George Mason 55, Hofstra 50 (Or: They’re going out of their heads going crazy)

An appropriate song in more ways than one for the 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen.

If I were to rank losses to George Mason on a scale of 1 to 10—one being barely bummed and 10 being Quoting-Ugly-Kid-Joe-pissed—then last night’s 55-50 loss to the first-place Patriots would rank no higher than a five or so.

(I realize it’s not normal to rank losses to a particular opponent on a scale of 1 to 10. But you knew what you were getting into here)

There was no Greg Johnson, driving the lane in the waning seconds with Hofstra down three in the CAA Tournament and Antoine Agudio begging for the ball all alone behind the 3-point line. There was no Agudio missing the free throw that would have given the Dutchmen a four-point lead in the final seconds of overtime.

This was not a lopsided loss by 20-plus points in Fairfax. There was no drunken Mason grad nearly sending me to the other side on the way home from a close loss at Mason. And, of course, there was no Ryan Pearson piling on with Montgomery Burns rubbing his bony fingers together in approval as his nation of Waylon Smithers lackeys declared him the world’s finest sportsman.

No, this one ended with an exhausted Pearson—who scored seven points and pulled down eight rebounds in the second half despite having his face bloodied twice in the first half—exchanging a relieved high five at midcourt with a similarly spent Mike Morrison as Sherrod Wright hit the game-icing free throws to cap a nearly perfect night at the line for Mason (20-of-23—these aren’t Monty’s Patriots) with 19 seconds left.

A few seconds later, after Morrison blocked Shemiye McLendon’s running layup and Corey Edwards grabbed the rebound, new Mason coach Paul Hewitt waved for Edwards to get the ball over halfcourt—not so he could call timeout and draw up a 3-point shot like his predecessor would have, but to run the clock out!

It’s a new era in Hofstra-Mason games (last night featured, by far, the most entertaining in-game Twitter exchanges in DD history) but the loss was the same old story in a whole lot of ways as the Flying Dutchmen fell to 1-9 in the CAA with their SIXTH CAA loss by six points or less.

As has often been the case this year, the Dutchmen were at least partially done in by a lack of bodies. Mike Moore (18 points on 7-of-12 shooting, including 4-of-7 from 3-point land, and a career-high six assists) and Nathaniel Lester (12 points, his CAA-best 14th straight game with at least 10 points) were a fine 1-2 combo again for Hofstra. But while Stevie Mejia, McLendon and Moussa Kone combined for just six points on 2-of-9 shooting in 52 minutes, Mason received 36 points on 9-of-22 shooting over 86 minutes from its reserves. No Mason player played more than 29 minutes while four Dutchmen played at least 28 minutes.

For the fifth time in the last six games, the Dutchmen raced out to an early lead of at least six points—and opened a lead of at least nine for the fourth time in that span—but could not build on it in the first half and squandered late opportunities to escape with the win.

For the third straight Wednesday, the Dutchmen came back from a second half deficit of at least eight points to tie the score or take the lead. And for the third straight Wednesday, the Dutchmen had a chance to tie the score or take the lead in the final minute but couldn’t get over the hump (get it?).

Moore, Lester and Mo Cassara looked steamrolled at the podium, and it had nothing to do with losing to big bad Mason. Every loss hurts at this point, and this funk doubly stings because it consists mostly of close losses to the best of the CAA.

Five of the Dutchmen’s last six games have come against teams currently in the top half of the CAA. The Dutchmen have lost those five games by a combined 33 points, and only once by more than six points.

“I think our energy and our effort’s been great,” Cassara said. “We’re winning at halftime against George Mason. We’re winning at halftime at Old Dominion. We’re down three at VCU. We just run out of gas a little bit, I guess. We’re going to have to keep trying to find ways to finish games, because we’re coming out with energy, we’re having great practices, our attitudes have been terrific. We just can’t seem to kind of get over the hump.”

The Dutchmen had more opportunities than usual to do so Wednesday. The Dutchmen scored the first nine points, didn’t allow Mason—which shot an unimaginable 4-of-23 in the first half—to break into double digits until there were less than three minutes to play and led 20-19 at the half. It was the first time the Dutchmen allowed fewer than 20 points in a half since Jan. 21, 2009, when they TRAILED William & Mary 17-15 at the Arena.

Andre Cornelius took charge for Mason to open the second half with consecutive 3-pointers to jumpstart a 19-10 run for the Patriots that gave them a 38-30 lead at the midway mark. But the Dutchmen inched back, tied the game twice on 3-pointers by David Imes and Moore and took the lead at 41-40 with 6:21 left on another 3-pointer by Moore.

That was the first of four times the Dutchmen took the lead over a span of a little more than four minutes. Imes, who scored all nine of his points in the second half, put the Dutchmen ahead twice with long jumpers from the corner, the last with 2:16 left.

But Sherrod Wright’s 3-point play with 1:47 left put the Patriots ahead for good at 51-50 and the Dutchmen missed an agonizing three shots—a jumper and a 3-pointer by Lester and a 3-pointer by Moore, all of which looked good out of their hands—before Edwards’ two free throws. Then, after Cassara used the Dutchmen’s last timeout with 27 seconds left, Mejia got a good open look at a tying 3-pointer, but it clanged off the rim.

That left Cassara saying the same things he’s been saying for weeks—bemoaning the Dutchmen’s rotten luck and hoping they salvage something from the season in February. “We’re better than our record shows,” Cassara said. “Again, we’ve been in an incredible amount of close games. We just haven’t been able to get something to bounce our way.

“Unfortunately, we just haven’t been able to finish and it’s a combination of a lot of things,” Cassara said. “But we have to keep working. February can be our month. I have to keep telling our guys that. Obviously, we’re frustrated because we’re in every game, especially against the top part of the league. But basketball’s a long season and we’ve still got a good month of February [ahead].”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Mason, 1/25)

3: Mike Moore

2: Nathaniel Lester

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 46

Nathaniel Lester 32

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 11

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 5

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Hofstra 71, James Madison 69 (Or: Happy Happy Joy Joy)

I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!

Mo Cassara had tried just about everything to coax a win out of the Flying Dutchmen and end the longest streak of bad luck in college basketball this season. He yelled and he provided verbal pats on the back. He worked the Dutchmen hard in practice and he eased up. He expressed frustration at press conferences and he expressed optimism. He implored the Dutchmen to channel the 2004 Red Sox and the 2011 New York Giants.

Turns out all he had to do was ditch his sport coat.

With his coach displaying an ultra-rare look on the sideline, Stevie Mejia drove the lane and converted the winning 3-point play with just over six seconds to go before he provided the suffocating defense at midcourt that clinched the Flying Dutchmen’s 71-69 win over James Madison. The win, the Dutchmen’s first CAA win in 321 days (but who’s counting?), finally ended the second-worst conference start in Hofstra history, a stretch in which the Dutchmen lost seven games by a mere 42 points.

“It’s like the weight has been lifted,” Cassara said from Richmond Saturday night. “It was a big-time winning play. We’ve been talking about how we’ve got to make more winning plays and we had a bunch tonight. Fortunately we were able to make enough down the stretch to win the game in a hostile environment.”

When Cassara flung off the coat, though, it looked like the Dutchmen were destined to suffer yet another gut-wrenching loss. Cassara, a superstitious sort in all facets of life but particularly when it comes to his game day attire, is the anti-Shaka Smart when it comes to his suit jacket: It stays on. Always.

Yet he ditched it in fury with 1:16 left Saturday, right after James Madison took its first lead in almost 16 minutes on a dunk by Enoch Hood. Cassara was already furious over what happened about 90 seconds earlier, when, with the Dutchmen nursing a four-point lead, Dwan McMillan fouled out on the second worst charge call of the week. Actually, this one might have been even worse, since McMillan was at half court when it happened.

(Note: It wasn’t worse than Dennis Allocco’s travesty)

Humpty Hitchens (HIM AGAIN) drained a 3-pointer on the Dukes’ subsequent trip to pull James Madison within 62-61 and even Cassara was thinking the Dutchmen—who were up by nine points in the first half and by eight points earlier in the second half—were doomed. He was so furious he took off the coat because the sleeves were restraining him and “…I couldn’t swing my arms fast enough.”

The Dutchmen were in the midst of one of their best games of the year and were winning even though Mike Moore (10 points on 3-of-10 shooting) was bottled up. And they were finally getting contributions from everyone: Dutchmen reserves scored just seven points in the previous two games but Mejia, Shemiye McLendon and Moussa Kone ended up with 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting.

And yet it was happening again. “I was just so frustrated,” Cassara said. “It was like a Twilight Zone. Playing our butts off and then we just can’t get a break.”

But unlike the previous seven losses, the Dutchmen made their own breaks down the stretch and finally got a couple things to go their way. David Imes, who scored a team-high 11 points in the first half, pulled down two rebounds, one on each end of the floor, following the Hitchens 3-pointer and hit three of four free throws—his only points of the second half—to give the Dutchmen a four-point lead again.

Imes’ defensive rebound came when after the Dukes missed two shots in the paint, including a thunderous dunk by Hood. It was Imes who had one of the Dutchmen’s two missed dunks against Northeastern in a 64-62 loss and Imes who accidentally tipped in a missed Drexel free throw in the 60-54 loss to the Dragons Wednesday.

