This is for the ones who stood their ground

Long before we ever got to the doorstep of #8Wins4CAA, there was the seemingly Quixotic hashtag that turned into reality and made all of this—VCU’s incredible, historic, orgasm-is-an-anagram-for-GORAMS run from the First Four to the Final Four—possible. And so, as we congratulate VCU and Rams fans on unprecedented achievement and direct you to those who can do this story justice—Mike Litos and Kyle Whelliston—we also pay homage to those who stood their ground and will enjoy this as much as anyone outside of RamNation, beginning with the ones who treaded what had to be the loneliest patch of grass in the yard.

Our good friends and William & Mary alums @Gheorghetheblog and @batogato were the ones who started the #3Bids4CAA movement on Twitter back before Valentine’s Day and they, along with Litos, kept the faith even as the odds and hope seemed to dwindle. It was Litos who on Selection Sunday—15 days that feel as if they happened 15 years ago—channeled Tug McGraw (Google him, kids!) and implored us to believe in the two percent.

We thought they were crazy. Turned out they were prescient geniuses. Enjoy this, gents, you believed before, and with more fervor than, anyone else.

This VCU run is also for those of us who displayed a different fervor five years ago, for the Hofstra fans who pushed away the spoon and refused to swallow the feel-good Cinderella story being spewed by a nation that didn’t know the truth, didn’t know what we knew about THEIR run and HIS way. Most people—especially THEIR fans—wondered how we could derive nothing but sickness and heartache out of THAT run, how we could let our contempt and, yes, hatred consume us during the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to root for a school in the same conference as Hofstra—Hofstra, for crying out loud, a school just 12 years removed from winning the championship in a conference that didn’t have an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament—to reach the Final Four.

Once-in-a-lifetime or not, how we felt and reacted in 2006 was the right thing—the only thing—to do. This—a seemingly twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity, emphasis on seemingly—is a reward for us, a second chance nobody ever expected to get. If they didn’t understand why we felt how we felt five years ago, then they’ll never understand the sense of peace that came over all of us yesterday afternoon, of seeing a team whose Final Four run wasn’t hatched via felonious acts of assault and underhanded backroom politics and whose coach delivers inspirational speeches that sound authentic, heartfelt and spontaneous and not hackneyed and scripted for television.

2006 is a footnote now—one that will always gnaw at us, to be sure, but one we no longer have to hear parroted every goddamn March by people who don’t know any better. We are free. Now and forever, the Cinderella standard is five wins over five BCS league opponents to get to the Final Four. Now and forever, we are searching for—and hoping to become—the next VCU.

This VCU run is for those who cover entire leagues and an entire genre (for lack of a better word) of basketball in the type of comprehensive and outstanding fashion they deserve, and not as the niche the gatekeepers wish it was. Once again, this is for you, Mike Litos, a man I am proud to call my friend and someone who inspires me everyday to be a better writer and person, and for you, Kyle Whelliston, so accurately dubbed the bard of the mid-majors.

Of all the Tweets generated by VCU’s stunning upset yesterday, my very favorite was from Northwestern State broadcaster Patrick Netherton: “Funny that this season, with all ESPN’s experts, the guy most knowledgeable about half the Final Four teams is @midmajority, who they fired.”

Whelliston was fired for daring to suggest “The Sports Bubble” that was created by ESPN is unsustainable. The mainstream kicked him out, and not coincidentally, has deemed the CAA a conference unworthy of big-time coverage or a seat at the big boy table. So Litos and Whelliston ran an end-around and made their own breaks, and this weekend, they will be covering VCU in the Final Four.

Most of all, this VCU run is for all those who stood our ground and refused to believe the notion that the mid-major basketball we love is somehow lesser than power conference ball. It’s for those whose world views are shaped not by what ESPN tells us is REALLY IMPORTANT but by heading out to smaller arenas and gymnasiums and seeking out those of our ilk on what must be the best community on the Internet. It is a place where a Hofstra fan and a Mason fan can tell each other to go fudge a kite, and then come to appreciate and respect the other’s passion for his alma mater, all in a single day.

