College of Bill Lawrence 75, Hofstra 71 (Or: Their overkill)

Ghosts reappear and a season fades away...

It’s gotten to the point for the Flying Dutchmen where every loss is a microcosm of a lost season. Loss no. 21, a 75-71 defeat at the hands of the College of Bill Lawrence, contained elements omnipresent in so many of its 20 predecessors.

The margin of defeat was certainly familiar: The Dutchmen are now 2-8 in games decided by six points or less or in overtime, their most losses in such games since 2007-08 (the last time the Dutchmen endured a sub-.500 season) and the program’s worst winning percentage in these contests since the 1992-93 team went 1-5.

Once again, the Dutchmen did a lot of good things, but once again, their mistakes and missteps once again proved costly. The Dutchmen displayed their trademark resiliency in scoring 11 straight points after falling behind 7-0 and outscoring William & Mary 27-10 in the eight minutes following the Tribe’s hot start. In the second half, the Dutchmen fell behind by as many as seven and closed within at least three points a dozen times but could never take the lead.

Mike Moore all but locked up the CAA scoring title by collecting a game-high 25 points—including a beauty of a bank shot from just inside the half-court line at the halftime buzzer, that’s right, the Dutchmen are now 0-2 in games with halftime half-court buzzer beaters—and his efficiency score of 23 was by far the best of any Hofstra player, but he didn’t score from the field after opening the second half with a layup and missed his last five shots.

Moore and Nathaniel Lester (18 points and a game-high eight rebounds) were again a solid 1-2 combination, but the Dutchmen had just two players in double figures for the seventh time in the last 10 games. Moore, Lester and Moussa Kone (six points on 3-of-3 shooting and five rebounds, including four in a five-minute span late in the second half) were 17-of-37 from the field while the rest of their teammates were 7-of-23. Stevie Mejia, who has been emerging as that reliable third scoring option, picked up nine points, five of which came in a 53-second span before the first media timeout of the first half, and finished just 2-of-9 from the field.

The Dutchmen’s struggles on offense negated their gritty effort on defense in the final minutes. While many of their early narrow losses were marked by an inability to buy a stop on defense in the waning minutes, the Dutchmen limited the Fighting Lawrences to just one field goal on five attempts in the final five minutes Wednesday.

But the Dutchmen were scoreless from the field following a layup by Lester with 4:28 to play and missed five shots with William & Mary clinging to a 71-69 lead. Finally, the Dutchmen had a costly defensive breakdown and surrendered the back-breaking 3-pointer by a wide-open Brandon Britt with 18 seconds left that accounted for the game’s final points.

Overall, the Dutchmen scored on just one of eight possessions in the second half in which they had a chance to tie or take the lead, and that one basket was the afore-mentioned layup by Lester that came with the Dutchmen down three.

Britt’s basket was doubly frustrating because it was another example of what the Dutchmen have largely lacked this season: Someone bailing out a struggling star. Britt’s shot ensured Quinn McDowell, who led the CAA in free throw shooting percentage last season, wouldn’t wear the goat horns after missing three of four free throw attempts in the final two minutes. What if someone had done that for Moore when he missed those two free throws with the chance to take the lead against Delaware seven weeks earlier?

In the end, the defeat served as another reminder of just how difficult it is for the Dutchmen to create even the tiniest bit of momentum. A win would have been the 10th of the season for the Dutchmen and put them in position to earn the 10th seed. That’s no great shakes for a program that has recorded double-digit wins in each of the last 15 seasons and finished in the bottom half of the CAA just twice since the league expanded to 12 teams in 2005-06, but 10 wins and a 10 seed would certainly be more aesthetically pleasing than being stuck on nine wins and being locked into the 11th seed heading into Senior Day.

Instead, the lone solace the Dutchmen could take from Wednesday was knowing Towson locked up last place by losing to Delaware. It’s not much. But on an evening that so accurately summarized a lost season, it’ll have to do.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 2/22)

3: Mike Moore

2: Nathaniel Lester

1: Moussa Kone

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 62

Nathaniel Lester 44

Dwan McMillan 17

Stevie Mejia 15

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.

Likely demise of the Big East is likely big news for Hofstra

When the dominoes stop falling, odds are good the Atlantic 10 will be Hofstra's new athletic home.

This gives me an alibi five, 10 or 15 Septembers from now, when we’re all sitting around with our robotic overlords waxing poetic about where we were when college basketball as we knew it began changing. Now I can say I was at my laptop writing a piece about how it would impact Hofstra instead of declaring I was watching “Gilmore Girls” on something called a SoapNet, which may actually end up outlasting the current incarnation of the Big East.

Shut up. In the words of Chris Turk: “Mothers and daughters: They speak so fast but they speak so true.”

Anyway, the news Saturday afternoon that Pittsburgh and Syracuse have applied for membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference and that they will be welcomed into the ACC as soon as today is finally the domino for which we’ve been waiting to fall. The inevitable, football-fueled renovation of Division I in which four superconferences lord over everyone else has begun.

There will be a lot of speculation over how the new Division I will look, an exercise in which we will gladly partake very soon, as well as a lot of lamenting over how today represents the end of the innocence for college athletics. There will be none of that here.

Is the college sports landscape changing for the worse? Of course. Is it disappointing that money trumps tradition? Of course. But money has run the world since the dawn of time, so it’s just wasted pixels to wail and moan over how wrong it will be to see Jim Boeheim, who was dourly stalking the sideline at Syracuse before there was even a Big East, in unfamiliar arenas in Durham and Chapel Hill and Miami (snicker snicker snort snort).

And college athletics hasn’t been innocent in decades. The good ol’ black and white days featured point shaving at the Mecca. Sam Gilbert paved the way for the Nevin Shapiros of the world even as John Wooden constructed a dynasty and an impeccable reputation at UCLA. The world has always been impure and it will keep turning. A generation from now someone will bemoan how wrong it is that Syracuse or Pitt left its ACC tradition behind to join the Big 120. Spare me.

Now for the good stuff: How this all shakes out and how, in particular, it impacts Hofstra. What, you thought I cared about the Big East all of a sudden? While most of the talk about the superconferences has been centered on what would happen once the Big XII blew up, for our purposes, we’ve only focused on the Big East and how it would shape Hofstra’s future.

Had the Big East been a proactive force in creating the four superconferences, it would have meant more purgatory for Hofstra. Now that the Big East is about to be picked apart like a Thanksgiving turkey on Black Friday, there’s an endgame resolution in sight that gets Hofstra out of the Southern Bias Conference.

