Bits and Bytes: Seasons change!

Because posting the "Seasons Change" video would be cliche! (Freshman year of high school for the win!)

Remember when we were kids and seasons shifted gradually? You’d get a few weeks of increasingly warmer weather in May and June before the heat really kicked in at the start of summer. The warm weather would taper off in September with perhaps a last gasp or two of politically incorrect Indian summer in October before it began feeling like fall.

Nowadays, seasons change in the span of a single day. I walked my wife to her car early Thursday morning, when it felt more like the last week of school than the first. We went out to eat shortly after sunset and the weather so brisk I wondered if we’d run into some trick or treaters.

I blame the sudden shift of seasons on global warming. Or the fact that it’s always been like this but our childhood memories are what we think they were, not what they actually were. I don’t know. It’s like my very own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or something,

Anyway, whatever the reason for the sudden seasonal shift, it was ironic, in that it was coincidental, that it happened Thursday, exactly one month before the start of college basketball practice. The dropping temperatures seemed to put the scent of hoops in the air and give us the nudge we all needed to start talking and writing about it.

Welcome back, fall, and welcome back hoops. We missed you. Now for some of the better bits and bytes you may have missed over the last few days:

—Our good friend Brian Mull penned more than 3,000 words in a two-day span and unofficially christened the season with his first Colonial X, in which he pegged Mike Moore as one of the 10 best players in the CAA. He’s right, of course, but he’s missing nine other Flying Dutchmen. We’ll give him a pass, although he once again disrespected Dutch Nation (snort) by picking Hofstra eighth in his predictions.

Mull takes one for the team by becoming the first reporter to put predictions to paper, but the task of picking the CAA won’t get any easier in the next four or six weeks. Drexel and George Mason are pretty easy picks in the top two—pick the order, we won’t argue either way—and William & Mary, Old Dominion and VCU are good bets for three through five in some order. Put everyone else in a hat, even Towson, and you’ve got as good a shot of picking six through 12 as you do if you put actual thought into it. Which we’ll do at some point before tipoff, because it’s fun to have something with which to laugh at me in March!

—Speaking of Mull, congratulations to the former PGA Tour caddie on winning the Wilmington City Amateur golf championship Sunday for the third time in five years. Dude does it all. Best beat writer in the CAA, provided excellent and reasoned coverage of Hurricane Irene, chips in on high school coverage in Wilmington, rescuer of stray cats from burning buildings. I may have made that last one up. But seriously, as someone whose athletic career “peaked” around 16, congrats. And props to the Star-News for not making Mull write about himself, like I had to as the de facto sports editor of the Class of 1991 yearbook. “Last-place finisher Jerry Beach tried hard and his Mom loves him very much.”

—Where was I? Oh right. Mike Litos, who also annually hates Hofstra by refusing to pick the Dutchmen first in his predictions, identified the Dutchmen as the team with the toughest “four in eight” schedule. Every CAA team plays four games between Jan. 21-28, and as I noted in my review of Hofstra’s schedule, the Dutchmen’s “four in eight” seems to have been scripted by someone still trying to stick it to Tom Pecora. At William & Mary, at VCU, home for Mason and at Northeastern. Only good thing about the travel is the Virginia trip takes place during Intersession, so there won’t be any back and forth. Still, that is a brutal stretch. SOUTHERN BIAS!!!!

—While we obsess over the season still to come, Mo Cassara and staff are looking ahead to 2012-13 and beyond and just landed promising power forward Jimmy Hall, a senior at national powerhouse St. Anthony’s. Adam Zagoria and Zach Braziller both profiled Hall following his decision. As always with recruiting, I’ll link to what other people—usually Zagoria and Braziller—write once there’s some actual hard news (not this whole “Joe Blow identifies Hofstra as one of the 317 schools he’s heard from” business), because they’re good at it and then refrain from writing anything else until the players are actually on campus, See the Malik Nichols saga for more.

