Hofstra 82, Binghamton 62 (Or: Sure feels good to me)

Pretty sure I'm the only basketball blogger with two Warrant references in the calendar year 2011. What can I say, I have my niche and I try to fill it well.

When it comes to cathartic, losing streak-snapping victories, the Flying Dutchmen’s 82-62 rout of Binghamton Saturday doesn’t quite rank up there with the annihilation of UNC Wilmington Jan. 27, 2010. A CAA win is a CAA win, even when it comes at the expense of a team as overmatched as UNC Wilmington was two Januaries ago, and that victory—which snapped a five-game conference losing streak and a stretch of nine losses in 11 games—was the basketball equivalent of a five-course, soup-to-nuts meal.

The Dutchmen weren’t nearly as ruthlessly effective in ending a four-game losing streak Saturday, but they didn’t have to be against a winless Binghamton team that is paying for the sins of its forefathers and is on the very short list for the worst in Division I this season. In food terms, this was a binge at the drive-thru in which we wolfed the food down in the car and may or may not have belched loudly afterward.

Still, a win’s a win, and this one felt good, and even if it wasn’t exactly fine dining, it was one on which the Flying Dutchmen could build. People walked out of Hofstra Arena with smiles on their faces for the first time in four weeks. The wife and I argued all the way home over whether or not Matt Grogan merited 3 Stars Of The Game consideration (no spoilers!). Mo Cassara slept for the first time since the Saturday after Thanksgiving. OK, well, maybe not.

“Obviously pleased with the outcome tonight,” Cassara said. “I think sometimes, when you’re not winning and the ball’s not going in the basket, it’s easy to get down, it’s easy to question a lot of things. And I think a lot of credit has to go to our staff. Sometimes you work a lot harder when you’re losing than you do when you’re winning. And we’ve worked real hard the last couple of weeks, even though we haven’t had some of the wins we wanted to have.”

Here’s a postgame buffet I’m not even calling a postgame buffet because it’s so damn late. Can’t wait for the holiday break.

1.) Whenever the Flying Dutchmen struggled under Tom Pecora, he’d always say the seniors needed to take ownership of the situation. So it was a good sign that the lone seniors on this year’s team—Mike Moore, Dwan McMillan and Nathaniel Lester—combined to score 57 points and were the three Dutchmen to score in double figures.

Moore was brilliant in scoring a career-high 32 points, tying a school record with seven 3-pointers and chipping in a team-high seven rebounds. That effort earned him co-player of the week honors in the CAA. McMillan had perhaps his best game in a Hofstra uniform with 15 points—his most ever against a Division I opponent—on 5-of-6 shooting. And Lester had 10 points and five rebounds and has 21 points (on 7-of-15 shooting) and 13 rebounds in his last two games.

“[Moore is] doing a lot of things for us,” Cassara said. “If he can continue to play complete games on both ends scoring, passing, rebounding along with Nat, along with Dwan—and they each have their own roles—if we can do that and start to play 40 minutes of that, we’re going to get some Ws.”

2.) For Moore and McMillan, in particular, their performance on the court was not nearly as important as what they did off it. Moore said afterward he called a players-only meeting after the Manhattan loss in which he implored everyone to play hard for 40 minutes.

“We just challenged each other—what can we do better?” Moore said.

McMillan, meanwhile, jumped into the center of the huddle after introductions and took over the Charles Jenkins role as the player shouting last-second encouragement. As transfers in only their second year in the program, neither Moore nor McMillan can be expected to lead quite like Jenkins, who was a three-year captain as well as the best player in school history. But the Dutchmen need leaders, and there’s no better candidates to assume the responsibility than their best player and their most emotional one.

“It’s great—it’s all part of their development,” Cassara said.

3.) Playing Binghamton has a way of curing a lot of ailments, but there’s no denying the week off between games did wonders for the Dutchmen’s psyche, as did the calendar allowing the opportunity for a fresh start. In between taking exams, the Dutchmen held a series of extended practices in which Cassara emphasized gradual improvement with the beginning of the real season finally on the horizon.

“It’s a challenging week, but I think having that week off was very valuable,” Cassara said. “We walked into practice Monday and said ‘We are going to commit to getting a little better every day. We are going to be enthusiastic and energetic about getting a little bit better everyday. If we do that, winning will take care of itself. And we all committed to that and I think we made a step in the right direction today.”

4.) While the senior starters had impressive games, the Dutchmen also got nice contributions from subs Grogan (six points on two 3-pointers), Shemiye McLendon (eight points, five assists—tying his career high—and two steals), Stephen Nwaukoni (seven points and two rebounds) and Moussa Kone, who hit both of his field goal attempts and pulled down four rebounds in his first appearance off the bench this year.

The bench is not yet the strength it appeared to be during Bryant Crowder’s cameo in Rhode Island, but now that Stevie Mejia is back, at least the Dutchmen have some depth again. And while Mejia, who took Kone’s spot in his return from a hamstring injury that cost him three-plus games, was scoreless and missed all four shots, his presence in the lineup along with McMillan provided a glimpse of what the Dutchmen might be able to do with a smaller lineup against lightning-fast teams such as Iona and VCU…whom the Dutchmen just happen to play in the two games following tonight’s tilt with Colgate.

“A lot of sleepless nights this week,” Cassara said in reference to the lineup change. “I didn’t want to tinker too much with what we’re doing, but at the same time, I just wanted to give us a little bit of a quicker, maybe smaller lineup with a little bit more defensive intensity. It certainly wasn’t anything against Moussa, he’s done a great job for us through the early part of the year as a true freshman. Just a little coach’s thoughts, nothing too much other than that.”

