Northeastern’s first trip to Muncie, IN was a rough one as the Division 1 FBS Cardinals used their superior talent to overwhelm the visitors from Boston. Davis, who was voted as a member of the MAC 2nd Team offense, picked apart the Husky defense by connecting on 21 of 24 pass attempts. His main target was senior wideout Dante Love, a 1st Team MAC player who caught nine balls for 171 yards. Love’s elusive open field moves frustrated the Northeastern defense as he turned short and medium range completions into big plays. Love found the end zone once on a pass reception and once on a 2-yard run. (more…)

#29 Matt Lipinski, Forward
Shoots: Left
Height: 6′1
Weight: 190

07-08 scoring line: 57 Games, 7-24-31
07-08 Playoffs: 5 Games, 1-3-4

“Matt was an incredible leader,” Solem remembered. “He was such an incredible asset to me as a new coach to have somebody that could lead the team the way he did. He basically led by example. He worked hard. He had a passion for the game unlike most. He had this in his head that he wanted to play on, and it’s very similar to what Grant had — he was always working towards getting to the next level.

Solem remembered Lipinski having a knack for the net, but also exceptional vision on the ice that allowed him to set up his teammates for open shots. After all, it was Lipinski who was Faribault’s all-time assist leader before Pavek eclipsed his mark this season.”

- http://www.faribault.com/

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Time to get back on the golf course, Go Huskies!

Although still months away from officially opening, the Northeastern football team got an early start on the 2008 football season by holding their annual Spring Football Game at Parsons Field on April 5. After three weeks of preseason practices the Huskies finished their spring work with an intra-squad scrimmage between the offensive and defensive squads.

Dressed in white the offense took the field against the red-clad defense. The offense was given ten plays to move the ball up the field starting from their own 30-yard line. CAA referees were on hand to officiate the scrimmage and mark the ball according to first downs earned, which was also kept track of.

On the first drive of the game senior quarterback John Sperrazza led the offense up the field with some accurate sideline passes to convert third down situations. Sperrazza led the starting offense in place of fellow senior quarterback Anthony Orio, who was at the scrimmage but was held out of play because of a knee injury. Late in the drive from the defensive 30-yard line Sperrazza ran a nice play-action fake and looked to hit junior wide receiver Tony Lott who was running wide open down the middle of the field. Unfortunately the pass fell just out of the reach of Lott and the offense was unable to convert any points during the drive.

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NU finished the 2007-08 season with a record of 14-17 overall, 9-9 in the CAA. As the sixth-seed in the 2008 CAA Tournament in Richmond, the Huskies were ousted by eventual CAA champions George Mason in the quarterfinals. So how do we classify Northeastern’s season? Let’s review everything from the 88th season of Husky basketball.

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GO HUSKIES!
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If you are interested in punching in a few posts throughout the summer about any Husky hockey related topic, shoot me an email at roth.ste@neu.edu.

Let’s break down the third season of Cronin and Co:

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Old Dominion Monarchs, College Basketball Invitational

In the first ever CBI contest, the Old Dominion Monarchs defeated the Rider Broncs 68-65 Tuesday night at the Constant Convocation Center on the campus of Old Dominion. Frank Hassell led the way for the Monarchs with 14 points and nine rebounds, while Brandon Johnson chipped in 10 points and six assists. Ryan Thompson led the way for Rider with a game-high 24 points. His brother Jason Thompson, the MAAC Player of the Year, recorded a double-double with 15 points and 17 rebounds. Rider however got no contribution from its bench however, outscored in that department 30-0. Rider finishes the season with a record of 23-11.

ODU would meet its match in the quarterfinals of the tournament, losing to Virginia Monday night 80-76 on the Cavaliers home floor. The Monarchs finish their season with an overall record of 18-16.

Senior Brian Henderson led Old Dominion with a career-high 26 points. Forward Gerald Lee scored 16 points for the Monarchs and Frank Hassell scored 10. Sean Singletary of Virginia won the game for his team by scoring eight points in the final 30 seconds to complete a big comeback. Virginia trailed by eight points entering the second half and trailed the Monarchs by four with under a minute remaining. Singletary hit two free throws to cut the lead to two until Henderson of ODU converted a free throw to make the score 75-72. Singletary then knocked down a 3-pointer and converted a steal into a layup with a foul with four seconds remaining to put his team up 78-75 after his made free throw. Calvin Baker hit two free throws with three seconds remaining to ice the game and give Virginia the win.

