Tonight, on an all new OOC


The out of conference schedule is all but over after tonight. Sure, there's still that tough Juaniata College game tomorrow for Colgate, but for the most part, from this point on, all but the winner of the tournament will only face Patriot League foes. It's a good time to take a look at the state of the league as a whole, as well as how each team fared in what is essentially the preseason for a one-bid league.

The Ivy League: A non-scholarship Patriot League

There was both good and bad news this year in the out of conference schedule.

First, the good news: We owned the Ivy league. From AU beating Yale to Lafayette downing Princeton, the PL was 13-6 against the Ivies this year. Sure, there are wins against the Columbias and Harvards of the world, but there were also the aforementioned victories against the top teams in the league. Lafayette did lose to Penn by 20, but beating Princeton was quite a feat for them. All in all, it always feels good to beat Ivy league teams.

A youth movement is also springing in the league—another good note. American and Bucknell’s leading scorers are Freshmen, and every other team in the league has good reason to look forward to the future. Army and Navy have good young talent, which may be their fans’ only reason to keep showing up to games.

Bucknell and AU nearly knocked off big conference foes, but no team seemed to be able to get that boost that we’ve seen the past two years, as AU beat FSU and HC beat BC. In their first game of the season, Bucknell gave Michigan State quite a scare, and AU nearly toppled the Fighting Irish over winter break. Neither could close out with a victory.

That brings us to the bad news. This conference is not very good this year. Lafayette is the favorite thus far, but only because they have seniors that know how to win games they need to win. Nearly everyone else lost games they should not have lost to schools like Elon, Mount St. Marys, and Williams College. You wouldn’t know that some of these schools existed, if not for their pounding of PL talent.

In sum, the league is weaker than it has been in the past, but it could be a lot worse. We could be the Ivy league. (this ends the Ivy league bashing portion of our program)

American: "Knock the MF'er on his ass, make them call a real foul"
AU has had a rollercoaster OOC schedule, partly because they were the only PL team that didn't schedule in a D3 team to beat up on. While it might have been fun for AU to beat on Galludet or Catholic, I'm not sure how that can be considered getting a team ready for conference play. Instead, AU played some of the better mid-major competition out there, like Delware, Niagara, ETSU and Yale. Not big names by any stretch, but they got some good wins in there. The problem is there were also bad losses.

Record: 6-8

Best Win: vs. East Tennessee State in scenic Hawaii-- the 2nd toughest team they played, according to the RPI.

Worst loss: at St Francis PA, a team whose only other wins came against VMI and Bucknell, two teams with one win between them.

Good News: Andres Rodriguez, Jernavis Draughn, and Andre Ingram are all playing well. A-Rod is 6th in the nation in assists, consistently dishing out 9 or so a game lately. Draughn has two double-doubles. Ingram is providing the scoring that was needed with the departure of Miles and Stokes.

Bad News: They haven't been playing well on a consistent basis. For instance, in the 2nd half of this week's loss to Niagara, Rodriguez kept throwing the ball away, Draughn kept making stupid fouls, and Ingram couldnt hit a shot. Hence, they blew an 11 point halftime lead, and the chance to go .500 in OOC play.

Outlook: At least 2nd place. They were much more inconsistent and confused as the year began, but at this point I'm seeing effective offensive and defensive sets I've never seen before from these guys. At the start of the season, their offense seemed to be "Andres, you drive, and then hopefully someone will be open." Now, there are wide open shots left and right. Ingram is improving rapidly and is often the #1 scoring option.

Army: Suck all that you can Suck
Army did better than I expected – by that I mean they won one DI game and then got beat by everyone and their mother. Army is ranked at 325 in the RPI rankings. There are 326 teams in DI.

Record: 1-9

Best win: Hmm.. let’s see… we’ll say their only win against Columbia.

Worst Loss: A 24 point drubbing by the Citadel. Rough.

Good news: They will probably beat Navy at least once this year. Also, there was no media flareup about a public rift between Jim Crews and Bobby Knight like there was with Steve Alford.

Bad news: The only team statistically worse than them is Loyola-Maryland, a team that my grandmother is considering walking onto.

Outlook: Might get 3, maybe 4 conference wins, then fade into the sunset.



Bucknell: Better than we look

What a disappointing start to the season for BU. They start the season off by nearly knocking of then #4 (or #3?) MSU, then proceed to lose all but one of their out of conference games against DI opponents. The one game they won was against Norfolk St., a team Rebecca’s School for the Blind took into OT. (this ends the crappy jokes portion of our program)

Record: 1-8

Best win: Norfolk St. (see, I told you the crappy jokes were over)

Worst Loss: Today against Robert Morris, a tobacco company/college (okay, I still have some up my sleeve)

Good News: Sophomore Kevin Bettencourt is awesome, as evidenced by his league leading 17.3 ppg. Chris McNaughton, their 6’ 11” Freshman from the Sudentenland is getting better by the minute and is probably the 2nd best freshman in the league, and may be the league’s best big man in a couple of years.

