Bits and Bytes: Panic time for the Bucs!

Send the Bucs to the UFL!!

As noted Wednesday, most of us need to do a better job of realizing the inherent peaks and valleys of a sports season and reacting accordingly instead of alternately running to avoid the falling sky and planning the route for the celebratory championship parade.

Except, well, I tried that last week and our beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers—known worldwide as The Official NFL Team of Defiantly Dutch—blew a 10-point lead against the Washington Redskins, otherwise known as the most dysfunctional organization in sports outside of the team that plays near the parking lot that used to be Shea Stadium, and lost 16-13.

The Bucs are now 0-4 and already four games behind the Super-looking New Orleans Saints in the NFC South, so I think it’s time to pull out the heavy weaponry that worked last week on the Dutchmen.

That’s right: It’s time for Flying Dutchman alum Raheem Morris to change quarterbacks (never mind that I’m not really sure where he can go since the backup to unfinished product Josh Johnson is the even rawer Josh Freeman) and for the Buccaneers to ponder downgrading the program to the UFL, which is supposed to start next week and will surely scare the bejeezus out of the NFL by capturing the imagination of the professional football fan who just finds his Sunday a little lacking.

There. That oughta do it. The Bucs will be 12-4 before you know it. Some other bits and bytes to ponder as you scrounge enough money together to buy tickets to the Bucs’ first playoff game:

—It’s not like I’ve got anybody else to award the trophy for “Most Hilarious Opposing Football Coach,” since post-game press conference Saturday was the first one I’d attended since 1995, way back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. But James Madison’s Mickey Matthews apparently decided laughter was the best medicine following the Dukes’ 24-17 loss to the Dutchmen.

For instance, here’s Matthews on the Dutchmen going 4-for-5 on fourth down conversions: “The missed one must have been somewhere in pregame warm-ups.”

On the possibility that the officials missed a pass interference call on the Dukes’ final play from scrimmage: “I thought the last play of the game was a bad call. But I’m not going to say nothing. I would have told them they reffed better than we coached.”

On the Dukes’ sluggish play, particularly on defense, in the first half: “I think we decided to play. We [were] really enjoying the sights of Long Island. And it sure is pretty up here. Nice hotel. Nice mills. Nice looking girls. Nice people and nice stadium.”

Maybe he can pen the “About Long Island” section of next year’s media guide.

—The Dutchmen aren’t the offensive juggernaut of the Joe Gardi era, but you’ve got to figure Gardi would have loved coaching quarterback Steve Probst, who chimed in at the post-game press conference after Cohen talked about the Dutchmen’s aggressiveness on fourth down.

“Nobody likes to punt,” Probst said.

—You, too, can help the Binghamton men’s basketball team defend its America East championship! (Of course, Binghamton couldn’t even hold an open tryout without ticking off the authorities) As long as, one assumes, you pass a thorough background check.

—Loren Stokes and Antoine Agudio were among the 25 players named to the CAA’s 25th anniversary team this week, a pretty impressive feat considering the five other teams to join the CAA since the turn of the century combined to place just one player on the team (Northeastern’s Jose Juan Barea). Clearly, Tom O’Connor had nothing to do with the selection process.

—You might see the calendar, realize yesterday was the 15^th anniversary of the Dutchmen’s 62-7 thrashing of Central Connecticut State—a win that finally vaulted Hofstra into the top 25—and wonder where in the hell is the recap of that game. More than likely, this is the first you’ve thought of it. That’s OK, I forgive you.

Anyway, we went away for a few days and taking a giant Chronicle blue book on the trip seemed like a bad idea of ginormous proportions, so that recap will appear upon our return late tonight or first thing Friday. Stop back for that as well as a more in-depth look at the 28-6 win over New Hampshire, otherwise known as The Game That Changed Everything.

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

In which I realize the history of Hofstra basketball goes back at least five years

Who knew, in 1998, that the first and oft-repeated line of this Third Eye Blind song was about Flying Dutchmen fans circa 2009?

As the song goes (not the one above...that'd be too predictable), I was wrong Tuesday when I wrote a Tom Pecora never had to rebuild a team’s wounded psyche on the fly. Actually, that’s not how the Social Distortion song goes at all. A California punk/blues rock band writing a song in 1996 about Tom Pecora rebuilding a team’s wounded psyche on the fly would just be weird.

Anyway, the Flying Dutchmen also skidded ashore after a red-hot start in 2004-05, when a team picked to finish seventh in the CAA took advantage of a lightweight non-conference schedule to begin the season 9-0—the program’s best start ever at the Division I level—but immediately thereafter endured a 1-5 stretch that included four straight conference losses.

That season’s slump and the current 1-4 skid that has followed an 8-1 start by a team picked to finish seventh in the CAA aren’t mirror images of one another. For one thing, this is much deeper: The Dutchmen have been outscored by 49 points in the losses and their point total has dwindled in each of the five games—from 81 to 64 to 62 to 56 to 50. In 2004-05, the Dutchmen were outscored by 28 points in the five losses and they scored at least 66 points in every game but one in the six-game stretch.

