Of the three likely number twos, who works best for the Dutchmen?

"Hey pardner, just relax, don't force it! Use some creative visualization in trying to project the number two seed and potential quarterfinal opponent for the Flying Dutchmen!"

The Flying Dutchmen are a picture of calm surrounded by chaos as the final lap of the CAA season begins. Whether the Dutchmen crane their heads northward or take a glance downward, they see teams scrambling for seeding in the upcoming CAA Tournament.

The six teams ahead of the Dutchmen are separated by three games and battling for the ever-so-valuable four first-round byes. Their current perches are so precarious—Northeastern, for example, would be the top seed if the season ended today but could still finish as low as fifth—that any misstep could deliver a lethal blow to their CAA Tournament hopes.

Expending any energy pondering potential tourney matchups is foolish, since the landscape will likely look much different Thursday morning than it does today—and much different again next Thursday morning and next Sunday morning. There could be a two-, three-, four-, five- or even six-way tie for first place, or a three-way tie for second place, or a four-way tie for third place, or…you know what, just trust me, it’s complicated. Best for Northeastern, Old Dominion, George Mason, William & Mary, Drexel and VCU to just concentrate on the next game on the schedule.

The five teams below the Dutchmen, meanwhile, are separated by just a game and are not vying for the prestige of a bye but merely to save some face and gain some momentum for a slightly better matchup as an eighth, ninth or 10th seed. The same sentiments apply: There may be a simply magnificent three-, four- or five-way tiebreaker to be untangled after the final conference game is played, so all the teams involved can do is focus on trying to make things as uncomplicated as possible.

And then there’s our beloved Dutchmen, who are so comfortably ensconced in seventh place that there is a better chance of the Powerball six-team tie for first at 12-6 happening than Hofstra moving up or down. One more win by VCU eliminates the Dutchmen from the race for sixth. And one more win by the Dutchmen (winners of five of their last six) or one more loss by Georgia State (losers of three in a row, six of seven and nine of 11) clinches the seventh seed.

And even if the Dutchmen lose out and Georgia State wins out, the Dutchmen would finish no lower than eighth thanks to their tiebreaker advantages over James Madison, Towson and UNC Wilmington.

So while everyone else lives by the boring-ass philosophy of one game at a time, we have the luxury here of looking ahead 17 and 18 days to the opening and quarterfinal rounds of the CAA Tournament and to the possible opponents for the Dutchmen.

This project actually began with me pondering the Dutchmen’s quarterfinal opponent, but nothing would be more embarrassing than to have all this work go for naught because I screwed with the karma by assuming an opening round win. So for the sake of keeping the basketball gods at bay, the 10th-place team if the season were to end today would likely be UNC Wilmington.

I say likely because there is currently a wild four-way tie for eighth. James Madison would fall to 11th because of its 1-3 record against the other 4-11 teams. Towson would be the eighth seed by virtue of its 2-1 record against Georgia State and UNC Wilmington, the latter two of whom split the season series. But I believe Georgia State would get the ninth seed because it beat George Mason (I think the next tiebreaker, after head-to-head, is performance of the two teams against the first-place team, then the second, and so on, until someone has an advantage). Hence, another opening round Hofstra-UNC Wilmington matchup.

Of the four most likely opening round opponents, James Madison—fresh off an upset of VCU and with the 6-foot-10 behemoth Denzel Bowles patrolling the paint—is one I’d like to see least. The Dutchmen won their four games against Towson and UNC Wilmington by a combined 92 points, so a third game with either team—despite urban legends to the contrary—shouldn’t make us fret too much. Of course, we will anyway.

Anyway, regardless of opponent, the Dutchmen—who are 6-0 against teams below them in the standings with tonight’s game against Delaware and the season finale against Georgia State still on the docket—should win that first game. So let’s look ahead to the quarterfinals. Who, among the six teams vying for the top four seeds, would the Dutchmen most likely to be face on Saturday?

For all intents and purposes, let’s eliminate William & Mary, Drexel and VCU from the discussion. It’s certainly possible one of those teams would finish second, but William & Mary and Drexel are two games back of Northeastern and Old Dominion and VCU is three back with three to play.

So the overwhelming likelihood is that either Northeastern, Old Dominion or George Mason will finish second. Alas, unfortunately for the Dutchmen, the team that presents the best—and most delicious—matchup is George Mason, which is also the one least likely to finish second.