Then A.J. Davis’ 3-point play and Hood’s dunk finally put the Dukes ahead, Nathaniel Lester—who had another huge second half and scored 17 of his 23 points after intermission—drained a 3-pointer to give the Dutchmen the 68-66 lead.

“I’ve got to credit coach [Pat] Sellers,” Cassara said. “We went through a little rut in the second half, they were just doing so much to take away Mike [Moore]. And [Sellers said] ‘Gotta go to Nat, Nat’s hot, he’s got a good shot, we’ve got to keep going to him.” We called his number a bunch of different times and he hit some big shots.”

But Lester ended up needing Mejia to save him from misery. Lester stole the ball on James Madison’s next trip and, after a timeout, missed a layup with 23 seconds left. Hood slammed home a dunk on the other end, was fouled by Mejia and hit the free throw to put the Dukes up 69-68.

“When Nat misses that layup at the end of the game and they get a 3-point play, they go up, I was like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Cassara said.

The Dutchmen didn’t have a timeout, but Mejia—who was the third option on the play behind Moore and Lester—got the ball from a heavily covered Moore, drove the lane, hit the layup and was fouled by Hitchens. Mejia, who had hit just 11 of 25 free throws, drained the free throw and then pressured Devon Moore into losing the ball at half-court. Despite contact being made, no foul was called, and the Dukes didn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

It was a cathartic layup for Mejia, who has struggled badly and lost his starting job to McMillan since suffering a hamstring injury against Boston University Nov. 27. Mejia’s three field goals Saturday marked the first time he had multiple baskets in a game since Nov. 26—the day the Dutchmen stunned Cleveland State.

During a chat in his office last week, Cassara implored Mejia to focus less on what has gone wrong this year and more on the next year-and-a-half. “I’m just so happy for Stevie Mejia, he has been such a shell of himself,” Cassara said. “Stevie and I had this long heart to heart the other day. He’s starting to get healthy—maybe 75 to 80 percent—and mentally he wasn’t. He’s just so frustrated. He’s wanted to do so well and hasn’t been able to.

“I said to him ‘Listen: We’re not talking about Rhode Island anymore or this injury anymore. What we’re going to do is make this a successful year-and-a-half for you, on and off the court.

“Later on he texted me and [said] ‘Thank you. I feel so much better.’ He played that way today. Just so happy for him.”

And after ending the losing streak, Cassara found out that plenty of people were rooting for him, as well. “My phone just blew up—texts from people around the league, ADs, coaches,” Cassara said. “People knew how close we were. It wasn’t like you’re a bad team and you can’t win. It was like, hey, this is a pretty good team, just haven’t been able to catch a break.

“So I really appreciate that. I think that’s a sign that this is not a bad team. Just a team that has been, between injuries and various other things and some tough luck, hasn’t been where it would like to be.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. James Madison, 1/21)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Stevie Mejia

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 41

Nathaniel Lester 27

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 9

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 5

Moussa Kone 2

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Postgame Buffet: Hofstra 83, Iona 75 (Or: If the cards are cold, don’t go folding)

The rap here is as awful as the win over Iona was awesome.

Iona players had waited 31 days for Thursday night and the opportunity to play in front of their friends and family. But the Flying Dutchmen had waited a lot longer—a full 365 days—just to play the Gaels and get a measure of revenge for the worst loss of the Mo Cassara Era.

And the differences in focus were obvious throughout. From the spirited demeanor of the Hofstra bench to David Imes (16 points, 15 rebounds) and Nathaniel Lester (21 points, 10 rebounds) putting together double-doubles in perhaps the best efforts of their careers to Cassara pumping his fist after a Moussa Kone dunk sealed the game with less than a minute to play and the sight of usually placid Lester firing the ball skyward as time expired, the Dutchmen were the better and more attentive team in putting together a stunningly thorough 83-75 win in front of a spirited crowd of 4,258 at Hofstra Arena.

“Sheesh, I can’t even tell you,” Imes said when asked how satisfied he was by the victory a year to the day after the Dutchmen were destroyed by Iona, 87-62, in New Rochelle. “I just know that everyday, when we found out they were on our schedule, we just waited until this day to take advantage of it and just make up for [last year],” Imes said.

“A year ago tonight was a tough night,” Cassara said. “But it was a big turning point for us. I think from that point on we played very, very well throughout the rest of the season. So obviously a big turning point for us this year, as well.”

Don’t be surprised if it turns out to be one for Iona, too. Judging by Tim Cluess’ demeanor late Thursday, I wouldn’t want to be Siena on Tuesday night. Anyway, here’s the postgame buffet from the Dutchmen’s third straight win.

1.) Afterward, everyone on both sides recognized that while the Flying Dutchmen viewed this as their Super Bowl—Dwan McMillan’s words—Iona viewed it like Homecoming, and figured they’d treat the Dutchmen like the Dutchmen football team treated Charleston Southern back in 1995 (you probably had to be there).

“I’ll keep it simple: Just give Hofstra all the credit,” Cluess said. “I thought they came and played a heckuva game from the get-go. They came with more energy, they played harder than us and took it to us right from the start. It looked like it meant more to them than it did to our guys today.”

Cluess said he was growing concerned that his team, which went 6-2 on the eight-game road trip it completed Thursday, was beginning to buy into its hype as the best team in the metro area when he noticed players were talking more about ticket requests. “I think our guys were drinking the Kool Aid a little too much,” Cluess said. “I knew we were in a little bit of trouble when it became more of an issue for some of the guys about tickets for the game than about the game itself.”

Cluess also admitted he didn’t expect Imes and Lester to shoot as well as they did, which is understandable given their struggles much of this season (more on that shortly). But Iona star forward Mike Glover unintentionally provided a glimpse into how the Gaels approached the game when he needed help remembering Imes’ name and assumed he’d never before enjoyed such a robust rebounding game.

“I think it was—who was it? Dave? Dave Imes had, what, 15 rebounds in the game?” Glover said. “Shocked me. I didn’t think he ever had 15 rebounds in a game against anybody.”

Imes had 17 rebounds twice last season (against Wagner and UNC Wilmington) and Thursday marked his seventh career double-double. Those numbers aren’t Glover-esque—he has six double-doubles this year alone—but still, they’re pretty good.

“Pretty much proved today that he can rebound just as good as any other big man in the country,” Glover said.

2.) This was the type of win Cassara would like to bottle and uncork another 27 times this year (do the math!). Not only did the Dutchmen bring the type of effort and emotion he’d like to see every game, but this was a win in which the veterans all played their optimal game.

Imes entered Thursday with just 12 points and 20 rebounds in his previous four games, during which he was just 5-of-24 from the field. But he was 7-of-13 shooting against Iona and had as many offensive boards (six) as the previous four games combined.

“It’s a big confidence booster,” Imes said. “I needed that.”

Lester’s impressive shooting night was less surprising—he is 15-of-35 in his last five games following a five-game stretch in which he was just 13-of-58—but the Gaels weren’t the only ones stunned by Lester’s huge and consecutive 3-pointers midway through the second half. The first came with 10:07 left to play immediately after a Hofstra timeout and just after Iona had closed within single digits for the first time in the second half. The second 96 seconds later again extended the lead to 12.

Not only were those Lester’s first 3-pointers in 26 days, they were his first after a streak of nine straight misses dating back to the James Madison game and half as many 3-pointers as he had in his first 25 attempts of the season. They were also, quite likely, his biggest baskets since his freshman year way back in 1907-08—err, 2007-08—when he hit a series of clutch last-minute shots.

Mike Moore, meanwhile, opened the game by hitting just one of his first six shots but hit drained seven of his final nine attempts on his way to a game-high 24 points. Most notably, he had five assists, tying a Hofstra career high, and continued to display renewed determination on defense, where he had three steals and got a piece of Kyle Smyth’s 3-pointer late in the second half.

“It was easy for me tonight because my other guys were picking me up,” Moore said. “We had the lead from the beginning so I wasn’t really stressing about missing shots. They were good shots. I know I can make those shots and my teammates believe in me, so I just kept shooting and making the right pass.”

After the Dutchmen took their biggest lead at 57-38 with 14:33 left to play, Moore, Lester and Imes combined to score 20 of the Dutchmen’s final 26 points as they fended off Iona’s comeback and finished off the win.

“A lot of credit to Mike he was a little tired at the end and he dropped the ball off to Dave, he dropped the ball off to Nat and those guys stepped up and made big shots,” Cassara said. “And that’s what we need them to do. If you look at their stat lines, it’s terrific, but I’m really just proud of our effort overall. And that’s the way we’re going to have to win. To win games we’re going to have to do it as a group.”

3.) While Moore, Lester and Imes combined for 61 points on 52 percent shooting, the most pivotal player for the Dutchmen—and the one who inspired me to go with the FOUR stars of the game for the first time ever, SPOILER ALERT—was just 3-of-11 shooting and didn’t pull down a rebound. But without Dwan McMillan’s efforts on and off the court, the Dutchmen do not win this game.

