Seven Wishes

Two posts in a row with a Night Ranger song! My plan to return them to the top of the charts is underway!

It's been a little more than mark three weeks since the CAA voted unanimously to maintain the status quo and exclude from postseason conference tournaments schools that have already announced their intention to leave the league. That assured Old Dominion and Georgia State will not be eligible for the 2013 CAA Tournament, which, coupled with the APR-related absences of Towson and UNC Wilmington, means there will be a grand total of seven teams competing for the automatic berth during what will be a three-day tournament next March.

The resolution of the eligibility issue means we can now focus solely on conjecturing about expansion, which is really all anyone has been conjecturing about since way back in March, when VCU was still in the CAA. No really. VCU was in the CAA. You could look it up.

Tom Yeager, who was candid to a fault while the rumors swirled around VCU and George Mason, has been understandably quiet about expansion possibilities, but he told the Daily Press in Virginia last Friday that he expects the CAA to reveal its new teams sooner than later.

So I am running out of time to offer up my long-brewing seven wishes about CAA expansion and realignment. Get it? Seven wishes? Seven teams in the CAA Tournament? This is why they pay me the big bucks.

There's also a double meaning to the seven wishes, but you'll have to read all the way to number seven for that answer. Ha! I buried the lede on you.

(As always, the caveat remains that nobody ever listens to me about these things—understandably so—so don't go thinking any of this is going to happen. Except no. 7.)

1.) The CAA almost certainly can't do this, but I'd love to see expansion limited to one team. A 10-team conference is perfect for scheduling purposes. Every team plays every opponent twice. Boom. Done. Of course, a 10-team league leaves the CAA in the position of having to do this whole expansion thing all over again the next time someone leaves, and if I was a betting man, I'd wager at least one of the George Mason-Delaware-James Madison (in that order) trio still has wandering eyes despite a $1 million exit fee. What, you thought the ever-nefarious Tom O'Connor was being magnanimous, or just wanted to see Blaine Taylor in Richmond one more time, when he recently suggested lame duck schools should remain eligible for the conference tournament?

2.) So if the CAA must expand beyond 10 teams, here's hoping it only goes to 12. Again, Yeager may feel as if he has no choice but to go to 14 (or higher) because he needs to protect himself against future departures. As we have learned the past seven seasons, a 12-team league is decidedly imperfect from a scheduling perspective, though it would be a lot better if the CAA were finally divided into north and south divisions and each team played 16 conference games (two against division rivals and one apiece against teams in the other division).

A 12-team alignment is also less-than-ideal when it comes to stoking pre-season optimism. There can only be one champion, of course, and the odds of being the 1 in the 1-in-12 are daunting, especially in a league in which just four schools have won the title in the last 11 seasons. The departures of VCU and Old Dominion—who combined to win the last four titles and seven of the 11 since the CAA expanded to 10 in 2001-02—have the rest of us feeling pretty optimistic. But to expand to 14 would be discouraging, even if there may not be a choice.

3.) With the geographical power of the league suddenly shifted northward—the America East five account for more than half of the remaining CAA membership—this is a perfect opportunity for Hofstra, Northeastern, Drexel, Delaware and Towson to flex their muscles and push for equal representation of northern-based schools in expansion. Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it.

As three northern, non-football playing schools, you can be sure Hofstra, Northeastern and Drexel are tied together at the hip throughout this process. If one school wants (or doesn't want) something, then it's got a pretty good chance of finding an ally with at least one of the other two.

Two is the big number here. Per the CAA's bylaws, a three-quarters majority among schools "in good standing" (i.e. not ODU and Georgia State) is required to approve a new member. So two nay votes will doom a prospective newcomer. The surprising shift of bitter Northeastern rival Boston University to the Patriot League was an implicit admission the Terriers would never get the votes required to go to the CAA.

Of course, there's nothing stopping at least two of the James Madison-UNCW-William & Mary-George Mason quartet from banding together, saying "SOUTHERN BIAS WILL LIVE FOREVER!" and putting the kibosh on any expansion that favors northern schools. I don't envy Yeager's task here…

4.) …but it doesn’t mean I can't ask Santa Yeager to focus solely on northern-based schools that are happy playing football at Division I-AA. Adding CAA football schools New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island as full-time members would get the league to 12, enhance the synergy between basketball and football and solidify the north as the league's new power base.

That, of course, is not very likely to happen. New Hampshire and Maine are not the easiest places to get to in the middle of the winter (or any time of year, for that matter) and their men's basketball programs have combined for a grand total of zero NCAA Tournament appearances all-time out of the America East/NAC/ECAC North (hi Litos!). Rhode Island, meanwhile, just hired Danny Hurley as its head men's basketball coach and probably isn't looking to take what would be perceived as a step down to the CAA.

A secondary option is to look to schools such as Albany and Robert Morris, both of whom have thrived playing football in the Northeast Conference (one of the two schools has earned at least a share of the NEC title 11 times in the league's 16-year existence) while making multiple NCAA Tournament appearances in men's basketball over the last decade. And from a basketball perspective, a move from the America East (for Albany) and the NEC (for Robert Morris) would be a clear step up. But do basketball teams want to fly into Albany and out to Pittsburgh every winter?

In a perfect world, Stony Brook would be an ironclad lock to climb aboard and provide more representation from a northern school that plays football, but there's that whole Hofstra-hates-Stony-Brook-and-vice-versa thing. Oh well. Maybe next time.

5.) Is it too much to ask Blaine Taylor and Ron Hunter, now that they've had their say, to acknowledge they were collateral damage in their schools' hare-brained decision to pursue a berth in the NobodyGivesARatsAss.com Bowl and lay off the us-against-the-big-bad-world-that-is-out-to-screw-us rhetoric? Yes, yes it is. Which is why Taylor and Hunter are two of our favorites and two of the best coaches in the league.

Taylor and Hunter are reminders that outstanding coaches manage to find motivation and slights just about anywhere. Last year, Hunter used the minimal expectations for Georgia State, which was 59 games under .500 in its first six seasons in the CAA, to drive the Panthers to a sixth-place finish. Then, after Georgia State was largely overlooked in the conference award balloting, he riled up the Panthers so much they handed the Flying Dutchmen the worst loss in CAA Tournament history.

