Georgia State 85, Hofstra 50 (Or: It ends in dust and disarray)

The last loss of the season was so disheartening, I'm not even posting the usual Cinderella song.

This wasn’t the synergistic ending to a hard-luck season the Flying Dutchmen seemed destined to suffer, never mind the start of the shocking Cinderella run that everyone hoped to experience even while realizing it was the longest of long shots. The close-but-not-quite Dutchmen would play well for large periods of time against Georgia State in the first round of the CAA Tournament Friday night, get done in by an untimely mistake or two and head home for the summer pondering what might have been, both in the CAA Tournament and in a season in which the raw data didn’t match up to the final record.

Except a season that began with the Dutchmen losing their first six CAA games by a combined 35 points and was defined by resiliency even in defeat ended with an 85-50 loss to Georgia State that was not nearly as close as the score indicated. It was still the most lopsided CAA Tournament loss in history as well as Hofstra’s worst conference loss since moving to Division I.

“The one thing I said is we never gave up all year,” Mo Cassara said. “Certainly we had enough challenges where we could have given up and could have not won and really played poorly at times. But we never did that. I really believe this is the first night all year where the game really got away from us.”

The Dutchmen at their best last night wouldn’t have beaten a Georgia State team determined to take out its aggressions over being slighted in the conference awards balloting. Led by CAA Defensive Player of the Year runner-up Eric Buckner (21 points on 7-of-7 shooting from the field and 7-of-8 from the line, 11 rebounds and two blocks), the Panthers shot 59.6 percent, drained 20 of 24 free throws, outrebounded the Dutchmen 35-23, forced 15 turnovers and got 14 players into the boxscore. The Georgia State bench outscored Dutchmen reserves 28-1 (a first half Moussa Kone free throw).

“The coach and the team, we all have a little chip on our shoulder right now,” said Panthers coach Ron Hunter, who inexplicably finished second to Bruiser Flint in the Coach of the Year voting. “We’ve had it all year. And it’s magnified by 100 right now for a lot of different reasons.”

But Georgia State’s dominance shouldn’t obscure just how badly the Dutchmen played, especially after a reasonably promising start. There were six ties and three lead changes in the first eight minutes, but in their final 21 possessions of the first half—beginning right after they tied the game for the final time—the Dutchmen scored 11 points, committed nine turnovers (including four in a row at the start of the stretch) and were just 3-of-10 from the field.

Georgia State expanded the lead to 10 by the six minute mark, to 20 with 3:57 left and led 45-24 at the half—the worst halftime deficit for Hofstra since Nov. 18, 2010 against top-ranked North Carolina. From thereon, the only good thing about the game was how fast it moved towards completion. The final buzzer sounded about an hour and 50 minutes after tipoff, which must also be a CAA Tournament record.

The Dutchmen got three players into double figures—they were 9-8 in such games during the regular season—but Mike Moore (16 points), Stevie Mejia (14 points and two steals) and Nathaniel Lester (11 points) were just 13-of-34 from the field. Moore (2-of-7 from 3-point land) and Lester (3-of-10 from the field and 5-of-9 from the line) had particularly rough outings in their final collegiate games. Fellow outgoing senior Dwan McMillan had more turnovers (four) than assists (two) for just the fifth time this year and the first time since Jan. 18.

“I just think overall we didn’t have the performance we needed by anybody or collectively to compete tonight,” Cassara said.

The resounding nature of the defeat to the CAA’s sixth-place team served as a harrowing reminder of how far the Dutchmen have to go to get back to where they once were, and a wistful reminder of how thin a line it is between contention and irrelevance.

“I told the guys a year ago we were sitting in here, we had won 21 games and we were tied for second in the league,” Cassara said. “A year later we’re getting blown out and we’re second-to-last. So there’s a lesson to learn in that—a lot of lessons for our staff to learn, a lot of lessons for you young guys and certainly lessons for the seniors who now [have] got to move on and do something else with their lives.”

The Dutchmen could survive the spring 2010 ravaging of the program, and the subsequent hastened recruiting period, thanks to the transcendence of Charles Jenkins. But the bill came due in a hurry this season, when the Dutchmen didn’t have the replenishments for Jenkins and Greg Washington.