McMillan continued his masterful play at point guard with 10 points, nine assists and just four turnovers over 40 minutes (he missed a handful of seconds before a media timeout in the second half). His 19 assists the last two games are the most by a Hofstra player in a two-game span since Charles Jenkins had 22 on Feb. 18 and 21, 2009.

McMillan continually—and seemingly effortlessly—broke the Iona press while igniting the Dutchmen’s own press defense. McMillan harassed ex-high school teammate Scott Machado into six of Iona’s 23 turnovers, the most by a Hofstra opponent since UNC Wilmington needed three overtimes to commit 24 turnovers on Jan. 14, 2006. And the Dutchmen recorded 14 steals, the second straight game in which they had their most steals in six seasons.

He also set the tone for the Dutchmen last week by declaring he was ready for Iona. “I thought Dwan was great,” Cassara said. “I gave him a lot of credit in the locker room. His attitude and effort in practice, in shoot-around today—he just kept saying ‘We’re not gonna lose, we’re not gonna lose tonight’—has been tremendous.”

“I told the guys during practice ‘this is a must-win, we’ve got to be up for this team,’” McMillan said. “Some of the losses that we had, we got up—it wasn’t 15, but we got up six or seven and we didn’t finish the game—so we finished this game.”

4.) Perhaps the most impressive part of the win is the Dutchmen played Iona’s game and paid zero attention to my pre-game prattlings about how the only way to beat Iona was by slowing things down. The Gaels had 84 possessions, their fourth-most this season, but averaged a season-low 0.89 points per possession. The Dutchmen set a season high with 83 possessions.

“We talk about playing to tempo,” Cassara said. “We were able to get some really easy baskets in transition and the staff kept saying if we get something in transition, let’s attack and let’s get an easy basket or let’s get fouled. If we don’t, then pull out and run some offense. I think down the stretch we did a really good job of that.”

5.) Following the game, I screamed on Twitter that I was writing in Cassara for President. Maybe it’s a smidge early for that, but not too early to declare he can, as Bum Phillips said about Bear Bryant, “…take his’n and beat your’n and take your’n and beat his’n.”

This is the second year in a row in which Cassara has navigated the Dutchmen through an early season crisis and put them back on course, but this time he didn’t have Jenkins to rely upon. It is absolutely remarkable that the Dutchmen, in a span of a little more than three weeks, went from trailing for 76-plus straight minutes against Wagner and Manhattan to never trailing Iona by more than two points and leading the Gaels for the final 28 minutes.

Part of the resurgence was the good fortune of playing winless Binghamton and game but overmatched Colgate in consecutive home games, but Cassara deserves a ton of credit for putting the Bryant Crowder distraction behind the Dutchmen and getting the group he’ll take forward refocused and re-energized after a demoralizing four-game losing streak. The Dutchmen also have an identity and a vocal team leader, two things they lacked during the skid, and Cassara and his staff deserve plenty of plaudits for coaxing those traits out of a reeling team.

“I think anytime when you’re going through a stretch, a period, where you’re not playing real well, you’re trying to push and pull and find anything that can work,” Cassara said. “We’ve been trying to push some different buttons and do some different things [and] really get a better sense of ourselves. Our energy and our effort and our excitement in practice has been tremendous and I think that showed tonight on the court. I’m really proud of our guys.”

And now the Dutchmen head into the new year feeling pretty good about themselves and knowing they not only beat the two best teams they faced during the non-conference season—and may have recorded the CAA’s two biggest non-conference wins—but that they did it with two drastically different squads. Feeling good on New Year’s Eve doesn’t guarantee anything, and the best team in the CAA awaits Monday, but the Dutchmen are in a far better spot than anyone could have envisioned two weeks ago.

“On paper, probably the two best teams that we’ve played all year are Cleveland State and Iona—RPI-wise, personnel-wise—and we’ve beaten both of those teams,” Cassara said. “So we certainly have the capability and the ability to be very competitive not only in the non-conference but in our league.”

4 (that's right 4) STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Iona, 12/29)

3: Nathaniel Lester

1: David Imes

1: Dwan McMillan

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 28

Nathaniel Lester 15

Dwan McMillan 13

David Imes 7

Shemiye McLendon 7

Stevie Mejia 3

Stephen Nwaukoni 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Postgame Buffet: Boston University 68, Hofstra 61 (Or: Sometimes high, sometimes low)

Even I thought hair metal stage banter was cheesy.

Kyle Whelliston of The Mid-Majority notes college basketball will break your heart. Most of the time, though, it’ll just drive you nuts.

Nobody’s spirit was crushed when the Flying Dutchmen lost yesterday to former NAC (no, Litos, I didn’t make that one up!) foe Boston University, 68-61, in the final sub-regional game of the Ticket City Legends Classic at the University of Rhode Island. (Rant: Go figure, a Gazelle Group tournament that DOESN’T ACTUALLY HAVE A WINNER. I think this is their end game idea for the That Which Shall Never Be Named. It’ll just go on and on and on until Oct. 14. Rant over.)

As disappointing as the loss was—the Dutchmen led by eight midway through the second half, which marks the second time this week they have squandered an eight-point second half lead and lost—it’s probably not an insurmountable emotional hurdle to overcome, especially considering how well the Dutchmen fared after going 0-for-Puerto-Rico last November.

But it was a frustrating step back for a team that looked so impressive in thoroughly outplaying Cleveland State not even 24 hours earlier and a reminder that it’s probably too early to declare the Dutchmen a CAA championship contender (which won’t stop me later this week from spelling out how they can win the league, but I digress).

The good news is there are about 341 other teams in the same position this morning. Because, after all, this is college basketball, and it drives everybody nuts. Here’s the postgame buffet from Sunday (and it will be an actual buffet this time, and not a five-course meal—shocking, that I would begin rambling in a setting designed to deliver a quicker hit blog post. Why am I using so many parenthesis? I don’t know.)

1.) Speaking of going nuts, how is it that we all would have taken a 1-2 trip last week, yet now a 1-2 trip feels so empty and unfulfilling? The expectations were that the Dutchmen would finish off the tournament with a win over Boston U., so when the “1” happened a day earlier than expected against a borderline top 25 team, it raised expectations for not only the weekend but the season.

But losing to Boston U. was another reminder of how the Dutchmen remain raw and inconsistent. The most obvious indicator: On Saturday, the Dutchmen’s leading scorer was a reserve (or, in this case, reserves) for the first time in almost two years and the subs scored more than half the points for the first time in almost three years. On Sunday, the Dutchmen had a single double-digit scorer, Mike Moore, who accounted for the highest percentage of the Dutchmen’s points (27 of 61, or 44.3 percent) since Charles Jenkins had 32 of the Dutchmen’s 59 points in a loss to Florida Atlantic last Dec. 11.

Stephen Nwaukoni, Dwan McMillan and Bryant Crowder, who combined for 32 points Saturday, had just 10 points Sunday while providing reminders of their relative inexperience. McMillan the Whirling Dervish had four assists and three turnovers, Nwaukoni played just 15 minutes due to foul trouble and Crowder played just 12 minutes.

Shemiye McLendon, meanwhile, finally scored his first points of the weekend in the second half and finished with four points but continued slumping by committing three turnovers and forcing Mo Cassara to turn back to McMillan—who had suffered a head injury shortly after Stevie Mejia exited with a hamstring injury—to run the point late in the game.

All that said, the struggles of the reserves may have been concealed by a win if not for one thing: Moore was 9-of-17 while eight of the other nine Dutchmen to get into the boxscore were 10-of-30—not great, but not awful. But that 10th player…

2.) …was Nathaniel Lester, who scored all four of his points from the free throw line and was 0-for-9 from the field in the worst 0-fer for a Dutchman in almost exactly 10 years. Woody Souffrant was 0-for-9 against Bucknell Dec. 29, 2001 while Joel Suarez was 0-for-9 against Syracuse on Dec. 4, 2001.

So those of you scoring at home, Lester’s shooting performances this week went: 1-for-13, 7-for-15, 2-for-9 and 0-for-9. That’s 10-for-46 in four games after going 20-for-37 in his first three games. Sometimes high, sometimes low.

Such ebbs and flows are routine for Lester. In a four-game stretch in January 2009, he went 1-for-9, 1-for-4, 3-for-6 and 7-for-15. And in a four-game stretch spanning December and January of his freshman year, he shot 1-of-8, 1-of-10, 6-of-19 and 1-of-8. It is understandable that Lester’s going to run hot and cold coming back from a year off, and he did contribute by pulling down 29 rebounds this week. But with so many inexperienced players in the rotation, the Dutchmen need Lester to minimize the cold snaps.

3.) The same goes for David Imes, who had one rebound yesterday and just 12 rebounds this week, his fewest over a four-game stretch since he joined the starting lineup, while scoring in single digits every time, including nine Sunday. As usual, effort and determination wasn’t an issue for Imes, who provided valuable grit by playing 25 minutes despite foul trouble and a split lip that required post-game stitches.

And history suggests he’ll revert to form soon: Imes had a stretch of eight straight games late last season in which he scored fewer than 10 points but ended the year by exceeding double digits four times in the final seven games. But the sooner that happens, the better, because yesterday proved the Dutchmen can’t win a whole lot of games with their two or three of their most experienced players rendered relative non-factors.