Despite the loss the Monarchs set some impressive marks in their final game of the season. Senior Brandon Johnson had three steals in the game and finished the season with 91, the most in one season in ODU history. Henderson set the record for most career games played at Old Dominion with 133 contests. The senior class at Old Dominion finishes with a record of 94-41, the best mark of any class in school history.

Virginia Commonwealth Rams, National Invitational Tournament

The VCU Rams trailed by double digits for much of the game but made a late comeback attempt against UAB before falling 80-77 Wednesday night in the first round of the NIT at the Alltel Pavilion. The loss ends VCU’s season with a record of 24-8 while UAB will advance to face Virginia Tech in the second round.

Junior guard Eric Maynor of VCU led all scorers with 22 points and had nine assists for the fourth-seeded Rams, who were playing at home against the fifth-seeded Blazers. Backcourt mate Jamal Shuler scored 21 points by going 5 of 9 from beyond the arc. Shuler finishes his career with 1,011 points. Freshman Lance Kearse had his second-best scoring game of the season by putting in 16 points, well above his average of 3.9 points per game.

VCU fell behind to the Zips late in the first half and entered halftime down by 11 points. With 6:39 remaining in the game Akron held a 62-47 lead and looked ready to cruise to victory. Maynor would score 20 of his 22 points in the second frame however and bring the Rams back into the game. A 3-pointer by Shuler with 13 seconds remaining made the score 78-77. After an Akron layup, Maynor had a chance to send the game to overtime but his trey came up short.

George Mason Patriots, NCAA Tournament

George Mason returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since their Final Four run in 2006, but would not have as much success this time around. The 12th-seeded Patriots met the fifth-seeded Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and were humbled in a 68-50 ND win in the first round in Denver Thursday night. Mason finishes with a record of 23-11, the second-most wins in school history.

Will Thomas led the Patriots with 25 points and seven rebounds in his last game for GMU. Guard Folarin Campbell had a rough game, going 1 of 12 from the field in scoring just four points. Campbell had scored at least 15 points in his last 17 games.

Mason had a 7-6 lead two minutes into the game before Notre Dame went on a game-changing 17-0 run. Big East Player of the Year Luke Harangody scored five quick points and was supplemented by four consecutive 3-pointers by his teammates to make the score 23-7 with 12:12 remaining in the first half. The Patriots would not get closer than 12 points the rest of the way as the Irish rolled to victory. Notre Dame connected on 9 of 21 3-point attempts while Mason hit just three. The 50 points by GMU is their lowest offensive total of the season.

The twenty-four guys who took the ice at some point this season, from top Dog Joe Vitale down to transfer Dylan Wiwchar, were unable to further what had been an exciting up and down season by dropping two of three games to the No. 19 Vermont Catamounts.

Brad Thiessen stopped 27 shots, but dropped his seventeenth decision of the year to fall below .500 at 16-17-3. His numbers for the season are a solid 2.64 GAA and a .914, both career lows (2.48, .921 freshman year).

Jimmy Russo skated his last game and made headlines as he tied up the score off a pass from freshman Tyler McNeely (23 points this year) for his seventh goal of the season but was unable to help the Huskies avoid elimination on Sunday. Vermont scored early as Brayden Irwin rifled home a wrister from the top of the circle (Thiessen, you got to step it up) and then used a late-game barrage to send themselves to their first ever Hockey East semifinals.

As if the opening goal wasn’t disappointing enough, the Vermont Catamounts struck back three minutes after Russo’s game-tying goal with a breakaway tally. As if giving Vermont another lead in the third period wasn’t back-breaking enough…Thiessen stoned two breakaways in game two but had no answers for Corey Carlson, who split the NU defense shortly before receiving the pass. Brian Roloff and Dean Strong iced the game with two more goals in the last five minutes, denying the Huskies a chance to come back to Boston for the semifinals.

We absolutely deserved to lose this series and you’ve got to give it up to Brad Thiessen for making the series go three games. Vermont put on quite a dominating performance defense-wise the whole series, making it impossible for us to penetrate and put quality shots on Joe Fallon. I have never seen one team block so many shots in a series and honestly, I wish Northeastern’s defenders (and forwards) played with the same intensity in the defensive zone.