The Dutchmen had Mason down seven more than midway through the second half in Fairfax Jan. 3 and would certainly be revved up for a rematch following the embarrassing loss at the Arena Jan. 19. Northeastern, meanwhile, outscored the Dutchmen by 33 after falling behind 15-2 Feb. 6 while Old Dominion never trailed in a 57-46 win Jan. 9.

The Patriots are also far more immature than either of the senior-dominated squads at Northeastern and Old Dominion, both of whom have a last-time-around feel to them and won’t be lacking for focus or motivation in the tournament. I’m sure that negative characterization of Mason will once again fail to endear me to the less likable segment of Mason Nation, but don’t shoot the messenger. It’s not my fault you’ve had four players suspended this season.

And if you want some knee-slapping laughs, check out Jim Larranaga’s comments about Mike Morrison’s suspension as well as the spin doctoring by the most sycophantic of Mason fans at the CAA Zone and elsewhere. Nothing I write here can put it any better or in any more entertaining fashion.

Now, that said, Mason under my good friend Larranaga has played some of its best ball in the CAA Tournament, reaching the final the last three seasons and four of the past six overall. So it’s entirely possible that the knuckleheadness would stop and Mason would run the Dutchmen all the way back to Hempstead.

Anyway, the simplest way for Mason to finish second is to end up in a three-way tie for first with Northeastern and Old Dominion at 14-4. Northeastern would be the one seed based on its 2-1 record against the other two teams while Mason (2-2) would be second and ODU (1-2) third.

But Mason has to sweep its final three games to finish 14-4—a bit of a challenge, considering the Patriots will be without the hot-headed Morrison tonight against William & Mary, play Northeastern in the season finale, have lost three of their last four and recorded the only win in that span following an epic comeback over VCU.

In addition, the toughest game left on Old Dominion’s schedule is the regular season finale in which it hosts VCU. So it’s fair to project 15-3 for the Monarchs. And Mason would lose the tiebreaker for second place with Northeastern by virtue, again, of the unbalanced schedule (the Huskies went 1-0 against Old Dominion while Mason went 1-1).

Another possibility: ODU and Mason win out and Northeastern goes 1-2, falling to the Dutchmen as well as Mason. Given how easily the Huskies handled the Dutchmen at Hofstra this year and in Boston last year, I’m not exactly counting on that one. But if this were to happen, the Patriots would finish second and the Huskies third.

There is also a wild scenario in which a four-way tie for second place would be created when William & Mary and Drexel win their final three, Mason goes 2-1 and Northeastern goes 1-2. In that case, William & Mary would be the two seed by virtue of its 4-0 record against the other 13-5 teams. The Fighting Bill Lawrences swept the Dutchmen and are another mature, veteran team, but the Dutchmen led for the first 39 minutes in the first game at Hofstra and led by seven in the second half of the rematch in Virginia, so the matchup is another potentially appealing one.

The most likely scenario is that ODU runs the table and wins the top seed outright when Northeastern drops its finale at Mason. That would present the Dutchmen with a quarterfinal game against the Huskies, which is a doubly tough assignment given Northeastern’s skill level and the inherent likability of your Twitter friend and mine Matt Janning and crew. Of course, the good news is that I’ve got 18 days to come up with reasons why Northeastern is a far better quarterfinal opponent than Mason.

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

Hofstra 66, Delaware 61 (Or: Emotional Rescue)

Austin Powers raises a glass to the Flying Dutchmen, even if their win wasn't quite as beautiful as Vanessa Kensington.

A starving man will eat anything and think it’s the greatest thing he’s ever consumed. Liverwurst, gruel, even a Hofstra Burger that’s been sitting under those heat lamps since the library only had 500,000 volumes.

It won’t take until a little later, when his stomach is full and maybe barking a little bit, that he’ll realize that liverwurst or gruel or Hofstra Burger from 1973 was actually not nearly as good as he thought it was. But no-longer-starving man is still grateful for the food, since, you know, eating something that Emeril or even Rachael Ray (don’t worry, I resisted the urge to post a not suitable for work picture…barely) would scoff at is still better than going hungry.

I mention this not because I’m hungry (though my wife made a great pot roast in the slow cooker) but because at around 9 p.m. last night, the Flying Dutchmen’s 66-61 win over Delaware (a game covered by, be still my beating heart, at least four daily newspapers—the Daily News, the Post and the News-Journal in Delaware, link to Newsday story further below) was the greatest tonic ever for a team starving for a win after dropping two straight conference games and four of five contests overall.

