NU will play a home and home vs UMass this weekend.

Friday at UMass at 1:30pm and Sunday at Cabot at noon.

Both games on NESN.

Great news!

Mass was supposed to play Maine in that Friday timeslot. Is Maine another Covid casualty?

From WRBB hoops sportscaster Milton Posner via Twitter...

@miltonposner

Tyson Walker, Shaq Walters, Coleman Stucke, Jason Strong, and Greg Eboigbodin are the likely starters in tomorrow's opener, per Bill Coen.
@GoNUmbasketball

He also tweeted that Connor Braun is unavailable tomorrow after spraining his ankle in practice.
Alex Nwagha is a game-time decision, has been slowly working his way back into practice after a small injury.

What is the over/under on turnovers? It's the first game for both teams and UMASS missed some practice time.

Was able to watch a little bit of this one on mute. Wow how the team has changed, so many new faces. Tyson Walker looked phenomenal offensively and defensively. Not much else looked great defensively, UMass were able to have their way down low and got some decent shooting from beyond the arc. I don't think we handled the press that well but I wasn't watching that carefully.

I'm sure we can learn from this one, UMass look like they have some real good players.

This is where I would normally say, "Thank God we don't have to play Tre Mitchell, again."

Yeah, Tyson was terrific. I thought there were some other positives too....even though it's risky to make predictions based on one game....I thought Doherty looked great in his twenty-one minutes with five rbs and four for five from the field. He could be our best inside threat since Etherton. He looked really comfortable around the basket. Ditto for Telfort in his four for six day including two threes. I thought Strong looked much improved, too.

The main thing this team needs is time on the floor playing together. That will help with team defense and turnovers....points off turnovers killed us today.

(12-11-2020 06:44 PM)NUGUY Wrote:  This is where I would normally say, "Thank God we don't have to play Tre Mitchell, again."

Yeah, Tyson was terrific. I thought there were some other positives too....even though it's risky to make predictions based on one game....I thought Doherty looked great in his twenty-one minutes with five rbs and four for five from the field. He could be our best inside threat since Etherton. He looked really comfortable around the basket. Ditto for Telfort in his four for six day including two threes. I thought Strong looked much improved, too.

The main thing this team needs is time on the floor playing together. That will help with team defense and turnovers....points off turnovers killed us today.

Turnovers and this new group have to learn how to defend the 3. Once UMass got hot behind the arc it was over, despite that the TO's.

Bad first game for Stucke. I want to see how he bounces back. I also want to see more of Hadley too. Let's hope Nwagha can play next game.

I actually thought Eboigboden and Doherty did an admirable job defensively against Mitchell, but that kid is really talented and gets quiet double-doubles.

I hope this group bounces back and plays a solid game Sunday for their confidence.

Here's Coen postgame...

https://twitter.com/GoNUmbasketball/stat...19232?s=20

Wiz, you make some great points. Here's where I would disagree. First, I wouldn't minimize how turnovers played a factor here. Our points after turnovers were seven. Theirs were twenty-four. Second, our defense against the three was NOT good....which in past years it has been. Help in defending an inside threat (Tre) hurts your perimiter defense. Luckilly, there are no Tre's in the CAA but I'm hoping we have that in Doherty. For now, I'm focusing on the positives.

(12-12-2020 12:58 AM)NUGUY Wrote:  Wiz, you make some great points. Here's where I would disagree. First, I wouldn't minimize how turnovers played a factor here. Our points after turnovers were seven. Theirs were twenty-four. Second, our defense against the three was NOT good....which in past years it has been. Help in defending an inside threat (Tre) hurts your perimiter defense. Luckilly, there are no Tre's in the CAA but I'm hoping we have that in Doherty. For now, I'm focusing on the positives.

I'm not minimizing the turnovers at all.

All I'm saying is despite them and the points they got off them, we still were in striking distance. The 3's, many of which were on easy looks, is what made this a 15-20 point deficit.

Anyway, we move on to Sunday.

You guys have hit the nail on the head. One other thing was that UMass really played the game at their pace and sped us up quite a bit. Part of that is just the style they play and part of it I’m sure was nerves for a lot of kids playing their first minutes of college basketball. I’d like to see us be a bit more methodical tomorrow and not allow them to hurry us up

I agree that nerves played a part in the game......especially in yhe first half where we fell behind by eleven. In the second half we played them pretty even.

You led 31-30 at halftime and lead 56-44 with 9:08 left.

Edit: You went up 10 with 46 seconds left. UMass ended on a 9-2 run and missed a layup with 5 seconds left. You won 78-75. Walker led all players with 20 points and 6 assists. He made 12 free throws. Walters had 12 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 5 turnovers, and 3 fouls. Strong had 16 1points, 5 rebounds, and your only block. Telfort had 11 points and 5 assists. E had 10 points and 6 rebounds. You used nine players, and five scored double-digits. The others were Stucke with 5, Doherty with 4, Cubrilo with no points and 1 missed three, and Hadley with no shots.

NU holds on for a good 78-75 win over UMass at Cabot Gym.

Tyson Walker had a game-high 20 pts and Jason Strong added 16 pts in the win.

NU will head to Syracuse Wednesday in a game that was just added to the schedule.

Nice win. We looked better and that's the name of the game right now...getting a little better every game. It would have been a complete disaster if we blew a ten point lead with less than a minute left.

Highlights, Jason Strong and Coen postgame presser...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoMojZPdX4A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FLxHZwM6co

Very solid game today. The bigs were excellent on Mitchell and good contributions from several players. Thank goodness we survived that finish. Nice to get a game in against the Syracuse zone before facing it in conference play

(12-14-2020 09:34 AM)NUFan35 Wrote:  Very solid game today. The bigs were excellent on Mitchell and good contributions from several players. Thank goodness we survived that finish. Nice to get a game in against the Syracuse zone before facing it in conference play

Yep. Tre had his way with us on Friday. He didn't look like what folks on the UMASS message board were calling a "lottery pick" yesterday. I also wonder what it feels like to get beaten by what those same posters were calling us a "not a good basketball team."

(12-14-2020 10:25 AM)NUGUY Wrote:  

(12-14-2020 09:34 AM)NUFan35 Wrote:  Very solid game today. The bigs were excellent on Mitchell and good contributions from several players. Thank goodness we survived that finish. Nice to get a game in against the Syracuse zone before facing it in conference play

Yep. Tre had his way with us on Friday. He didn't look like what folks on the UMASS message board were calling a "lottery pick" yesterday. I also wonder what it feels like to get beaten by what those same posters were calling us a "not a good basketball team."

Screw them.

I've been looking at the same message board and things never change with them.

UMass heads still think their program is still at the Calipari level and never think they can lose to New England teams.

They said multiple lottery picks after Friday's win. Then post excuses after Sunday.

I'm so glad we got a split.

My favorite post was when one of their idiots claimed that "revolutionise" was spelled wrong on Walters' jersey.....and said, "that's a NU education for you."