Taylor, meanwhile, has built Old Dominion into the league's premier program over the last decade and didn’t seem to appreciate being overshadowed by VCU's Final Four run when he told the VCU student newspaper, The Commonwealth Times, that "…the tournament can make rock stars out of very average people." Snarky? Sure. But I'd much rather have someone acting snarky when his Big Dog status is threatened than glomming on to the bandwagon and then searching for the nearest exit because not so deep down he can't handle no longer being the Big Dog.

Taylor's comment inspired VCU coach Shaka Smart—speaking of someone who can find motivation anywhere, hey, thanks again for that stupid Tweet, Andre Cornelius!—to utter this gem after the Rams beat Old Dominion 61-48 in Richmond in January: "I don't know if we were rock stars tonight or average people." Awesome.

The CAA voting to uphold the tournament ban on exiting teams will provide both men plenty of material the next eight months. Of course, if it was the other way around—and, say, Hofstra and Delaware were leaving to go back to the America East but were still allowed to participate in a final CAA Tournament—you can bet Taylor and Hunter would be muttering about how unfair it is for these lame duck teams to compete for the title. Which is why we like them so much.

6.) Now that the Richmond Coliseum is almost surely out of the picture as the long-term home of the CAA Tournament (I will pause to allow you to run naked around the living room in celebration), it's time to rotate the site. True neutrality doesn't benefit a league that relies on the income from the CAA Tournament to pay the bills, but alternating the location every year even among the mid-Atlantic schools will quiet a whole bunch of us squawkers. I would be a very happy person if the CAA Tournament was at the Bob Carpenter Center. I would not, however, stay at the Howard Johnson's, because I'm no longer 25 and stupid.

7.) Most important of all, the CAA must make "Seven Wishes" the motto for the 2013 tournament (listen to the song—it is appropriate for both the participating schools as well as those that left the league) and get Night Ranger to perform a concert during the weekend. Wait, what? Hear (or read) me out.

I usually hate the idea of concerts accompanying sporting events—nobody at all went to the Home Run Derby in Kansas City Monday and said "My life will be ruined if I don't get to see Zac Brown perform a song before Chris Berman makes America's collective ears bleed "—but the modified nature and unknown locale of the CAA Tournament means the league will have to get creative in order to lure fans from out of town and out of state.

So why not a couple concerts? If the tournament remains scheduled for Saturday-Sunday-Monday (March 9-11), have an older band—like, say, and this is just an example, NIGHT RANGER—play a show Friday night to get the old farts such as myself into the host city. Then, after the tripleheader Saturday, have a concert headlined by a younger and hipper act (i.e. an artist whose music I've never heard GET OFF MY LAWN) to keep the college kids in town.

I'm sure organizing concerts is a logistical nightmare and it'll be a challenge to actually get people to go from the tourney site to wherever the concert is held. (Unless the concert takes place 30 minutes after the final game on the floor of the host arena, which would mean people writing on deadline during a concert. I sense I'm the only one who thinks that would be awesome.)

But this unique tournament requires a unique approach. So Santa Yeager, I implore you: Get Night Ranger to play the tournament, wherever it is located. No, I thought of this while completely sober. Why do you ask?

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

Hofstra 93, UNC Wilmington 64 (Or: A little touchup and a little paint…)

Only 11 more chances to figure out the theme of the post-game recaps, Loyal Reader Missy, err, everyone!

Referee Sean Casady sidled up to Mo Cassara as the Flying Dutchmen produced their most dominant CAA victory in more than two years and asked the question on the minds of most of the 3,017 fans at Hofstra Arena.

“He said ‘Where has this been all year?’” Cassara said after the Dutchmen routed UNC Wilmington, 93-64, in the regular season finale Saturday.

Cassara and his players have believed they were capable of a performance like this throughout an exasperating, luckless season in which the effort never waned even as the Dutchmen suffered narrow loss after narrow loss. It all finally came together in a rollicking Senior Day victory fueled by the three departing Dutchmen.

CAA scoring champion Mike Moore had 30 points and Nathaniel Lester remained among the top 10 scorers in the league with 20 points to lead five Dutchmen in double figures. But the most impressive performance was authored by the third senior, Dwan McMillan, who racked up an incredible 15 assists—the most in the CAA this season and one shy of the Hofstra single-game record, set way back by Robbie Weingard in the 1983-84 season—to surge past VCU’s Darius Theus and win the CAA’s assist title.

“We had as many close games as anybody in the league, if not in the country this year, [and] didn’t come out on the right end of a lot of them,” Cassara said. “But tonight I thought our energy was great, our effort was great and our attitude was great. And that’s a credit to these three guys. Their stats throughout the course of the game were really incredible.”

As a team, the Dutchmen put up some pretty incredible—and borderline historical—stats. The Dutchmen tied a team record, set way back in the 1988-89 season, with 25 assists. The Dutchmen shot 56.6 percent, their best effort since the season opener against Long Island, and drained a season-high 12 3-pointers. Defensively, the Dutchmen enjoyed a 39-possession stretch in which they didn’t allow UNC Wilmington to score on consecutive trips up the floor.

The Dutchmen led by as many as 37 with a little more than two minutes to play prior to a game-ending 13-4 run by the Seahawks and were on pace for their first 100-point effort against a Division I opponent in almost exactly 20 years until Cassara took the air out of the ball down the stretch(cough, would never happen if Jaime Larranaga coached here, cough cough).

The 29-point victory was still the program’s biggest margin of victory over a Division I opponent since a 93-54 win over UNC Wilmington Jan. 27, 2010, the game that infamously got Benny Moss Benny Mossed. And the lopsided win cut the Dutchmen’s overall point differential this season by more than half (from 54 points to 25 points) and made them just one of two CAA teams to win at least two games by 25 points this season.

“We were clicking on the offensive end and defensive end,” Lester said. “Not a bad time to start.”

We won’t know until late Friday night whether the win was the start of something big—or at least a run to Sunday or Monday in the CAA Tournament—or merely a fluke outburst against the worst defensive team in the CAA. But the Dutchmen certainly displayed some elements of a winning team against the Seahawks.

The Dutchmen got off to their usual fast start (taking a 9-0 lead, during which UNC Wilmington coach Buzz Peterson subbed out his entire starting lineup) before, as usual, quickly allowing the opponent back into the contest. But after falling behind 14-11, the Dutchmen outscored the Seahawks 34-11 to end the first half and remained ruthless and unrelenting in the second half.