People smarter than me—line forms to the left—insist this process will take years to unfold and that there’s no guarantee the Big East is done as a football/basketball powerhouse. As usual, I will insist that people smarter than me are wrong.

This time though I might be right, because if there’s one thing we can all agree upon, it’s that these conference changes aren’t going to drag out. It took 21 months for Boston College to leave the Big East for the ACC. My guess, with the stakes even higher during this round of realignment, is that Pittsburgh and Syracuse will be in the ACC next fall along with two other schools. The Pac-12 will be the Pac-16, the SEC will also have 16 teams and the Big 10 will be coming up with a new design that subliminally reminds us its names is very, very inaccurate.

The Big East barely had a football pulse with Pitt and Syracuse. It’s possible the league will still try and maintain its BCS standing by poaching a chunk of what is left of the Big XII, but according to my admittedly meager math skills, 64 does not divide equally into five. The ACC just finished off the Big East.

Who knows which of the BCS schools ends up where, but for Hofstra’s purposes, the path to the Atlantic 10—at least from where I sit, where I am, again, just having some fun speculating—just got a lot clearer. Here’s a three-step process that finally gets Hofstra into the conference it has longed after for decades.

1.) The A-10 will be targeted by the non-football Big East schools, which will look to strengthen what will still be one of the best basketball leagues in the country. The following is also an almost perfect alignment because every school but one is a Catholic university:

BIG EAST

Dayton (A-10)

Saint Louis (A-10)

Temple (A-10)

Xavier (A-10)

DePaul

Georgetown

Marquette

Notre Dame

Providence

St. John’s

Seton Hall

Villanova

2.) The current A-10 alignment will take another hit when the CAA finally quits with the Boston-to-Atlanta charade and solidifies itself as a Virginia-based, mid-Atlantic behemoth by taking two A-10 schools—including the school that jumpstarted the whole round of conference realignment that landed Hofstra in the CAA in the first place—and a Southern Conference school. This also further cements the CAA as the best Division I-AA conference in the land.

CAA

Charlotte (A-10)

Richmond (A-10)

Appalachian State (Southern Conference)

Delaware

George Mason

Georgia State

James Madison

UNC Wilmington

Old Dominion

Towson

VCU

William & Mary

3.) The Atlantic 10, now down to eight, invites the CAA’s three northern outsiders as well as Boston University, whose long-term home has long been tied to Northeastern’s. This also keeps the Atlantic 10 located ENTIRELY along the Atlantic seaboard—what a concept!—which will be no small consideration as the recession enters its second decade.

ATLANTIC 10

HOFSTRA (CAA)

Drexel (CAA)

Northeastern (CAA)

Boston U. (America East)

Duquesne

Fordham

George Washington

LaSalle

Massachusetts

Rhode Island

St. Bonaventure

Saint Joseph’s

At the very least, this new alignment makes for some juicy immediate rivalries. Imagine getting to see Chaz Williams and Halil Kanacevic at least once a year, or Tom Pecora twice a year. And I’d love to see what the Northeastern student section would come up with to greet Duquesne and ex-NU coach Ron Everhart, who famously took everything to Pittsburgh with him except the bathroom sinks at Matthews Arena.

Of course, there are many wrinkles to this plan. Notre Dame probably ends up in the Big 10 if it decides to give up independence in football. Some of the CAA schools may be lured by the idea of playing lower-level I-A football, which seems like an awful, awful idea if all the power will be consolidated in the four superconferences. But it could happen, which would turn a place like Conference USA into a potential destination for the likes of Old Dominion, James Madison and Georgia State.

The last step—and the only one we care about—is fraught with complications. I doubt very much Fordham has any interest in welcoming Hofstra to the A-10, and in the past the A-10 has been about as interested in Hofstra as the homecoming queen was in me 20-odd years ago.

But the A-10 may be in survival mode in a matter of days and weeks and have no choice but to welcome some new dance partners to the floor. Boston College’s departure to the ACC in 2003 unleashed a torrent of realignment in just a matter of months. By November, the Big East had lured six schools from Conference USA while Charlotte and Saint Louis agreed to leave C-USA for the A-10.

The dominoes are going to fall even quicker this time around. My suggestion, if you’ve been putting off a trip to Richmond for the CAA Tournament, is to book that trip now. Because if I was a betting man—you’ll get that analogy in a second!—I’d wager that by March 2013, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll only have to go to Atlantic City to see Hofstra in its conference tournament.

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

Dangerous Tribe embrace the past and the present

This will probably not happen tonight.

William & Mary coach Tony Shaver presided over one of the biggest Cinderella runs in CAA Tournament history in 2008, when the fifth-seeded Tribe won its first three games by a combined six points before falling to George Mason in the championship game.

Just one player remains from that team, and current senior starter Marcus Kitts scored three points in 29 minutes as a little-used freshman reserve. But whereas most coaches would see the lack of common players and shrug off comparisons to a long ago team, Shaver embraces the Tribe’s history and uses it as inspiration as 11th-seeded William & Mary—which advanced to tonight’s quarterfinal against Hofstra by upsetting sixth-seeded James Madison 72-68 Friday night—tries to make an even more unlikely climb to Monday.

“Well, I’d like to have some of the same players with us right now,” Shaver said with a grin late Friday night. “We did talk to our team about that success we’ve had here and we wanted to draw from the strength of the past performances here. When a game starts you’ve got to get inside those lines, play for 40 minutes, but we did want to draw from the strength of our past success.”

Shaver used a unique mixture of motivational factors as the Tribe prepared for its game Friday. While he spoke of the school’s recent history in the tournament—William & Mary, which also reached the CAA championship game last year, has won the second-most tournament games in the previous three years, behind only VCU—he also found a way to preach the one-game-at-a-time mantra every coach lives by this time of year.

“Honestly, we’ve thought very little about Hofstra at this point in time,” Shaver said. “We knew that would be our second-round matchup, if we were fortunate to get there, but I’ve told our players and I really do believe it: I don’t care whether you’re the one seed or the 12th seed, the first game in the tournament is the most difficult to win. If you think for one second beyond that, you’ll be home.”

The Tribe’s mixture of appreciation for its history and a young roster (nine of its 13 players are freshmen or sophomores) makes it a far more dangerous foe than its seed and record (4-14 CAA regular season, 10-21 overall) would seem. The Tribe throw multiple looks at teams on defense and are lethal from outside, where junior Quinn McDowell led William & Mary into the quarterfinals by setting a CAA Tournament record with 35 points in a blistering performance.

