In case anyone wants to buy me a late xmas present...

This is pretty sweet.  @ 2:35 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Mid-Major Madness

AU and Bucknell took on two of the top mid-major teams last night, East Tennessee State and College of Charleston, respectively. Last week HC took on Manhattan, which is another school that is always decent. ETSU is ranked 7th in the CollegeInsider.com poll, C of C is 5th, and Manhattan is 11th. Also of note is that Lafayette comes in at 24 on the poll, which they'll probably fall off of after their blowout loss to Cal State Northridge, a mediocre team if there ever was one.

AU beat ETSU in their biggest victory of the season thus far. Freshman Linas Lekavicius went 6-7 from deep, with 22 points in 18 minutes of play. This kid is going to be legit, maybe even better than Rodriguez in a couple of years. Jernavis Draughn had his second double-double in 2 days, with 20 pts and 11 boards. He's starting to make me look better for putting him on my all-league team.

Bucknell struggled against CofC, which may be due to their seeming inability to win any games at all, or it may be due to the fact that Charleston is just plain nasty and is on a tear right now, winning their last 9 games. AU led all the way through against ETSUThe Bucknell situation is weird, and I'm not sure whether it's a lack of depth, killer instinct, coaching, or what, but they keep losing games that they ought to be able to win.

HC all but beat Manhattan, but they seem to be having trouble closing out games, as they dropped leads to the Jaspers and St. John's.

The only real significant PL OOC games coming up are:

-Holy Cross and Marist in MSG on Jan. 3
-Niagara at AU on Jan 5
-LC at UPenn, Jan 7
-Loyola (Md) at Navy

The HC game is only significant because it's in MSG. Marist is similar to HC in that it's struggled thus far this season, but will probably be more effective down the stretch.

Loyola and Navy will be battling for the "2nd worst in the Mid Atlantic" trophy. Should be exciting (not exciting).  @ 10:10 AM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Bettencourt is Nasty

I almost forgot to mention--Bucknell finally picked up a DI win. Congrats to the Bison.

Navy is still looking to beat a DI opponent. They might do it against Loyola MD, statistically the worst (or 326th best, depending on how you look at it) team in college basketball, on January third. To illustrate this possibility, here is a picture of Don DeVoe smiling. You can imagine that he will not be smiling if they lose to 0-9 Loyola.

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  Patriot League AP Photo Bonanza

Tough couple of games for HC, with losses to St. John's and Manhattan. Lafayette finally lost, to USC. Worst of all, Colgate got waxed for the 123rd year in a row by Syracuse, nearly as badly as they got beaten by UD. Fun fact, the entire city of Syracuse may be owned by Native Americans here shortly. True story. I don't know what they'd want with Syracuse, but as far as I'm concerned they can have it.

Here's some photos. AU plays ETSU today, ranked #5 in the ESPN mid major poll. BGSU is not that good this year, so this is the real test of how AU performs against good mid-majors. Lehigh takes on #22 Vanderbilt tonight, should be a tough one for them but you never know.












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  Defensive Dandy

Lafayette got the biggest win of the PL so far-- beating Princeton in NJ. The Leopards held Princeton to 30% shooting. Lafayette now has to be the favorite in the preseason to win the league. I was not too impressed by their previous wins, but this is a big step forward for them. They may be the only team that could get more than a 16 seed come March.  @ 6:32 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  So Close

Notre Dame 78, American 74



Andres Rodriguez has 56 assists in 6 games in December.   @ 6:30 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Point Guard Watch

There are four senior point guards in the Patriot League, and they are probably the four best players in the league. Throughout the season, I'll be charting how they're doing, and trying to see who's up and who's down.

Justin DeBerry
Mark Linebaugh
Jave Meade
Andres Rodriguez

First up is Justin DeBerry from LC.

Minutes Per game: 30
PPG: 16.7
Assists: 33 in 7 games, ~4.7/game
Turnovers: 22, Assist/Turnover ratio of exactly 1.5
Three Point %: .355

DeBerry leads his team in points, assists, and is essentially tied for minutes. LC only has one loss thus far, and he's a big reason why.

Mark Linebaugh's squad has not had the same success, but have a couple of strong wins against Buffalo and Cornell. They've also played a stronger schedule than LC, with no D3 teams. Linebaugh's stats look like this:

MPG: 37.7
PPG: 14.9
Assists: 24 in 7 games, ~3.4/game
Turnovers: 14, A/T ratio: 1.7
Three Point %: .350

He's looking decent, and the minutes mean a lot to his squad, but Linebaugh hasn't performed like I thought he would when I picked him as my preseason POY. We'll see if CU turns it up, they've got a real chance in the league this year.

