Mid Major Hoops

Miscellaneous Goings On

Before I start off with today's post, Ok, its been two weeks since my last post.  Basically with finals, the holidays etc, I wanted to wait till I had some material to post.

I want to give a hearty congratulations to my friend Tony Bozzella's Iona Lady Gaels who won the Bank of Hawaii Invitational over host Hawaii 91-69.  They won their first round game over William and Mary 76-69.  Iona has now won three in a row to climb over .500 for the first time this season 7-6.  The Gaels next game is a home game vs. Rider on Sunday January 6.  I hope to be there.

I  was at the Garden watching the Holiday Festival tournament, won by Virginia Tech over St John's.   To be honest, Virginia Tech is not very good and played less awful than St John's in that game.   Also, St John's coach, Norm Roberts really needs to work on his X's and O's.   His players basically stood around the entire game. However, Justin Burrell of the Red Storm looks like he could be a great player.  Now if Roberts could just get him the ball, he might get to be that.   

The best player in that tournament never got a chance to play.   Hofstra’s Antonie Agudio rolled an ankle during practice on Wednesday and had to sit out the tournament.  Without Agudio, the nation’s second leading scorer, Hofstra’s young team was slaughtered by Virginia Tech 84-59.  Hofstra lost to Marist (who lost to St John’s in the first round) in the consolation game 73-67, but played much better than the first game.   Perhaps coach Tom Pecora is finally realizing that his team can not play zone if their life depended on it and also is realizing that feeding the post will allow his guards to get open looks.  Finally, Marist to me was the best coached team and should have won that game against St John’s but didn’t make plays down the stretch.

Meanwhile in Carbondale on Friday night, two of the best mid major programs in the country the past few years squared off in a great game.  AJ Graves hit a game winning three pointer at the buzzer to lead the Butler to a 57-55 win over the Southern Illnois.    Mike Green led the way for Butler with 19 points, while Matt Howard added 15, with Graves putting in 10.  Jordan Bone had a coming out party for the Salukis with 19 points, including 5 of 7 from the three point line.  Randal Falker added 14 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks for the Salukis.  The difference in the game, free throw shooting.  Butler was 21 of 30 from the line.  Southern Illinois was 3 of 12...yes, 3 of 12..  There’s the difference in the ball game right there.

The most interesting development conference wise is that the Missouri Valley opened play on Saturday and Sunday and some new teams are emerging on the scene.  In perhaps the most impressive win, those Drakes Cakes as I call them, the Drake Bulldogs won at Wichita State 62-54.   Wichita State was held to 39 percent shooting from the floor.  Even worse for the Shockers, was their Salukiesque 9 of 24 from the free throw line.  Ugh.  Josh Young had another solid game for the Bulldogs with 17 points.  Their next big game is at home vs. Southern Illinois.  Northern Iowa won impressively at Bradley 59-46 as Eric Coleman had 17 points and 14 rebounds to lead the Panthers.  The Panthers outrebounded the Braves 42-25.  Illinois State also had an impressive road win, knocking off Creighton 80-67.  Center Levi Dwyer led five Redbird players in double figures with 20 points as the Redbirds shot 50 percent from the field.  Finally Southern Illinois rebounded from the Butler loss to down arch rival Missouri State as Brian Mullins led five Salukis in double figures with 19 points.  The Salukis shot much better from the line in this game going 26 of 32. 

Finally, I know they are not quite mid major, but Dayton from the A-10 played an awesome game Saturday absolutely destroying then #6 Pitt 80-55 in Dayton.  The Flyers have also defeated on the road Holy Cross, and Louisville.  Their only loss...a road loss to George Mason.

In my next post, I will talk about mid major at large resumes. 

Miscellaneous Mid Major Hoops

There was a big mid major game Tuesday  night as Southern Illinois hosted then undefeated #24 ranked Saint Mary’s.  The Salukis trademark defense stymied the Gaels into a season low scoring total as Southern Illinois won 71-56.  The Salukis had fifteen more field goal attempts than the Gaels as Southern Illinois out rebounded Saint Mary’s 35-23 with Randall Falker collecting 12 of the rebounds.  Brian Mullins led the Salukis with 24 points shooting 7 of 10 from the field (including 3 of 4 from three point range) and 7 of 7 from the line.  Gaels’ season leading scorer Patrick Mills was held to 11 points, 5 under his season average.   It was a very big win for the Salukis who had started the season 3-0 before losing three straight games to USC, Indiana, and Charlotte.

