Thoughts and notes on the CAA
Tim Pearrell
Jan 06, 2009
Taylor was in the bus going through the Hampton tunnel on the way to William and Mary, and he apologized in advance if his cell-phone transmission got cut off. Taylor came in crystal clear. As he was talking, moderator Rob Washburn got cut off.
Taylor waited on the line until Washburn returned.
Said Taylor: “I’m in the tunnel. You’re in a submarine.“
* It’s kind of hard to go through an 18-game conference schedule winless, but it might be possible if UNCW doesn’t come up with better defense.
* Only once has a team taken the regular-season title with more than four conference losses (Old Dominion and UNC Wilmington were 10-6 in 1996-97). Might this be the second time?
George Mason and Northeastern are the only two unbeaten teams after three conference games.
“It’s very, very important in terms of the regular-season race to get yourself out front,” Mason coach Jim Larranaga said. “It’s almost like a basketball game. You’d rather be leading at halftime than trailing. With our schedule, we’ve got several home games in a row, and you have to take advantage of that.”
Georgia State’s last-second win over Old Dominion was “kind of a picture of the league race,” ODU coach Blaine Taylor said, “where one night you just feel like it’s the thrill of a lifetime and another night you get all heartbroken.”
Finishing in the top four and earning a first-round bye in the conference tournament would seem to be paramount to having a shot at the automatic NCAA tournament bid this year. The CAA will not get an at-large berth based on its nonconference results.
“I said it before,” Drexel coach Bruiser Flint said. “There’s not an upset in this league.”
On to the notes ...
JAMES MADISON—His first “go-to guy” is gone, so James Madison coach Matt Brady says the Dukes are searching for another. Senior forward Juwann James may be putting in an application.
James has scored 24 points in JMU’s past two games. His dunk with 44 seconds left put the Dukes ahead of Drexel in Monday’s 66-60 victory.
The Dukes lost all-conference guard Abdulai Jalloh (15.5 points per game last year) for the season with a partly torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder. The senior’s career likely is finished.
“He was as improved a player in terms of shooting the ball as just about anybody I’ve worked with in all my years as an assistant coach or as a head coach,” Brady said. “I really thought he was on the cusp of having a stellar season.
“When you take him out of our lineup, what we have lacked is backcourt scoring. More to the point, we’ve lacked a go-to scorer. .¤.¤. At the end of a game, what separates fair teams from good teams or good teams from outstanding teams is having a guy who can just get the basketball and go score. That’s really what my team lacks, and we’re still searching for that. I think it might be a season-long search, quite frankly.“
WILLIAM AND MARY—has struggled to capitalize on the momentum it generated last year, when the Tribe made it to the final of the CAA tournament.
With sporadic shooting and defense and injuries, William and Mary is 0-3, 5-8.
“I hope we’re not close to where we want to be, that’s for sure,” Tribe coach Tony Shaver said. “We’ve had some good moments but have not been consistently a good basketball team. One of the things we’ve really struggled with is some continuity. [Junior transfer guard] Sean McCurdy and [junior forward] Alex Smith were guys we were counting on to replace four seniors, and they have really not been in our lineup a lot.
“One of the things that’s a good problem for us to have, but it’s a dangerous problem as well, is with that success we had at the end of the year, our team and our program and our fans really had a higher level of expectation coming into the season. One thing that’s very important for our staff right now and our team is to continue to keep our confidence level high. If you ask the team, they expected to be better off record-wise right now. It’s very important, particularly with this difficult opening conference slate here, to keep our guys believing they’re going to be a good ballclub.“
GEORGE MASON—Larranaga’s club (10-3), which has to be considered the early favorite, lacks featured players but has won some close games behind a seasoned starting unit and freshmen Andre Cornelius, Michael Morrison and Ryan Pearson off the bench.
“It seems like we’ve had a different guy each night step up and play well at the offensive end,” Larranaga said. “If that continues, it’s great, and we hope it does continue. We don’t have one or two key guys who are specifically the ones we’re going to each and every night.
“We still have moments where we’re a little bit reckless. We’ve developed a little more consistency on the offensive and defensive end. It’s mostly our upperclassmen. Our freshmen are still up and down. The other day the bench scored 49 points. Against Dayton, they scored five. When you’ve got that kind of range of contribution from your bench, you’ve got to keep your fingers crossed you’re going to get 18-20 points rather than those five.”
TOWSON—Coach Pat Kennedy laid some high praise on freshman guard Troy Franklin during Monday’s conference all. Franklin then went out and backed up his coach with a layup that beat Delaware 62-61 with 2.1 seconds remaining.
Franklin is averaging 9.8 points and 5.3 assists for the Tigers, who are 2-1 in the conference for the first time since joining in 2001-02.
“I think Troy Franklin will be a very special player, not only in the history of Towson, but in the history of the CAA,” Kennedy said.
NORTHEASTERN—Chaisson Allen, a 6-4 sophomore guard, leads Northeastern in rebounding at 5.1 per game. Said Northeastern coach Bill Coen: “It’s great to have Chaiss get some rebounds, but I’m not sure that’s a proven formula for winning if your point guard is the leading rebounder.”
GEORGIA STATE—Coach Rod Barnes, on his team (2-1, 4-10), which figures to be a sleeper with five transfers from major conferences: “I think our kids respect this conference. A lot of people questioned when we had the transfers moving down from the SEC or ACC, how would they take it. I think we had games early on where we didn’t respect our opponent and we ended up getting beat. I told our guys we haven’t proven anything, so why should we not respect anyone?”
More Barnes: “Through all the media conversations that we had before the year, I didn’t think we had what you’d call any great players in those transfers. I thought because of the depth that we’d have it would help us as far as our program. That has probably proven to be true.”
The best line line out of Monday’s teleconference came from Old Dominion coach Blaine Taylor (as if that’s a surprise).
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