—And finally, a long-overdue recommendation to check out the blog produced by my good friend Joe Suhoski, whom you might know better as @VABeachRep, whom in turn you might know better as that other guy on Twitter who likes Scrubs and Extreme as much as I do. Joe made his press box debut this weekend at the Old Dominion-Hampton football game (Football? What’s that? #ThanksStu) and heeded my advice to be seen and not heard (I think he’d stopped reading by the time I channeled Dr. Cox and wrote of journalism “Get out while you still can!”) so make sure to check out his blog, where he writes about CAA football (grrr) and, of course, Scrubs.

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

The imperfect five vying for the perfect 10: The Sequel

Those of us who remember Stephanie Seymour's debut in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue know that a.) that was no swimsuit and b.) her career did not peak with her turn as Axl Rose's doomed lover in the "November Rain" video.

Been a hectic day here, so just a quick look at the schedule tonight for the potential 10 and two seeds before I borrow a page from Litos’ book and link you to really good stuff other people wrote.

First the 10 seeds, because we want to stay on the good side of basketball karma and not look too far ahead (who the hell am I kidding, I’m trying to figure out how the wife and I can be in Richmond 12 days from now for the championship game). My guess is eight through 12 will look exactly the same in the morning as it does tonight, but here’s the rundown for those of you who are crazy like me and hoping to spend all night hitting refresh on the CAA scoreboard.

8.) Georgia State (5-12): OFF

9.) UNC Wilmington (4-12): @Drexel. UNCW beat reporter Brian Mull reports Chad Tomko, John Fields and Montez Downey won’t be available tonight against the Dragons, so if you are reasonably athletic, still possessing some collegiate eligibility, can swing 12 credits at UNCW and are in the Philadelphia area, get to the DAC now, poor interim coach Brooks Lee can use you.

10.) Towson (4-12): @W&M. Two schools nursing wounds from a Bracket Buster MAAC attack. Can’t see William & Mary, with a legit shot at the two seed (more on that in a moment), letting this one slip away.

11.) James Madison (4-12): @VCU. Root for the Rams, James Madison is the scariest of the potential 10s (he says, thereby giving everyone else bulletin board fodder).

12.) Delaware (3-13): GMU. Root for the Blue Hens just for the hell of it. Hi Mason Nation!

As for the race for the top two seeds, the Flying Dutchmen really helped out William & Mary as well as Old Dominion last night. ODU, obviously, is the one seed if the Monarchs beat visiting VCU Saturday or if Northeastern loses at George Mason earlier in the day.

And William & Mary’s path to the two seed opened up last night as well. The Tribe, with the easiest remaining schedule of the three teams contending for the two, will be the second seed if it sweeps Towson and UNC Wilmington and Northeastern loses. William & Mary wins the tiebreaker via its one-point head-to-head win over the Huskies. As for Mason, the Patriots can’t finish any higher than third because they lose the tiebreaker to Northeastern at 13-5 (Northeastern went 1-0 against Old Dominion while Mason went 1-1).

***

Some good stuff for you to read while surfing for scores tonight:

—Litos has a tremendous piece at College Chalktalk about Bill Coen’s remarkable rebuilding job at Northeastern. Some great quotes and some great color about a bunch of overlooked players coming together and gelling under a guy who used to write software for strategic missile defense systems. Nobody’s lacking for proper perspective at Matthews Arena.

Said it on Twitter last night and I’ll say it again: Northeastern is incredibly easy to root for and there’s a pretty big part of me that feels bad Matt Janning and Co. lost on their Senior Night. I hope Hofstra doesn’t see those guys again until the title game (damnit, there I go again, looking ahead).

—Meant to post this Monday but forgot to do so: Jack Styczynski, the original Hofstra blogger, put the world’s most indestructible tape recorder to good use Saturday in profiling Charles Jenkins and Rider star Ryan Thompson for the New York Times’ “Quad Blog.” Thanks to Jack for linking to my preseason feature on Jenkins, and while it was good to finally meet him Saturday, I may kick him in the shins if he tempts fate by showing up to the Georgia State game or in Richmond (inside joke, I’m not really going to kick the guy).