In addition, the Tribe lost seven league games by six points or less. “I guess a lot of people will define this team by their win and loss record—I don’t,” Shaver said. “This is a great group, a great team, and I thought we would walk on the floor with some inner arrogance tonight and we did.”

The Flying Dutchmen swept the season series, but William & Mary gave them fits and led by 10 in the first half of the first game in Williamsburg and had a chance to win the game in the waning seconds before freshman guard Brandon Britt was whistled for a travel. In the rematch, the Tribe led by 13 in the second half in Hempstead, where Charles Jenkins had to turn into a viral superstar—twice—to save the Dutchmen from defeat.

“In turning our attention to Hofstra we played them very well, we’ll walk on the court with confidence tomorrow night,” Shaver said. “I believe in our place we were down one, we had the ball for the last shot and didn’t make it. And at their place, a guy named Jenkins made two great shots to tie and then to beat us in overtime.”

Shaver had thought enough about Hofstra to know Friday night how he’d approach a similar late-game situation tonight. “One thing I’ll tell you is if we’re up one or two again, we’re gonna put five guys on Jenkins and somebody else is going to have to score the ball,” Shaver said with a laugh. “I’ll tell you that.”

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

Just The Facts 2011: Trying to beat a team three times in a season

The final scene here from His Story III is the best Janitor moment ever.

Happy Saturday from the palatial Hilton Garden Inn in Richmond (Loyal Reader NUHF hooked us up with this room, it is awesome beyond words and so is he) and welcome to an unprecedented fourth installment of Just The Facts, in which I actually use a clip from a third installment in a series for reasons that will be obvious in the very next graph!

The Flying Dutchmen will face William & Mary—i.e. the College of Bill Lawrence—for the third time this season when the two schools face off in the final quarterfinal tonight at 8:30. William & Mary, the 11th seed in the CAA Tournament, advanced to the quarters by upsetting sixth-seeded James Madison 72-68 last night.

The Dutchmen’s third meeting against William & Mary is a, pardon the horrendous pun but I’m fried after driving seven hours, slam dunk for the Just The Facts treatment. The Dutchmen beat the Fighting Bill Lawrences twice during the regular season—the second win, of course, was highlighted by Charles Jenkins’ multiple YouTube moments—and the common belief is that it is particularly tough to defeat a team three times in one season.

Good news for the Dutchmen, though: School and CAA history is on their side.

Hofstra has swept an opponent in the regular season and then played it in the conference tournament eight times. The Flying Dutchmen are 6-2 (.750) in those tournament games (whoohoo!), but 6-0 since 1991. (Oh no! They’re due!)

P.S. The previous paragraph was almost entirely and shamelessly cut-and-pasted from what I wrote in 2009, when I conducted most of this research for a piece that appeared two years ago yesterday as the Dutchmen prepared to open play in the CAA Tournament against UNC Wilmington, whom the Dutchmen knocked off twice in the regular season. If only I was this organized in every other facet of my life.

That said, the Dutchmen have never faced for a third time a team they beat as narrowly as this year’s edition beat William & Mary. The Dutchmen won each game by three points. More good news, hooray! The other three times the Dutchmen have faced a team they beat twice by a combined margin of less than 20 points, they have won the tournament game by double digits.

Here’s a list of how the Flying Dutchmen have fared when facing in a conference tournament an opponent they have beaten twice during the regular season, followed by their combined margin of victory in the regular season and their margin of victory (or defeat) in the tournament tilt:

2005: Beat UNC Wilmington, CAA

2001: Beat Vermont, America East

2001: Beat Maine, America East

2000: Beat Boston U., America East

2000: Beat Drexel, America East

1992: Beat UMBC, East Coast Conference

1991: Lost to UMBC, East Coast Conference

1984: Lost to Lafayette, East Coast Conference

Margins of regular season victory

2008-09 UNCW: 9 pts (1 OT), win tourney game by 13

2000-01 Vermont: 18, win tourney game by 13

2000-01 Maine: 11 (1 OT), win tourney game by 12

1999-2000 Boston U.: 43, win tourney game by 18

1999-2000 Drexel: 32, win tourney game by 18

1991-92 UMBC: 27, win tourney game by 3

1990-91 UMBC: 25, lose tourney game by 1

1983-84 Lafayette: 11, lose tourney game by 20

In the CAA, meanwhile, a team that has won two regular season meetings has also experienced great success when meeting that foe for a third time in the conference tournament. Since the CAA first expanded prior to the 2001-02 season, teams that sweep an opponent during the regular season are a robust 28-11 (.718) against said opponent in the tournament (see the full list below), including 8-2 in the last three seasons (counting yesterday’s wins by Delaware over Northeastern and Drexel over Towson). In addition, at least one team has beaten an opponent three times every since since 2001-02 except 2007-08.

2011: Drexel beats Towson, Delaware beats Northeastern

2010: Drexel loses to JMU, ODU beats W&M, ODU beats Towson

2009: Hofstra beats UNCW, VCU beats Georgia State, JMU beats W&M, Drexel loses to Towson, Mason beats Towson

2008: VCU loses to W&M, UNCW loses to Mason

2007: VCU beats Georgia State, VCU beats Mason, Mason beats JMU, ODU loses to Mason, Drexel beats Northeastern, Northeastern beats Delaware, W&M loses to Georgia State

2006: VCU beats W&M, Northeastern beats JMU, Towson loses to Georgia State, UNCW beats Delaware

2005: VCU beats Delaware, ODU beats W&M, Drexel loses to Hofstra

2004: VCU beats Towson, VCU beats ODU, Mason beats UNCW, UNCW beats JMU

2003: Mason loses to Delaware, UNCW beats Hofstra, UNCW beats Drexel, UNCW beats Delaware, JMU beats Towson

2002: VCU beats ODU, Mason loses to Hofstra, W&M loses to JMU, UNCW beats JMU

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

Hofstra 67, College of Bill Lawrence 64 (Or: Their Road To Somewhere)

Mo Cassara fared much better than The Janitor during the Flying Dutchmen's impromptu road trip last Thursday!

The Flying Dutchmen are almost halfway through a potentially magical CAA season that is constructed out of equal parts duct tape, thumbtacks, grit, smoke, mirrors and The Man Amen, so they are long accustomed to scouring the landscape for any little edge they can find. A little rest for Charles Jenkins right before a media timeout here, a couple minutes from a Roland Brown or a Paul Bilbo there, a couple spots a game for Yves Jules to come in when the Dutchmen need a defensive stop.

