Burton knows best

Darius Burton knows the situation for the Flying Dutchmen in the CAA Tournament is much different than the one he and his teammates were presented with entering the 1994 East Coast Conference tournament.

These Dutchmen won 20 regular season games, finished fifth in one of the best mid-major conferences in the country and must win four tournament games in Virginia—home state of three of the top four seeds—in as many days in order to earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament.

Yet the objective and mindset are the same as 15 years ago, when the Dutchmen were seeded fifth in a piecemeal six-team league that offered no automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament yet won the championship by recording half as many victories in a three-day span in an empty arena in Buffalo as they had in the preceding three months.

“In general you can’t look ahead—you’ve got to look at each opponent one game at a time and do what they did today,” Burton said Friday, a few hours after the Dutchmen beat UNC-Wilmington and on the anniversary of the 1994 team’s title-clinching, double-overtime victory over Northeastern Illinois. “I heard it on the radio—they got off to a good start and they didn’t look back. Put your opponent away when you can, don’t settle. Put them away early, that way you can get your bench in there, get some rest and be ready to play tomorrow.”

While rest is valuable, Burton believes momentum and adrenaline are an even bigger advantage in a short tournament. A relatively easy 86-77 opening round win over Chicago State jumpstarted the Dutchmen, who were further fueled by a dramatic overtime victory over Troy State in the semifinals (Burton hit a lay-up just before the buzzer to give the Dutchmen a 90-89 win).

“Playing three games in three days, you get on a little roll, start believing in each other, you start playing good ball and it spreads,” Burton said. “It was very tiring, but I know for myself, I wasn’t thinking fatigue at all. I think at that stage you’re not even thinking about that. You’re thinking your season could be over with a loss.”

The end came for the Dutchmen with an 88-86 victory over Northeastern Illinois that not only served as a unique and unlikely going-away present for retiring coach Butch van Breda Kolff but also provided a lesson that’s as relevant today as it was in 1994.

“We were 6-20 [in the regular season], we had a horrible record, but we came together for three days and it was great,” Burton said. “We were the second-to-last team in the conference and we beat the [fifth seed], the two and the one to win it all. I think it just showed that if you put it all together for three days, it’s not [necessarily] the best team that wins but the hottest team that pays the best ball at the right time.”

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

Bits and Bytes: Saturday

Can’t say this enough: If you’re not clicking repeatedly on Litos’ tournament blog, you’re missing out on some great stuff. The above clip contains footage shot before, during and after the Flying Dutchmen’s win over UNC-Wilmington. It’s almost as good as being there and he’s really revved up for today, so check back all afternoon and evening.

Give the Dutchmen’s win another look by reading the game stories from the Richmond Times-Dispatch (as well as a notebook that features items on both the Dutchmen and Old Dominion), the Daily News and Newsday. Tom Pecora also appeared after the game with Mike Francesa, who, to the surprise of no one, could not be bothered to figure out what Charles Jenkins did before Pecora called in.

Pecora hints he believes the Dutchmen need to win today to give themselves a decent chance of earning an NIT bid, should, of course, they not win the tournament and the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. I still think today’s game is an elimination game for the NIT—no way a 32-team tournament takes a fourth- or fifth-place team from the CAA that didn’t get out of its own quarterfinals—but that whomever wins still has to get to the final to have a realistic shot.

I’m pretty sure the world spun off its axis sometime yesterday, because my mother-in-law is now contributing to the blog. She told us she read on The Sports Network that the Dutchmen were predicted to win 79-64. I told her that was crazy, she must have seen a box score from late in the second half. But it appears she was right. Of course let’s not get carried away pounding The Sports Network on its back. That’s the website, after all, that picked the Dutchmen to finish last in the CAA way back in November.

As for March, maybe it’s a good thing Hofstra didn’t finish sixth after all. That Towson thrashing of Drexel looked real familiar. And hey, Drexel, thanks for nuking my CAA tournament bracket! I felt pretty good two games in, not so much after four games. You know, a lot like I feel on the first day of the NCAA Tournament.

And don’t forget this afternoon’s potentially epic Old Dominion game is on MSG2-Plus, which I’ve never heard of and which apparently Cablevision customers don’t get (I’m pretty sure that’s ironic, in that it’s not ironic at all, since Cablevision runs MSG) However, it appears as if the game will be carried on Channel 14, otherwise known as the Channel That Killed TV Guide. Seriously, when was the last time you opened up a TV Guide or checked out the TV listings in the local paper?

Anyway…lastly, stop by for another story around noon or so, this one in which Darius Burton talks about the task of winning at least three games in as many days in a postseason tournament. Burton, of course, was the point guard on the 1993-94 Dutchmen, who won the ECC Tournament by winning three games in three days—a feat unmatched by a Hofstra team before or since.

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

Bits and Bytes: CAA Tournament

The clock is ticking...