The next generation will begin arriving in the fall, when transfers Jamaal Coombs-McDaniel and Taran Buie lead an influx of new talent, but Friday night’s loss magnified the scope of this rebuilding job and the reality the Dutchmen are more than just a couple players away from regaining their usual spot in the top half of the CAA.

Programs win in the CAA, and nobody knows the enormity of the task ahead better than Cassara, who realizes Hofstra, in its current state, has no foundation. In his post-game comments, Cassara made three references to the amount of work the coaching staff has ahead of it.

Dutchmen fans can take some solace in knowing that brighter days began appearing almost immediately after the last time the program suffered through a season like this. Jay Wright’s second year at the helm in 1995-96—in which he went 9-20 largely with holdovers from the Butch van Breda Kolff era and some placeholders—ended with a Friday night loss in a conference tournament. Speedy Claxton arrived that fall.

Perhaps a decade or more down the road we will look back on Friday as a bottoming out and the start of a new era, and realize that Coombs-McDaniel, Buie or one of the freshman became for Cassara what Claxton was for Wright. But before Cassara could look ahead to better days, there was a loss over which to stew, one which will surely stoke the fire inside him in the coming days, weeks, months and years as he does whatever he can to make sure nights like Friday and seasons like 2011-12 never happen again.

“I’ve got to be honest with you, this is a little bit of unchartered territory for me,” Cassara said. “As a young coach, as a head coach, I’ve never been in a situation like this. I’ve never been on the other side of a loss like that ever. I mean, in all my years. It’s something I’ve got to learn to deal with. It’s something that we’ve got to learn, as a staff, to figure out how to get back to the top part of this league. And it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of hard work.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Georgia State, 3/2)

3: Stevie Mejia

2: Mike Moore

1: Nathaniel Lester

FINAL SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 66

Nathaniel Lester 46

Dwan McMillan 20

Stevie Mejia 18

David Imes 14

Stephen Nwaukoni 10

Shemiye McLendon 9

Moussa Kone 6

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

Georgia State 59, Hofstra 43 (Or: All they want is some remedy)

The second-best Georgia band to have a top-two album in 1992 ponders the fate of the 2011-12 Flying Dutchmen!

After 17 defeats, the Flying Dutchmen are running out of different verbiage to explain the same thing. So on Saturday, Mike Moore just stated the obvious.

“I look at these stats and nothing really stands out,” Moore said after the Dutchmen fell to Georgia State, 59-43, in a game that was both closer than it looked and exactly as lopsided as it looked, all at the same time. “We played them pretty even: Assists, steals, turnovers. They had 17 [turnovers], we only had 10. The only thing is the point category. We’re not scoring. And that’s the problem.

“I feel like we’re matched up just as well as they were, with everything top to bottom except the point category. And that’s what wins games at the end of the day.”

And at the end of Saturday the Dutchmen were 2-11 and still tied for 10th place in the CAA despite, as Moore noted, playing Georgia State to a tie in assists (14) and steals (seven). But while Moore and Nathaniel Lester combined for 27 points, only two fewer than Georgia State’s top-scoring combination of Devonta White and Ali Jihad, the Panthers had two more players in double figures while the only additional Dutchmen player to even get halfway to 10 points was Moussa Kone.

The Dutchmen had four fewer field goals (17) than Georgia State on 17 more shots (58). Furthermore, while Moore and Lester were 11-of-31 from the field, the rest of their teammates were 6-for-27 against Georgia State’s frantic and varied mix of defensive alignments. The Dutchmen were just 3-of-22 from 3-point land and 6-of-12 from the free throw line.

“Tough to win any game at home this time of year against a team in the top part of the league when we shoot 3-of-22 and 6-of-12,” Mo Cassara said. “It’s one of those days the ball didn’t go in the basket.”

Of course, the Dutchmen have had a lot of those days since CAA play began. While the Dutchmen are a middle-of-the-pack team scoring overall among CAA teams (seventh at 64.4 points per game), they have been ice cold for most of the conference season. The Dutchmen are ninth in scoring in CAA play (60.0 ppg), 11th in field goal percentage (39 percent) and last in 3-point field goal percentage (26 percent).

With Moore and Lester, the Dutchmen have as good a 1-2 combination as anyone in the league. Only two other teams (James Madison and UNC Wilmington) have two players in the top 10 in scoring overall and only James Madison has two players in the top 10 in scoring in CAA games.