4.) The loss Sunday shouldn’t diminish some of the positives that did come out of the weekend, which may be looked back on as the turning point in Moore’s evolution as a leader. After accepting a secondary role when Cleveland State focused on him Saturday, Moore pulled a Charles Jenkins Sunday, doing everything possible to will the Dutchmen to win by tying his career high with 11 rebounds to go along with the 27 points, which was just one shy of his career high.

Mejia’s absence in the second half may have been the biggest factor in the loss to Boston U. One day after he scored 10 pivotal points, Mejia continued to play as if he’s shaken off the rust from his redshirt year by collecting four assists with no turnovers in the first half, during which the Dutchmen had as many assists as turnovers (six). Without Mejia in the second half, the Dutchmen had five assists and 10 turnovers. The six days between games will give Mejia plenty of time to get well, though Cassara told WRHU he wasn’t sure how long Mejia would be out.

The Dutchmen also once again showed they have real, live, actual depth. Four players got hurt Sunday—Nwaukoni also left briefly—but the Dutchmen had the bodies to remain competitive, which wouldn’t have happened last year. Freshman power forward Moussa Kone had five points and four rebounds, both career highs, and played eight of his 13 minutes in the second half.

5.) Most of all, this weekend was a reminder college basketball is almost always an imperfect exercise. How many teams bring their peak game every game? One Flying Dutchmen team—the 2000-01 juggernaut—has done that in the last 17 years, though the 2005-06 squad came close to maintaining that focus. Cassara probably didn’t eat or sleep much last night going over how the worst-case scenario of a 1-2 trip felt so much lousier than he envisioned, but following up a seismic win with a loss that negates all those good feelings is pretty normal. Sometimes high, sometimes low.

Of course, that’s easy for me to say. But nobody will mind if Sunday benefits the Dutchmen 14 weeks from now (check the calendar kiddies!).

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Boston University, 11/27)

3: Mike Moore

2: Stevie Mejia

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 14

Nathaniel Lester 8

David Imes 4

Dwan McMillan 4

Shemiye McLendon 4

Stevie Mejia 3

Stephen Nwaukoni 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Postgame Buffet: Oregon State 82, Hofstra 72 (Or: They had the upset in sight, but just outta reach)

Good news Flying Dutchmen fans: Much like Chuck Cunningham, we'll never see Jared Cunningham again.

There will be approximately 900 opportunities this season for a “Red Line Upset,” the Kyle Whelliston-coined term for when a team from one of the 24 mid-major conferences beats a team from one of the eight majors. If the numbers from the last two years are any indication, only 17 percent or so of these games will end with the good guys winning.

As for the other 83 percent, well, the fans of the losing team will swear somewhere close to 100 percent of the time that their hardwood heroes were this close to winning. The upset would have been pulled off, if only this had happened, or that had happened, or if the referees didn’t suck.

When you hear (or read) these stories sans a rooting interest, you’ll just nod, offer a rote and symbolic pat on the head and mutter to yourself that this fan of Mid-Major U. is completely out of his gourd. His team never had a shot, but whatever allows him to sleep at night.

Well, I am here to tell you, somewhere between 6 and 7 am on the morning after, that the Flying Dutchmen WERE this close to beating Oregon State of the Pac-10, err, Pac-12 last night, even if they lost 82-72. And I’m going to give you five reasons why—right now! (Hey Loyal Reader Missy, that’s a hint as to the genesis of the Postgame Buffet subtitle)

1.) A mere two games into this season, there is no need to worry whether or not the Flying Dutchmen are tough enough or resilient enough to make things interesting in 2011-12. After racing out to a 6-0 lead, the Dutchmen were victimized by Oregon State runs of 11-0 and 19-4, yet they clawed back, made a 14-0 run late in the first half and went into the locker room nursing a 42-41 lead. The Dutchmen lost the lead for good less than a minute into the second half and fell behind by six with less than three minutes gone yet closed within three or less five times before Oregon State pulled away in the final six minutes.

In addition, the Dutchmen were not intimidated by playing in a noisy and unfriendly foreign environment as they gave as good as they received in an increasingly chippy game in which 51 total fouls were called. Dwan McMillan was whistled for a technical foul and was booed every time he touched the ball in the final 10 minutes or so while David Imes also earned a technical foul. It’s impossible to tell who initiated what on a choppy Internet feed, but Imes’ technical—which came right after he was fouled by Roberto Nelson—seemed to be the textbook example of a referee catching the reaction and not the instigation. (I should also note that I watch everything, choppy Internet feeds and otherwise, through Dutch-colored glasses) Regardless, the experience of Wednesday night will come in handy during physical CAA games and in hostile environments south of the George Washington Bridge.

2.) Much of what cost the Dutchmen a chance at victory can be rectified. For instance, while watching his team shoot a Mason-like 19-of-32 from the free throw line—a performance which featured the typically reliable Nathaniel Lester, Mike Moore, Stevie Mejia and Shemiye McLendon ALL enduring trips to the line in which they missed both attempts—surely contributed to a sleepless overnight for Mo Cassara, you can be sure he’ll spend the rest of the season hammering home the importance of free throw shooting. The Dutchmen had more than twice as many turnovers (15) as assists (seven), but six of those turnovers occurred in a seven-possession span during Oregon State’s early first half run. Mejia finished with five turnovers and no assists as he was again outplayed by fellow point guard McMillan, but it was just his second game back after a redshirt season and Mejia is one guy who is going to look a lot better in February than he does in November.

And Lester was tremendous again, except this time in just 16 minutes thanks to foul trouble (he fouled out with 3:45 left). Lester scored 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting—he’s now 15-of-23 in two games—and put back both of his offensive rebounds for baskets. Right now, as long as he can stay on the court 35 minutes a night, it’s hard to believe there are nine better players in the CAA.

3.) The more we see Imes, the more we’re convinced we’re seeing the best Dutchmen big man since Adrian Uter. Imes, once again forced to play bigger than his 6-foot-7 frame, scored 15 points, pulled down a team-high seven rebounds and, most important and impressive of all, committed just one foul in a career-high 38 minutes. His contributions and ability to stay on the floor were doubly important with Lester in foul trouble, freshman Moussa Kone recording no points or rebounds in 29 minutes and Stephen Nwaukoni playing just 10 minutes. Playing 29 minutes against a Pac-12 team in his second career game will only help Kone and Nwaukoni continued to provide hints he can develop into a pretty solid front court player by collecting three offensive rebounds.

All that said, the sooner Bryant Crowder makes his season debut, the better. Crowder didn’t play due to a coach’s decision against Long Island and didn’t travel to Oregon State, and given how desperately the Dutchmen need size, we almost have to hope he was left back due to injury and not because of a disciplinary action. He certainly would have come in handy as the Dutchmen tried to shut down the Beavers’ 1-2 punch of Jared Cunningham (35 points) and Devon Collier (25 points).

The anticipation for Crowder is starting to reach Greg-Washington-in-2006 levels, except Crowder—a junior college transfer who was once recruited by San Diego State—might be able to immediately fill the type of role Washington couldn’t as a freshman. With the CAA in chaos, the Dutchmen have a chance to be a lot better than anyone could have expected, but without more than one reliable big man, there’s little hope of getting past the Drexel-George Mason-Old Dominion-VCU gauntlet come the first weekend in March.

4.) Even in defeat, the Dutchmen’s balanced scoring attack was very encouraging. At halftime, the score sheet read like a New Year’s Eve countdown: 9-8-7-6-5-4 (Moore-Imes-McLendon-Lester-Mejia-McMillan). The Dutchmen ended up putting four players in double figures, led by Moore’s 16, and Mejia came within a point of becoming the fifth player with 10 points. (Today’s task: Find out the last time Hofstra had five players in double figures in a loss) Lester is looking like this year’s Charles Jenkins, and it’s good to know the Dutchmen will have other options if he’s rendered ineffective for whatever reason.

5.) While Moore had a quiet night despite leading the Dutchmen in points—he was just 5-of-13 from the field, including 1-of-5 from 3-point land, and was limited to 29 minutes by early foul trouble—McLendon looked ready to assume a bigger role by scoring 12 points, draining both his 3-point attempts, pulling down five rebounds and recording two steals in a career-high 31 minutes. McLendon may never be a superstar, but he’s got a good chance at becoming a homegrown 1,000-point scorer and evolving into a poor man’s Loren Stokes—someone who can do a little bit of everything and fill up a boxscore. Not bad for a player the Dutchmen found at the last minute during their abbreviated recruiting period in the spring of 2010.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Oregon State, 11/16)

3: David Imes

2: Shemiye McLendon

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

David Imes 3

Mike Moore 3

Nathaniel Lester 3

Shemiye McLendon 2

Dwan McMillan 1

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

Hofstra 72, College of Bill Lawrence 56 (Or: Our Road To Somewhere)

A.) I know I already used the "Road To..." motif, but B.) Hofstra actually had enough fans in Richmond to spell out the final score and spoil the surprise for someone, if they so wished.