The Dutchmen improved to 8-9 when three or more players score in double digits (Stevie Mejia, Stephen Nwaukoni and Shemiye McLendon all scored 10 points each). The dual point guard combination of McMillan and Mejia continued to create opportunities on both ends of the floor: In addition to combining for 19 assists, they sparked a defense that recorded eight steals (the 10th time in 11 games they’ve had at least seven thefts) and forced more turnovers than the Dutchmen committed for the 10th straight game.

“I think this small lineup has helped us a lot,” Cassara said. “I think the pressure we’ve been able to put [on teams], like last Saturday on Siena and for the most part William & Mary until the very end of the game and then today, we’ve been able to wear some teams down. So we have to try to continue to do that.”

Nwaukoni had a double-double (10 points and 10 rebounds) and mostly neutralized UNC Wilmington big man Keith Rendleman. Moussa Kone fouled out in just 17 minutes of play, but hit both of his field goal attempts, including a sweet 10-foot bank shot in the first half, as well as both of his free throws. He’s 5-for-5 from the field in the last two games and 4-of-5 from the free throw line in the last four games after beginning the season by hitting just 10 of his first 28 attempts.

“I thought [Nwaukoni] did a great job defensively,” Cassara said. “I think you saw his strength. Rendleman is a terrific player and our whole team did a great job on him, doubling him in the post and frustrating him.”

The odds are this frustrating season for the Dutchmen won’t have a Hollywood ending (as we’ll get into all week long with the annual Just The Facts, coming soon to a screen near you!) and that extending the program’s Senior Day winning streak to 16 games will stand as the highlight of the most challenging campaign in 17 years. But the rout at least created some momentum for the Dutchmen heading into Friday night’s opening round game against Georgia State and provided a glimpse at what this team can do when things are clicking.

“Better late than never—it’s a start,” Moore said. “This gives us a lot of momentum going in and a lot of confidence for the guys whose shots haven’t been falling.”

“We’ve really been having great practices the last two weeks,” McMillan said. “Some of the games we haven’t closed out, but I think we can make some noise.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. UNC Wilmington, 2/25)

3: Dwan McMillan

2: Mike Moore

1: Nathaniel Lester

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 64

Nathaniel Lester 45

Dwan McMillan 20

Stevie Mejia 15

David Imes 14

Stephen Nwaukoni 10

Shemiye McLendon 9

Moussa Kone 6

Bryant Crowder 2

Matt Grogan 1

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

Contract extension makes Mo the man for Hofstra

Charles Jenkins is gone, but Mo Cassara will remain a Lions' Den favorite for years to come after signing a contract extension today.

Three of the season’s lowest points convinced Jack Hayes that Mo Cassara was the school’s long-term answer at head coach. Two of the season’s most exciting moments convinced Cassara that Hofstra was the home an itinerant basketball coach had been seeking.

The two men who reached the same conclusion via different methods needed little time to cement Cassara’s future at Hofstra. The school announced Thursday that it had signed Cassara to a five-year extension taking him through the 2015-16 season. The extension comes with a raise that will put Cassara into the top half of CAA coaches in annual compensation (that sound you just heard was George Mason drafting another press release announcing another extension and raise for Jim Larranaga).

Cassara, whose original deal at Hofstra was for four years, signed his new contract a day before the anniversary of Tim Welsh’s hiring, a coincidental capper to a year that turned out nothing like expected and much better than expected, all at the same time.

“I did not think of that,” Hayes said with a chuckle Thursday afternoon. “You try to handle these situations as best as you can, and in looking back now, I feel that the university made a good decision and I think everybody is happy with the decision to hire Mo as the head coach. As you look back now, over a 12-month period it’s been an excellent situation and one that we wanted to make sure lasts for a long time.”

A year ago, Cassara headed to the Final Four in Indianapolis hopeful he’d join Welsh on Long Island but still nursing the wounds from the surprising dismissal of Al Skinner’s staff at Boston College and uncertain what he would do next.

“I remember flying out here to the Final Four last year essentially thinking or hoping that I was going to go with Tim but really, essentially, without a job and not really knowing that much about Hofstra and not knowing about the opportunity and not knowing what I really wanted to do and, ultimately, still trying to figure out what happened at Boston College,” Cassara said tonight as he drove back from a dinner in Houston. “It’s amazing what happens in a year. You try to do the right thing and you work hard and you surround yourself with good people and I think a lot can be accomplished.

Cassara, thrust from the third assistant’s role into the head coaching position when Welsh resigned following a DUI arrest last Apr. 30, finished second in the CAA Coach of the Year balloting (urge to curse rising) after leading the Flying Dutchmen to a 14-4 conference mark and a share of second place, the program’s best finish since moving to the CAA in 2001-02 and two games ahead of Final Four participant VCU.

The Dutchmen finished 21-12 after falling to Old Dominion in the tournament semifinals and losing to Evansville in the first round of the CBI, but a season that ended shy of the ultimate goal left everyone associated with the program excited about what Cassara and his staff had begun to build.

In addition to piecing together a 20-win season out of a thin and injury-depleted roster that featured just two players—Charles Jenkins and Greg Washington—who had started a game for Hofstra prior to this year, Cassara’s tireless efforts to reach out to fans via social media and other more traditional means helped the Dutchmen draw almost 700 more fans per game this year (3,073) than last year (2,410). The Dutchmen also played to their first two sellout crowds since the 2006-07 season.

“Mo did a great job and showed that he can coach and that he can recruit and that he can certainly energize a college campus,” Hayes said. “At the end of the regular season, as we sat there tied at second at 14-4 in the conference, we knew we wanted to do something.”

Hayes said he was particularly impressed by how Cassara got the Dutchmen to respond to and bounce back from disastrous trips to Puerto Rico, Iona and Wright State. The Dutchmen went 0-3 in the Puerto Rico Classic, where they opened and closed the trip by getting blown out by North Carolina and Nebraska and blew a 13-point lead against Western Kentucky in the final four minutes of the middle game, but won their next four games upon returning home.

A 25-point loss to Iona in the final game of the calendar year led to a weekend’s worth of boot camp practices and resulted in the Dutchmen winning their first four games in January and seven of their first eight overall as they put themselves in position to earn a CAA Tournament bye. The Dutchmen lost by 26 in the BracketBuster at Wright State but mounted another four-game winning streak that ended with the loss to Old Dominion.

“I think Mo did a great job of going through situations like that and getting everybody refocused and re-energized and working on the task at hand to put those things behind us, learn from them and move on,” Hayes said. “We came back from those stretches and we were very successful.”