Cliches exist for weekends like this. There really is no tomorrow. It’s all on the line. Win or go home. The cream rises to the top. Four months of basketball come down to four games. Et cetera, et cetera.

There’s no more rationalizing a defeat with “they’re just a little flawed, it’s still good, it’s still good.” The season is officially a tightrope and one more defeat (at least if it occurs before Monday) likely sends the Flying Dutchmen into the abyss of the off-season (or, perhaps, the CBI or CIT…which, you know, may be abysses of their own).

It’s the cruelest—remember last year, when the Dutchmen were the first team to tip off and the first one to go home?—yet potentially most rewarding weekend of the season, and the mere math suggests the odds are the ride home to Hempstead will be a long one. But everyone’s facing the same 1-in-12 shot, so why can’t the Dutchmen be the 1?

Sure, it’s a lot to expect four wins in four days, but this is the season in which all hell will break loose in a tournament that typically goes according to chalk. I refuse to believe everything will unfold in fairly predictable fashion after a crazy regular season.

It’s largely a matter of apples and oranges, but I think back a couple months and how an unpredictable NFL regular season beget a playoffs in which both top seeds were wiped out in the conference semifinals and an afterthought no. 5 seed fell to a perennial contender in a thrilling Super Bowl. (Hmm…in that case, I guess the Dutchmen would fall to Mason in the championship. Aaaaaargh!)

So how do the Dutchmen end up the Arizona Cardinals, plus one? They need Greg Johnson—who isn’t Carlos Rivera and isn’t a 40-minute-a-game point guard—to mimic Rivera’s nearly perfect play in the 2006 CAA Tournament. Tom Pecora is right to presume the Dutchmen will need big performances from their big men, but a combined 20 productive minutes a game out of the inconsistent Dane Johnson and the still-healing Miklos Szabo is essential to any title hopes.

Nathaniel Lester needs to rediscover his form and confidence of early-to-mid February, when he was a consistent double-double threat and the wingman to Charles Jenkins. Speaking of Jenkins, he doesn’t have to shoot 50 percent four straight games for the Dutchmen to win, but he does have to remain productive in other facets of the game even if he’s struggling from the field. Like he did against Fairfield, when he was 4-of-17 from the field but had nine assists and three steals.

Cornelius Vines and/or Zygis Sestokas need to be hot all weekend, because it’s going to be very tough to win a game in which neither one of them is draining multiple 3-pointers. Tony Dennison needs to have a game in which he scores more points than he did all of February. Considering he scored three points in February, I figure that’ll happen.

I like the Dutchmen’s chances because they’re fundamentally sound, extremely well-tested in close games and deeper than any other team in the field. Also, Mike Francesa said in December he didn’t think they could do it.

And I’m fretful because this team is prone to slow starts on the road, and all it takes is 10 bad minutes in the first half to render the first 30 (or more) games meaningless. And I’m fretful because history not only suggests but screams that nobody’s ever done this—this being a northern-based team winning the CAA, this being a team winning on Friday as well as Monday, this being a five seed emerging as the champion.

But what the hell. Optimism this weekend is a lot like a gift card to a store that’s getting ready to close (I know, I know: What a concept). There’s no saving it, so spend it all now. Plus, it’s the 15th anniversary of the fifth-seeded Dutchmen storming to the ECC championship.

It’s serendipity, baby. And if it’s not, well, hopefully they make it interesting along the way.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be in Richmond, but we’ll have posts as long as the Dutchmen are playing, so please keep stopping by. Enjoy the ride, however long it is.

***

Blog-biased predictions that will probably be wrong:

FIRST ROUND
No. 8 Georgia State over no. 9 Delaware: Maybe it’s just the fresh memories of Georgia State’s thrashing of the Dutchmen, but I have a hard time seeing the Panthers lose to Delaware, which is 5-11 overall—and 0-9 in conference—away from the Bob.

No. 5 Hofstra over no. 12 UNC-Wilmington: Historical trends aside, this one still scares me, and I don’t expect the Dutchmen will enjoy their first blowout of the conference season now. But they’ll expose the Seawolves just enough down low to advance to the quarters.

No. 10 William & Mary over no. 7 James Madison: For precisely the reasons Litos described…plus the whole tree-falling-on-the-JMU-parking-spot thing. Sometimes you just can’t ignore the signs, you know.

No. 6 Drexel over no. 11 Towson: Biggest blowout of the first round. Pat Kennedy’s last game?

QUARTERFINALS
No. 1 VCU over no. 8 Georgia State: For a few days last week I was thinking Georgia State would pull off a shocking upset here. That 28-point loss Saturday put a kibosh to that, but the Panthers will still make the Rams sweat here before VCU pulls away late.

No. 5 Hofstra over no. 4 Old Dominion: Game of the tournament. Whomever wins here makes the final. ODU is clicking better than anybody else and it won’t surprise me at all if they escape with the victory, but my minor blog bias foresees Charles Jenkins taking this game over late and declaring to all of Virginia his arrival as a CAA superstar.