5.) There was still plenty to improve upon from Saturday. Most notably, David Imes continued his baffling slump by going scoreless for the second straight game. He has two points in his last three games, and none in the Dutchmen’s last five halves of action. Getting Imes untracked in the next two games is surely at the top of Cassara’s to-do list.

The Dutchmen committed 19 turnovers and got a bit sloppy against an opponent whom they could afford to get sloppy against. And the Dutchmen let Binghamton hand around, sort of: The Dutchmen led by a game-high 24 midway through the second half but surrendered a 15-5 run that allowed the Bearcats to close within 14 with just under four minutes to play.

“I think today was a step in the right direction,” Cassara said. “We still have some things to work on. We have to learn to execute a little better, take care of the ball a little bit better down the stretch. I think it was real important to at least get a little confidence towards that mission for us really moving forward.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Binghamton, 12/17)

3: Mike Moore

2: Dwan McMillan

1: Shemiye McLendon

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 24

Nathaniel Lester 12

Dwan McMillan 10

Shemiye McLendon 6

David Imes 6

Stevie Mejia 3

Stephen Nwaukoni 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Postgame Buffet: Manhattan 68, Hofstra 59 (Or: The good ol’ days may not return...at least this year)

Works on so many levels. Including as a HINT, Loyal Reader Missy!

The scene takes place dozens of times every day at the Division I level. Even though a wall-rattling tongue-lashing awaits it, the losing team can’t get off the court and out of sight of the final score fast enough once the buzzer has sounded. And before he’s able to get behind closed doors and unload, the losing coach is stopped by the winning coach along the postgame handshake line and offered a pat on the shoulder and some words of encouragement.

It’s just been a long time since the Flying Dutchmen “starred” in such a show. But there were the Dutchmen shuffling off the court after a 68-59 loss to Manhattan that was not nearly as close as the final score indicated and so unsightly that the scoreboard at Hofstra Arena went dark seconds after the game went final. And it was Mo Cassara, fresh off a 21-win rookie season, getting encouragement from Steve Masiello, the first-year Manhattan head coach who inherited a program that won 17 games the previous two years.

But it was that kind of day in what is quickly turning into that kind of year for the Flying Dutchmen, who lost their fourth in a row—their longest losing streak under Cassara—and for the sixth time in seven games as they assured themselves of entering the new year with a losing record.

Afterward, Cassara was asked if this was his most frustrating stretch since arriving at Hofstra. “Uhh, I would say that would be a safe bet, yes,” Cassara said.

For better or worse, he’s got a full week to stew over this one. Here’s another indigestion-filled postgame buffet:

1.) Fifty-one weeks after leading Manhattan from start to finish at Draddy Gymnasium, the Dutchmen didn’t lead once Saturday. That’s only the beginning of the ugly numbers and trends.

For instance: The Dutchmen haven’t led in the last 70 minutes and 43 seconds. They were down by 16 points less than 11 minutes into the game Saturday. They averaged less than one point per possession for the fourth straight game and are averaging a meager 0.71 points per possession in the last two games. They are 5-of-28 from 3-point land in the last two games.

More alarmingly, the Dutchmen were outrebounded for the second straight game, and this time, it wasn’t a matter of getting gassed in the second half. Early in the first half, David Imes and Nathaniel Lester each got a hand on a Manhattan miss, yet Manhattan’s Rhamel Brown slipped between the flat-footed duo, grabbed the rebound and kept alive a possession that ended in a 3-pointer. And just minutes later, Lester let a loose ball that last touched a Manhattan player skip out of bounds without going after it.

Manhattan finished with a 43-32 rebounding edge and pulled down 14 offensive boards. “I felt like we got a couple great stops, a couple opportunities where I thought we had got the momentum back in the first half and the second half,” Cassara said. “And just little things—offensive rebounds, a block out, a hustle play—right now we’re just not executing those. We’ve got to get back to that. I thought earlier in the season we were terrific at that. Out at Oregon State, [the] LIU game—I thought we really did a great job of that and we’ve kind of lost our way a little bit there.”

2.) It doesn’t get any better in the macro sense. This is the 11th time the Dutchmen have started 3-7 or worse at the Division I level. None of the previous 10 teams finished .500 or got beyond the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.

The last Dutchmen team to endure a stretch like this turned things around in historic fashion: After losing nine of 11 games at midseason, during which it battled a spate of injuries and illness and played with a shortened roster, the 2009-10 Dutchmen won eight of their final nine regular season conference games to become the first CAA team in history to finish over .500 in conference play after falling as many as five games under .500.

Of course, that team had Charles Jenkins, who led the Dutchmen to a 27-9 record in games decided by six points or less and/or in overtime the previous three seasons. At this moment, the Dutchmen don’t have someone who can avoid a regression to the mean in that department, or single-handedly lift a team out of its morass.

The Dutchmen outscored Manhattan 53-45 over the final 29 minutes, yet they only got as close as five points once and never got closer than seven points in the second half. Unlike the last three years, the Dutchmen can’t score the basket on offense nor, despite decent surface defensive stats, make the stop on defense that turns the momentum in their favor.

“I feel like that’s kind of a microcosm of the last maybe three weeks for us,” Cassara said. “Some of the games we’ve been behind, some of the games we’ve been ahead, it’s been one key player here or there where we just can’t quite get that one stop or maybe we can’t make that one extra basket. And it kind of steamrolls after that.”

