Tough tests await Bulldogs
Challenging pre-NEC stretch kicks off tomorrow at Yale
SMITHFIELD — The Northeast Conference is a one-bid league. Nonconference scheduling isn’t about building a resume for the NCAA Tournament committee, but rather about finding an identity in time for conference play.
There are two approaches NEC coaches take in order get ready for the rigors of an 18game schedule. Some coaches use the non-conference season to build their team’s confidence by scheduling games against non-Division I schools and play home games against fellow one-bid league teams.
Bryant coach Tim O’Shea doesn’t subscribe to that belief.
Dating back to the 2013-2014 season, the Bulldogs have twice had the most difficult nonconference schedule in the conference, according to KenPom.com, and while they currently have the fifth most difficult non-conference schedule in the NEC, that’s about to change very quickly.
“Look at the non-conference schedule we play. We still have Memphis, Louisville and Yale on the road – we still have some tough games,” O’Shea said after Sunday night’s 8167 defeat to Brown at the Chace Athletic Center. “We’ve been right there
in a lot of games, but how do we play 40 minutes? We’re still starting three sophomores and a freshman. Some of these guys are getting a baptism under fire.”
Bryant (1-5) currently has played the 171st most difficult nationally through Sunday night’s games according to KenPom.com.
While NEC foes Wagner, Mount St. Mary’s, St. Francis (Pennsylvania) and St. Francis-Brooklyn still have non Division I opponent left to play before the start of conference play at the end of December, the Bulldogs are embarking on a five-game, fivestate road trip that will take them from Long Island sound to the banks of the Mississippi River.
“It definitely helps us look to the long run,” shooting guard Adam Grant said of the difficult schedule.
“We take it one game at a time, but the next five… everything is a learning experience as far as going one step at a time. Whether it be a win or a loss for us – we want it to be a win – we’re still able to look at things from a different perspective.”
The road trip starts Wednesday night at 8 p.m. when the Bulldogs head to New Haven, Conn. to take on Yale on ESPN3. Last season, Yale came to Smithfield and Bryant won the battle of the Bulldogs after coming back from a 15-point second-half deficit to secure a 7970 victory. Marcel Pettway, who left the Bryant program last spring, scored a gamehigh 29 points.
Yale is picked to finish second in the Ivy League behind Harvard. The Bulldogs are off to a 3-4 start because of struggles from the 3point line.
The team’s leading scorers, Miye Oni and Alex Copeland, are a combined 18-for-69 from 3-point range. Double-digit scorer Blake Reynolds is hitting 53.7 percent of his shots.
“It would be a lot of confidence,” Grant said of beating Yale. “Confidence goes a long way for a player on and off the court – mentally and physically. To go and get a win against would be a big confidence [booster] for the veterans and the young guys.”
Bryant will return home for a couple of days before making the short trek to the New Hampshire Seacoast to play UNH Saturday in Durham.
A trip to Albany (N.Y.) awaits on Dec. 6 before O’Shea takes the Bulldogs to Memphis on Dec. 9 and nationally-ranked Louisville on Dec. 11.
The Bulldogs play one more non-conference home game on Saturday, Dec. 17 against Siena. No matter what happens over the next three weeks, O’Shea hopes his young team will have an identity when conference play starts on Dec. 29 against Robert Morris in Smithfield.
“I like this team in terms of what they can be, but we have some work to get there,” O’Shea said. “We’re going to have to withstand a very, very tough non-conference schedule. Here on out we have no nonDivision I games like a lot of other schools do in our league. Nobody would look at our schedule and say, ‘Boy, they have an easy game there.’ We just don’t have that.”
Depth concerns?
O’Shea knew going into this season that his team would be very young and not as deep as he would’ve hoped after Pettway and fellow sophomore Nisre Zouzoua left Bryant. Sunday night saw Bryant’s bench produced just six points on 2-of-5 shooting with three rebounds and four turnovers.
The Bulldogs would like to get more than three points from sixth-man Hunter Ware, but O’Shea said the Bulldogs’ success is going to come down to the play of starters Bosko Kostur, Grant, Sabastian Townes, Ikenna Ndugba and Ryan Layman.
“I usually only play seven or eight guys,” O’Shea said. “I’ve always been like that. With a timeout every four minutes, I’m not a real believer in fatigue and all that. I think your best players can stay on the floor for the whole game if they need to.”
Brown’s bench wasn’t much better. The Bears only received 10 points on 11 shots with five turnovers from a quartet of reserves.
Lone Ocean Stater
In a game between a pair of Rhode Island schools, there was only one Rhode Islanddeveloped player on the court. Former Barrington All-Stater Matt DeWolf played 15 minutes off the bench for the Bears. DeWolf pulled down five rebounds, but he struggled to cope with Townes in the post.
DeWolf, who missed his only two free throws, committed four fouls trying to contain Townes, who scored a career-high 22 points in the defeat.