Cassara, who coached at six different colleges or high schools in the 13 years before he arrived at Hofstra, said he knew Long Island was the place for him after seeing the reaction to the Dutchmen’s home win over George Mason Jan. 5—a victory highlighted by Cassara racing over to Brad Kelleher and high-fiving him after Kelleher’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the first half—and the anticipation prior to the sold-out season finale against Delaware Feb. 26.

“There was a period of time early in the year I was like ‘Oh my God, are we going to win a game? How are we going to do this?’” Cassara said. “And I knew how good George Mason was, they really had been the class of the league and when we beat them at our place and really played well that second half, I could see the momentum start to turn and the fans start to get excited.

“And then I think that kind of just steamrolled into more and more positive things. Walking out on that court that last day down to the student section and being so excited—not about just playing the game, but more excited about the turnout and the fan support in the community—I walked out that day and I said to myself ‘This is not just a job.’

“Those are the two times that I can think of that I said ‘Wow, this isn’t just a job. This is home to me.’”

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

A long-distance dedication from Jerry on Long Island to Jim in Fairfax!

Enjoy your freelance “writing” opportunities while you can, Jim. (Oh and let me beat the paste-eaters and those who like to start fake Twitters to the punch: I suck so much that Jim Larranaga is getting bylines and I’m not) As of this weekend, you’re no longer the last coach to lead a mid-major to the Final Four and America is no longer in search of the next George Mason.

Sure, we know there’s a difference between what you did and what Butler did, but most of America won’t get it (just like it didn’t get the real story four years ago, but that’s neither here nor there). I, for one, look forward to Brad Stevens’ future freelance writing opportunities. Hope you cherished those 15 minutes, Jim! Tick, tock, tick, tock…

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

Welsh is the answer, but the questions are just beginning

Will the foundation of his new house be in place for Tim Welsh, or will he face unexpected structural issues over the next five years?

It’s officially official: Hofstra issued a press release announcing a press conference for tomorrow at 11 a.m. introducing Tim Welsh as the Flying Dutchmen’s new head basketball coach. But since it’s April 1, I can still hold out hope that Tom Pecora is going to step out from behind the curtain to the sound of thunderous applause and the thud of one guy fainting with joy, right?

While my first choice would have been Van Macon—mostly because of the stability and continuity he would have represented as well as the belief he has earned this opportunity, partially because it would have been cool if this hire was part of the Jay Wright tree—I can’t argue too much with hiring of Welsh, who has agreed to a five-year deal worth a reported $3 million (more on that eye-popping figure in a bit).

Welsh led Iona to one NCAA Tournament and two NITs in three years in New Rochelle and recruited the players that went to the NCAA under Jeff Ruland in 2000 and 2001. Welsh then spent 10 years at Providence, where he reached the NCAA Tournament twice and the NIT three times while compiling a 160-142 record. He was fired following the 2008 season and Providence attempted to replace him with, we kid you not, beloved George Mason coach Jim Larranaga.

Speaking of Larranaga: In a remarkable bit of coincidence, he just signed another contract extension today. Nope, not trying to remind everyone who he almost succeeded, or who the big dog is in the CAA, not at all. Maybe Mason is just going to ink Larranaga to an extension every time he has to suspend a player, in which case he’ll coach long enough to become the Connie Mack of the CAA.

Anyway, landing Welsh—who should be familiar to the local high school and AAU coaches and shouldn’t need much of a reintroduction to the scene—in such swift fashion is a feather in the cap of athletic director Jack Hayes. This was the first high-profile coaching search conducted by Hayes, and his ability to file through his rolodex (Hayes graduated from Providence and worked at Big East rivals UConn and St. John’s), quickly close a deal while multiple other local schools are all seeking coaches and get the approval—financial and otherwise—of Hofstra president Stuart Rabinowitz was impressive.

This is a potentially perfect fit for Welsh, who heads into what very well could be his legacy job (yes, I am overusing that term this year, sue me). Hofstra is a great spot for someone who still has the hunger but no longer wants to deal with the constant pressure and scrutiny of a BCS gig.

Welsh could be Hofstra’s version of American’s Jeff Jones—someone who was once the hip and hot coach at a big six school but who, after being discarded despite a successful track record, is content to finish his career at a lower profile school where he is appreciated and expectations are more reasonable.

Hofstra has had just three coaches in the last 20 years. Coaches don’t work under a great deal of pressure here. Just remain competitive (the second Butch van Breda Kolff era gets a bad rap because of the rough final two seasons in which the Dutchmen had no real conference affiliation, but he was eight games over .500 with a regular season ECC championship in his first four seasons), play by the rules, play well with others and you can stay as long as you want—even now, with Hofstra making a historic commitment to men’s basketball.

For that, Rabinowitz—the target of this morning’s blog—should be commended, albeit in measured, reserved and skeptical tones.

Some people will wonder if I’m just being cynical and contrarian just for the sake of being skeptical and contrarian. Who, me? Never! But as impressed as I am with the lucrative contract awarded to Welsh, I’m also wondering if the deal is more reactive than proactive—instinctual jabs aimed at Pecora for bolting for a lesser program for a lot more money as well as those who have criticized Hofstra’s since it extinguished football.

Giving Welsh $600,000—a 50 percent raise over what Pecora made in his most lucrative year—allows Hayes and Rabinowitz to effectively end any conversation about the future of Hofstra athletics. It also indicates the school thinks far higher of Welsh than it ever did of Pecora. And if you happen to think Pecora is really greedy and foolish because he ended up at a 2-26 school that only pays him $50,000 more than Hofstra is paying his replacement, well, my guess is Hofstra wouldn’t mind that at all.

But it must be asked: Why wasn’t Hofstra willing to pay its head men’s basketball coach $600,000 last week? If Hofstra is going to offer $600,000 to a coach, shouldn’t it reward the guy who turned this INTO a $600,000 a year job? Most importantly, after giving the head coach a dramatic raise, is Hofstra ready to make a commensurate re-investment in the program? If Hofstra is spending almost as much on its head coach as Fordham, is it ready to spend almost as much on the entire program as Fordham?

Yes, I know, Pecora never led Hofstra to the NCAA Tournament, and I understand it would have been difficult to spin a 50 percent raise for Pecora after nine straight years without a conference championship. But c’mon. This is Hofstra, where nobody ever knows about a “two-year study” to determine the future of the football program. If the school wanted to hike Pecora’s salary and redouble its investment in men’s basketball, it could have very easily done so behind the scenes.

