AUHoops Exclusive: Men's Basketball 2010-11 Schedule (PLEASE NOTE DISCLAIMER)

Gooooooood evening AUHoops fans! I'm pleased to bring you what is the EXPECTED schedule for this upcoming season. Some high profile games for sure this year, even more than last year. I'll post the schedule here, let everyone get their comments in for a day or two, and then post my initial thoughts on it in a few days. Please read the following disclaimer:

THESE ARE THE EXPECTED OPPONENTS FOR THE 2010-2011 SEASON. THESE OPPONENTS MAY BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. DATES AND TIMES ARE UNAVAILABLE FOR SOME OF THESE GAMES.

Home Schedule

Randolph-Macon (exhibition).

St. Francis (PA) ( 11/12)

UMES (11/17)

Columbia (11/28)

Florida* At Verizon (12/5)

Brown (1/3)

Lehigh (1/8)

Bucknell (1/12)

Army (1/19)

Lafayette (1/29)

Colgate 2/12

Holy Cross 2/19

Navy 2/23

Away

Albany

Florida Atlantic

Howard

WVU

UMBC

Northwestern

Mt. St Mary

Pitt

Cable Car Classic tourney ( Santa Clara Univ)

Colgate

HC

Navy

Lehigh

Bucknell

Army

Lafayette

Enjoy! What are everyone's thoughts on the schedule?

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

Some Thoughts on the Non-Conference Schedule - Part 2

As promised, here are the rest of my thoughts on the non-conference schedule. Tomorrow I'm going to try to contact Bryce Simon and see if I can get to the bottom of this Mike Technow situation; it turns out he's not on the roster anymore, and I want to know what happened. As always, comment away!

Dec. 1 (Tue) - 7:30p - Howard (@AU) - Howard graduated leading scorer Eugene Myatt, but kept their next two highest scorers. The Bison then added a talented freshman class, including Tyreake Johnson, a 3-star recruit out of New York City, and Dadrian Collins from Rockville, MD. Given that the Eagles only beat the Bison by two last year (65-63, at Bender), we can expect that this will be a challenging match-up for our young team. Hopefully by this point in the season a firm starting five will have materialized; I don't think the lineup by committee approach is going to work for a team that's going to be as deep and experienced as Howard will be this year, no matter what their record last year (an unimpressive 8-23 (6-10) and 8th place finish in the Mid-Eastern Conference).

Dec. 5 (Sat) - TBA - Georgetown (AWAY) - The good news for the Eagles is that the Hoyas lost DaJuan Summers and Jessie Sapp to graduation last year; the two of them lit up the Eagles for 14 points a piece in a 73-49 rout at the Verizon Center. The (very) bad news for the Eagles is that 6'11 250 lb. animal (not in the cute cuddly sense of the drummer from the Muppets) Greg Monroe is returning, along with two of the Hoyas' other top four scorers. As if that weren't enough, the Hoyas have also reloaded with two four-star prospects. After the Hoyas played AU last year, their season quickly spiraled downward in a brutal Big East conference (finishing 7-11 in conference play); the legions of annoying "Hoya Saxa" fans didn't even see their team get to the NCAA Tourney. You can be sure when we meet up with them they'll be wanting to lay the hurt on us for our trip to the Big Dance.

Dec. 16 (Wed) - TBA - DePaul (AWAY) - If only this match-up could have come last season. The Blue Demons were completely outmatched in the Big East last year, as evidenced by their 0-18 conference record (9-24 overall). Still, DePaul wasn't talentless; they pulled off a shock upset of Cincinatti that kept the Bearcats out of the postseason. Would last year's Eagles have given DePaul a run for their money? I like to think so. The odds had to at least be even (according to commenter Elliot). The Blue Demons will be led by senior guard Will Walker and junior big man Mac Koshwal, both of whom averaged double-digits last year. I've got to imagine Koshwal giving the Eagles the same kind of fits that Georgetown's Greg Monroe does; at 6'10 255lb, Koshwal could have his way in the paint. Sophomore Riley Grafft, while 6'10, gives up 65 pounds to Koshwal, and Lumpkins is giving up both two inches and forty pounds. Brutal. (On a sidenote, I just realized that sophomore Mike Technow is no longer on the 2009-10 roster, someone remind me to check out what happened to that guy, as he had both height and a more muscular build than either Grafft or Lumpkins.)

Dec. 19 - 2:00p - UMBC - (@AU) - The Eagles had no problem knocking off the Retrievers last year on their home floor 74-61, and the chances are pretty good that the same could happen this year when the Retrievers wag their way into Bender Arena. After losing top scorers Darryl Proctor and Jay Greene (who accounted for roughly 32 ppg last year), UMBC will be looking for some new leaders to step up. Sophomore guard Chauncey Gilliam at 6'5 230 may be just that scorer. Tall enough to give any of our guards fits, the Eagles will have to find some kind of answer to him to pull out the W.

