Thursday, January 04, 2007
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE IT'S A SEQUEL
Hi there. Did you miss me? I missed you. Let's never fight again.
The real PL season is about to start, and these are exciting times. I thought I'd weigh in with a few thoughts.
For all the talk about how the league is improving, the top of the league is as bad as it has been in a long time. The top teams from the last 5 years would destroy the competition in this year's version of the league. With AU playing Jekyll and Hyde, HC looking like a M*A*S*H unit, and Bucknell dropping games to West Arkansas Tech, the bottom teams in the league gotta feel like they have a chance here, especially because...
The bottom of the league is better than it used to be. Army is not embarassing and Navy continues to be respectable. There aren't even any teams in the 300s as far as RPI rankings go. Whoever voted for Army in the Mid Major 25 poll is smoking angeldust, but the Plebes should be good for at least 4-5 league wins this year.
AU is an interesting squad this year. There are times where they look the best they've ever looked, and there are times when they are completely unwatchable. Here are the reasons I like AU's chances this year, from a completely biased standpoint:
1) They are the deepest team in the league. No freshmen at all on the team. The minutes that Jeff Jones gave the current group of sophomores last year are paying off. AU's legit post players go six deep: Billbe, Paul Jones, Nichols, Guibunda, Travis Lay, and Brian Gilmore. It's true that none of those guys has been totally consistent so far, but each of them has had great games. JJ had Lay and Nichols in the post together for much of the run that allowed AU to come back from 18 down against SFPA. Arvydas Eitutavicius comes off the bench for 20 minutes a game, and can shoot the lights out when he's on.
2) Andre Ingram looks like the 2005 model instead of the 2006 one. His point totals are getting back to where they ought to be, he is the team's leading rebounder, and he's looking for his shots again.
3) Garrison Carr has yet to score consistently. Some may take this as a bad sign, but I'm of the belief that shooting is a skill and it's not something that just disappears. Carr will light it up eventually, and probably win AU a game somewhere when he does.
4) Brayden Billbe has been playing great, particularly when he's visibly angry. When SFPA's JR Enright (who, in a move that screams trash, has the letters JR tattooed on his arm) started pushing, grabbing and talking trash to Billbe during the 2nd half Tuesday night, Billbe responded by hitting a bucket, forcing a foul, and then forcing a turnover by Enright, who promptly went to the bench. It was a great sequence to watch. JJ ought to consider punching Billbe in the mouth before each game, just to get him nice and pissed off.
Now, the negatives:
1) This team is a bunch of girls sometimes. In the 5-6 games I've seen them, AU has made maybe two hard fouls. They also have a tendency to get knocked on their ass a lot. Some of this may have to do with the old cliche of the soft European player (except in the case of Linas Lekavicius who probably spends his spare time like Happy Gilmore, taking baseballs to the chest in the batting cages). Whatever it is, there is a certain killer instinct that is lacking. Someone on AU needs to be mean, dirty, whatever you want to call it. I don't care who it is. I want to see someone on this team knock an opponent on their ass, and look like they actually mean business.
2) AU has yet to play consistently for 40 minutes, and Tuesday's game was a microcosm of that. They refused to cover anyone beyond the 3 point line for the first 15 minutes or so, and they paid the price. Then they came out in the second half and were playing defense like Finland circa 1940.
PREDICTIONS: IF I GET ANY WRONG, I'M SURE YOU'LL LET ME KNOW
- Holy Cross will win the regular season, if they can field a 5 man team for most of the games.
- I picked AU in the PL tournament pool at the office.
- Navy wins a tourney game.
- Lafayette wins no more than 2 games the rest of the season.
- Lehigh finishes over .500 in league play.
- Global warming causes a lack of snow and panic in Hamilton, NY, as melting snow reveals dozens of corpses around the Colgate campus. @ 11:45 AM 4 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard
Hi there. Did you miss me? I missed you. Let's never fight again.
The real PL season is about to start, and these are exciting times. I thought I'd weigh in with a few thoughts.
For all the talk about how the league is improving, the top of the league is as bad as it has been in a long time. The top teams from the last 5 years would destroy the competition in this year's version of the league. With AU playing Jekyll and Hyde, HC looking like a M*A*S*H unit, and Bucknell dropping games to West Arkansas Tech, the bottom teams in the league gotta feel like they have a chance here, especially because...
The bottom of the league is better than it used to be. Army is not embarassing and Navy continues to be respectable. There aren't even any teams in the 300s as far as RPI rankings go. Whoever voted for Army in the Mid Major 25 poll is smoking angeldust, but the Plebes should be good for at least 4-5 league wins this year.
AU is an interesting squad this year. There are times where they look the best they've ever looked, and there are times when they are completely unwatchable. Here are the reasons I like AU's chances this year, from a completely biased standpoint:
1) They are the deepest team in the league. No freshmen at all on the team. The minutes that Jeff Jones gave the current group of sophomores last year are paying off. AU's legit post players go six deep: Billbe, Paul Jones, Nichols, Guibunda, Travis Lay, and Brian Gilmore. It's true that none of those guys has been totally consistent so far, but each of them has had great games. JJ had Lay and Nichols in the post together for much of the run that allowed AU to come back from 18 down against SFPA. Arvydas Eitutavicius comes off the bench for 20 minutes a game, and can shoot the lights out when he's on.
2) Andre Ingram looks like the 2005 model instead of the 2006 one. His point totals are getting back to where they ought to be, he is the team's leading rebounder, and he's looking for his shots again.
3) Garrison Carr has yet to score consistently. Some may take this as a bad sign, but I'm of the belief that shooting is a skill and it's not something that just disappears. Carr will light it up eventually, and probably win AU a game somewhere when he does.
4) Brayden Billbe has been playing great, particularly when he's visibly angry. When SFPA's JR Enright (who, in a move that screams trash, has the letters JR tattooed on his arm) started pushing, grabbing and talking trash to Billbe during the 2nd half Tuesday night, Billbe responded by hitting a bucket, forcing a foul, and then forcing a turnover by Enright, who promptly went to the bench. It was a great sequence to watch. JJ ought to consider punching Billbe in the mouth before each game, just to get him nice and pissed off.
Now, the negatives:
1) This team is a bunch of girls sometimes. In the 5-6 games I've seen them, AU has made maybe two hard fouls. They also have a tendency to get knocked on their ass a lot. Some of this may have to do with the old cliche of the soft European player (except in the case of Linas Lekavicius who probably spends his spare time like Happy Gilmore, taking baseballs to the chest in the batting cages). Whatever it is, there is a certain killer instinct that is lacking. Someone on AU needs to be mean, dirty, whatever you want to call it. I don't care who it is. I want to see someone on this team knock an opponent on their ass, and look like they actually mean business.
2) AU has yet to play consistently for 40 minutes, and Tuesday's game was a microcosm of that. They refused to cover anyone beyond the 3 point line for the first 15 minutes or so, and they paid the price. Then they came out in the second half and were playing defense like Finland circa 1940.
PREDICTIONS: IF I GET ANY WRONG, I'M SURE YOU'LL LET ME KNOW
- Holy Cross will win the regular season, if they can field a 5 man team for most of the games.
- I picked AU in the PL tournament pool at the office.
- Navy wins a tourney game.
- Lafayette wins no more than 2 games the rest of the season.
- Lehigh finishes over .500 in league play.
- Global warming causes a lack of snow and panic in Hamilton, NY, as melting snow reveals dozens of corpses around the Colgate campus. @ 11:45 AM 4 HC Alums are angry about this post | Bitch about it on the PL hoops messageboard