When the Flying Dutchmen fell to Drexel Jan. 29 in front of the first sellout crowd at Hofstra Arena in almost four years, Mo Cassara was almost inconsolable, feeling as if he’d let down all the newcomers to the Dutchmen bandwagon and wondering how long it would take to lure them back.

The bandwagon reloaded in a hurry, thanks to a series of thrilling wins in February, and the Dutchmen’s home finale eight days ago was another sellout. And with that success came another challenge Saturday: Don’t send home unhappy the hundreds of fans and students who came down to Richmond and lent a distinctly New York flavor to the world capital of Southern Bias.

The chants began moments after Old Dominion completed its win over Delaware. “LET’S GO HOF-STRA! LET’S GO HOF-STRA!” A bunch of students, most sporting blue or white Charles Jenkins T-shirts and some toting ROLL PRIDE signs or enormous headshots of Jenkins and Mo Cassara, began marching down the stairs in Section 17 of the Richmond Coliseum and gathering outside the entrance to the student section behind the home basket.

They would fill the section, three people deep, and spend the pregame jumping and yelling and chanting. It was a scene Dutchmen fans of a certain age (*cough* this guy *cough cough*) had never seen and thought they would never see.

After all that, the Flying Dutchmen COULDN’T lose their quarterfinal game to 11th-seeded William & Mary. And after a slow start in which thoughts of the inconceivable began creeping into the heads of the hundreds of Hofstra faithful, the Dutchmen dominated the Tribe in the second half and cruised to a 72-56 victory that was as notable for what happened on the court as for the passion off it.

The Dutchmen, who are in the CAA semifinals for the fourth time ever but the first time since that memorable 2006 season, will face second-seeded Old Dominion in the second semifinal at 2:30 today. Old Dominion beat the Dutchmen, 75-64, in the lone meeting of the season between the teams in Hempstead on Jan. 15.

“I spent all afternoon on Twitter responding to every kid sitting on that bus writing me messages all day,” Cassara said afterward. “Actually had a great message I’ll tell you [that shows] just how great our fans have been and how well they’ve connected to this team. I got a Facebook message from a student who is in the band and said ‘Coach, we’re on our way down, just want to let you know I’m gonna play my heart out for you guys tonight.’

“I thought that was incredible, for a kid to do that in the band and be able to reach out to us. I sent him a message back. I did that all afternoon. Our student section, our fan support our administration, the people that are down here to support us, it’s just incredible and that’s why we’ve had the success we’ve had.”

The Dutchmen put together perhaps their best half of basketball—as well as the cleanest game in CAA Tournament history—to bury William & Mary, which seemed primed to give the Dutchmen fits for the third time this season when it opened the game on a 9-0 run and carried a 27-25 lead into halftime. The Dutchmen found the Coliseum rims familiarly unfriendly as Charles Jenkins and Mike Moore each shot just 2-of-7 and saw multiple shots roll around and out.

But the shots began falling in the second half when the Dutchmen put together a 10-0 run to take the lead for good and a 15-0 spurt beginning at the midway point of the half that removed all doubt. “Thought in the first half we were just a little flat, we just weren’t quite clicking on all cylinders,” Cassara said. “I think part of that was having a week off, being in a big arena. We got a little tight.

“[He] told the guys at halftime just to relax a little bit. We’ve been in this position many times—we’re down at halftime so much. But our guys don’t panic. I think that’s an incredible tribute to them and our staff just doing a great job finding a way to win games.”

Jenkins, who scored 15 points in the second half, jumpstarted both runs—his driving layup broke the final tie of the game with 15:41 to play and his 3-pointer with 9:59 left began the decisive surge—but the (spoiler alert!) real MVP Saturday was Brad Kelleher, who drained three 3-pointers (improving the Dutchmen to 9-0 this season when he hits multiple 3-pointers), finished with 13 points, collected four assists and presided over a crisp offense that committed just two turnovers—the lowest total ever for a CAA Tournament Game. For all intents and purposes, it was one turnover: The second one was a travel on Paul Bilbo in the final minute.

“We talk about something with our team: Be obsessed about fundamentals and little things,” Cassara said. “Little things are going to win us tight games. One of the things we talk about is valuing the basketball. I thought as a team we did a great job tonight, but really, Brad did a great job. He really did a good job and then ultimately made a couple shots. Once a couple of those shots fell, we really started to open things up offensively.”

The Dutchmen finished with four players in double figures (Jenkins 20, Kelleher 13, Moore 11 and David Imes 10) and Shemiye McLendon fell just shy with nine points. The Dutchmen were 19-of-22 at the free throw line and made 18 of 19 free throws in the second half.

Most impressively, they outscored William & Mary 69-38 in a 33-minute span beginning with the Dutchmen’s first basket of the game. And only a late 9-3 run by the Tribe prevented the Dutchmen from recording their most lopsided win of the season against a Division I foe for the second time in as many games.

Defensively, the Dutchmen shut down the red-hot Quinn McDowell, who had just six points on six shots after scoring a Tournament-record 35 the night before, and limited the Tribe’s second chances. William & Mary had just five offensive rebounds, including only one in the first half. Imes pulled down a game-high eight rebounds—four apiece on both ends of the floor.

“Being down at halftime—I’m a senior and I’ve been down in the quarterfinals every year, we always lost here,” Jenkins said. “So the second half was just a sense of urgency, not necessarily on offense. On defense we got stops.”

As the Coliseum emptied out in the final minutes, the Hofstra student section’s chants of “Charles Jenkins!” filled the arena. Cassara began emptying the bench with three minutes to play and the Dutchmen’s last basket was scored by walk-on Matt Grogan, who drained a 3-pointer to become, quite possibly, the first walk-on in school history to score in a conference tournament game.

“Matty Grogan hitting that shot made everybody as happy as can be,” Cassara said. “[To] be able to play a few guys there for a few minutes is great for everybody’s morale.”

Morale was high everywhere in Dutch Nation (no longer a snort-worthy comment) Saturday night as fans and players alike looked ahead to the biggest challenge of the year—so far. “[Fans will] be a huge help tomorrow, when we’re probably going to be outnumbered by ODU fans,” Kelleher said. “So having a little support will be good.”

“[It] means a lot, our fans and administration coming down, because were going to need everybody [today],” Jenkins said. “The ratio’s probably going to be 1/50. We need as many people as we can.”

Incredibly, yet no longer surprisingly, they’ll be there.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 3/5)

3: Brad Kelleher

2: Charles Jenkins

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 79

Mike Moore 37

Greg Washington 27

David Imes 20

Brad Kelleher 11

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 5

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 71, UNC Wilmington 64 (Or: On Senior Night, a sophomore shall lead the way)

Before David Imes took over, Charles Jenkins and Chad Tomko did their best Bird vs. Jordan imitation (sans, thankfully, Jordan's hideous sweater, my goodness, the early '90s were a fashion train wreck says the guy who wore acid-washed jeans and a mullet, where am I going with this?)

I’ve been bogged down with end-of-the-month mortgage—err, rent—paying work and trying to finish up the last of the Senior Day profiles in time for Senior Day, all at the same time, so the UNC Wilmington recap is a bit later than I would prefer and once again of the bullet point variety. Hmm. I smell a trend here. Anyway, enjoy!

1.) The most important result of the Flying Dutchmen’s 71-64 win over UNC Wilmington actually happened a few hundred miles to the northwest, where VCU fell to Drexel 64-60. The Rams’ loss gave the Dutchmen sole possession of third place (actually, for a night, the Dutchmen were alone in second place until Old Dominion beat James Madison to regain second on the tiebreaker) and ensured that the Dutchmen will lock up the three seed by beating Delaware. That’s a huge accomplishment, both in the micro and macro sense: Finishing third allows the Dutchmen to avoid George Mason until the championship game and would mark the best finish for the program since 2006-07—a remarkable feat given all the turmoil the Dutchmen endured last spring and the leanness of the roster.

“I just think it’s a real credit to our staff—Steve and Wayne and Allen and Kyle [Steinway] and our Gas and managers and everybody,” Mo Cassara said from Wilmington afterward. “Just an incredible job, day in and day out throughout the season. It’s a real credit to them, a real credit to our team that we’ve been able to bounce back from some disappointing losses and some tough road trips and ultimately find a way to win. To be 7-2 [on the road] in the CAA is really an incredible achievement.”

2.) While Charles Jenkins embarked on a classic duel with Chad Tomko in the first half and finished with his usual huge game (22 points on 9-of-14 shooting with five assists, four turnovers, three rebounds and one steal), the difference between victory and defeat was David Imes, who made me look like I know what I’m talking about by producing his sixth double-double (which is the exact same amount Halil Kanacevic had last season—just saying). Imes, who made no secret on Twitter of how disappointed he was with the lopsided loss to Wright State Saturday, tied a career high with 17 rebounds and added 12 points and was particularly dominant in the second half, when he had 12 rebounds (including four offensive) and nine points on 2-of-3 shooting from the field and 5-of-6 from the free throw line. As has become his custom, he hit one of the biggest shots of the second half with a jumper that ended a 12-4 run by UNC Wilmington, broke a 59-59 tie and gave the Dutchmen the lead for good with 3:05 to play.

