Overall record: 11-18
Ivy record: 6-8 (5th)
RPI rank: 230th
Sagarin rank: 233rd
Pomeroy rank: 233rd

		At Brown’s end Brown was a very perimeter-oriented team this year, running a three-guard offense with two members of that backcourt leading the way in scoring. The team’s three-point shooting went from decent outside the league to excellent in Ivy play. This was impressive, considering the volume of shots coming from beyond the arc. Despite a lack of a traditional post offense, the interior offense also showed improvement the second half of the season, as it got more familiar with the screening and cuts of its new offensive system. It’s not very common to see a team without much of an inside game succeed at getting to the line, but the Bears did exactly that. Brown ended the season with 27.1 percent of its points on free throws — the highest percentage among all 336 Division I teams. The offense generated a very high number of open looks, with the Bears ranking among the national leaders in assist percentage, but the assist-turnover ratio was below where it should have been, due to a 24.4-percent turnover rate. Rebounding was the primary problem at the offensive end, as Brown finished below all but two teams nationally in offensive rebounding at a mere 24.4 percent. At the other end The Bears’ zone defense was able to neutralize some matchup problems inside, doing an above-average job defensively inside the arc. However, this resulted in opponents hurting Brown from three-point range — both with a high shooting percentage and with a gaudy number of attempts from long range. The Bears fared much better at keeping Ivy opponents off the free throw line than they did non-league foes, resulting in a large free throw disparity in the league. The defense proved compenent at generating opponent turnovers, but off-ball defense and the team defensive scheme were subject to breakdowns, resulting in high-percentage shots and a lot of assists for opponents. While rebounding was a glaring weakness at the other end, defensive rebounding was much better, with Brown actually developing into a solid defensive rebounding team in Ivy play at 69.0 percent.
What went right The best thing Craig Robinson had going for him this season was the fact his team seemed very eager to buy into his system. The transition undoubtedly was made easier by the fact the returning players had run a motion offense under Glen Miller, with the same emphasis on screening, cutting, and reads. The fact Brown showed improvement as the season wore on also has to be considered an encouraging sign, as the Bears closed out with four wins in their final six games in a competitive Ivy League. Part of this was attributable to Robinson’s increased use of a 1-3-1 trap when the 2-3 matchup zone lost its effectiveness in the league against teams accustomed to facing that defense when they played Princeton. Mark McAndrew’s breakout season and emergence as one of the top scoring threats in the Ivy League was a very pleasant surprise. Meanwhile, Damon Huffman bounced back very nicely both from a poor sophomore season and a knee injury in the season opener, and ranks among the leading returning scorers in the league next season.		What went wrong The timing of Robinson’s hiring meant that he and his players really were getting to know each other in the fall, which added an extra degree of difficulty to implementing a new system. Things got off to a rough start when freshmen J.J. Anderson and Matt Jones left the program very early in fall practices, then came the bombshell of leading scorer and 2005-06 All-Ivy selection Keenan Jeppesen’s decision to leave the team seven games into the season. Then there was Mark MacDonald’s injury and subsequent leave of absence over the holidays, leaving the Bears very thin inside. When MacDonald returned, starting center Nate Eads was lost to academics. On top of this, two promising sophomore forwards had disappointing seasons. Chris Skrelja suffered a preseason stress fracture and missed some time early on, then never seemed to recover his shooting touch, and while Scott Friske had very good percentages, he didn’t look for his shot much and seemed to be a forgotten man in the offense at times.
Zenith Brown’s strong finish to the season and Providence’s performance down the stretch made the result look like much less of a shocker, but for a while this season, the Bears’ 51-41 win at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on November 18 was the upset of the year in college basketball. The Friars responded to the unpleasant surprise of losing to their city rival by racing out to a 12-3 mark, while Robinson’s team was struggling. However, on that night, the Brown zone threw Providence for a complete loop, holding the Friars to just 41 points on 59 possessions. For McAndrew, it would be the first of 24 double-figure scoring games during his junior year, as the Bears celebrated an enormous win and earned bragging rights for this summer’s pickup games with the Providence players.		Nadir The first Ivy home weekend brought Miller’s return to the Pizzitola Center with his new Penn team, and while the crowd wasn’t any more energized than usual, it was an emotional game for his former players. However, the Quakers came out and jumped all over the Bears, racing out to an 18-point first-half lead and sending Brown to a 77-61 defeat. The setback was the seventh loss in eight games for the Bears, dropping them to 6-14 on the season and 1-4 in the league, as things looked rather bleak. However, the following night’s comfortable win against Princeton would prove to be the turning point, as the Bears were over .500 in their final nine games at 5-4 and nearly beat their former coach in the season finale in Philadelphia.
Grounds for optimism Next year Brown will return the top scoring duo in the league in McAndrew and Huffman, while losing three seniors, only one of whom was playing a prominent role during the late-season surge. It’s reasonable to expect bounce-back seasons by Friske and Skrelja, and MacDonald came on a bit after returning from his hiatus, so the frontcourt should be improved next year. Consider the fact it will be the team’s second season running Robinson’s schemes and the addition of a large and seemingly decent recruiting class, and it’s understandable to assume Brown will pick up where it left off this year.		Causes for concern While there’s only one key graduation loss, Marcus Becker is a big one. There’s no one on the current roster capable of filling Becker’s shoes at the point, and Robinson’s recruiting class doesn’t have any public commitments from pure point guards. Additionally, while Robinson’s offense differs from what Princeton is running under Joe Scott and MacDonald did make strides in his passing this year, the lack of a true point-center in the high post is a problem. With the lack of emphasis on rebounding — including a habit of declining to put offensive rebounders on the blocks when shooting free throws — second chances are few and far between for the Bears.

Program trajectory
It’s interesting that despite a coaching change, a new system, and the loss during the season of its only All-Ivy player, Brown pretty much is right where it was at this point a year ago, following a similarly encouraging finish to the 2005-06 season. At 6-8 in the league, the Bears’ probably overachieved a bit, given Jeppesen’s departure and the strength of the Ivy League. However, from Columbia under Joe Jones to Terry Dunn at Dartmouth, we’ve seen similar “new coach bounces” lead to disappointing second seasons, and the four first-division programs this season all would appear to be ahead of Brown on paper next season. The explosive guard tandem should make the Bears a threat to make the jump up to the top half of the league, but they’re a real longshot to win the league next year. The large Class of 2011 will look to assert itself as sophomores the following year, but Robinson then will have to replace the scoring of Huffman and McAndrew, so true title contention probably is at least three years away. Openly talking of winning four titles over the next six seasons, Robinson doesn’t appear too worried about managing alumni expectations, but given the early good will toward him, Brown fans figure to be plenty patient.