An Apple A Day Keeps The Raiders Away

Will the toothpaste jokes ever end? Doubtful.

Wow...just wow. That was my reaction after watching the Bucknell Bison stampede all over us on Thursday. This is just not the same team I watched notch consecutive triumphs over Holy Cross, Navy, and Lafayette not too long ago. Worst of all is what Bucknell did to our beloved Impaler. After not being held to less than 14 points since he began playing in December (including against the likes of Penn State, Florida, and DePaul), Bucknell only allowed Vlad to score a single layup. While many other things went wrong in this game (and oh there were so very many), I'm willing to look past it all. No, I'm not crazy. Today at 2 PM we have an excellent chance to redeem ourselves when we take on the Colgate Raiders in Hamilton, NY. Find out why I'm not fearing for our feathers after the jump!

Alright, so not to beat a dead horse here, but I'd call that Bucknell game our worst showing in the Vlad era, and it would really rank up there with some of the better stinkers before he became eligible to play. I am hoping, HOPING that he comes back with a vengeance unheard of since ancient times against the Raiders, because we all know what he's capable of. The venerable HoopTime recently tweeted the following:

"finally watching BU-AU replay: basically, take Vlad out of the game, AU is the AU we saw in the 1st semester. It really is as simple as that."

I would like to kindly disagree with this assessment. While a hundred different things were going wrong versus Bucknell, I'd hate for that game to have happened in November. For example, I want to point out that I am starting to see Danny Munoz develop into the point guard we've so desperately needed lately. If Vlad had been at his usual production (even with a lowly 14 for him), then we would have likely won the Bucknell game. That's nothing new. However, if Danny didn't step up and contribute a career-high 15, then our loss would have been even more than pitiful. It was very recently we were bragging about a career-high 10 points from Munoz as well, if you remember. What this means for Blake, however, I still don't know. Deep down I desperately still want to see him play again, but as our season draws closer to ending and Danny continues to improve, I feel his chances start to slip away. If he doesn't see the court again this season I have my doubts that he'd stick around for the next, but let us hope that doesn't come to pass.

On a happier note, I am thanking my lucky Clawed that Nick Hendra is back from his surprisingly brief suspension. He definitely showed he's ready to be back with a career-high 19 points on Thursday, and my prediction is this earns him back his starting spot. If both he and Vlad are in the game, they will be making toothpaste of the hapless dentists of Hamilton.

Of course, we will have to contend yet again with the dual attack of Kyle Roemer and Yaw Gyawu, averaging 19 and 15 ppg right now respectively (and a few rebounds apiece as well). We did a decent job locking down Roemer when he came down to Bender, although Gyawu proved to be problematic. For those who might not recall, we took a 73-63 decision over the Raiders on January 17th at home. We know we can beat the Raiders, but beating our own Jekyll/Hyde complex here might be the real challenge. We have a 10-game winning streak right now versus the Raiders, and I'll be damned six ways to Jeff Jones' sock drawer if we break that streak now.

As far as Patriot League record goes, the 3-6 Raiders are actually doing worse than we are, and that's a good sign. Although they did down Lafayette by a single point in their last outing, beforehand they suffered an embarrassing (and sadly familiar) 63-49 loss to Army to open the second half of their Patriot League schedule. While our 4-5 record isn't great, 5-5 would not be so bad, and would keep us in at least 4th place by the end of the weekend. For the love of Clawed I want home court advantage for at least one Patriot League Tournament game, and if we can suppress our - shall we day, darker - side, then I believe we still can do it.

Finally, if any of our readers were with us in Bender on Thursday, did you notice this incredibly tall fellow watching the game from the sideline?


Yup, that's Gheorghe Mureşan, formerly of the Washington Bullets, who still holds the record (albeit tied) for tallest man to ever play in the NBA at 7'7". Others might remember him starring opposite Billy Crystal in 1998's My Giant. Either way, it turns out that he's a huge fan of fellow Romanian Vlad Moldoveanu and came to see him play on his birthday on Thursday. I can only hope that after the game Mr. Mureşan took Vlad aside and gave him an inspirational speech about picking himself up and taking out all of his pent-up rage by absolutely impaling his next hapless opponent by 40+ points.

Before we finish, I feel the need to leave you with more obscure trivia - although he left the NBA, Mureşan still suited up a few years back as a celebrity player for the Maryland Nighthawks of the Premiere Basketball League, because hell, that league allows that sort of thing and they broke a record that night for tallest basketball team to ever play. Why is this significant? Two former Eagles, Derrick Mercer and Travis Lay, now play for this same team, recently renamed the Maryland Greenhawks.

Phew, that's a lot of info to digest before the game. If you want to see our Eagles gut this one out over the Raiders, you can catch it on Patriot League All-Access. Unfortunately due to some scheduling conflicts we will be unable to provide you with a liveblog tomorrow, which I can tell you we deeply regret as they're one of my favorite things we do here at AUHoops. If you don't want to shell out for All-Access (although I do maintain it is a darn good deal), Colgate should have a stat-tracker of some sort running, and ESPN usually updates scores and stats as well at 30 second intervals. I am sure there are, shall we say, "less expensive" video feeds available on the internet as well that I won't officially mention here, but I am sure a faithful reader will post in the comments if someone generous feels so inclined.

Pro Deo Et Patria and GO EAGLES,
Josh