Five pregame thoughts: College of Bill Lawrence

Hey it worked the last time I posted this with the William & Mary pregame thoughts!

1.) Stop Quinn McDowell. See? This stuff is easy sometimes. McDowell was unconscious last night, when he set a CAA Tournament record with 35 points on 10-of-12 shooting from the field, including 5-of-6 from 3-point land, and 10-of-11 from the free throw line. Insane. He probably won’t be that hot tonight, but the Tribe is a team that thrives on outside shooting so don’t expect to see much zone from the Flying Dutchmen tonight.

2.) As Mo Cassara said in our Q&A this morning, Greg Washington is the X factor for the Dutchmen. If he plays as well as he did in his last seven games—when he shot 50 percent from the field (23-of-46) and pulled down an average of six rebounds per game—the Dutchmen will have a pretty good duo in the front court against the undermanned Tribe (one starter taller than 6-foot-6) with Washington and David Imes, who had two double-doubles, three double-digit rebound games and averaged 8.7 rebounds in the final seven games.

3.) Don’t be surprised if the Dutchmen get off to a slow start. The Dutchmen will have been off for more than a week by the time 8:30 finally arrives, and there will be more teams eliminated (seven) than still alive in the tournament. William & Mary, meanwhile, has plenty of momentum and energy after its exciting win last night, and Georgia State proved earlier this afternoon how that type of energy can carry a team in the first half. Plus, the Richmond Coliseum rings are famously unfriendly and the Dutchmen can’t get too intimidated if the shots aren’t falling initially.

4.) Don’t be surprised, either, if the Tribe starts fading in the second half. We wouldn’t expect a beatdown like the one George Mason gave Georgia State this afternoon—unofficially, the Patriots outscored the Panthers 872,281-6 after we got into the Coliseum, no, really, it was only a 22-2 second half run and 52-15 (?!) between Georgia State taking its biggest lead (27-16) and Mason taking its biggest lead (68-42)—but at some point the Tribe should begin to feel the effects of playing 40 pressure-packed minutes last night. That’s when Washington and Imes have to be factors on the defensive boards.

5.) Familiarity should be an advantage for the Dutchmen, who know how dangerous William & Mary is and what does and doesn’t work against the Tribe. The Dutchmen also know how they win games: Get a third player in double figures (18-1) and a couple 3-pointers from someone other than Charles Jenkins or Mike Moore (8-0 when Brad Kelleher hits multiple threes, 6-0 when Shemiye McLendon does and 2-0 when Yves Jules does it).

Most importantly, the Dutchmen also have Charles Jenkins, who knows how it feels to lose here, and how long a bus ride it is back to Long Island. Jenkins is 2-3 all-time in the CAA Tournament and missed game-winning shots at the buzzer in the quarterfinals each of the last two years. The preference, of course, is for the Dutchmen to author a relatively stress-free victory, but if the Dutchmen need him to go into Wolf/Beast/Takeover mode, he’ll do it. I keep thinking of Matt Janning 52 weeks ago today, willing Northeastern into overtime and eventually past the Dutchmen in double overtime. Jenkins is going to have at least one game like that this weekend. Here’s hoping it’s not needed until Monday.

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

Five pre-game thoughts: College of Bill Lawrence

May William & Mary shoot as badly as Turk today!

1.) The first game of the Flying Dutchmen’s “four in eight” is a scary one. The easy thing is to call it a trap game, especially with James Madison (Monday), VCU (Thursday), Drexel (next Saturday) and George Mason (Feb. 2) all on the horizon and the Dutchmen probably needing to go at least 3-2 mark in the crucible in order to stay in the driver’s seat for a bye. But William & Mary (2-5 CAA) is as hot as a two-win team can be with routs over Drexel and Towson in its last two games. The Tribe are also young and exceedingly well-coached by Tony Shaver, an increasingly dangerous combination as March approaches. This can’t turn into one of those games that leave the Dutchmen saying what if come the first weekend of March.

2.) The Dutchmen took at least one step to avoid an ill-advised hiccup by leaving Long Island via bus Thursday instead of taking the chance that their flight Friday would be delayed by snow. The bus trip was another epic one, and not in the good way, for the Dutchmen, who hit a ton of traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike and needed 10 hours to get to Williamsburg, but at least they were able to spend a full and productive day in Virginia instead of fretting about flights and getting there mere hours before the first tip. Playing William & Mary 12 hours after arriving in town would be a lot more dangerous than playing Northeastern 12 hours after arriving in town.

3.) William & Mary has done a better job than any other CAA team of bottling up Charles Jenkins, who has averaged just 14.3 points and has yet to produce a 20-point game against the Tribe in four career games. (Props to Jeremy Kniffin for that cool nugget) But the matchup is a ripe one for Jenkins: William & Mary starts a pair of freshmen, Julian Boatner and Brandon Britt, at guard, and it’s a fair guess to say they haven’t seen someone like Jenkins yet.

4.) The matchup is also a good one for Hofstra in that William & Mary ranks last in the league in offensive rebounding (8.1 per game). I’m not much of a betting man, but if I was, I’d wager on another double-double for David Imes. Almost as importantly, this could be a good chance for Greg Washington (2-for-9 from the field and three rebounds in his last two games combined) to get untracked as well as for at least two of the Stephen Nwaukoni/Paul Bilbo/Roland Brown triumvirate to get some valuable playing time and confidence before the showdown Monday against James Madison and the beastly duo of Denzel Bowles and Rayshawn Goins.

4b.) I can't lie: I just like using the word triumvirate.

4c.) I can't lie: I had to spell check it to correctly spell triumvirate.

5.) William & Mary also ranks last in the CAA in turnover margin (minus 4.11). With a surely snarling James Madison squad coming in Monday night, the best-case scenario this afternoon is an easy, stress-free victory in which Jenkins can grab some pine in the final four minutes. The Dutchmen will need to create plenty of turnovers—and they rank second in the league in turnover margin (plus 2.28)—in order to get the type of win that is tough to come by anywhere in the CAA.

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