But the Dutchmen have had just two players in double figures in seven of the last eight games and Moore and Lester have been those two six times. The only time in this stretch in which the Dutchmen had three players score at least 10 points was the win against James Madison.

The Dutchmen’s other three starters—David Imes, Stephen Nwaukoni and Dwan McMillan—were all 3-of-12 from the field, with one field goal apiece, for the second straight game. And in their last two games, the Dutchmen’s third-leading scorer is walk-on Matt Grogan (nine points).

Yet as frigid as the Dutchmen were Saturday, they were, as they have been in just about every CAA games this season, one basket away from making things very interesting. Georgia State raced out to a 19-point lead late in the first half—the second time in as many games a Ron Hunter-coached team has scorched the Dutchmen and led by 19 points in the first half, hello 2010 CBI—but the Dutchmen crawled back within seven midway through the second half.

Over the next three scoreless minutes, the Dutchmen missed three shots to pull within four or five. On the last miss, Stevie Mejia missed a fast break layup and Rashaad Richardson drained a 3-pointer at the other end to begin a game-ending 13-4 “run” by the Panthers, whose lead never again slipped into single digits.

“I thought we had a pretty positive comeback,” Cassara said. “I think we had a chance to cut the game to five with several minutes to go. We cut the game to five, set our defense, I think the whole thing changes. The pressure goes back to their bench.

“But, again, it’s kind of been the story of our season that way. It becomes a very fine line and one or two possessions really dictates what happens to us.”

Cassara could take solace in the resiliency the Dutchmen displayed during the comeback as well as the gritty efforts of both Lester and Moore, each of whom played with a passion befitting two seniors in the final month of their collegiate careers.

Despite taking a blow to the face in the first half, Lester willed his way to another double-double with 14 points and a game-high 10 rebounds. Moore overcame a slow start—he didn’t score his first basket until the final minute of the first half—to finish with 13 points, including 11 of the Dutchmen’s first 15 in the second half, and had three assists, including a nifty dish to Kone for a layup that pulled the Dutchmen within 10 points for the first time in the second half.

“Personally, I want to go out winning,” Moore said. “I was hoping that we could come out and win this game. But the ball didn’t bounce our way going in the hoop.”

And while Kone (2-of-2 from the field, two blocks, two steals in 21 minutes) managed to crack a Georgia State interior that blocked eight shots, including six by Eric Buckner, and was otherwise unyielding against the Dutchmen.

“I thought Moussa did a terrific job for us,” Cassara said. “He was very active. Even Mike, coming out of one of the timeouts, said ‘Let’s get Moussa in there’ because he was really active on defense. And I thought he was active on offense as well.”

In the end, though, the result was familiar as the Dutchmen’s imperfections proved too much to overcome. “Georgia State [is] a very good team,” Cassara said. “To beat a good team. We have to be great right now. And that’s what we’re going to keep striving for.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Georgia State, 2/4)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Mike Moore

1: Moussa Kone

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 53

Nathaniel Lester 37

Dwan McMillan 17

David Imes 14

Shemiye McLendon 9

Stephen Nwaukoni 8

Stevie Mejia 6

Moussa Kone 3

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

Hofstra 79, Georgia State 68 (Or: The night Charles Jenkins shot the lights out in Georgia)

I'm posting the poster to a movie I've never seen because even I have my limits and even I won't post a video for the song "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia." Good God. That was some awful, awful crap. And I know crap!

Since New Year’s Day, the Flying Dutchmen have routed George Mason, which has since surged to the top of the CAA standings and into the top 30 of the RPI, and come back from double-digit deficits to beat James Madison and Northeastern in front of frenzied crowds at home.

Compared to those seismic wins, last night’s 79-68 win over Georgia State appears downright pedestrian. The Dutchmen gave up the first basket of the game, then led for the final 38-plus minutes and led by at least six points for the final 35-plus minutes. Georgia State mounted a couple surges after falling behind by 18 less than seven minutes into the second half, but the outcome of the game was never really in doubt.

Yet as far as Mo Cassara is concerned, the win matches up to any other one the Dutchmen have enjoyed this season. And who are we to argue with him?

