NEW HAMPSHIRE
Record: 3-12 (1-1 America East)
Last 10: 1-9
Last Game: New Hampshire 68, UMass Lowell 64 on 1/9/19
Last Game with SBU: Stony Brook 72, New Hampshire 63 on 2/18/18; Iroegbu team-high 17; came back from 10 down in second half
Checkmate Unofficial Line: Stony Brook -14.5
Net Ranking: Stony Brook 138, New Hampshire 343
KenPom RPI: Stony Brook 147, New Hampshire 342
KenPom Prediction: Stony Brook 75, New Hampshire 57
Yeboah Point Watch: 1,075
Division I: Currently 7th. Next up: Dave Coley (2010-14) 1,222
All-time: Currently 19th. Next up: Dave Burda (1983-86) 1,100
Listen/Watch:TV:
http://bit.ly/MBBGm18Vid (ESPN+)
Stony Brook radio:
http://bit.ly/WUSBSports_FMNotables:6-5/185 so G Josh Hopkins 12.2 ppg, .429 3-pt FG%
6-0/190 sr G Jordan Reed 10.6 ppg, 1.0 spg, .931 FT%, .400 3-pt FG%
6-7/195 fr F Jayden Martinez 8.5 ppg, 5.7 rpg
6-5/220 fr G Nick Guadarrama 8.0 ppg, 4.8 rpg
6-8/225 sr F David Watkins 7.3 ppg, 4.9 rpg
What do you get when a crummy team forges ahead having lost an all-time talent? You get this edition of the UNH Wildcats, who appear lost without Tanner Leissner as their anchor.
A couple 20-win seasons and postseason appearances probably bought Herrion some time at UNH, but before winning 59 games over three seasons with Leissner on the roster, he had "led" the Wildcats to nine straight losing seasons. They took a dip again last year, and now they’re back to being totally irrelevant in the America East. But like Maine, it's a tough place to win –zero tradition, poor facilities, cold weather and fan indifference (note the 340 fans at the UMass Lowell game on Wednesday).
Don't just blame it on Herrion. They've been bad forever, going back to Phil Rowe before him, Gerry Friel in the 80s, and just about everyone in the program's history. All time, only one coach who's coached more than 20 games has a winning record, and that was Butch Cowell (119-59 from 1916-1928), for whom the FOOTBALL stadium had been named because he won doing that too (87-69-24 from 1915-1936). Otherwise, wow, an impressive run of futility. New Hampshire has just ELEVEN winning seasons since World War II.
I'll keep from piling on, although maybe it's too late.
Let's look at the positives. First, they come to the Fed just three days after their first Division I win of the year, a truthfully quite startling 68-64 triumph over Lowell, which ended an 11-game slide. They did it with major contributions from three freshmen – Martinez, Guadarrama and guard Marque Maltsby – and an emerging sophomore – Hopkins. A bright future! Well, it's a nice win for them to build off of. Except now they face the middle of the America East order in succession – at Stony Brook, home to Vermont, at Hartford, home to UMBC. Still, maybe Herrion has a corps of kids to work with going forward. The aforementioned newcomers have displaced guys like Elijah Jordan and John Ogwuche, who played significant minutes last year.
This is a perimeter oriented team though. Reed is far more comfortable hovering around the arc than taking it to the rack. Hopkins may lead the team in scoring but he isn't a cold-blooded killer who is going to consistently score off the bounce and at all levels. Watkins is a good-sized kid who's come on of late with increased minutes, stringing together four straight double-digit nights, including a 24-point, 11-rebound night against Dartmouth not long ago, but even leans on his jumper. They have very little inside and aren't drawing contact – note that they've made as many threes (141) as free throws (by contrast we are at 120 threes and 279 free throws). We just have to be careful that nobody heats up and beats us with a freak shooting night. It's hard to see it happening though. They just don't have the horses.