It is a place in which everyone went to bed last night (or this morning) dreaming of the day their team is the one tugging at uniform tops after knocking out Drago. The odds are long—very long. But three mid-majors have made the Final Four in the last five years. As Final Four-bound VCU coach Shaka Smart might say: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”

Yes there is. The last song I heard before I got out of the car last night was the Rocky IV anthem—and Hofstra Arena staple—“No Easy Way Out.” That’s a good enough sign for me. We can be the next VCU. The hashtag is #HUF4. Pass it on.

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

Drexel 75, Hofstra 62 (Or: It’s all the same, only the names will change…everyday it seems the Dutchmen are wasting away)

Who knew New Jersey's second-best rock star was singing about Long Island college basketball way back in 1987?

To drive down Hempstead Turnpike Saturday night was to travel the bell curve of emotions experienced by Flying Dutchmen fans this season.

We drove to Miller’s Ale House, the restaurant where we watched the Dutchmen open the season against Kansas, to buy a gift card for Loyal Reader and former Vander Poel Hall roommate John, whose surprise 40th birthday party was Saturday night. (Happy Birthday dude, in your honor, I will sleep through my alarm this morning!)

Seventy-one nights earlier, the conversation and mood in the car during the drive to Miller’s was overflowingly optimistic. The Dutchmen could beat Kansas…they could beat UConn in the preseason NIT four days later…they could win the CAA Tournament in March…they could win a game or two in the NCAA Tournament.

Sure, it all seemed a bit outlandish, but it wasn’t stare-at-white-walls crazy, either. The Dutchmen wouldn’t open the season by visiting two of college basketball’s holiest places if big things weren’t possible, right?

Being in the car on a Saturday night also reminded me of three weeks earlier, when my wife and I hashed out the one-point loss to William & Mary while driving around the Island. She thought it was a sign of bad things to come. I worried it defined a season and perhaps an era, one in which the Dutchmen would master the near-miss. But still…it was early. The unbridled optimism was gone, but there was still plenty of sun visible behind the clouds.

Not anymore. There was no optimism in the car conversation Saturday night, no glimpses of the sun to be found a few hours after the Dutchmen fell to Drexel, 75-62, in a game that was absolutely nowhere near as close as the final score would indicate.

Unlike both William & Mary games and the first George Mason game, there was no second half lead, no possibility the Dutchmen could record that Signature Win the program has lacked the last several years. And they were not even competitive in defeat, unlike against Old Dominion or the last two home games against VCU and Mason.

The Dutchmen led once after the first media timeout of the afternoon, fell behind by double digits for good with a little more than six minutes left in the first half and were down by 30 (63-33) less than halfway through the second half before ending the game on a meaningless 29-12 run that made the final score cosmetically closer. They were down by 20 with 30 seconds left before scoring the final seven points, including five in the final five seconds on a 3-pointer by Chaz Williams and a layup by Nathaniel Lester following his steal of the inbounds pass.

It almost would have been better if the Dutchmen ended up suffering the worst conference loss of the Pecora Era (24 points at the hands of both Mason—hi new friends!—in 2009 and UNC Wilmington in 2002), because the final score might lull those who didn’t see the game into believing it was another fairly close loss for a team that seems to be one win away from getting over that proverbial and clichéd hump.

It wasn’t. It was a disaster. It IS a disaster—the worst season of the Defiantly Dutch Era.

The Dutchmen have lost five straight games for the first time since the 2002-03 season and are 2-7 at the halfway point of the CAA season, their worst mark through nine games under Pecora and the program’s worst record through nine conference games since Jay Wright’s first team was 1-8 in the North Atlantic Conference in 1994-95.

At least during those seasons, some hiccups and long losing streaks were to be expected. The ’94-95 team was transitioning to a new conference and adapting to a completely new coaching staff. The ’02-03 team was in its second year in the far more competitive CAA and played half that season with starters Rick Apodaca and Wendell Gibson suspended due to failed drug tests.

But this—whatever “this” is—wasn’t supposed to happen. The schedule was not upgraded with the expectation that the Dutchmen would be 2-7 and 9-12 by the time Super Bowl hype began. Teams that feature the preseason co-player of the year—and neither Wright’s first team nor Pecora’s second squad had anyone near the caliber of Charles Jenkins—are not supposed to be buried this early.