“It’s one of the biggest wins of the year for us,” Cassara said via phone from Atlanta. “We’re on the road, they’ve won two in a row, they’ve beaten VCU and James Madison there, they had Old Dominion beaten there. They’re playing well, they’ve got great athletes and they’re very, very good at home. For us to be able to go in there and execute the way we did—offensively and defensively, other than a little stretch where we got tired in the second half—is a credit to our team and where we’re headed.”

Where they are headed, barring the Wilpon family suddenly deciding to donate to Hofstra athletics, is the top four in the CAA and the first bye for the Flying Dutchmen since 2006-07. The Dutchmen’s second straight win following a three-game losing streak, coupled with James Madison’s comeback win over Drexel, gave the fourth-place Dutchmen (10-4) a two-game lead over both schools with four conference games left.

The Dutchmen really have a three-game lead on James Madison thanks to their win in Hempstead. And if Mason and VCU remain 1-2, and if Drexel loses to VCU Feb. 23, then the Dutchmen will have the tiebreaker over the Dragons by virtue of their 1-2 record against the top two. In addition, the Dutchmen’s final four opponents all have losing CAA records while James Madison plays Mason, VCU and Old Dominion.

“The way we play, we’re not going to blow anybody out, we’re not going to run by anybody,” Cassara said. “Whomever we play, it’s going to be a challenge.”

The Dutchmen did look ready to blow out Georgia State for much of Wednesday night thanks to a balanced scoring attack, a sizzling team-wide performance from outside and a renaissance performance by Charles Jenkins. The Dutchmen shot better than 50 percent (28-of-55) for the second straight game, were 9-of-18 from 3-point land and had four players in double figures.

As usual, it was Jenkins who led the way. He had 28 points on 10-of-15 shooting (his second-best shooting percentage of the season, minimum 15 attempts) to go along with five rebounds, four steals, two assists, one block and just one turnover in 35 minutes. He also drew multiple fouls as he began his drives at the top of the key.

Not bad for someone who was feeling sick most of the night and entered the game fresh off his worst outing in two years as well as in the midst of a four-game stretch that qualified as something resembling a slump (20.5 ppg on 45.3 percent shooting).

“Little under the weather and a little beaten up, it’s that time of year, everybody’s got aches and bangs and bruises,” Cassara said. “He wasn’t feeling great all game [but] he got 28 and made some big shots. Thought he did a great job, he didn’t force anything, he really played the way that has made him so successful. He was willing to share the ball and did a great job and really was the leader on the court and on the bench and in the locker room. We’re in the position we are because of his leadership.”

Greg Washington, Brad Kelleher and Mike Moore also scored in double figures as the Dutchmen improved to 6-0 when at least four players reach 10 points. Washington had his own resurgence on both ends of the floor in scoring 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting while blocking five shots for the third time in six games and recording two steals for the fifth time in seven games, all in 37 minutes—his most in a regulation contest this year.

Kelleher scored 10 points and hit both 3-point attempts—the Dutchmen are now 7-0 when he drains multiple threes—while setting a season-high in assists (eight) and committing just one turnover for the second straight game. In his last four games, Kelleher has 18 assists and just three turnovers while shooting 6-of-11 from 3-point land.

“I think he’s getting a little more comfortable with what he’s trying to do [and] the guys are getting a little more comfortable with him,” Cassara said. “He played at his pace and did a great job tonight. If he can have those kind of lines—make a couple threes, handle the ball, not turn it over and ultimately run the team—we’re going to be a tough team to beat.”

Jenkins, Kelleher and Yves Jules (2-for-3) were a combined 7-of-9 from beyond the 3-point line, which made up for off nights from Moore (12 points) and Shemiye McLendon (a combined 2-of-9 on 3-pointers and 5-for-19 overall).

“One of the things I’m really proud of is we kept Greg Washington on the court for 30 minutes—he gets five blocks, makes a couple baskets and he played his ass off tonight, he and David Imes really competed around the basket,” Cassara said. “Brad Kelleher had another solid game for us and Yves Jules gave us a great lift. We’re just finding a different body every night.”

The Dutchmen were outrebounded 39-28 and barely had more defensive rebounds (20) than Georgia State had offensive rebounds (18). But they had seven of their eight offensive rebounds in the second half and Imes and Washington each rebounded Hofstra misses before Imes finally drew the foul on a pivotal sequence after the Panthers pulled within six with under four minutes to play. Imes (who had eight points and six rebounds in 30 minutes before fouling out) hit both free throws and the Dutchmen were never threatened again.

