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.

College of Bill Lawrence 73, Hofstra 66 (Or: My Overkill)

J.D. is tired of hearing Colin Hay sing about the Flying Dutchmen. "Signature Wins appear and fade away. Signature Wins appear and fade away..."

To try and figure out which painful loss is the worst for a team is presumably the inverse of asking a parent to identify his or her favorite child. They all suck equally (the losses, that is, not the kids).

But if the Flying Dutchmen were to rank the defeats of 2009-10 in order of agony, their 73-66 loss Saturday to the College of Bill Lawrence would have to top the chart, such as it is.

Like they have so many times this season, the Dutchmen had that long-desired Signature Win in their grasp Saturday night. For the fifth time, the Dutchmen lost a game in which they enjoyed a multiple-possession lead in the second half. Yet as disappointing as it was to squander those leads against UConn (nine points with 9:10 left), St. John’s (seven points with 16:50 left), George Mason (six points with 7:52 left) and in the first game against William & Mary Jan. 2 (eight points with 14:31 left), this one really smarts.

The Dutchmen led the Fighting Lawrences by seven with 9:14 to play. Had they held on, it would have been quite the Signature Win, second in hypothetical impact behind only a victory over UConn.

This Signature Win would have come on the road against one of the CAA’s first place teams (it sounds grammatically incorrect, but it isn’t—look at the standings!), and while William & Mary’s RPI isn’t as high now as it was when it visited Hofstra Jan. 2, the win would have been even more impressive because the Fighting Lawrences have proven over the first two weeks of the conference schedule that their success in November and December was no fluke.

Instead, the Dutchmen’s midseason skid hit semi-historic levels. The Dutchmen’s seventh loss in nine games dropped them to 2-5 in the CAA and 9-10 overall. This is the first time since the 1981-82 season the Dutchmen have fallen under .500 in a season in which they were at least four games over .500.

The fateful final few minutes Saturday unfurled in frustratingly familiar fashion as the Dutchmen were unable to either maintain or extend the lead over the Fighting Lawrences nor come back once they fell behind. The Dutchmen finished the game in a 3-of-16 funk and missed 10 straight shots over a nearly eight-minute span, during which a six-point lead turned into a seven-point deficit.

Such a dry spell was uncannily similar to the losses against St. John’s and Mason. Four weeks ago yesterday, the Dutchmen missed their final 12 shots against the Red Storm, who turned a five-point deficit into a 12-point win with an 18-1 run over the final 6:57. And two weeks ago against the Patriots, the Dutchmen missed eight straight shots over more than five minutes as a four-point lead turned into a four-point deficit.

The common perception in the near-misses—perpetuated plenty here—is that Charles Jenkins tries to do too much as the Dutchmen flail down the stretch. But the late game offensive struggles have been a team effort in all five potential Signature Wins.

Jenkins, who finished with a team-high 19 points and two blocks while adding five assists and four rebounds. took eight of the Dutchmen’s final 16 shots Saturday and missed his final seven. He also took half the Dutchmen’s shots down the stretch against St. John’s and missed them all. He took five of the final 12 shots against UConn, six of the final 14 shots in the first William & Mary game and five of the final 14 shots against George Mason.

Expecting Jenkins to take a greater percentage of the shots is probably a bit unrealistic, yet nobody has consistently stepped up to lessen the pressure on him. Nathaniel Lester and Halil Kanacevic were both outstanding in the first half Saturday (Lester had eight points and seven rebounds while Kanacevic had 10 points and three rebounds) but quiet in the second half (Lester had one point and one rebound while Kanacevic had two points and three rebounds).

As much as the Dutchmen need someone to emerge as the Robin to Jenkins’ Batman (I can’t take credit for that analogy, it comes from WRHU’s Mike “Clay Buchholz” Leslie), Tom Pecora at this point would probably be happier to know the identity of his core beyond Jenkins and freshmen Chaz Williams (12 points on 4-of-5 shooting in his return from an ankle injury) and Halil Kanacevic.

