Young players could take a lesson from Kent Bazemore

Kent Bazemore is someone young basketball players could stand to learn from. The Old Dominion guard’s career is almost over, as his team has been eliminated from the CAA Tournament but postseason play should be in his team’s future. As that comes about, looking at his evolution as a player is a nice exercise, as it’s been enjoyable to watch him go from a player who needed to redshirt as a freshman to one of the conference’s best players.

Bazemore knew he needed to redshirt when he first got to Norfolk. He needed to get stronger and develop his offensive game, and it was a new world to him as he came from Kelford, N.C., a small town well to the northeast of Raleigh. As a freshman, he showed promise, and got more minutes as a sophomore. By then, he had established some versatility, as the Monarchs felt they could play him at any of the perimeter positions with some minutes at the point in a pinch. Still, on what had been veteran teams, he wasn’t putting up eye-popping numbers or being thought of as an all-CAA player, although his defense got noticed as he was selected to the conference’s All-Defensive team.

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Bruiser Flint won’t be stressing out the next few days

RICHMOND, Va. – In theory, the next six days should be quite stressful for Drexel and head coach Bruiser Flint. After losing in the Colonial Athletic Association championship game on Monday night, the Dragons must wait to find out which tournament they will be playing in. As the regular season champions of the CAA, they are guaranteed a bid to the NIT, but naturally hope the NCAA Tournament comes calling. Flint doesn’t seem stressed at all about it, however, and his experience is a key factor in that.

Drexel was in a similar position in 2007. The big difference is in the NCAA Tournament profiles of the two teams, as the one in 2007 was better than this one. A look at the numbers doesn’t help Drexel: their strength of schedule entering Monday was 259, and their non-conference SOS is 228. Their best non-conference win is probably their win over Princeton at home, and the Tigers will finish third in the Ivy League.

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VCU grows into CAA champions

RICHMOND, Va. – VCU won’t have any questions about whether or not they belong in the NCAA Tournament this season. Capturing the Colonial Athletic Association championship with a 59-56 win over Drexel leaves no doubt, and it’s also an indication of how the team has grown over the course of the season.

“We started this season 3-3, we weren’t playing terrific basketball, we weren’t considered an NCAA Tournament-caliber team in November,” reflected head coach Shaka Smart.

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Drexel on the verge of putting some questions behind them

RICHMOND, Va. – In recent years, Drexel hasn’t had a great deal of success in the CAA Tournament. It’s led to Bruiser Flint being asked about it, and he’s responded almost like it’s a running joke to keep it light, as he tends to do. But now he has a team that is on the verge of doing more than just putting those questions behind them, as the Dragons knocked off two-time defending champion Old Dominion on Sunday to reach the championship game.

Asked about it last year, Bruiser found a light way to deal with it. He’s a pro at that, which is part of what makes him a great interview, but it’s understandable that he’d rather not answer such questions because the premise is flawed no matter the coach. Many surely remember when it was said that one coach after another, whether it be Jim Calhoun or Roy Williams, couldn’t win “the big one”, as if they weren’t validated until they got a Final Four or national title.

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Northeastern has promise next season, but clear room for improvement

RICHMOND, Va. – You can only survive so many turnovers for so long, unless you’re playing out-of-this-world defense as well or shooting the lights out when you don’t give the ball away. Northeastern did neither of those on Saturday night, and as a result the Huskies are headed home after an interesting season.

Northeastern managed to hang in early on despite VCU out-playing them. The Rams forced 11 turnovers in the first half, a number of them coming in the early minutes, but they never got a big lead. The Huskies were able to tie it at 26 at halftime thanks to holding the Rams below 40 percent from the field while they shot over 47 percent. VCU also turned the 11 turnovers into just nine points, so the giveaways weren’t hurting the Huskies yet.

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Monte Ross is getting the job done at Delaware

RICHMOND, Va. – It’s time to recognize the job that Monte Ross has done at Delaware. That might seem like an odd idea coming off an 88-74 loss to Old Dominion in the semifinals of the CAA Tournament, but as the Blue Hens wait the next week to see if they will get another chance to play this season, stepping back to see how they got here is a worthwhile exercise.

A lot of Ross’ tenure at the school has not been pretty, and there have been fits and starts along the way. His first season must have seemed endless; the Blue Hens went 5-26 with a number of injuries and disciplinary actions that had to be taken, the latter as Ross had to lay down the law. They reached double-digit wins the next two years, then stepped back to just seven wins the following season. That was difficult, and things looked a little iffy at the point.

