America East showing early signs of life

December 3, 9:37 PMBoston Area College Basketball ExaminerTony Lee

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An increasing number of sports fans, or so it seems, only care about college basketball in March.  Office pools and bracketologists and one shining moment have made the season one that builds to a crescendo, picking up bandwagoners along the way before yielding in one fell swoop to baseball and the rest of the sports world.

To those “fans,” early-season matchups between teams like Vermont and Dartmouth might not mean much.  But to those of us who root for teams in lesser leagues such as the Ivy or America East, the November and December battles are often the best measuring sticks for what kind of team – and league – we really have.

These conferences are basically on par with the MAAC, the Northeast and the Patriot and each time a BU meets a CCSU and an Army meets a Harvard it’s akin to a conference game, with a twist.  And when one such league has success in a lot of these cross-conference affairs, like the America East has so far this season, it’s a pretty good indicator for the true strength of the league.

That bodes well for Boston University.

Consider the following facts:

Entering Dec. 3, only 11 conferences in the land have more teams with winning records than the America East, which had five teams above the .500 mark.  Ten of those leagues are ranked in the top 10 nationally, according to Jeff Sagarin’s ratings system, and only one ranked team (Gonzaga) exists outside this group.

The America East as a whole is 28-25 thus far. On this date last season it was 26-39.  And every one of its members has played at least one game this season against a 2007-08 opponent.

Sure, there isn’t an extremely notable win in the bunch, no earth-shattering upset of a ranked opponent or anything like that, but it shows that this league is winning those “measuring stick” games against comparable conferences.  BU’s win at Northeastern last week snapped a four-game losing streak in the series.  Vermont has already turned the table on a pair of losses – Loyola-MD and Dartmouth – from last season.  Even results like lowly New Hampshire beating lowly Colgate on the road (UNH scored 46 points in a loss to the Raiders at home last season) resonates a bit more than the casual college basketball observer may realize.

I'm not the only one to observe this trend, but it's safe to say I'm among the few.  Simply put, too few pay attention this time of year.