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SEASON 5

Recent Game Recaps

Epilogue, The Ninth: Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Memories

So We Meet Again

Rte. 139 - End of the Line

Hanging On

A Championship in Pictures

This Time of Year

Dotson Leads Ducks to the Sweet Sixteen

Grizzlies Overwhelmed by Orangemen

Empire

Challenge 11: Final Four Memories

By George, UConn is Dead

Butler and Us

Donning the Black and Gold

Challenge 10: Tourney Memories

The Madness of the Horizon League

The Rare Ivy League Conference Tournament

MAC Madness

Anything Can Happen in the MAAC

Challenge 9: Shock The Neighborhood

A Youthful Surprise

From Worst to First

Peers and Seers

Game! Of! The! Night! 2/14/2009: Quinnipiac at Robert Morris
February 14, 2009 12:27 pm ET by Kyle Whelliston


Quinnipiac at Robert Morris (Northeast)
Charles L. Sewall Center - Moon Township, PA
Saturday, 7:00 PM EST

The Northeast Conference has always been a favorite, and it's one of the key collectives that deepened my love for mid-major college basketball. Big metropolitan areas, tiny schools, and high drama despite small postseason hopes. It's a league that has only three NCAA wins, and two of those came in the last two seasons at the 16A/B game in Dayton over MEAC teams. If I ever become a published author (despite all the obstacles that have sprung up in that path), I hope to gain enough momentum that I can make my sixth or seventh book a year in the life of the NEC. I'm going to call it The Last Amateurs.

Back here in 2009, the league is working through another tough season. It was emphatically shut out in all its Red Line attempts (including 0-11 versus the Big East, a conference it hasn't beaten for a while), and is stuck in 27th position in the RPI standings. But it does have one team that will definitely skip the PIG if it survives its conference tourney, the Colonials of Robert Morris University. The men from Moon (18-8, 12-1) don't have a win like Boston College this year, and their 6-7 nonconference record is full of money game losses. In the NEC, however, they've been unstoppable. Since losing the league opener to "College," RMU and second-year head coach Mike Rice have rattled off 12 straight, fueled by ridiculously good shooting. Senior guard Jeremy Chappell and his 16.9 ppg average on 49.5 percent shooting have put him front-and-center in the race for NEC POY. The Colonials should be in good shape in the frontcourt for years to come -- 6-8 Rob Robinson is one of the league's most impressive newcomers, averaging 11.6 ppg and 5.2 rpg and scoring 20 three times, including in Thursday's home win over Sacred Heart.

Quinnipiac is clearly the NEC school that cares most about basketball, as evidenced by its glittering new state-of-the-art sports palace. While the place is usually packed for its hockey team, hoops hasn't quite kept pace. The Bobcats are 7-6 in the league, 11-13 overall, and just 4-5 at home. They've had a lot of trouble scoring points -- its 62.4 PPG average at the Q-Pod is well under eight points of the program's previous home low over its first 11 years in Division I, and have been moderately successful in dragging opponents into defensive battles. The Bobcats do feature MMBOW No. 6 of this season, James Feldeine, a 6-4 junior who has made 33 percent shooting nights a habit since his selection. But he still leads the team with 16.5 ppg, and has had plenty of support from 6-7 sophomore Justin Rutty, who has notched six double-doubles since the calendar turned. I stand by my assertion, many years old now, that one versatile big guy can win this league for you; maybe next year, Justin.

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