It was a revenge win for the Missouri Valley Conference over the West Coast Conference.  Earlier in the year, Saint Mary’s handed Drake their only loss of the season as the Gaels won at home 72-66.  Saint Mary’s has defeated Oregon, San Diego State and Seton Hall as well this season.  A very telling game for the Gaels will be on January 5th when they travel to Austin to face #5 Texas (game will be shown on ESPN Full Court).   However if Saint Mary’s can basically dominate the West Coast Conference along with fellow ranked power Gonzaga, the West Coast Conference could be a multiple bid conference this year.

Speaking of Drake, the Bulldogs won at Iowa 56-51 to stake a claim for bragging basketball rights to the entire state of Iowa (though fellow MVC foe Northern Iowa will have a say in that).  Drake had won earlier in the year over Iowa State by 35 points.  Yes, that was not a typo...35 points.  In their win over Iowa, which was snapped a 20 game losing streak at Iowa, the Bulldogs did not allow Iowa a single free throw attempt.  That’s right, for the first time I can ever remember, a team did not even get one single free throw attempt in a game.  Drake had four scorers in double figures as Josh Young, the Bulldogs leading scorer on the season had 14 points.   The Bulldogs have now swept Iowa and Iowa State for the second year in a row.    Drake looks like a serious contender for a NCAA tournament bid along with Creighton and Southern Illinois in the Missouri Valley conference.

I was at Hofstra Wednesday night for what might have been the worst first half of college basketball by one team I have ever seen in my 41 years on this earth as Hofstra played Stony Brook.   Hofstra had almost as many turnovers (15) as points (17) in the first half as the Pride fell behind by 16 to a team that hadn’t at that point won a road game this season.  The Pride shot 5 of 25 in the first half and the bad play continued into the second half as Hofstra was down by 22 points on three separate occasions.   The Pride would come back and cut the lead to one, 74-73 and missed a game tying three pointer at the end of the game.  The only good news was for the Pride, the nation’s leading scorer Antoine Agudio had 24 points and freshman guard Nathaniel Lester had a career high 20 points.  Stony Brook is now 3-7 on the season while Hofstra falls to 1-5.  And Hofstra’s reward is playing today against a 6-2 Charlotte team that has wins over Southern Illinois and Davidson, two previously ranked teams that are favored to win their conferences.  The 49ers also have a over Wake Forest.  Uh Oh.

A Week’s Full of Notes

Its been an interesting week in mid major college basketball.  But before I start on that, I just want to make a quick comment on Rhode Island.  They may not be a mid major, but damn they are an impressive team.  The Rams are 10-1 with resume building wins over Providence, 77-60 and at Syracuse 91-89.  The Rams only loss was a four point loss at BC, nothing to be ashamed of.  The Rams are led by senior forward Will Daniels and junior guard Jimmy Baron.  But they are not a 2 man team.  The Rams have five other players who score between 7 and 9.7 points a game, which means teams have a difficult time keying on one player.   Along with Xavier and an underrated Dayton team, the Rams look to be an elite A-10 team and the Atlantic 10 may very well get three teams into the NCAA tournament this year.

CAA

George Mason has struggled in the past week, losing to East Carolina in the BB&T Classic, then a tough win over a pretty good Hampton team, then a discouraging road loss at a pretty solid Kent State team.  Those three games showed a possible Achilles heel in the Patriots team – free throw shooting.  In the three point loss to the Pirates, the Patriots shot an unseemly 13 of 25 from the free throw line, including Louis Birdsong’s 2 for 6 and Will Thomas 2 of 9 from the charity stripe.  In their three point win over Hampton, George Mason only shot 6 of 10 from the line.  In their 18 point loss against Kent State, the Patriots shot a meager 9 of 19 from the free throw line.  Now, the Patriots lost by 18 points to Kent State, 73-55, but the game was close in the second half at 38-35 before the Golden Flashes (how great is that nickname by the way!) went on a 25-8 run.  As I pointed out in a previous blog posting when Mason lost to Villanova, during Nova’s decisive run in the second half, the Patriots missed the front end of three one and one free throw attempts.  During that 25-8 second half run by the Golden Flashes. the Patriots missed 4 of 6 free throws.  It seems like a drop in the buckets, but its often free throws that keeps teams in games during cold spells from the field.

