I’m trying to keep these recap pieces shorter. This was a start, but not yet where I want to be. Just a heads up for the future.
Eight games and several notable results. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and UMBC
go undefeated over the Weekend. Lowell, Albany, Bryant, and Binghamton go winless (and technically NJIT).
Thursday, Jan. 22
Vermont 77, UMass Lowell 68
-Really great win for the Catamounts, for a bunch of different reasons.
-First, Noah Barnett returned. He only played 19 minutes, but his two-way physicality was massive in the matchup with Lowell’s frontcourt. He’s an elite glue-guy, and the Catamounts are significantly better when he’s healthy.
-Second, Lucas Mari had his breakout game. I guess all he needed was Lowell’s horrendous dribble-drive defense to realize he has the size, strength, and handle to be a bulldozer on downhill drives. He even ran the offense a little bit and made some big defensive plays. If he can play like this, the Cats’ ceiling is raised immensely.
-Third, Vermont proved it could win games in different ways. The Cats mucked it up in the first half and overwhelmed Lowell on defense. As the game sped up, Lowell grinded its way back. But the Cats ran some gorgeous offense over the final 15 minutes, holding the River Hawks at bay. TJ Hurley was a monster, and the DHO/off-ball actions he ran with Gus Yalden (and Ben Johnson at times) were unstoppable.
-All I can think about when watching these actions is the contrast between this and last year’s stale, clunky offense.
-These past two games against NJIT and Vermont’s elite interior defenses are starting to make me feel like Lowell needs a bit more shooting. The Hawks need an elite 3-and-D wing — they need a super-sized Jared Frey who hits all his jumpers.
-This marks eight wins in a row for Vermont over Lowell.
Maine 52, Albany 49
-Maine produced the perfect game script to beat Lowell. Chris Markwood coached circles around the Danes again, which explains his 6-1 head-to-head record.
-Ace Flagg had the best game of his young career. He had a few monster plays down the stretch, including the game-winning mid-range jumper. However, here was my favorite play:
-Flagg sets a chin screen for Logan Carey and enters into a little two-man DHO action. Flagg’s jumper started to fall a bit this game, so his little spot-up motion as Carey started to probe the interior drew Okechukwu Okeke out toward the perimeter, opening up the rim for the guard to finish. This is what I find so exciting about Flagg in Markwood’s offense — when his jumper is falling, he can work as a very effective pick-and-pop or short-roll power forward, especially with his passing IQ.
-Keelan Steele went down early in this game. I hope he’s okay — Maine’s dealt with enough injuries already.
-Tough game for Albany, but Abdoulaye Fall is starting to find his stride. The JUCO transfer is an uber-tantalizing prospect and provides Albany with another lengthy shot-creating wing.
-Mekhi Gray earned his first KenPom Game MVP of the season. More on him later.
UMBC 87, NJIT 74
-This game played out exactly as expected. UMBC is one of the conference’s only teams with the requisite shot-making to punish NJIT’s interior shell. The Retrievers’ guard trio played off each other and killed the Highlanders rim attacks and mid-range dribble jumpers — they also got to the line 30 times against NJIT’s foul-prone defenders.
-Grant Billmeier tried to mix in some zone in the first half, which was a decent idea considering UMBC was running its offense with such ease. Alas, the Retrievers scored 14 points across nine possessions, and that scheme was quickly discarded.
-The most concerning part of this NJIT performance was the transition defense, which was wholly roasted.
-Looks like Jose Roberto Tanchyn is going to get more opportunities going forward, in a mix with Riley Jacobs. Regardless, NJIT targeted them early and often with Melvyn Ebonkoli in the post, with decent success (he scored 12 points on 11 post-up actions).
-I’m proud of Sebastian Robinson for digging in against the conference’s best dribble defense and still managing 19 points on 7-for-15 2-point shooting.
-Daylon Dickerson returned, and that’s huge for the Retreivers. He’s playing at a really high level off the wing.
-More on this later, but Josh Odunowo might be back.
New Hampshire 88, Binghamton 82 (3OT)
-I could break this game down a million different ways, but it all doesn’t matter — this was an absolutely devastating defeat for Binghamton. The Bearcats held an 18-point second-half lead. Jackson Benigni missed the game-winning free-throw at the end of regulation. The team’s now 0-6. There are no words to describe this season from hell for Levell Sanders.
-This game was simply Belal El Shakery/Comeh Emuobor and Wes Peterson/Zyier Beverley bashing into each other as hard as possible under the rim until the other yielded. Binghamton won the battle early, but New Hampshire ultimately won the war, mainly with 18 offensive rebounds.
-The ESPN+ stream broke, so I missed large swaths of the overtime periods. Shame on you, ESPN.
-Tyler Bike is turning into an All-Frosh guard. More on him later.
Saturday, Jan. 24
UMBC 79, UMass Lowell 56
-I thought this was an absolutely atrocious gameplan from Lowell. The River Hawks boast the conference’s most rim-reliant and rim-dominant offense, while UMBC has the league’s most vulnerable rim defense. So, naturally, the Hawks ran a million perimeter ball-screens and took a bunch of 3-point jumpers against the conference’s best dribble defense.
-As a result, Xavier Spencer and Darrel Yepdo had brutal games. Meanwhile, JJ Massaquoi played pretty well against Vermont, yet he barely saw the court in the first half despite what was profiled as a very winnable matchup. None of it made sense.