The latest little edge was gleaned Thursday afternoon, almost exactly 48 hours before tipoff against William & Mary, when the Dutchmen got on a bus and endured another 10-hour bus ride in order to get to Williamsburg instead of waiting for a flight Friday and potentially spending the day stuck in airports if the area was hit by heavy snow.

The storm proved to be nothing major, but the ability to spend a relaxing Friday in Virginia, instead of fretting for the second time in three weeks over whether or not they would arrive at their destination time for a Saturday afternoon game, just might have been the difference as the Dutchmen remained tied for first in the CAA heading into the biggest week of the season with a nail-biting 67-64 win over the Fighting Bill Lawrences.

Asked last night if he thought the early arrival was a vital part of victory, Mo Cassara said “I definitely do.” Then he repeated those three words for emphasis—twice.

“That was a real great call by Jack [Hayes] and Danny [McCabe],” Cassara said of Hofstra’s athletic director and his top assistant. “They said ‘Let’s go, let’s not take a chance, let’s not have these guys sitting in the airport.’ Danny and Jack, that’s kind of veteran leadership there. I deferred to them. [They said] ‘Let’s get you on the bus.’

“It made all the difference in the world. We had a whole day to get off our feet, relax and catch our breath a little bit. It worked out well.”

Who knows what happens if the Dutchmen spend Friday sprawled out in an airport instead of sprawled out in a hotel room before taking a post-dinner trip to a mall? Maybe Jenkins doesn’t overcome a tough shooting day (7-of-18, the second time in three games he’s shot below 40 percent after shooting less than 40 percent just twice in the Dutchmen’s first 16 games) to once again fill up a boxscore once again in leading the Dutchmen with 22 points, eight assists and four steals as well as pulling down six rebounds. The assists and rebounds matched his season highs against Division I competition.

OK, Jenkins probably would have done that anyway. But maybe Greg Washington fails to overcome early foul trouble (two by the first media timeout) and misses one or two of his field goal attempts, instead of hitting all six—the first time in his career he’s taken as many as three shots without a miss and the second perfect shooting performance by a Hofstra big man this month (David Imes was 8-for-8 against Drexel Jan. 3)—and giving the Dutchmen that ever-valuable third player in double figures. The Dutchmen, who also got 13 points from Mike Moore, are 11-1 when at least three players reach 10 points and 5-0 when Washington scores at least 10.

Washington also had nine rebounds, one shy of his season high. “I thought the second half was as well as he’s played all year,” Cassara said. “He made some big plays, obviously, offensively, but I think more importantly he was just such a presence on defense. He moved and he had a difficult assignment running around guarding a lot of different guys and he bailed a lot of guys out on the back line there. Even though he didn’t block shots, he changed shots.”

Maybe, without a full day of rest, Washington and the Dutchmen aren’t able to withstand going scoreless from the field in the last 4:21 and maybe they don’t survive two attempts by William & Mary to take the lead in the final 40 seconds, during which the Fighting Bill Lawrences missed a shot and were whistled for a travel, to close out a true CAA grinder in which they never led by more than six points.

“I thought our defense was as good as it’s been all year the last couple possessions,” Cassara said. “They run a lot of the Princeton style offense. We hedged out, we really, really played aggressive man-to-man defense and from one through five, all our guys did a terrific job, really led by Greg Washington.”

Maybe, if Shemiye McLendon spends Friday trying to catch some sleep on airport seats, he doesn’t coolly drain two free throws with a little more than a second left to provide the final margin of victory. He’d gone 14 days since last attempting a free throw and 17 since he hit one. And maybe he doesn’t end the first half by going coast-to-coast and hitting a driving layup just before the buzzer to pull the Dutchmen within 37-34.

“That gave us a little momentum going into the locker room, that was a big play,” Cassara said. “He hasn’t shot the ball terribly well the last two weeks from the perimeter [2-for-16 from 3-point land in his last five games]. He’s doing other things for us. He’s really defending well for us. And him going to the line and making tow free throws on the road in the CAA to keep you tied for first place, it’s really a credit to him for doing the job for us.”

There’s not much of a maybe about this: Without a relaxing Friday, the Dutchmen don’t come back from a 10-point first half deficit against William & Mary, which is in a full-on youth movement and entrenched among the CAA’s bottom quadrant, just like Northeastern two weeks earlier.

But unlike Northeastern, which is still seeking its first league win, the Fighting Bill Lawrences are in the process of figuring things out, and fast. The FBLs entered Saturday with a two-game winning streak in which they routed Drexel and Towson by a combined 29 points and drained 10 of their first 18 shots—including 4-of-9 from beyond the arc—in taking a 30-20 lead against the Dutchmen. But William & Mary was just 12-of-33 from the field the rest of the way, including 2-of-16 from 3-point land, and never led by more than three points in the second half.

“They shot the ball really well,” Cassara said. “We went back and looked at the film. We didn’t think our zone was very good to start, but we were in pretty good position. They just hit some tough shots I told the team going into it that this is a team that is playing very well and they’ve got some confidence, won a couple games in a row. They’re at home and they’re going to make some tough shots. They literally did that—they made some tough shots. We were just a little bit slow, part of being on the road, but we made some adjustments and in the second half the adjustments worked.”

But not nearly as well as the adjustment Cassara and the Hofstra staff made Thursday.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 1/22)

3: Greg Washington

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 47

Mike Moore 24

Greg Washington 17

David Imes 14

Dwan McMillan 5

Brad Kelleher 3

Shemiye McLendon 2

Yves Jules 1

Stephen Nwaukoni 1

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

In which I complete the seventh stage of grief by finally explaining the man crush on Tom Pecora

I'm not saying I've spent the last month wailing my own version of Hall & Oates' first big hit. I'm not saying I haven't, either.

Twenty-five days ago, Fordham held a press conference introducing Tom Pecora as the new head men’s basketball coach at Fordham. When he stepped to the podium, he didn’t announce his resignation as the HC of FU.

Eighteen days ago, Hofstra held a press conference introducing Tim Welsh as its new head men’s basketball coach. It was April Fools Day, but Pecora didn’t come busting through the gohofstra.com backdrop, a la the Kool-Aid Man.

Pecora’s entire staff from Hofstra has joined him at Fordham. Former Boston College assistant Mo Cassarra has already joined Welsh’s staff, with more announcements expected this week. When Pecora appeared on AOL Fanhouse TV’s online coverage of the Final Four (yes, apparently, EVERYONE is getting jobs in sports journalism except me), he was identified as Fordham’s head coach.

So I guess it’s time to come to grips with reality: Pecora is gone, and he ain’t coming back.