Dec. 21 (Mon) - 5:00p - Penn State (AWAY) - Any team that pulls out ten wins in the Big Ten most years has legitimate talent. Penn State is no different, finishing 27-11 (10-8) and 4th in the Big East. After beating Illinois twice, Purdue once, and Michigan State once, Penn State marched through the postseason and won the NIT. Especially given that we're headed up to State College, I think our Eagles are going to get their feathers plucked. There's not much else to say about this game, sadly, except that it will be a good experience for our guys to see the well-oiled Nittany Lion machine in action.

Dec. 28 (Mon) - TBA - Florida (AWAY) - Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Billy Donovan's gators won back to back national championships in 2006 and 2007. Even after losing 17.2 ppg guard Nick Calathes, Florida will return its other four starters. Again, this will be a good experience for our young Eagles, but Jeff Jones had better make sure he finds some way to keep their morale up after what seems like an inevitable blowout.

Jan. 2 (Sat) - 1:00p - Brown (AWAY) - The Eagles might've conquered Brown (in a boring ho-hum game during winter break) last year, but the Bears might be able to exact their revenge this year. Returning their three top scorers and a team with a lot of experience, the Bears should be able to improve on their 9-19 (3-11) record. The Eagles' only salvation at this point in the season would be the emergence of a previously unexpected dominant player or a team playing fundamental teamwork-oriented ball.

Jan. 4 (Mon) - 7:00p - Columbia (AWAY) - Hopefully the Eagles will be able to end their non-conference schedule on a high note. Though Columbia had a surprisingly good season last year, they still finished below .500 overall. They lost number two scorer Jason Miller. If nothing else, this should be a competitive battle. Too bad we'll all be watching it on Eagle Vision, if at all.

Annnd I'm out for the night. Hopefully I'll have some news to report for you tomorrow.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

Some Thoughts on the Non-Conference Schedule - Part 1

Eagles fans, today is a beautiful day. To my delusional and basketball-starved mind, today is the first day of AU basketball season. Why? Because that road map to a third consecutive Patriot League title and NCAA Tournament berth was released today: the 2009-10 season schedule. I'm going to take some time and offer some preliminary thoughts and stats on just the non-conference portion of the schedule (in-depth analysis of the Patriot League will follow...when I get a chance to do some more research). Before I look at a game-by-game basis, I have some general thoughts on the non-conference schedule:

- It's ambitious. It's possible Jeff Jones didn't get the memo that he lost all five senior starters to graduation last year. And you know what? I'm okay with that. We've got a real young team coming in (ten out of twelve players are freshmen or sophomores). So what did Coach Jones do? He went out and scheduled not one, but two Big East teams (Georgetown and DePaul), an SEC team that won back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007 (Florida), and a Big 10 team that managed to pull off ten wins in what was arguably the best conference last year (Penn State). That's a signal to this team that Coach Jones fully expects them to be able to compete. He's getting out and getting them great experience early so that our young team will be fully tested by the time conference play opens up. Is it possible our Eagles will have PTSD by the end of non-conference play? Entirely possible. But it'll also be a confidence booster when the team gets to Patriot League play and see that Colgate and Lafayette are nothing like the major conference powerhouses they'll already have played.

- It's home game heavy. Continuing on the trend of things I'm a-okay with, the schedule this year has five more home games this season than last. Granted two of these games are exhibition games against Randolph-Macon and Catholic, but to this blue-chested fan, a chance to stand in section 115 for a few hours is a chance to stand in section 115 for a few hours. This is a move that should help the team (playing at home rarely hurts, after all). Bender Arena has become one of the best (if not the best) home court advantages in the Patriot League in recent years (13-1 last season, 24-5 over the past two season), and the Blue Crew should help keep the Eagles in the game in what will be a number of close non-conference games (Howard, UMBC, Mt. St. Mary's, Fairfield)

- It's going to be a hell of a November. Forget about easing into the season, we'll be hitting the ground running and instantly moving into a sprint. From November 16 to November 28 (12 days) we've got 6 games. For you SISers out there, that averages out to a game every other day. And these aren't gimmes by any stretch of the imagination. Mt. St. Mary's stole our lunch and ate it in front of us last year last November, handing us our only home loss, and Fairfield eked out an eight point victory on their home court. Luckily, interspersed in these games are some definitely winnable match-ups for the Eagles, which leads me to the fourth general point...

