Friday, December 05, 2008

Trying to get back on the left side of the ledger

Who plays?: Mt. St. Mary's (3-3, 0-1 NEC) continues its early season Connecticut road trip with a game with Central Connecticut State (3-3).

What's at stake?: There is no such thing as a must win in December. There just isn't. But this is about as close as it gets for the Mount, the preseason NEC favorite that lost its conference opener on Thursday at Sacred Heart.

When is tipoff?: Saturday afternoon at 2:00PM

Where is the game?: Central becomes the sixth team to host the Mount in its first seven games as they continue the barnstorming journey. I'll be frantically trying to find the game on some internet streaming source and if I do, I'll likely try to host some sort of live blog. If I'm unsuccesful I'll be listening to WTHU-AM Thurmont 1450 will have the radio call. Steve Stofberg and The Mouth of the Mount Roy Sigler bring you the action on the Mount Radio Network.

The Analysis: The Mount's five point loss at Sacred Heart means they are a precise 3-3 on the season. When we say precise, we may they have scored exactly the same amount of points as they have allowed. Central has won three games in a row after dropping its first three games on the season.

Rankings: Mt. St. Mary's (90 RPI, 130 BBState.com, 166 kenpom.com, 135 Sagarin)
CCSU (164 RPI, 181 BBState.com, 150 kenpom.com, 187 Sagarin)

Advantages for Mt. St. Mary's: The Mounties seem to respond well to adversity and poor perfomances. Maybe as fans we've overreacted to Thursday's loss at Sacred Heart, but I don't think this team is going to take well to it either. I think the Mount has a serious advantage in the backcourt with Jeremy Goode and Jean Cajou

Advantages for CCSU: A young team, the Blue Devils should be budding with confidence after three straight wins. Those victories came on the heels of back to back one-point losses with Albany and Colgate. Ken Horton, the 6-6 sophomore, leads the team in both scoring and rebounding. His athleticism will be tough for the Mounties to match, but Shawn Atupem might be the guy.

What to expect?: The Mount won by a point up there last year at about the same time. At that time both teams were playing that slower half-court offensive game. Now the Mount is pushing the ball up and down the floor. But the Mounties will certainly want to improve on Thursday's dismal defensive effort. Central actually scores a half point a game more than the Mount, so they won't be intimidated by the Mount's running game. The Devils were my pick to give the Mount the most difficulty this year, and I thought headed to this road trip, that this would be the tougher of the two games. Yet, I think the Mount will play its most complete of the year and manage to pull off the victory behind a stat-stuffing performance from Jeremy Goode and a double-digit scoring effort from Kelly Beidler.

Any additional links about the game will be posted here as I see them

http://dcindex-choop.blogspot.com/2008/12/120608-predictions.htmlCurry index has it too close to call

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