Tiger Beat?

If you ever picked up Tiger Beat expecting to read about Towson, you were sorely disappointed. Or so I've heard.

Like with Bucknell on the football schedule a couple months back, seeing Towson (do you think there’s a blog in Maryland called Stubbornly Towson State? I hope so) next up on the docket for the Flying Dutchmen basketball team brings back some fond memories.

Actually, the memories shouldn’t be so fond, since all Towson did during the Defiantly Dutch era was kick Hofstra where it hurts. But what can I say? Nostalgia is strange and unpredictable.

The Tigers knocked off the top-seeded Dutchmen in what was supposed to be the final ECC championship game in March 1992 (of course, that didn’t really upset me at the time, since I was skipping class to play hearts at community college and couldn’t have found Hofstra on a map). There was no automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament at stake and no expectations of an at-large bid by Butch van Breda Kolff—who had no idea he was proving the more things change the more they stay the same when he told Newsday the selection committee would “…rather take a seventh-place team in the Big 10, the ACC or anything other than the ECC”—but a win over Towson would have made Hofstra 21-8 and given it a pretty good shot at an NIT bid.

Towson gave the selection committee—albeit in a different sport—all the ammo it needed to keep an underdog Hofstra squad out of the postseason in October 1994, when the Tigers stunned the unbeaten Flying Dutchmen football team, 24-21, in an instant classic at Hofstra Stadium. Towson led 24-7 entering the fourth quarter, but the Dutchmen stormed back, whipped a crowd of 5,829 into a frenzy and appeared to take the lead when Nick Johnson scored on a 34-yard reverse. But the Dutchmen were called for a ticky-tack holding penalty (oh sure, I’m over it) and the drive eventually stalled at the Towson five-yard-line in the final minute.

Fourteen years later, I’ve still never seen a post-game locker room sadder than that one. That’s the difference between the pros and mid-major colleges: The pros almost always have next year as well as piles of million dollar bills on which to sleep. The mid-majors have one random, light-streaking-across-the-sky shot and an eternity to wonder what could have been.

Offensive lineman Ricky Wyatt, officially listed at 6-foot-2, 230 pounds but unofficially A Very Big Dude, sat stoically at his locker, still dressed in his uniform, for a while before his shoulders began to shake and tears began to stream down his face.

“We played hard and the fans were awesome,” said Wayne Chrebet, who had no idea he was four years away from playing for the AFC title. “But we lost, and it’s a loss that myself and the other seniors are never going to forget for the rest of our lives.”

The stakes weren’t as high at University Field in April 1996, because, well, has there ever been a high stakes Hofstra baseball game? But Towson’s 9-3, 11-inning win over the Dutchmen was much more compelling and dramatic than the final score would indicate. (I’m not going to subject you to the overwrought prose I churned out for The Chronicle that week, so you’ll just have to trust me on it) It also extended the Tigers’ win streak over Hofstra to 19 games. NINETEEN GAMES! That’s unpossible!

A decade later, a 94-91 loss to Towson in men’s basketball may have been the loss that kept the Dutchmen out of the NCAA Tournament. Had the Dutchmen—who, as Michael Litos reminded us earlier today, were missing Adrian Uter, who was in the midst of a four-game absence due to a bad ankle—won that game, they would have finished 15-3 and in a three-way tie for the CAA championship. Winning a share of the regular season crown was among the pile of crap reasons the band of roving idiots provided for giving Mason the at-large bid. Of course, had Hofstra shared the regular season title but lost in the CAA tourney, this guy probably still would have come up with another reason to keep Hofstra out.

Where was I? Oh yes. All that said, for the handful of heartbreaks Towson has provided the Dutch, Hofstra’s actually had the upper hand in the rivalry.

Football is 4-3 against Towson, and I would have bet my increasingly meager fortune that the two teams had played two or three times as many games against one another. The baseball team is 22-35 all-time against Towson, which is not bad at all given that 19-game losing streak. Women’s basketball is 22-26 against Towson while the volleyball team is a robust 34-7 all-time against the Tigers.

Men’s basketball, meanwhile, is 11-5 against Towson under Tom Pecora and 29-19 all-time. The Flying Dutchmen have recorded as many or more wins against just four other schools—Delaware (42-23), Wagner (33-16), Drexel (31-35) and Kings Point (29-6).

