Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Bits and Bytes: It's dumb and dumber to doubt Hofstra!

You'd be surprised how many Lauren Holly photos were unsuitable for work.

The Flying Dutchmen are less than 72 hours away from tipping off against Georgia State in the first round of the CAA Tournament and Tom Pecora surely is not lacking for motivational material. Never mind all that jazz about becoming the first northern-based team to win the CAA by becoming the first team to win four games in four days, or the talk about crafting legacy and making history.

All Pecora needs to say is this: Everyone hates Hofstra.

It’s true. The week is just two days old and already the doubters and the doomsayers are crawling out of the woodwork. Like our so-called friend Mike Litos, who has managed to carve out a niche for himself by blogging about a league in which he hates all 12 teams.

Litos was the first to disrespect the Dutchmen yesterday when he named Charles Jenkins the CAA player of the year but completely ignored the rest of the Dutchmen in his first, second and third team selections, ignored Pecora in the coach of the year balloting and failed to name a Hofstra player as his rookie of the year.

Hey Mike here are the actual All-CAA teams you would have named if not for your terrible anti-Hofstra bias!

FIRST TEAM ALL-CAA
Charles Jenkins
Cornelius Vines
Chaz Williams
Miklos Szabo
Greg Washington

SECOND TEAM ALL-CAA
Halil Kanacevic
Nathaniel Lester
Yves Jules
David Imes
Matt Grogan

THIRD TEAM ALL-CAA
None because Hofstra only has a 10-man rotation

CAA ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
Chaz Williams AND Halil Kanacevic

CAA ALL-ROOKIE TEAM
Chaz Williams
Halil Kanacevic
Yves Jules
David Imes
Matt Grogan
Brad Kelleher

Yeah, we’re going with six on the all-rookie team, because anyone who doesn’t hate Hofstra knows how Kelleher’s tale of woe has inspired the Dutchmen in the second half of the season.

CAA COACH OF THE YEAR
Tom Pecora

I will get you back for this Litos. Two words for you: Fake Twitter.

Once I’m done dogging Litos and his employability and upbringing on the fake @caabasketball Twitter, I’ll turn my attention towards Ken Pomeroy, who ran the numbers today and deduced that Hofstra has a 2.8 percent chance of winning the tournament. Obviously, he majored in algebra with a southern bias.

This of course reminds me of Dumb and Dumber:

Me: What do you think the chances are of a team like Hofstra winning a conference like the CAA?
Ken: Well, Jerry, that’s difficult to say. I mean, we don’t really…
Me: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I may be driving a long way just to see this tournament, Ken. The least you can do is level with me. What are Hofstra’s chances?
Ken: Not good.
Me: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Ken: I’d say more like barely two out of a hundred.
Me: SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THERE’S A CHANCE! YEAH!

Oh well, we’re better off than Delaware (a 0.07 chance), anyway.

But seriously, folks, I’ll have my real All-CAA picks by Thursday. My guess is the Dutchmen will be well-represented at the awards banquet, with Jenkins sure to earn All-CAA honors, Williams and Kanacevic sure to make the all-rookie team and a pretty decent shot of Jenkins and one of the freshmen winning the player of the year and rookie of the year awards. Pecora won’t win coach of the year, but that’s because everyone hates New York.

A couple other things before diving back into some of the features I’ve been working on the last few days:

—Make sure to tune into WRHU tonight for their two-hour CAA Tournament preview show. The guys there have lined up interviews with the coaches of the top seven teams. If only it was a live call-in format so I could chat with Jim Larranaga! It should be another top-notch effort by the insanely talented and hard-working crew over there, so give them a listen.

—Got in the mail the other day an invite to the men’s basketball banquet, scheduled for March 24. Two thoughts: One, my wife and I are calling dibs on sponsoring Corny. Two, oh Hofstra, ye of little faith! Don’t you know the Dutchmen will be preparing for the Sweet 16 that night?

—Finally, you may not be able to click this link because of Newsday’s new and wildly successful pay wall, but Steve Marcus has penned his annual “The CAA sucks for Hofstra” column. All true and I don’t even mind it being mentioned this week—I’ll author my own “GET HOFSTRA TO THE A-10!!!” column whenever this season ends—but there has got to be a better and different way to tread the same territory as well as a better time to declare the Dutchmen cannot win in Richmond. Like, oh, I don’t know, when they haven’t won nine out of 10.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.

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