Smarter than the Average Crusader

As the record-breaking summer heat wears on (at least here in DC), AU Hoops news is starting to pick up a little as well. A few choice pieces for today to help everyone through these barren basketball months.

First on tap is the June 23rd announcement that a Patriot League-high seven men's basketball players were named to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll. This includes Riley Grafft's magna cum laude-range 3.75 GPA and sharpshooter Joe Hill's 3.5 GPA. This tops last year's six Academic Honor Roll selections, which also lead the League, and adds to our grand total of 41 selections since joining the Patriot League in the 2001-2002 season...another League-leading total.

While the fact that roughly half of our team has a GPA that most Division 1 basketball players can only dream about is commendable, and each should be congratulated for representing our school so well both on the court and in the classroom, this is an ample opportunity to yet again...beat Holy Cross. If you take a gander at the comments from my February 17th post, a few unruly Holy Cross fans tried to...uh...downplay...the academic achievements of our players using some woefully outdated data. Well, I hope a quick gander at the League's Academic Honor Roll sets them straight.

As that cool, refreshing news sinks in, check out what recently showed up on the BB&T Classic website:


If my eyes serve me correctly, it looks like the BB&T is going back up to six teams this year in a triple-header (four schools participated in 2008 and 2009). As has been pointed out on this blog before by our excellent readers, we're matched up against the Florida Gators as they creatively fulfill their home-and-home agreement with us, while GW faces Navy and Maryland takes on the Owls of Temple University. Ideally, I'd love to see us knock off a Florida squad that should, by all means, be ranked in the Top 25 before the season even begins. While I stop daydreaming, it's realistic that Navy could pull off an upset over the Colonials (I'll take a GW loss to a Patriot League squad any day), and if Temple maintains even some of the magic from last season, Vasquez-less Maryland might be in for a real fight.

That's all for now. Keep following us this summer as we begin to roll out some of the great new features for AUHoops.com Season 2.

Pro Deo Et Patria,
Josh

AU MBB Team Adds Assistant Coach, Director of Basketball Operations

Per the Athletics website today, the AU Men's Basketball Team has added former Assistant Coach at Brown Lamar Barrett to the bench. This is a good pick-up because Barrett mainly handled recruiting at Brown and, with the loss of Robert Burke to Mt. St. Mary's, the team needed a coach to find future generations of Eagles. It's been widely suggested by the commenters on this blog that Jeff Jones finds little joy in recruiting, so it's good to see that he has found a high quality coach to go out and find some winners.

Replacing Bryce Simon (who, by the way, left his position with no fanfare or farewell from Athletics much to my surprise) as Director of Basketball Operations is Matt Wolff, '09 graduate of Boston University and son of former BU coach Dennis Wolff. Matt, like JJ himself, is a coach's son, and I hope he'll have no trouble filling Bryce's large shoes.

Welcome both of these folks to the AU MBB family.

On the rumor mill side, I've heard from a reliable source that AU will face both WVU and Pitt this season and participate in the Cable Car Classic at Santa Clara University. I'll keep you posted on other nonconference games as I hear about them.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

Stephen Lumpkins Drafted in the 42nd Round of the MLB Draft. No, You're Not Misreading. [UPDATED]

In what is undoubtedly the weirdest piece of news I've heard this week, fan-beloved AU center Stephen Lumpkins has been drafted in the 42nd Round of the MLB Draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

I'll let you take a minute to pick your jaw up off the floor.

Apparently when Lump found out he was eligible to be drafted, he decided to take part of the spring to get his arm back in shape. I imagine he's probably a pretty wicked pitcher. 6'8" with a big frame, he certainly could look the part in a jersey. He's even been playing in some American Legion games this summer.

My immediate reaction was "oh no," but I don't think we have a whole lot to worry about in terms of Lump leaving. He knows he's a cornerstone of this team and I'd be stunned if he left it, or AU, before he gets his degree. If I had to guess, and from what you can read in the article, it sounds like he just thinks it's cool to be able to say he was drafted by an MLB team. I'll try to get some comment from him about this and report back.

On another note, since one of our commenters suggested I should give them a shout-out, it turns out AU now has a club baseball team that played its first season this past spring. They notched a 10-7 record from what I can see, which is certainly respectable for a team in their first year.

That's it for now. Updates as I get them on this bizarre, a little funny, and more than a little awesome story.

UPDATE: According to Associate Athletic Director for Communications, Nancy Yasharoff, Athletics is "really excited about it...we're really excited for him." She indicated that Lumpkins is playing baseball for the Bethesda Big Train, an amateur wooden bat baseball team in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. She indicated that Lump may pitch for a few innings tomorrow night at Povich Field. Yasharoff said that the coaches "absolutely know about" his playing baseball. I, regretfully, neglected to ask her if she knew which way Lumpkins was leaning in terms of continuing with basketball at AU or going the route of baseball. I thought that it was unlikely he would leave the team, so I didn't bother to ask her. Guess I should have. I'd guess it depends on the contract they offer him. Crazy opportunity for Lumpkins, but a potentially devastating loss for AU men's basketball.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

Everyone Loves A Highlight Video

Alright, I know this barely counts as news. However, Athletics just announced that the 2009-2010 MBB highlight video is being released on June 11th.

Who doesn't love highlight videos? They make even poor seasons look great.

A fun auhoops.com prize will go to anyone who can guess what the background music will be in the comments. Have at it!

Finally, to tide you over until the 11th, check out some past Eagles highlights after the jump!