And if Pecora thought Hofstra would be, at some point soon, ready to make a Fordham-type investment in men’s basketball, would he really have left a nice situation for a monstrous rebuilding job?

Maybe this was the plan all along once football disappeared and as simple as Hofstra doing what Kyle Whelliston says all non-football schools should do: Allocate more resources to men’s basketball than any other sport.

And hey, maybe Pecora was gone no matter what. Maybe he had stars in his eyes and didn’t want to wait any longer for the A-10 to invite Hofstra, or for Hofstra to join an entirely new conference that is on par with the A-10. Maybe he wanted the royal welcome he got at Fordham. Maybe he likes maroon. Maybe it was just time for a divorce. Pecora was inherited by both Rabinowitz and Hayes. Maybe they were saving the big payday for their guy.

But still, today, this feels a lot like the Mets responding to the criticism generated by the 2002 firing of Bobby Valentine by overpaying for Art Howe. After signing Howe to a four-year, $9 million contract—a longer and more lucrative deal than Valentine ever had—the Mets spun a yarn about how they got a guy who “lit up the room” during his interview. No offense to Howe, one of the nicest men to ever occupy a manager’s office, but the night light in a bathroom has more wattage than Howe.

That is not to compare Welsh to Howe, AT ALL, or to declare Welsh will be a disastrous hiring. Just saying it feels like Hofstra is consumed with winning the press conference and quieting critics.

Paying a head coach a sky-high salary is the equivalent of slapping some sharp-looking siding on a house. It’s no good unless the foundation is in place. Is Hofstra willing to make the investment necessary to make this hire worth it? The school will win the press conference tomorrow, no doubt about that. But is it ready to win the next 1,826 days, as well?

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

CBI Bits and Bytes: Whose season gets Scrubbed tonight?

Denise the hot intern, above, smiles despite preparing to deliver bad news to her castmates as well as one of the two teams playing tonight at Hofstra Arena.

Tom Pecora couldn’t stop yawning in his office Monday afternoon, and for once it wasn’t I was boring him to tears.

Neither Pecora nor his staff got much sleep Sunday night as they awaited word on whether or not the Flying Dutchmen’s season would continue. The news that the Dutchmen were headed for the CBI and a home game tonight against IUPUI finally arrived around midnight, which set into motion a chain of events that had Pecora and his assistants and his staff spending all day Monday embarking on a crash course of all things IUPUI (well, not all things, we took care of that this morning!).

“What we did last night was we had two guys waiting at Hoop One Video [in New Jersey]—they were sitting in the car, two of our managers,” Pecora said. “As soon as we knew it was IUPUI, we called them at midnight. They got us three tapes and they drove back, got back here about two o’clock.

“Coach [David] Duke was sleeping here. He got up and started watching tape at six. And then I got here at eight and I started watching.”

Pecora said the plan was to produce a scouting report for the Dutchmen in time for practice Tuesday. “So for the kids, it’s business as usual,” Pecora said. “We’re usually ahead of the curve a little bit more.”

—Hofstra and IUPUI have never played each other and IUPUI has played just two CAA opponents in its 13 seasons as a Division I program. The closest connection Hofstra has to IUPUI is a thin one indeed: IUPUI plays in the Summit League, which used to be known as the Mid-Continent Conference, which in turn took in the rest of the old East Coast Conference (Buffalo, Central Connecticut, Chicago State, Northeastern Illinois and Troy State) after the ECC finally broke apart for good in 1994.

Yet is anyone surprised that Pecora, who seems to know and get along with everyone in Division I (well, except this guy), is friends with IUPUI coach Ron Hunter and exchanged texts with him late Sunday night?

Pecora and Hunter have worked together on CBS College Sports’ coverage of the NCAA Tournament and will do so again this weekend. “He texted me ‘Wow, what are the chances of us playing? Now I’ll have to buy you dinner,’” Pecora said, “Because I usually buy him dinner when he comes in to do the TV work. My response was ‘Laughed when I heard. I’ll pick you up Friday morning.’”

Judging by Hunter’s biography on the IUPUI website—which states, in part, “…Hunter has made strong defense, excellent guard play and local recruiting three of his fortes”—he and Pecora have plenty in common on the court, as well.

“I think it’s the same mid-major philosophy that you can get better guards than you can get forwards, so go out and try to play a three guard offense and you’re going to have better players on the floor,” Pecora said.

—Maybe the NCAA Tournament doesn’t take into account how a team fares in its last five or 10 games (snort), but the CBI does.

“It obviously played a role, there’s no doubt about that,” CBI spokesman Ray Cella said Monday of the impact of the Flying Dutchmen’s 8-2 finish. “That’s one of the things that everybody looks at, is the last five or last 10. They don’t admit it anymore, but they still do.”

Like with the CIT, Cella said the CBI is particularly interested in teams such as the Dutchmen, who have a young core returning next year and are eager to continue their season. “Obviously, the fact that they are a young team—even getting in two or three more practices can be helpful,” Cella said. “If they win their game on Wednesday and they continue to play, obviously, not only does it give you more opportunities to be with the kids and [work on] what you need to work on, it also gives you a sense of what the postseason is about and to try to use that to leapfrog into the following season.

“Tulsa won the first year and then was able to parlay that into the last two years [an NCAA Tournament berth last year and an NIT appearance this year]. UTEP last year, look at the year they had. Any chance you get to keep playing, keep practicing and get a game environment is going to help you, especially if you’re a young team.”

—I’m probably the only person who finds the CBI and CIT analogous to Scrubs (yes, I can in fact tie anything at all into the show created by William & Mary graduate Bill Lawrence). Allow me to explain: Scrubs has been revived from the edge of cancellation numerous times. The CBI and CIT allow teams to extend a season that seemed finished after a loss in their conference tournaments. Not bad, right?

Anyway, Scrubs is probably airing its last LAST episode tonight, right in the middle of the Dutchmen’s game against IUPUI. Someone’s season will finally be cancelled tonight as well in an enticing matchup of strengths.

Hofstra ranks among the nation’s leaders in 3-point field goal percentage defense, IUPUI shoots almost 40 percent (39.2 percent) from beyond the arc. The Dutchmen pride (booooo) themselves on limiting teams to less than 40 percent shooting, the Jaguars shoot 51.1 percent, second-best in the country behind Syracuse. It took Tom Pecora until almost February to find a starting five that gelled, IUPUI has used the same starting five in every game this season.