3.) This is one of those stretches in which Tom Pecora would have said his seniors and veterans need to take ownership of the situation. Unfortunately for the Dutchmen, that didn’t really happen Saturday.

Mike Moore (a game-high 20 points and a team-high three steals to go along with five rebounds) was better than he was Tuesday and played all 40 minutes, but he was just 5-of-15 from the field—including 2-of-8 on 3-pointers—and committed four of his five turnovers during a first half in which he looked as distracted and discouraged as he did against Wagner.

Lester’s final line (11 points and eight rebounds) looks pretty good, but he collected all 11 points in the final eight minutes and five of the boards after he returned from an extended benching midway through the second half. It has becoming increasingly clear in the last three weeks that the inconsistency that dogged him throughout his first three years didn’t disappear during his redshirt season.

At least Lester got back into the game. Imes, who has started all 43 games the last two years, sat the final 17:28 even though he had no fouls and four Dutchmen finished the game with four fouls. He ended up going scoreless for the first time as a starter. After scoring in double figures and pulling down seven rebounds in his first two games of the season, Imes has reached those marks just twice in his last eight games.

On a team seemingly filled with players battling confidence issues, Imes’ plight is the most concerning. Even when his shots weren’t falling, Imes never appeared tentative on the boards—until Saturday.

“I went with a little smaller lineup—I thought Stevie [Nwaukoni] and Moussa were a little more aggressive to the basket,” Cassara said. “I just felt like that [starting] lineup wasn’t really effective tonight.”

4.) What does Cassara do from here? He played the positive reinforcement card after the loss to James Madison nine days ago, then went hardass with a predawn practice last Monday, then went with a combination of the two after the loss to Wagner on Tuesday. On Saturday, the Dutchmen remained in the locker room at halftime until there was less than three minutes to go during intermission, and after the loss, Cassara’s voice echoed through the walls and into the media room. I doubt he was enthusiastically asking about everyone’s Christmas lists.

Perhaps this week he will end up taking the foot off the gas in practice, a la Pecora at the end of January 2010, in hopes it yields better game results for a thin team. Whatever he does, Cassara is in an unenviable position of needing to shake things up with a shaken team and a bag of tricks limited by the circumstances engulfing the Dutchmen.

Multiple times Saturday, Cassara whirled towards the bench as if to direct someone into the game, only to realize he had no options. Stevie Mejia is hurt, Bryant Crowder remains suspended, Charles Jenkins isn’t coming through that door and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Taran Buie are coming through that door in sweats, at least until the 2012-13 season opener.

Fill-in point guard Dwan McMillan had a good game Saturday, when he collected nine points and five assists and continually allowed the Dutchmen to break Manhattan’s press, but while Shemiye McLendon had nine points, four rebounds and two steals, he was just 3-of-12 from the field in 31 minutes. Nwaukoni had six points and two rebounds but picked up four fouls in 21 minutes. Moussa Kone brought a little life to the Arena with three blocks and a pair of thunderous second half dunks but had four fouls in 23 minutes and remains raw. Matt Grogan saw extended time (nine minutes) for the second straight game and missed all three 3-point attempts, but in his defense he hasn’t played this much since high school.

“We haven’t found that combination or that confidence yet to find a way to win,” Cassara said. “So we have to continue to work hard. We have to continue to string some good practices together and we have to continue to fight and find ways to get better. We’re going to do that moving forward here after exams.”

Said Moore: “Guys have to get a little bit more confident out on the court, make some plays Two, three plays and we were right within five. Couple more plays, we tie the game up. So guys just have to believe in themselves and make plays out there.”

5.) Cassara’s not using the same verbiage, but he’s got little choice other than to rely on another Pecora-era old reliable: Early pain for late gain. As lousy as things look right now, it is still only December. As always, the most important weeks of the season for the Dutchmen are the first 10 of the new year. And a wide-open CAA at least gives a little bit of hope that a flawed and undermanned team can still create some havoc.

“We’re doing some pretty good things, we just have to learn how to win,” Cassara said. “But we’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got a lot of basketball to play. We want to be playing our best basketball in January and February and I still believe that this team can do that. So we’re going to work really hard here over the next couple weeks to get a little confidence back and get some victories as well.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Manhattan, 12/10)

3: Mike Moore

2: Dwan McMillan

1: Nathaniel Lester

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 21

Nathaniel Lester 12

Dwan McMillan 8

David Imes 6

Shemiye McLendon 5

Stevie Mejia 3

Stephen Nwaukoni 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Wagner 58, Hofstra 43 (Or: Things can get a little strange in a New York minute)

Don Henley makes solo albums faster than I produce game recaps! (Grrr)

Do this sportswriter thing—whether it’s of the actual paid variety or not—long enough and you come to understand that declaring doom every time the local five (or nine, or 11, or…how many players on a hockey team again?) strings together consecutive duds gets you nowhere fast, unless you want to end up screaming about self-generated storylines on the radio or with a bunch of talking heads on the idiot box. Which is what most sportswriters seemingly want to do these days, but that’s neither here nor there.

And after some time, you realize, with minimal exception, every season has several story arcs and ebbs and flows. The old coaching cliché is true: A team is never as good or as bad as it looks at any given moment.

Which is good for the Flying Dutchmen, because this given moment looks pretty rotten following Tuesday’s 58-43 loss to Wagner. (Sorry for the delay, which of course I promised wouldn’t happen anymore this year. Speaking of rotten, I’d like to give you my week, except I like you too much)

“You guys know me, I’m not going to make excuses,” Mo Cassara said afterward. “We obviously have a long way to go and we have a lot to improve on. I’m not a huge stat guy but statistically we just didn’t play well tonight. We’ve got a lot of guys that really have to play a lot better.”