“I challenged him at halftime a little bit,” Cassara said. “I think the thing I’m most proud of with David Imes is not that he got 17 rebounds and made some big baskets. It’s that he missed some shots and had a couple bad plays, but he didn’t get down. He bounced back. I think early in the season, he would have gotten down and [he would have] had to sub him out. Now he’s found a way to fight through that. That’s a real sign of his development. I’m really proud of his development, that’s the thing that [has] really helped us in some games.”

3.) Another sophomore, Yves Jules, played a quietly pivotal role in the victory by helping to shut down Tomko after the latter’s huge first half (14 points on 5-of-8 shooting). Tomko had just seven points on 3-of-8 shooting in the second half, during which Jules played 10 minutes. Jules also hit a 3-pointer from the left corner to break a 56-56 tie with 4:09 to play. His effort was particularly impressive considering he left in the first half with a seemingly serious foot injury.

“Yves gave us some great energy off the bench, some great size on top of Tomko and really gave us some good effort on defense,” Cassara said.

4.) Jules’ contributions were particularly pivotal because Mike Moore (20 points on 5-of-13 shooting, including 2-of-5 from 3-point land, and an 8-of-10 outing from the free throw line) had another quiet game from long distance (though his 3-pointer as the shot clock dwindled with 1:53 to play extended the Dutchmen’s lead to five) while Brad Kelleher was just 1-of-6 from beyond the arc and slumping freshman Shemiye McLendon drew his first DNP-CD of the season. Cassara played sophomore walk-on Matt Grogan, who missed a 3-pointer in four first half minutes, over McLendon.

“I’m a little bit of a big picture guy and I think that sometimes I go with my gut and my feeling on what’s going to help this team win and make this team better,” Cassara said. “It was just a feeling I had, Matt’s really been working hard in practice and it’s just a decision I made within the team.”

5.) Imes’ big second half symbolized a more spirited effort by the Dutchmen, who were getting outhustled to most of the “50/50” loose balls in the first half by a Seahawks team feeding off the momentum of Senior Night. But the Dutchmen, who held only a pair of brief one-point leads in the first half before entering intermission tied for the first time this season, never trailed in the second half despite falling into a tie three times.

“Part of it is a credit to UNC Wilmington, I think they just played really hard, they had great energy and they were quick to the ball [in the first half],” Cassara said. “Ultimately we found a way to keep the game close at halftime and make some big plays down the stretch at the end of the first half to keep it close. They came out with good energy in the second half, got a little bit of a lead and found a way to finish it off.”

The win once again showed the resiliency of the Dutchmen, who are now 5-2 in the game immediately following a double-digit defeat. “Coming off a really tough BracketBuster game, a tough trip out to Ohio, come home, really have to get after it for a couple days in practice and then get on an airplane again to come all the way down to Carolina—I was worried if we didn’t win tonight it would have been a couple tough losses in a row coming home,” Cassara said. “Ultimately we found a way to have a great energy tonight. Overall not our best performance but really a great effort and I’m really proud of our team.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. UNC Wilmington, 2/23)

3: David Imes

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 74

Mike Moore 37

Greg Washington 25

David Imes 19

Brad Kelleher 7

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 5

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 66, UNC Wilmington 57 (Or: You get to feelin’ weary when the work day’s done)

Charles Jenkins and Mo Cassara may or may not have felt as old as Blue last night!

The final few seconds of a Hofstra victory usually represent an opportunity for Charles Jenkins to crack a smile, pump a fist or two, acknowledge the Lions Den and generally revel in the moment. But there was none of that Wednesday night after a literally battered and bruised Jenkins helped keep the Flying Dutchmen tied atop the CAA.

As Shemiye McLendon dribbled out the clock in the Dutchmen’s 66-57 win over UNC Wilmington in front of an Intersession special crowd of 1,781 at the Arena, Jenkins began making his way to the Hofstra bench, where he slapped hands with teammates and staff members as the buzzer expired. He trailed behind the rest of the Dutchmen as they headed towards the Lion’s Den and was the last to emerge from the student section as he slowly made his way to the locker room.

“I’m getting old,” Jenkins said with a smile a few minutes later. “The wheels aren’t rolling like they were in 2007.”

(Editor’s Note: He doesn’t turn 22 until next month. If he wants to feel old, he should have my back for a day!)

Jenkins had every reason to be tired after he followed up an eventful week of practice—he sported stitches above his right eye, courtesy of an errant Brad Kelleher elbow, and wore a mouth guard for much of Wednesday’s game after he fell on his chin much like he did against New Hampshire last season—with a game in which he went into Takeover Mode (thank you, Mid-Majority) and scored nine of his game-high 22 points in a span of 2:23 late in the second half to turn a tie game into a deceptively easy victory.

The final margin doesn’t indicate just how much trouble the Dutchmen (who are tied for first with VCU at 6-1 after James Madison fell to Old Dominion) were in for the first 10 minutes of the second half. After the Dutchmen opened the half with two quick baskets to take a 12-point lead, UNC Wilmington outscored the Dutchmen 23-6 to grab a 50-45 lead and force Mo Cassara to call timeout with 9:17 left.

Staring at a potentially demoralizing defeat that could have dropped them into the quagmire of the two- and three-loss teams heading into a stretch of four games in eight days, the Dutchmen responded with versatility on offense and a suffocating performance on defense.

Jenkins had just three points in the first 15 minutes of the second half and had gone scoreless for more than 12 minutes before he went on his own 7-0, 78-second run to finish off a 14-2 run by the Dutchmen.

“I think I wasn’t as aggressive as I was supposed to be—I was a little hesitant because they were sliding in and trying to [force] a lot of charges from me,” said Jenkins, who had a potential game-tying basket waved off when he was called for charging with 5:39 to play.

And while Jenkins finished off the run, it was begun by McLendon, who came in for Yves Jules following the timeout and drained a 3-pointer for his only basket of the game. Mike Moore, who had one of the more interesting box scores you’ll ever see (18 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three steals, two blocks and six turnovers), answered a layup by Wilmington’s Keith Rendleman with a jumper to pull the Dutchmen back within two. The two teams combined for three misses and five turnovers over a nearly three-minute span before David Imes’ jumper from the foul line tied it at 52-52.

On the other end Imes altered two shots before grabbing a rebound and beginning a fast break that Jenkins ended with his drought-busting, tie-breaking 3-pointer. The Dutchmen never trailed again as Wilmington ended the game hitting just one of its final nine shots.

“We got down five, we went through a stretch there where we didn’t play very well,” Cassara said. “Credit to UNCW, they went to some zone and slowed us down and really got us a little tentative and we threw some bad passes and they made a good comeback. But a lot of credit to [Jenkins and Imes], they made some big plays down the stretch and I thought our defense in the last three or four minutes was really terrific and really allowed us to seal the victory.”

If Jenkins, who also finished with a team-high six assists, was the MVP of the final few minutes, then Imes was the key to keeping the Dutchmen within striking distance prior to Jenkins turning back into The Man. Amen. Imes scored Hofstra’s only five points in the nearly eight-minute span between a Jenkins free throw and McLendon’s 3-pointer and had eight points and five rebounds in the second half on his way to his fourth double-double (14 points, 10 rebounds) of the season.

With Greg Washington limited to just 15 minutes due to foul trouble, Imes also helped shut down Rendleman in the second half. The Seahawks’ star sophomore forward—and that will be fun, watching Imes vs. Rendleman the next two-plus years—had 11 points and five rebounds in the first half, when he blew past Imes a handful of times, but just six points and three rebounds in the second half.

“Our last game, I think, was probably one of the poorest games he’s played,” Cassara said of Imes, who had four points and six rebounds in the loss to Old Dominion Saturday. “The thing that really shows his maturation is he didn’t let that game affect this game. I think a year ago, or even a month ago, he might have done that…and when he’s feeling good about himself and has confidence, as you can see, he can rebound and score with anybody in this league.”

Cassara, who has been battling a cold for several days and coughed throughout his post-game press conference, looked and sounded almost as wiped out as his superstar after piecing together another grind-it-out CAA win. The Dutchmen got points from just five players (Brad Kelleher had three 3-pointers in the first half, including a buzzer-beater that gave the Dutchmen a 35-27 lead) and Cassara fielded some unusual lineups in the first half, when Roland Brown made his first appearance since Dec. 4 and Paul Bilbo played for just the seventh time this year. Brown and Bilbo played in place of freshman Stephan Nwaukoni, who recorded the dreaded DNP-CD after Cassara hinted he’d been outplayed in practice by Brown and Bilbo.

“We’re still kind of navigating our way through this thing, day by day, but we’re finding a way to win,” Cassara said. “There’s really good coaches and really good teams in the league and we have to find a way on a daily basis to get a little bit better. And I think we’re going to have to continue to find different bodies on the bench to help us out. And we did that tonight.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. UNC Wilmington, 1/19)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: David Imes

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 45

Mike Moore 23

David Imes 14

Greg Washington 14

Dwan McMillan 5

Brad Kelleher 3

Shemiye McLendon 2

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 75, Drexel 69 (Or: Some things stay the same and some are due for change)

I was happy to learn it's tougher to find Hall & Oates songs about wins than it is about losses.