I am asked three questions by people who stumble upon this blog: Why do you hate George Mason so much? Do you ever shut up? And why do you like Tom Pecora so much?

For the Cliffs Notes answer to question no. 1, click here. The answer to no. 2 should be found in there (and here!) as well.

As for my fondness for Pecora—I’m being a little over the top here, like with everything else, but I will authentically miss Pecora. Part of it is he was just about the last link to my college days. Now, if I want to remember what it’s like to be 21, I have to root for Brett Favre, who entering his second full season as the Packers’ starting quarterback when our fantasy football league began in 1994. No thanks.

But becoming re-acquainted with Pecora and covering him have been among the few highlights of the last two eminently crappy years. Writing is in my blood, but my last gig was so dehumanizing, from a management perspective, that it began to feel like a job for the first time ever. I started this blog in the summer of 2008 to stay sharp as I pursued another job (snicker snicker snort snort) and enjoy the purity of writing for myself and not a soulless, faceless corporation that viewed me as an unnecessary evil.

I never expected it to reignite my passion like it has, and much of the credit for that has to go to Pecora. His openness and accessibility made this year’s coverage, in particular, possible, and represented a welcome change from what I’d grown accustomed to in the world of professional athletics. There was no secrecy, no paranoia, no passive-aggressive games in which he spent hours making me jump through hoops for a few minutes of his time.

Nor did he spend a chunk of his time trying to control the message. Last fall, I wanted to do a story on seniors Miklos Szabo and Our Man Corny, but the two were struggling and all-world SID Jeremy Kniffin gently suggested that Pecora might not think it was the best time to interview the two. A few minutes later, he informed me the interview was a go because Pecora said it didn’t make sense to hide the players.

Unlike so many players and coaches who are unwilling to offer anything more than mind-numbing clichés, Pecora’s press conferences were can’t-miss affairs. He was brutally, blissfully honest and didn’t have it in him to BS people. A lot of people got tired of his CAA bashing, but, again: Why should he get over the fact that the screw job that left his best team ever out of the NCAA Tournament was perpetuated by and benefited a team within his own conference?

It was also refreshing to deal with someone who viewed a reporter as a fellow human being, and not a form of life lower than a meter maid. Last spring, we spent some time in his office and discussed the pain of losing a parent.

And after the Bracket Buster game against Rider Feb. 20, Pecora walked out of the media room and asked if I was OK. I’d been diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy almost two weeks earlier and Pecora noticed, even from the front of the room, that my face was swollen and my speech mildly affected. I thought that was really nice of him, especially since I can think of at least one baseball executive who wouldn’t break stride if I dropped dead of a heart attack right in front of him.

Believe it or not, though, my appreciation for Pecora has much less to do with how he treated me than it does with the program he built and the philosophies he espoused. Pecora, as well as Jay Wright before him, made sure the Flying Dutchmen would remain a program a fan could be proud of, regardless of how the team fared on the court. My favorite part of my exchanges with the paste-eaters in Mason Nation was how they had to go back five or seven years to find an example of a Hofstra player with attitude and disciplinary issues.

Pecora is as much about teaching his players about life as basketball, just like Butch van Breda Kolff. I remember conducting an interview with van Breda Kolff after Wright was hired in which van Breda Kolff said he hoped he instilled important lessons in his players such as how to dress for a job interview or the value of arriving a few minutes early for appointments.

Pecora didn’t use the same verbiage, but the message was generally the same. He wanted to prepare his players for the world beyond the suspended animation of college, to remind them that whatever obstacles and adversity they faced on the court would alternately steel them for and pale in comparison to the harsh realities outside a tree- and tulip-adorned campus.

As interesting as it was to listen to Pecora talks Xs and Os, I enjoyed much more listening to him deliver these lessons. Maybe I would have felt differently two years ago, when I would have been nodding out of politeness instead of agreement. But after what I’ve experienced lately, a dose of perspective in a head coach is a wonderful thing.

“I’m not into feeling sorry for myself, I’m not into feeling sorry for them,” Pecora said after the infamous loss to Mason Jan. 19. “They’ve got scholarships here. It’s $50,000 a year to come be a college basketball player. It’s a wonderful life. And you’re asked to play hard when you get on the floor, work hard in the classroom and behave like a gentleman when you’re off the court. It’s not that much to do. There’s guys who would give their left arm to do that.

“So if they think this is tough—what are they going to do when they get into the real world and you lose a job like so many people have done already, or things happen to you in your life that send you for a tailspin? These guys can’t handle losing some close basketball games? When adversity strikes, the true man comes out.”

Pecora also delivered some life lessons in how he handled his departure, particularly how to go about a job even when you may not plan to be there much longer. As I wrote three weeks ago, the rapidity with which Fordham hired Pecora suggests the groundwork had been laid over the preceding weeks and months, but Pecora’s effort remained honest all season. He coached the final few weeks as if his legacy was at stake and presided over the greatest second half turnaround in CAA history. Earlier in the season, he fought for Brad Kelleher as if his job depended on it.

There’s a lot to be learned, too, from Pecora’s exit. The timing is not always right to take a new job, and there will be wounded feelings left behind both inside and outside the program.

Wright got to leave Hofstra after seven seniors led the Flying Dutchmen to a second straight NCAA Tournament and a near-upset of UCLA. Pecora’s last game was in something called a CBI that was played in front of “952” people—more people turned out to Wright’s first game in 1994—and he leaves behind a squad that features the CAA’s reigning player of the year and two members of the all-rookie team.

Not everybody gets the clean and happy ending. But sometimes, the money is too good to turn down, and a coach is too old to wait for another opportunity to jump to a bigger and better league.

Contrary to what you might believe after reading the preceding 1,500 or so words, I’m not declaring Pecora can walk on water. (Though I’ve never seen him NOT walk on water) I’m sure he’s demanding behind the scenes, and I’m sure he has an ego, too. I also know he knew it could only help him to embrace anyone who wanted to give his overlooked program some publicity.

I know 16 years is a long time to be in one place and that it was probably time for a change of scenery for everyone. And as both a fan and a dude with a digital recorder in his hand, Tim Welsh seems to be the perfect successor to Pecora. Still, I think I’ll keep the WELCOME BACK TOM banner in the trunk. You know, just in case.

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

College of Bill Lawrence 73, Hofstra 66 (Or: My Overkill)

J.D. is tired of hearing Colin Hay sing about the Flying Dutchmen. "Signature Wins appear and fade away. Signature Wins appear and fade away..."

To try and figure out which painful loss is the worst for a team is presumably the inverse of asking a parent to identify his or her favorite child. They all suck equally (the losses, that is, not the kids).

