Hofstra 57, Northeastern 52 (Or: In which I become the Drew Bledsoe to Sully Ray’s Tom Brady)

I know how you feel, Drew.

I’ve figured out what was missing for the Flying Dutchmen. Or, actually, what wasn’t missing.

Me.

Two weeks ago today, I went to Boston to watch the Flying Dutchmen play unbeaten Northeastern. The Dutchmen trailed from start to finish and lost by 23 in one of the bleakest performances of the Tom Pecora era. So Saturday, I was in Boston to not watch or listen to the Flying Dutchmen play unbeaten Northeastern, and with Sully Ray pinch-blogging (and, he says, catching a T-shirt while holding two hot dogs in his other hand…absent any photographic evidence, I’ll have to declare he’s full of it and I maintain my 2-0 lead), the Dutchmen win, 57-52.

(You know what I did watch though? VCU-ODU. Apparently, you can watch two Virginia-based schools on television in Boston, but not a Boston-based school vs. a New York-based school. OK then. Hopefully I can see New Hampshire vs. Maine once I get home)

(Second parenthetical tangent: You want uncanny, go check out Litos’ predicted final score for Saturday)

Furthermore, I realized, in typing this, that the Dutchmen are actually 3-0 in games when I do not watch or listen to them. They won the final two games of the Charleston Classic. So the guy who has written tens of thousands of words wondering what might be wrong with the Dutchmen is actually the reason WHY something might be wrong with the Dutchmen. Coming soon: Sully Ray waxing nostalgic about the days when he used to sniff chemicals in The Chronicle darkroom and re-telling stories of how I snored the entire time during our road trip for spring break ’95.

Anyway, before the Dutchmen ride Sully Ray all the way to the CAA championship and I follow in the footsteps of another Bostonian and get traded to upstate New York—where I figure I’ll blog about Tom Parrotta and Chris Gadley—I will say I got at least one thing right: The whole gotta-prove-the-disgusted-parent-wrong thing. I never figured Pecora and Van Macon were giving up on the Dutchmen after the uncompetitive loss to Drexel Wednesday, but they had to figure that speaking as strongly as they did would make the Dutchmen particularly mad and prideful.

Hey, with the knowledge my you-know-what would be grounded as soon as the report cards arrived, I followed the failing of Algebra II during the second marking period of my junior year of high school by getting an A-minus on the mid-year exam. Oh, that’s right. I was an equal opportunity flunker.

Where was I? Oh yes.

The Dutchmen also provided another reminder Saturday why they are the perfect symbol of an unpredictable conference. Litos wrote last week Hofstra would come up with as many head-scratching wins as losses, but I doubt even he thought he’d be proven right IN CONSECUTIVE GAMES. The Dutchmen, in a span of three games, have thrown a scare into the preseason favorite, trailed wire-to-wire for the second time this season against a team picked to finish 11th in the conference and knocked off the unbeaten—and previously unchallenged—co-leader. This stuff is for the sadistic, I tell you.

Anyone who says he pegged how the playing time would shake out Saturday is either a liar or the only person on the planet who predicted a Cardinals-Steelers Super Bowl. Darren Townes, on a milk carton for weeks, started and played 28 minutes, one more minute than he’d played in the last four games combined. Arminas Urbutis played 31 minutes and pulled down nine rebounds after playing 32 minutes and collecting eight rebounds in the first five games of the month.

Greg Washington, who’d started the last six games, didn’t start and played a season-low three minutes. Dane Johnson, who’d started four straight games, didn’t play at all.

Nathaniel Lester made his first start of the season, shot just 1-of-9 from the field yet played a season-high 36 minutes and led the Dutchmen and set career highs with five assists (half as many assists as he had in the first 17 games) and three steals (one more than he had in his first 17 games). Greg Johnson had two assists, one steal and no turnovers, but played just 18 minutes (his minutes this month, by the way: 34-37-38-40-22-18).

Tony Dennison, who entered the game shooting 33 percent from the field and 58 percent from the line, hit both his field goal attempts and was 4-of-6 from the line in scoring nine points. Cornelius Vines, who was one of only two players to start the first 17 games, came off the bench and played a season-low nine minutes—none, according to the in-game thread at the CAA Zone, after he chucked up an ill-advised three.

And Charles Jenkins, whose field goal percentage lately (27 percent—35-for-129—in his previous nine games) has been somewhere south of the outgoing president’s approval ratings, finally came back and played his most complete game in weeks. Jenkins bounced back from a 3-of-9 performance over the first 20 minutes to make five of his seven shots in the second half and five of his six free throws in a clutch performance straight out of November.

Jenkins scored seven straight points for the Dutchmen and nine overall in a 12-1 run that turned a 32-28 deficit into a 40-33 lead and hit two free throws to give Hofstra the lead for good at 52-51 in the final minute. In addition, he was also credited with shutting down Northeastern’s biggest weapon, Matt Janning.