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Despite the quarterfinal loss, the tournament is a positive ending for UNCW

RICHMOND, Va. – UNCW valiantly battled on Saturday against Drexel, but it wasn’t enough. With their best player picking up two early fouls, they actually had a lead in the first half, but that didn’t last and an early second-half run did them in en route to a 59-47 loss to end the season. With the season over, however, there’s a look toward a brighter future that was helped by this weekend.

UNCW had some challenging stretches this season that they had to manage through. They started the season with five straight losses, then had losing streaks of three, four and six games once the calendar rolled over into 2012. The last one led into the CAA Tournament, where they knocked off James Madison on Friday to get to Saturday’s game.

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James Madison fights the injury bug together and to the end

RICHMOND, Va. – Perhaps it’s amazing that James Madison had any fight in the first place on Friday. A team torn apart by injuries, the Dukes started off Friday’s first round game well, but once they got behind it seemed like their will was taken away from them. Given what they’ve been through this season, it’s hard to blame them as their season ended with a 70-59 loss to UNCW in the first round of the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament.

“This season hasn’t been the season that we wanted,” senior guard Humpty Hitchens said in what was surely an understatement.

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2012 CAA Tournament – First Round Notes

RICHMOND, Va. – The first round of the CAA Tournament is in the books.  The seeds held to form save for the first game of the day, although Towson had a chance to change that before Delaware was able to hold them off.  William & Mary also made a charge at Northeastern, but to no avail, and the best team performance of the day came in the last game as Georgia State dominated Hofstra, playing like a team on a mission as head coach Ron Hunter described after the game.

Here are some quick hitters on what happened Friday:

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Quinn McDowell will be missed, and not just by William & Mary

RICHMOND, Va. – Quinn McDowell didn’t want this to end. It’s only natural for any competitor to not want a career to end, but McDowell isn’t just any athlete. And as he was asked about his college career coming to an end, as happened Friday night, he fought back the tears and was at a loss for words.

“It’s difficult to believe it’s over,” said the senior, pausing at times. “In terms of wins and losses, my career has not gone exactly as I envisioned it, especially this season. As I told the guys, there’s not a group of guys that I would rather have gone through this year with, and that’s what’s made the last four years special.”

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Quick Hitters – March 2, 2012

Quick hitters as we move toward the first weekend of Championship Week:

• New Hampshire will head into the America East Tournament playing about as well as any team outside of the top three in the conference, and if you’re looking for a dark horse it’s probably the Wildcats. They went 6-2 in February and finished fifth, and they have won at Boston University and at home against Vermont. They didn’t break through against Stony Brook, however, and the Seawolves likely await them if they knock off Albany in the quarterfinals. … Continue Reading

2012 CAA Postseason Awards: One Man’s Vote

The Colonial Athletic Association will hand out postseason awards on Thursday night, the eve of the conference tournament. The awards are voted on by the conference’s head coaches, SIDs and media members. As I am one of the voters, sharing how I voted is one way to look back on the regular season. This time around, the voting was tougher than last year in most categories, which mirrors the preseason when there wasn’t as much established talent returning as last year. Plenty of players emerged over the course of the season, but none of the votes were easy and the biggest one of them all was probably the toughest one since I first became a voter back in 2006.

With that in mind, here is a look at how I voted and the thought process behind each vote. Note that on all of the teams, the players are listed in alphabetical order by last name.

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Connecticut is searching for something, and running out of time

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Connecticut looks like a team that is searching for some things. The Huskies are missing something – leadership, toughness, perhaps something else – and that was even more clear after Tuesday night’s 72-70 loss at Providence, where they led by as many as 14 in the second half before allowing the Friars to win the game simply by wanting it more.

The Huskies don’t have head coach Jim Calhoun right now as he recovers from back surgery, and they didn’t have him for three games earlier this season. But one wonders how much of a difference he might make with this team. He has been with the team enough that a temporary absence shouldn’t have a major effect. With the Huskies now being guaranteed to finish with a losing record in Big East play, a team that much was expected of is in an unthinkable position.

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Kyle Casey deserves a better ending

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – If there’s any justice in this world, Kyle Casey will have a better ending.

