Tag: hoops project

THP #7: The Edge

January 11, 2020 – Medford, Massachusetts
Lesley vs UMass-Boston
Men’s Basketball

Welcome to the edge. Take one step further and you fall down the abyss. This is the farthest reaches of college basketball. The Kuiper Belt. This is a place where most do not think to tread.

This is Lesley University’s men’s basketball facility. This is the gym at Medford High School.

To understand how I found myself walking around a brutalist concrete building in the northern suburbs of Boston on a hot January afternoon we must first understand the unique identity of Lesley.

Lesley University is located in Cambridge and has roughly 7,400 students but only 2,600 undergraduates. Among its academic offerings, there are programs in specific areas such as expressive therapies, counseling, and fine arts. It isn’t a school driven by its athletic teams.

The school is also located four miles from Medford High, and getting through the Boston traffic can make that drive take almost 40 minutes. Add all these variables into the pot together and you get a team that is winless and a program that has two winning seasons in the last 14.

I chatted with the school’s custodian on my way out of the gym and he told me that Lesley paid to put down a full hardwood court to keep in line with NCAA guidelines as MHS had a rubber court. The track surrounding the court is still rubber.

But at least there’s a Lesley logo on the court.

Getting In

One would think that the best way into a high school would be through the front door. Not today. There was some type of weekend school program so I was told to walk around to the back of the school.

So I did. I walk to the door and went in only to be met by a locked door in the inner vestibule.

Back out I went. It was up a 43-step staircase and through the loading dock before I found a door propped open by a chair and heard the ever-familiar noise of Jordans squeaking on hardwood. I had finally made it.

The Game

There was a curtain drawn midway through the gym and a youth league playing on the other side.

About 10 minutes before tipoff a ref walks over to me as I sit courtside at the midline and jokingly asks how I was able to afford these seats. I responded, laughed, stayed for the first few minutes and moved to the top row. I found $2 under the bleachers so at least the expedition netted me a future Fresca.

There were 25 people in the stands at tipoff.

Lesley basketball is not good. The men’s program is winless this season and won nine or fewer games seven times last decade. The Lynx lost their first two games of the season by nine and 11 points, respectively and have lost the ensuing games by an average of 35.5 points.

And this game went to script. UMass-Boston showed why it’s one of the top teams in the Little East this year. The Beacons jumped out early and never let up. A 10-point lead ballooned to 15 and to 20. UMass Boston won 90-64.

Dasan Cinelli finished with 30 points while Malik Lorquet had a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying by the Lynx either. Chase Howard had 27 points on 8-13 shooting. Kostas Tatsis had 14 points and 10 boards in 23 minutes off the bench. But being minus-15 on the glass and shooting 19-66 will do in anyone.

Time of game: 1:42

THP #6: 4.2 Miles

January 9, 2020 – Beverly, Massachusetts
Endicott v Gordon
WBB/MBB

Sometimes you love your neighbors. Sometimes you want to constantly express your displeasure at their existence.

For Endicott College and Gordon College, close quarters does not make for a pleasant relationship. Located a 12-minute drive apart up Route 127 and through Pride’s Landing and Beverly Farms, it’s exclusively mutual disdain and contempt between the Gulls and the Fighting Scots.

It’s made more intense by the recent success of the two programs. On the men’s side, one of the two schools has made every conference title game since 2012. Gordon also won the league in 2010.

On the women’s side, Endicott was the league runner up in 2019.

Even though the students were away on break, the games drew a nice crowd. This year had the added touch of featuring some of the greatest players either school had ever seen.

The Venue

Located in Beverly, Mass., Endicott College was founded in 1939 and has since grown to be a school of just more than 5,000 people.

Today the school hangs its hat on its internship program as every Endicott student is required to put in thee internships, which means they are learning experientially almost immediately after getting to campus.

Fun fact: Beverly Hills is named after Beverly Farms, the neighborhood where Endicott is located, as it was a favorite vacation spot for then-president William Howard Taft.

The Gulls basketball teams today play at the Post Center. As with many Division III schools, the Post Center is an athletics venue and a student rec center as well as a place for classes and meetings.

A neat quirk of Endicott athletics is that club sports are outwardly treated just as prominently as varsity sports. The club teams get their own tabs on the athletic site just like the varsity teams.

Club teams even get banners in the gym after winning championships.

The Women’s Game

As many Division III schools do in New England, the basketball teams play doubleheaders as a way to cut down on travel costs.

Tonight, the women led off and Gordon was led by Meghan Foley. The day this game was played she was the leading female scorer in all of Division III and the third-leading scorer across the entire NCAA.

As of this writing she has dropped to second and fourth in those categories, but 25.1 points a game is nothing to sneeze at. The native of Malden, Mass. is going to finish as the program’s second-leading scorer.

Meghan Foley (in blue)

And on this night she was a machine. Foley went for 19 points in the first half as the Fighting Scots raced to a 14-point lead.

 

Endicott made it exciting in the second half and even cut it to a one-score game, but they didn’t have Meghan Foley. Foley finished with 33. It was her third-best scoring performance of the season.

Gordon 90, Endicott 82. Final
Time of game – 1:30

The Men’s Game

When it comes to the best scorers in men’s college basketball, the name that instantly comes up is Markus Howard. The Marquette senior has been a scoring machine in his time in Milwaukee and, as of this writing, leads Division I in scoring with 27.3 points a game.

Gordon senior Eric Demers is averaging 33.6 a game. He is currently the school’s all-time leading scorer with 1,974 points with 10 games left in the season. And he’s not even the only all-time leading scorer in the game.