Here’s the postgame buffet (don’t worry, it’s not rancid, I’ve refrigerated it) from Staten Island:

1.) At first glance, the Dutchmen avoided the type of loss that ends up in the media guide for all the wrong reasons. They got to 40 points, avoiding their first sub-40 point performance since Feb. 28, 1999. They hit just 13 field goals, scored only 20 second half points and committed 20 turnovers, none of which is very good but none of which were historical: The 13 field goals were the fewest in a game since Nov. 10, 2007 (Charles Jenkins’ debut). And the Dutchmen scored 20 points in a half twice during the 2009-10 season and committed 20 turnovers against Old Dominion Jan. 9. 2010.

So it wasn’t that bad, right? Not quite. The Dutchmen went an incredible 23 consecutive possessions in the second half—a span of 13:59—without hitting a field goal. Only a pretty good performance at the free throw line during that drought (12-for-17) prevented the Dutchmen from enduring a terribly superlative performance. And Nathaniel Lester’s jumper with 1:17 left ensured the Dutchmen would score more points in game no. 2,000 than Hofstra did in any of its 17 games way back in the debut season of Flying Dutchmen basketball in 1936-37. So…yay?

“We just had too many turnovers—you can’t turn the ball over the way that we did tonight,” Cassara said. “We turned the ball over 20 times on the road, it’s going to be very, very hard to win. We just couldn’t produce easy baskets tonight.”

2.) It’s also very, very hard to win when you are down to six scholarship players. The Bryant Crowder Saga continues to drag on, with the enigmatic 6-foot-10 center still suspended. Stephen Nwaukoni was left back at campus with a 103 degree temperature and while Stevie Mejia was in uniform, he was available only in an extreme emergency as he continues battling a hamstring injury.

All of which meant Matt Grogan played a career-high 19 minutes—11 more than he’d played in the first eight games combined—and shared the court with fellow walk-on Jereme Good. Twice. I don’t need to dig through media guides to tell you that’s never happened before in the DD Era.

Remember when I was raving about the Dutchmen’s depth? That was awesome. A mere two weeks later the Dutchmen are ravaged, though Nwaukoni should be back this afternoon and the hope is Mejia is back pretty soon.

“That’s where we are right now,” Cassara said. “Unfortunately, a lot of times in basketball, you have to be good, you have to be a little lucky and you have to stay healthy. Last year, we had all those things happen. We were pretty good, we stayed very healthy and we got lucky. We had a couple breaks go our way. This year we just haven’t had those things happen. And that’s part of the game—that’s part of the challenge for us as a staff and as a young team. We’ve still got to find a way to put the ball in the basket and find a way to squeeze out some wins here.”

3.) The Dutchmen will need much better performances out of most of their veterans in order to squeeze out some wins between now and the real start of the CAA season. Lester had his best game in weeks (12 points on 4-of-11 shooting with a team-high seven rebounds), but while Mike Moore had 15 points and four steals, he was just 4-of-16 from the field, committed six turnovers with zero assists and seemed to let his frustrations get the best of him most of the evening.

Dwan McMillan had eight points and six rebounds, but just three assists and five turnovers. David Imes had two blocks and two steals but just two points (on 1-of-8 shooting) and six rebounds. And Shemiye McLendon had an Iona-esque game with five turnovers and two points in just 22 minutes.

“This has been a tough stretch for us,” Cassara said. “I think we really got beat up physically and mentally from that two weeks of travel and losing a couple tough close games and right now we don’t have that internal fortitude to fight ourselves through it. As a coaching staff we’ve got to push and fight our guys through that and we’ve got to find a way to get better.”

4.) Things weren’t entirely bleak for the Dutchmen Tuesday. The Dutchmen held an opponent below 70 points for the fourth straight game and the sixth time in seven games. Wagner, three days removed from putting 90 points up on St. Francis, had as many turnovers (19) as field goals.

“You know, I think we’re doing some really good things defensively,” Cassara said. “We forced them into some turnovers. We got some good stops. We gave up too many easy second-chance shots when we got tired there, but I like where we are defensively.”

The Dutchmen also had a good couple days of practice prior to the game, leading Cassara to believe that once the Dutchmen finally get a win, the rest of the pieces could begin falling into place, much as things did after the Dutchmen snapped out of their January 2010 funk by throttling UNC Wilmington 93-54 Jan. 27 to begin a season-ending stretch in which Hofstra won nine of its final 10 regular season games.

“That year we just got better as the year went on, learning from all the close losses,” Lester said. “Going to practice and watching film and getting better day by day—that’s how we picked it up.”

5.) Of course, today’s opponent, Manhattan, has won three in a row and just throttled Fordham by 34 (the Jaspers play Towson next—does that mean Cassara will eventually coach there?), and if the Dutchmen can’t win this one they may have the unenviable task of trying to snap a losing streak against a winless opponent when Binghamton visits next Saturday. The pressure is building, and the frustrating thing is a win in one or more of the games the Dutchmen squandered late would have changed the entire landscape of the season.