The Jaguars’ three double-digit scorers (Robert Glenn, Alex Young and Leroy Nobles) are all 6-foot-5 or taller, which could present some matchup problems for the Dutchmen. Greg Washington and Miklos Szabo must stay out of foul trouble, particularly early in the first half, and Nathaniel Lester will have to emerge from the doghouse to put in some time at power forward.

If one of the Jags’ trio is held under 10 points, the Dutchmen should win. If not, the race to see whose season gets Scrubbed will go right to the wire and be too close to call. Either way, see you there. I’ll be the guy screaming how the Fordham, Seton Hall and St. John’s jobs are career suicide.

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

Hofstra 68, James Madison 48 (Or: When I thought I was ready to give up on the season…the Dutchmen go AND TOTALLY REDEEM THEMSELVES!)

Me and Sully Ray--err, Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne--sport ear-to-ear grins after a cold drive home from James Madison this morning.

The task ahead of the Flying Dutchmen eight days ago was deceptively simple: Win three in a row, over a trio of teams that were sub-.500 in the CAA and overall, and suddenly the first home game of February against championship contender Northeastern would matter.

Of course, three wins in as many games seemed to be an awful lot to expect out of the Dutchmen, who won just twice in their first nine games of the conference season and were in the midst of a five-game losing streak in which each defeat was more demoralizing than the last.

As fans, it was better not to think too much about the possibility of a three-game winning streak for fear of setting ourselves up for more heartache. Just assume the Dutchmen would stumble somewhere along the way and win just once or twice during the three games against UNC Wilmington, Delaware and James Madison, hold out hope for a potential Towson-like run in the CAA tournament and look ahead to better days in 2010-11.

But now…now they’ve done it. Now they’ve gone and won three in a row. Now, after a 68-48 win over James Madison last night that was the Dutchmen’s most thorough and impressive in months, we are so very tempted to believe again.

The Dutchmen are 5-7 in the CAA, all alone in seventh place and a mere two games behind suddenly skidding William & Mary for sixth place. They are only the second team since the CAA expanded in 2001-02 to start 2-7 or worse and enjoy a three-game winning streak in the second half and one of only two teams in the CAA currently in the midst of a three-game winning streak (VCU has also beaten three straight sub-.500 teams).

Time to salivate over a quarterfinal rematch with George Mason in the tournament quarterfinals? Maybe not, but all the flaws of January looked fixed last night, when the Dutchmen were efficient on offense, dominant on defense and ruthless when presented with an opportunity to finish off James Madison in the second half.

“I think it was similar to the way we played at Towson in early December,” Tom Pecora said via phone after the Dutchmen landed back on Long Island. “I just thought it was a team effort to play within themselves. It was good. It’s good to be healthy. It’s good to be able to go to the bench and know they’re at full strength when they get their minutes.”

Five Dutchmen had at least nine points, led by Charles Jenkins with 20 points. Chaz Williams had just two points but oversaw an offense that produced 15 assists, the Dutchmen’s most in a win since they had 20 against Fairfield Nov. 30. He also continually broke the Dukes’ full-court press in the second half, when the Dutchmen had just five turnovers—less than half their first half total of 11.

Defensively, the Dutchmen limited James Madison to 34 percent shooting, the third straight game in which an opponent has shot 36 percent or less. The Dutchmen allowed opponents to shoot at least 45 percent in each of the final four losses of the five-game skid.

James Madison’s top two scorers, forwards Denzel Bowles and Julius Wells, scored 15 points apiece, but constant double teams on the 6-foot-10 Bowles limited his effectiveness and didn’t allow him to have the type of monster game that big men such as Charlotte’s Shamari Spears and VCU’s Larry Sanders have had against the Dutchmen. Bowles entered the game averaging 21 points and 9.9 rebounds a game but had just two boards and drew four fouls, which rendered him almost invisible in the second half.

“He was tired—we kept throwing different bodies at him, doubling him a bunch of different ways,” Pecora said. “We kind of got him out of rhythm early.”

Cornelius Vines, meanwhile, continued his strong defensive play by draping Wells, who was just 4-of-15 from the field and scored 11 of his points after the Dutchmen already led by double digits.

The most encouraging development of the night for Pecora was the performance of the Dutchmen’s oft-maligned veterans, who accounted for 87 percent of the Dutchmen’s offense (59 of 68 points).

That was the largest percentile of points by upperclassmen in a victory this season and second-largest overall behind the loss to VCU (the veterans accounted for 66 of the 68 points the Dutchmen scored in a game in which Williams did not play). Against Delaware Saturday, the veterans accounted for just 51 percent of the points (39 of 77), the lowest percentage in a victory this season and the second-lowest overall behind the loss to George Mason Jan. 4.

The veterans were particularly effective in the second half, when they combined to score 33 of the Dutchmen’s 38 points, including the first 21 as the Dutchmen turned a 30-25 halftime lead into a 51-39 advantage. Sparked by five points from Jenkins and four points from Greg Washington, the Dutchmen went on an 11-0 run immediately after James Madison missed two 3-pointers that would have tied the game at 32.

Washington scored eight of his nine points and pulled down nine of his 12 rebounds in the second half (and, it should be noted, was pulled immediately after hitting a layup for the Dutchmen’s final points with 1:25 left even though he was one point shy of the double-double. You know why? Because Pecora sweats class and elegance, that’s why!).

Other second half stalwarts for the Dutchmen included Miklos Szabo, who had six of his 12 points and six of his eight rebounds after intermission, and Nathaniel Lester, who scored eight of his nine points and pulled down both rebounds in the final 20 minutes.

Lester scored all his points in a span of 2:24 as the Dutchmen maintained a double-digit lead. He’s had eight points or fewer in 14 games this season, including seven of his previous eight entering Wednesday.

There would be no second half fade for the Dutchmen, who have blown second half leads of at least six points in five losses this year but whose lead remained at least 10 points for the final 16 minutes Wednesday.

“I think we played like a mature team,” Pecora said. “Our seniors playing the way they did really [lifted] us. Our ability to extend the lead in the second half, in their building, was very important, I thought.”

Of course, as encouraging as the victory was, plenty of caveats apply: Much like UNC Wilmington and Delaware, James Madison is another lower-tier squad enduring a nightmarish season. The Dutchmen are 5-0 against teams in the bottom half of the conference but have yet to author a performance anything like Wednesday’s against anyone in the top six, against whom they are 0-7.