Endicott senior Keith Brown has been a ridiculous scorer his whole career. A two-time state champion at Pelham High in Pelham, NH, Brown can reasonably hit a shot from anywhere inside the halfcourt line.

Averaging 21 points a game, as of this writing, Brown sits less than 100 points away from breaking Kamahl Walker’s school record of 1894 and is also an excellent facilitator.

Brown grew from a bench player his freshman year on a Sweet 16 team to a star. He’s scoring less as a senior than as a sophomore, but those dimes are adding up into dollars for the Gulls.

And both players stepped up in what turned out to be a ridiculous game. Brown flashed his court vision and cashed in some dimes.

Gordon led 39-36 at half. Demers had a rough first half with 12 points on 5-14 shooting. Brown had 15.

Now, once the teams flipped ends Demers put the game in his pocket. His second half was 16 points on 5-11 shooting and 4-8 from three. Just look at the nonsense he was pulling out of universe.

It was ridiculous. Forty minutes couldn’t contain the game. Tied at 76, five more was put on the board.

The OT was as nip/tuck as regulation. In the final minute, Endicott found themselves up 86-83 and then this happened.

With the game tied at 86, Endicott was unable to score the ball and gave Gordon a chance to escape Post with a win, and it appeared they did with a layup at the horn by Parker Omslaer.

However, a foul was called. Two made free throws by Endicott with a second left did the trick. Endicott 88, Gordon 86. Final.

Do you think it was a foul?

Eric Demers: 31 points
Keith Brown: 28 pts, 6 rbd, 5 ast, 7 stl

Time of game – 1:44

THP #2: The Downeast Queen

November 3, 2019 – Bangor, Maine
University of Maine vs McGill men’s basketball

Almost the exact halfway point between Boston and Quebec City, Bangor sits in the heart of Central Maine with the Penobscot River running right through town

The Queen City of the East is gorgeous. Even on a chilly New England fall day, downtown Bangor stood out.

The third-largest city in the state of Maine, Bangor was once the lumber capital of the east coast. In the 1860s, Bangor was the world’s largest lumber port with more than 3,000 ships passing through the docks each year.

The glory of the lumber years is long past but the city still stands bright today thanks in part to being home to Husson College and the nearby University of Maine.

Most importantly, it’s pronounced bain-gore and not banger.

Come take a ride with me through downtown Bangor.

Things to Eat

Bangor is a sneaky good food town. With the two colleges nearby, there are bound to be good food stops and they do not disappoint.

I had dinner at Dysart’s. Wow. It’s like an IHOP type of restaurant but 10/10. Quality ingredients. Homemade soups and breads. You can tell it’s a place that take’s pride in the food that comes out of the kitchen.

One thing you’ll notice about the food reviews in these blogs are the three C’s: Clubs, Caesars, and Cookies. I’m on a quest to find the best Caesar salad in New England and a cookie and a club sandwich can say so much more about the quality of a restaurant than a fancy dish can.

With that said, you’re going to have a tough time trying to find a better cookie in New England than at Fork & Spoon in the heart of Bangor. The size of a small car tire, they satisfy in a way that Chips Ahoy could only dream of.

Homemade vegetable soup at Dysart’s
Turkey Club with the goodies at Dysart’s
Dysart’s blueberry pie. Yes, homemade.
The birthday cake cookie from Fork & Spoon

The University

The University of Maine is the flagship of the state’s university system and is located in Orono which is about 20 minutes north of Bangor. With an enrollment of roughly 11,000, U-Maine is also the state’s lone Division I athletics program.

Academically, the University of Maine is one of a select number of space grant universities that get federal grants to study and research the cosmos. Additionally, Maine is home to one of the nation’s oldest honors college and is the birthplace of the Phi Kappa Phi honors society.

When it comes to athletics, Maine is mostly known for its men’s hockey team. The Black Bears won national titles in 1993 and 1999, with the former considered the greatest college hockey team of all time after racking up a 41-1-2 record en route to the title.

Games at Alfond Arena are fun, loud, and usually draw the biggest regular season crowds for Maine sporting events.

Alfond Arena

The Game

Cross Insurance Center

When it comes to basketball in Maine, Bangor is home. The Bangor Auditorium stood for 57 years and hosted packed houses pushing 6,000 people for the high school state finals.

Closed in 2013, the new Cross Insurance Center opened to replace it. Not to be confused with the Cross Insurance Arena two hours south in Portland, the CIC opened as the new home for basketball in Maine.

The high school finals take place there and both men’s and women’s teams from the University left their on-campus home, the cozy Memorial Gym, and set up shop in Bangor.

However, when it comes to University of Maine basketball, the real success has come on the women’s side. With nine NCAA tournament appearances, including bids in 2018 and 2019 thanks to a pair of America East titles, the women’s team has quietly built itself into one of the most consistent mid-major programs in the Northeast.

Throughout the arena, there are wall hangings and memorabilia from basketball greatness long past.

A small portion of the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame

And the arena itself is a real gem. With a seating capacity of 5,500, the CIC has all the amenities of other midsize modern arenas. Spacious concourses, a variety of food options, and good sightlines make this a real hidden gem in New England.

Oh, and did I mention that there’s a casino across the street?

The Seating Bowl
The concourse

The game itself was a fun one. Despite it being an exhibition, both teams came to play. The Black Bears opened up a seven-point lead at intermission and held it through the second half to claim a 70-63 win.

Time of game – 1:42
Price for a bottle of water: $3
Attendance – 320
Top Performer – Andrew Fleming (Maine): 22 pts, 9 reb, 5 ast, 4 blk, 2 stl

Thanks Bangor it was fun. Looking forward to coming back one more time.

Up Next: Blue Devil Mania