VCU had an excellent week with an impressive win over Maryland at the BB&T classic 85-76, then followed that up with a solid 14 point win over William and Mary in their CAA opener, then ended the week with a 20 point beat down over Richmond in the battle of the James River schools.  In the win over the Terrapins, Jamal Shuler (30) and Eric Maynor (25) combined for 55 points as the Rams shot 24 of 31 from the free throw line.  Maynor and Shuler combined for 36 points as the Rams shot 50 percent from the field to down the Tribe.  In the win over the Spiders, the Rams held the Spiders to 29 percent from the field as Shuler and Maynor combined for 41 points.

UNCW had an up and down week.  The Seahawks started their week with a tough well earned three point overtime win at Hofstra over the Pride, 87-83 in their CAA opener.  The Seahawks then lost by seven at Missouri State, 73-66.  In the win over the pride, the starting lineup of Vladimir Kuljanin, Todd Hendley, TJ Carter, Daniel Fountain and Charles Tomko combined for 77 of the team’s 87 points.  They outrebounded Hofstra 42-34 and shot 17 of 19 from the free throw line.  In their seven point loss to the Bears, UNCW only had 10 free throw attempts (and only made 6), and had 21 turnovers.

Hofstra had a tough week losing two games by a total of six points.  In the aforementioned four point overtime loss to the Seahawks,  despite shooting 47.8 percent from the field, the Pride shot 12 of 22 from the free throw line, again showing Hofstra’s propensity for  weak free throw shooting.   However, the Pride showed potential second and third scoring options in Nathaniel Lester and Charles Jenkins who combined for 33 points to go along with Antoine Agudio’s 34 points.  In their two point loss to Fordham 73-71, the Pride shot much better from the charity stripe, going 17 of 18 from the line, as well as shooting 50 percent from the field.  However the Pride had 27 turnovers and if it wasn’t for Antoine Agudio’s 30 of his career high 36 points in the second half, the game would not have been that close and only Charles Jenkins was the other Pride player in double figures with 10 points.

Drexel has been struggling from the field in its last games.  Ok, struggling is an understatement.  In their last three games, all losses, Drexel has not scored more than 48 points. Furthermore Drexel is showing an alarming tendency of not being able to find another scorer other than Frank Elegar.  Elegar has been the only Dragon to be in double figures in scoring the last two games.  Drexel has also shown a propensity like George Mason and Hofstra to struggle from the free throw line.   In their 24 point loss to Creighton, Drexel only shot 7 of 15 from the free throw line.  In their 12 point loss at Toledo, the Dragons only shot 7 of 12 from the line.  It may be a long season if Drexel both struggles from the field and the line and must get other scoring options like Tremayne Hawthorne and Gerald Colds into the mix.

Horizon

Butler looked simply dominant in the second half of their 65-46 win over Ohio State, outscoring the Buckeyes 45-16.  Matt Howard came off the bench to score 23 points for the Bulldogs.  The Bulldogs forced 23 Buckeye turnovers.   The Bulldogs then defeated 53-46 as Howard scored 20 points, this time as a starter.  However, the Bulldogs could not win three in a week, as the Bulldogs lost to arch rival Wright State 47-46 in a Horizon league game.

In that 47-46 win, the Raiders gave the Bulldogs their first loss of the season, as Brad Brownell’s team held the Bulldogs to 32 percent from the field.  The Raiders held Bulldogs scorers AJ Graves and Matt Howard to a combined 11 points as Graves and Howard shot 4 of 16 from the field.  Scottie Wilson and Todd Brown each had 10 points for the Raiders as the Raiders won their third consecutive game against Butler going back to last season, which included the Horizon Championship game.

However, Wright State may not be the toughest competition for Butler in the Horizon League. Valparaiso may be the team to beat as the Crusaders have started off to a 8-1 start (only loss was 87-78 at nationally ranked Vanderbilt).  Included in that 8-1 start is a 2-0 conference start which includes a 71-66 win at Wright State.  In their 81-68 win at Detroit yesterday, the Crusaders shot 66 percent from the field (30 of 45) including 10-20 from the three point arc.  Shawn Huff, Jarryd Loyd and Urule Igbavboa combine an average of 35 points a game. 

Its very possible that the Horizon league will get two teams again this year if Butler should lose the Horizon championship as it did last year to Wright State.  Butler already has the marquee wins over Texas Tech and Ohio State, resume material for an at large bid from the NCAA tournament committee.