- It's important to keep in mind that this year is not last year. Does this year's team have definite talent? Yes (and in an upcoming entry, I'll detail all of it). With more size than past years' teams and a sophomore class that had a whole year to jell together, it is entirely possible we're going to have some surprises early on; we haven't seen a lot out of most of the sophomores (except for Lumpkins, who will have a lot on his shoulders this year). But as of right now, we can't assume that there's a Garrison Carr-esque player who is going to come out right away and be able to nail five threes in two minutes and erase deficits or mental mistakes. Still, there are some definitely winnable games for us, and without further adieu, let's get into it.

Nov. 3 (Tue) - 7:30p - Randolph-Macon (@AU) - Division III Randolph-Macon finished the 2008 season with a 20-6 mark and 14-2 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. While it's hard to call R-M a D3 powerhouse (mostly because the existence of such is really oxymoronic), AU would be foolish to look past this team for its D3 status. The Yellow Jackets are coming in with a similarly young team, sporting only two seniors and two juniors. Not a bad pick-up for the schedule, and much better than the leading-lambs-to-slaughter type drubbing we opened up with last year against Oklahoma.


Nov. 8 (Sun) - 4:30p - Catholic (@AU) - Our neighbors on the Red Line finished 8-6 in the D3 Landmark Conference last year and 18-10 overall. Another young team, the Cardinals only have two seniors and a junior, and I have to give the edge to AU here because of the caliber of teams that Hendra, Luptak, and the sophomores got a glimpse at last year.

Nov. 13 (Fri) - 7:00p - St. Francis (Pa.) (AWAY) - Last year, the Eagles got their first home win of the year against St. Francis (PA) in a 67-46 rout in Bender Arena. The Red Flash, who struggled mightily last season, finished 6-23 (3-15) and 11th in the Northeast Conference. The Eagles shouldn't expect to walk all over the Red Flash again this year, because those same juniors and seniors will no doubt remember the 28 point performance Garrison put up against them last year.

Nov. 16 (Mon) - 7:30p - Albany (N.Y.) (@AU) - The Eagles match up against the Great Danes for their regular season home opener. Albany, who went 15-16 (6-10) and finished 7th in the America East should be an even match-up. The Great Danes return Will Harris, one of their top scorers from a year ago, and it'll be up to Lumpkins to try to contain him in the post.

Nov. 18 (Wed) - 7:30p - Mt. St. Mary's (@AU) - As mentioned above, the Mount really kicked in our teeth last year in our only home loss. The Eagles will really have to dig in deep if they want to reverse their fortunes this year, especially since Mt. St. Mary's returns its top four scorers from a year ago. Not looking forward to this game, folks. I'll bring the peroxide because there's a good chance our guys are going to get beat up.

Nov. 21 (Sat) - 12:00p - Fla. Atlantic (@AU) - Luckily, the Eagles should be able to rebound (in multiple senses) against the Florida Atlantic Owls. After a miserable campaign last season that saw FAU go 6-26 (2-16) and 6th in the Sun Belt East, the Owls might not prove much better this year after only returning one of their top four scorers in Shavar Richardson (11.8 ppg). Still, Mike Jarvis is a coach certainly to be respected, and he might have some tricks up his sleeve for this bird-on-bird battle.

Nov. 23 (Mon) - 7:30p - Fairfield (@AU) - The Fairfield Stags pulled off a victory in Connecticut last year thanks to ice cold three-point shooting in the second half from the Eagles (2-12). After graduating one of their top two scorers, this should be a fairly even match-up between two fairly young teams. It remains to be seen if the Stags will have another scorer step up this season, but this is definitely a game I'll look forward to watching.

Nov. 25 (Wed) - 7:30p - Manhattan (@AU) - The Jaspers (by the way, what the hell is a Jasper?) finished 16-14 (9-9 MAAC), but fell to AU 60-48 on their home court. The Eagles will look to make it two in a row against Manhattan. The Jaspers(??) lost two of their top three scorers to graduation, but they have a young crop of juniors who no doubt will try to step up and take advantage some of that increased playing time.

Nov. 28 (Sat) - 2:00p - Maryland Eastern Shore (AWAY) - Hopefully the team will get to stop at Kent Narrows to get some crab while they're out here. MD - Eastern Shore finished 7-23 (3-13) and placed 11th in a weak Mid-Eastern Conference. Unless something goes horribly wrong here, the Eagles should look forward to some she-crab victory soup after this match-up.

At this point, it's getting late, and this is already a huge entry, so I'm going to call it a night for...tonight and finish up tomorrow. That's when the meat of the non-conference schedule is, and you can bet I'll devote a lot of time to the Florida, Penn State, Georgetown, and DePaul match-ups. For tonight, I hope this hasn't run too long for all of you. Let me know if you have questions, comments, or feedback!

Until tomorrow...

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!