—Mull wonders if there will be a better seventh seed in any mid-major conference tournament than the Dutchmen. Forget what others say about you, Brian, you’ll always be OK by me!

—Finally, Patrick Stevens, who was among those who lost their jobs when the Washington Times made the AWESOME decision to kill its sports section, has been all over the mid-Atlantic college sports scene since his layoff (note to Patrick: If you say anything bad about George Mason, the knuckle-dragging faction of Mason Nation will declare you deserve to be out of work). He has five thoughts on the CAA today, the second of which is that nobody should want to play the Flying Dutchmen in the tournament next weekend. You’ll always be OK by me, Patrick! Check him out at Twitter at @D1scourse.

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

We’re off to see the cow-tippers, the wonderful cow-tippers of Storrs…

I was wearing this shirt long before I'd heard of Hofstra, but long after I made fun of UConn as a Cow College.

Hey, as I mentioned during my first week here, I can make fun of Connecticut. I’m from there!

Anyway, short entry here for two reasons. I spent many more hours than I expected working on a big picture post, which you will probably see later today. And just as importantly, I’m preparing for a trip to the homeland, where I’ll attend the Flying Dutchmen’s two Preseason NIT games at the University of Connecticut.

I’m bursting with anticipation at the possibility of the Dutchmen beating Yale tonight and advancing to a winner’s bracket contest Tuesday against UConn, because Hofstra playing the Huskies holds the potential to be THE GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME (except meeting my wonderful wife, hi honey!)

Seriously, you thought I was hyped up for the game against top-ranked Kansas and the chance to taunt two friends? The Dutchmen knock off UConn tomorrow and I’ve got bragging rights over every single one of my Connecticut friends FOREVER.

Check back here the next two mornings for my reports from Storrs, and make sure to follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch for all the in-game commentary you can handle and then some.

In the meantime, if you want a great laugh, check out page six of Jeremy Kniffin’s notes package in which he turns Mark Twain quotes into Hofstra-centric notes. I thought he was brilliant in doing the same thing last week with songs by the band Kansas (also on page six), but this…holy smokes, he’s on another level mere mortals like you and I cannot even hope to comprehend.

Also, we’re number one! In strength of schedule, anyway, which makes sense after opening the season against the top-ranked team in the country but is cool nonetheless. Thanks to Jojogunne for pointing it out at the CAAZone boards.

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

The Day After

The author, above, wonders what the bowling ball is doing strewn about the beer and booze bottles.

That little red-haired orphan was right. The sun did come up tomorrow. Or, in this case, yesterday.

Except said sun came up an hour later than it did on Saturday. That’s right: The Flying Dutchmen’s loss to Old Dominion in the CAA quarterfinals was so jarring, it completely screwed with the time/space continuum.

Or maybe the sun rose on time, and I just didn’t notice because I wasn’t yet functioning following a Saturday night of drowning my sorrows at Fezziwigs, belting out “American Pie” and “Brown-Eyed Girl” with Rick and Ted and generally living out the lyrics of a Poison song.

Anyway, Sunday wasn’t nearly as soul-crushing as Saturday, but it was disappointing nonetheless. I’m from the school of thought that says if the team you root for can’t win the championship, root for the team that eliminated your team to win it all. Well, with occasional exceptions, of course.

But Old Dominion couldn’t recover from a run by VCU early in the second half and fell to the top-seeded Rams, 61-53. Like the Dutchmen a day earlier, the Monarchs squandered an early double-digit lead, fell behind late in the first half before coming back to take a one-point halftime lead. Unlike the Dutchmen, there was no second half comeback for ODU, which trailed the final 17 minutes. I’d like to say the Dutchmen wore out the Monarchs Saturday, but I think the real problem Sunday was Gerald Lee’s re-injured ankle and Eric Maynor’s general awesomeness.

In the nightcap, Towson’s shocking run came to a halt when the Tigers ran out of gas in the second half against George Mason, which means a season of wild unpredictability ends with 1 vs. 2 in the championship game for only the second time since the CAA expanded in 2001-02. I think that’s ironic, in that it’s not ironic at all.

