Hey when I said “See you Monday!” I didn’t say which Monday!

Once! Upon a time! I thought the Freak Formal was on a Saturday!

Another quick weekend-ish post to apologize for the inactivity this week. A combination of new day job issues (I don’t have a mortgage to pay but I’m beginning to know Litos’ lament well) and old man back issues (as I writhed in pain after throwing my back out walking to the kitchen, I fondly recalled the days when I’d roller skate with a bad back, get off my lawn) meant I couldn’t get to the CAA Running Tally on Monday, or any other day this week. That’s coming Monday, this coming one, I promise you. Unless I throw my back out again while sleeping.

In the meantime, slowly improving back willing, hope to see you at Hofstra Soccer Stadium today for the doubleheader as the Flying Dutchwomen aim to complete a perfect CAA regular season when they oppose Northeastern at 4:30 and the Flying Dutchmen hope to continue their stirring late-season run when they face no. 17 William & Mary at 7.

And after that of course we’ll all don cheap costumes, head over to the Freak Formal and drink even cheaper beer. Actually, I think it’s just called the Halloween Dance. Sigh. Must you rename everything near and dear to my heart, Hofstra? Oh and wait I just double checked and it was tonight. Damnit! What am I going to do with my flannel shirt and Lollapalooza ’92 shirt now?

Anyway, some links here as I decide whether or not to dress up like Eddie Vedder around the house Sunday:

—Both basketball teams have a closed scrimmage this afternoon. The men face Bucknell and the women play Fordham. Damn. I’d pay good money to sneak into the men’s scrimmage if it was the other way around! Speaking of Fordham, the Rams play Villanova, according to Jeff Goodman. Now that would be fun to see, too—the first time Tom Pecora and Jay Wright ever oppose each other as head coaches.

—Way late with this, but my bitter blogging rival Gary Moore has a good writeup from last Saturday’s Blue/White Scrimmage.

—As if you needed another reason to ditch Cablevision (does anyone know who won the National League pennant? Anyone?): Every home basketball game—men’s and women’s—will be televised by FIOS this winter. Seriously, that might be enough for me to switch.

—Quick football note here: Raheem Morris is really starting to sound like Joe Gardi. The second-year coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers—known worldwide as The Official NFL Team of Defiantly Dutch—declared the Buccaneers were the best team in the NFC after their exciting comeback win over the St. Louis Rams (a ha! Revenge for 1999!!!) Sunday. A consensus pick to repeat as cellar-dwellers in the loaded NFC South, the Bucs are instead a surprising—nay, shocking—4-2 and a mere half-game behind the Giants and Atlanta Falcons for the top seed in the conference.

Now, it’s a rather tenuous 4-2: The Bucs’ four wins have come against teams with a combined record of 8-18, and they needed fourth quarter comebacks against the Rams, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals. Combined margin of victory in those wins: Seven points. And the two losses were to the last two Super Bowl champs, the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints, by a combined score of 69-19.

The Bucs also rank 23rd in the NFL in total offense and 22nd in total defense. Morris’ response?

“Stats are for losers,” he told reporters Monday. Close your eyes and you can almost hear Gardi.

Morris continued to channel Gardi Thursday when he further explained his comments. Good stuff. And of the Buccaneers’ next four games, two are against teams that currently have one win (Carolina and San Francisco) and Sunday’s is against Arizona, which is 3-3 despite a point differential of minus-62. So the Buccaneers might very well still be in the running for best team in the NFC a month from now, at which point the rest of the world will have no choice but to take them seriously.

—Lastly, MSG.com’s Jon Rothstein stopped by the Flying Dutchmen’s practice Thursday and filed five thoughts on this year’s team. I am in particular agreement on his final point—David Imes is going to have a big year. More on him next week. Unless I throw my back out again while eating.

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

In which I miss the Blue/White Scrimmage, but post a Just One Of The Guys photo anyway

Missing the Shirts/Skins, err, Blue/White Scrimmage isn't going to stop me from the annual posting of this still from the best movie ever made, Just One Of The Guys!

A quick and rare Saturday post to apologize for the lack of posts this week as well as for my absence at today’s Fanfest/Blue-White Scrimmage. A crazy few days at the day job coupled with a wicked cold (as the Boston Bias fans say) knocked me for a loop. I’ll be back Monday with the long-awaited debut of the Running Tally of preseason predictions.

I’ll be out of state this afternoon (if you’re in northwestern Connecticut, come to my book signing!) and will miss the festivities at the Arena. I hate to miss it, but on the bright side, I found a way to use the annual Just One Of The Guys photo! Fortunately, those of you looking for updates and posts on the Blue/White Scrimmage will be in good hands with Gary Moore, my bitter blogging rival. Check him out at Twitter at @gmoore21566. And don't forget Mo Cassara at @Coach_Cassara.