Jave Meade was the consensus preseason POY, but his Holy Cross team has had ups and downs, performing well sometimes, but struggling other times.

MPG: 37.1
PPG: 9
Assists: 31 in 7 games, ~4.4/game
TO: 17, A/T ratio: 1.8
3pt%: .250 (but only 12 taken)

Again, the minutes are there, but the scoring needs to be improved if HC is going to win the league.

Last is Andres Rodriguez from AU. AU has lost three games it really shouldnt have, against Farleigh Dickinson, Elon, and most recently, St. FrancisPA. They're scoring points, but something seems not to be clicking. At 3-5, they have their easiest games behind them, as they go on the road to face Notre Dame and then to the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii, before facing a couple of good opponents at home in 2004 just before league play starts.

MPG: 35.5
PPG: 11.5
Assists: 52 in 8 games, ~6.5/game
TO: 32, A/T ratio: 1.625
3pt%: .304

So, your leaders are:

DeBerry in points, Rodriguez in assists, Meade in assist/turnover, and Linebaugh in..something. Overall, DeBerry looks the best thus far. Rodriguez's assists per game are insane, considering he hasn't had the pleasure of beating up on D3 teams like his peers have.
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  LC is now down 10 with 15 min to go....  @ 8:16 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  D3 Domination

Lafayette is losing to Lycoming at the half. Keep tabs on whether they join Holy Cross in losing to a D3 school:

ESPN.com - NCB - Scoring - Lycoming at Lafayette - December 17, 2003 7:00:00 PM PST  @ 8:15 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Navy gets a win (barely and only sort of)

Poor Don DeVoe. By all accounts, he's a great coach and an excellent mentor to the Navy kids. Now, after narrowly avoiding the Academy's worst start EVER, he's quoted as saying "This game meant everything to us." Maybe it did, but a win over a D3 team, and a lousy one at that, isn't much to be proud of. This is the school David Frigging Robinson went to, and they're holding on for a D3 win. At this point, they're worse than Army, and that says a lot.

Here's the ugly details  @ 2:21 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Fingleton Gone, League Gets Much Shorter

The only McDonald's HS All-American to ever play in the PL, I believe...

************
Telegram and Gazette
Fingleton to end stay at Holy Cross

Will return home to tend to sick family member Fingleton announces decision to leave HC

By Jennifer Toland
T&G STAFF
jtolland@telegram.com


WORCESTER - Neil Fingleton will leave the Holy Cross men's basketball team at the end of this semester and return to his home in Durham, England, for an unspecified amount of time to be with a sick family member.

"I pretty much really need to go home," Fingleton said last night. ""I'd love to be back, but I'm not sure what's going on."

Fingleton will leave following first-semester exams which begin Saturday. The Crusaders play their last game of the semester tonight against Fordham.

"Everyone supports Neil, everybody cares about him," Holy Cross coach Ralph Willard said. ""We hope and pray things work out."

Fingleton said Willard was completely understanding and supportive of his decision.

"He's been great with the whole thing," Fingleton said. ""He understands some things are more important than basketball."

Fingleton, who played at Holy Name High, transferred to Holy Cross from the University of North Carolina in January 2002. He sat out for a year and made his much-anticipated HC debut against UNC-Asheville last Dec. 22. At 7-6, he is the tallest player in Holy Cross history.

Fingleton played in 21 games last year, averaging 2.9 points and 1.6 rebounds. He made a career-high four blocks in a game against Navy.

Willard said before this season that Fingleton had made progress during the offseason and preseason, but injuries have limited his playing time. A shoulder injury sidelined the junior center for a couple of weeks before the season started. He eventually returned to practice, only to suffer an ankle injury. He also had a case of the flu.

He averaged 2.7 points and 2.7 rebounds in three games.

When asked if he thought he would eventually return to Holy Cross, Fingleton said, ""We'll see how things go. I'll speak to my folks."

Fingleton came to the United States, by himself, when he was 16 years old and played for J.P. Ricciardi for three years at Holy Name. A friend of Ricciardi's, Phil Giarusso of Worcester, served as Fingleton's guardian. Fingleton took on almost icon status while at Holy Name and he was a McDonald's All-American.