The win wasn’t a thing of beauty: The Dutchmen didn’t hit a field goal in the final 6:41 but held on by hitting 11 of their last 13 free throws. Nor did the Dutchmen escape unscathed: Miklos Szabo hurt his arm in the second half and was wearing a sling on the bench.

In addition, Sully Ray reports, via text, that it was a “…great game by none, good game by all.” That’s why I like Sully Ray: He’s a calm, collected sort whose approach to life is a cliché. Had I been there Saturday, I probably would have come up with multiple reasons why the Dutchmen are now headed for the Final Four. Except, of course, Northeastern would have won by 74.

And sure, the Dutchmen might have taken advantage of a wiped Northeastern team. Oh well. Fair is fair. Playing the Huskies in Boston 53 hours after facing Drexel on Long Island wasn’t a whole lot of fun, either.

So where do the Dutchmen—now 3-4 and a mere game out of a first-round bye, it’s never too early to look too far ahead!—go from here? The hell if I know. The last three games have proven how impossible it is to project three weeks ahead, but I will say the schedule lines up nicely for Hofstra to make a charge over the next 22 days—something I’ll blog about in the next day or two.

If I were a betting man, though, I’d bet all Pecora wants for his birthday is me not paying any attention Wednesday night. And I’d also wager the Dutchmen would be in great shape if I sold the blog to Sully Ray. My asking price begins at one million dollars.

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

VCU 68, Hofstra 60 (Or: In which beggars suddenly become choosy)

Chester Lampwick isn't greedy. As long as he's got his health, his millions of dollars, his gold house, his rocket car and victories by the Flying Dutchmen basketball team, he doesn't need anything else.

What would you have thought, last Tuesday morning in the aftermath of one of the most discouraging losses of the Tom Pecora Era, if you were told the Flying Dutchmen would lose by eight points at VCU on Saturday? My guess is you would have been satisfied with a competitive defeat that provided the Dutchmen something to build upon, as opposed to the I-don’t-even-know-where-to-begin-fixing-this vibe of the Northeastern loss.

Well, that’s what I would have thought, anyway. The wife reports that she would not, in fact, have been willing to accept an eight-point loss to VCU. Which is probably why she’s a better poker player than her risk-averse husband, but that’s neither here nor there.

So why, then, did it feel as if a precious opportunity had slipped through the Flying Dutchmen’s hands during a 68-60 loss? Given the way the week started for the Dutchmen, there is no shame in losing by eight to the pre-season favorites in an arena in which Hofstra has never won. In fact, it was the second-closest game a Pecora-coached team has played at VCU: The 2001-02 team fell to the Rams by two, but the next five regular season defeats at VCU were by a combined 66 points.

The Dutchmen didn’t lead once in the second half and didn’t get closer than four points in the final 13 minutes, so there was no reason to wonder what could have happened if not for a bad bounce here or a bad call there.

Yet after the win over Delaware Wednesday that fixed everything—or at least coaxed a lot of us off the ledge—and an encouraging first half Saturday, it didn’t seem unreasonable to believe the Dutchmen could pull off the upset.

The Dutchmen avoided the first half fade that ruined their chances against Drexel (which jumped out to a 14-4 lead and never trailed) and Northeastern (which jumped out to an 11-0 lead and, you guessed it, never trailed) and would have carried a lead into the locker room if not for Eric Maynor driving the length of the court and hitting a buzzer-beating jumper with Charles Jenkins and Greg Johnson in his face. Hofstra looked much more cohesive and patient on offense and Jenkins hit as many field goals (four) in the first half as he did against Delaware—and he only needed eight shots to do it, not 24.

And hey, this is the CAA, where it would make sense for the Dutchmen to open the week with a 23-point loss at Northeastern and end it with an upset win at VCU.

Instead, the unpredictability of the CAA was summarized hours later and 250 or so miles to the south, where UNC-Wilmington—whose porous defense seemed to give the Seahawks a real shot at going 0-fer-the-conference—surprised the Blue Hens, 75-72. That’s right. In the span of seven days, the Blue Hens beat the preseason favorites, lost to a team that literally could not shoot straight and lost to a team that hadn’t won since the day after Thanksgiving and whose 10 straight defeats had come by an average of 21 points. Trying to project this stuff is for the sadistic, I tell you.

The second half proved the Dutchmen are still the work in progress that Pecora described during a conference call last week. The pieces are there and the box score looked pretty good, but it’s just not a complete puzzle yet.

Jenkins continues to emerge from rock bottom, led the Dutchmen with 15 points and five assists and added eight rebounds, but his slump is still a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, as he proved by shooting 1-for-8 in the second half and finishing with a team-high five turnovers. Maybe, Pecora figures, the answer is shooting less instead of more.

The Dutchmen are deep, but not yet deep or strong enough to withstand a sputtering Jenkins and a non-existent Cornelius Vines, the latter of whom fouled out after setting season lows in minutes (17) and points (six). In addition, all four shots Vines took Saturday were from beyond the arc.