It would have been easy to root for Towson had it gotten to tonight, but instead we’ll have to be willing to sacrifice an NIT bid for the greater good. Sure, a Mason win would almost surely help the Dutchmen’s NIT candidacy (more on that tomorrow), but I’d rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue (and have a 2008 CIT banner hanging at the Arena) than spend a single second in Mason Nation. Anyone got a VCU jersey I can borrow for a couple hours?

Make sure to check out Litos' excellent blog for much more about the semifinals and make sure to click repeatedly throughout the title game tonight.

Other bits and bytes from The Day After:

—I never linked to the stories about Hofstra-ODU. I’d like to say I was in denial, but the truth is I just forgot. So check out the Dutchmen-centric stories from the Daily News and Newsday as well as the excellent coverage from the Virginia newspapers. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a gamer, as does the Newport News Daily Press (check out the bummer of a picture from the immediate aftermath of Charles Jenkins’ miss at the buzzer). This Daily Press blog breaks down the Jenkins-Lee battle while this column profiles Jonathan Adams, the Monarchs’ lone senior, their emotional leader and the big ol’ meanie who blocked Jenkins’ shot. And The Virginian-Pilot profiles the soft-spoken Lee.

—The Dutchmen’s NIT hopes got more good news than bad news in the aftermath of the loss to ODU. Davidson, the top seed in the Southern Conference and the darlings of the 2008 NCAA tournament, lost to College of Charleston in the semifinals and are likely bound for the NIT (much to the relief of the Big Six, I am sure). But top-seeded Northern Iowa won the Missouri Valley while top seeds Binghamton (America East) and American (Patriot) survived scares. Tonight, the Dutchmen need to root for a win by Siena in the MAAC finals.

The d’oh/whoo-hoo moment of the weekend, meanwhile, occurred in the Atlantic Sun championship game Saturday, when East Tennessee State beat Jacksonville. That’s good because it means the Dutchmen have beaten an NCAA Tournament team: The Dutchmen edged ETSU 76-75 in the third game of the Charleston Classic way back in November. But it’s bad because Jacksonville was the A-Sun’s regular season champ, which means it’s headed for the NIT.

The Dutchmen last beat an NCAA-bound team in 2006-07, when they eked out a 65-64 win over eventual Patriot League champion Holy Cross in the Bracket Buster.

—And speaking of the America East, I always follow its conference tournament, and Binghamton’s comeback win over New Hampshire restored a shred of sanity to a tournament that went haywire for the first time ever. Had fourth-seeded New Hampshire—coached by Bill Herrion, who led Drexel to three straight NAC/A-East titles from 1994-96—held on to a five-point lead in the final two minutes, it would have hosted the title game against sixth-seeded Maryland-Baltimore County.

That would have been crazy stuff for a conference in which only one team seeded lower than second has won the title and in which at least one top two seed has reached the title game every year since 1983. Along those lines, the VCU-Mason matchup tonight assures that a top two seed will win Hofstra’s conference tournament for the 14th time in 15 years. Damn you chalk! Damn you to hell!

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

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!

Bits and Bytes: 12/12

If this was the Moe's offering a student a year's worth of free food in exchange for a halfcourt shot, I'd re-enroll at Hofstra.

Some bits and bytes entering the weekend:

—At Stony Brook, the wife and I sat in the first row of bleachers across from the benches, right off the floor and right behind the super duper movers-and-shakers courtside seats. I say that with all sorts of snark and sarcasm because the mover-and-shaker seats are folding freaking chairs. Nothing says class like folding freaking chairs.

But at least Stony Brook’s got an excuse for the arrangement, since Pritchard Gymnasium is the program’s temporary home. I have a whole lot more contempt for the arrangement at Hofstra, because our administration yanked out press seats in order to place folding freaking chairs there. I realize about 97 percent of the country is giddy whenever the press is inconvenienced, but it hacks me off.