As is often the case, the “lede” to the Iona recap last week was not the one I had in mind originally. In fact, I’d written most of a blog about how the Iona game could define the Dutchmen’s season, and how most coaches hate to read and hear such declarations from writers so early in a season, until I realized the actual story was Charles Jenkins declaring he would never again display a lack of aggression in the first half.

Anyway, good thing I shelved that entry, because now I can say that LAST night is the type of game that could not only define a season but an era, and how Mo Cassara would probably cringe upon reading and hearing this tripe spill from my fingers and my mouth.

But the Flying Dutchmen’s 75-69 upset win over Drexel is huge, and not just because it improved the Dutchmen to 3-0 in the ECC (you didn’t think I’d forget that silly little meme did you?), put them into a three-way tie for first place in the CAA and assured they would receive a bye in the CAA Tournament, if only the CAA regular season lasted two games and the tournament began, say, Wednesday.

The win, of course, doesn’t guarantee much, especially with the most talented team in the league, George Mason, coming to town tomorrow night (that’s me playing nice, Mason Nation, don’t get used to it!) and a roadie at always-tough Northeastern awaiting the Dutchmen Saturday. All last night does is assure the Dutchmen will leave the weekend no worse than .500 in the CAA, which, let’s face it, we all would have taken a month or a week or a day ago.

But this win is a pivotal one because of what it signified in the short- and long-term. Beating the hottest and most surprising team in the league—on the road—to resume CAA play is the Signature Win this team has lacked since the departure of Loren Stokes and Carlos Rivera and the Signature Win that eluded the Dutchmen in such demoralizing fashion last Jan. 2, when William & Mary—which, like Drexel, was predicted to finish at or near the bottom of the league before it threatened to climb into the Top 25 during the non-conference season—took its only lead of the game on its last basket to edge the Dutchmen 48-47 at the Arena.

There were many reasons why that loss began a 1-7 stretch for the Dutchmen that nearly derailed their season, but a win there would have likely done a lot more than merely made the Dutchmen 3-6 at the halfway point of the CAA schedule. The Dutchmen were, to invoke a cliché that I will use because it allows me to post another Hall and Oates video, so close yet so far away to that Signature Win, having squandered second half leads against UConn, Charlotte and St. John’s, that it began wearing on them and contributed to a brutal January.

This victory, and particularly the way it was recorded, allows the Dutchmen to clear a hurdle that had been in their path for the last four seasons. The best-case scenario for a victory didn’t come close to actually happening, but the Dutchmen won anyway.

The Dutchmen, one of the nation’s best 3-point shooting teams, were just 2-of-11 from beyond the arc, by far their worst performance of the season, yet were 24-of-43 from everywhere else. They were outrebounded 44-31 and allowed 18 offensive rebounds, but that was a result of the Dutchmen throwing a variety of defenses at Drexel and forcing the Dragons to shoot a season-worst 37.3 percent from the field.

Everyone shy of Demetrius Dudley was in serious foul trouble for the Dutchmen in the second half, when they got into the bonus within the first five minutes and saw Charles Jenkins and Greg Washington both head to the bench with four fouls within the first six minutes. Jenkins and Washington hit the pine with the Dutchmen down 44-40 and Drexel in the midst of a 15-4 run, yet the Dutchmen and their piecemeal lineup (at one point in the second half, the five players on the court for Hofstra were Mike Moore, Shemiye McLendon, Brad Kelleher, Yves Jules and David Imes—three newcomers and two sophomores who barely saw the court as freshmen) hung on thanks to Imes, who outscored Drexel 6-4 with Jenkins on the bench.

Imes had the best game of his career, shooting a perfect 8-for-8 from the floor and scoring 14 of his 20 points in the second half. Imes, who grabbed eight rebounds as well, also hit the most pivotal basket of the final seven minutes, a reverse layup immediately shortly after Washington fouled out and Drexel took its biggest lead (55-50) with 7:10 left.

By that point, Jenkins was back. Utilized to perfection by Cassara, who pulled Jenkins in defensive situations and just before media timeouts whenever possible, Jenkins—who displayed his newfound aggression in leading the Dutchmen to a seven-point halftime lead—scored 11 of his game-high 23 points in the final eight minutes.

Mike Moore, who had another game in which he managed to make multiple contributions despite a quiet night offensively (11 points, a team-high nine rebounds and a game-high three steals) scored eight of his 11 points after Jenkins picked up his fourth foul. Jenkins and Moore had the most pivotal baskets of the game, back-to-back coast-to-coast layups that extended the Dutchmen’s lead to six with a minute left.

The Dutchmen got valuable contributions from the rest of their lean roster. Brad Kelleher, five nights removed from an ugly 0-for-8 performance from the field, ran the point again with Dwan McMillan still out sick and had seven points, five assists and one turnover in 33 minutes. Shemiye McLendon, who was 0-for-7 against Iona, was 0-for-3 from the field but hit the two free throws that gave the Dutchmen the lead for good at 63-62.

Yves Jules, who missed two of the last four games due to injury and illness, played a season-high 21 minutes and blanketed hot-shooting Chris Fouch, who was just 3-of-10 from the field and 1-of-5 from 3-point land. The five attempts from beyond the arc were a season low for Fouch. Even Paul Bilbo, forced into action due to the early foul trouble for Washington and Stephan Nwaukoni, scored his first career basket on a gorgeous sky hook to end the first half.

Again: One win doesn’t ensure anything for this season, but this victory is more proof the Dutchmen have a keeper in Cassara. We all wondered how easily Cassara could shift from buddy mode in the spring to hard-ass mode in the fall and winter. Pretty easily and pretty convincingly, as it turns out, because he put the Dutchmen through what he called “boot camp” over New Year’s weekend after the Iona debacle and promised no Hofstra team would ever play like that under him ever again.

And the Dutchmen responded by producing a long-awaited Signature Win. Imagine what we’ll be saying about Cassara and the possibilities of this season if they do it again tomorrow night.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Drexel, 1/3)

3: David Imes

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 34

Mike Moore 17

David Imes 10

Greg Washington 7

Dwan McMillan 5

Shemiye McClendon 2

Brad Kelleher 1

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 71, Holy Cross 56 (Or: On the 3rd day before Xmas our Flying Dutchmen gave to us: 3 double-digit scorers, 2 big runs & a win over Holy Cross)

This would have been much better last year, when Our Man Corny could have been Alvin and Tom Pecora could have been David Seville. "OK everybody let's try it again. Corny...Corny...CORNY!!!" "OK!!!"

Mo Cassara is going upstate to spend the holiday with his family. But the Flying Dutchmen didn’t need to know that Wednesday afternoon.

“Coach challenged us today,” Charles Jenkins said Wednesday night. “One of the things he told us: ‘If we don’t play hard, we’ve got to practice [today]. So I guess that kind of sparked us.”

“I told them I didn’t have anywhere to go,” Cassara said with a grin.

Cassara doesn’t have to worry about his bluff being called after the Dutchmen almost pulled off their second straight wire-to-wire win in beating Holy Cross, 71-56, in front of 2,436 people at Hofstra Arena who were smart enough to stay the hell away from the malls.

“Certainly pleased that we found a way to win today,” Cassara said. “These are always challenging games for coaches and for players to get through. A long week of exams, campus is empty, dining halls empty and everybody’s kind of ready to go home for some family time. It was a tough game but I thought we came out [and] we did some good things and found a way to win.”

Despite the lopsided final score, the victory—the Dutchmen’s first in their pre-Christmas finale of the Jenkins Era—wasn’t a thing of beauty. The Dutchmen won even though Jenkins had a quiet game by his standards—13 points on 4-of-7 shooting, his fewest points since Jan. 23 at Drexel and his fewest shots in a game in which he was not injured since he took just four shots against Charlotte Dec. 15, 2007. That was so long ago that Antoine Agudio, who took in the game Wednesday behind the Hofstra bench and received a nice ovation when he was introduced, was still playing for the Dutchmen.

It was only the 12th time Jenkins has taken less than 10 shots in 106 games at Hofstra and only the fourth time in the last three seasons. Ironically, in that it’s not ironic at all, Jenkins began his career by taking just seven shots against Holy Cross in Worcester Nov. 10, 2007.

Jenkins being Jenkins, he still managed to fill up the box score even on an uneventful night: He had six rebounds and two blocks as well as five assists and a steal in a team-high 36 minutes.

Still, both Jenkins and Cassara seemed something less than thrilled with the performance. “Just OK,” a grinning Cassara said of Jenkins’ line as Jenkins sat stoically next to him.

“We have to do a better job in some stretches of making sure we get Charles some looks, because, as you know, if we get him enough looks, he’s going to score enough points,” Cassara said. “And we didn’t do a great job of that tonight. Tonight’s the first night where I thought we didn’t get him some of the shots that he needed to get.”

Fortunately for the Dutchmen, they didn’t need vintage Jenkins to handle Holy Cross. The Dutchmen used a 16-0 run in the first half to turn their only deficit of the game into a 24-10 lead and a 21-7 second half run to expand a five-point lead—the Dutchmen’s smallest since the beginning of their first half run—to a game-high 19.