Lester should be a part of it, but Saturday marked the fourth straight game in which he played less than 30 minutes. Greg Washington played a career-high 34 minutes but had just seven points and six rebounds. Miklos Szabo recorded just one foul but played only 15 minutes. Cornelius Vines had six assists and no turnovers—that’s right, Cornelius Vines had a perfect assist-to-turnover ratio—but was just 2-of-9 from the field.

There is, of course, a lot of time left in conference play, and we were reminded just yesterday how foolish it can be to prematurely bury a team. And the youthful and undermanned Dutchmen are the type of team that nobody is going to want to play come tournament time, when, presumably, some of the flaws will have been worked out and there will be several freshmen in the rotation who don’t know they’re supposed to be intimidated by the task of going to Virginia and winning four games in four days in foreign territory.

But that Signature Win that the Dutchmen have come so close to earning feels farther away than ever. And when the best-case scenario in the third week of January is playing Cinderella in March...well, it’s a pretty good sign the season has not unfolded as expected.

Sure, the Dutchmen were pegged as a middle-of-the-road team by outsiders, but internally, the expectations were much higher. There was a reason the Dutchmen played Kansas and in the preseason NIT this year and not last year, and it was because nobody in Hempstead expected the Dutchmen to get to the first weekend of March relying on the hope that someone someday has to beat the long odds and win on Monday as well as Friday.

But that’s where they are as February approaches, banking on a miracle in the long-term and, in the short term, hoping 2-5 doesn’t turn into 2-7 and wondering how long it’ll be before the next most demoralizing loss of the season takes place. Fortunately, the Dutchmen play George Mason tomorrow night. And nothing bad ever happens when the Dutchmen play George Mason.

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. College of Bill Lawrence, 1/16)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Chaz Williams

1: Halil Kanacevic

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 33

Chaz Williams 20

Halil Kanacevic 18

Nathaniel Lester 18

Miklos Szabo 9

Cornelius Vines 8

Greg Washington 8

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

Bits and Bytes: Of optimism and injustices

William & Mary grad Chris Turk is thrilled to have tickets to the Flying Dutchmen-Tribe game tonight. Wait til he finds out that J.D. thought Turk was in charge of bringing the tickets, though.

If you’re anything like me—once again, I’m very sorry—then you saw the CAA schedule when it was released in August and figured one of the few sure things for the Flying Dutchmen during conference play was a pair of wins over the College of Bill Lawrence Jan. 2 and Jan. 16.

Everyone else seemed to agree with us, too, as the Fighting Lawrences were a consensus pick to finish last in the CAA. Except, of course, CBL has emerged as one of the nation’s surprise teams, compiling a top-10 RPI thanks to road wins over Wake Forest and Maryland and winning five of its first six conference games. Three of those wins have been by a single point, including a 48-47 win over the Dutchmen two weeks ago today in which CBL trailed for the first 39 minutes, which fuels the notion that this is finally The Year for CBL, which has never made the NCAA Tournament.

The Dutchmen, of course, are the anti-CBL. Like CBL, the Dutchmen played an upgraded non-conference schedule, but the type of wins that would have boosted the RPI and the Dutchmen’s at-large candidacy never materialized as they squandered second half leads against UConn, St. John’s and Charlotte. The Dutchmen have been similarly star-crossed during conference play: In addition to falling to CBL and George Mason by combined five points in consecutive games, they lost freshmen Chaz Williams and David Imes last week due to high ankle sprains and learned this week that Brad Kelleher is officially a poster boy for the NCAA’s skewered sense of justice.

As a result, the Dutchmen will likely take the court tonight with just seven scholarship players, though I wouldn’t be shocked if Williams manages to make it back. Regardless, being ice-cold and hexed and going on the road to visit red-hot and charmed is not the optimal situation for a team staring at the possibility of a 3-6 or 2-7 start in conference play.