Better than the two America East championship game victories over the Blue Hens. Better than the NIT win over St. Joseph’s. Better than beating St. John’s for the first time (and the second time, and the third time, and the fourth time, too).

Greg Johnson was outstanding at the point, racking up seven assists and no turnovers (that’s a ratio of infinity, you know). Slumping Charles Jenkins scored 18 points. Nathaniel Lester, who for so long has seemed to be the very definition of a tweener—just a little too big and unpredictable on offense to be a guard, not big enough or forceful enough down low to be a small forward—led the Dutchmen with eight rebounds, including a pure effort grab that led to a key late lay-up by Cornelius Vines. It’s the second time in four games Lester has collected eight boards.

The Dutchmen looked like a complete team during a 15-2 run that turned a 22-17 deficit into a 32-24 halftime lead. They hit five of 10 shots and outrebounded the Blue Hens 9-5 during the stretch.

A team whose performance from the free throw line is not for the faint of heart was, shockingly, almost perfect—24-of-26, including 20-of-20 in the second half. That’s got to be the Dutchmen’s best performance from the line since at least 1956 (give or take a couple decades, of course).

Two days after Tom Pecora had to take some air out of the tires, Vines played with his familiar swagger as well as the good kind of emotion in scoring a game- and career-high 23 points. He shot and missed at will to open the second half (0-for-6) but hit three of his last four shots, including a pair of rare lay-ups. Vines set a season-high by attempting 11 shots inside of the 3-point line, a pretty notable shift for a guy who took two or fewer shots from inside the arc seven times in his first 14 games.

After hitting the second lay-up to extend the Flying Dutchmen’s lead to 58-54, Vines ran down the court with his arms in the air, extorting a predictably small Intersession crowd to make the type of noise that filled the Arena with an atypical roar—for a few seconds, at least.

The Dutchmen seemed to follow Vines’ lead. Dane Johnson did the arms thing when he came off the court after he drew a charge that negated a potential game-tying basket by the Blue Hens. And the bench—full of downcast, morose expressions most of the last five games—was so lively in the final minutes that Pecora had to threaten to turn the bench around and drive back home.

In retrospect, of course, the win wasn’t THAT good. As my wife sang to the tune of “We Are The Champions”: “No time for Blue Hens, because we are marginally better than you!”

The issues that have dogged Hofstra since mid-December haven’t been solved. The Dutchmen endured another terrible game from the field in shooting just 29.7 percent (19-of-64), their second-worst performance of the season. The Dutchmen were fortunate that Delaware shot just 30.5 percent (18-of-59) and that Marc Egerson, Jawan Carter and Alphonso Dawson, who averaged a combined 49.6 points entering the game, were a combined 6-of-37.

Jenkins led the way again—so to speak—for the cold-shooting Dutchmen by making just four of his season-high 24 shots, many of which barely grazed the rim. On the bright side, Jenkins at least got his shots Wednesday—he set a season-low in shots in each of the previous two games—and he displayed some of his Loren Stokes-like ability to fill up the boxscore even when he’s not filling the basket.

Jenkins was 10-of-10 from the free throw line, tied a season-high with a team-best three steals and committed just two turnovers after turning the ball over 15 times in his previous three games. And as the lede to this Newsday story indicates, at least Jenkins is smiling about his struggles instead of torturing himself (more on the latter in a bit).

After opening that eight-point halftime lead, the Dutchmen let Delaware hang around and eventually take the lead. The game was a one-possession nail-biter for most of the final five minutes before Monte Ross did his best Bruiser Flint imitation and got T’d up with seven seconds left.

And the depth that appeared so promising in November continues to be a mirage. Only seven players saw at least 12 minutes of playing time and Miklos Szabo, Darren Townes and Tony Dennison—who were expected to be regular starters—played a combined 19 minutes.

So it wasn’t a thing of beauty. But the rebuilding of the overall psyche couldn’t begin until the Dutchmen got a win, no matter how ugly and lacking in style points it was. And 2-2 in the CAA going into VCU looks a whole lot better than 1-3, which would have bordered on disastrous given the hot start enjoyed by the Dutchmen and the resultant raised expectations.