-To their credit, the Retrievers packed it in and tried to force Lowell over the top, and I loved how they were hedging the ball-screen to force Lowell into more weak-side off-ball creation. But UMBC tried to do the same against Bryant, and the Bulldogs just kept dumping it down to the block and winning.
-The River Hawks should’ve done this every single time down the court:
-Austin Green had one post-up set. One!
-Meanwhile, Odunowo had four post-up sets, scoring six points (1.5 PPP). He’s scored in double-digits in back-to-back games for the first time since December 6. He finally looks like himself again, and UMBC is really starting to round into form around him — this week’s UMBC-Vermont game just got really interesting.
-The River Hawks dribble defense was again lousy, forcing them to go zone for 11 possessions in the second-half.
-DJ Armstrong stole the show with his shot-making. He’s a stud.
New Hampshire 80, Albany 72
-As I wrote in the preview, this game was mostly going to come down to shot-making. Albany shot 4-for-14 from deep, while New Hampshire shot 15-for-35.
-Bike is unbelievable. He’s shooting the lights out. I don’t know if it’s sustainable, but he and Jack Graham form an uber-fun backcourt regardless. Actually, El Shakery and Emuobor form a really fun frontcourt, so the Wildcats might just be a fun all-around team.
-I thought we’d see more El Shakery/Emuobor lineups, but given that those two are such overwhelming figures, I often forget that New Hampshire has two other solid frontcourt pieces in John Squire and Giannos Xanthopoulos. So, El Shakery was able to switch away from Okeke a few times in this game, getting a matchup with one of Albany’s slimmer wings, like here:
-Yeah, he had to split through Okeke at the end, but El Shakery got positioning on Isaac Abidde while Okeke was still covering Squire.
-Again, tough week for Albany, but I don’t think the Danes should be too disappointed. They were missing Jaden Kempson, Zach Matulu, and Nas Muhammad, forcing St. Bonaventure transfer Miles Rose — who I forgot was even on the roster — to jump in and drop 20 points. They also got hit with some bad 3-point variance, shooting 8-for-37 (21%) across the two losses while their opponents shot 18-for-49 (36%) — what’re ya gonna do?
-Meanwhile, New Hampshire just won three games in six days. The Wildcats have the lowest average 2-point shot distance in the league. Things are looking up in Durham.
Maine 79, Binghamton 63
-Entering this matchup, I thought Binghamton’s rim-running wings and bigs could back-door cut all over the Black Bears and win at the rim, especially with Steele sidelined. However, Maine play-by-play broadcaster Bryan Stackpole adamantly disagreed, mentioning how the Bearcats’ short-handed rotation was likely gassed after playing three overtimes on Thursday — Peterson, Benigni, Beverley, and Jeremiah Quigley all played over 48 minutes.
-Alas, Bryan was correct, and he even predicted the big Ryan Mabrey game.
-Binghamton’s defensive coverage was a mess, which explains why the Bearcats allowed nearly 80 points to Maine (although the Bears shot 50% from 3). I saw mishaps like this all afternoon:
-The bigger issue was Binghamton’s turnover problem rearing its ugly head against Maine’s aggressive defense. The Bearcats finished with 16 (only 15 assists), and their atrocious transition defense gifted the Bears 18 fast-break points. You can’t do that against Maine, which is begging for easy offense.
-If you’re a Black Bear fan, you have to feel really good after this week. Going 2-0 despite TJ Biel scoring just 11 combined points is wildly impressive.
-As mentioned above, Gray is going to have a big impact. He scored in double-digits in both games this week. He’s a hard-nosed, veteran two-way perimeter player who will get downhill out of ball-screens, playmake for others, and pester opposing guards for some steals — sounds like a Markwood guard.
Vermont 62, Bryant 52
-Barnett once again proved massive in this matchup, playing a hard, physical 23 minutes and recording Vermont’s only two blocks against one of the nation’s tallest teams.
-Hurley re-inserte
\d himself into CPOY talks this week after dropping a combined 56 across the two games. He’s one of the toughest shot-makers in Catamount history.
-As expected, this game was a grinder. Bryant’s offense looked lost again for most of the game. The Catamounts pieced together a questionable second half, but no team should apologize for road wins in conference play.
-During Bryant’s second-half run, Vermont’s defense did a decent job switching most actions, but it’s tough to switch against Bryant because of the Bulldogs’ size. Keegan Harvey and others got a post-mismatch on a bunch of different second-half possessions.
-Ty Tabales is such a hot-and-cold player. He had a three-minute stretch where he recorded two epic steals, combined with fouling Hurley on a 3 and missing Harvey on an easy dump-off interior pass. Such is life as a Frosh guard. He again shot 0-for-4 from 3, bringing his conference total to 2-for-34.
-Despite almost collapsing in the second half for the second consecutive road game, the Catamounts hit a few tough shots off of beautifully drawn up Hurley-Yalden two-man actions, including this one that practically sealed the game:
-Hurley sets the back-screen for Johnson, and Yalden screens the screener. Bryant does a decent job of switching everything (as the Bulldogs are apt to do), but Yalden’s pump, penetrate, and kick game is too quick for the Bulldogs. This is a downright dangerous duo, especially when both are playing at their potential.