Of course, we specialize in optimism here and in thinking of ways the Dutchmen can win, so we’ll spend the hours until game time figuring that Pecora has whipped his team into an us-against-the-world fury, that the Dutchmen are at their most dangerous when they are wounded—it was a year ago today that the reeling Dutchmen knocked off first-place Northeastern, which was just 12 days removed from a wire-to-wire thrashing of the Dutchmen in Boston—that this is a much better matchup for the undermanned Dutchmen than VCU was and that CBL’s run of incredibly good fortune has to come to an end some time.

Turns out your good friend and mine Mike Litos doesn’t think the concept of a Dutchmen win is so crazy, either. He predicts another narrow CBL win but lays out the ingredients for a Hofstra upset: A big night from Charles Jenkins and Nathaniel Lester’s return from witness protection. We’ve said it multiple times this month: When Lester is the Dutchmen’s second-best player—when he plays 30 minutes and gets himself to the foul line with regularity—they win far more often than not. But who knows which Lester will show up tonight?

I’ll add that as important as Lester is to the Dutchmen’s fortunes, they’ll also need Miklos Szabo’s recent resurgence to be a trend and not an aberration. He has played quite well the last three games (during which he has averaged 8.7 points and seven rebounds), avoided the foul trouble that plagued him earlier in the year and earned back his starting job.

If Pecora is grumpy and sparse with his praise late tonight, I’ll bet you it’s good news for the Dutchmen. After all, he didn’t complement the Dutchmen last year when they finally began playing up to their potential.

A win here and things will look a lot better. We’ll be tuning in—hopefully on the William & Mary website, unless it sucks like the Florida Atlantic one did—and live Tweeting throughout. Join us, won’t you? It’s much better than the NFL playoffs.

A couple other quick bits and bytes:

—In writing last night’s piece about the similarities between this year’s slow CAA start and last year’s slow start, I reconstructed the 2008-09 standings through six games. Worth a look as a reminder of how much things can change over the final two-thirds of the season.

2008-09: Through six

George Mason 6-0

Northeastern 6-0

VCU 5-1

James Madison 4-2

Old Dominion 3-3

Drexel 3-3

Hofstra 2-4

Georgia State 2-4

Towson 2-4

Delaware 1-5

UNCW 1-5

William & Mary 1-5

Final standings

VCU 14-4

George Mason 13-5

Northeastern 12-6

Old Dominion 12-6

Hofstra 11-7

Drexel 10-8

James Madison 9-9

Georgia State 8-10

Delaware 6-12

William & Mary 5-13

Towson 5-13

UNCW 3-15

—Injustice update No. 1: Save Hofstra Football is hosting a fundraiser tonight at Public House in Manhattan from 4-8. NFL memorabilia donated by the likes of Wayne Chrebet and Dave Fiore will be auctioned off, as well as golf outings to local courses. For more information, check out the Save Hofstra Football website. The group is also hosting a rally at Bar Social (the old Bogarts) Tuesday from 5-7 p.m., just before the basketball game against George Mason.

—Injustice update No. 2: The NCAA issued a statement in response to Tom Pecora’s comments in Friday’s Newsday in which he blistered the so-called governing body for declaring Brad Kelleher ineligible because he signed a contract with—but was never paid by—a professional team in his native Australia five years ago.

It boggles the mind to think of how many people were paid obscene amounts of money to drum up this crap: “Coach Pecora’s comments are both inappropriate and inaccurate. Brad Kelleher’s eligibility is not finally determined, but a Division I committee that includes Hofstra’s peers has sustained the finding that he signed a previous professional contract which makes him ineligible.

“Like any NCAA institution, Hofstra now has the opportunity to seek Mr. Kelleher’s reinstatement from the NCAA. This process starts with a review by NCAA staff, and the university can also appeal staff decisions to the Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee, comprised of representatives from NCAA schools and conferences.”

So let’s get this straight: The NCAA has declared Kelleher ineligible, but it’s not a final decision and Hofstra can make an appeal to a committee comprised of the same people who already declared Kelleher ineligible. Oh. OK then. That’s fair. I’m sure the appeal will be a fruitful endeavor. I’m convinced Dilbert creator Scott Adams worked at the NCAA before turning to comics. And I’m convinced that Pecora’s comments only scratch the surface of how livid he is with those bureaucratic lowlifes.

