Holy crap! The OOC is out!

You're going to have to forgive me for being away Monday, when the non-conference schedule was released. After all, Hofstra only released it TWO-AND-A-HALF MONTHS EARLIER than it did last year. I guess when you're playing Kansas and UConn, as opposed to a bunch of schools that may or may not have begun playing basketball before Y2K, you want everyone to know about it ASAP.

Anyway, please stop back later today or, more likely, tomorrow for a more in-depth look at and take on a suddently buff OOC as well as ample apologies for my sporadic posting lately. Thanks.

Just a little patience, yeah...

Axl Rose, so tired of waiting for the next Hofstra men's basketball game, finally decides to finish Chinese Democracy.

Our apologies (geez, that’s my second apology of the week, I’m already infinitely better than Vince Coleman) for being a bit sporadic with the posts this week. The eye of the storm has lulled us into a bit of a siesta. The eight days in between games for the Flying Dutchmen is the longest gap of the season...until, of course, they win the CAA’s automatic berth on March 9 and open the NCAA Tournament March 19 or 20. Oh yeah. I went there.

And I probably should have saved my watching-friends-rip-open-their-presents-on-Christmas-Eve analogy for this week, since everyone else in the CAA plays except Hofstra. In fact, there are more teams playing three times (James Madison, UNC-Wilmington, George Mason and Delaware) than teams only playing once (Northeastern, Towson and Old Dominion). So while fans of The Other Eleven get revved up about a spate of meaningful contests against nationally renowned opponents and Michael Litos makes a case for this as a season-defining weekend for the CAA, we get to pine for Monday and a game against a Division III foe and wonder why we can’t get a schedule like that.

But I’m not complaining. After watching Hofstra get hammered for the better part of two months last season, I’m willing to buy into the theory that going 8-3 or 9-2 and building confidence against a less-than-stellar non-conference slate is better than the Dutchmen absorbing multiple double-digit defeats against RPI-friendly competition. Plus, you know, we all learned in 2006 that it doesn’t really matter who you play out of conference. They’ll find a way to screw you anyway.

That said, next Saturday—and the first of five games in a 14-day span—can’t get here fast enough. I mean, for crying out loud, Guns n’ Roses will have released an album by the next time Hofstra plays.

Some other bits and bytes before the weekend:

—Prep for the Old Westbury game with Jeremy Kniffin’s excellent pre-game notes package.

—Forwards Paul Bilbo and David Imes and guards Yves Jules and Chaz Williams have long been discussed on the CAAZone message boards, and the quartet officially signed letters of intent Thursday to attend Hofstra next fall and play for the Flying Dutchmen. I’m not nearly tuned in enough to the high school scene around here to project how they’ll fare and I try to view recruiting classes with caution since can’t-miss recruiting classes almost always have multiple misses. Not a knock on the recruits, of course, just a fact of life in an unpredictable sport.

That said, congrats to the foursome. And whatever you guys do, don’t eat the Sbarro.

—Here’s an interesting story on Williams’ often-difficult path to Hofstra.

—The Flying Dutchwomen volleyball team pursues the seventh NCAA Tournament bid in program history when it participates in the CAA tourney this weekend at Northeastern. The Dutchwomen open with William & Mary, whom they defeated at Hofstra last Saturday, and would advance with a win to face top-seeded Northeastern in the semis Sunday. The championship match is Monday. The Dutchwomen won the CAA in 2006 and lost to Delaware in the final last year.

—Belated kudos, part I: With 19 freshmen or sophomores on the 25-man roster, even the most optimistic Hofstra wrestling fan had to foresee a rebuilding year and the likely end to the Flying Dutchmen’s streak of seven straight conference titles and 57 straight victories in conference play. Maybe not. The Dutchmen shocked seventh-ranked Penn State last Sunday, 18-15, and have moved into the national top 20 at 16. The wrestlers get another big test this weekend, when they face fifth-ranked Missouri Saturday before participating in the Missouri Open Sunday.

—Belated kudos, part II: The Flying Dutchmen football team finally told Seth Meyers where to cram it last Saturday with a thorough 42-14 win over Northeastern in front of friends, family and Sully Ray at Shuart Stadium. In fact, I think the presence of Sully Ray—who made his first appearance of the season but did not catch a T-shirt; too bad, there was no one within eight rows of us—was just what the Dutchmen needed to end that worst season ever talk. Nice of you to show up when it was needed, Sully. Sheesh.