Many will look back at Harvard’s heart-breaking 55-54 loss to Penn and see Casey as a goat. He got the ball from an inbounds pass in the final seconds, but was called for a charging foul and had a basket waived off as a result. The basket would have put Harvard ahead with 3.5 seconds left. A win would have clinched a tie for the Ivy League title and put the Crimson at a point where very little could keep them from the coveted NCAA Tournament bid.

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Rosen carries Penn to a big road win

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The band stayed around after the game, and why not? They had traveled all the way up from Philadelphia and just saw their team win a big game on the road with first place, and really, the season, on the line. When Zack Rosen walked out and down the stairs from the locker room, he got a hero’s welcome from them, more so than head coach Jerome Allen and other players.

And who can blame them? Rosen had just willed Penn to a 55-54 win at Harvard that kept the Crimson from clinching a tie for the Ivy League title and kept Penn in control of their own destiny.

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Harvard’s path to the elusive NCAA Tournament bid just got tougher

Harvard is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning. Many of the brightest young people grow up dreaming of attending the school, unless you’re like me and dreamed of going to MIT (or Cal Tech) because of engineering. The university has produced a number of high achievers in just about every field imaginable.

On the hardwood, it’s been a different story. Harvard has had seasons of 20 or more wins, and they’ve been to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament and NIT the past two seasons. But they have yet to get to the holy grail of college basketball, the NCAA Tournament. That has eluded them, including last year when they went to a one-game playoff against Princeton and lost on a buzzer-beating jumper in New Haven. And after Saturday night, they might be on a path to such a game once more, as Penn came to Lavietes Pavilion and stunned Harvard 55-54 on Senior Night.

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Boston University enters conference tournament with good defense

BOSTON – Boston University will enter the America East Tournament as something of a dark horse. For a couple of weeks, it’s been a given that the Terriers will be locked into the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament as Vermont and Stony Brook battled for the top seed. One thing that will be good for the Terriers is that they will enter the tournament with their defense in a good place, as evidenced by their 64-55 win over Hartford on Saturday afternoon.

The Terriers have made their mark on defense for years, and this team has been no different. On Saturday, they needed it at times, as they turned the ball over 20 times in part from committing a number of charging fouls. Hartford cashed in the turnovers for 24 points, and that helped keep them in the game. Offense comes and goes for most teams, but with this team it appears to do so a little more than with others, which just adds to the importance of their play at the defensive end.

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Relief: Harvard gets past Princeton in the big game

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – This was no ordinary game for Harvard. This was a game against a challenger to their lead in the Ivy League, even if it was a team that sits two games back in the loss column and thus needs help. More importantly, it was against the team that has been a thorn in their side of late, and that includes this season as their only league loss came less than two weeks earlier on the road against this team. It was against the team whose heart-breaking defeat of them led to a constant mention of a simple number all season: 2.8.

And when Harvard walked off the court with a hard-fought 67-64 win over Princeton, the feelings about this one were not like the feelings after any other win.

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Wagner already becoming a winner under Danny Hurley

SMITHFIELD, R.I. – It hasn’t taken Danny Hurley long to bring Wagner back into prominence. In just his second season, he has the Seahawks entering the final game before the Northeast Conference Tournament with a 24-4 record overall and a 15-2 record in conference play. They battled back from an early struggle to knock off Bryant by a score of 86-73 on Thursday night, and did so with some help from a key area of strength for this team.

Wagner has just two seniors in the rotation and starts three sophomores, so this isn’t the most experienced team around. Kenneth Ortiz, the primary point guard, is one of those sophomores. They can go about ten deep, including freshmen Mario Moody and Marcus Burton, so this is a team that clearly has a high ceiling. On Thursday night, the depth was a big reason they won, as the starters struggled for some of the first half as Bryant built up an 11-point lead at one point.

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First turnovers, then subpar defense spell defeat for George Mason

BOSTON – A lot of things have gone well for George Mason this season. It’s been a pretty good one, as the Patriots have led or been right there in the race for the top of the Colonial Athletic Association most of the season. But one thing that hasn’t gone well at times is turnovers, and along with a subpar defensive effort they cost the Patriots a game and a shot at the top seed in the conference tournament in Wednesday night’s 85-82 loss at Northeastern.

With Drexel beating James Madison on Wednesday night, George Mason needed to win to still have a shot at the top seed in the CAA Tournament. Drexel knocked off the Patriots in their only meeting this season, so they hold a tiebreaker should the teams be tied at the end of the regular season. With the loss, the Patriots will be playing for the No. 2 seed on Saturday at VCU, as the Rams won on Wednesday night to even the records.

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