In addition, Hofstra has trailed wire-to-wire in its last two games, a “feat” not accomplished in any of the five previous seasons (the box scores at the Hofstra site go back to 2002-03).

But there are plenty of notable similarities. The 1-5 run four years ago began with the game that had long been identified as the biggest challenge on the OOC—an 80-75 loss to Syracuse. This one began with the 97-81 hammering by UMass, which was one of only two games on this year’s OOC against a school from a major conference.

The fourth loss in the 2004-05 stumble was a 70-58 defeat at the hands of VCU in which the Dutchmen made a key lineup change—senior Wendell Gibson, who was recovering from knee surgery, became a starter in place of Aurimas Kieza—set season-lows for points and assists (six) while committing a season-high 20 turnovers. Carlos Rivera and Antoine Agudio shot a combined 0-for-9 in the first half as the Dutchmen were limited to 18 points overall.

These Dutchmen suffered their fourth loss in five games against Northeastern Monday, when Tony Dennison was benched for the first time this season as Greg Johnson made his first start. The Dutchmen scored their fewest points and committed their most turnovers and missed the season low in assists by one. Charles Jenkins and Cornelius Vines shot a combined 1-for-6 during Hofstra’s 18-point first half.

This team has a lumbering senior center with injury-wracked knees in Dane Johnson. That team had Gibson. This team’s two best players are sophomores Jenkins and Greg Washington. That team’s three best players were sophomores Rivera and Loren Stokes and redshirt freshman Agudio. This team features a senior point guard in Johnson who has one more shot to live up to the high expectations bestowed upon him when he arrived on campus as a freshman—just like the 2004-05 team and Woody Souffrant.

And speaking of high expectations, this team has a trio of JUCO transfers who were projected to make an immediate impact in Dennison, Vines and Miklos Szabo. Four years ago, JUCO transfers Kenny Harris and Adrian Uter were touted as potentially valuable big men.

Here’s another similarity the Dutchmen hope to experience tonight when they host much-improved long-time rival Delaware: The 2004-05 team snapped its losing streak against the Blue Hens with an 80-66 win at the Arena.

And here’s another reminder to follow Michael Litos’ suggestion and step away from the ledge (says the guy who has written 2,000 mostly fretful words over the previous two days): The Dutchmen didn’t immediately turn their season around following the Delaware win and were 6-6 after 12 conference games that season, but they won their final six contests to earn a first-round bye and led top-seeded Old Dominion by 10 points in the second half of a conference semifinal before falling to the eventual champions. The Dutchmen earned a bid to the NIT, where they fell in the first round to St. Joseph’s to finish 21-9.

Of course, if they lose tonight and look as disjointed as they did Monday, feel free to re-enter panic mode. Then I’ll really begin to wonder if this is 1995-96 all over again. More on ’95-‘96, win or lose, tomorrow. In the meantime, Darren Townes is again the pick to click. And come back later today, when I may have something really interesting for you. How’s that for an enticement to make a return visit this afternoon?

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

The Retiring Types

Lousy couple weeks for the guys on the right hand side of the Defiantly Dutch header. First Lance Schulters got his walking papers from the Saints. Then Marques Colston, who last year broke Wayne Chrebet’s record for most catches by a player in his first two NFL seasons, learned he almost certainly won’t break the record for the most catches by a player in his first three seasons due to a broken thumb that will sideline him for four-to-six weeks.

News of Colston’s injury broke a day after Hofstra announced Colston is one of 20 former star athletes whose numbers the school will retire. (How’s that for a segue?) Noted in the press release was Hofstra’s plans to honor the player during his or her “…respective sports season, unless schedules dictate otherwise.”

Colston’s forced convalescence would seemingly present an opportunity to squeeze in a halftime ceremony, but with the Flying Dutchmen embarking on a month-long road trip following the Sept. 20 game against Rhode Island, don’t expect to see Colston at Shuart Stadium until the Saints’ bye week in 2009.

The sight of retired numbers at the stadia and arenas on campus will lend an additional layer of legitimacy to the school’s athletic programs, so kudos to an administration that hasn’t always seemed interested in honoring and embracing the past. Colston and hoops icon Speedy Claxton are the most notable of the honorees, who follow in the footsteps of football’s Wayne Chrebet (3) and Walter Kohanowich (33) and softball’s Crystal Boyd, whose number 13 was retired last year.

The favorite ones here are, of course, the Defiantly Dutch-era stars: The mountainous Dave Fiore, who nearly matched Chrebet by making the NFL as an undrafted free agent and playing for eight seasons; softball star Stacy Jackson, whose dominance and durability—she ranks first all-time in innings pitched (885, including 256 in 1995), wins (96) and no-hitters (six)—helped jumpstart the Flying Dutchwomen’s dominant era and lacrosse goalie Stephanie Clarke, who was the first Hofstra player to make the national team.

The selection committee did a nice job of spreading the wealth, so to speak, with nine of the 20 athletes having graduated prior to 1990. Among the truly old school honorees is Steve Nisenson, who set the career scoring record in the era of freshman ineligibility and held on for 43 years until Antoine Agudio—another no. 13—broke it in February. But fear not, Agudio fans: The Yankees proved you can retire the same number for more than one player.