Bears start season on high note

On Tuesday, the Bridgewater State College men's basketball team found themselves trailing by 19 points at the end of the first half against Western?New England College in their season opener. One could look at the Bears lack of intensity in the first stanza due to the absence of graduating senior and last season's team leader Tom Cuddihy. "Tommy was a very good player for us, he was a very good offensive player for us and he was never afraid to take the big shot," said Farroba.

Possible players who could step into this role this year could be the likes of the new senior captain, Roland Millien as coach Farroba hinted.

"I think Roland, who's a senior with great work ethic, could be the guy who could step in and take big shots down the stretch." Millien's did just that Tuesday, leading BSC past WNEC, 91-80, putting together an impressive double-double performance that saw a career high 33 points on the offensive end.

Millien also grabbed 17 rebounds, notched five steals and two blocks, one of which came in a critical moment of the fourth quarter.

His success on Tuesday can be attributed to his "gym rat" mentality which Farroba hopes can catch on with the rest of the squad.

"I think if the rest of the team follows Roland's lead and works as hard, we could be a very good team this season."

While Farroba will look for Millien to lead this squad, he also knows that this team has gained a good amount of maturity, returning a lot of players from last year's team as he explained before the game.

"Right now we have a lot of guys who are a year older and hopefully a year better so I think that could make us as a team better overall."

Millien was not alone Tuesday as these same returning players stepped up as well.

Sophomore forward Nicolas Motta added 20 points and five rebounds while sophomore guard Judah Jackson added 19 points including a barrage of Jordanesque jumpers in the second half that proved to be the turning point for the Bears.

Jackson's performance in particular seemed to really spark the team in the second half as WNEC saw their once insurmountable lead fall by the wayside.

There was plenty of offensive firepower for BSC who finished with 91 points on the night but the real story was the second half defense.

Farroba's squad turned up the pressure and seemed to come up with every loose ball as the Bears, who allowed 49 in the first only gave up 32 points in the second half.

Bridgewater State dug themselves into a hole late in the first half which saw the Bears down as many as 19 with about a 1:20 to go in the first half however, the resilient BSC squad bounced back with unanswered seven point run to finish the half, capped by a buzzer beating three by junior guard Anthony Goss.

The Bears came out a bit stale in the second half, however WNEC couldn't keep them at bay and eventually the shots began to fall for the home squad who improved their shooting percentage by 20% in the second (31% to 51%) while the WNEC golden Bears' ball handling appeared to be anything but in the second half. Bridgewater state found many opportunities and fast break points in the second half to help their cause.

The hard work of Millien and the rest of the squad showed off later on in the game as the bears looked like a rejuvenated and re-energized team, seemingly beating the "not so" golden bears to essentially every loose ball.

The win puts BSC on the right track to try and meet the expectations of Coach Farroba who described his idea for the team before the game.

"We would like to win our conference and we would like to make the NCAA tournament." Farroba knows what it will take to make the tourney and is focused on the conference playoffs to get them there.

"We have gone to the NCAA's twice since I've been here and both times it was by winning the conference playoffs and getting the automatic bid."

In order to do so, the Bears are going to have to perform much better to get over conference rival Salem State, who BSC beat in the regular season last year but were throttled by 81-49 in second round action of last year's Conference playoffs.

Up next for the Bears is the BSC D'Angelo tip- off classic Saturday.