Holy Cross was one of Fingleton's original suitors when he was coming out of Holy Name, but the legend of Carolina Blue lured him south. Following back surgery in the summer of 2000, he red-shirted his freshman year at UNC. He played in one game for the Tar Heels the following year. It was clear from the beginning that Fingleton, who was recruited by former North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge, did not have a place in the plans of Matt Doherty, who succeeded Guthridge.

Coming back to Worcester, which has really become his adopted hometown, seemed the natural option when Fingleton decided to leave UNC. He developed many close friendships here while in high school, as well as the support of a large group of fans. That backing has continued while he's been at Holy Cross.

"It's a great place," Fingleton said. ""Since I left North Carolina, I've been happy to be around here. Holy Cross has been great to me. Unfortunately, this happened.

"When someone in your family is sick, basketball is the last thing on your mind," Fingleton said. ""So it wasn't a tough decision (to leave), but it was a hard one."  @ 2:28 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Here's the AP story on Lehigh's victory over Columbia: Lehigh 60, Columbia 57

Did I mention Columbia should have hired Kareem Abdul-Jabar? At least they'd lose in style. Lehigh blew a 15 pt. lead in the second half. Columbia's leading scorer, Dragutin Kravic, almost came to AU, but signed with Columbia at the last minute.

I went to the AU game at Howard yesterday-- Burr Gymnasium is pretty nice, has that cool "history" feel one gets going into HC's gym, but with better seating. Curious to see what the new BU arena looks like, I'm going to try to get up there for a game this year.

Howard has a point guard named Louis Ford that makes Glenn Stokes look like a giant-- the kid can't weigh more than 115 soaking wet. But he was nasty. Good matchup against Rodriguez, and the two battled all night. Close game, the kind that I've seen AU drop too many times. They hung on though, and the WashPost wrapup is here. Rodriguez has 19 assists in the last two games.

BU and Colgate are hosting Dickinson and Buffalo, respectively, today. They both ought to win. Navy will probably get its first win of the year this Saturday in Annapolis, as they get to play non DI Gettysburg. Where are they going to get their first DI win? I have no idea. Maybe never.
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  Bettencourt drops 42, Bucknell drops another game

Bucknell is 0-5, and I have no idea why.

Kevin Bettencourt is destroying teams. Defenses are looking just plain dumb. He threw down FORTY TWO yesterday. He hit 11 threes.

Chris McNaughton is huge, and is averageing double digits in only about 20 minutes a game. He's shooting 80%.

But despite their youth movement, their record is the same as Navy's. The Navy team that got beaten by a mediocre U of Central Florida by 30.

Lafayette improved to 4-1 this weekend (beating a D2 team shouldn't count as a win) with a win over the Binghamton Kornheisers. But I'm not sure they're any better than Bucknell at this point.

Holy Cross has lost four straight. They haven't put up more than 59 points against a DI team this year. Ug-Lee.

The Bettencourt performance is here.  @ 7:37 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  WHAT THE EPH IS GOING ON
Holy Cross, your defending Patriot League champs three years running, loss to a DIII school whos mascot is a damn purple cow. The Williams Ephs are D3 champs, but this is just unreasonable.



Can anyone explain this??

More later.





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  HC loses to BC, everyone else wins

Good set of games yesterday. Colgate and LC both won in sqeekers, Colgate with some good post play and LC with defense. LC got the threes they needed.

AU finally got a win, over a 3-1 Radford team with a kid named Whit Holcombe-Faye who is very good. Listening to the Radford broadcast, they seemed confident of an easy win, but then the Eagles started shooting.

At one point, AU was 8-9 from behind the arc, and shooting something around 86%. Quotes from the RU broadcast:
"You just don't know how to describe this to the folks at home"
"This is the perfect half of basketball"
"I've never seen something like this"
"Usually you see one guy get hot, but this entire team can't miss"

AU is certainly not going to shoot 80% the whole season, but when this team is on, they're on.

Army got a win over SUNY-Maritime. Whatever SUNY-Maritime is, I can't tell you. So I'm going to pretend they are an underwater school for sea creatures and congratulate the Black Knights for beating Aquaman and his friends.

HC lost to Boston College. Here's a link to the AP story. BC is just too damn big for them, or anyone else in the league to handle. That said, here's a funny picture:


more here and
here.
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  American Breaks Out

American University is about to drop 100 points on Radford. I know it's not a Big 10 team or anything, but AU has 51 at the half.