Nathaniel Lester’s role keeps growing—he tied a season high with 28 minutes played and had seven boards, the third time in four games he’s had at least that many rebounds—yet his eight points came on 3-of-10 shooting.

Speaking of work in progress, to watch Larry Sanders (16 points, 13 rebounds) dominate down low was a reminder that Greg Washington is still the biggest work in progress—literally—on the Dutchmen roster. It’s one thing to be 6-foot-10, it’s quite another to be a freaking behemoth like Sanders. Washington’s suddenly stellar play in December wasn’t a fluke, but it wasn’t necessarily a sign of things come this season for the still-spindly Gee Dubs. Washington made his fifth straight start Saturday, but his minutes in that span are as follows: 29, 23, 23, 18 and 14.

He played only seven minutes in the second half Sunday, during which VCU outscored the Dutchmen 24-8 in the paint. At some point, Darren Townes will have to escape from Witness Protection to provide more depth in the front court. In the meantime, I once again humbly offer Washington my extra 25 pounds. I’m even willing to negotiate it up to 35 pounds.

Anyway, what we went through Saturday is a pretty good idea of what’s to come over the next seven weeks: Jumping back and forth between trying to minimize expectations and hoping the Dutchmen can shoot the moon—and the ball, too. Litos was impressed with what he saw in the defeat and wrote Sunday that he projects a 9-9 conference finish for the Dutchmen—and as many surprising victories as unexplainable defeats. It’s sadistic, I tell you.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

No longer the pits for Nat?

Megaburgers for all after Nat Lester leads the Flying Dutchmen to the CAA crown!

The Flying Dutchmen’s 61-56 win over Stony Brook Wednesday wasn’t an aesthetically pleasing one, but it was plenty interesting—particularly the sight of Nathaniel Lester on the floor at the end of the game.

Lester played the final 8:37 against the Seawolves and set a season high with 20 minutes, seven points and three rebounds. Before Wednesday, Lester had not played more than seven minutes in the second half in any of the Dutchmen’s first seven games. He didn’t get off the bench at all against Western Michigan or Old Westbury and played more than five minutes in the second half just twice—in the lopsided season-opening loss to Clemson and Saturday against Towson, when he played seven minutes.

That Lester has set a season high for second half minutes in consecutive games indicates he may be ready to emerge from the pack of guards on the Hofstra roster and establish himself as a consistent member of the eight- or nine-man rotation. His talent is unquestioned, and at 6-foot-5 he’s big enough to play forward or present matchup problems for the opposition at guard.

But from afar, Lester’s body language suggests he’s a sensitive kid whose confidence comes and goes. He scored 14 or more points four times in a seven-game span last December yet reached double figures just twice in the Dutchmen’s final 20 games.

Lester’s relationship with Tom Pecora—again, from afar—seems to be a work in progress as Pecora employs some tough love with the quick hooks. But Pecora knows it’s way too early to give up on someone like Lester, especially given that Lester is the only true sophomore on the squad. Charles Jenkins (who is exactly 10 months younger than Lester) and Greg Washington both redshirted in 2006-07.

Lester’s first shot Wednesday was one of those it’s-out-no-it’s-in-no-it’s-out-no-it’s-in specials that rattled around the rim for about an hour before falling through. I’m convinced he’s not nearly as busy the rest of the night if that shot bounces out instead of in. From my days as a terrible pick-up player at the local Y, I can tell you I knew if a day would be good by whether or not my first shot went down (it so often did not).

Who knows? Maybe a shooter’s roll was the turning point for Lester and Pecora.

—Speaking of turning points, sort of, I meant to start this Wednesday, but, well, I forgot. Something about new furniture and some guy coming in to fix the rug and it turning into a day-long process featuring my most profanity since Selection Sunday 2006. I don’t want to talk about it.

Where was I? Oh yeah. One of the few predictable things about the Dutchmen this season is the unpredictability of the Dutchmen rotation. Guys who are struggling or stapled to the bench one game will emerge as key contributors the next. So that gave me an idea: Try to identify the surprise contributor (or contributors) prior to every game.

My guess Wednesday was going to be Tony Dennison, who had been ice cold in his previous three games (7-for-24 from the field, including 2-for-12 from 3-point land). Dennison was better against Stony Brook (2-for-6 from the field, including 2-for-5 from beyond the arc), but he was also on the bench down the stretch in favor of Lester and has played just 40 minutes the past two games.

So I’ll stick with Dennison for Saturday against St. Francis and also add Darren Townes to the mix. (Yes, this increases my odds of being able to pat myself on the back Monday. My blog, my rules) Townes has started the last four games, but his minutes have read like a locker combination: 24-11-8-8. Foul trouble has saddled him the last two games (three fouls against both Towson and Stony Brook), but he didn’t draw a single foul against Fordham Dec. 3.

The Dutchmen are deep, but not so deep that they can’t use a lot more than eight minutes out of Townes. Big game Saturday, you watch. If you’re going, I’ll be the guy yelling about Sean Titus.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.