Lastly, here are a couple interesting links. If you’re fortunate enough to be a Cablevision subscriber (snort, hey, does anyone know who is winning the National League Championship Series?) Newsday’s Steve Marcus wrote about the upbeat prospects for the men’s and women’s basketball teams here (and he didn’t even declare how Hofstra made a horrendous mistake joining the CAA!).

And our old friend Tom Pecora chatted it up at the Atlantic 10 media day at Chelsea Piers (a media day in which he doesn’t have to get on a plane—he’s already a happier man!) Thursday. In addition to promising a unique preseason bonfire for Fordham, he also picked at the festering wound that is the 2006 snub. And you wonder why we got along so well. Have a good weekend, catch you Monday!

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

Of ambitiously fake tiebreakers and the ambiguousness of Barone Bowl II

Hey honey! Come look at what I figured out!

Before we get into the really relevant business of pondering how tonight will determine the Flying Dutchmen’s potential second opponent in the CAA Tournament (which begins in 10 days, holy hell, where did the time go), let’s get really goofy and ponder what the final week of the regular season might have meant for the Dutchmen if the first two games of January turned out just a little bit differently.

By little bit differently, of course, I mean had the Dutchmen beaten William & Mary and George Mason on Jan. 2 and Jan. 4 instead of suffering gut-wrenching last-minute losses. A few of us blogger/broadcaster types were chewing this over after the Dutchmen defeated Rider Saturday and I declared I am convinced (CONVINCED I TELL YOU) that had the Dutchmen held on to beat William & Mary—whom they led for the first 39 minutes and 43 seconds—they also would have beaten Mason in Fairfax.

That’s admittedly a pretty big leap to take—even for someone like me, with the most pronounced blog biases in all of the CAA!—given Mason’s success at Patriot Center (the Patriots had won 18 straight CAA home games until William & Mary won there last Tuesday). But the Dutchmen had a six-point lead with less than eight minutes to play and twice closed within two points in the final minute. I really think beating William & Mary would have fueled the Dutchmen with the confidence and momentum necessary to close out the Patriots.

Of course, at that point the Dutchmen would have been 3-0 with a home game against Towson coming up on Jan. 6, so it’s fairly inconceivable that they would have fallen apart as badly as they did the rest of the month. It’s also impossible to assume that the rest of the season would have played out as it has for William & Mary and Mason.

But for the sake of this blog, let’s just assume that the first two games of January were the only ones to turn out differently. Because to do so is fun. Because if that was the case, the standings today would look like this:

Northeastern 13-3

Old Dominion 13-3

William & Mary 10-6

VCU 10-6

Drexel 10-6

Hofstra 10-6

George Mason 10-6

Ohhhh yes. That’s like the tiebreaker version of Viagra. I could go all night…figuring out those permutations!

And I did. OK fine I didn’t spend all night, but I still spent more time than anyone should on a completely fictitious possibility. The five-way tie is listed in the order in which it would be broken. William & Mary would be 5-2 against the fellow 10-6 teams, followed by VCU (3-3), Drexel (3-4), Hofstra (3-4) and Mason (2-3). Drexel gets the fifth spot ahead of the Dutchmen by virtue of its sweep of Northeastern. There are no more games scheduled between the 10-6 teams that aren’t really 10-6, so this would be good to go if there was an actual fictitious tie come Saturday night.

The Dutchmen would have an uphill climb towards one of the byes in this scenario, since William & Mary, VCU and Drexel combine to play just one team with a winning record in conference this week (VCU visits Old Dominion Saturday). But can you imagine the fun we’d have tonight, tomorrow and Saturday watching the Dutchmen, tracking the other relevant games and hoping for an ODU win over VCU and an upset by someone like UNC Wilmington (over William & Mary or Drexel), Towson (over William & Mary), James Madison (over VCU or Drexel) or Delaware (over George Mason).

I’m not complaining: There’s not much fluky about an 18-game season and the old Bill Parcells saying really does apply here. And the Dutchmen are perhaps the most perfect .500 team ever—not good at all for a few weeks and then really good for a few weeks.

That they’ve managed to turn tonight’s game into something meaningful says a lot for how far the team has come. But still…man, those tiebreaker scenarios for the five-way tie for third would have been FUN.