But if the Flying Dutchmen were to rank the defeats of 2009-10 in order of agony, their 73-66 loss Saturday to the College of Bill Lawrence would have to top the chart, such as it is.

Like they have so many times this season, the Dutchmen had that long-desired Signature Win in their grasp Saturday night. For the fifth time, the Dutchmen lost a game in which they enjoyed a multiple-possession lead in the second half. Yet as disappointing as it was to squander those leads against UConn (nine points with 9:10 left), St. John’s (seven points with 16:50 left), George Mason (six points with 7:52 left) and in the first game against William & Mary Jan. 2 (eight points with 14:31 left), this one really smarts.

The Dutchmen led the Fighting Lawrences by seven with 9:14 to play. Had they held on, it would have been quite the Signature Win, second in hypothetical impact behind only a victory over UConn.

This Signature Win would have come on the road against one of the CAA’s first place teams (it sounds grammatically incorrect, but it isn’t—look at the standings!), and while William & Mary’s RPI isn’t as high now as it was when it visited Hofstra Jan. 2, the win would have been even more impressive because the Fighting Lawrences have proven over the first two weeks of the conference schedule that their success in November and December was no fluke.

Instead, the Dutchmen’s midseason skid hit semi-historic levels. The Dutchmen’s seventh loss in nine games dropped them to 2-5 in the CAA and 9-10 overall. This is the first time since the 1981-82 season the Dutchmen have fallen under .500 in a season in which they were at least four games over .500.

The fateful final few minutes Saturday unfurled in frustratingly familiar fashion as the Dutchmen were unable to either maintain or extend the lead over the Fighting Lawrences nor come back once they fell behind. The Dutchmen finished the game in a 3-of-16 funk and missed 10 straight shots over a nearly eight-minute span, during which a six-point lead turned into a seven-point deficit.

Such a dry spell was uncannily similar to the losses against St. John’s and Mason. Four weeks ago yesterday, the Dutchmen missed their final 12 shots against the Red Storm, who turned a five-point deficit into a 12-point win with an 18-1 run over the final 6:57. And two weeks ago against the Patriots, the Dutchmen missed eight straight shots over more than five minutes as a four-point lead turned into a four-point deficit.

The common perception in the near-misses—perpetuated plenty here—is that Charles Jenkins tries to do too much as the Dutchmen flail down the stretch. But the late game offensive struggles have been a team effort in all five potential Signature Wins.

Jenkins, who finished with a team-high 19 points and two blocks while adding five assists and four rebounds. took eight of the Dutchmen’s final 16 shots Saturday and missed his final seven. He also took half the Dutchmen’s shots down the stretch against St. John’s and missed them all. He took five of the final 12 shots against UConn, six of the final 14 shots in the first William & Mary game and five of the final 14 shots against George Mason.

Expecting Jenkins to take a greater percentage of the shots is probably a bit unrealistic, yet nobody has consistently stepped up to lessen the pressure on him. Nathaniel Lester and Halil Kanacevic were both outstanding in the first half Saturday (Lester had eight points and seven rebounds while Kanacevic had 10 points and three rebounds) but quiet in the second half (Lester had one point and one rebound while Kanacevic had two points and three rebounds).

As much as the Dutchmen need someone to emerge as the Robin to Jenkins’ Batman (I can’t take credit for that analogy, it comes from WRHU’s Mike “Clay Buchholz” Leslie), Tom Pecora at this point would probably be happier to know the identity of his core beyond Jenkins and freshmen Chaz Williams (12 points on 4-of-5 shooting in his return from an ankle injury) and Halil Kanacevic.

Lester should be a part of it, but Saturday marked the fourth straight game in which he played less than 30 minutes. Greg Washington played a career-high 34 minutes but had just seven points and six rebounds. Miklos Szabo recorded just one foul but played only 15 minutes. Cornelius Vines had six assists and no turnovers—that’s right, Cornelius Vines had a perfect assist-to-turnover ratio—but was just 2-of-9 from the field.

There is, of course, a lot of time left in conference play, and we were reminded just yesterday how foolish it can be to prematurely bury a team. And the youthful and undermanned Dutchmen are the type of team that nobody is going to want to play come tournament time, when, presumably, some of the flaws will have been worked out and there will be several freshmen in the rotation who don’t know they’re supposed to be intimidated by the task of going to Virginia and winning four games in four days in foreign territory.

But that Signature Win that the Dutchmen have come so close to earning feels farther away than ever. And when the best-case scenario in the third week of January is playing Cinderella in March...well, it’s a pretty good sign the season has not unfolded as expected.

Sure, the Dutchmen were pegged as a middle-of-the-road team by outsiders, but internally, the expectations were much higher. There was a reason the Dutchmen played Kansas and in the preseason NIT this year and not last year, and it was because nobody in Hempstead expected the Dutchmen to get to the first weekend of March relying on the hope that someone someday has to beat the long odds and win on Monday as well as Friday.

But that’s where they are as February approaches, banking on a miracle in the long-term and, in the short term, hoping 2-5 doesn’t turn into 2-7 and wondering how long it’ll be before the next most demoralizing loss of the season takes place. Fortunately, the Dutchmen play George Mason tomorrow night. And nothing bad ever happens when the Dutchmen play George Mason.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 1/16)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Chaz Williams

1: Halil Kanacevic

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 33

Chaz Williams 20

Halil Kanacevic 18

Nathaniel Lester 18

Miklos Szabo 9

Cornelius Vines 8

Greg Washington 8

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

College of Bill Lawrence 48, Hofstra 47 (Or: His Unfortunate Prescience)

Tom Pecora was REEHEE HEEHEE HEEEally unhappy after the Flying Dutchmen's heartbreaking loss to the College of Bill Lawrence.

One of the first things you learn upon becoming a sports journalist and heading behind the looking glass is that players and coaches are far less emotional about the games than the fans. They care—well, most of them anyway—but the long season demands from its participants patience and all the accompanying clichés. It doesn’t do a player or a coach any good to emulate a fan and stay up all night obsessing over a defeat or celebrating a victory, especially during the regular season.

To every rule there is an exception, though, and there it was on Saturday, when College of Bill Lawrence coach Tony Shaver and the Tribe fans alike were believing the 48-47 win over the Flying Dutchmen was another sign of the magical season unfolding before their eyes. The win was the school-record 10th in a row for CBL, which was the consensus pick to finish last in the CAA but has beaten Wake Forest and Maryland on the road, entered Saturday ranked fifth in the entire country in RPI and should, by any reasonable standard, be ranked when the latest top 25 polls are released today.