Jenkins, the symbol of the Dutchmen’s recent struggles, also summarized the relief of Dutch Nation. Seconds after the final buzzer, Jenkins—who spent most of the previous 40 minutes expressing his frustration by banging his right hand on the floor or on the padding attached to the basket—kneeled down at midcourt and gently tapped the “H” twice.

Hunger satiated. Mojo stirring. Bigger and more satisfying feasts, hopefully, to come.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

A Q&A with Tom Pecora in which he prays for mojo

Sure, Pecora was referring to Austin Powers' mojo. But there's nothing funnier in the world than posting a picture of Homer's overfed and "house-trained" helper monkey.

Caught up with Tom Pecora this morning, immediately after the shoot-around at Hofstra Arena and a few hours before the Flying Dutchmen try to snap out of their funk against ECC rival Delaware.

Pecora is optimistic the Dutchmen will—warning! Old-school pun coming up!—right the ship soon but also candid about the causes of his team’s recent nosedive and what the Dutchmen—and struggling players such as Charles Jenkins, Tony Dennison and Miklos Szabo—will have to do to aid the cause. He also discusses the emotional nature of Cornelius Vines, expresses his hope that the Dutchmen’s six seniors will play with a renewed sense of urgency now that the clock is winding down on their careers and how he handles the criticism he’s absorbed over the last few weeks.

Oh and Pecora also gives me months and months of photo material by uttering the word “mojo.” Oh sweet bountiful gift.

Enough out of me, go read what Tom has to say. Thanks to Tom for his time and to Jeremy Kniffin for setting up the interview. See you at the game tonight. I’ll be the one storming the court. (True story: Heard Queen’s “We Are The Champions” on the way to Hofstra. A good sign, perhaps?)


The last few weeks have obviously been rough for you guys. Was there a specific turning point in that stretch or was it a gradual build?

I think it was distinct. I think we were playing well into finals. We came out of finals and played poorly at UMass. It’s like Austin Powers—we’ve lost our mojo. [laughs] I think it’s directly related to Charles. Charles has got to get back to playing the way he’s capable of playing. If he plays poorly, we probably win three of the last four games. But he’s just played worse than that. And he’s aware of it and he and I talk about it all the time. The other night, 1-for-9 and six turnovers, he’s never played worse than that. So everything’s looking up from there, I think, for him.

He continues to work hard. They all do and it’s nothing a win won’t fix. You’re never as good as you think you are and never as bad as you think you are. So we’ve just got to find a way to win one tonight and then we’ll be 10-5, you know? [laughs] All of a sudden, you lose a few and guys aren’t scoring [and] they stink, I don’t know what I’m doing—all those wonderful emails you get from loyal fans. The same guys that were emailing you when you were 26-5 and calling you a genius. Like I say, you’re never as good, you’re never as bad.

What do you think is wrong with Charles? Is it just a matter of dealing with his first hiccup as a collegian?

I don’t believe in that sophomore jinx nonsense, but I think—hey, look, we’re playing better teams as we get into conference play. He is the focal point of everybody’s scouting report. And very often, when that happens, it can turn into a positive if other guys start stepping up. And now, all of a sudden, you become a more dangerous team by getting secondary and second- and third-level people making big-time plays at times. That hasn’t happened over the last few games. Cornelius Vines, he hasn’t played well. Greg Washington hasn’t played well at the same time and Greg Washington was kind of blossoming into a pretty good player. So it’s all part of the growth process. We say all the time: It’s a marathon, not a sprint. We’ve got to finish strong.

Does this stretch remind you at all of the 2004-05 season, when you went 1-5 immediately after a 9-0 start?

I didn’t compare it to that—a few people had mentioned that to me, but yeah, that could be. Look, the spirit is good, which is similar to that group. Yesterday, we came in after losing Monday night and not being able to score at all. I said ‘All right, we’re going to watch a real good college basketball team today. We’re going to watch some tape before practice of a game.’ And we watched our game versus Towson. And I said ‘That’s a good team. That’s you guys three weeks ago. So c’mon. Let’s get back to playing with the kind of passion, doing the things that we can do, and we’ll be fine.’

Outside of falling behind 12-2 early, that was a pretty thorough game for you guys.

We played our asses off. We had great spirit. It was a team effort. And all those things are very important to me. So yeah, I wanted them to see that. I wanted them to see themselves. And afterward, I said ‘That was you and that was you and that was you and that was you and it was everyone in this room. It’s nobody different.’ I think we’ll be OK.

