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Monday, January 20, 2025
Syracuse’s offense has improved by leaps and bounds since early in the season. The Orange can always hang their hat on their defense, and that was the case early on when they had a good deal of difficulty at the offensive end. But now that the offense has come around, this team is much tougher to beat.
With conference play, a bad non-conference run with one loss after another doesn’t matter on the bottom line. One example of that is UMBC, a team that won one game in non-conference play but is tied atop America East after an 82-76 win at New Hampshire on Monday night.
Rhode Island’s young players have no choice but to grow up. With conference play in front of them, the young Rams look like they may be starting to do that, the latest evidence being their 78-72 victory at Boston College in double overtime on Monday.
Saint Joseph’s has largely completed non-conference play, with only a Big 5 game against Penn remaining in less than three weeks. The Hawks are 10-4, with a few good wins, but in some sense, Saturday’s tough 74-69 loss at Harvard is indicative of the team: good, but still needing a good deal of work.
The first game after Christmas was decidedly a mixed bag for Boston College, more so than one might expect from simply looking at the scoreboard and seeing a 21-point loss. Now the underdog in the matchup with Harvard, the Eagles came in with three straight wins before the break and weren’t expected to win the game by virtually anyone outside of their locker room.
The Rhode Island Rams are not in a good place right now. That might be obvious if you see their record, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. And as if that’s not enough, things went from bad to worse right after Christmas.
Boston College has come back from the Christmas break in a better place than they were before it. In fact, it’s better than where they were over a week before their last game, as their 83-73 win over Sacred Heart last Wednesday was their third straight.
There was a consistent theme sounded after Florida Atlantic’s 63-51 loss at Harvard on Thursday night. The message: this team is not there yet, and mental toughness is the big key to getting there.
Stony Brook probably welcomed the relative break in the action they are coming up on the end of. This stretch, with a lot of practice time, followed by three straight at home, gives this team a chance to gain some momentum.
With just one non-conference game left after Wednesday night’s game at Boston College, Dave Bike wanted to get a point across to his team and his best player. The long-time Sacred Heart mentor has a team with some offensive ability, and a few players in particular, but in the losing effort, they made a big rally without their best player on the floor.