***

Battling for a first-round bye also would remove the ambiguity attached to tonight’s Barone Bowl II in Boston. Obviously, we should root for a Dutchmen win, because momentum is a delicate, finite thing and Tom Pecora and crew would love to enter the CAA Tournament on the hottest second-half run in the history of the conference. (Also, we should root for a Dutchmen win because rooting for the Dutchmen is what we do here)

But a loss would not be the worst thing in the world. As I wrote last week, Northeastern scares the hell out of me as a potential quarterfinal opponent. The last-time-around Huskies are too experienced and too mature to get caught flat-footed next Saturday.

Beating Northeastern tonight would likely drop them to second place for good—while the Huskies visits Mason in the season finale, ODU hosts VCU. (ODU hosts Georgia State in the only other CAA game tonight and wins by both the Huskies and Monarchs assure they will finish in the top two)

And to beat Northeastern—which thoroughly dominated the Dutchmen in Hempstead 17 days ago to hand them their only loss in the last eight games—on its Senior Night would certainly build a bigger buzz around the Dutchmen and quiet much of the skepticism that their recent hot streak is simply a matter of fattening up on the league’s bottom-feeders.

“I feel we can beat anybody now,” Pecora said Saturday. “I think we can go and play anyone and beat them. So whether we win or lose Tuesday, I’m going to feel like we can beat Georgia State Saturday and then whoever gets in our way the rest of the way. Tuesday won’t dictate that.”

But it probably will for the rest of us, for whom tonight will largely determine the mindset we’ll possess next Friday. While Dutch Nation (snort) is beginning to believe again, it is also exercising caution. Things were going so sour in January, it was impossible for even the most optimistic of people to avoid looking ahead to 2010-11.

But now this season matters again. Do we dare to believe? Do we dare to ignore the looming likelihood of heartbreak and invest, once again, in the hope that the Dutchmen can make a Cinderella run at the CAA Tournament?

Of course we do. A win tonight and nobody’s fretting about who the Dutchmen might face a week from Saturday. Even a close loss won’t necessarily send people back to the CAA Zone to call Pecora the worst coach to call Hofstra home since Rich Kotite. Another lopsided defeat though, and that bandwagon will be empty except for the blogger in the driver’s seat.

I can’t see Northeastern losing a second straight home game, especially on Senior Night, but this one will be far more competitive than the one at Hofstra. Any hopes the Dutchmen have of pulling off the upset rest on Chaz Williams, whose recent slump (he is shooting just 26 percent in his last six games and had more turnovers than assists Saturday for the first time in 11 games) has been mostly concealed by the Dutchmen’s red-hot play. But any chance the Dutchmen have of winning multiple games in the CAA Tournament are reliant on Williams finding his earlier form and doing a passable impersonation of Carlos Rivera circa 2006.

Greg Washington needs to continue his resurgent play and combine with Miklos Szabo, Halil Kanacevic and maybe even Nathaniel Lester to limit the damage of Northeastern big men Nkem Ojougboh and Manny Adako, the latter of whom scored 12 second half points in Barone Bowl I.

It should be a good one, either way, and I wish I was up there to see it in person. As is, we’ll be hitting Applebee’s for the ESPNU game (thanks again, Cablevision!). Tune in and follow along with me on Twitter as I wreck my fledgling diet by attacking the half-price appetizer menu!

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.

Bits and Bytes: Working (and waiting) for the weekend

Even Canadian rockers Loverboy are keeping their fingers crossed the Flying Dutchmen get lucky this weekend!

The Flying Dutchmen have Kansas right where they want ‘em. Or, to be grammatically correct no matter how awkward it may sound, the Flying Dutchmen have Kansas right where they want it.

The top-ranked Jayhawks waxed Division II Pittsburg State, 103-45, in an exhibition game last night, thereby assuring they’ll be overconfident and arrogant come Friday night and not prepared at all for the full fury of the Flying Dutchmen.

Freshmen Thomas Robinson and Xavier Henry combined for 27 points and one technical (assessed to Robinson for hanging on the rim after a dunk), or four points and one technical more than senior stars Cole Aldrich and Sherron Collins had. Dissension! The new kids are leading a palace revolt! Pretty soon the Jayhawks will be fighting amongst themselves instead of rumbling with the football team!

As you can tell, we’re a little worked up about the season in general and the imminent upset of the Jayhawks in particular. Stop back the next two days for plenty of preview material, including a Q&A with your good friend and mine Tom Pecora as well as a couple features. In the meantime, here are a few bits and bytes to tide you over.

—The football team will be relegated even further into the shadows this weekend, when it visits future East Coast Conference football rival Northeastern, a little more than 12 hours after the Dutchmen shock Hoops Nation.