“As a coach you look at the big picture a lot of times, and I knew sitting at home late at night after a couple of those [close losses] that these were the games we were really going to feel those losses a lot more,” Cassara said. “Certainly you feel them now because there’s certainly two to three games in our schedule that we clearly could have won with a bounce here or a bounce there. You win those games, we come here without some bodies, with some injuries and various things, then the pressure’s not on you as much because you know that you’ve got a couple wins in your back pocket. Unfortunately we don’t.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. Wagner, 12/6)

3: Nathanel Lester

2: Dwan McMillan

1: Mike Moore

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 18

Nathaniel Lester 11

Dwan McMillan 6

David Imes 6

Shemiye McLendon 5

Stevie Mejia 3

Stephen Nwaukoni 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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

20 things you should know about Hofstra basketball on the eve of the 2,000th game in school history!

Before game 2,000....a guy who used to watch me in his dorm room at Hofstra will list 20 facts about Flying Dutchmen basketball. Some will be factual!

Did you know the Flying Dutchmen play the 2,000th game in program history tonight against Wagner? You do now! In honor of reaching a big, giant, cool round number, here’s 20 things you should know about the history of Flying Dutchmen basketball, most of which are actually factual! (Not sure yet what I'll do when they actually play the 2,012th game in school history IN 2012)

1.) The Flying Dutchmen played their first game in 1936, a year after the school opened, and, in what must rank as one of the most inauspicious debuts of all-time, lost to New York University 60-21. Sophomore Nathaniel Lester led the Dutchmen with eight points and seven rebounds. (That may or may not be true) The loss stood as Hofstra’s worst defeat for another 153 games. More on that shortly.

2.) Hofstra is 1,142-857 (.571) all-time. The first win in program history was a double OT 42-40 barnburner over Staten Island (but not Wagner) in the third game of the 1936-37 season.

3.) A total of 422 players have suited up for the Flying Dutchmen, per this year’s media guide.

4.) The Flying Dutchmen’s most frequent rival is longtime conference foe Drexel (72 games), followed by fellow ECC/NAC/America East/CAA rival Delaware (71 games), local rival Manhattan (59 games), constant conference mate Towson (54 games) and…

5.) …tonight’s opponent, Wagner, whom Hofstra has faced 50 times and with whom it shares some neat bits of history. The Flying Dutchmen scored the most points in program history in a 118-88 win over the Seahawks in 1971-72. Wagner provided the only blemish on the best season in school history when it edged Hofstra, 50-48, in 1959-60. The Dutchmen finished 23-1 but did not make the Division II NCAA Tournament. Tom O’Connor’s Dad was on the Selection Committee (that may or may not be true). The Dutchmen are also in the midst of a 23-year winning streak against Wagner, though they have played the Seahawks just four times since the Seahawks’ last win in 1988-89.

6.) On the other end of the spectrum, Hofstra has played 102 teams one time apiece, including Oregon State and Cleveland State this year.

7.) When Charles Jenkins suits up for the Golden State Warriors Christmas night, he will become the seventh Hofstra alumni to play in the NBA, following in the footsteps of Nathan Militzok, Bill Thieben, Rich Laurel, John Irving, Speedy Claxton and Norman Richardson.

8.) Hofstra played its first game against Wagner in 1945-46, which makes this the Dutchmen’s third-oldest active rivalry. Hofstra’s second-ever game was against St. Francis, whom Hofstra beat Nov. 19 (and whom Wagner beat Saturday). And Manhattan, whom the Dutchmen play in game no 2,001 on Saturday, first played Hofstra in 1937-38.

9.) The most lopsided win in school history was a 75-10 thrashing of USMMA. The 10 points, not surprisingly, are also the fewest allowed by Hofstra. Ironically, in that it may or not be irony, the 65-point win provided sweet revenge for…

10.) …the most lopsided loss in school history, a 66-15 pasting at the hands of USMMA in 1944-45. Jim Larranaga’s grandfather was the USMMA coach and my grandfather stepped off the farm long enough to blog about Larranaga’s poor sportsmanship. A bunch of USMMA fans got him back by vandalizing his crops. (The preceding two sentences may or may not be true)

11.) Eleven head coaches have strolled the sidelines for the Flying Dutchmen. Butch van Breda Kolff, who had two stints as head coach spanning 13 years, has a program-record 215 wins.

12.) The longest losing streak in program history was a 12-game skid endured during the 1987-88 season.

13.) The Dutchmen have scored more than 100 points 29 times, first in a 102-91 win over Baltimore in 1954-55 and most recently in the 2010-11 opener, when they beat Farmingdale 102-62. That was the first time Hofstra had exceeded 100 points since Feb. 28, 1992, when the Dutchmen beat…Maryland-Baltimore County 103-87. Is that ironic?

14.) Counting the program’s Division II days (through 1972), Hofstra has played in a postseason tournament 14 times: Eight NCAA Tournaments, four NITs and two That Which We Shall Not Name And Are Only Counting Here Because It Makes Numeric Sense.

15.) The Dutchmen have given up 100 points 19 times, first in a 104-85 loss to Muhlenberg in 1954-55 and most recently in the second game of the 2010-11 season in a 107-63 loss to North Carolina. The Dutchmen gave up a school-record 119 points to Brigham Young early in the 1983-84 season. Robbie Bosco threw for nine touchdowns. (That may or may not be true)

16.) Bill Thieben scored a school-record 48 points in a 82-62 win over Wilkes in 1954-55. Steve Nisenson, who broke Thieben’s career scoring record and held on to it for 43 years, has come closest to Thieben’s mark with 47 points against—you guessed it—Wagner in 1964-65. Twelve players have scored 40 points in a game for the Dutchmen, most recently Charles Jenkins a year ago Thursday, but only four have done it in since the 3-point shot was implemented.

17.) Thieben also holds the school single-game and career record for rebounding with 43 against Springfield in 1954-55 and a remarkable 1,837 in just three seasons. Someone who matched Jenkins’ record for games played (128) would have to average 14.4 rebounds per game in order to break Thieben’s mark.