Plus, it’s damn dangerous. Let’s see how long that arrangement lasts after a 6-foot-5, 225-pound guy goes flying into someone in the mover-and-shaker seats.

Where in the hell was I? Oh yeah. So guess who takes a seat right in front of us at the end of the first half? Stony Brook president Shirley Strum-Kenny, wearing a Seawolves pullover with the America East logo stitched on the back. File under: Things you’ll never see at Hofstra, not in a million years.

—I also like Stony Brook’s student giveaways a whole lot more than Hofstra’s. At Hofstra, a student is selected at random to attempt a half-court shot. If he/she hits it, he/she gets free food at Moe’s for a year. No, not Moe’s Family Feedbag (pictured above), but Moe’s Southwest Grill. What a prize. Hit a miracle shot, get free gastrointestinal distress for a year. Sign me up!

At Stony Brook, meanwhile, the prize is a 42-inch plasma TV. Holy smokes. What kind of dorm rooms do they have at Stony Brook? I could barely fit a 13-inch rabbit-earred special into my room back in the day.

Alas, just like the kids at Hofstra, the guy at Stony Brook came up about 12 feet short on his shot. No TV for you.

—I’ll be rooting for Stony Brook to win the America East, because Pritchard Pit is a place that needs to host the championship game. What an environment. Though I can only imagine the logistical nightmare ESPN will present Stony Brook if the title game is there. I figure the capacity will be 37 after ESPN finishes setting up all its stuff.

—And finally, a few overdue links. SI.com had a highly entertaining piece on the man who saved Hofstra basketball, Jay Wright. There are plenty of anecdotes about Jay’s status as the nicest man in major college basketball, including this awesome quote from his first employer, Rochester coach Mike Neer: “Jay can sell sand to an Arab or red, white and blue to Bin Laden. You can’t say no.”

Jack Styczynski, who ran the Hofstra Hotsheet on Rivals.com back in the days when companies actually paid people to write on the Internet, revealed why Charles Jenkins’ favorite player is Pearl Washington, who starred for Syracuse before Jenkins was born. My goodness that sentence makes me feel old.

Former Newsday writer Jason Molinet has started a site covering Long Island hoops called, appropriately enough, HoopsLI.com. He profiles Jenkins here.

I’ll also be adding and updating the links on the right-hand side of the page to include the likes of this page from Proud Pride Fan of the Hofstra board at the CAAZone. He’s blogging about Jenkins and the Dutchmen this season for the Queens Ledger newspaper. Comprehensive stuff here, I like it.

Sean Brennan, the veteran and versatile New York Daily News sportswriter, has started a local hoops blog here. I like Dick “Hoops” Weiss, but his stuff is more national in scope. Kudos to the News and Brennan for thinking of the little guy, too.

And Newsday has also started a college hoops blog, though entries about the local squads are few and far between. Of course, on the list of things to be upset with Newsday about, that blog is way down the list and long after this news. More on that next week.

—And lastly, happy 12/12 day to this guy!

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

We got the CAA spinnin’ right in our hands…

In this very special episode of Growing Pains, the Seavers learn the true meaning of Christmas...and get season tickets to see the Flying Dutchmen basketball team at the PFC.

This story from the Nashua Telegraph contains the type of straight-to-the-point lede (it’s spelled correctly, in the journalistic sense) that is necessary in today’s attention span-starved society. After all, people just don’t have the time or the patience to read a guy go on and on and on with a preamble that leads up to the crux of the story, even if said preamble is entertaining and well-constructed. People just want the facts. That’s all they want. All they have time for. Let me know what happened so I can get on with the rest of my clicking around the Interwebs.

Still here? Thanks.