Alas, it’s difficult not to wonder how meaningful Saturday’s game could have been for the Dutchmen, whose 28-24 loss to Delaware last Saturday marked the third time this season they turned the ball over on downs inside the 50-yard-line with a chance to tie or win the game in the final minute. The Dutchmen have lost to Delaware, New Hampshire and Maine by a combined 14 points. Wins in those three games would have the Dutchmen 7-2 and primed for a playoff berth, but instead Dave Cohen and his staff will have to hope the heartbreaking losses will provide fuel and a foundation for next season.

It’ll be interesting to see if Steve Probst gets more time at quarterback over the final two weeks. As I’ve written here before, I’m a fan of Cory Christopher, but now that the focus is entirely on 2010, it’s about time to see Probst behind center for all 60 minutes.

The very tentative plan is to attend the game Saturday, because my love of Boston is surpassed only by my desire to experience famously rustic Parsons Field for myself, but our schedule is subject to change if I spend all night celebrating the win over Kansas. I expect you to breathlessly stay tuned to this website and my Twitter until I make my decision!

—John Feinstein is many things I am not—including, apparently, crazy. The prolific author and Washington Post columnist appeared on NPR Monday (I, of course, was too busy listening to hair metal hits on satellite radio, so thanks to Brian Mull for the link) and said he expected the CAA to send four or five teams to the NCAA Tournament. If the CAA sends four or more teams to the NCAAs, I’ll stand on my head, a la Dick Vitale and Austin Peay in 1987. Even if all four or five of those teams are located in Virginia. Where is my conspiracy theory font?

—The disrespect for the Flying Dutchmen just keeps spreading. Collegeinsider.com released its first top 25 of the season, and not only aren’t the Dutchmen ranked, they weren’t even among the 55 teams receiving a vote. Seriously. Eighty teams got a vote and Hofstra didn’t. I’m going to channel and paraphrase Harry Doyle here: “One vote? We couldn’t get one goddamn vote?”

Four CAA schools are in the top 25, led by defending Collegeinsider.com Invitational champion Old Dominion, but at least Hofstra’s not alone in not receiving a vote: None of the other seven CAA schools did, either. That’s OK. The Dutchmen will be there next week!

—The NCAA is mad at Kentucky for hiring John Calipari, so for the second straight year, it’s probably going to suspend a Hofstra transfer for playing in professional games in his native land. Maybe Miklos Szabo—and Greg Washington, who also knows what it’s like to be at the mercy of the NCAA’s hilariously ineffective, inconsistent and unpredictable Clearinghouse—can give Brad Kelleher some tips on how to pass the time.

—Finally, I’ve updated the links on the right hand side of this page. You’ll notice (or maybe you won’t) no Newsday link. Apparently, there is no college basketball blog this year. Hey, that’s a good idea, let’s cut the news hole, double the price to $1, make our website free only to Cablevision subscribers (hooray monopolies!) and then not bother giving those folks anything extra to read online. Awesome. No wonder newspapers are so healthy. Little birdies also tell me they’ll provide Hofstra even less beat coverage than usual, which, you know, is great.

Anyway, check out the new alignment of sites covering Hofstra, the CAA and mid-majors, especially The Mid-Majority, which is so good I cannot do it justice in a piece like this. At some point soon I’m going to pen an ode to that place, because it is just freaking amazing, every single day. Also check out the self-explanatory Friends of Defiantly Dutch further down the page. And, of course, buy my book!

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

Bits and Bytes: CAA Tournament

The clock is ticking...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

Blog-biased predictions that will probably be wrong:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

In which I get a little worked up about tonight's game

Yeah that didn't work so well, Jim.

One pet peeve I developed during my halcyon days of employment was the expectation from fans that the players on their favorite team should be as passionate about rivalry games as the fans.

I mean, on one hand, I get it—it’s another part of being a fan: YOU are obsessed with your team beating its rival and you expect nothing less out of the players who wear your favorite laundry.

But on the other, let’s be realistic here. Why should the Red Sox hate the Yankees just because Red Sox fans have had their hearts broken by the Yankees too many times to count and because they find Yankees fans spoiled and insufferable? Jonathan Papelbon, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis weren’t even born yet when Bucky Dent homered into the Green Monster in 1978. Why should they shoulder the burden of Red Sox Nation?

And sure, it was funny watching Jason Varitek shove Alex Rodriguez to set off a bench-clearing brawl in 2004, but really, who counts that as proof the two teams hate each other? After all, nobody likes A-Rod.

(Exception: Youkilis should hate the Yankees, since the Yankees, and Joba Chamberlain, in particular, have a terrible habit of trying to kill him whenever he’s standing in the batter’s box)

Of course, it was an easy storyline and it made for big back pages and tantalizing teasers at 6 and 11, so we all had to grin and bear it as thousands of words were spilled and uttered about the bitter rivalry between the two teams. Historic and compelling? Most certainly. But not bitter.

