By Aidan Joly
The Northeast Conference has always been a league that flies under the radar, even in mid to low-major circles, but has teams that are hungry to make national noise. At just about the midway point of the season, here’s how they stack up.
Right now, the Bryant Bulldogs are the favorite to win the league. Third-year head coach Jared Grasso has done wonders with this program since taking over in the 2018-19 season. After going 3-28 (2-16) in the 2017-18 season in the final year with Tim O’Shea at the helm, they have improved to 10-20 (7-11) in 2018-19 and 15-17 (7-11) in 2019-20 and right now sit at 10-3 (6-2), good for first in the league right now.
Grasso has done it through his own recruiting talent. Michael Green III is the leading scorer on this team with 18.3 PPG as a sophomore. They have three more double digit scorers in Quinnipiac and Rutgers transfer Peter Kiss (17.8 PPG), as well as JUCO transfer Chris Childs (14.8 PPG) and Charles Pride, another sophomore who averages 13.2 PPG. Sophomore Hall Elisias isn’t a double-digit scorer but he is a double-double threat every night.
Behind all of this talent, the Bulldogs are a force in the NEC and they’ve shown that, even putting a real scare into Syracuse back in November and grabbing a road win over UMass on December 21.
LIU is another squad that has impressed so far, with a 4-2 league record, one of their two losses a two-point loss to Wagner. The Sharks have a three-headed monster in Ty Flowers, Jermaine Jackson Jr. and Eral Penn, who all average north of 15 points per game. Flowers and Penn both average over eight rebounds per game on top of their scoring ability.
St. Francis Brooklyn is another team in that second tier as they sit at 4-2 but have not played since January 8 when they swept Mount St. Mary’s, two of the three league losses for the Mountaineers. The Terriers of St. Francis are led by Travis Atson, who is on his third school after playing with Tulsa and Quinnipiac previously, but has found his own in this league. Chauncey Hawkins and Rob Higgins both do well for them as well.
The Mountaineers sit in that middle tier as well with a 4-3 league record. They had previous success with Jamion Christian at the helm that included a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances but are now led by Dan Engelstad, who is finding a groove in year three. Junior Damian Chong Qui averages 15.8 PPG to lead that group and is someone who has really improved since his freshman year in all facets of his game.
Sacred Heart sits at 5-4 led by leading scorer Tyler Thomas who averages a league-best 20.1 points per game. The problem with the Pioneers is their depth as they don’t have a lot outside of Thomas and have been inconsistent because of that. They have only won back-to-back games once all year, which was Merrimack and Central Connecticut State on January 8 and 14, but have not lost back-to-back league games.
Speaking of Merrimack, after taking the college basketball world by storm in their first year of Division I play last year with a 14-4 league record and 20-11 overall. Because of NCAA D-1 transition rules they were not and will not be eligible for the NEC Tournament and in turn the NCAA Tournament or NIT until 2024, but were likely heading to the collegeinsider.com postseason tournament before COVID-19 wiped out the entire postseason.
This year, Joe Gallo’s group had a ton of COVID issues that kept them off the floor until January 7, but they’ve been able to get six games in and have come back down to earth a bit. They currently sit at a pedestrian 3-3, but again won’t be eligible for this year’s league tournament.
The rest of the league includes Wagner, Central Connecticut, St. Francis of Pennsylvania and Fairleigh Dickinson, but they all have struggled thus far.
Considering all of this, who will win this league?
Personally, I’m going to go with Bryant. It’s a very talented team with a coach who knows what he is doing in Jared Grasso, especially considering the success he had as the associate head coach at Iona under Tim Cluess. They have a really good chance here, but none of those teams at the top can be counted out.
AJ Hoops 