18.) The longest single-season winning streak in school history was an 18-game run during the 2000-01 season. The Dutchmen won 23 straight games spanning the 1959-60 and 1960-61 seasons.

19.) The Dutchmen have had 41 winning seasons—including 18 in a 19-season span from 1945-46 through 1963-64—29 losing seasons and four .500 seasons.

20.) The Dutchmen have won 20 or more games in a season 19 times (damn! So close!), including 26 apiece in 2000-01 and 2005-06. Each season ended with a loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament (That may or may not be true about the 2005-06 season and may or may not be what I say to myself in order to quell the rage still bubbling underneath).

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

Postgame Buffet: James Madison 62, Hofstra 60 (Or: When tomorrow comes it’s all just yesterday’s news)

Not a song I thought the Flying Dutchmen would be singing Saturday morning. (Also, criminal this barely sniffed the charts and Blaze of Glory hit no. 1. Just saying)

One of the subtle signs that Mo Cassara was born to be a basketball coach happened after every home game last season. He’d take the center seat at the podium in the interview room, and whether the Flying Dutchmen had just won big, won dramatically, lost big or lost dramatically, immediately open the press conference with a succinct take on the 40 (or more) preceding minutes of basketball.

On Saturday, though, Cassara was speechless after the Dutchmen suffered yet another demoralizing last-second defeat when Humpty Dance Hitchens—who hit a 60-footer at the halftime buzzer to give James Madison momentum going into the second half—drained a short jumper with less than three seconds left to give the Dukes a 62-60 win in the look-but-don’t-touch CAA opener. (If that score sounds familiar, it should: Florida Atlantic beat the Dutchmen by that exact score and in almost the exact same fashion two weeks earlier.)

After he was introduced by Brian Bohl, Cassara remained silent for three seconds before clearing his throat. He was silent for another three seconds after that before finally beginning his address.

Once he started speaking, Cassara struck an optimistic tone, but the mostly flat monotone with which he delivered his words and his tense body language—he wasn’t leaning forward, he wasn’t leaning back, he was just sitting at a slightly angled position in his chair, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there and embark upon a sleepless night—hinted at the fury smoldering just beneath the surface. Here’s a postgame buffet that was far from delicious:

1.) Cassara REALLY wanted this one, and realized the extra sense of urgency created by stewing over the Boston University loss for six days and playing the conference opener short-handed—more on that shortly—and how valuable it would have been to eke out a win, especially with a road trip to potent Wagner and a home game against vastly improved Manhattan coming up this week.

The most telling image during the game was that of Cassara running along the baseline in the first half as a loose ball skittered towards the Dutchmen’s bench. I’m pretty sure he was a split second away from diving for the ball himself.

“Really proud of our team, the way they battled today,” Cassara said in beginning his remarks. “A little undermanned, some injuries and a little bit of a short bench tonight. I thought our guys really battled tonight. I thought we hung in there against a very good James Madison team. A lot of credit to them, they made some tough shots down the stretch.

“We continue to be in every game. I’m really proud of that. I think our guys are battling and we’re getting better everyday.”

Cassara might have spoke of how proud he was of the Dutchmen, but he held a 6:30 practice today—that’s 6:30 a.m., as in just before I fell asleep, thereby costing this post another 12 hours. Coaches who are happy do not host 6:30 am practices. Unless their names are John Chaney.

2.) The most concerning thing, though, is that the Dutchmen’s issues cannot be worked out in practice, no matter how early or late Cassara holds it. For the third time in their last four losses, the Dutchmen coughed up a large second half lead and allowed an opponent to score at will in the final handful of minutes of what had been a defensive-minded contest.

James Madison hit its last four shots over the final two minutes as it came back from a 56-52 deficit. The Dukes also scored on 10 of their final 16 possessions after falling behind 47-37 with 11 minutes to play, but four of those misses came consecutively as the Dutchmen turned a 52-52 tie into that four-point lead.

The Dutchmen had a chance to all but put the game away after the Dukes’ fourth straight scoreless possession, but Dwan McMillan missed a jumper with 2:11 left. Whether it’s scoring the basket to ice a victory, coming up with a stop down the stretch or refusing to allow an opponent to finally grab the lead late, the Dutchmen haven’t been able to do it, and that deficiency is the difference between 3-5 and 6-2.

“We just have to learn to find a way to win down the stretch,” Cassara said. “We’ve put ourselves in good situations. We just haven’t been able to complete some of those games at the end. I know, as time moves on here, we’re going to continue to get better at that.”

Early practice or not, it’s hard to envision the Dutchmen solving that issue any other way than by winning a game late. The next opportunity is tomorrow night against Wagner.

3.) Remember those 1,200 words or so I spilled Saturday morning about how the Dutchmen’s veteran presence could help Hofstra exceed pre-season expectations and contend in the CAA? Well, on Saturday, at least, not so much.

Cassara didn’t sub in the final 6:23, during which his lineup was seniors Mike Moore and Dwan McMillan, junior David Imes, sophomore Shemiye McLendon and freshman Moussa Kone. Before Saturday, that quintet had played a grand total of 126 second half seconds together—all in the waning stages of the Oregon State loss, during which the Dutchmen and Beavers played to a 6-6 tie.

That’s not exactly how Cassara would have drawn it up, even if all five players had generally positive games Saturday. Moore channeled Charles Jenkins by single-handedly the Dutchmen in the game with 20 first half points before he was suffocated by the Dukes in the second half, when he scored his only four points in the final minute. Imes had 10 points and seven rebounds, his most in either category since Oregon State.