Anyway, I bring this up because the Flying Dutchmen play George Mason tonight, and it takes all I have not to project my passion and contempt for Mason on to the players and coaches and expect them to win 182-7…and to understand why, if that were to happen, I’d probably be hacked that Tom Pecora called off the dogs and that the defense didn’t play a little better.

I don’t need to remind you of why I harbor such feelings and why I’ll probably be at some restaurant tonight (Thanks for adding ESPNU, Cablevision! I appreciate it! I’ve got hundreds of channels I couldn’t identify with a gun to my head but there’s no room for ESPNU!), watching the game with food, spittle and unsuitable-for-virgin-ears language flying out of the corners of my mouth. But, you know, my blood pressure needs the workout, so here you go.

Three years ago, Hofstra was left out of the NCAA Tournament while Mason went dancing even though the Dutchmen had a better RPI and beat the Patriots twice in a span of 11 days late in the season. The rationale by the idiot selection committee: Mason shared the regular season crown and beat Wichita State in a Bracket Buster. Oh. OK then.

I’m sure Mason’s placement in the tournament had nothing to do with its athletic director, Tom O’Connor, being on the selection committee. I’m sure he left the room whenever his team was being discussed and didn’t partake in any discussions about the Patriots or the Dutchmen. Yup.

Oh, and in the waning seconds of the second win—in the CAA semifinals—Mason star Tony Skinn got confused and thought he was at a carnival and that the privates of the Flying Dutchmen’s best player, Loren Stokes, were actually a game of Whack-A-Mole. That earned Skinn a one-game suspension and Stokes a day of pissing blood. You’d think the absence of a starter would have affected the Patriots’ NCAA chances, but no.

Then, of course, Mason won its first NCAA Tournament game without Skinn, and three more after that to become the first mid-major to reach the Final Four in 27 years. It was great for Litos, but to be honest with you, it pissed me off a little bit. It stunk that I couldn’t enjoy it, because anyone who pulls for a CAA team should have been bursting with conference—wait for it!—pride at Mason’s historic run.

Tom Pecora did a good job of turning the snub into a life lesson (and keeping the Dutchmen focused for a pretty exciting NIT run). And he’s right: Getting screwed out of an NCAA Tournament berth doesn’t even merit honorable mention on the giant list of things that suck in life.

But, you know, this is sports. We’re not supposed to be rational or logical about it. And I know sports doesn’t follow the transitive property, but I’m perfectly entitled to think it should and perfectly entitled to imagine the Dutchmen shocking four giants and making the Final Four. I’m perfectly entitled to imagining the possibility of a wardrobe consisting entirely of Final Four T-shirts and the likelihood of Adrian Uter signing an NFL free agent contract.

I also know tonight’s game will feature only seven players from the 2006 teams, only one of whom (Greg Johnson) played in either of that season’s Hofstra-Mason games. I can’t expect Johnson, Arminas Urbutis, Mike Davis-Saab and Zygis Sestakos—or any of the other nine Dutchmen who were in high school or at another college in 2006—to harbor a years-long grudge against the Patriots, nor authentically muster up any rancor towards Mason seniors Dre Smith, John Vaughan or Darryl Monroe.

I also know Mason has bloggers who probably help old ladies across the street, too, and I’m sure at least some of their fans were on board before the second weekend of the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

But I can decide I don’t like Jim Larranaga because the punishment for Skinn’s assault did not fit the crime and because he’s striking me as the type of guy whose rapid rise to fame went entirely to his head. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t have hammed it up for the cameras prior to Mason’s NCAA Tournament game against Notre Dame last year. I’m not sure who he thought would be inspired by something so hackneyed, but it sure wasn’t the Patriots. I like to think that if—nay, when—Pecora coaches the Dutchmen to the Final Four, he won’t later make a buffoon of himself trying to inspire Hofstra on another tournament run.

Larranaga could comfort, clothe and cuddle lepers with Tim Tebow and I’d still mutter about him under my breath. I’d be pretty happy if he ended up on some VH-1 show for has-beens: “I Was A Final Four Coach.”

I can just decide it’s all about the laundry, and I just want Pecora to go all Bill Belichick on Larranaga. And I can think the Dutchmen are going to win even though the third-place Patriots are 10-0 at home this season, licking their chops after dropping three of their last four and facing a Hofstra team that is 1-5 against the top four teams in the CAA. I can think that because I don’t have to be rational about this (so check out Litos for something approaching a reasoned preview).

So go Dutchmen. Make ‘em disappear.

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