But hey, Stuart Rabinowitz sent a letter to the NCAA. No word on whether he needed to conduct a secret “two-year study” before composing it, though.

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

One year later, Dutchmen are once again praying for mojo

Hey, it worked last year.

The good news for the Flying Dutchmen is they have been here before. A year and a day ago, the Dutchmen lost for the fourth time in five January games—and for the sixth time in their last eight games dating back to the weekend before Christmas—and fell to 2-4 in the CAA with a lopsided loss to Drexel.

Some long-winded blogger equated Tom Pecora with a disgusted parent (that one actually still applies, more on that later) and tested the patience and attention span of his loyal readership by tying together his struggles as a Spanish student and high school Casanova with those of the Dutchmen. Said blogger also declared the Dutchmen were “…headed for a second straight lost season,” which didn’t seem so absurd at the time.

The Dutchmen trailed wire-to-wire in three of their four January losses. Nor was the upcoming schedule doing them any favors, not with a game against one of the CAA’s first-place teams immediately on the horizon and a tough southern road trip following shortly thereafter.

Turning things around seemed to be an imposing task for what amounted to a one-man team, as sophomore Charles Jenkins was trying to do everything—and, at the moment, failing miserably—for a roster that featured six underwhelming seniors, three juniors who were all in their first year with the program and three other sophomores, none of whom had yet to emerge as regular starters.

The end result, of course, was better than I envisioned. The Dutchmen surprised unbeaten Northeastern at home Jan. 17 to begin a stretch in which they won nine of their final 12 regular season conference games, a mark bettered by no one and matched only by VCU and Old Dominion. Of the six teams to reach the one-third mark at 2-4 or worse, the Dutchmen were the only one to finish in the top six and the only one to finish with a winning CAA record.

So the moral of the story, then, is to step away from the ledge if you happen to root for the reeling Dutchmen, who are—surprise!—a meager 2-4 in the conference and losers of six of their last eight games following a 81-68 loss to VCU Tuesday. Right? Well, yes, because we could all benefit from adopting the mindset of the coaches and athletes who participate in the games we follow.

But having been here before doesn’t make the climb back into contention any less steep for the Dutchmen, who are both better equipped for such a challenge and facing a set of issues that makes this year even more complicated than last year.

The Dutchmen led William & Mary for the first 39 minutes before losing by a point and held a six-point lead in the second half against George Mason. Even the double-digit defeats have been somewhat encouraging, as the Dutchmen got within one of Old Dominion in the second half and avoided a blowout loss to VCU despite playing an up-tempo game with an undermanned roster.

Of course, staying up at night and wondering about the one or two plays that could have turned 2-4 into 4-2 and staying up and wondering why his team can’t even compete are just different forms of the same torture.

“The difference is there’s a couple games we gave away this year,” Pecora said Tuesday. “And that’s frustrating, as it was last year.”

Jenkins still has his rough moments, but his slumps have not been as epic as last year. And there is more talent at Pecora’s disposal this year, as two starters have already emerged from a promising freshman class.

But today, Pecora would probably rather have last year’s senior class, because at least then he’d have a full roster. Injuries to Chaz Williams and David Imes and the NCAA’s continued screwing of Brad Kelleher have left the Dutchmen with seven scholarship players, which means we may in fact be one day away from seeing walk-on Matt Grogan used to burn fouls in obvious foul situations.

(Note: I have absolutely no idea if this thought has even crossed Pecora’s mind, but it crossed mine Tuesday and reminded me of covering high school basketball, when coaches would put their last kid on the bench into the game in obvious foul situations at the end of halves. Carry on.)

Pecora said all the right things Tuesday about how many teams win with seven-man rotations, but let’s face it, this is not the Stokes-Rivera-Agudio core of five seasons ago. And the lean roster is another hurdle the Dutchmen must overcome in trying to navigate a schedule that is competitively and logistically brutal.