McMillan played a career-high 38 minutes in place of the injured Stevie Mejia and had four assists to just one turnover as the Dutchmen finished with a positive ratio (17/10) for just the second time this year. McLendon, who had just four points in the three games at Rhode Island, rediscovered his Ice Ice Shemiye self with seven points, including a jumper that gave the Dutchmen a 56-52 lead, as well as three assists and two rebounds in the second half. And Kone provided a sign of things to come with six points, four blocks, two rebounds and two assists in 27 minutes.

But still, it’s telling that in the final minutes, Nathaniel Lester was on the bench after another brutal shooting night. He was 3-of-12 and the last miss—a wide-open 3-pointer from the right corner in which Lester was all alone and had time to set before firing up a miss when he had a chance to extend the Dutchmen’s lead to eight—provided a perfect summation of his epic five-game slump in which he is shooting 22 percent (13-of-58).

Cassara expressed confidence in Lester afterward, but it’s clear the inconsistency that dogged Lester’s first three years didn’t disappear during his redshirt year. “Sometimes [slumps] just happen,” Cassara said. “He’s a good player, he’s a very good player. He’s working hard. One of these days all the shots are going to fall in for him.”

4.) It’s funny, in that it’s not funny at all, how quickly the Dutchmen went from impressively deep to perilously thin. At least we know Mejia will be back, probably sooner than later. Alas, the future of Bryant Crowder is far cloudier.

Nobody’s talking about what he did to get suspended, but it had to be serious. As jarring as it was to not see Crowder on the bench, it was even more telling that he was listed as suspended in the game notes. Cassara likes to keep injury information and lineup machinations close to the vest, and has been particularly tight-lipped about why Crowder sat out the first four games of the season, declining to call it a suspension or to say it was anything other than a coach’s decision.

So to announce Crowder was suspended for a violation of team rules—granted, the news wasn’t in DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN font, but it was there—tells me it was serious enough that Crowder is on strike two and 9/10ths with Cassara. I have nothing to back that up, it’s just a hunch. And at this moment I’d be surprised if we ever see him suit up for Hofstra again.

I hope I’m wrong, because he brought a dimension the Flying Dutchmen have lacked from their center for as long as I’ve been watching them. And Cassara and the staff are fond of Crowder as a person and knew his transition to Division I would have some hiccups after spending the last two seasons at two junior colleges.

But my impression is that Cassara’s patience is just about exhausted after Crowder was unavailable in three games the Dutchmen lost by a combined 11 points—games in which Crowder’s presence could easily have made the difference. And my guess is Cassara is even more frustrated because whatever happened last week happened after he reinstated Crowder following the four-game absence. With plenty of season left to save and plenty of time to adjust to Crowder’s absence, as well as a program to build and standards to establish, don’t be shocked if we never see Crowder play a game that counts at Hofstra Arena.

5.) While there’s plenty of season left to save, the Dutchmen have already reached a crisis point. Not only do they have to stare at an 0-1 CAA mark for another month, but they’re 3-5 with two straight losses and a pair of challenges awaiting them this week. Danny Hurley is turning Wagner into a mini-Iona and the Seahawks just throttled St. Francis by 40 (the Dutchmen beat the Terriers by just four points). And Manhattan, under first-year head coach Steve Masiello, is already 2-0 in the MAAC.

In addition, of the final five opponents the Dutchmen will face before the ball drops in Times Square, four are ahead of them in the RPI and the fifth is winless Binghamton, which would have beaten the Dutchmen last year if not for Jenkins. The Dutchmen will have to fix things on the fly, all while avoiding falling into a funk over this series of agonizing near-misses.

“My job is to put that out of their minds,” Cassara said, referring to the late-game fades. “We obviously made a couple mistakes down the stretch. We have to learn how to win. That’s a skill, that’s a talent that we have, we just haven’t been able to execute quite well enough yet.

“Sometimes I think you can learn a lot from losses and we’ve had a handful of really tough losses where one time it’s one thing, one time it’s another. And ultimately, eventually, we’ll get better at that.”

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. James Madison, 12/3)

3: Mike Moore

2: David Imes

1: Shemiye McLendon

SEASON STANDINGS

Mike Moore 17

Nathaniel Lester 8

David Imes 6

Shemiye McLendon 5

Dwan McMillan 4

Stevie Mejia 3

Stephen Nwaukoni 3

Bryant Crowder 2

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

Friday Work Session: Of cats, Christmas trees and can veterans lift Hofstra to surprising heights in the CAA?

This is the smarter of our cats, the one who doesn't eat the tree and then create a nice mess for Daddy to clean.

I am totally ripping off Litos here with the “Work Session” moniker, but I’m not going to apologize because I bet he didn’t spend much of his Thursday Work Session putting up the Christmas tree with his much better half and then screaming at his cat to stop eating the fake branches before she predictably yakked (the cat, not his better half) and he had to clean up the mess. Nothing says Christmas like cat puke. At least in my house.

Anyway. It’s the end of a long-ass week and I apologize for not getting to this sooner. Blah blah blah, rinse, wash, repeat. But with the Flying Dutchmen opening up CAA play with the look-but-don’t-touch opener against James Madison this afternoon, I thought now would be a good time to revisit my months-long contention that the Dutchmen will exceed pre-season expectations thanks to their veteran-laden roster.

