After a lot of debate, we pull our offer on
Thomas Steele. Just too risky with his rawness and projected bad shooting.
We finally get our first win of the year, beating UC-Riverside 82-64.
Napoleon Gordon scores 22,
Mack Rasmussen hits 12 points,
Sonfrio Rey beasts for 14 points and 7 rebounds off the bench and
Grady Chong adds 10 bench points.
Rhode Island beats us 63-55, and we just stunk.
Strategy changes give us a 91-67 beatdown of Stony Brook, keyed by double doubles from
Lance Tully (18 points, 14 rebounds) and
Joaquin Bravo (10 points, 10 rebounds).
Sonfrio Rey continues to impress off the bench with 12 points, 7 rebounds and
Grady Chong joins him with 10 points. 6 players all told in double-digit figures.
77-62 win over Hartford and we have our first win streak of the year.
Craig Smith scores 16,
Napoleon "Dynamite Flash" Gordon and
Mack Rasmussen each net 13 points and
Grady Chong does his usual 10 bench point showing.
Joaquin Bravo scores 20 to lead us to a massive 87-83 upset of then 8-1 Iona.
Napoleon Gordon adds 15 points and
Chris Templeton scores 12 filling in after
Mack Rasmussen sprains his knee and is likely out for the next game.
Our Spanish duo carries us to an 81-68 victory over Hartford.
Joaquin Bravo packs on 19 points and 10 rebounds,
Sofronio Rey 14 points and 11 rebounds. Props also to
Napoleon Gordon's 16 points.
Back over .500 on a season and a Northeast opener on the road at Robert Morris.
Napoleon "Dynamite Flash" Gordon erupts for 30 points,
Craig Smith scores 14, the same by
Lance Tully, and
Joaquin Bravo hangs 13 on the Colonials in the 104-93 race.
Napoleon Gordon stays hot with 21 points and
Craig Smith chips in 17 points for an 87-61 rout of Fairleigh-Dickinson.
Lance Tully just misses the double-double with 14 points and 9 rebounds.
We lose reserve
Jamie Spradlin for two weeks with patellar tendinitis, but it's not a huge blow, I don't think.
Recruiting news was split. Wisconsin All-State
SG Mac Murray from Onalaska High in Onalaska signed, but
C Arthur Garner chose Richmond. Oh well, at least we finally landed somebody from Wisconsin.
We're one of a few teams to start Northeast play 2-0. The others are Wagner, Monmouth, and St. Francis (NY).
Napoleon Gordon does his thing with 20 points, but
Lance Tully's 18 points and 10 rebounds,
Joaquin Bravo's 14 points and 11 rebounds, and
Craig Smith's 16 points and 3 steals deserve just as much credit for our 84-66 triumph over Mount St. Mary's.
Our seven game win streak finally comes to an ignoble 65-58 home loss to Central Connecticut State. Playing shorthanded is tiring our guys out, I think.
79-71 road loss to Quinnipiac follows despite
Mack Rasmussen's 19 points. Fortunately,
Jamie Spradlin will be back next game.
Sure enough, we win 79-74 next one out over St. Francis (PA).
Lance Tully with 16 points and 11 rebounds,
Joaquin Bravo with 13 points, and a 7 point, 10 rebound bench outing from
Sofronio Rey.
Huge 107-72 home win over Wagner follows.
Lance Tully is relentless with 19 points and 14 rebounds, a point total matched by
Napoleon Gordon.
Mack Rasmussen leads the team with 23 points, and
Grady Chong and
Sofronio Rey lead the second team with 16 and 13 respective points. The victory is our 10th of the season.
Mack Rasmussen goes on a 25 point tear,
Napoleon Gordon adds 16 points and
Sofronio Rey bench boosts 11 points and 8 rebounds in an 85-75 road win over St. Francis (PA).
Another road victory, 94-79 over Mount St. Mary's, captained by
Joaquin Bravo's 20 points,
Craig Smith's 19 points and
Sofronio Rey's 10 bench points. I'm very impressed with how this team has responded from our 0-4 start.