Two weeks ago, we noted the Dutchmen’s “5 in 11” schedule was the second-toughest in the CAA. It wasn’t any easier in reality than it was in theory: The five teams the Dutchmen have played this month have a winning percentage of .617 (50-31), third-best behind only the opponents of Delaware (.622, 51-31) and UNC Wilmington (55-29, .655).

And it’s not getting any easier any time soon. Unlike a year ago, the Dutchmen’s seventh CAA game is a road contest against a conference co-leader. And their next three opponents (William & Mary, George Mason and Drexel) all enter the weekend at least two games above .500 in conference play, which means of the first eight opponents the Dutchmen face this calendar year, seven will have entered their game against Hofstra at or better than .500 in the CAA.

The second half of the conference schedule isn’t exactly a cakewalk either: While they have two games apiece against Delaware and UNC Wilmington, each of whom are 2-4, the Dutchmen are done with winless Towson and will face fellow 2-4 clubs James Madison and Georgia State just once apiece. They get scorching hot Northeastern twice and Drexel once.

On the bright side, the Dutchmen have just one trip south of Delaware after this weekend, which is kind of nice since they’ve been to Virginia enough in the last 14 days to pay taxes there. But that one trip is the front end of a two-game road trip to UNC Wilmington and Delaware, which means the Dutchmen will fly to North Carolina Feb. 12, play the Seahawks Feb. 13, fly home Feb. 14, take a bus to Delaware Feb. 15 and play the Blue Hens Feb. 16.

(Damn southern bias!)

Fortunately, February is historically when Pecora-coached teams hit their stride: Since 2003-04, the Dutchmen are 38-11 in regular season games played after Feb. 1.

Who knows if the results will be the same this year, but Pecora is using the same verbiage as a year ago—right down to the word “mojo,” yeah baby—and subscribing to the belief that the Dutchmen are close to turning things around and that one win could make the difference.

“You just grind it out—I don’t know any other way to do it,” Pecora said. “You just work hard, you prepare the team and at some point we’ll get our mojo back and then we’ll go on a run.

“I’ve been around a while. You’re never as bad as you think you are and you’re never as good as you think you are. So we’re not far off from being right. It’s just a matter of a couple things clicking in and clicking for us. I think we’re going to be OK.”

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

Kelleher fiasco reaches predictable & inevitable conclusion

You'd be smiling, too, if you were John Wall and knew there would be no punishment coming forth from the NCAA.

The NCAA finally got off its ass and got around to settling the Brad Kelleher case this week, a mere four months after it had all the information it needed to make a decision, and to the surprise of nobody, declared the junior transfer ineligible because he signed a contract with a professional team in his native Australia five years ago.

Tom Pecora, recognizing the fine line between gritting one’s teeth and playing by rules designed to make life difficult for schools such as his and getting screwed, absolutely hammered the NCAA for its hypocrisy and unfairness in this Steve Marcus article at Newsday.com. Speaking of getting screwed, you won’t be able to read this article if you’re not a Cablevision victim, err, subscriber, so here’s a couple money quotes from a too-short article (hooray for postage stamp-sized newspapers!)

“There are kids playing in the Big East who had their own reality shows. There are kids in the Southeast Conference who admitted to taking money from agents, and my guy didn’t do anything. He completed an application to play in the league. It’s a league that everyone who lives in Australia plays in. They are trying to say by completing an application that application is a contract.”

“This kills us. We are dressing seven scholarship players. [If] we get this kid back, [then] there’s no rush with the other two. This guy was supposed to play 35 minutes a game for us. He was supposed to be a starting guard who would have had a tremendous amount of minutes. He’s a wonderful kid. He said, ‘Coach, I never took a penny from anyone. I had a full-time job when I was playing. They called me once in a while to play. I wasn’t a star, I was a kid.’”

