By Dan McLoone, News Staff

This is hardly what people expected. Sure, the men’s basketball team may not have been projected to top the Colonial Athletic Association this season, but they were most definitely supposed to compete near the top. With Quincy Ford’s season ending injury, it got even worse for Northeastern. Despite the strong play of the team as a whole and Scott Eatherton stepping up big time in Ford’s absence, the Huskies have played teams close often without being able to pull out the win at the end of the day.\

Following Saturday’s 30-point loss at Vanderbilt, the Huskies closed non-conference play with a 3-11 record, including losing nine of their last 10. None of this matters, however. With the new year comes the newest opportunity for Northeastern to turn their season around. With CAA play coming up, the woes of the early season can be erased by success against their conference foes.

Let’s be honest, there wasn’t much of a chance for Northeastern to qualify for the NCAA Tournament with an at large bid. Barring potentially running the table in the non-conference schedule, none of the results from thus far would have helped the Huskies if they failed to win the CAA. Ultimately, the games that the team has played so far have been a tune-ups for the challenge that is before them now. Games against Georgetown, VCU, Richmond and Vanderbilt were not only big match-ups, but opportunities for the team to gauge where they fall on a competitive scale.

With the new year comes a new opportunity to take the experience from playing these power schools and turning it into wins in conference play. To do so, however, Northeastern needs to make some changes. Here are some things that the Huskies will have at the top of their New Year’s resolutions.

Free Throw Shooting: Through 14 games, Northeastern is the worst free-throw shooting team in the CAA, shooting only 62.9 percent from the charity stripe. Other than David Walker’s 83.9 percent clip, no Husky receiving significant minutes is shooting better than 67.9 percent, a habit that needs to change. Considering how many close games come down to free throws, being able to get the free points will be essential to success in conference play. If the team can improve from the line, the Huskies may find themselves on the winning side of many of the close games they have lost so far.

Rebounding: For a team that gained so much height with Scott Eatherton, Northeastern is surprisingly underperforming on the boards. Other than Eatherton and Reggie Spencer, nobody has been able to put up big rebounding numbers. Northeastern is the third worst rebounding team in the CAA, averaging 34.5 per game—6.3 behind conference the leading Towson Tigers. To be fair, some of this may have to do with the fact that opposing teams are shooting a better percentage against Northeastern than any other team in the conference. That makes it even more important, then, that the players box out the opponents and prevent any second-chance opportunities.

Team Chemistry: I don’t mean this in the sense that the Huskies suffer chemistry issues. I say this more in regards to the ripple effect of the Quincy Ford injury. Without the player who was voted to the pre-season All-Conference team, Northeastern has had to change its approach on offense. They have done very well spreading the wealth so far. Scott Eatherton is one of two players in the conference who is averaging a double-double, along with Towson’s Jerrelle Benimon. David Walker is averaging 11.3 points per game along with 2 steals, good for second in the conference. Reggie Spencer, Demetrius Pollard, Zach Stahl and TJ Williams have also stepped up with the increased minutes that Ford’s absence has provided. However, the minutes increase is a big change for some of the players, one which they should fully adapt to and embrace given a few more games.

A 3-11 record was not what the Huskies expected. Neither was the loss of their team leader. The team has handled these changes pretty well up until now. With some games against top opponents now under their belt, Northeastern enters conference play with a chance to redeem their record. Nothing should deter them from their preseason hopes of a conference title, and with this new year comes the opportunity to forget the non-conference slate and move on to the games that really matter.