Bits and Bytes: Enjoy no. 1 while you can, Kansas!

That's right, Bill. You've got two weeks left as the unbeaten top-ranked team in the land.

It’s official: Your good friend and mine Jeremy Kniffin can get rid of the qualifier “likely” when it comes to referring to Kansas as the preseason no. 1 team.

The Associated Press unveiled its first poll of the ’09-’10 campaign Thursday, and despite rampant internal dissension in Lawrence and the overwhelming likelihood of a lopsided loss to the Flying Dutchmen two weeks from tonight, the damn liberal media still made the Jayhawks the overwhelming pick to win the national championship. Kansas, which returns all five starters from a year ago, received 55 of the 61 first-place votes.

Amazingly, the anti-Hofstra bias in the poll was three-tiered. The only school in the top six not to receive a first-place vote was Villanova. Still disrespecting Jay Wright for his Hofstra days, AP dudes and dudettes?

Even worse, two CAA teams received votes, and neither is based in Hempstead. Defending champion VCU got two votes and reigning Collegeinsider.com champion Old Dominion received one vote. So many doubters, so little time.

That’s OK though. The over/under on Hofstra’s spot in the next top 25—to be tabulated, of course, after the Dutchmen shock the world—is 1.5. Bet the under if you know what’s good for you.

Some other bits and bytes as I put the finishing touches on my Tom Pecora costume and prepare for the Freak Formal tomorrow night:

—Speaking of Pecora, sort of, I have to begrudgingly admit that Noted Hofstra Hater Mike Litos made a pretty good case yesterday for Northeastern’s Bill Coen, and not Pecora, as the best coach in the league. From literally the moment he stepped on campus in 2005, Coen has done more with less than anyone in turning a hockey school into a perennial basketball contender.

Still, what jumps out at me there is not the ruthlessness of Ron Everhart or the spot men’s hoops occupies on the athletic totem pole at Northeastern. It’s that the administration there was willing to send one of its secondary programs across the country to continue its season in a new—and admittedly dubious—postseason tournament.

Am I unnecessarily harping on an issue I already ranted about in April? Possibly.  Is this going to annoy the powers that be? Positively. And with the benefit of hindsight, I can almost—ALMOST—see how the disappointing performance of last year’s seniors could have influenced the decision not to continue the season, as was rumored way back when.

But, again: I keep coming back to how the Dutchmen performed down the stretch last year—better than both Northeastern and James Madison, the latter of which won two games in the CIT, and almost as well as Old Dominion, which edged the Dutchmen by one point in the CAA quarters—and it annoys me a program that is The Program on campus, one with an underclassmen core that was just beginning to gel in February and March, didn’t get an opportunity to gain some valuable postseason experience.

Is it any coincidence the CAA’s consensus top two teams both recorded victories in these new tournaments last season? I think not. Anyway, that’s all out of me about that. Until the Dutchmen play Old Dominion, at least.

—I try not to be one of Those People who harps on every little error or misconception a national writer makes about my alma mater, but I can’t let this one go without comment: In reporting the UFL’s decision to move next Wednesday’s New York-Las Vegas game from the Mets’ new stadium (screw them, I’m not calling it by its actual name) to Shuart Stadium, Examiner.com writer Andrew Kossak theorizes it’s a good idea because “…it’s on a college campus, meaning ticket sales could easily increase as the student body is looking for some entertainment.”

Yeah, ask Joe Gardi and Dave Cohen how far the Hofstra student body has to look for entertainment options before it settles for the football team. Kossak is also a bit too optimistic in projecting the crowd at Shuart Stadium, writing “…it’ll look a lot better on TV to see a half- of three-quarter full Shuart Stadium than a near empty [Corporate Stadium Name redacted].”

I’ll bet you, right now, that even the announced attendance for next week’s game is closer to the 2,751 that turned out for the James Madison game than the 7,160 that showed up for the opener against Stony Brook. And that might even include me, because I whole-heartedly support minor leagues that temporarily call Hofstra home! When is the United States Basketball League starting again, anyway?