“They are basically a non-profit organization that’s run amuck. They’ll do anything to take care of their BCS members who have a tremendous amount of power and juice. That is who they work for.”

Pecora is right, of course, and anyone foolish enough to call for his firing should be ashamed because you can’t measure the value of a head coach who will stand up for his program and speak the truth, even if it means putting a target on his own back and potentially ruining any chance he has at moving up to one of the schools that makes the rules by which everyone else has to live.

The entire world has known for years that there’s a pretty good chance Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo were paid more at USC than they are by the New Orleans Saints and Memphis Grizzlies, respectively, yet the school remains unpunished by the NCAA just hired as its new head football coach Lane Kiffin, who was on the USC staff when Bush starred for the Trojans and who racked up plenty of “secondary violations” during his one year as the head coach at Tennessee.

And John Calipari is free to coach his third school to a vacated Final Four appearance, and free to coach John Wall, who played for an agent in summer ball. But don’t worry, the NCAA can toast itself this weekend and declare its sports clean, because it punished a foreign kid from Hofstra.

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

VCU 81, Hofstra 68 (Or: Flying Dutchmen, stop teasing)

Nothing good comes from teasing, as we all learned by reading Judy Blume in fourth grade. This book RULED. (It was this picture, BTW, or a clip of Eddie Murphy mimicking Michael Jackson or some hair metal video from the '80s with the word "tease" in the title. You can see my quandary)

Tom Pecora sees the same roster you see. He watches, over and over again, the film of the game you saw last night, when the Flying Dutchmen fell to VCU 81-68, and the game you saw Saturday, when the Dutchmen never led in falling to Old Dominion 57-44.

He knows there are ample excuses to be made for a Flying Dutchmen team that now has as many players in sweats on the sidelines as it does on the court. He knows there are slivers of good news to be rescued from back-to-back defeats, that both times the Dutchmen turned a potential blowout loss into something respectable, and that there are flashes of promise that indicate better days are only a friendly bounce of the ball and maybe a confidence boost away.

But Pecora turns 39 again next week and this is his ninth season as the head coach at Hofstra, which makes him the third-longest tenured coach in the history of the school. He is not logging on to CAAZone and calling for himself to be fired, but this is his legacy job, one located a few minutes from where he grew up, and he is as tired of missing the NCAA Tournament as you are.

With freshman Chaz Williams and Halil Kanacevic having earned their way into the starting lineup, he knows a good case can be made that next year will be a lot better than this one. But he also remembers 2006-07, and how the overwhelming preseason favorite to win the CAA squeaked into the NIT as much on name recognition as merit.

Excuses and rationalizations and all the wait 'til next years are getting him—and, by extension, you and me and everyone else reading this—nowhere.

“It’s a tease, man, you know?” Pecora said. “I don’t want to be teased. I want to win.”

There was no real hope of that in the final 30 minutes Tuesday night. Despite missing Williams, who was on crutches with a high ankle sprain suffered against Old Dominion Saturday, the Dutchmen did a decent job of handling VCU’s full court press early in the first half, but they could not keep up with the Rams’ speed nor with the size of Larry Sanders, the behemoth who had 31 points and five rebounds and operated basically untouched down low, where he made 11 of his 13 shots.

VCU ended the half on a 30-12 run to take a 40-25 lead into the locker room, and though the Dutchmen produced several mini-runs in the second half, they were never able to get closer than seven points.

“Having one or two more bodies definitely would have helped the process,” Pecora said. “For me, it’s frustrating because there’s times you know the right coaching move to make, but you can’t make those moves because of who’s on the floor, whether it’s inexperience or you don’t have the size to do what you want. So it changes your game plan.”

Still, injuries and a thin roster are not an excuse for the Dutchmen playing as passively as they have the last few weeks. One of Pecora’s three goals every game is to commit 12 or fewer turnovers, but the Dutchmen have made more than a dozen turnovers in six of their last eight games and made an even 12 in the other two. Pecora expects aggressiveness out of the Dutchmen on offense, but they took just 12 free throws Tuesday, the seventh time in eight games they have gone to the line 14 or fewer times. And four of those free throws were off technical fouls.