Tom Pecora and all of Dutch Nation (snort), meanwhile, were left to bemoan, both in the micro and the macro, what could have been and what might have slipped out of their grasp.

If this game were to be simulated on a computer 1,000 times, Hofstra probably goes 997-3. The Dutchmen played a brilliant defensive game, limiting the Tribe to less than 50 points three days after it went into College Park and racked up 87 in routing Maryland. The Tribe entered Saturday as one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the nation yet was just 3-of-16 from beyond the arc and shot just 36 percent overall. The Dutchmen outrebounded CBL 37-27.

“Holding them to 35 percent [shooting] should be good enough [to win],” Pecora said. “That’s one of our game goals for every game. One is hold the opponent under 40 percent. One is not letting an opponent score 20 points. We did that. One is outrebounding the opponent. We did that by 10.”

And the most remarkable stat of all: Hofstra did not trail CBL for the first 39 minutes and 43 seconds. But oh, those last 17 seconds.

The Tribe’s Kendrix Brown drove a wide-open lane for his only basket and was fouled by Charles Jenkins. Brown hit the free throw to give CBL its first lead. After a Dutchmen timeout, a double-teamed Jenkins dished the ball to Halil Kanacevic, who fired up an errant 3-pointer from the right corner with three seconds left. Nathaniel Lester grabbed the rebound and appeared to be fouled as he hoisted the ball up just before the final buzzer—and by “appeared to be fouled,” I mean “was absolutely mugged.”

One official blew his whistle, seemingly indicating a foul, but he was waved off by the other two as Lester, Chaz Williams and Greg Washington stood by and pleaded their cases.

“I told the players in 30-some years of coaching, this is one of the best wins I’ve ever been a part of,” Shaver said. “We just found a way to win and I think that’s a sign of a great basketball team. Just their courage and their toughness today was very impressive.

“People have been telling me all year long we shoot too many threes and we can’t score if we don’t shoot the ball, we can’t win if we don’t shoot well. Well, we shot 35 percent and 18 percent from three and won against a great team on the road. So something good’s going on with these guys.”

As for Pecora, he stormed after the officials demanding an explanation and had to be held back by two staff members. “‘Game over,’ that’s all they said,” Pecora said. “He blew the whistle to end the game. That’s what he said. I don’t believe that to be the case.”

As livid as he was with the officials, Pecora was even more disappointed with his team for failing to record a seismic victory over the Tribe and its sky-high RPI. He wasn’t alone: The wife and I had some errands to run after the game and she remained silent in the car the entire time. I finally asked if it was something I’d said or done, or, more likely, something I hadn’t said (“Honey, I forgot to tell you, if you called your college loan people by 5 pm New Years Eve, they would have wiped away your debt”) or hadn’t done (fed and watered the cats).

“I’m just so pissed about that game,” she said.

(Note: It’s her damn fault. Sometime in the second half Saturday, she said “This better not be one of these games we lead the whole way and then lose.” Thanks honey. Next time we’re on the highway, why don’t you marvel at how we haven’t hit any traffic.)

“I’m worried they’re not going to do something special,” she added.

Pecora wasn’t offering such a pessimistic declaration, but he seemed more discouraged that at any other time this year. And one day after Pecora talked about how the Dutchmen’s season could be defined by these five games in 10 days, the question has to be pondered: What if the first game in that stretch proves to define something far greater than a single season?

“I talk all the time to these guys about their legacy—this would have been an opportunity for them to leave a mark in the history books by beating a team that was as highly touted as William & Mary,” Pecora said. “And we weren’t able to do that.”

The legacy so far for this core of Dutchmen is “almost.” The closest thing to a defining game last season came in the CAA quarterfinal against Old Dominion, which the Dutchmen lost 52-51 when Jenkins’ 3-pointer at the buzzer fell short.

This year’s team has played quite an improved schedule, but at some point, it is not enough to merely go out to Kansas and lose to the top-ranked Jayhawks or to almost beat UConn, Charlotte, St. John’s and CBL. What good is an upgraded schedule without a signature win or two? If the season ended today, the Dutchmen wouldn’t even be on the radar in the NIT discussion, never mind the NCAA.

Plenty of patience has been exercised with the Dutchmen, who are still inexperienced beyond Jenkins. He entered Saturday with 74 career starts, a mere seven fewer than the rest of the lineup—Lester, Miklos Szabo, Greg Washington and Chaz Williams—combined.

But patience cannot be limitless, especially in college basketball, where careers are cruelly finite. And the calendar dictates when youth is no longer an excuse. Guess what? It happened at midnight Friday morning.

And guess what? The last Biggest Game Ever played at Hofstra Arena was won by a team with two seniors, two juniors and a sophomore in its starting lineup. One of those seniors was Adrian Uter, a junior college transfer. The other was Aurimas Kieza, who entered 2005-06 with 41 starts—one more than junior Carlos Rivera, eight more than sophomore Antoine Agudio and 10 fewer than junior Loren Stokes.

The Dutchmen have won with inexperienced teams that played beyond their years. It is time for this team to take that leap, and despite the crushing disappointment of Saturday, there was evidence at least one player is ready to do so. Lester led the Dutchmen with 14 points and 10 rebounds, drew two fouls in the first 26 seconds of the second half and took eight of the team’s 10 free throw attempts.

It is time for him to do that consistently—he has scored in double figures in consecutive games just twice this year—and it is time for Szabo and Washington, who have gone to the line more than four times in just five of 28 games this season, to be more than decoys in the paint. And yes, it is even time for Jenkins to play like Loren Stokes all the time, not most of it.

“This is a poor game for Charles—he’s 5-of-13 from the floor, he’s 12 points and two rebounds in 40 minutes,” Pecora said. “Our great players have always filled up boxscores. They score points, they rebound, they defend, they have a good assist-to-turnover ratio. And he’s still working on it. He’s only a junior.”

Which means Jenkins—along with everyone else in the lineup except Williams—is closer to the finish line than the start. So if not now for the Dutchmen, then when?

“It sure does sting, because you only get so many opportunities in life,” Pecora said. “And when you’re young, sometimes you don’t realize that. But when you’re old, like me, you realize it. And you realize when you get a chance to win a big game like this, you better take advantage of it, because it may not come along that often.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 1/2)

3: Nathaniel Lester

2: Charles Jenkins

1: Halil Kanacevic

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 21

Nathaniel Lester 18

Chaz Williams 14

Halil Kanacevic 11

Greg Washington 8

Cornelius Vines 7

Miklos Szabo 5

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

Running Tally: CAA Predictions

If you play this album backwards, it says "You have made a terrible mistake picking the Flying Dutchmen sixth."