It’s clear the season-ending back injury Bryan Savage suffered moments before kickoff at UConn nearly three months ago was a sign of things to come for the Dutchmen, who lost 11 players to season-ending injuries and never built any momentum on or off the field. Perfect weather and impressive crowds greeted the Dutchmen for games against Albany and Rhode Island in September, but any playoff hopes were extinguished during the four-game presidential debate road trip and three straight home games in monsoon-like conditions didn’t do much to lure anyone but the hardiest of the diehards. The combined attendance against Delaware, Richmond and Northeastern was 7,004—not much more than the Dutchmen drew against Rhode Island (6,111).

The Dutchmen close out the season Saturday against UMass, which was ranked in the top 15 as recently as two weeks ago but whose playoff aspirations disappeared with consecutive losses to Maine and New Hampshire. Not much to be gained on either side except experience, but 5-7 sure looks better than 4-8 and a win against UMass would allow Hofstra to finish third in the CAA North. Not much, but it’s something—and third place is where the Dutchmen were predicted to finish in August.

So let’s say Hofstra 26, UMass 20 in overtime. The game will be carried on YES at 2 p.m. No idea, though, if it’s followed by Dutchography: Carlos Garay.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

You down on the OOC? (updated)

Remember when people were actually unsure what O.P.P. meant? Ahh the innocent summer of 1991!

Been wondering for decades just how the Hofstra men’s basketball team would match up against Old Westbury, that Division III school off Route 106/107? Good news! This is your year!

Hoping to tune in to CBS on the second Sunday of March and see Greg Gumble, Clark Kellogg and Co. declare Hofstra earned an at-large bid because of an arduous non-conference schedule? Uhh…not so likely.

Hofstra finally released the out-of-conference schedule Monday. If you’re thinking to yourself “Self, wasn’t the entire schedule released a lot earlier last year?” you’re right, though I can’t seem to find a link to prove it.

And if you suspected the schedule would be light on March-worthy foes, well, you were right again. All caveats apply, of course, about how a team’s performance last year does not foretell its performance this year. But the eight Division I teams Hofstra is guaranteed to face posted a combined winning percentage of just .432 (108-142) last year.

That collective percentage is considerably boosted by the presence of OOC headliners Clemson (which lost to Villanova in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and finished 24-10) and UMass (which reached the NIT final and finished 25-11). The other six Division I foes went an anemic 59-121 (.328) last year. The news is a little better among the six teams Hofstra could face in the final two rounds of the Charleston Classic: They went 108-86 last year, a .557 winning percentage, and three teams (Temple, TCU and Southern Illinois) reached the postseason.

So why, three years after Hofstra’s OOC was blamed for its criminal omission from the NCAA Tournament, are the Flying Dutchmen seemingly content to participate in metro NYC’s version of the Big Five?

As a reader noted below (whoohoo! someone’s reading—and after midnight, to boot!), visiting Manhattan and Stony Brook and hosting Fordham, St. Francis and Iona might generate a little local interest and provide an attendance boost at Hofstra Arena. But it won’t do much for the Flying Dutchmen’s at-large candidacy—NCAA or NIT.

Maybe the meager OOC is just bad luck: In June, it was reported that Hofstra was going to play in the Puerto Rico Classic, which will feature national runner-up Memphis as well as Elite Eight participant Xavier, but that’s obviously not the case.

Maybe it’s the coaching staff hoping to avoid a repeat of last year, when the Flying Dutchmen—adjusting to the departures of Loren Stokes and Carlos Rivera—were 2-8 (including a December loss to UNC-Wilmington) by New Years Day and didn’t begin to find their form until it was way too late. Of course, Hofstra’s out-of-conference slate last year—headlined by 2007 NCAA Tournament teams Holy Cross and Virginia Tech and featuring a collective winning percentage of .493—wasn’t exactly a Fang Mitchell special, either.

Perhaps it’s a way to make good on the goals expressed to season ticket holders in last week’s letter from Tom Pecora and Jack Hayes. A 20-win season would put the Flying Dutchmen in prime position to return to the postseason (and yes, the CBI counts, even if accepting a bid cost so much money that everyone this side of New Jersey Tech declined an invite last year). Only 12 of the 101 schools that won 20 games last season did not receive a postseason bid (UNC-Wilmington was one of the unlucky dozen).

I mentioned last week I’m no good at math, but I know enough to know that 8-3 in OOC play (7-3 before New Years Day and a win in the Bracket Buster) plus 11-7 in the CAA plus a win in the CAA tourney equals 20 wins.

