MBB Game 29 @Northeastern, Feb 21 (Sat) 2 PM

[Jojogunne]

This is our last road game of the regular season.

Northeastern (6-18, 2-11) has had the most disappointing season in the CAA. As of today (2/15) the Huskies are in last place and on a seven-game losing streak. They host Drexel on Thursday (2/19) before playing us, and conclude the regular season @William & Mary, @Hampton and vs. Monmouth.

FloCollege and WRHU (HAWC) will carry our game.

[Wags]

This game (like Northeastern's other home games since historic Matthews Arena closed down in December) will be played on the site of the first World Series game!

Long before it became Cabot Center (in the 1950s), which will host this game, the same site was Huntington Avenue Grounds, where the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Boston Americans, 7-3, on October 1, 1903, before the Americans became the Red Sox and moved into Fenway Park.

Huntington Avenue Grounds also saw the first perfect game in the modern era, thrown by Cy Young on May 5, 1904, and included patches of sand in the outfield where grass would not grow, and a tool shed in deep center field that was in play!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabot_Center
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington_Avenue_Grounds

[Wags]

Northeastern (6-18, 2-11) has had the most disappointing season in the CAA. As of today (2/15) the Huskies are in last place and on a seven-game losing streak.

Shows how much coaching can is vastly overrated when a team simply doesn't have the players. The all-time leader in CAA wins and a longtime highly regarded coach is unable to keep Northeastern from being the league's cellar dweller. Just like another highly regarded Massachusetts coach, Bill Belichick, going 4-8 with North Carolina.

[dutchPride86]

Northeastern (6-18, 2-11) has had the most disappointing season in the CAA. As of today (2/15) the Huskies are in last place and on a seven-game losing streak.

Shows how much coaching can is vastly overrated when a team simply doesn't have the players. The all-time leader in CAA wins and a longtime highly regarded coach is unable to keep Northeastern from being the league's cellar dweller. Just like another highly regarded Massachusetts coach, Bill Belichick, going 4-8 with North Carolina.

To be fair they have been decimated by injuries. Leading scorer LA Pratt (who we were interested in a couple yrs ago) lasted all of 3 games before season ending injury (and averaged 17ppg for those 3). They had a promising freshman big averaging 10/7 who only played in 11 games and has missed all of CAA play. Jacco Fritz's younger brother has missed 6 games. And their current leading scorer has missed last 2.

So yeah, better not lose this game

[Wags]

Northeastern (6-18, 2-11) has had the most disappointing season in the CAA. As of today (2/15) the Huskies are in last place and on a seven-game losing streak.

Shows how much coaching can is vastly overrated when a team simply doesn't have the players. The all-time leader in CAA wins and a longtime highly regarded coach is unable to keep Northeastern from being the league's cellar dweller. Just like another highly regarded Massachusetts coach, Bill Belichick, going 4-8 with North Carolina.

To be fair they have been decimated by injuries. Leading scorer LA Pratt (who we were interested in a couple yrs ago) lasted all of 3 games before season ending injury (and averaged 17ppg for those 3). They had a promising freshman big averaging 10/7 who only played in 11 games and has missed all of CAA play. Jacco Fritz's younger brother has missed 6 games. And their current leading scorer has missed last 2.

So yeah, better not lose this game

Correct, but that's exactly it. If you don't have the players (whether because of injuries or any other reason), coaching won't do much.

[Polito]

Eh, wags, that's not exactly the full story though. It's not just because he doesn't have the players. UNC has PLENTY of players and money to win in football, but ol Bill struggled big time for many other reasons. He obviously knows football, and Cohen certainly knows basketball. But see that isn't enough, which is an argument I'm often making around here related to Speedy.

Knowledge isn't enough. Having players isn't even enough. It takes everything.

This Bill is struggling because it's time for Northeastern to move on, as I noted in another thread. This is what happens when you hang on to the past too long and don't adapt. Injuries are a factor this year, but Cohens been on the decline for the last few years. This isn't a fluke. They need change.

[Wags]

Eh, wags, that's not exactly the full story though. It's not just because he doesn't have the players. UNC has PLENTY of players and money to win in football, but ol Bill struggled big time for many other reasons. He obviously knows football, and Cohen certainly knows basketball. But see that isn't enough, which is an argument I'm often making around here related to Speedy.

Knowledge isn't enough. Having players isn't even enough. It takes everything.

This Bill is struggling because it's time for Northeastern to move on, as I noted in another thread. This is what happens when you hang on to the past too long and don't adapt. Injuries are a factor this year, but Cohens been on the decline for the last few years. This isn't a fluke. They need change.

All of which proves my point. The "great coaches" may not be "so great" anymore when they don't have the resources/players/facilities/money to compete. They languish at the bottom like anyone else.

Yes, of course, Belichick knows football, but he was also 83-104 without Tom Brady. And yes, of course, Coen knows college basketball, but if he were that great and you're saying he's not adapting and has been on the decline for years, how great a coach is he really?

Coaching is a factor, sometimes a significant one (our defensive schemes and execution of those were instrumental in winning the 2020 CAA tourney title) but coaching is often overrated, with too much credit and too much blame given to coaches. Players play.

