The envelope please...

Twenty-three years later, will Matt Janning or Gerald Lee get revenge for Ozzie Smith over Andre Dawson?

Tom Pecora has high hopes for tonight’s CAA awards banquet.

“I’m hoping that Charles is the player of the year,” Pecora said after the Flying Dutchmen beat Georgia State in the regular season finale Saturday. “I’m hoping that Greg Washington and Cornelius Vines are on the all-defensive team and that Halil and Chaz are on the all-freshmen team. I think that would be the right thing, if it played out that way.”

My guess is Pecora won’t be too disappointed tonight, which speaks volumes for just how far the Dutchmen have come from their 2-7 start. Here are my picks for the Player of the Year, All-CAA teams, Rookie of the Year and All-CAA teams. Like Litos, I find it almost impossible to pick an all-defensive team. I think defense is something you have to see to appreciate, and I don’t watch nearly enough CAA games in person to make a pick there. My guess is Washington makes the team, Vines doesn’t and that Robert Nwankwo, who led the league in rebounding and blocked shots, wins defensive player of the year. (Edit: I apparently forgot the existence of Larry Sanders. Make it Sanders)

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

Who should win: Charles Jenkins, Hofstra

Who will win: Matt Janning, Northeastern and Gerald Lee, ODU

Who will win the more I think about it: Jenkins

The closer we get to the awards ceremony, the more I think Jenkins is going to win it. He led the league in scoring, was almost two points per game ahead of his nearest competitor and was absolutely monstrous down the stretch (24.9 ppg in his last 10 games) in lifting the Flying Dutchmen to the greatest second-half run in league history (it’s true, I looked it up!). Whether he wins tonight or not, he is the best player in the league.

But whenever I ponder the MVP race in baseball, I almost always think it should go to a player whose team made the playoffs. Over the last 23 years, I’ve gone from thinking Andre Dawson and his 49 homers were a slam-dunk as the 1987 NL MVP to believing Ozzie Smith got robbed for .303 with 75 RBI (and NO HOMERS!), 43 steals and more than twice as many walks (89) as strikeouts (36) while playing his usual Gold Glove defense for a Cardinals team that won the NL East and finished 18 ½ games ahead of Dawson’s cellar-dwelling Cubs.

Blog bias aside, I can’t blame anyone who votes for Lee, Janning or Chase Allen because Old Dominion and Northeastern finished 1-2. Janning’s stats don’t jump off the page (15.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 3.1 apg) but he’s the glue of a smart, focused, senior-laden team. Tom Pecora’s quote about Janning being the Wayne Gretzky of Northeastern—the guy who makes the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the basket—was great, and telling. I hope enough people have watched enough Northeastern games this year to realize that.

I think Lee will benefit most from name recognition, even though he had a lesser season this year (14.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game) than last year (15.5/5.7). Southern bias helps too! I imagine voters will lean towards the senior in a tiebreaker scenario, which is understandable.

Honestly, I’m starting to really think Jenkins wins it. I just realized he has more Player of the Week awards (four—three shared and one solo) than Janning and Lee combined (one shared honor apiece). Screw it. Jenkins wins. And if he doesn’t, I may be right anyway!

FIRST TEAM ALL-CAA

Charles Jenkins, Hofstra

Matt Janning, Northeastern

Gerald Lee, ODU

Larry Sanders, VCU

Chase Allen, Northeastern

SECOND TEAM ALL-CAA

David Schneider, W&M

Joey Rodriguez, VCU

Jamie Harris, Drexel

Denzel Bowles, JMU

Jawan Carter, Delaware

THIRD TEAM ALL-CAA

Robert Nwankwo, Towson

Joe Dukes, Georgia State

Quinn McDowell, W&M

Julius Wells, JMU

Cam Long, Mason

You have no idea how much I wanted to leave Long off, just to annoy the paste-eaters in Mason Nation. But as poorly as he finished, he’s the most reliable player on a team that earned a bye and the closest thing the Patriots have to a mature, calming presence.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Who should win: Halil Kanacevic, Hofstra

Who will win: Chris Fouch, Drexel

No denying here my blog bias is the tiebreaker. Kanacevic was fifth in the league in rebounding as a rookie, finished tied for fourth in the league with 10 10-rebound games and, like Jenkins, has been at his best during the Dutchmen’s sizzling run (9.6 points and eight boards per game). His emergence has been doubly impressive considering how much fellow freshmen Chaz Williams has struggled in the last few weeks.