Or maybe it’s more cynical: Hofstra fattening up on a schedule that would scare no one except maybe John Thompson because winning more games is good business sense…for the university as well as the Flying Dutchmen coaching staff. As we learned last week, it’s tough to raise ticket prices when you go 12-18.

And coaches on winning teams get lucrative raises or new jobs. I’d love to see Pecora finish his career at Hofstra as much as anybody else, but he’d be crazy not to try and parlay a 20-win season into another contract extension…or even a flirtation with the one local school that would really weaken Hofstra’s OOC and will almost certainly be looking for another coach by March. (Mocking St. John’s basketball—there’s a tradition we couldn't have envisioned 15 years ago)

Emails, we get emails...

The last eight days have been a lot like my first eight days at Hofstra. Every day, I race to the mailbox, hoping to get a letter.

Of course, instead of racing with my feet to the bank of mailboxes outside the Resident Director’s office on the first floor of Vander Poel Hall, I race to the virtual post office with my fingers. I do, though, get The Sporting News’ digital newspaper delivered to my inbox every day, just like my roommate and I got the magazine weekly in 1993-94.

(Side topic: Am I the only one who is a little saddened by yet also a contributor to the demise of the handwritten letter? Discuss amongst yourselves)

I’m not expecting letters from my ex-girlfriend (good thing, since they didn’t arrive 15 years ago either). But just like I did in 1993, mail is trickling in—and once again, it’s neat to get it.

Back then, the letters were from friends back home. Today, they’re coming from some of those friends, The Very Best Friends I Met At Hofstra…and Beyond and even a stranger or two. Here’s a sampling in the first-ever Defiantly Dutch Mailbag.

Loyal Reader Todd, who thinks proofreading jokes are funny, wrote in last week wondering why Hofstra played Division III football until 1990 even though it was Division I in every other sport. Economically, it made sense for Hofstra and dozens of other D-I schools to field a football team in Division III, where no scholarships are awarded. But in 1990, the NCAA did away with allowing schools to compete in multiple divisions. Not surprisingly, most schools elected to upgrade their football programs, and since that ruling, the I-AA membership has more than doubled to 124. (It's catching! Check out how ESPN.com refers to I-AA)

Loyal reader “Gonzo Hofstra Fan” was kind enough to write in twice after the Flying Dutchmen got smoked by UConn Thursday. The not-so-near miss against the Huskies reminded Gonzo of the 1995 regular season finale, when Hofstra led Marshall late before falling, 30-28, in Huntington, W.V. I have fond memories of that game: It was the first time I ever traveled to a game by plane. And I remember my stomach doing flip-flops in the press box as Hofstra threatened to beat the most powerful I-AA program ever.

And I forgot, until I dug out the story I wrote about it, that the Dutchmen came back from a two-score deficit and might have won the damn thing if Nick Johnson hadn’t been flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct for an overzealous celebration after he caught the go-ahead touchdown pass from Kharon Brown. Hofstra went for two and missed.

Gonzo also points out the quarterback for Marshall that day was a 19-year-old freshman named Chad Pennington, who went on to lead the Thundering Herd to the national championship game. I remember watching it Thanksgiving weekend with my dad and the two of us being shocked when Marshall, down 22-20 with time left for one play, attempted a 64-yard field goal—and missed badly—instead of trying to fire a Hail Mary. Of course, we didn’t know then what we know now.

Gonzo’s second note was about the men’s basketball team opening its season in the Charleston Classic. “At least in Clemson we’ll face a decent team to start the season.” Alas, that might be as good as Hofstra’s out-of-conference schedule gets. I’d heard the OOC would not impress anyone—especially these idiots—and some detective work by posters on Hofstra's board at CAAzone.com seems to confirm it’ll be another less-than-imposing slate.

But Gonzo is willing to give Hofstra the benefit of the doubt: “Hofstra was supposed to be in the O'Reilly Auto Parts [do they own college hoops, or something] Puerto Rico Classic from Nov. 20-23, but backed out. Seton Hall opens with USC in that tournament and I suspect nobody from Hofstra wanted to be on the same island with Bobby Gonzalez for five days. Can't say I blame them.”

On that note…I’ve got another entertaining letter unrelated to sports I’m saving for tomorrow. See you then. And thanks as always for reading and for writing in and keep those emails coming. Unless, of course, you want to write handwrite a letter. In which case I’ve got to get a P.O. Box.