Winning ugly covers up a lot of blemishes. (That recap is from the Union Leader newspaper) Losing ugly makes for a long ride home. And the Flying Dutchmen lost ugly Saturday in falling to ninth-ranked New Hampshire, 45-25, in bucolic Durham, NH. (I have no idea if Durham is bucolic. But my family regularly vacationed in New Hampshire when I was a kid and everything I’ve seen in the Granite State defines bucolic)

You know a loss is ugly when the lede (there’s that word again!) of the gamer by the Hofstra sports information department points out the record kickoff return yardage racked up by Aaron Weaver (he had 254 yards, one more than Mark Cox had in a 1990 game). If the Dutchmen won a shootout, that factoid would be buried. Since they didn’t, well, you’ve got to find positives somewhere.

At first glance, the return yardage isn’t even the most noticeable Hofstra advantage in the boxscore. The Flying Dutchmen actually recorded twice as many first downs as New Hampshire (24-12), outgained the Wildcats 339-278 and dominated time of possession (42:07-17:53). But as the lopsided final score indicated, those were empty advantages.

Hofstra had to run almost twice as many plays as New Hampshire (92-48) in order to outgain the Wildcats by 61 yards. The average gain per play was a paltry 3.7, more than two yards less than the Wildcats’ average. The Flying Dutchmen committed seven turnovers, including a record-tying five interceptions by freshman quarterback Steve Probst, two of which were returned for touchdowns.

Of New Hampshire’s five touchdown drives, four took 69 seconds or less. And it could have been worse: The Wildcats scored on just two of the five drives they began immediately after Hofstra turnovers.

Of course, it also could have been better: New Hampshire’s first four drives ended with a fumble, a punt (off a three-and-out), a turnover on downs and an interception in the end zone. And Hofstra had the chance to wear out the Wildcats by running 17 straight plays from scrimmage and 30 of 33 players in a stretch spanning the first and second quarters. The Flying Dutchmen, down 7-3 early in the second quarter, were also stymied on a fake field goal attempt inside the New Hampshire 10-yard-line.

That’s pretty much the summary of the season right there: A lot of growing pains with some hints of better days ahead. All but 38 yards (17 yards rushing and receiving by Ray Bennett and 21 yards receiving by Phil Riley) were accounted for by underclassmen. And four of the top five Dutchmen tacklers Saturday are underclassmen.

The trials will likely continue Saturday, when Richmond—ranked seventh in last week’s coaches poll and eighth in the writers’ poll—comes to town fresh off what amounts to two bye weeks: A 48-0 win over non-scholarship Georgetown followed by an open date (and that’s what a “bye week” is, a bye is awarded only in the postseason). Haven’t been to Shuart Stadium since Homecoming—doesn’t it feel as if that happened a lot more than six weeks ago?—and the hopeful short-term optimism that was present back then has long evaporated. But perhaps we’ll see some of those flickers of long-term promise.

***
A couple other interesting football links:

—The Richmond Times-Dispatch does not think Virginia Commonwealth should add a football team, and it’s got nothing to do with the already unwieldy nature of CAA football (14 teams once Georgia State and Old Dominion join).

—Are the final two games of Iona’s season the final games in the program’s history? An interesting story from the Lynchburg News & Advance about the possibility that Liberty will have to scramble to replace Iona on its 2009 schedule. The Gaels, a victim of the demise of MAAC football—the conference disbanded after six schools discontinued their programs and two more jumped to another conference—are an independent this year and have yet to beat a I-AA team.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

No, we're not talking about THAT Triumph

I wonder if these guys ever played the PFC.

This, that and the other thing while I check my watch and impatiently wait to see where the Flying Dutchmen basketball team will land in the CAA pre-season poll, which will be released during the conference’s Media Day Wednesday:

***

I’m not sure what would have sounded more unbelievable during the fall of 1993: That the campus I was inhabiting would someday host a presidential debate, that neophyte talk show host Conan O’Brien would someday replace Jay Leno as the host of The Tonight Show (if you want to remember just how overmatched O’Brien appeared, check out his debut monologue from Sept. 13, 1993…he reminds me of me flopping miserably in speech class) or that a puppet dog who appears on O’Brien show and talks about his poop would one day invade the Physical Fitness Center.