However, I won’t argue with anyone who prefers Fouch, who certainly has the better nickname (F-Bomb, so awesome), led all CAA rookies in scoring and has scored in double digits in nine of the last 10 games in which he was healthy (he was limited to five minutes in the Dutchmen rematch and missed the subsequent two games). I also think Fouch will benefit from Kanacevic and Williams splitting the ROY vote.

CAA ALL-ROOKIE TEAM

Halil Kanacevic, Hofstra

Chris Fouch, Drexel

Chaz Williams, Hofstra

Luke Hancock, Mason

Darren White, JMU

COACH OF THE YEAR

Tony Shaver, W&M. Picked 12th in the preseason, Tribe fans are wondering what could have been after finishing third. Pretty remarkable. Wonder how Pecora places in the balloting after overseeing THE GREATEST SECOND HALF RUN IN LEAGUE HISTORY!!

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

Bits and Bytes: Previewing ODU…and chewing over some stats, suspensions & stupid network tricks

Conan O'Brien only LOOKS as tall as Gerald Lee.

Quick apology for the sporadic posting this week. Just have not been able to get back into the usual Monday-Friday flow after the super duper car crash and the subsequent weirdness, which I will do my very best to put into words over the weekend because there needs to be a written account of the sheer lunacy of it all.

In the meantime, let’s get back into the flow of things by breaking down today’s big game at pre-season favorite Old Dominion. Unfortunately, this marks the third straight season in which the Dutchmen and Monarchs play just once, which is too bad since ODU has earned Favored Rival status here at Defiantly Dutch.

Since Hofstra joined the CAA, seven of the 18 games between the two teams have been decided by a basket or less—including perhaps the most exciting regular season game ever played at the Arena, the 65-63 win over Old Dominion in 2006 in which Aurimas Kieza drained a 3-pointer as the buzzer—while another was decided by four points and another was decided by five points.

The Dutchmen handed Old Dominion its only home loss in both 2004-05 and 2005-06, but the Monarchs have eliminated the Dutchmen from the CAA Tournament three times in the previous six seasons—including last year, when Gerald Lee scored 30 points and pulled down 10 rebounds and Charles Jenkins’ 3-pointer at the buzzer fell shy as the Dutchmen lost to the future CIT champions 52-51, and yes, that was a passive-aggressive swipe at Hofstra for being too good to play in the CIT—and knocked Hofstra out of the NIT with a quarterfinal win at Hofstra (arrrrrrgh) in 2006.

This may be the most challenging game of the taxing early January schedule for the Dutchmen, who took a bus down to Norfolk yesterday—their second bus ride to Virginia in five days—and will return tonight in order to get two practices in before VCU visits Tuesday to cap the 5-in-10 stretch.

“I don’t ever remember, in all my years of coaching, having a stretch like this—we’re playing five games in 10 days and trips back and forth to Virginia in the course of it,” Pecora said after the Dutchmen’s 77-61 win over Towson Wednesday.

And in between bus rides the Dutchmen have the task of playing at one of the CAA’s toughest venues. “I said to the guys ‘Hey, Old Dominion is why you came to play in college, Hofstra at Old Dominion,’” Pecora said. “It’s going to be 8,500 people, the place is going to be rocking, they’ll all hate us. It’s awesome. And there’s nothing better than going there and winning. And we’ve had the opportunity to do that.”

The key is seizing the opportunity today is very, very simple: The 3 Stars of the Game must—MUST—include someone other than Jenkins, Chaz Williams, Nathaniel Lester and Halil Kanacevic. More specifically, that someone has to be Greg Washington and/or Miklos Szabo. The Dutchmen cannot win if Lee is a one-man wrecking crew again.