The Radford announcers, who did not even mention Andres Rodriguez, are all but about to volunteer to have his manbabies during the halftime show. Listen in. http://www.radford.edu/~wvru/pages/sports.htm  @ 8:09 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Lufkin is back for tonight
...reports the Boston Herald. Regardless, BC by 15.
BostonHerald.com - College Sports: BC looks to Cross out bad memories  @ 3:22 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Big Day in the PL

There are a whole lot of good games today for the PL, all of which should be competitive (a nice change watching us get blown out by major conference schools).

Colgate is at Albany, a young team that ought to lose to the Red Raiders. Look for Howard Blue to get a dozen rebounds easy over the tiny Great Danes. CU by 15.

AU is at Radford, looking for their first win, and they ought to get it. Radford is a good squad, as far as the Big South goes, but AU's tough luck has to stop somewhere...right? AU by 12.

The Pards are at Drexel, a team that beat Colgate in CU's home opener. If LC can hit 4 or more threes, they win, if not, they lose.

Army is playing some high school team or something. Whatever.

The big game of the day is Holy Cross traveling to Boston College. HC knocked off BC last year, and Sader fans can be proud to point out that this may have sent BC to the NIT instead of the NCAA.

BC also lost three players over the summer, including would-be Senior guard Ryan Sidney. So you could be excused for thinking HC might beat BC again.

It's not going to happen. BC has not one, not two, but THREE HUGE MONSTERS waiting in the frontcourt for 7'6"/175 lb Neil Fingleton. First is a sophomore, Craig Smith, who lines up at 6'7"/265, with 20 ppg/8 rpg last year. Then there's Uka Agbai, who checks in at 6-9, 262. Oh, and don't forget 7 foot, 263 lb Nate Doornekamp.

Someone got on me for criticizing Fingleton, since he has only practiced a couple of times this season. The problem is, every time I've seen him (albeit only 5 or so times) he looks like he's only practiced a couple times in his life. Hey BC, want to score on this guy? Run a backscreen and oops, Neil lost his man.

Where HC might have a chance is in the backcourt. They need to shoot a lot of threes tonight. Think about throwing up around 15. Run double screens for KHam.

No one seems to know whether Lufkin is playing tonight, but all signs point to no. If he does, and isn't playing hurt, I see HC keeping it closer, maybe losing by 7 or so if all goes well. If not....

This is not the HC and AU dominated Patriot League of the last couple years. Every team has real vulnerabilities, and whichever team is the best at taking advantage of them will end up in the dance.  @ 1:33 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  THE MAJOR CONFERENCE DRUBBINGS ARE ALMOST OVER  @ 12:11 PM 0 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard

  Leopards Beat La Salle

If LC hits their threes, they're dangerous. The La Salle victory isn't as big a deal as some would like, but it's still a nice notch against an A-10 team (albeit an 0-4 A-10 team without their best player that already lost to three other mid/low-major teams).

Morning Call (Allentown, PA)
November 30, 2003 Sunday SECOND EDITION
SPORTS, Pg. C5

Poised, accurate Lafayette too much for La Salle ;
Hot hands and a big rebounding edge help craft an 82-63 blowout.

By Andre D. Williams Of The Morning Call

The major changes at Lafayette College this season are in defensive toughness, rebounding and depth.

But the one component in the Leopards' game that has not changed is perimeter shooting.

The Leopards are still hot as the desert from the outside, especially seniors Justin DeBerry, Winston Davis and Mike Farrell whose jumpers kept La Salle buried in a double-digit deficit in a non-league matchup Saturday at Kirby Sports Center in Easton.

The three sharpshooters converted a combined 18 of 27 field goals in an 83-63 victory

Overall, the Leopards shot a season-high 61.4 percent -- 27-for-44 -- from the field. They were 11-for-20 on 3-pointers and 18-for-23 from the free-throw line, both areas in which they ranked in the top three in the Patriot League last season.

"All these guys have a lot of experience," said Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon. "They have been in big games before. They are playing with poise. They are playing with confidence. They know how to win, but every game has been different.

"The know our style of play, our system, and they take advantage of it. They know each other very well from playing together so long. The chemistry is there."

Lafayette (2-1) lost to Rutgers of the Big East, 71-65, in its season-opener on the road, then escaped with a 74-71 victory over St. Peter's in their home opener Monday night.

The win over La Salle was the Leopards' best overall effort because it was manufactured with more than the acute shooting of Davis (19 points, nine rebounds), DeBerry (15 points, seven assists) and Farrell (13 points, six rebounds).

The blowout was also the product of a hustling, pesky defense and tenacious crashing of the boards, which the Leopards controlled by a 36-23 margin. That's an encouraging sign for a Leopards team that was outboarded by a 4.2 margin last season, which was second-to-last in the Patriot League.