For the purposes of this post, I’ll say “C.” Triumph the Insult Comic Dog defiled what used to be the rockingest house in the NAC Wednesday, when he and the Fake Mr. Met patrolled the spin room in the PFC (Triumph begins around the 11:45 mark). Fun fact: This bit aired a mere three hours after Fake Seth Meyers dogged Hofstra. SNL and Triumph mocking Hofstra on the same night: Now THAT’S publicity you can’t buy!!!

I should preface this by saying Triumph makes me laugh. His appearances on Conan are can’t-miss affairs (and I almost missed this one, too, thank you very much historic Red Sox comeback!). Triumph’s routine with fans lining up weeks ahead of time for the return of Star Wars in 1999 is the funniest thing I have ever seen. I mean, ever. If you don’t agree, you’re wrong. And the skit Thursday cracked me up several times, especially the image of Mr. Met floating behind Fox News Channel anchor Greta Van Susteren.

Plus, let’s face it: The more we’re able to laugh at this whole process, the better.

All that said: Isn’t a presidential debate a little too serious for the Triumphs of the world? I get annoyed by buffoons who somehow obtain press passes to the Super Bowl and World Series at the expense of people who, you know, actually work. (Dear Tom Arnold, who managed to make a tool of himself while the Florida Marlins celebrated their 2003 World Championship: You do not deserve a press pass. Ever.)

In the end, of course, you can’t get too wrapped up about the Tom Arnolds and Julie Browns of the world, because it’s just sports. And, sure, Triumph didn’t spring up behind Bob Schieffer and ask a question of John McCain and Barack Obama.

But still…this is the most pivotal election in American history. You’d think the powers that be—and according to this link from 2004, it’s the Commission on Presidential Debates that credentials reporters to the debates—would think twice about intentionally diminishing the solemnity of the event and inviting on-site mocking for the host schools by credentialing a puppet dog who ended his routine by pretending to hump a baseball mascot.

While I laughed at the line, I can’t imagine Stuart Rabinowitz was thrilled with Triumph’s crack at the school: “The best America has to offer has descended upon Hofstra University. Yes, Hofstra University: The place DeVry applicants use as a safety school!” Or maybe it’ll all be worth it when 52 percent of incoming freshmen in the fall of 2009 say they heard about Hofstra from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

***

Unlucky timing of the year award goes to the Flying Dutchwomen field hockey team, which had to play Columbia Wednesday night while the rest of the campus reveled in its 15 minutes of international fame. Making matters worse was the 3-0 loss the Dutchwomen suffered—the fourth defeat in their current five-game losing streak.

***

We got another whiff of the big time Wednesday when Newsday.com linked our Wednesday post about the questions I’d ask if I was moderating the debate. Thanks to Newsday.com as well as loyal reader KAC, who found the link. I don’t want you to think I sit around all day, using Google News’ “blog search” to find mentions of Defiantly Dutch. I do that all night, thank you very much.

***

Defiantly Dutch has made its first purchase. I can’t believe this page was available at pro-football-reference.com. I call this $15 well-spent.

***

And I’ll further whet your (and my) appetite for the CAA predictions by mentioning a couple preseason polls/predictions. Collegehoops.net is asking fans to pick the CAA winner: George Mason, Northwestern, ODU, VCU or “other.” VCU is the leader so far. Also check out the Q&A there with Tom Pecora.

And CAA blogger extraordinaire Michael Litos has penned the CAA preview for The Blue Ribbon Yearbook and picked Hofstra eighth. (No link to the content, just to a website where you can buy the Yearbook…not giving the goods away for free online, what a concept) Litos explains on the CAA Zone message boards that he sees the Flying Dutchmen as a sleeper in the conference and that he’d pick them as high as sixth if he was writing the article now. Well, not right now. He’s probably sleeping right now, like most normal people.

Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

C’mon TP. I know what you have to say to everyone else, but I’ve been there from the beginning. All I want is one ticket.

“It’s a two-party system! You have to vote for one of us!”