As good as Kanacevic has been thus far—and as timely as his ascension to the starting lineup appears to be, right before back-to-back games against teams with dominant big men—it’s not fair to expect him to single-handedly contain Lee, who has three years of experience and at least two inches on Kanacevic. Washington and Szabo don’t have to shut Lee down, either, just minimize the damage he wrecks down low. That said, it would be a huge help if one of them could channel Darren Townes, who had the best game of his oddly quiet senior season in collecting 10 points and seven rebounds against ODU in the Dutchmen’s wire-to-wire 60-51 win Feb. 10.

At the least, Washington and Szabo have to carefully distribute the 10 fouls at their disposal. The Dutchmen are in trouble if one (or both) of those players picks up two fouls in their first couple minutes.

Limit Lee to a merely human effort and the Dutchmen have quite a shot at pulling off the upset and recording the get-over-the-hump win they have not recorded since, let’s be honest, 2005-06. Either way, it’ll be a sludgefest determined in the last minute again.

And regardless of the result, enjoy the game, because we must appreciate the opportunity to watch Hofstra against Old Dominion on MSG while we can, since Hofstra is leaving the CAA as soon as humanly possible and leaving both Old Dominion and DD-era Favored Rival Delaware behind in The Land Where They Still Play Football and since MSG is no longer the network most likely to televise a Hofstra game.

This is the second of the Dutchmen’s three schedule appearances on MSG. The Dutchmen have appeared twice already on FIOS, which about 17 people get here on Long Island, and their next two television appearances will be on ESPNU, which Cablevision doesn’t carry. You know, like HGTV and the Food Network.

A couple other quick bits and bytes for the weekend:

—A real interesting stat courtesy of some detective work by Loyal Reader John K., who read Jeremy Kniffin’s typically outstanding game notes and did the math to figure out that the Dutchmen’s leader in assist-to-turnover ratio is…we kid you not, Cornelius Vines, whose 1.54 mark is just ahead of Williams (1.43) and Jenkins (1.39).

Now, granted, Vines’ place atop that category is largely a result of his work in the non-conference schedule as well as Williams’ recent sloppiness. The last time Vines had at least two more assists than turnovers was Dec. 20 against St. John’s. Still, it’s proof Vines—much-maligned among Dutch Nation (snort) for his errant long-distance shooting—is deserving, on both sides of the ball, of the pivotal role he’s playing even after being benched for Williams.

—Speaking of Williams and stats, the freshman has hit his last seven 3-point attempts, just two shy of the school record set by Mike Radziejewski in 2002-03. Neither Williams nor Pecora were aware of the streak when informed of it Wednesday night.

“I wish you hadn’t told him that,” Pecora said, tongue planted firmly in cheek.

—And speaking of behemoth big men, VCU star center Larry Sanders was suspended for the Rams’ game today against Delaware for committing a flagrant foul against Drexel Wednesday. Oh sure. He couldn’t have waited until TODAY to earn a one-game suspension, could he?

Interesting only to me was that VCU coach Shaka Smart declined comment beyond a canned quote and had his players off-limits yesterday. Booo. That’s BCS stuff out of a guy who is supposed to be different than the typically controlling head coach. Or maybe I’m just a grump, I don’t know.

—Lastly, and only tangentially related to Hofstra: I’ve been a big fan of Conan O’Brien since I caught his debut show on NBC during my first month at Hofstra in 1993, so I’ve been following with a good deal of interest the eminently predictable shenanigans at NBC, which is apparently trying to correct the mistake it made in giving Jay Leno the 10 p.m. hour five nights a week by returning him to 11:35 and pushing O’Brien—who took over The Tonight Show last June—to 12:05.

TV critic David Bianculli—who, in a bit of irony that is not really irony, has also been my favorite TV critic since I discovered him upon his debut with the New York Daily News in the fall of 1993—nails the insanity taking place at NBC in writing that the network is “…shattering a TV tradition older than any of the executives making this bone-headed decision.

“NBC is strangling The Tonight Show, and burying its own history and heritage.”

Hmm. Sounds familiar.

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