Bad News: Everyone else is mediocre.

Outlook: these guys could end up knocking off one of the top 3 seeds come tournament time, but the regular season is going to be a grind. Should compete well next year.



Colgate: Linebaugh vexes me

Colgate is a confusing team at this point, and I’m not sure what to expect out of them. They’ve won games they should have against teams like Albany and Harvard, but then there are 22 point losses to Loyola Marymount and Buffalo that make you wonder how good they really are. Their victories are over teams that ain’t that great, but hey, they put W’s on the board.

Record: 5-5

Best win: OT vs. Cornell. A (sort of) local rival that CU ought to beat on all the time now that they are essentially a scholarship school.

Worst Loss: 63-101 to Syracuse. Just because it’s mean and embarrassing of SU. All of CU’s other losses come to teams that they could have beaten, but that aren’t all that great.

Good News: Three players averaging double figures, and good contributions from the underclassmen. Even Dan Gentile, third-team all Bergen County (and amateur web page designer--nice page Dan, but you spelled "you're" and "brief" wrong), is putting in 7 minutes a game.

Bad News: Mark Linebaugh, who your intrepid PL blogger picked as preseason player of the year, is shooting a lousy 32%. CU is also averaging attendance in the low 300s at home. Yikes.

Outlook: Colgate will go at least .500 in conference play, probably ending up in 3rd or 4th place.

Holy Cross: What the hell is going on around here

Holy Cross nearly beat teams they shouldn't, but had a few terrible losses against teams like Williams, a D3 school knicknamed the "Ephs" whose mascot is a damn purple cow. With AU's loss to Niagara, this means PL teams have now lost to Purple Cows and Purple Eagles, the first time a league has lost to two teams whose mascot is "purple" since the early 1920s.

Record: 6-6

Best win: Boston University. Hooray for beating your local rivals.

Worst loss: Marist in MSG. Marist is not as good as you think they are. Seriously, look at their schedule. Same is true of Bowling Green, AU beating them wasn't such a big deal.

Good news: John Hurley has done well as a starter, to the point where Neil Fingleton is rarely playing. Kevin Hamilton has come on strong as well, although you'd like to see him develop a game outside the 3-pt shot.

Bad news: Lufkin, Meade, and Fingleton, purported to be the leaders of the team this year, are averaging 18 points a game combined. Meade is certainly no longer the favorite for POY.

Outlook: They won the league the last three seasons. Counting them out isn't only stupid, it's silly. They'll get better, but they better do it in a hurry, as they have an away game at Colgate and a home one against Lafayette that will be pretty telling. If they split, they'll be okay. If they win both, they'll be on track for another good year. If they lose both...

Lafayette: Bane of the Ivy League

Lafayette went 3-1 against the Ivy league in OOC play, including wins over Cornell and Princeton, two top half teams in that league. They also beat Drexel and LaSalle. Princeton was certainly their "big time" win. However, they seemed to screech to a halt at the end of their schedule, with 20+ point losses in 3 of 4 games, against USC, Cal St. Northridge, and Penn. So how good are they?

Record: 9-4

Best win: at Princeton. Take that Bill Bradley!

Worst loss: at Penn. Should have kept it at least under 20.

Good news: They have a good group of seniors in a league that has very few. They also have a lot of depth, with what looks to me like a 10-11 man rotation (does anyone know if the numbers are decieving me?).

Bad news: That same core of seniors finished 6th in the league last year.

Outlook: Top three, but I have a feeling this is a team that could fall off. We'll be able to tell when they play at HC next week.

Navy: Annapolis is still a nice town

You've heard me bitch about Navy in the past. They're lousy. David Hooper is good some nights. They might not be lousy in a couple years. But for now, they're a bottom feeder, and will only play the spoiler this year, if they win any games at all.

Record: 1-10

Best win: Loyola MD, their only one

Worst loss: Navy lost last night 99-52 against Eastern Michigan, perhaps the worst team in the entire state of Michigan.

Good news: um.. they'll be better next year?

Bad news: Alumni will never let them go to DII.

Outlook: Poor. Very poor.


Predictions

Here's how I see this thing shaking out, if I had to put money on it:

1. Lafayette
2. AU
3. HC
4. CU
5. BU
6. Lehigh
7. USMA
8. USNA

Now, if I was making the predictions based on my Miss Cleo-type abilities, I think it'll be like this:

1. AU
2. CU
3. HC
4. BU
5. Lehigh
6. Lafayette
7. USMA
8. USNA


I'll finish this with the best quote of the PL teleconference from today: "We don't do anything really well right now" - Jim Crews 1-8-04

Yikes.  @ 12:40 PM