Here’s something you don’t get everyday: Multiple Hofstra news links. The men’s hoops team gets some national pub from Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com (am I the only one who still writes http://www.sportsline.com/ into the address window at Internet Explorer?), who writes about the presidential debate displacing the Flying Dutchmen starting next week. Some amusing stuff from Tom Pecora about being housed at Margiotta Hall, practicing at Adelphi and fielding phone calls from friends who want one of the golden tickets wrapped in a chocolate bar Hofstra was allotted. (Seriously, only 200 tickets? That’s a joke)

Bryan Savage’s hometown newspaper has an interesting and extensive piece on the former Hofstra quarterback, who had big hopes for the UConn game as well as his senior season but was instead sidelined with a career-ending injury mere moments before kickoff.

And thanks to loyal reader Anonymous, who sent along a feature from the Albany Times-Union in which Albany coach Bob Ford ranks the win over Hofstra as one of the top 10 games he’s ever experienced in his 36 years at the school. I also learned I was wrong earlier this week when I wrote Albany does not have 30 scholarships. It has one. Seriously, one scholarship? Why even bother at that point? And how do they determine the recipient? Albany Idol? And do they have someone who is barely lucid consoling those who fall short?

Also got some entertaining comments and/or emails recently from Loyal Readers, including Rob, who chimed in with memories of Wednesday night dining at Hofstra. “The sad truth about Steak Night was that the Chicken Cordon Bleu was actually better than the steak—the only two good meals they serve all week, and they served them on the same night? WTF?”

I don’t even remember the chicken cordon bleu. That’s how much I loved steak night: I wouldn’t even ponder another entree. But that sums up Lackmann, doesn’t it? Feed us crap six days a week and then make us choose from two glorious selections on the seventh.

Sully Ray writes in and wonders if the chipped tooth that I referred to Wednesday was the “…same chipped tooth that took a backseat tour of the southeastern US and wound up at 50 cent wiener night in NO?”

Yes it is. In the spring of ’95, Sully Ray, Rob and fellow Chronicle alum Adam asked me to join them on a cross-country spring break road trip…a decision they regretted by the time we reached the George Washington Bridge, I am sure. I don’t travel well, at all…especially when the car is a stick shift and I failed Manual Transmission 101, as taught by my mom (it’s not her fault, my sister aced it).

So I sat in the back, read newspapers from around the country, listened to a mix tape (it’s like the iPod shuffle, except with careful attention paid to the ebb and flow as well as a handwritten song list…you kids these days have no idea what you’re missing) generally acted like a grump and slept a lot. I also apparently snored every sleeping moment, something my so-called friends were only too happy to capture via dozens of shots of me, my agape mouth and my chipped tooth deep in REM sleep.

It’s OK though. I’m the one with the blog. And I’m the one with photos of Sully Ray wolfing down hot dogs at 50-cent hot dog night in New Orleans as well as shots of Sully Ray, Adam and I keeping score during the game. If I could only be the one who also had a working scanner, those photos would be up here. So revenge—for the sleeping shots as well as all my losses in T-Shirt Derby—will eventually be mine, Sully Ray.

And any T-shirts that are fired my way tomorrow will be mine, too, since Sully Ray once again has better things to do than join us. Sniff. So if you see the wife and I, stop by and say hello. I’ll be the guy yelling about Michael Doto.

Jerry is still waiting to hear from Rick, Ted and the rest of the Loyal Readers at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com.

I'm going to select Donald Brown in my fantasy draft next week

UConn had its way and made Loyal Reader Jeff look prescient with a 35-3 win over a banged-up Hofstra Thursday night in East Hartford. Been a busy night so I'll blog more in the afternoon, but here are links to the game stories from Newsday and The Hartford Courant. And check out the Icepick cracking wise in the comments section from yesterday.

Also, your one and only chance to catch the Flying Dutchwomen volleyball team at the Physical Fitness Center before the leaves start falling is this weekend at the Asics tournament. The Dutchwomen are, of course, being displaced by the preparations for the presidential debate and will not play another true home match until October 17.

Check back later today for a more extensive blog.