The two programs have been going in opposite directions since they were reunited in the NAC/America East in 1995-96. While the Flying Dutchmen won consecutive America East titles and have become a regular CAA contender, Towson has endured 11 straight sub-.500 seasons, hasn’t finished higher than seventh in the CAA since joining in 2001-02 and finished higher than eighth just once in its final five years in the America East.

But maybe this is the year the rivalry is renewed. Hofstra and Towson were both picked to finish in the bottom half of the CAA, but they’re among the few—if not the only—teams in the conference to exceed expectations thus far. Litos likes the Tigers, a lot, and the stats he produces in today’s blog indicate Towson is putting together a team that will look familiar to the Flying Dutchmen.

Towson has nine players averaging at least 16 minutes a game, Hofstra has seven. Towson has four players averaging at least 10 points a game, Hofstra has two (and a third, Tony Dennison, with 9.8 ppg). Both teams have seven players averaging at least three rebounds a game.

Hofstra ranks eighth in the CAA in points per game (68.2) and third in points allowed (65.3). Towson ranks ninth (67.7) and sixth (67.9), respectively, in those categories.

Add it all up and this is the most intriguing December game the Flying Dutchmen have played in a long time. A win Saturday, in a place where close games are the norm (five of the seven games in Towson in the Pecora era have been settled by seven points or less), could be a springboard to a season much better than anyone envisioned.

Of course, I predict a narrow victory. And of course, if the Dutchmen fall, I reserve the right to say it’s just one game and it’s too early in the season to declare watershed moments. Hey, my blog, my rules.

Alas, win or lose, we won’t be there. We’ll be listening to or watching the game (which you can also do right here) as we put up the Christmas tree. So if you crane your neck just right, you’ll probably hear me yell “FINE! YOU’RE SO SMART, YOU RIG UP THE LIGHTS!”

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

Hofstra 60, Fordham 40 (Or: I’ll take those odds that March is the good kind of Mad)

I know exactly how she feels. I mean, aside from the caffeine pills. And the part where she later stars in the worst movie ever made.

I’m a cynic, for reasons too numerous to mention here for fear of boring you silly. The ironic thing, in that it’s not really ironic at all, is that my transformation began at Hofstra, where I grew discouraged by the bottom-line mentality the school so often displayed (geez, can you imagine how angry I’d be today?), how little my communications degree prepared me for a career in journalism (in Hofstra’s defense, this was before the School of Communication was founded) and how I already knew I was headed for a dying field run by soulless capitalist pigs who viewed people like me with abject contempt.

Where was I? Oh yes. Not listing the reasons I’m a cynic.

Anyway, this is ironic (but not really) because the one thing I remain optimistic about is Flying Dutchmen basketball. During the first year in the NAC, when Hofstra finished in last place but blew Maine out in a play-in game to advance to a quarterfinal contest at top-seeded Drexel, I annoyed Loyal Reader Rob—something I do, err, did quite often—by repeatedly asking him how we’d be able to cover the Flying Dutchmen in the NAC title game, scheduled for a Wednesday night, which was the night The Chronicle went to press.

“Beach,” Rob finally said, “there is no way in hell we’re making the title game.”

“But what if we do?”

“Then I guess I’ll cover the game, won’t I?”

Of course, Malik Rose went for 50 and 25 (give or take a few buckets and boards), Drexel beat Hofstra 187-23 (give or take a few points), Rob, Sully Ray and I drowned our disappointment in cheese steaks and Rob had four days to write his story.

Last year, I lost count of how many times I saw the Dutchmen beat an inferior opponent and convinced myself they could win four straight games in Richmond and make the NCAA Tournament. “They’ve won more than two games in a row just once all year, it’s still good, it’s still good…they’re the ninth seed, it’s still good, it’s still good…Towson is winning 31-13 at the half, it’s still good, it’s still good…”

(Two “Lisa The Vegetarian” references in two days. I’m streaking!)

All that brings me to last night, and a resounding 60-40 win over Fordham at the Arena that sent me rushing home to book a trip to the Final Four. (OK, maybe they won’t make the Final Four, but I’m more convinced than ever the Dutchmen ARE going to dance this year, and it has nothing to do with what happened last night…come back later today to find out why.)