Still, though, it seems appropriate the win Wednesday evened the Dutchmen’s overall record at 12-12— right back to square one as they prepare for Northeastern and another chance at that elusive Signature Win. It’s getting to be awfully tempting, this idea that the first half of the conference season was a matter of everything going wrong at once—a brutal schedule, an undermanned roster and some general bad luck combining to suck all the confidence out of the Dutchmen—and that February is once again shaping up as the best month of the season for the Dutchmen, who are 39-11 in regular season games played after Feb. 1 the last seven years.

“[It] can really define our season, if we find a way to win Saturday and keep our climb up the standings,” Pecora said. “If we play the way we played tonight, we can beat anybody. No doubt about that.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. James Madison, 2/3)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Miklos Szabo

1: Greg Washington

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 44

Chaz Williams 24

Halil Kanacevic 19

Nathaniel Lester 18

Miklos Szabo 17

Greg Washington 12

Cornelius Vines 9

Yves Jules 1

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

If it turns into a pillow fight tonight, we’re screwed

The Dutchmen might need a motivational speaker if they can't GET BACK ON THE RIGHT TRACK tonight against the CAA's best pillow stealers.

Declaring the depths of my disdain for George Mason before the Dutchmen’s lone meeting of the 2008-09 season didn’t really work out all that well. So with the Dutchmen preparing to host the Patriots for the first time in two years and two days, I’ll just state that, guess what, my two favorite teams are still Hofstra and whomever’s playing George Mason.

The players from the 2006 Final Four team are all gone, but Tom O’Connor and Jim Larranaga are still cashing checks from the finest Division I school in Fairfax, which automatically makes Mason as likable as a cold sore.

O’Connor, of course, is the Mason AD who (and this is where I put a Chris Farley-esque emphasis on my air quotes) “wasn’t in the room” when the selection committee “got around to discussing his team’s at-large candidacy. And Larranaga continues to provide plenty of fuel for my fire with his disciplinary actions.

Larranaga is the Great Leader of Men who suspended Tony Skinn one game for punching Loren Stokes in the nuts in the waning seconds of the CAA semifinals in 2006. That seemed a little lax at the time, but now it’s just hilarious, because earlier this season, Larranaga suspended Ryan Pearson and Andre Cornelius for one game apiece because the two supposedly took pillows from their hotel rooms.

Which means, in Larranaga’s world (which no longer features Twitter), swiping a pillow from a hotel room is as serious an offense as punching an opposing player in the nuts in the waning seconds of a defeat. I’m beginning to think a one-game suspension is to Larranaga what going to our room was for the rest of us as kids—the catch-all that serves as universal punishment.

Didn’t finish all your homework on time? “Go to your room!”

Pulled your sister’s hair and made her cry? “Go to your room!”

Punched a kid in the nuts on the playground? “Go to your room!”

Yet another Patriot got in trouble last week when freshman Sherrod Wright was suspended for the Georgia State game for a “violation of team rules.” I’m just going to go ahead and assume he took a towel from a hotel room, or called down to the front desk for toiletries that he didn’t use and instead just packed away, or maybe dropped a buck into the newspaper box and took two copies instead of just one.

Tsk tsk. Sure seems to be a renegade program building at Mason. Anywho, since we have no idea what Wright did, we can only mock Mason for the actions of Pearson and Cornelius as well as the standards of Larranaga. And along those lines, I actually spent much of the weekend pondering whether or not to encourage fans to bring pillows to the Arena to taunt the Patriots and Larranaga.

I decided against it because if some idiot chucks one on the floor, it’s probably my season ticket and my media pass that pays the price. But you know, if you’re reading this now, two-plus hours before first tip, and you wanted to bring a pillow to the game and wave it every single time a Mason player is at the free throw line and NEVER EVER THROW IT ON THE COURT, well, that’d be great.

As for the game itself, Vegas has the Dutchmen as a 3 1/2-point favorite (to quote UNC Wilmington beat writer Brian Mull: For entertainment purposes only!) and your good friend and mine Mike Litos predicts a narrow Hofstra win. Those oddsmakers are uncannily accurate (Chaz Williams’ layup right before the buzzer in Fairfax allowed the Dutchmen to cover the five-point spread) and Mason is a poor road team (3-6 away from Fairfax compared to 8-1 at home) whose statistical deficiencies in rebounding, 3-point shooting and turnover margin would seem to play into the Dutchmen’s strengths.

Still, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. Maybe it’s just the memories of the 2008 game against the Patriots, when Antoine Agudio missed a free throw at the end of regulation that would have iced the victory and the Patriots tied it with a 3-pointer right before the buzzer and won going away in overtime.

More likely, it’s the realization this team has yet to win a close conference game, at home or on the road. The Dutchmen’s three losses to William & Mary and George Mason came by a combined 12 points. The Patriots, meanwhile, are 3-0 in conference games decided by five or fewer points and 7-3 overall, and their rotation is 11 deep. That could be a big advantage if Chaz Williams is still hobbled.

Maybe tonight’s the night the Dutchmen finally break through in a close game, but even if they do, this is not a Signature Win, despite Mason’s status as one of the four first-place teams in the CAA. That’s fine, though, because with seven losses in their last nine games, the Dutchmen need A Win more than they need anything else. A Win tonight and the Dutchmen have a shot at hitting the halfway point at 4-5—not great, but a whole lot better than the alternative.

The usual things have to happen tonight if the Dutchmen are to “GET ON THE RIGHT TRACK!” Nathaniel Lester has to play 30 minutes and emerge as Charles Jenkins’ wingman and either Miklos Szabo or Greg Washington has to complement Halil Kanacevic down low. Another perfect assist-to-turnover ratio from Cornelius Vines would be a boost, too.

Either way, it should be compelling. Litos believes it’ll be a rock fight. Well, as long as it doesn’t turn into a pillow fight.

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

If a Final Four berth is worth $677 million, then a brief glance at my backward hat has to be worth at least twice that

Hey! That's my hat!

Really, Hofstra ought to be paying me. I mean, all the cash they spend on finding new ways to promote the school worldwide and I’m giving the school billions of dollars of free publicity all over the Internet—on my own time and my own dime, to boot.

I’m not even talking about this blog. There’s no real brand awareness in here for the ol’ U, not with my stubbornly nostalgic ways running counter to the new logos and new nicknames “bestowed” upon us after so many cram sessions with off-campus “marketing geniuses.”