“We huddled as a staff and said ‘We’ve got to tell those guys that’s a winning play,’” Cassara said. “A couple missed shots, hang in there, hang in there, get a rebound, take shots, get to the free throw line when they were making a little bit of a run. That’s a winning play and we talk about that all the time.”

Cassara isn’t much for talking all the time about where the Dutchmen could be headed, but with last week’s crisis in the rearview mirror and a winning streak officially underway, he couldn’t help but gaze ahead at the growing possibility that this team held together by duct tape and saliva will enjoy a day off three weeks from tomorrow and have a far better shot at making a deep CAA Tournament run as a result.

“Hey, we’re 10-4 and we put ourselves in good position and Drexel lost, so we’ve given ourselves a couple games lead,” Cassara said. “I wouldn’t put anything past this group. Amazing accomplishment.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Georgia State, 2/9)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Greg Washington

1: Brad Kelleher

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 63

Mike Moore 31

Greg Washington 23

David Imes 15

Brad Kelleher 6

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 5

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

Hofstra 68, Georgia State 67 (Or: Repeat after me: Survive and advance, survive and advance…)

The Flying Dutchmen, not pictured above, lived up to the best anthems of the '80s in escaping Georgia State.

One of Tom Pecora’s favorite bits of self-deprecation is to declare the Flying Dutchmen perform so well in February because the players stop listening to him. But in their first game of March, the Dutchmen did exactly as he instructed.

Six days after Pecora said that he approached the CAA Tournament opener with the mindset that as long as “…we win by one, I’ll be happy,” the Dutchmen eked out a thrilling 68-67 win over Georgia State to advance to the quarterfinals today against second-seeded Northeastern.

The Dutchmen barely avoided season-ending disaster in recording their 10th win in their last 11 games. The Dutchmen blew an 11-point second half lead and fell behind by a point in the final minute, but Greg Washington capped a sensational final 20 minutes by first taking a pass from Charles Jenkins and hitting a long jumper from the top of the key with 16 seconds to play and then stealing the ball from Joe Dukes as the Panthers’ star guard tried driving the lane just before time expired.

“We knew it was going to be a tight game—we got it to 11 and we didn’t get separation,” Pecora said by phone afterward. “And in turn, they’ve got five seniors, those guys are playing for their basketball lives, so to speak. Came back with a vengeance and we had a chance to make some plays last and once again Charles Jenkins made a play to win the game. He saw [Washington] had a better look and he put a pass on to Washington who knocked down a big-time shot.”

The win was a euphoric one from a fan perspective (Editor’s note: WE’RE GOING TO RICHMOND WE’RE GOING TO RICHMOND!!! Stop back here in the afternoon and follow along on Twitter all afternoon and evening for more stories and on-site reportage) and further fueled the growing belief that there’s a little bit of magic surrounding this team. The last Dutchmen team to win a conference tournament game by one possession was the 1994 squad, which beat Troy State 90-89 in overtime of the East Coast Conference semifinals and Northeastern Illinois 88-86 in double overtime in the title game the next day.

The dates of those wins? March 5 and March 6. Destiny?

Of course, Pecora has much more important things to do than flip through a media guide looking for signs the stars are aligned, so he didn’t quite live up to words of a week ago by doing cartwheels after the nail-biting victory. The Dutchmen allowed Georgia State to shoot 48 percent from the field, the best performance by an opponent in a Hofstra win this season, and barely won the battle of the boards (32-31).

“I say all the time ‘the greatest gift I can give you is the truth,’” Pecora said. “If we play this way tomorrow, we’ll lose by 10 or 15 points to Northeastern. So we can’t mess around with that. We’ve just got to move forward and we’ve got to understand that and be mature enough to understand what we need to do.”

The Dutchmen, whose 10 conference wins were all by double digits, survived a nearly seven-minute drought from the field in the first half and went on a 16-7 run to take a 31-26 halftime lead. A 12-4 run in which Washington, Charles Jenkins and Chaz Williams all scored four points apiece gave the Dutchmen a 52-41 lead midway through the second half.