He also felt the Rams outhustled and outmuscled the Dutchmen, which was a difficult admission to make for someone who—wait for it!!—prides himself on coaching teams that embody New York grittiness.

“I just thought they played with greater energy, and that’s a great concern of mine,” Pecora said. “Something we’ll work on [today] in practice. We’re not going to get the other guys back for a while. So we are who we are right now.”

And he expects the Dutchmen, as thinly constructed as they are right now, to be good enough to win games in the CAA. Pecora looks at a roster that now only goes seven deep, at least until Williams and David Imes recover from their high ankle sprains, and remembers how the best team he ever coached only went seven deep.

Six deep, for all intents and purposes: In the epic overtime win over St. Joseph’s in the 2006 NIT, the starting five played 203 out of a possible 225 minutes. Fifteen days earlier, in the CAA Tournament win over George Mason that in any sane and rational and fair world would have catapulted the Dutchmen into the NCAA Tournament, the starting five played 192 of a possible 200 minutes.

“Seven players isn’t an excuse,” Pecora said. “There’s teams that play seven every night. I’ve seen teams go to the Final Four playing seven players. Excuses only satisfy the people who make them. I tell that to the team all the time.”

Pecora sees the decent stat lines Tuesday from seniors Miklos Szabo (12 points and seven rebounds in a season-high 32 minutes) and Cornelius Vines (17 points, including four 3-pointers) as well as an inspired second half from Greg Washington (four points and four blocks, including two on consecutive possessions). Such performances hint at a greater potential, but Pecora wonders where these efforts have been all season and why the Dutchmen must be in crisis mode before his veterans can produce like this.

“Is that what it takes? To be down to get [them to play well?]” Pecora said. “That’s a very immature way to play basketball. That’s what I’m concerned about—the maturity of them and the leadership of these veterans.”

He sees another performance from Nathaniel Lester (eight points and seven rebounds) that looks a lot better in print than it did in person. Lester made his first two shots Tuesday and then went 2-for-10 the rest of the way. He didn’t take a single free throw, was charged with five turnovers and played just 28 minutes on a night in which the Dutchmen were thinner than they’ve been all season.

Pecora was answering a question about Szabo and Washington when he uttered the following words, but they apply as much to Lester as anybody else: “When you become a junior and you get an opportunity to be a starter, then the thing you should bring to the floor is consistent play at a very high level. And I’m searching for that out of all of our veterans.”

Even Charles Jenkins, who had 23 points and seven assists but also shot just 7-of-18 from the field and committed seven turnovers. “As a leader, I’m disappointed in myself,” a sullen-looking Jenkins said. “It’s about winning. It’s not about anything else.”

More than halfway through the season, though, “anything else” is happening as often as winning.

“We’re beyond excuses,” Pecora said. “We are what we are right now. We’re a .500 team, we’re 2-4 in the conference and we better find a way to win our next one. And that’s what it comes down to and that’s what college basketball season are about. Win or lose, the next morning—or late that night if you’re not sleeping—you get up and start watching tape and you just think about the next one. And then you think about the next one.

“And in March—hopefully late March—you look back and say ‘What kind of year did we have?’ That’s got to be our mindset as a group. You’re in survival mode. That’s how mature basketball teams look at it.”

But is that how the Dutchmen will look at it?

3 STARS OF THE GAME (vs. VCU, 1/12)

3: Charles Jenkins

2: Miklos Szabo

1: Cornelius Vines

SEASON STANDINGS

Charles Jenkins 30

Chaz Williams 18

Nathaniel Lester 18

Halil Kanacevic 17

Miklos Szabo 9

Cornelius Vines 9

Greg Washington 8

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

Bits and Bytes: Of Litos and Lester and Larry

For the Flying Dutchmen to succeed in March, Nat Lester needs to become the Brandon Walsh to Charles' Jenkins Nat Bussischio. I either tried too hard with that analogy or knocked it out of the park, not really sure which.