[stuball888]

NIL has totally changed the coaching landscape
Retired coaches who did not want to deal with this mess
Jay Wright Mike Brey basketball
Sabin Alabama football

[Wags]

A win Saturday would be Speedy's 100th as a head coach.

[Polito]

Can you all guess what my expectations are in this game?

TCB Speedy.

[HUSID74]

Oh, were not calling for total desturction? Anniliation? Just a win?

[Wags]

Hofstra only scores 1.3 pgg more than Northeastern, and shoots 1% less, but allows 14.0 ppg less.

Shows how defense can be the difference between a third-place team and a last-place team.

[daHUPride]

Oh, were not calling for total desturction? Anniliation? Just a win?

We should beat them pretty easily. I’m looking for a solid win, but more importantly, we need to be playing our best basketball as we head into the March CAA Tournament.

[HUSID74]

Were 8.5 point favs and we have a 77.5% chance of winning according to ESPN.

[triplec2195]

Oh, were not calling for total desturction? Anniliation? Just a win?

LOL like it HUSID have to win by at least 20!!

[Polito]

lol you guessed wrong HUSID. Cmon man, did you not get the question?? What do you think I’m looking for in this game?! Just a win over a down program? Or a dominant one?

Hmmm

Let’s go HU, home stretch, finish the final road game strong.

[Pbdutch]

They should be able to dominate a team like northeastern playing the bench the whole game.

[EvanJ]

https://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/202 ... rn_21.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Northeastern." Davis is 8 points behind Darius Burton for 39th in career points for us, and 17 points behind Derrick Flowers for 38th. He cited one of you by saying in the bias section: "You play at the site of the first World Series game bias! (That great bit of info comes from our friend Jonathan Wagner)." The win over Hampton was a unicorn score, meaning the first time that we won by that score.

KenPom expects us to win 81-71 with an 82 percent chance of winning.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2026/2/20/me ... -test.aspx is our preview titled "Pride Heads To Northeastern For Final Regular-Season Road Test."

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/side ... game29.pdf is our game notes.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... /2026.html has Northeastern's statistics.

https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=613541 will have statistics.

The rest of the weekend schedule is:

UNCW at Campbell at 4:00 P.M.
Monmouth at Charleston at 4:00 P.M. on CBS Sports Network
Hampton at Stony Brook at 4:00 P.M.
NC A&T at Elon at 7:00 P.M.
Towson at Drexel tomorrow at 2:00 P.M. on CBS Sports Network

W&M has off.

[EvanJ]

Northeastern lets opponents shoot .502, which is the third worst of 365 teams.

https://www.flohoops.com/live/214613 has video.

We are starting Edmead, Davis, Plotnikov, DeCady, and Sunday.

Northeastern is starting Xavier Abreu (guard 12.5 points), Mike Loughnane (guard, 8.7 points, 3.4 assists), William Kermoury (guard, 13.3 points, 2.9 threes made to be second in the CAA, shoots threes .415 to lead the CAA), Youri Fritz (forward, 9.8 points, 4.5 rebounds), and Petar Pinter (center, 2.6 points). With Xander Alarie injured, they do not have anybody averaging at least 5 rebounds.

Edit: We lead 19-14. Edmead scored 7. Davis shot 1-5. Petar Pinter, who averages 2.6 points, scored 6 of Northeastern's first 8.

Edit: We led 17-6. Northeastern went on an 18-4 run to lead 24-21. Davis tied it with a three, which started him scoring 8 points in 2:19 to make 12. We did something unusual, which was giving him the last 2:59 off. Roberts replaced him and scored 4. His first shot was banked in, and he was fouled, but he missed the free throw. Our only free throw attempt was with 1:28 left. Northeastern made their only free throw. I wonder how rare it is for both teams to attempt 0 or 1 free throw in a half. We are on an 18-6 run. We lead 39-30. Edmead had 7 points and 4 assists. DeCady made 2 threes without attempting any other shots. Onuetu shot 2-2 to score 4, but he committed 2 fouls in 4 minutes. Tsynkevich had 1 rebound in 1:56. We used 10 players, which is unusual, albeit Patterson's 5 minutes were the most by one of our subs. The only player on either team to play the whole half was Plotnikov, who made 2 threes. We shot threes 7-13, which were a majority of our points. Sunday shot 0-2 in 15 scoreless minutes, but he led all players with 6 rebounds. Youri Fritz led Northeastern with 7 points and 5 rebounds. Petar Pinter had 6 points with 13:03 left, but he did not score after that. Xavier Abreu scored 6. William Kermoury scored only 3. Mike Loughnane scored only 2, and led them with 3 assists. We avoided mistakes with 5 fouls and 3 turnovers. We had only 1 offensive rebound, and only 1 steal.

[dutchPride86]

Would you look at that... Hofstra finishes the half on a 7-0 run in 3 minutes after Speedy remembered Roberts was on the team. No reason not to give a Roberts a shot for energy boost on offense against tougher opponents too.

Speaking of game of runs:
-Hofstra opens 17-6
-Northeastern answers 18-4
-Hofstra closes 18-6

Victory 2 fouls in 4 mins while Sunday struggling today. Felt like that made in a difference in Northeastern hanging around.

Gotta be tough for Northeastern kids playing in that tiny gym (and for opponents to get up for games there)