The unbridled optimist in me says this was 40 minutes of the best-case scenario. Four players scored in double figures. The Dutchmen held a 47-29 rebounding edge. Four reserves played at least 10 minutes apiece, something accomplished just once in the first five games—against Clemson, not Old Westbury. More than once—and for more than just a few seconds—Tom Pecora fielded a lineup that featured one starter and four reserves.

Charles Jenkins, the one-man show, tied for the team lead with 11 points and added a career-high nine assists before he took a seat in the final two minutes for walk-on David Vallins.

Miklos Szabo made me and Sully Ray’s dad—not to mention Pecora—look pretty prescient by draining two 3-pointers, scoring 10 points and pulling down eight boards. After the second 3-pointer, Sully Ray summed things up nicely: “That changes everything.”

Szabo’s performance sent him a long way towards earning a completely original and complementary nickname for Michael Litos. It was a good thing for Szabo last Saturday that “Dunking Dutchman” and “Mad Hungarian” were already taken.

Zygis Sestakos lives! The hot-and-cold outsider shooter, who played five minutes combined in the last three games and didn’t get off the bench at all against Manhattan, played 25 minutes, scored 11 points, hit three of his five 3-pointers and generally looked like the weapon he was in 2006-07.

Most encouraging of all was seeing Greg Washington played like the Greg Washington whose absence was believed to be the missing piece to the 2006-07 puzzle, not the 6-foot-10 enigma wrapped in a riddle adorned in a Hofstra uniform. He set career highs with 10 points and 11 rebounds and added four blocks in 23 minutes. Entering the game, he’d collected four points, seven rebounds and three blocks in 29 minutes—all season.

He hit shots from outside and enjoyed an 11-second sequence midway through the first half when he blocked a shot, raced down the court and ended the fast break with a dunk. Now if Washington can continue such play for more than 20 minutes a game, THAT changes everything.

Cornelius Vines didn’t reach double figures, but the only two baskets he hit were Agudio-like, dagger 3-pointers in the final minute of the first half that turned a one-point deficit into a five-point lead.

The Dutchmen were so deep Wednesday that Darren Townes started but played just 11 minutes despite grabbing four boards and picking up no fouls. On Saturday, he played 24 minutes and recorded as many rebounds as fouls (three). Dane Johnson, the other returning front court starter, didn’t start for the first time this year and played just 10 minutes. Tony Dennison started but played fewer than 20 minutes for the third time. Arminas Urbutis played only six minutes and sat out the second half for the second straight game.

So to see this thorough victory on another inconsistent night for the rest of the CAA—Delaware lost to my safety school, which means that if not for abnormally good grades at community college, I’d be gushing over Central Connecticut’s victory at Blissfully Blue Devils—inspires wonder.

As in: I wonder if Pecora can do this every night? Can he make preparing for Hofstra sheer hell by throwing different lineups, big and small, out there? If Wednesday is a sign of things to come, then I wonder if picking the Dutchmen fourth was the pessimistic projection, not the optimistic one.

But then I wonder if I’m just merely going mad. Fordham is winless and threatening to give New Jersey Tech a run for its money as the most downtrodden team ‘round these parts. The first half was generally unimpressive as the Rams and Dutchmen swapped the lead. Free throw shooting is still an adventure (5-for-11 Wednesday, 60.4% for the year). College hoops in the tri-state area is so down so far that calling Hofstra the best team it has to offer—as the Daily News’ Sean Brennan did in his excellent new local hoops blog—is not quite the complement it used to be.

And it IS still only the first week of December. Even if Hofstra is better than anybody thought, and even if the CAA is less top-heavy than most of us thought, the conference schedule will still be as challenging as ever. So much can change over the next 12 weeks. History is littered with teams that thrived in December and were nowhere to be found in March. I don’t want to be That Guy, the one everyone glares at in March.

But…but Litos says I gave him something to think about during his daughter’s Christmas concert. And if Litos thinks I might be on to something, well, then I wonder if I really might be on to something. That, in turn, makes me really eager for Saturday against Towson, and I wonder if it’ll be the earliest legitimate barometer game I can recall.

And then I wonder if I can convince my wife we should go to the game. C’mon dear. It’s only three-and-a-half hours each way. We’ll listen to Weezer in the car, I promise.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.