocks are rare. Interestingly one who went on to a nice career hailed from the NEC. Rik Smits of Marist owned the low post in the mid-80s before heading to David Stern’s league.
• The NEC post season tournament is contested among the conference’s top eight finishers. Naturally, a good deal of scoreboard watching is in vogue past Valentine’s Day. In addition some non-qualifiers can still play the spoiler in their last regular season games so the conference schedule carries weight throughout the campaign.
• The ’Battle of Brooklyn’ is waged every year. LIU and St. Francis (NY) square off for bragging rights. The two schools are about a mile apart in distance.
• The dreaded ’Western swing’ has had an effect and separated contenders from pretenders. The Western swing is the trip to the two Western Pennsylvania schools, St.Francis (PA) and Robert Morris.

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Ray Floriani of College Chalktalk is the RTC correspondent for the NEC and MAAC Conferences. 

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – The postseason brackets are set and the Northeast Conference tournament tips off tonight. The schedule:

Thursday

• Quinnipiac at LIU
• Central Connecticut  at Sacred Heart
• St.Francis (NY) at Robert Morris
• Wagner at Mount St. Mary’s

**Semifinals are Sunday at the home court of the higher seed and the finals are next Wednesday, 8:00 on ESPN2. Again at the home court of the highest remaining seed (see below bracket).

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Predicted Order of Finish.

1. Sacred Heart (19-9) (14-4)
2. Robert Morris (17-13) (12-6)
3. Wagner (18-12) (11-7)
4. Mt. St. Mary’s (15-15) (10-8)
5. Quinnipiac (14-15) (10-8)
6. St. Francis (Pa) (14-15) (9-9)
7. Central Connecticut St. (13-16) (8-10)
8. Monmouth (10-18) (8-10)
9. Fairleigh Dickinson (10-18) (7-11)
10. St. Francis (NY) (8-21) (6-12)
11. Long Island (5-23) (4-14)

WYN2K. The NEC is currently going through a down cycle, but it hasn’t always been that way. In the 23-year history of the 65-team NCAA Tourney, the NEC has earned a non-#16 seed twelve times, getting a seed as high as #13 twice, in 1996 (Monmouth) and 1997 (LIU). Lately, though, the Northeast Conference has been stuck in #16 seed hell, having earned a bottom seed three years in a row (the 2006 appearance was in the PiG – Monmouth defeated Hampton). Over those last three years, the NEC’s OOC record is 94-215 (.304), featuring wins over Seton Hall (FDU – 2007), S. Illinois (Monmouth – 2006), Rhode Island (Wagner – 2006) and St. John’s (St. Francis (NY) – 2005). As you can see, it’s a better conference in general than the SWAC and MEAC, but it too typically cannot compete with first- and second-tier leagues.

Predicted Champion. Sacred Heart (#16 Seed NCAA). With twin NEC behemoths CCSU and Monmouth (6 of last 8 NCAA bids) likely to have down years, Sacred Heart is poised to take over the crown of the NEC. Five of the top seven players return from a team that finished winning seven of their last eight games before falling in a close one against CCSU in the NEC championship game.

Others Considered. Robert Morris returns a trio of high-scoring players for a team that was considered disappointing last year. Notable from a statistical oddity bent is that 6′0 guard Tony Lee shot a sizzling 67% on two-point FGs last year (150-224), which is an extremely high percentage for a small guard. Mt. St. Mary’s returns its leading scorer and assist man from a squad that earned a reputation of playing very hard on every possession. Wagner has everyone back from an 8-10 team that showed some promise midway through the conference season last year.

Games to Watch. Like a broken record, there will only be one NEC game on your television this winter.

• NEC Championship Game (03.12.08). ESPN2.

RPI Booster Games. With only 18 games against BCS opponents, the NEC will have to make it count if they want to earn RPI points this year (the league was 1-20 vs. BCS teams in 2007). But there are a few opportunities for the league to take advantage of down years among several Big East teams (and one former Big East squad) if they catch them sleeping.

• Robert Morris @ Seton Hall (11.18.07)
  
• Sacred Heart @ St. John’s (11.20.07)
  
• FDU @ St. John’s (11.25.07)
• Sacred Heart @ Providence (12.18.07)
• Robert Morris @ Boston College (01.07.08)

Odds of Multiple NCAA Bids. Again, zero.

Neat-o Stat. This isn’t a stat, but it’s neat-o nonetheless. Earl “The Goat” Manigault’s cousin, Ronald Manigault, is a junior college transfer at LIU this season. If he’s anything like his cousin (see video tribute below), LIU may become the And1 crowd’s underground team of choice this season.

64/65-Team Era. In 23 appearances, the NEC is actually the least successful conference of the era, going a measly 1-23 (.042) over this period. When you consider that the one win was Monmouth in 2006’s play-in game, it looks even worse. Despite getting two #13 and #14 seeds, the NEC has never been able to pull off the big upset.

Final Thought. The NEC champion has played well as a #16 seed vs. the #1 seed in two of its last three NCAA appearances, but simply wore down in the second half against a far superior team (2005 – CCSU down one at halftime to Illinois; 2006 – Monmouth down seven with six mins remaining vs. Villanova). In order to have a legitimate chance to win a game, the NEC champ will likely have to win enough nonconference games to improve its RPI enough to earn a #15 or #14 seed. Unfortunately, we don’t see a team capable of that in this year’s NEC.