MU B-Ball Report: 1/25/12

The Hawks take to the road this week for the Northeast Conference’s New England road trip, starting on Thursday at Central Connecticut State and finishing up on Saturday at Bryant in Smithfield, R.I.

MU comes into league play against the Blue Devils on Thursday at 2-6 in the NEC and in a tie with Mount St. Mary’s (Monmouth holds the head-to-head tiebreaker right now) for ninth place in the standings, one game out of the tournament hunt. CCSU, led by the trio of Ken Horton (who is last season’s NEC Player of the Year), Robby Ptacek and Kyle Vinales, is one of the league’s surprises this season. The Blue Devils sit at 6-2 in the conference and in a four-way tie for second with Wagner, Robert Morris and equally-surprising St. Francis (NY). CCSU isn’t great at any one thing, but they are really good at winning close games and sport probably the best trio of scorers any one team boasts in the NEC. CCSU is very good at home, going 7-1 at Detrick Gym overall 4-0 in the league.

MU visits Bryant, which is right outside of Providence, on Saturday. The Bulldogs are in their final season of transitioning to Division I and will be eligible for postseason play next year after moving up from D2 a few seasons ago. Bryant is 2-18 overall and 1-7 in the league with wins this season over UC-Davis and Saint Francis (PA). Alex Francis leads Bryant in scoring at 17.0 points per game, while Corey Maynard and Frankie Dobbs also average in double figures. Opponents are outrebounding BU  by an average of seven caroms per game the Bulldogs give up over 75 points per game.

Should be an interesting pair of games this week, we’ll see if MU can turn around its road fortunes. Myself and Matt Harmon have the call of both games for you.