We keep the streak going with a 91-73 home win over St. Francis (NY).
All five starters score 13 points or more. The two highlights -
Lance Tully with 20 points and
Joaquin Bravo with 16 points, 14 rebounds.
The month ends on a sour note with an 89-76 home loss to Robert Morris, despite 12+ points from everyone in the lineup except
Craig Smith, and
Sofronio Rey's 14 points, 9 rebounds off the bench.
We took a flier on
C Max Redding, but he dreamt big and went to Michigan instead. Our backup target chose someone else too, so we're left having to dip into the shallow 2* pool, where there's not much left either.
Still, all is not bad.
Code:
2017 Northeast Conference Standings
TEAM CW CL Pct W L Pct RPI Prestige
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bryant University 8 3 .727 13 8 .619 78 11
Wagner 8 3 .727 12 9 .571 133 22
Central Connecticut State 6 5 .545 12 10 .545 93 12
Quinnipiac 6 5 .545 12 9 .571 195 22
Sacred Heart 6 5 .545 10 10 .500 257 23
Mount St. Mary's 5 6 .455 11 11 .500 216 20
Monmouth 5 6 .455 8 14 .364 314 20
Robert Morris 5 6 .455 11 12 .478 226 30
St. Francis-PA 5 6 .455 10 13 .435 136 8
St. Francis-NY 4 7 .364 6 15 .286 299 20
Long Island 4 7 .364 6 18 .250 321 11
Fairleigh Dickinson 4 7 .364 9 12 .429 230 25
We're one game away from clinching .500 in conference play and are tied for the Northeast lead. Of course, we all know what happened a couple years ago, when the team imploded down the stretch, so I'm not holding my breath just yet.
Sweet, 99-68 revenge on Qunnipiac.
Once again, all five starters with 12+ points, the big players
Napoleon Gordon with 27 points,
Lance Tully with 19 points and 10 rebounds, and
Mack Rasmussen with 16 points and 10 rebounds. That victory not only guarantees .500 in the conference, but at 14-8, we've already matched last year's victory total.
Joaquin Bravo is lights out with 26 points, but
Napoleon "Dynamite Flash" Gordon betters him with 29 points, and
Craig Smith scores 19 to tally up a 95-54 win over St. Francis (PA).
Defense and
Sofronio Rey's 10 points and 8 rebounds equals an ugly 64-49 road win over Monmouth. We'll take it.
Napoleon Gordon's 23 points and
Joaquin Bravo's 17 points and 9 rebounds can't stop an 88-74 road loss to Fairleigh-Dickinson. The Knights aren't the class of the Northeast they've been the last two years, but it's still a decent squad.
78-65 road loss to Sacred Heart and it appears we're once again choking at the finish.
Sofronio Rey's 15 bench points are the only highlight in this sad game.
With those three defeats, we've fallen a game behind Wagner... and then lose 72-63 to Central Connecticut State on the road. It's 2015 all over again and I can't count on a tournament run like happened then.
Home was never more welcome as we beat Long Island 74-62. 12 points, 11 rebounds from
Joaquin Bravo, 15 points, 10 rebounds from
Lance Tully and 15 points from
Napoleon Gordon.
And with that win, we clinch our first ever Northeast Regular Season Championship!!!!
Talk about a rebound. When we started 0-4, I thought sure I was out on my ass, but John and I changed things up and we came back for the school's first ever regular season title. Everyone's so happy,
Mack Rasmussen's umpteenth sprained knee doesn't bother me, although we do have him off the bench for our final game of the regular season.
And all
Mack Rasmussen does with that bench time is 15 points and 9 rebounds in our 86-56 win over Albany.
Sofronio Rey chips in 9 points and 8 rebounds as well with the second team. But the legit stars are
Lance Tully with 18 points and 15 rebounds,
Napoleon Gordon with 19 points and
Joaquin Bravo with 12 points, 13 rebounds.