"We've talked about being able to defend better," O'Hanlon said. "We have early in the season, and I think that we are rebounding the ball better. A lot of it is that we have more options, and they can stay a little fresher." Even though the Leopards turned the ball over 16 times to La Salle's 10, it didn't seem like it. That's because there was never any doubt who the better team was, as Lafayette, led by Davis, DeBerry and Farrell, helped turn the Explorers' first visit to Easton since 1981 into a nightmarish experience.

Farrell set the tone by going 5-for-5 from the field in the first half and 6-for-7 overall. DeBerry was 6-for-10 from the field, Davis 6-for-10.

La Salle, playing without injured guard Gary Neal (18.6 ppg), was a horrific 24-for-62 from the field, which included numerous missed layups and dunks. Against a scorching Leopards team, that type of shooting display seemed to spell sure defeat the moment Lafayette's lead stretched to 61-39 on a Davis 3-pointer with 10:51 remaining.

"When you have a young basketball team, that compounds things," said La Salle coach Billy Hahn, the former University of Maryland assistant in his second season at La Salle. "Young teams sort of rely on how their offense goes. When the shot didn't drop for them, then they don't understand that you have to go down and rebound, play defense.

"I look at Lafayette's team, and you can just see the poise and the confidence of a veteran team, compared to a team like ours. They are very well coached. They are precision-like in their offense.

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  Ridiculous Dickinson Loss
AU lost to Fairleigh Dickinson, a school that is generally comprised of soccer players, petty criminals, and Rutgers rejects. The PL Blog's three scouts at the game say that the refereeing was awful, with A-Rod picking up two quick questionable charges. Regardless, this sucks for your faithful PL Blogger. Here's the article, with a funny part and a sad part bolded.

*****
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
November 30, 2003 Sunday All Editions
SPORTS; Pg. S07
Trent's clutch trey saves day for FDU
GREG MATTURA, STAFF WRITER

HACKENSACK - Tamien Trent is confident, maybe even cocky, and so the junior transfer had no fear of taking the shot that would decide Fairleigh Dickinson's home opener.

Coach Tom Green had no qualms about drawing up a play for Trent to shoot a jumper, even though his backup point guard had missed his previous three crunch-time shots Saturday night against American.

So Trent calmly stepped back behind the three-point line and turned a potential game-tying two-pointer into a game-winning trey with 6.4 seconds remaining to lift FDU to a 55-54 victory at the Rothman Center.

"I knew when it counted, when my team needed me, I would step up," Trent said matter-of-factly. "That's what type of player I am." (Yeah, I see the NBA in the future for this guy - editor)

What Trent is, exactly, is a 6-foot combination guard from Long Island who came to FDU (1-2) after spending last season at Suffolk Community College. His role, as he understands it, is to back up senior point guard Marcus Whitaker.

Trent was on the floor with Whitaker, who made the pass to Trent after his new teammate cut around a double screen set by the two Knights' forwards, sophomore Gordon Klaiber and senior Brandon Edwards. Trent caught the pass on the left wing, took a step back, and swished the jumper.

"He's a gamer. He definitely has a lot of confidence," Green said of Trent, who hit three of five three-pointers and 5-for-11 overall and scored 13 points in 18 minutes. "He's been through a lot of wars in junior college. He earned his scholarship tonight."

Trent, who scored four points in each of the Knights' losses to Nebraska and Morgan State, helped FDU overcome an often queasy offensive performance and avoid the agony of an 0-3 start. The Knights played good defense and survived despite being outrebounded, 44-29, shooting a subpar 38 percent (22-for-58), and missing six of nine free throws.

For the first 25 minutes, FDU treated the burgundy-colored lane as if it were quicksand. The Knights were content to hoist three-pointers - they finished 8-for-24 - and did not consistently attack the paint until the second half.

Klaiber (game-high 14 points, seven rebounds) led a second-half comeback that saw FDU erase a 33-28 deficit. Klaiber scored eight points during a 26-15 run that gave the Knights a 52-48 lead over American (0-3) with just over three minutes left.

During their run, the Knights scored 21 of their 26 points in the paint. Along the way, sophomore guard Chad Timberlake registered the Knights' first fast-break points on a dunk, and Klaiber capped it with a driving banker.

"We had [the lane open] all the time, but we were taking quick shots," Klaiber said. "But Coach told us if we went inside, they didn't have any shot blockers, and we could get some easy shots."
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