For the Flying Dutchmen and the CAA, it’s one, two, three, four, five five five against one

This is from back when the idea of the Video Music Awards on MTV wasn't cloaked in irony.

Not really sure who the one is—the CAA as a collective being?—but I’ve had “Animal” in my head ever since it was revealed this morning that the Flying Dutchmen were picked fifth in the preseason poll released at media day in Virginia. SOUTHERN BIAS SOUTHERN BIAS SOUTHERN BIAS!!!!

Fortunately, Charles Jenkins eats Southern Bias for breakfast. The Flying Dutchmen superstar was picked to repeat as the conference’s Player of the Year.

To be serious about Hofstra’s placement for a moment: If you were told, back on May 3, that the Dutchmen would open the season in the five hole—two spots higher than they finished last season, back when they had not only the Player of the Year but also two members of the all-freshmen team and the head coach with the second-longest tenure in the league—you’d take that. In a heartbeat.

That the Dutchmen are so high is a testament to the game-changing talents of Jenkins, the underrated ability of the remaining returnees as well as the wide-open nature of the league. Sure, the Dutchmen lost plenty, but they still return a member of the CAA’s all-defensive team in Greg Washington and, perhaps, the versatile Nathaniel Lester. Add Mike Moore and Brad Kelleher—who spent last season as a redshirt and in NCAA red tape hell, respectively—and the cupboard isn’t as bare as was feared five months ago.

In addition, as bad as things seemed to be going for the Dutchmen in May, it was barely even a bronze medalist in the worst off-season Olympics thanks to Drexel losing two players—including starting point guard and leading scorer Jamie Harris—to an armed robbery arrest and UNC Wilmington taking longer to find one coach than it took Hofstra to find two and then losing the athletic director who “oversaw” the search.

And it seems like we say this every year, but other than the top two and the bottom two, you can throw everyone else in a hat and have just as good a shot of coming up with the final standings as you will be if you crunch all the numbers and chew over all the information at your fingertips. A good case can be made for any of the top five teams—that’s right, I said five!—finishing first. This won’t be a multi-bid year for the CAA (unless Tom O’Connor works his way back on to the Selection Committee!) but it is shaping up as perhaps the most competitive season since the league expanded in 2001-02.

Enough out of me, here is the preseason poll and All-CAA first team, as voted on by CAA coaches and SIDs as well as the media covering the league. Stop back tomorrow as we begin the Running Tally of this year’s predictions.

1.) Old Dominion

2.) George Mason

3.) VCU

4.) James Madison

5.) HOFSTRA

6.) Drexel

7.) Northeastern

8.) William & Mary

9.) Delaware

10.) Towson

11.) Georgia State

12.) UNC Wilmington

All-CAA First Team

Charles Jenkins, Hofstra G

Chaisson Allen, Northeastern G

Denzel Bowles, James Madison F

Cam Long, George Mason G

Joey Rodriguez, VCU G

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

Not only are we going to Kansas, we’re going to Connecticut and Virginia and then we’re going to Indianapolis to win the national championship! Yeah!!

Another reason to be giddy with anticipation over this season: No bandwagon-derailing trips to Iowa!

As I noted in late June, when the OOC was released, it’s funny how quick Hofstra is to unveil the men’s basketball schedule when it’s one deserving of accolades. Last year’s schedule was released in blink-and-you-miss-it fashion in mid-September. But this year's schedule was released yesterday, which means students will know the dates of the games they won’t attend before they even arrive on campus!

Anyone who is not excited about this year’s schedule isn’t reading this, so I can safely call those folks booger-headed drones. Playing Kansas and UConn in the season’s first four days marks the greatest opening 1-2 punch since “Go” and “Animal” led off Pearl Jam’s Vs.

(Yes I know Hofstra plays Colgate in the first round of the Preseason NIT, which I guess means UConn is technically “Dissident” in this analogy, but it’s my blog and my bias so I’m going with “Go” and “Animal” and assuming Hofstra and UConn win their first-round games to set up My Worlds Colliding Moment. Boy, that second-round game is going to be the mother of all letdowns if Colgate plays UConn or Hofstra plays Yale)

Where was I? Oh yes. The rest of the schedule is Vs.-worthy as well, with the Dutchmen in line to earn at least one home game in the consolation bracket of the NIT before they end the home portion of the non-conference schedule with tilts against Fairfield, Manhattan and New Hampshire before facing St. John’s and, perhaps, Davidson in the Holiday Festival.

(Apparently, the unofficial metro-area Big Five is down to two with Stony Brook, St. Francis and Fordham off the schedule. Does this mean Hofstra gets to call itself the Big Five champ and raise a banner by beating Manhattan, a la 1992-93 when the Dutchmen went 2-0 against Central Connecticut to “win” the “ECC” championship?)

The pacing of CAA schedule, at first glance, seems a little friendlier to the Dutchmen this year than last. Hofstra once again visits Towson in the look-but-don’t-touch conference opener the first Saturday of December. There’s no avoiding the barrage of conference games immediately after New Year’s, and the task ahead of the Dutch seems pretty imposing with a trip to Georgia State sandwiched around home dates against William & Mary and Towson, all in a five-day span.