But the Panthers stormed back with a 12-1 run to tie the game with 6:37 to play. It appeared as if Ousman Krubally would will Georgia State to victory when he scored 14 of his 19 points in the final 10 minutes, including two free throws that gave the Panthers their first lead of the second half at 65-64 with 2:03 to play.

Miklos Szabo, who had 10 points and four rebounds in the first half but was limited to five minutes in the second half due to foul trouble and an aggravation of his elbow injury, hit his only basket of the second half to give the Dutchmen the lead again at 66-65. Williams recorded a steal on Georgia State’s next possession, but Jenkins missed a jumper and Dukes hit a layup with 30 seconds left to put the Panthers back on top and set up Washington’s redemption-filled final half minute.

Washington played just five minutes in the first half after he picked up two early fouls and was on the receiving end of a Pecora tongue lashing in the locker room. “I really got into him at halftime,” Pecora said. “I said ‘You owe us a second half.’ He can’t pick up two fouls in the first four minutes. He put us on our heels.”

Washington scored all 11 of his points in the second half—his biggest second half output of the season—and added two rebounds and two assists as he filled the void created by the extended absences of Szabo and Halil Kanacevic, the latter of whom fouled out with 2:03 left.

Washington also picked up Jenkins, who scored 24 points despite missing seven of his final eight shots from the field. Szabo and Williams (11 points and eight assists) also scored in double figures for the Dutchmen, whose reward for the narrow escape is a defining game this evening against a loaded and experienced Northeastern squad that won’t have any trouble getting motivated after the Dutchmen cost them the regular season title with an upset win in Boston Feb. 23.

An effort similar to the one Friday will send the Dutchmen back home late tonight. But what if the fashion in which the Dutchmen won generates the type of momentum and focus a team needs to make a deep, Cinderella-type tournament run?

“No doubt, if this team wants to become great, we’ve got to win this tournament, and to win this tournament, we’ve got to beat Northeastern [today],” Pecora said. “One of the things I said to the team in the locker room was it’s not uncommon, whether in a conference tournament or in the NCAA Tournament, [to have to] win in a close game early to get their attention and get yourself focused and then that locks you in for the remainder of the tournament.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Georgia State, 3/5)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Greg Washington

1: Chaz Williams

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 66

Chaz Williams 28

Halil Kanacevic 23

Miklos Szabo 21

Nathaniel Lester 19

Greg Washington 17

Cornelius Vines 17

Yves Jules 1

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

Hofstra 87, Georgia State 73 (Or: What could have been, and could still be)

Tom Pecora to random student: "I love you man, but I'm not giving you my Bud Light until you show up to more than one game a year."

After nine years as the head coach of the Flying Dutchmen and 16 years with the program, Tom Pecora would rather not have to wonder what if about the same thing at the end of every season. But hey, better to do so about the Hofstra students in the stands as opposed to those on the court.

“I don’t know what to do with these guys and girls,” Pecora said after the Flying Dutchmen beat Georgia State, 87-73, Saturday to cap a remarkable second half run. “It’s like, what do I have to do to get them over here? We had a blizzard and no one came. They were locked in there. Cabin fever.

“You’ve got four thousand, five thousand kids in a dorm. Get over here. It’s a great experience.”

Led by some dude dressed in nothing but a Speedo (you had to see it to believe it), the Lions Den did its best to make up for lost time Saturday as it spooked Georgia State into a positively Mason-esque performance (9-for-20) at the foul line in the second half. The boisterous performance of the student section fueled a festive atmosphere at the Arena, where a crowd of 3,964—the second-largest of the season—turned out just in time to say goodbye to the Dutchmen until November (or at least until the home NIT or CIT game, hahaha, I’ll be here all week, tip your waitresses!).

“It’s a huge advantage,” Pecora said. “When we go down there and play at ODU and VCU and those places and there’s seven, eight thousand [fans] and the fans, the students are crazy—it has a huge impact on the game. And I think it did tonight. It was great.”

Fortunately, as they do almost annually under Pecora, the Dutchmen view the calendar with much more urgency than the rest of the student body. The win Saturday was the fifth in a row for the Dutchmen, who have won nine of 10 overall and are 45-12 in regular season games played after Feb. 1 since the 2003-04 season.

