Vermont Tech Men’s Basketball: 15-Game Home Slate in ’12-’13 for Defending YSCC Champions
Randolph Center, VT – Coming off a Yankee Small College Conference Championship and a United States Collegiate Athletic Association automatic berth in 2011/12, the Vermont Tech Knights will be circled as a big game for every team they face in 2012/13. A fifteen game home slate highlights the regular season schedule this year. Defending a championship is never easy, but the Knights' are confident of again being one of the class teams in the conference.
For the first time, the YSCC has a two-division system for both men's and women's basketball. The West, which contains Vermont Tech, also includes NHTI, the College of St. Joseph's (VT), Hampshire College, Nashua Community College, and Paul Smith's College. Each team plays each other twice, while East/West cross-divisional rivalries will meet once. The top four teams per division advance to the YSCC playoff Elite Eight, to be held February 15-18, 2013 at Central Maine Community College. The winner of the playoffs again receives an automatic bid to the United State Collegiate Athletic Association National Championship held February 26-March 2, 2013 in Uniontown, PA.
First-year Head Coach Chris Leazier will have his work cut out for him, as not only will the Knights have a major target on their backs, but he also loses the services of the school's All-Time leading scorer Kevin Carr. Carr finished his time at Vermont Tech with 2,295 points, well eclipsing the previous record, and doing so in just three years of play. Leazier, however, has brought in a strong recruiting class, and will do his best to continue the success of his predecessor, the now retired John Dyer.
The Knights open the season with an YSCC matchup at home against Hampshire College on Sunday, Nov. 4th at 3:00pm. The team then travels to Boston, MA to take on a tough team in the Fisher College Falcons on the 7th before coming back home for a Saturday/Sunday (Nov. 10/11) home-stand pitting the Knights against YSCC foes Eastern Maine Community College and Unity College, games at 6pm and 1pm, respectively. Last year, Eastern was the regular season champion while also spending time as the #1 team in the nation. Unity will be fielding a varsity men's team for the first time in YSCC competition.
VTC takes a road trip to New York City on the Monday/Tuesday before Thanksgiving. While in New York, the Knights face a new opponent in NCAA DIII Medgar Evers College. In addition, the Knights also have USCAA opponent, and the team that defeated them in a thriller in the 2011/12 USCAA National Tournament, Berkeley College (NY).
The next home game for the Knights after Thanksgiving is Dec. 5, when they will take on perennial rival NHTI. They follow that with another home contest on Saturday, December 8th with Paul Smith's College at 2:00pm. The game with the Bobcats finished the first semester.
Vermont Tech begins the second semester with a non-conference matchup on the road versus SUNY Canton on Jan. 5, before opening up at home on Jan. 7 against University of Maine Fort Kent. The YSCC play for the second semester starts on mid-week, on Wednesday, January 9 as Northern Maine CC comes into Randolph. Later that week, SUNY Canton returns the trip taken by the Knights to New York by coming into Vermont on Jan. 11. The rest of January sees YSCC home contests with Nashua (14th), Maine-Machias (16th), Southern Maine (19th), and closes with St. Joseph's (VT) (27th). In addition, the men travel to Paul Smith's on Sunday the 20th and contest Maine-Augusta at the neutral site of Southern Maine on Saturday the 26th.
February has four home games, two non-conference against Fisher College (7th) and University of Maine-Presque Isle (9th), with one against YSCC Conference opponent Central Maine (10th). The season concludes with what could be a huge, YSCC playoff-deciding matchup at NHTI on Feb. 12.
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