Both surges were keyed by players other than Jenkins. Shemiye McLendon began the first half run by hitting three straight 3-pointers—his only baskets of the game—in a span of 2:09. The second half run began when David Imes drained two free throws after he drew a foul putting back a Mike Moore miss and then took a pass under the baseline and muscled his way in for a layup.

Imes finished with 10 points on 4-of-4 shooting and added five rebounds despite playing just 22 minutes due to early foul trouble. He had just seven points on 3-of-14 shooting with 11 rebounds in his last three games.

“It was big for Dave’s confidence,” Cassara said. “He got to the free throw line, made a couple of free throws. We need to continue to develop him, but I thought he was battling in there [and] made a couple tough shots for us.”

Moore, who had a game-high 15 points in becoming the first player other than Jenkins to lead the Dutchmen in scoring since Our Man Corny did it against UNC Wilmington Feb. 13, finished what Imes started by draining three of his four second half 3-pointers over a five-minute span, the last of which gave the Dutchmen a 64-45 lead.

Moore has scored in double figures in eight of 11 games this year and four of his last five after back-to-back single digit performances against Wagner and Rider. He’s also 14-of-29 from 3-point land in his last four games after going just 8-of-28 beyond the arc in his first seven games.

“Everyday Charles texts me, Coach texts me—they just tell me to remain confident,” Moore said, “I had a little shooting slump at the beginning of the season, but it’s coming along now.

“I think I fell into my role the last couple games. Before, I was trying to pick my spots. I’m just going to play basketball and just try to assist. A lot of defenses are shading towards Charles, so I’m going to take advantage.”

McLendon and Moore weren’t the only ones to step up in place of Jenkins. Seven players scored at least six points, including Greg Washington, who had eight points—matching his season high against a Division I opponent—on 4-of-6 shooting despite fouling out after playing just 13 minutes. Dwan McMillan was just 2-of-6 from the field in scoring six points but had seven assists and only one turnover. Brad Kelleher had seven points, including his first 3-pointer at home, while Stephen Nwaukoni had a team-high seven rebounds in 20 minutes.

Defensively, the Dutchmen limited Holy Cross to 34.6 percent shooting and held an opponent to 63 points or less for the ninth time in 11 games. They allowed 63 points or less just 12 times in 34 games last year.

“Shemiye [in] the first half, we went through a little bit of a dead period there, he comes in, hits some big threes and really gave us a big lift,” Cassara said. “Mike hit a couple big threes for us in the second half. So we’re continuing to find guys that can make difficult shots for us. And I really thought David Imes and Greg Washington did a much job offensively tonight. They gave us a nice lift.”

The Dutchmen gave themselves a nice lift right into Christmas the last two games, during which they trailed for just 30 seconds in dispatching of Manhattan and Holy Cross. It’s tough to read too much into wins over a pair of teams that are a combined 3-18, but in their last three pre-Christmas games, the Dutchmen didn’t exactly fall to future NCAA foes in Rhode Island (21-12 in 2007-08), Iona (12-19 in 2008-09) and Davidson (16-15 in 2009-10). And Cassara and the Dutchmen have seen enough in the non-conference schedule to remain confident there is something here that will, at the very least, make the CAA season compelling.

“We’ve got some things that we’ve got to continue to work on,” Cassara said. “The thing I’m most pleased with is, again, we hold a team under 60 points. So our defense continues to keep us in games. If we continue to play that way, we’re going to have some success heading into the New Year.

“We’ve won, what, six of our last seven games? Really, other than about a five- or 10-minute stretch at the end of the first half of Florida Atlantic, I think we could have won all those games. I’m pleased that the guys continue to learn, I’m pleased that they continue to absorb stuff.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Holy Cross, 12/22)

3: Mike Moore

2: Charles Jenkins

1: David Imes

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 30

Mike Moore 13

David Imes 7

Greg Washington 6

Dwan McMillan 5

Shemiye McClendon 2

Brad Kelleher 1

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 74, Towson 62 (Or: I told you so, I told you I-I-I told you so…)

While not nearly as good-looking as the author of the "I told you so" dance, I still strutted my stuff after my prediction of a double-digit win by Hofstra came true!

Every time he speaks about the Flying Dutchmen, Mo Cassara reminds his listeners they are a work in progress and cautions there’s still a lot of work to be done. And almost every time certain know-it-all (snort) bloggers write about the Dutchmen, we remind our readers that it’s dangerous to read too much into non-conference results.

All of which remains true. But still: How can anyone who watched (or, err, listened to) the last three Dutchmen games not be excited at what is transpiring?

The Dutchmen produced another workmanlike, fundamentally excellent and unified win Saturday by coming back from a five-point halftime deficit to beat Towson, 74-62, in the CAA opener in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 3,417 at the Arena.

“Certainly very pleased with the win tonight, but I think I’m more pleased about our effort in the second half,” Cassara said after he became the winningest coach in CAA history, a distinction he will hold at least another three weeks! “We’re continuing to get better and we’re starting to learn how to win and I think we took another step forward tonight in learning how to win games.”

The win was the third in a row for the Dutchmen as well as the third straight time they delivered a suffocating defensive performance late in the second half to turn a tie game into a victory and the fifth straight game in which they have allowed exactly 62 or 63 points.

The second half run against Towson was more impressive than the ones against Wagner and Rider. The Dutchmen put the brakes to a back-and-forth contest and took running-and-gunning Towson out of its game by outscoring the Tigers 17-5 over the final 6:34 and holding them scoreless from the field (0-for-4) while forcing four turnovers.

Towson took 19 shots in the first 13:26 and hit four of five shots, including all three 3-point attempts, over a span of more than three minutes in turning a 50-46 deficit into a 57-57 tie before the Dutchmen began a game-deciding run that was fueled not by Charles Jenkins but by everyone else.

Jenkins had his usual outstanding game (26 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including 4-of-7 from 3-point land, with five assists and four steals) but his role over the final few minutes was equal parts set-up man (he had two of his assists) and closer: His 3-poiner with 2:15 left gave the Dutchmen their biggest lead of the day at 71-58 and ended any Towson hopes.

David Imes finished with his second double-double (11 points, 10 rebounds) in three games, which didn’t seem possible after a tough first half and after he spent nearly five minutes on the bench early in the second half and re-entered the game with just five points and five rebounds with just over 12 minutes to play. But Imes scored five straight points to break the 57-57 tie and capped it by draining a jumper immediately after he missed a dunk.

“It tells me that he can’t dunk, number one,” Cassara said with a laugh. “And number two, I give him a lot of credit for staying with it. That was really one of the big turning points, not only for our team but also for Dave, because I think six months ago, a year ago or even a couple weeks ago, he might have let that miss really affect him. But he stepped up and made a big shot.”

Imes was joined on the bench for that second half spell by Dwan McMillan, who was pulled by Cassara after he lofted an air ball from beyond the 3-point line that Cassara called “atrocious.” McMillan had four of his 10 points, two of his five assists and the last of his five steals following his return and finished the game without a turnover. The Dutchmen committed just six turnovers, increasing their total over the last four games to 36. They committed 35 in the first two games in Puerto Rico and 48 in their first three games overall.

Mike Moore, who collected 15 points despite shooting just 4-of-12, had both his rebounds and half of his four assists during the run while also sinking the Dutchmen’s last basket, a 3-pointer with 1:33 left. Greg Washington, who had just two points on 1-of-7 shooting, picked up two of his eight rebounds and the last of his five blocks over the final 6:34 while also causing at least two of the Tigers’ turnovers.

“Greg doesn’t show up big in the boxscore as far as scoring, but he really was a big key to us winning the game tonight,” Cassara said. “His effort on the defensive end changed a bunch of shots. He blocked five shots and they had a couple travels down there at the end where his defensive positioning was great. He missed some easy shots, but he didn’t put his head down. He went down and he kept fighting and I’m really proud of him.”

There were plenty of other encouraging signs for the Dutchmen. While the starting five was on the floor for the final 9:44 and finished with at least 30 minutes apiece for the second straight game, reserves Shemiye McLendon and Yves Jules each hit pivotal 3-pointers while Stephen Nwaukoni and Roland Brown (making his first appearance since the Western Kentucky game, a span of 15 days) provided valuable minutes when Washington was in foul trouble in the first half.

The Dutchmen were also a perfect 12-of-12 from the line, which was the first time the program took that many free throws without a miss in at least two decades. The Dutchmen were 11-of-11 in a game against American during the 1996-97 season and 9-of-9 against Stetson in 1990-91.

The Dutchmen are doing the little things, getting contributions from everyone and displaying an ability to survive a team’s best flurry and put it away in the waning minutes (the Dutchmen outscored Rider 19-9 in the final 10:09 last Monday and outscored Wagner 15-11 in the final 6:11 November 26). Sure it’s early, but what’s there not to like?

“I think now, when you start to string a couple wins together—we had three losses coming out of Puerto Rico and we played fairly well at certain times—but now we have three wins and we’ve got another player on our side a little bit, which is confidence,” Cassara said. “I think we took a little step forward in gaining some confidence tonight as a group.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Towson, 12/4)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: David Imes

1: Dwan McMillan

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 19

David Imes 6

Mike Moore 6

Dwan McMillan 5

Greg Washington 3

Shemiye McClendon 2

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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