That the Dutchmen managed to light up the scoreboard (they scored at least 73 points for the eighth time in 10 games; the Dutchmen reached 73 points just five times in the first 21 games) and record their fifth straight double-digit CAA win despite an imperfect performance is an indicator of just how far they’ve come since a 2-7 conference start.

The Dutchmen allowed Georgia State to whittle a 14-point lead to just one during a four-minute span at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half. The Panthers outscored the Dutchmen in the paint 14-4 in the first half and pulled down 18 offensive rebounds overall, only the fifth time this season a conference opponent has recorded at least 18 offensive boards.

“I was mad at halftime, just because as coaches we’re always looking at the next one and you’re preparing yourself for a tournament,” Pecora said. “And they’re a dangerous team, they’re a very skilled team, they’re very athletic. They beat us up on the backboard.”

Chaz Williams once again ended up in triple-double territory (nine points, 10 assists, seven rebounds) and turned the ball over just three times, but he was just 2-of-12 from the field and was yanked less than three minutes into the game after hoisting a particularly bad-looking jumper.

The Dutchmen ended up with five players recording at least seven boards (including Halil Kanacevic, who racked up 16 points on 4-of-5 shooting from the field and 8-of-11 from the free throw line) and outrebounded the Panthers 53-42, the second straight game in which the Dutchmen have had at least 10 more rebounds than their opponent.

“I give them a hard time—Chaz had seven,” Pecora said. “So if he’s getting rebounds at 5-7, 5-8, these other guys have got to chase them like that. It’s that important and [Georgia State] thrives on that. If that team turns you over and they beat you up on the offensive glass, they beat you.”

Charles Jenkins and Cornelius Vines capped their own sensational second half surges and celebrated a birthday and Senior Day, respectively, in impressive fashion. Jenkins scored 29 points—the fourth time in six games he has scored at least 29 points; he reached that mark just once in the Dutchmen’s first 25 games—and is averaging 24.9 points per game during the Dutchmen’s 9-1 streak. He also pulled down seven rebounds, the third time in four games he has recorded at least seven boards.

Vines (18 points, seven rebounds) mustered up an appropriately theatrical performance in his final home game, draining his first two 3-point attempts and five overall in the first half. He cooled off in the second half, when he was 1-of-6 from the field (one of those misses was a dunk attempt, oh the humanity) and drew four fouls, but he drained a free throw with 1:38 left and departed to a warm ovation as he blew kisses to every corner of the Arena.

Jenkins and Vines accompanied Pecora to a post-game press conference whose buoyancy would have been inconceivable at the end of January, when Vines was occupying Pecora’s doghouse and Jenkins was battling a thigh injury and going through a stretch in which he scored fewer than 20 points eight times in 10 games.

Vines smiled widely throughout while Jenkins put his head on Pecora’s shoulder as Pecora talked about how he decided to “love” his players up after the brutal January stretch.

“After Mason I was mad—as mad as I’ve ever been [editor’s note: Me too!] and I got on them hard for two days,” Pecora said. “And then we went to Drexel and that loss was on me. Corn was hurt, he couldn’t play, Chaz and Charles were still beat up. And I just ran them so much the last two days because I was teed off. We had no legs and we got tatered down there. So I came back and I said to myself ‘That’s it. I’m gonna love ‘em up.’”

The new approach (as well as a healthy roster) yielded results beyond the expectations of even the most optimistic of observers. The Dutchmen are the first team in CAA history to finish with a winning record in conference play after falling at least five games under .500. Navy in 1987-88 opened 0-5 and improved to 6-5 before finishing 6-8.

From disaster to destiny? The odds are certainly against the Dutchmen making becoming the first northern-based team to win the CAA title by winning four games in four days, but for the first time since 2007, Dutch Nation (snort) enters the CAA Tournament pondering what is still to come instead of what could have been.

“Hey, look, we won nine out of our last 10, who am I to complain?” Pecora said. “We’re locked into our spot in the tournament. Friday night, it’s a good time to play. Hopefully we can stay down there. I always pack four suits. Hopefully this year I’ll get to use them.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Georgia State, 2/27)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Cornelius Vines

1: Halil Kanacevic

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 63

Chaz Williams 27

Halil Kanacevic 23

Miklos Szabo 21

Nathaniel Lester 19

Cornelius Vines 17

Greg Washington 15

Yves Jules 1

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

Georgia State 76, Hofstra 55 (Or: Teams that shoot more than 60 percent from the field for a half win 100 percent of the time)

These Panthers must have gotten ahold of Brian Fantana's cologne.