Throughout the offseason, we’ll wonder what could have been done to get to the next level and all we have to do is look at Vermont’s game plan. With an offense just as meager as ours, they put a lot of time and emphasis on playing smart, tight D and they prevailed. Congratulations on a great season. Even though we fell short of expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this team play.

Editors Note: I’m going to post the season review on Monday and will most likely not write again, at least until the puck drops again in the fall. Go Huskies!

The George Mason Patriots are heading to the “Big Dance”, the NCAA Tournament, by virtue of their CAA Conference Tournament Championship last week in Richmond. The CAA’s automatic bid goes to Mason as they earned themselves a #12 seed in the East Region of the bracket. GMU will face #5 seed Notre Dame, an at-large selection out of the Big East Conference. The game will take place Thursday at 9:50 p.m. from the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO. CBS has coverage of the entire NCAA Tournament.

This is the Patriots’ fifth trip all-time to the NCAA Tournament, four of which since 1999 have been under current head coach Jim Larranaga. Mason of course is famous for their improbable run to the Final Four in the 2006 NCAA Tournament. Seniors Will Thomas and Folarin Campbell of GMU were both starters on the team that upset Michigan State, North Carolina, defeated Wichita State, and shocked top-seeded Connecticut on their way to the tournament semifinals in Indianapolis. Their opponent Notre Dame finished third in the Big East regular season with a record of 24-7 but a disappointing loss in the first round of the Big East Tournament. Luke Harangody is an absolute beast in the paint and Kyle McAlarney is a sharpshooter from beyond the arc. GMU will have their work cut out for them.

Chances are that the game will be chosen to be televised in the Boston area considering the other teams playing at similar times. CBSSports.com has a great deal online where you can catch any tournament game you want online for free through its March Madness On Demand package. Sign up is free and only requires an e-mail address. Should the Patriots not be on locally you can catch them online.

Regular season CAA Champion VCU has been selected for postseason play as well. The Rams will be playing in the NIT (National Invitational Tournament) as a #4 seed and draw the #5 seed UAB Blazers in the first round. The game will take place Wednesday at the Alltell Pavilion on the campus of VCU at 7 p.m. ESPN2 will have coverage of the game. This is VCU’s fifth trip to the NIT all-time.

The NIT consists of 32 teams comprised of regular season conference champions who did not receive an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament, as well as bubble teams that were not chosen for the NCAA. The higher seeded team of each game gets to host their opponent for the first three rounds, with the last two rounds held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

I’m sure VCU is happy to be playing postseason basketball, but I am one who feels that they were snubbed of a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. As an NCAA bubble team they were passed over by the Selection Committee in favor of other teams, mostly from big-name conferences. In fact of the 34 at-large teams chosen for the Big Dance, 28 came from the top-6 major conferences (ACC, Pac-10, Big-12, SEC, Big East, Big Ten) and only six from the 24 other conferences.

Looking at some of the teams that were chosen to dance, Oregon seems to jump out as a team that VCU should have gone in over. Oregon finished sixth in the 10-team Pac-10 Conference with an overall record of 18-13, just 9-10 in conference play. VCU meanwhile finished first in a top-tier mid-major conference by three games. The Rams were 24-7 on the year including a 16-4 record in the conference. The RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) is often the benchmark for the committee in choosing at-large teams, despite its inflated advantage to larger conferences. Even using this as a measure for choosing teams for the tournament, VCU’s ranking is 53 compared to Oregon’s 58. Strength of Schedule is what hurts VCU as their schedule rank is 161 while Oregon’s is 37, yet even this is affected by the RPI. Long story short, VCU got a raw deal.

The third team that will be playing postseason ball will be Old Dominion as they were chosen to play in the CBI (College Basketball Invitational). This is the inaugural CBI that was created by the Gazelle Group in November of last year. 16 teams will compete in the tournament, again comprised of teams not chosen for the NCAA Tournament. Old Dominion takes on MAAC member Rider Tuesday at 7 p.m. from the Constant Center on the Old Dominion campus. ODU finished 17-15 overall with a fourth-place finish in the CAA regular season.

Although George Mason, VCU, and Old Dominion each defeated Northeastern during the season, it benefits NU to have these teams perform well during the tournaments. Success by these teams will bring increased recognition to the CAA and make it a better conference in the future. Any way you look at it if you are a fan of basketball you should enjoy the next three weeks of play as the games are exciting with lots of drama and fantastic finishes.

Check back with the Doghouse to get my take on these three teams as they look to advance in their individual tournaments.