Of course, last year, Drexel-at Northeastern-Delaware in a five-day span seemed pretty inviting, and it took everything the Dutchmen had not to go 0-3. And give me a trip to Georgia State at the beginning of the season, when it tends to still be working out the kinks, than when the Panthers are clicking at the end.

Along those lines, it’s ironic—in that it’s not ironic at all—that the Dutchmen’s Senior Day opponent is Georgia State, which thrashed Hofstra in its Senior Night last year. I’d just like to say, once again, that I can’t wait to see what Life With Corny has in store for Senior Day.

The Dutchmen have four midweek trips to CAA opponents, one fewer than last year. And two of those trips are short jaunts to Boston and Delaware. The Dutchmen take three trips to Virginia and get three days of rest following weekend games at Old Dominion and William & Mary.

More about the road: The Dutchmen embark on only two multi-game road trips, one of which is the Kansas-NIT combo. The only multi- game road trip after New Year’s occurs when the Dutchmen travel to Wilmington and Delaware Feb. 13-16. Last year Hofstra had three two-game road trips following Jan. 1 (including the Bracket Buster at Fairfield followed by Georgia State in February) and five overall, counting the season-opening Charleston Classic.

All in all, it sounds like a pretty good schedule, challenging yet not overwhelming. I’m going to hold off on predicting a record for the Dutchmen until I can further examine the schedule and break it down and evaluate the entire league and oh the hell with it, I see 37-2, at least, and I’ll spend the weekend figuring out if that’s too pessimistic. In the meantime, sit tight and come back Monday morning for a Q&A with Tom Pecora.

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

All these changes taking place…

Do...do...do you remember when the Flying Dutchmen beat Towson? That was awesome. Do...do...do you think it can happen again today?

The Flying Dutchmen have changed by not changing at all (oh yeah, I always wanted to find a way to work into a story my favorite line from my favorite Pearl Jam song). Nine weeks ago today, the streaking Dutchmen met Towson in a game that had the potential to foretell their fortunes for the rest of the season and their ability to exceed modest pre-season expectations.

Today, the streaking Dutchmen meet Towson in a game that has the potential to foretell their fortunes for the rest of their season and gauge their ability to meet or exceed modest mid-to-late season expectations.

These Dutchmen, of course, are streaking in a different direction with two straight losses than those Dutchmen, who had won four in a row. And these Dutchmen need to make a statement like the one those Dutchmen made in Towson, where they knocked off the Tigers 90-81 in perhaps the program’s most impressive win since the graduation of Loren Stokes and Carlos Rivera.

It wasn’t a perfect game, but it’s the one that got me to declare the Blue Beetle Bandwagon was up and running and it’s the one that Tom Pecora throws into the VCR (or the DVD player, or the Blu-Ray player, or the Laser Disc player, or the Beta Max, or film strip machine, or whatever device coaches use these days to break down game film) whenever he wants to remind the Dutchmen that they haven’t always been inconsistent, haven’t always battled self-confidence issues and haven’t always been unable to fall out of a boat and hit water.

Five players scored at least nine points, Cornelius Vines hit six 3-pointers and the Dutchmen made 25 of 31 free throws in scoring 90 points in regulation for only the fourth time in the Pecora Era (ironically, in that it’s not ironic at all, Towson is the only venue in which the Dutchmen have twice exceeded 90 points in regulation). The Dutchmen out-rebounded the Tigers 39-30, set a season high with 19 assists and committed just 11 turnovers, one shy of their season-best mark.

The loss to George Mason Tuesday is one suitable for viewing, as well, albeit only for interrogation purposes, and even then only if everything else has failed and you’re running out of time. At 6-6 and in seventh place in the CAA, the Dutchmen are right where everyone figured they’d be back in October, but that hot start raised expectations and the subsequent slumps have lent a particularly frustrating air to the season.

Fortunately for the Dutchmen, perpetually disappointing Towson—which is one loss away from locking up its eighth sub-.500 conference record in as many seasons in the CAA—is in even worse shape. Hofstra has to win this game if it hopes to regain some momentum over the final lap of the conference season, and the Tigers could be the perfect tonic for whatever ails the Dutchmen—and in particular Charles Jenkins, who is 18-of-38 shooting in his last three games against Towson.

Four Towson starters stand 6-foot-6 or taller, so finding the right mix of Darren Townes, Arminas Urbutis and Greg Washington (who had a double-double against Towson in December) is key. The guess here is Townes, fresh off a season-high nine rebounds against Mason, will approach 30 minutes for the first time in more than two months.

It’ll also be interesting to see if Vines and Tony Dennison, each of whom set a season-high in minutes off the bench Tuesday, see the same amount of time following their brutal shooting efforts against Mason. My guess is we’ll see more of Zygis Sestakos, who missed all five 3-pointers against Towson in December and has taken just 14 3-pointers since.

Anyway, see you there. I’ll be the one dribbling a basketball, sporting socks that are too high, shorts that are too short and the faded and shrunken Miller T-shirt I won at Bogart’s for being able to identify where Eddie Vedder was living when he joined Pearl Jam (Answer: San Diego. Honest to goodness. How’s that for tying it all together nicely?) Hey, I’ve got to be prepared just in case there’s an Alumni Day scrimmage and alums are pulled out of the stands to play.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com. And join the Defiantly Dutch group at Facebook today!