First things first: As the team picked to finish eighth in the pre-season poll, history is not on the side of the Dutchmen. Since the CAA expanded to 10 teams in 2001-02, the school that was picked eighth has finished eighth or lower eight times (is that irony?). And the two schools to place better than expected only did so by two spots: Old Dominion finished sixth in 2002-03 and Northeastern took sixth in 2007-08.

In addition, only one other eighth-place pick even finished as high as eighth: William & Mary in 2001-02. Every other eighth-place pick finished lower than projected, “led” by William & Mary, which placed 11th last year, and James Madison, which finished in 10th and last place in 2003-04.

The good news, of course, is this means it won’t take much for the Dutchmen to become the most successful team ever picked to finish in eighth place, at least in the post-America East pillaging era! Fueling my optimism has been the collective maturity of the Dutchmen, whose starting lineup features four players at least four years removed from their senior year of high school.

Redshirt seniors Nathaniel Lester (graduated high school in 1807, err, 2007 and sat out last year with his quad injury) and Mike Moore (graduated high school in 2007 and sat out a year after transferring from Fordham following his sophomore year) lead the way, followed by redshirt junior Stevie Mejia (graduated high school in 2008 and sat out a year after transferring from Rhode Island following his sophomore year) and junior David Imes (graduated high school in 2008 and prepped for a year before enrolling at Hofstra in the fall of 2009). All four players are at least 21 years old, with Moore at 22 and Lester at 23.

Only three other CAA schools have four or more starters four or more years removed from their senior year of high school—led by, in a bit of Alanis irony, James Madison, whose five starters all meet this criteria. Old Dominion and Georgia State also have four starters four or more years out of high school.

(I defined starting lineup as the five—or more, in case of ties—players who have made the most starts thus far. Only Hofstra, Drexel and Northeastern have fielded the same starting five this year. NORTHERN BIAS!!)

I latched on to the veteran presence as a talking point/reason to believe for two reasons. The most relevant one here is, as Litos notes in his Thursday Work Session, the overwhelmingly youthful nature of the CAA this year in The Year After The Final Four II.

This would seem to be a year in which an older and more experienced team could rely on that maturity and make a surprise move into contention, if not finally turn upside down a league that almost always goes according to form and win the whole damn thing. Only twice since 2001-02 has a team picked lower than second won the CAA tournament. But the CAA’s meager out-of-conference performance thus far has done nothing to discourage the notion that the championship is ripe for the taking by an out-of-nowhere squad.

The other is the two most successful teams in the DD Era—if not the entire Division I era at Hofstra—were both loaded with veterans. The 2005-06 team featured four players all four years removed from their senior year of high school in seniors Aurimas Kieza and Adrian Uter and juniors Carlos Rivera and Loren Stokes, each of whom prepped for a year before arriving at Hofstra.

That team also had Antoine Agudio, a third-year sophomore who redshirted as a freshman. And by the end of the season, every player was at least 21, with Stokes already 22 and Kieza and Rivera already 23.

And the 2000-01 team that won 18 straight games and repeated as America East champions had four senior starters, including a pair of players five years removed from their senior year of high school in Norman Richardson and Jason Hernandez. Richardson and Greg Springfield were each 23 years old while Hernandez was 22 and Roberto Gittens was 21. (Sophomore Rick Apodaca was a mere 20)

(Related: Goddamn that makes me feel old)

All that said, the preceding six graphs are by no means a predictor of future performance. I haven’t had the time, and it frustrates me to admit I probably will never have the time and/or the resources, to find out how veteran-laden teams tend to fare in the CAA, at least since 2001-02.

We know experienced George Mason (grrr) and VCU squads made the Final Four, but how has everyone else done? Are teams that have at least four starters at least four years removed from their senior year of high school fare better than average?

And in many ways, these Dutchmen are experienced in name only, particularly when it comes to playing with each other. Entering this season, the quartet of veteran starters had a grand total of 183 games at Hofstra under their belts, including just 109 starts. Lester and Mejia sat out last year and Imes and Moore each started all 33 games last year after barely playing and sitting out, respectively, the previous year.

Compare that to the 2005-06 starters (245 games at Hofstra, including 178 starts) and the once-in-a-generation 2000-01 squad (a remarkable 308 games at Hofstra, including 237 starts—only one by Apodaca).

These Dutchmen have been appropriately unpredictable, with veteran presence playing a part in a narrow win over St. Francis and the upset of Cleveland State and the inexperience showing in the loss to Boston University. There should be plenty of peaks and valleys this season—moments in which the Dutchmen appear to have as good a shot as anyone at winning the CAA and moments in which an eighth-place finish unfortunately seems all too realistic.

It’ll be interesting to track all year, beginning this afternoon against a fellow veteran-laden team. But remember who foresaw it way back in December if the eventual CAA champion is playing at Hofstra today. (Note to the sporting gods: Please make sure it’s the Flying Dutchmen. Thank you.)

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

The third anniversary of the first time I marked the anniversary of my first date with my wife on DD

I had better hair than Ted, but this pretty much sums us up circa 1994.

Going meta on Dec. 2 has turned into a fun little tradition here at Defiantly Dutch. You can get all the back story from 2008 here, and 2009 here, and 2010 here, and watch Weezer's "Buddy Holly" three times in the process, because it's the best video ever made. But I saw this episode of Scrubs earlier this week and Ted's inability to speak around the Gooch, never mind actually ask her out, was, how shall I put this, reminiscent of me 17 years ago.

But Ted finally asked out the Gooch, just like I finally asked out the Leavitt, and it worked out well for both of us. Best thing I ever did, as a matter of fact. Happy anniversary honey!