The Flying Dutchmen are the last team to begin play in
#CAAHoops this season, but the seemingly inevitable descent to the bottom of
the standings began in the days before tonight’s opener against Georgia State
at the Arena.
As of last Tuesday, the Dutchmen were in a nine-way tie for
second at 0-0. Then James Madison, Towson and Drexel all won their CAA openers
on Wednesday, which “vaulted” them into a four-way tie for first place and
dropped UNC Wilmington and Georgia State into a tie for last place with Old
Dominion, which fell to James Madison.
This left Hofstra in a four-way tie for fourth place,
through no fault of its own. At least until Thursday, when Northeastern beat
George Mason, at which point the Dutchmen fell into a fifth-place tie with
Delaware. Which had the audacity to go and beat Old Dominion on Saturday, the
same day Towson and Northeastern created a three-way tie for first by beating
Drexel and UNC Wilmington while Georgia State, George Mason, James Madison and
William & Mary all settled into a tie for fourth place at 1-1.
So without even playing a game. Hofstra has fallen six spots
in the standings. This seems to be a somewhat appropriate summation of the
season: The Dutchmen, losers of eight straight, can lose without even playing!
Of course, the flip side is the Dutchmen can be tied for
first place with a win tonight. And usually, I’d be bursting with optimism over
such possibilities. Hell, I actually convinced myself 52 weeks ago tonight that
the Dutchmen were going to beat VCU in the January opener. I think I envisioned
Shemiye McLendon draining a 3-pointer at the buzzer. Well, McLendon is now a
walk-on redshirting at South Florida and VCU is in the Atlantic 10 (and ranked
no. 25 in the coaches’ poll today), so you can see where that optimism got me.
I’d like to say my pessimism is a diabolical plot to change
the Dutchmen’s rotten luck via the time-tested and infallible reverse hex
method. But no, as much as I hate to admit it, the pessimism is legitimate. The
slate is clean tonight, and the philosophy should be a Homer Simpson-ian “It’s
just a little losing streak, it’s still good it’s still good,” but after four
arrests decimated a program that has now suffered eight straight losses
stretching over three federal holidays and 34 bowl games (but not the
Bluebonnet, may it rest in peace), I can’t come up with any reason to convince
myself that tonight isn’t anything other than the beginning of the season’s
second long, meandering stroll to nowhere.
Sure, the depleted Dutchmen can only benefit from being the
last team to open conference play. But they’re tipping off the CAA season
against Georgia State, which handed Hofstra its worst conference loss ever in
the Dutchmen’s most recent CAA game a mere 10 months and five days ago.
And while the Panthers are a far different team than the one
that laid waste to the Dutchmen in Richmond—they have four new starters—they
still play a swarming zone defense that torments undermanned teams and they are
still coached by Ron Hunter, who absolutely owns Hofstra regardless of whose opposing
sideline he strolls.
Hunter-coached teams have played 80 minutes at Hofstra,
dating back to IUPUI’s CBI appearance at the Arena in 2010, and have trailed
for exactly zero seconds. His teams have opened up first half leads of at least
19 points all three times they have faced the Dutchmen and they’ve outscored
Hofstra 218-153 in the three games. So, you know…yeah.
After tonight, the Dutchmen head to Delaware for a game
Wednesday night. Given the short travel distance, Delaware is a perfect
destination for a first conference roadie, especially on short rest. But Newark
was the site where it all began to go wrong on the last season’s first roadie,
when the Dutchmen trailed wire-to-wire and squandered two chances to take the
lead or tie the game in the final seconds of a 67-66 loss. And the Blue Hens
have double-double machine Jamelle Hagins and are one of the handful of league
favorites this year. So, you know…yeah.
The Dutchmen complete the week by hosting William &
Mary, which almost annually occupies a spot in the bottom half of the CAA
standings. But the Fighting Bill Lawrences are also among the handful of league
favorites this year and almost annually torment the Dutchmen, who needed
Charles Jenkins’ magic acts to sweep the regular season series in 2010-11
before losing at Williamsburg last year, 75-71. So, you know…yeah.
Then after that the Dutchmen head on a two-game road trip to
Northeastern and George Mason, two places at which it’s very tough to win for
entirely different reasons. You can see where I’m going here: It’s not tough to
envision a scenario in which I am once again crunching the numbers about teams
that opened CAA play 0-5.
None of the other statistical measurements, historical
trends or “eye tests” bode well for the Dutchmen, either. Hofstra’s RPI is well
into the 300s, an area the program hasn’t seen since I first discovered
Hempstead. The Dutchmen rank last in the CAA in field goal percentage and free
throw percentage. They are also tied for last in defensive points per
possession while ranking ninth in assist-to-turnover ratio and tied for eighth
in defensive field goal percentage.
Since the CAA expanded in 2001-02, only two other teams have
ever entered January with at least 10 non-conference losses, and last year’s
William & Mary and Towson squads didn’t exactly catch fire once the
calendar flipped to the new year.
The Dutchmen are bereft of confidence, having lost eight
straight games in just about every fashion imaginable. One win can change
everything, of course. But each subsequent loss just makes it that much tougher
to get that elusive victory.
I hate being a negative Nelly, I really do. My imaginary
paycheck here pretend pays me to come up with reasons to believe. Plus, I feel
terrible being pessimistic about a group of players and coaches who are working
so hard to try and turn this around.
I want to conjure scenarios in which the Dutchmen take
advantage of a historically weakened CAA, pull off a few upsets and end up in
the middle of the pack with a flickering chance at channeling the 1994 squad by
winning the conference tournament with three victories in as many days in
March.
I want to imagine David Imes and Matt Grogan emerging as the
outside shooters the Dutchmen have lacked. I want to imagine Daquan Brown
playing like a high Division I talent and teaming up with Stephen Nwaukoni and
Moussa Kone to form a very solid inside trio. I want to imagine Taran Buie
becoming the next Dutchmen superstar and Stevie Mejia continuing to handle the
point as adroitly as he has the last handful of games
I want to—hey you know what, this has me feeling better. So
with the opening tap less than three hours away, let’s just say that being in
eighth place before the season starts is as good as it gets this season. You
know, unless it isn’t.
Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com
or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.
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