No. 2 George Mason over no. 10 William & Mary: Midnight comes a couple rounds earlier this year for William & Mary.

No. 6 Drexel over no. 3 Northeastern: I know I was all over the Northeastern bandwagon a few weeks ago, but Drexel’s season-ending skid seems more a matter of bad luck and more reversible than that of the Huskies.

SEMIFINALS
Hofstra over VCU: Oh sure, the tiebreaker here is blog bias, but the Dutchmen gave the Rams all they could handle twice this year and have the big men to give VCU fits if Larry Sanders gets into foul trouble (which, with an average of 3.7 fouls per game this year, he will).

Drexel over George Mason: In a season in which nothing goes according to plan, a team finishing the regular season in a 1-4 slump and then making the conference title games makes perfect sense. The Dragons, who were a couple decent breaks away from being 14-4, get revenge for the first of their four conference losses by a single point in a strength vs. strength matchup. I just foresee Mason’s free throw difficulties catching up to it at some point this weekend. Why not here?

ECC CHAMPIONSHIP
Hofstra over Drexel: Revenge for 1986! Plenty of good seats available.

(I’ll also take credit for being right if Old Dominion beats Hofstra and wins its final two games)

***

Newsday previews the tournament here. So does the Daily News. And the New York Post. And the New York Times. Everyone’s climbing aboard! Alas only the Times is down there, and birdies tell me the Dutchmen will need to win at least two games before the other papers even think of sending anyone down to Virginia. Yeah, God forbid the bean counters at Long Island’s newspaper cover a Long Island college in its conference tournament.

Once again: For the best coverage of the tournament, click early and often on Litos. He's going to kick all sorts of ass.

I wish I was still a college student. A hundred bucks for tickets, transportation to Richmond and lodging—and people are complaining? I like to criticize Hofstra’s bottom-line ways as much as anyone, but people, geez, you’ll never enjoy a deal like this again, especially in the Great Depression II: Electric Bankruptaroo. Hope you went if you had the chance.

If you’re like me, you’re just hoping the CAA webcast is worth the five bucks. See you there in a few hours. I’ll be the guy yelling about Darius Burton.

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

In which I make a rare departure from commenting solely on Hofstra sports to wish my wife a happy anniversary

The most momentous day in Defiantly Dutch history occurred exactly 14 years ago tonight, and it had nothing to do with sports on campus. I was pacing around my tiny corner dorm room at Vander Poel Hall, watching this thing that used to show music videos and looking for decent clothes to wear for an impending first date, when Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” appeared on my screen.

And at that moment, I thought to myself, holy smokes, this might be my last first date ever. I might end up marrying that really cute news writer from The Chronicle named Michelle.

Sure, the bolt of lightning should have hit me while I was listening to something terribly cheesy, like this. But for some reason, the unabashed ebullience of the “Buddy Holly” song and video—the best and most brilliant video ever made, in my modest opinion—summed up how I was already feeling about Michelle.

I mean, geez, she liked sports as much as me. Our unofficial introduction occurred when she won the weekly football pool at the office and I grouched about how I couldn’t believe I lost to a girl. And our unofficial first date was the result of a bet: I bet my favorite NFL team, the then-godawful Tampa Bay Buccaneers, would cover the spread against the equally crappy Seattle Seahawks. The loser had to buy the winner lunch at the Student Center. A girl who understood gambling? Sign me up!

She thought Jay Wright was really cute, but found the beauty in the subtle games of Darius Burton and Jason Hernandez. She thought spending Arctic-type “spring” afternoons watching the Hofstra baseball team was a great idea, not a sign she should immediately dump me. She agreed that going to North Carolina to see Hofstra play UCLA in 2001 was something we had to do, even though I was unemployed and she was in grad school.

She doesn’t wonder why I spend so much time playing fantasy sports, she’s the competition. She’s the yin to my yang, the one who sat sadly silent on Selection Sunday 2006, opening her mouth only to say how bad she felt for the Flying Dutchmen, while I unleashed a stream of profanity that would make Eddie Murphy, circa 1983, blush.

Her favorite baseball player is Derek Jeter. I think he’s hilariously overrated, and love her anyway.

I’d like to sit here and tell you I took her to a five-star restaurant and then the opera 14 years ago tonight, but that’d be a lie. Like thousands of young Long Islanders doing the mating dance, we went out for pizza and then went bowling, and I managed to get through the night without my heart exploding out of my chest.

A month later, she met my best friends from back home. During the first minute or so in the car on the way back from Long Island, something along the line of “She’s the one, Beach” tumbled out of their mouths. But the words I remember most came from Chronicle editor-in-chief Jeff.

“Don’t screw this one up,” he said.

I like to think I didn’t. Happy anniversary, dear. Hanging out with Sully Ray is fun, but I’d still rather sit next to you at basketball games.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.