Why have Tony Dennison and Miklos Szabo been inconsistent?

I think with Tony and Mikey, there’s a transition. I know we went through this with Adrian Uter. It took him about halfway through the season—it’s coming up at the end of this week for them—to really start figuring it out. It’s the speed of the game, the intensity—not only of the game, but the practices. In junior college, [Szabo] was the biggest, strongest in most games and Tony was the most athletic, quickest. So they could just get by on raw talent, where now they’ve got to work on every possession to make plays happen. But I think that’s coming along.

How do you approach a slump like this as a coach?

Well, I think they play off of you, so the one thing you never do is panic. And you just don’t lose faith in them, because I truly believe offensively—especially the shooting aspect of offense—is so much confidence. It’s from the neck up. So I have to let them know I still believe in them. If they’re not doing their extra work and their extra shooting—especially this time of year—then it’s crazy, because we’re not in classes. They all come in at night and shoot, so long as they continue to work hard, I have faith in them. I think—I know—we have a very good bunch of young men and I think the problem is they’re all trying to please everybody so much that when they don’t play well they get down. And you’ve got to almost be a little bit of a jerk in the sense to keep that swagger and say ‘Hey, I’m gonna make the next one, I don’t care that I missed that one. I’m gonna forget about that play and make the next play.’

Cornelius is a player who seems to have that swagger, that ability to forget a bad shot.

Yeah, Cornelius—we’ve got to rein him in a little. Which, to be quite honest, I would rather do. It’s nice to have to take a little air out of the tire instead of having to pump it up all the time.

He got pretty emotional after a couple foul calls Monday, after which you and some of his teammates were seen trying to calm him down.

He doesn’t realize you throw your arms up—well, the officials, they’re egomaniacs too. And they’re gonna say ‘This [expletive] kid’s showing me up. Boom. Here’s a touch [technical foul]. How do you like that? Now you’ve got to sit.’ And that’s all part of the game. That’s part of being mature and understanding. It’s just like a coach who goes out and flails his arms and pointing and stuff. Well, of course you’re going to get a ‘T.’ Or they’re going to punish your team next three trips down the floor. You’ve got to understand what’s really going on out there.

What has allowed Greg Johnson to work his way back into the starting lineup?

We have six seniors, so I’m hoping that some of these seniors step up and have the kind of years seniors usually can have for you. [In] Greg Johnson’s case, I think he’s our only true point guard and he gets us into offense and he can handle double-teaming and things like that, that kind of pressure, better than others. He kind of played the way I thought he would play the other night, but I thought we’d get more out of the sophomores, Jenkins and Washington.

When you talk about seniors emerging, do you think back to 2001 and the likes of Roberto Gittens and Greg Springfield really coming on during the second half?

Especially those two. It’s funny—Norm Richardson was here at Christmas and we were talking about that and he says ‘Hey, Roberto didn’t start playing like Roberto until we had 12 games left.’ Greg Springfield, the same thing. Sometimes, seniors, the light goes on. ‘Holy [smokes], I’ve got a dozen games left, I’ve got 15 games left.’ So that’s something I’ll start putting on the board in the corner somewhere. I’ll have the countdown, game-wise, and let them see that each day.

What are your thoughts so far on the rest of the CAA?

Crazy. Crazy—even more so [than usual]. I think the crazy thing about the CAA is this four games in a week thing. [It’s] good for some teams and not so good at all for others. Some teams are playing three home games, some teams are playing one or I think two. You already don’t play a balanced schedule. You just go out, you’ve got to play who’s on your schedule. You’ve got to find a way to win the game and then just look at your next game. You can’t think about it too much because there’s no method to it.

There’s no break in the schedule for you guys. Do you ever worry about your team looking ahead and seeing the challenges ahead—VCU, Drexel, Northeastern—and placing more pressure on itself to win now and end this skid?

That’s the league. That’s any good league. You know, look: When we were playing in the other conference years ago, this was the best job in the conference. We had the best players in the conference. And you could look at your schedule and you could say ‘All right. We’re going to win here, here, here, here and here’ and there were teams that we didn’t lose to over a five-, six-year period. That’s not going to happen in this league. The level of play is higher. Everything is better.

We really talk all the time about one-game winning streak and live in the moment—that type of stuff. I don’t think they get worried about that. I think coaches think about that kind of stuff. We’re the ones who need to be concerned with that, not them.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.