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Thursday, November 28, 2024
Saturday’s 72-50 Rhode Island win over SMU might surprise some who saw only the score and knew only the records of the respective teams coming into the game. Look beneath the surface, and Saturday’s result might be a little surprising but certainly shouldn’t be a shocker save perhaps for the margin of victory.
Even the brightest minds at NJIT, a school known and respected nationally for its academics and research, couldn’t explain how the Highlanders came away with a 69-67 win over Army in a game where they scored just 16 first-half points.
For years, you could bank on one thing about Boston University: they would be a defensive-oriented team. This season, that doesn’t appear to be the case at first glance, although for a while on Tuesday the Terriers looked like they were ready to turn a corner before the second half of their 65-64 loss at Harvard.
La Salle is one team that wants to be in the conversation in the Atlantic 10, and after pulling out a 66-64 road win at Northeastern on Saturday night, the Explorers go into final exams looking like a team that could be in that mix.
A look at some important points coming out of Duke’s 90-67 blowout of Temple at the Izod Center in New Jersey, from the way Duke is playing right now to the highly partisan crowd that was on hand.
St. Francis College is not a school that might naturally jump out at the casual fan as a place of potential. But now in his third season, Glenn Braica is trying to change all of that, and with some early results, can see potential perhaps even better than when he took the job.
Connecticut will ride their guards as much as possible this season. Given their personnel, that’s about their only choice, and it’s also where their most natural leaders are. That includes the one who didn’t score for much of Friday’s win over Harvard largely because he was busy helping others do that.
If you envisioned Providence being 7-2 as they head into a break for final exams, you could easily have been right. But chances are, you didn’t think they would look the way they have thus far. You probably figured they would have a few more than five scholarship players healthy to go.
Rhode Island has a lot of issues for this season’s team. They haven’t been a good defensive team and have been out-rebounded by more than six per game on the season. Offensively, there appear to be bigger challenges, and turnovers were an unexpected one in their loss at Providence on Thursday night.
A lot of the key numbers in St. Peter’s win over Iona were identical, or very close. So what made the difference for the Peacocks in a game that may set the tone in the MAAC this season?