—Speaking of the UFL, how bad are things going for our beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers, known worldwide as The Official NFL Team Of Defiantly Dutch? So bad that Tatum Bell thinks his UFL team—the Florida Tuskers, whatever the hell that is—could beat the 0-7 Bucs, who mercifully have a bye this week but will debut their third starting quarterback of the season next week against the Packers.

That’s crazy talk, as AOL Fanhouse blogger Matt Snyder subtly points out. But with the Bucs’ final nine opponents owning a 34-21 record, can we get a game at Hofstra against the Tuskers, just to assure one win?

—Lastly, stop back later tonight or tomorrow for a Halloween-themed Time Machine. And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten yesterday’s 15th anniversary of the gut-wrenching loss to Towson. I’ve got a feature in mind to commemorate that and am hoping to speak to a couple people in time to unveil it next week.

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

We’ll have a different kind of debate…when I moderate

Ha ha! Your medium's dying! And no one's asking your questions tonight, either!

As you may have heard by now, tonight’s the night Hofstra makes history (oh man, a Styx reference in the first sentence…I can’t lie, I’m proud of myself) when it hosts the third and final presidential debate of the 2008 election. CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer will serve as the moderator (unless someone ponies up $15 million for Katie Couric) as John McCain and Barack Obama discuss the economy and domestic policy.

Which, you know, means neither candidate will speak about the issues that matter to you—the Defiantly Dutch-era alum of Hofstra University. This is your University. You were at the Hofstra Arena long before it was magically transformed from a place that had far too many seats to a place that had far too few. Shouldn’t someone vocalize your thoughts and concerns? Shouldn’t that someone be me?

It’s probably a good thing for American democracy that it’s not. But here’s what McCain, Obama and I would talk about if I was sitting in the moderator’s seat tonight.

1.) Both of you have promised to provide tax breaks and other assistance to small businesses. Along those lines, there are 3,000 journalists watching this debate right now from a few feet down the road in a building that has been empty of a professional sports team for well over a decade. So what, particularly, will you do to help the United States Basketball League resume operations this year with a Long Island franchise that employs Hofstra alums, plays its home games at the Physical Fitness Center and infuses the Hofstra economy with dozens of dollars every summer?

(I actually found an old Long Island Surf program from the 1994 season in the basement earlier tonight. Tickets were $5. Good times!)

2.) Small businesses are the lifeblood of businesses in the area surrounding campus. So many of these mom-and-pop operations are bars—and so many of them have been forced to close over the years. Fezziwig’s. Bogart’s. McHebe’s. Screwy Louie’s. Even Wayne Chrebet, who gave Hofstra more publicity than this here debate, had to rename and rebrand his bar that he opened on the site of the old Bogart’s. What will you do to encourage states to lower the drinking age to 18 so that students under the age of 21 can contribute to the economy by consuming cheap, watered-down beer without having to find a Hofstra ID with the blue bar?

(Or was it the yellow bar? I can’t remember.)

3.) Both of you supported the bailout plan that will result in government buying a stake in the American banking system. Can you next take over the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, too? God knows you guys can’t be any worse at it than the bozos who have been mucking it up for years.

(This will sound like a good idea until Navy or Columbia gets an at-large bid despite a 12-16 record. Fun fact: The Flying Dutchmen basketball team is a combined 12-7 all-time against the alma maters of McCain and Obama!)

4.) Both of you have said it’s imperative to make a college education affordable to all Americans. Have you had a chance to mention this goal to anyone here, where the cost of tuition per semester this year is $13,800—a mere two-and-a-half times what it cost 14 years ago, when tuition was $5,530 per semester?

(This is when I wish I could figure out a scanner so I could actually display my tuition bill from the spring of 1995)

5.) Lastly, our current financial crisis was created in large part by too many people being approved for mortgages they could not afford. But who could blame people of my generation—who were approved for credit cards from the moment they walked on to a college campus despite their tiny incomes, minimal financial expertise and youthful impetuousness—for believing they were entitled to buy beyond their means? As president, what will you do to rid Hofstra—and campuses nationwide—of the weasels from the credit card companies who leech on to unsuspecting freshmen and transfer students during move-in weekend and send them down a path of debt that will take them a decade or more to erase?

(I’d actually like to see that one happen)

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.