Kent Wilhoit chooses Northeastern over us and Cortez makes an emergency visit to Spain to try and land
PG Apolinar Marcos. It's a long shot and we're probably too late to get him, but we'll try.
Gregory Tucker has been unhappy for two months now and will probably transfer. It'd be a shame if he did, but understandable. He's kind of buried on the bench with all our swingmen.
Code:
2017 Northeast Conference Standings
TEAM CW CL Pct W L Pct RPI Prestige
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bryant University 12 6 .667 18 11 .621 97 11
Wagner 12 6 .667 16 13 .552 162 22
Fairleigh Dickinson 10 8 .556 16 13 .552 175 25
Sacred Heart 10 8 .556 14 14 .500 258 23
Central Connecticut State 10 8 .556 16 13 .552 122 12
Robert Morris 10 8 .556 16 14 .533 181 30
Quinnipiac 9 9 .500 15 14 .517 228 22
St. Francis-NY 9 9 .500 11 18 .379 240 20
Monmouth 8 10 .444 11 18 .379 287 20
Mount St. Mary's 6 12 .333 12 17 .414 251 20
Long Island 6 12 .333 8 23 .258 315 11
St. Francis-PA 6 12 .333 11 19 .367 222 8
We face 8 seed St. Francis (NY) in the opening round of the conference tournament. It's a 104-95 track meet, with us the victors.
All five starters with 12+ points, standouts being
Joaquin Bravo with 22 points, 8 rebounds and
Napoleon Gordon with 15 points.
Sofronio Rey adds 14 points, 8 rebounds off the bench.
All four higher seeds advance, so the quarterfinal matchup is against 4 seed Sacred Heart... and it's a 70-53 victory keyed by
Napoleon Gordon's 19 points,
Joaquin Bravo's 16 points and 9 rebounds, and
Lance Tully's 11 points.
And with that, we have the first 20 win season in Bryant school history!!!!
The Northeast tournament final pits us against 3 seed Fairleigh-Dickinson, who finished the season hot and looking to reassert themselves as the Northeast's most dominant team. The Knights are, appropriately enough, the closest thing to royalty this conference has had since I've been here.
And so they are again, beating us 104-97 for
their third straight postseason bid and second NCAA bid in those last three seasons.
Napoleon Gordon scores 29 and
Chris Templeton and
Sofronio Rey do what they can off the bench with 14 points and 12 points, 9 rebounds respectively, but in the end, we fall just short.
It's disappointing, but hard to be too depressed about it.
Fairleigh-Dickinson draws the 14 seed in the South region, the second straight year the Northeast's NCAA representative gets higher than a 16 seed. The conference's prestige is starting to increase slightly, it seems.
UNLV is a 9 seed in the East and Her Blondeness's undergrad school, Creighton, earns the 2 seed in the Midwest.
As for us? We get shafted with the 8 seed in the East region of the NIT, playing 1 seed St. Mary's. I'm pissed and so are the coaches and players. We deserved better than that.
We play horribly, losing 87-60.
Craig Smith's 16 points and
Grady Chong's 12 bench points look good, but
when we get just 8 free throw attempts to St. Mary's 31, it's pretty clear who's going to win that game. Hell, that's a 23 point differential right there.
Very anticlimactic finish, indeed.
16 seed Coastal Carolina upset 1 seed Duke 54-46 in the opening round. UNLV loses in the second round and Fairleigh-Dickinson gets routed 81-60 by 3 seed Pittsburgh in the first round.
Creighton gets to the Elite 8, where 1 seed Kansas dumps them 84-64 and
we take some small consolation in the fact that St. Mary's wins the NIT. We still got screwed in seeding, though.
Final Four is 1 seed UCLA, 4 seed Kentucky, 1 seed Kansas, 1 seed UConn. UCLA vs. UConn for the title and the Huskies win the championship, 77-64.