I’m talking about the video linked above. That’s a well-worn (I can hear my wife right now: “IT’S NOT WELL-WORN! IT’S DISGUSTING!!!”) Hofstra hat perched atop my melon that’s bobbing up and down as Extreme performs “More Than Words” at Toad’s Place in Connecticut last Saturday night.

I didn’t go to the concert expecting to become an Internet superstar promoting Hofstra to a global audience. I went because I’ve been an Extreme fan for 20 years (egads, I am old) and I have a soft spot for a band that did the nearly impossible by making me look prescient. As you know if you read either of my blogs, my crystal ball is murky at best. For example, there was this one time I declared the Red Sox were superior to the Yankees in almost every way. Yeah. Not so much.

So I took great—wait for it!!!—pride back in 1991, when Loyal Reader Matt and I were already wearing out our cassette versions of Extreme II: Pornograffiti long before the gentle acoustic ballad “More Than Words” topped the charts the week of our prom.

(Parenthetical tangent: Pornograffiti eventually went top 10 on the strength of “More Than Words” and the folksy follow-up “Hole Hearted,” and I always wondered what people who bought the album because of those songs thought when they were presented with a profanity-laden, hard rock concept album about America’s obsession with sex.)

Let me make it clear that I don’t usually surf YouTube looking for myself. But I saw clips from the show on YouTube and the wife wanted to see “More Than Words.” About 20 seconds in, I yelled “THERE’S MY HAT!!!” You get your best glimpse at me exactly one minute in, but the back of my head comes in and out of view multiple times throughout the clip.

That’s multiple plugs for Hofstra, you know. Multiple VALUABLE plugs for Hofstra.

The video has been viewed 251 views. We only accounted for, err, seven of them. So that’s 244 people seeing my hat a bunch of times. Two hundred forty-four people going, hey, this song is awesome, but that dude’s well-worn hat is even more awesome. Two hundred forty-four people deciding, hey, Hofstra, that sounds like an interesting place to go to college. Two hundred forty-four people that decide to drop what they’re doing and apply to Hofstra.

Two hundred forty-four people that are accepted at Hofstra equals…holy crap, roughly $7,320,000!!! The least Hofstra can do is comp my season tickets.

I probably look foolish and I know I did things I’m not really proud of—like turn my hat backwards and become That Guy who snaps photos with his cell phone, even though he sucks at photography and has a phone that takes crappy pictures—but I don’t care. This was to concerts what the JMU game was to sports—a seemingly normal night that turns special and reminds us why we attend games and concerts.

For every 10 or 20 or 30 games or concerts in which nothing remarkable happens and everything unfolds just as projected or as planned on the set list, there’s the one night where magic occurs, where the headliner is at the very top of its game and rides the euphoria and adrenaline of an appreciative crowd into a performance that’s as unforgettable for the participants as it is for the audience.

The JMU game wasn’t our Woodstock and the Extreme concert won’t be a generational touchstone either. But like those who only like big-time college hoops, those who only attend arena shows and/or dismiss Extreme because of their two lite FM hits have no idea what they missed nine days ago.

Anyway, time to take off my rock critic hat and put back on the well-worn and world-famous Hofstra hat. Here are a few other bits and bytes completely unrelated to Extreme or any other ‘90s musical act.

—It’s the second Monday of August (thanks, Captain Obvious!), which to me has always marked the beginning of summer’s last lap. From 1993 through 1995, this was the part of the summer in which the days on the calendar could not disappear fast enough. The approaching first day of school, such a dreadful concept as a youngster, filled me with an almost indescribable anticipation as a collegian. I couldn’t wait to get back to campus to hang out with the guys (and eventually The Girl, awww hi honey!), immerse myself in sports coverage at The Chronicle and, occasionally, attend class.

The feelings come mid-August aren’t quite the same as an adult, of course, but the second season of Defiantly Dutch has me pretty stoked. Camp opened yesterday for the Flying Dutchmen football team, whose season opener against suddenly fierce rival Stony Brook is a mere 26 days away. The first official athletic contest of the 2009-10 school year is even closer: The Flying Dutchwomen volleyball team hosts Rhode Island in the first round of the ASICS Invitational Aug. 28.

I’ve got a lot of things planned for the start of the school year (first day of classes is Sept. 2…class beginning in September? Next thing you know Hofstra will start the spring semester more than a week before the Super Bowl), some of which I may even implement! Seriously, stick around, as I hope to make this an even better destination for Hofstra fans this year. And I’ve got some fun non-sports programming planned, too, that should really appeal to those of us who came of age, so to speak, at Hofstra in the early ‘90s.

—Speaking of the football team, part one: The Dutchmen were picked to finish fourth in the CAA North in the coaches poll unveiled during CAA Media Day July 29. Linebacker Luke Bonus, who was earlier selected to the Sports Network’s preseason All-America team, was the only Hofstra player selected to the preseason all-CAA team.

For what it’s worth, the Dutchmen were picked third in the CAA North and received a first-place vote last year.

Phil Steele’s College Football Preview projects a far better season for the Dutchmen, who are ranked seventh in the country in the annual magazine. That…that would be pretty good.

—Speaking of the football team, part two: A couple corrections to make in our last entry about Steve McNair and the ’94 Flying Dutchmen. The Dutchmen beat New Hampshire 28-6 that season, not 24-7. And the Dutchmen have made five trips to the Division I-AA playoffs, not four. Thanks to football alum Uncle Buck at the CAAZone for pointing out the errors.

—I leave you with this and without comment: Jim Larranaga tweeted the following after a brawl-filled game between Italy and Canada: “Players need to understand there is no excuse for this kind of behavior & poor sportsmanship. Compete hard – yes. But control your emotions.”

—I lied. I’m going to channel Mean Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler. Really, Jim? You’re going to preach how there’s no excuse for poor behavior and sportsmanship on the court, Jim? Really? After 2006, Jim? Really? Are you trying to be ironic? Cripes.

—I will leave you with this, part two: As I mentioned last week, I’m hoping to do a season-long retrospect of the 1994 Flying Dutchmen football team this fall. If you were a member of that team in any capacity—player, coach, student manager, administrator—I want to hear your stories and recollections of that memorable season. Email me here at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com, find me on Facebook at facebook.com/jerrybeach73 or connect with me at Twitter at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch. Thanks!