Your good friend and mine Mike Litos is at the top of his game today. His morning post absolutely nailed the joke that is the Brad Kelleher fiasco, reasonably questioning what has taken the NCAA so long to rule on the case—Kelleher played alongside professionals in his native Australia, which is apparently a worse crime than taking money from an agent—yet also subtly blasting holes in the entire process and the concept that anything about it is fair. Me, I would have spent 2,500 words calling the NCAA a bunch of morons, but Litos has the perspective and the distance to let the charade speak for itself.

One thing I will add: I have little doubt the NCAA is taking its sweet-ass time at least in part to punish Tom Pecora for daring to criticize it way back on Nov. 24, when Pecora unloaded on the NCAA after someone asked him for an update on Kelleher following the loss to Charlotte.

“We’re just waiting to hear from the NCAA,” Pecora said. “They’ve had everything since early September. But that’s what the NCAA does. Don’t get me started. It wouldn’t take this long if we were at Kentucky. And that’s got nothing to do with the people here. People here are busting their ass trying to get this thing done. But that’s just the way life is.”

This is what I mean when I declare that Hofstra fans don’t realize how good they have it with Pecora. He gets that life in Division I favors the big boys and expects the Dutchmen to win while competing by their ever-morphing rules, yet he’ll stand up for his team when it is being railroaded, consequences be damned.

Then this afternoon, Litos whipped up a post in which he called tonight’s Flying Dutchmen-VCU game not only the biggest of the season for both teams but the biggest of the season thus far in the CAA. The similarities between the teams make this a particularly compelling game: Both squads have younger players emerging as the core at the expense of veterans. And both teams are 2-3, so neither can afford a loss if they hope to earn a top-four finish and first-round bye.

Yet someone is going to end the night 2-4, unless Bud Selig takes over as CAA commissioner between now and 7 p.m. Further increasing the pressure tonight: Both teams are headed for long road trips Saturday—the Dutchmen to William & Mary and the Rams to Georgia State.

Litos writes that make-or-break time is nearing for Cornelius Vines and Greg Washington, but I’d say the player who really needs to emerge now or else is Nathaniel Lester. The Dutchmen can win with Vines and Washington as role players—Vines defending the opposition’s best player and occasionally nailing a 3-pointer, Washington providing a body and some blocks down low on defense and hitting 15-foot jumpers on offense—who play less than 25 minutes. It’d be nice to get more than that out of the 6-foot-10 Washington, but the emergence of Halil Kanacevic has lessened the demand for Washington to become the big man the Dutchmen have almost never had.

Lester is not in danger of losing his starting job, but the Dutchmen absolutely cannot get beyond Saturday in the CAA Tournament if he doesn’t emerge as their second-best player and second-most reliable veteran behind Charles Jenkins. He doesn’t have to produce a double-double every night, but he’s too good to be this inconsistent. Here are his points and rebounds over the last six games:

vs. Davidson: 2-5

vs. Florida Atlantic: 17-7

vs. William & Mary: 14-10

vs. George Mason: 9-9

vs. Towson: 8-4

vs. Old Dominion: 4-4

The Dutchmen are 7-4 when Lester plays 30 or more minutes and 2-4 when he does not. They are 6-2 when he goes to the line at least five times, and the two losses were to William & Mary and George Mason. He has to attack the rim and become the other indispensible member of the starting five. That simple.

If he does that tonight, the Dutchmen have a much better chance of winning this literal toss-up. The Dutchmen’s ability to turn a surefire rout into a competitive loss at Old Dominion is cause for encouragement, especially considering they did it against a team that has one of the CAA’s two best big men in Gerald Lee. VCU, of course, has the other in Larry Sanders. Washington and Miklos Szabo must limit his effectiveness.

Throw into the equation the home court advantage and the lack of internal strife and I like the Dutchmen in another nail-biter that goes down to the final minute. Either way, see you there. I’ll be the guy yelling about how much the NCAA Clearinghouse sucks.

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