The unpredictability of the CAA is a popular and accurate storyline within the blogosphere, but if the preseason predictions are any indication, the suspense may be at a premium in the conference this season.

There is near-unanimity among the magazines and other writers about the identities of the haves and the have-nots. With only one exception, the top six teams in the overall tally were ranked within the top six by all six polls (Shout! Shout! Shout at the devil!!!!). Obviously, the same applies to the bottom six. The exception: Athlon ranked James Madison seventh, one spot behind Georgia State.

That’s right: The Flying Dutchmen are an overwhelming choice to finish in the top half of the CAA! We’re still very mad at all of you, though, for not picking the Dutchmen first.

To find out where exactly the consensus has the Dutchmen pegged, check out the first running tally of predictions, to be followed by some analysis of the picks as well as a look at how this year’s trends stack up to last year’s.

And just as I did last year, in compiling the polls, I paid tribute to my days as a mediocre cross country runner by awarding each team the point total correspondent with its place in the standings (i.e. one point for first place, 12 points for me, err, last place).

If you happen to come across any previews we’ve missed, by all means, email me or notify me on Twitter so I can update the poll. We had 10 polls last season and I’m sure I missed some.

Tommy Lee drum roll please! 

1.) Old Dominion (4) 9

2.) VCU (2) 14

3.) Northeastern 17

4.) George Mason 23

5t.) HOFSTRA 32

5t.) James Madison 32

7.) Drexel 46

8.) Georgia State 55

9.) Delaware 57

10.) Towson 58

11.) William & Mary 62

12.) UNC Wilmington 63

First place votes in parenthesis

Polls collected thus far: CAA, Blue Ribbon, Sporting News, Lindy’s, Athlon, Brian Mull

—Charles Jenkins is the leader in the clubhouse for Preseason Player of the Year honors with 2.5 votes. He was the pick by Athlon and Mull and shared CAA honors with Gerald Lee. Larry Sanders was tabbed by Sporting News and Lindy’s while Lee was selected by Blue Ribbon.

—The Dutchmen were picked fourth by Sporting News and Lindy’s and sixth by everyone else, which makes them one of three schools picked in the same spot by four different outlets. Old Dominion and Drexel (seventh) are the others. The consistency, for lack of a better word, is a marked change from last year, when the Dutchmen were picked anywhere from fourth (The Sports Xchange) to 12th (The Sports Network).

—Old Dominion and VCU are the only two schools picked in the top four by all six outlets. ODU is the only one unanimously ranked in the top three. The Monarchs were in the top two in every poll except Sporting News.

—Northeastern and VCU are both ranked in the top three by five outlets. The Huskies got three second-place votes (Athlon, Blue Ribbon and CAA) and were picked fifth by Sporting News while the Rams received two first-place votes (Sporting News and Lindy’s) and a second-place vote (Mull) in addition to their fourth-place selection by Blue Ribbon.

—George Mason was ranked in the top five by all six outlets. The Patriots’ highest vote came from Sporting News (second) and their lowest from Lindy’s and Athlon (fifth).

—James Madison received three fifth-place votes (Blue Ribbon, CAA, Mull), making the Dukes one of four teams to be picked in the same spot in three polls.  In addition to Northeastern, William & Mary got three 11th-place votes and UNC Wilmington got three 12th-place votes.

—In addition to its four seventh-place votes—an acknowledgment, perhaps, of how Bruiser Flint’s team exceeded expectations last season—Drexel also placed eighth (Blue Ribbon) and 10th (Lindy’s).

—Once again, the bouncing ball award goes to Georgia State, which is ranked anywhere from sixth (Athlon) to last (Sporting News and Lindy’s) as well as eighth (CAA and Mull) and ninth (Blue Ribbon).

—Delaware is ranked eighth or lower in all six polls, and it should be noted its two 11th-place votes came in the most recent rankings (CAA and Mull). The Blue Hens, of course, lost starting point guard Brian Johnson to a season-ending knee injury in August.

—Towson and William & Mary (which, by the way, in a homage to the awesomeness of Scrubs, will now be dubbed the College of Bill Lawrence) are both ranked in the bottom third of every poll. Good news for fans of the Tigers and Fighting Lawrences: Drexel was ranked in the bottom third of every preseason poll a year ago and was in contention for a first-round bye until literally the last second of the regular season.

—Only one other school has a gap of more than three spots between its highest and lowest ranking: UNC Wilmington was picked seventh by Lindy’s and last by Athlon’s, Blue Ribbon and the CAA. The Seahawks were also picked ninth by Mull.

—There was a lot more fluidity in last year’s polls, as you can see by clicking on our first, second, third and fourth running tallies. The gist: Through six polls last year, three teams had been ranked in the top half of every poll (VCU, Northeastern and George Mason) and three teams had been ranked in the bottom half of every poll (Towson, William & Mary and Drexel).

—That said, there is some movement within the rankings: There are no unanimous picks through six polls. Last year at this juncture, there were two: VCU (first) and Delaware (fifth). Ehh, win some, lose some.

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

In which I will tirelessly work for you on Labor Day weekend

OK, that’s not entirely true. But I’ve got multiple deadlines today for actual, paying work, which is a nice and hopefully not fleeting feeling. So the Flying Dutchmen football preview/feature will have to wait until tomorrow. Come back then to read what Dave Cohen, Cory Christopher and Luke Bonus have to say about the upcoming season.

Also stop back, either tomorrow or Monday or maybe Tuesday depending on how slothful and/or completely wiped out I feel, for the debut of a new feature at Defiantly Dutch in which I look back at the pivotal pop culture moments of 1994. It’s a different idea, to be sure, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m curious to see if the execution matches the concept. But to paraphrase what the totally awesome Bill Lawrence—a graduate of William & Mary, BTW—says about the retooling of Scrubs: If it sucks, it’ll probably suck in a really large way. So it’ll be interesting either way.

As for the Dutchmen season opener against Stony Brook, I must shamefully admit we won’t be at the game Saturday as we’re heading to Connecticut for a gargantuan, I-swear-I’ll-start-dieting-for-real-Tuesday BBQ at my sister’s house. The pick here is Hofstra A Lot, Stony Brook A Little, though I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this suddenly embittered rivalry yields a mini-classic at Shuart Stadium.

I may try out the new on-demand live streaming at the Hofstra website though. If so, perk your ears. I’ll be the guy yelling about Paul Que.

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