Maybe the high hopes of Nov. 13 were more tongue-in-cheek than realistic—even I, the world’s biggest Hofstra Homer, didn’t foresee an NCAA Tournament berth this year—but nobody’s worst-case scenario foresaw the Dutchmen sliding towards the basement at the halfway point of the conference season and facing an incredibly long and unlikely road back to respectability.

The presence of Jenkins and what appears to be a more forgiving second half schedule suggests the Dutchmen could turn this around fairly quickly and at least salvage a decent finish. And all this pessimism be damned, I know all it will take is consecutive wins for visions of a miraculous March run to begin dancing in my head.

But history is not on the Dutchmen’s side. Eighteen teams have opened conference play 2-7 or worse since the CAA began playing an 18-game conference schedule in 2001-02. Only one team—Towson in 2001-02—has played better than .500 in the second half. Those Tigers also recorded the best finish of the 18 clubs, but they finished seventh in what was then a 10-team league.

Since the CAA expanded to 12 teams in 2005-06, the highest finish for a team that began 2-7 or worse is ninth. And the teams that were 2-7 or worse at the halfway point have combined to win only five CAA Tournament games. Only one team—Towson last season—got as far as the semifinals.

And what, aside from Jenkins, is to indicate the Dutchmen will make history, or at the very least join Towson as a squad that somewhat turned its season around?

Their next three games, and six of their final nine conference tilts, are against teams that are currently 3-6 or worse. But the two teams that will visit Hempstead this week, UNC Wilmington and Delaware, are coming off victories, and after that the Dutchmen head to James Madison, which is presumably still located in Virginia, where the Dutchmen are 0-3 this year and 3-10 in the last three years. Oh well, at least the two lone regular season wins in that span were one-point decisions over James Madison.

In addition, the Dutchmen no longer look like on the cusp of a breakthrough, as they did earlier this month. This is a team that appears to be in the throes of a complete meltdown.

The Dutchmen shot 40 percent or less for the fourth time in five games Saturday, allowed the opponent to shoot better than 45 percent for the fourth straight game and allowed an opposing player to set a career high in points for the third time in those four games.

Jenkins scored 13 points, albeit on 3-of-10 shooting, and Miklos Szabo continued his resurgence with 14 points and five rebounds in a career-high 34 minutes. Szabo has played at least 32 minutes in three of the Dutchmen’s last four games after failing to exceed 31 minutes in any of his first 36 games at Hofstra.

But Cornelius Vines—who sat out the second half Tuesday after telling Pecora he lacked confidence—didn’t play at all Saturday, even though the Dutchmen are down to seven scholarship players, and juniors Lester and Greg Washington, who were supposed to comprise the Dutchmen’s core along with Jenkins, continued their inexplicable descent.

Lester played 24 minutes, fewest of the starters and the sixth straight game in which he has played fewer than 30 minutes. He played at least 30 minutes in 11 of the Dutchmen’s first 15 games. Washington had six points and six rebounds, but only two points and one rebound in the first half.

One minor positive about bottoming out—whether it finally happened Saturday or whether it’s yet to take place—is it will allow for more on-the-job auditions for freshmen such as Yves Jules and David Imes as Pecora finds out what he has for next year behind Jenkins and freshmen Williams and Halil Kanacevic. Imes is sidelined by a high ankle sprain but Jules played 23 minutes Saturday and scored a career-high eight points, including seven unanswered immediately after Drexel took its 30-point lead.

Things are so bad that we’ve got to gaze six hours south to our good friends in Mason Nation for some glimmers of hope. The Patriots are 8-1 and tied for first place with a starting lineup comprised of three sophomores and two juniors. So maybe the Dutchmen will make a dramatic leap forward next year with Jenkins and four underclassmen in the starting lineup. Of course, Mason's starters have the experience of reaching the CAA championship game and playing in a postseason tournament game, two luxuries that will almost surely continue to escape the Dutchmen this season.

Relying on George Mason for encouragement is no fun at all. But what choice do we have, after a drive down Hempstead Turnpike reminded us the 2009-10 Dutchmen are on the road to nowhere?

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Drexel, 1/23)

3: Miklos Szabo

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Yves Jules

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 37

Chaz Williams 21

Halil Kanacevic 18

Nathaniel Lester 18

Miklos Szabo 15

Cornelius Vines 8

Greg Washington 8

Yves Jules 1

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