This happens ALL THE TIME. And by ALL THE TIME, I mean it happened just about every damn week of the NFL season during my last two years at Hofstra. I’d sit there, poring over my fantasy football lineup for days and days and days (as for that science homework…ehh, I’ll catch up later, what’s the worst that could happen?) before submitting it.

Then I’d pore over the lineup some more, pondering all sorts of statistical minutiae and all sorts of what-if scenarios, and I’d convince myself to change my lineup. And what would happen, without fail? Scott Mitchell, banished to my bench, would throw four TDs while Jeff George threw for 87 yards and four picks…and I’d lose by like three points.

After that happened a whole lot, I said no more and decided that my first instinct is the one I always pursue. So the lineup I submit is the lineup I play, unless something stupid happens, like, oh, I don’t know, an idiot wide receiver shooting himself in the leg with his own gun. But c’mon. That would NEVER happen.

The point of all this is I should have left well enough alone and stuck with my original instinct about Wednesday night’s game against Georgia State. Even before the Panthers started—wait for it!!!—roaring, this game seemed like a potential trap for a hot Dutchmen squad.

But then I got a little goofy, and probably let my moderate amount of blog bias seep in, and I started envisioning this as a statement game for the Dutchmen as they continued to round into form for the CAA Tournament.

And my first instinct was the right one, even if this was a statement game. Georgia State 76, Hofstra 55 was the Dutchmen saying “Our coach is right to trademark the term ‘bipolar basketball.’”

On one hand, this loss shouldn’t be so surprising, even if the margin of defeat was jarring. A midweek trip to the southernmost outpost in the CAA is a dangerous one. There’s nobody hotter in the league than the Panthers, who, as Litos notes, are officially the team that could really turn the tournament upside down next week. Plus, it was Senior Day in Atlanta and the home team is always a little more enthused for that.

The loss also served as reminder of the relative youth of the Dutchmen. Charles Jenkins led the Dutchmen with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting, but he didn’t get untracked until the second half (he was just 1-of-6 from the field and committed two turnovers in the first half). Nathaniel Lester, who entered the game averaging 12.9 points and 5.6 rebounds in his previous nine games, finished with no points and two boards. Greg Washington had nine points and three rebounds, but picked up four fouls in 24 minutes.

The struggles of the sophomores were particularly noticeable on a team that didn’t come close to fielding its optimal roster. Darren Townes was left on campus to battle the flu bug, robbing the Dutchmen of some valuable intensity and fire. Greg Johnson and Arminas Urbutis started despite battling shoulder and hip woes, respectively, while Miklos Szabo was working off the rust in his first game since breaking his forearm against Northeastern Jan. 17.

And I’m not sure a fully loaded Dutchman squad—or anyone at all, for that matter—could have beaten the Panthers Wednesday, when they made seven of 11 3-pointers in the first half and shot 62 percent overall in the first 20 minutes. Even the stingiest team in the league is helpless when the other guys can’t miss. Gotta chalk it up as one of those nights and a blip on the radar.

But still…a blip on the radar squawks louder in late February than in late December, especially when it comes after the Dutchmen had scrambled into position to earn one of the first-round byes.

And maybe it’s related to the unpredictability of youth, but the Dutchmen seem particularly prone to “one of those nights.” This latest lopsided loss doesn’t go into the books as the Dutchmen’s fifth wire-to-wire loss of the conference season, thanks to the 4-2 lead they enjoyed 2:23 into the game. But it’s a reminder that this 19-win team, for all the toughness it displays in close and late situations, is remarkably susceptible to getting blown out of the building before the first media timeout. That’s not the most encouraging feeling knowing it’ll take three—and more likely four—wins in as many days in hostile territory to reach the NCAA Tournament.

Stewing over such a thorough loss and what could have been—thanks to Drexel’s loss to Northeastern Wednesday, a win over Georgia State would have allowed the Dutchmen to clinch the no. 4 seed by beating UNC-Wilmington—does the Dutchmen no good. All they can do now is win Saturday, hope for the best in the evening games…and hope the bipolarity is gone for good, at least for this season.

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