Vlad's Revenge: A Tale of an Unfortunate Yellow Jacket

This is it, folks. Our Eagles are about to take the court again for a lone exhibition game this year. In less than 48 hours, we will tip off against the Yellow Jackets of Randolph-Macon College, a powerful D3 squad that narrowly stole the first collegiate game of approximately half our team last year 49-47.

Oh, victory will be sweet. Yes, I'm calling it already, but we'll get to that in good time. Let's first put some backstory on this exhibition matchup of championship proportions. This time a year ago, only two of our (eligible) players had seen any time on the court in a college game, let alone experience starting. Coach Jones scheduled not one, but two exhibition games to help ready the team for what was destined to be a difficult season. Being the no-holds-barred coach that he is, Jones made sure that even the exhibition games wouldn't be total cakewalks for his fresh squad. No, he chose the R-MC Yellow Jackets of the powerful ODAC, perennially one of the toughest Division 3 opponents in the country.

How tough is tough? Only a year before, they had knocked off another Division 1 team not too far from Tenleytown. In November of 2008, the George Mason Patriots, another young team with big aspirations of repeating the Final Four miracle of recent years, fell 73-72 to the Yellow Jackets on their home court. Sophomore Vlad Moldoveanu played three minutes in this game, contributing two successful free throws to his team's sordid effort. For the other 37 minutes of regulation, he looked on hopelessly from the bench as the Yellow Jackets humiliated a team that was only two years removed from being the greatest mid-major team of all time.

Flash back to Bender Arena this time last year. Determined to not fall into the same youthful trap the Patriots had a year earlier, our beloved Eagles fought hard against a similarly young Yellow Jackets cohort. Despite their top Division 3 rankings, R-MC had a team just as young as ours, playing in a Division 1 arena they had never seen before. Yet our youthful indiscretion proved greater than theirs - despite a game-high 18 points from relative veteran Stephen Lumpkins and 12 from junior Nick Hendra, Hendra's last-second attempt from downtown was grabbed by R-MC's Eric Pugh and taken from coast to coast to steal the victory at the buzzer. This time, recent transfer Vlad Moldoveanu had to spend all 40 minutes staring from the sidelines as the Division 3 upstarts took yet another victory from his team. Surely, if he had been on the court, the outcome would have been different this time.

Now it's November 2010, and the Yellow Jackets are making the journey to Washington yet again to test their mettle against the Eagles. This time, neither team is loaded with new blood, both returning a full roster of hardened veterans with a chip on their shoulder. That's right, both the Yellow Jackets and Eagles return all five starters. Clearly, with their reputation as a veritable giant killer, the Yellow Jackets have enough reason to trek to the nation's capital, but what's our motivation for this epic rematch? Simple: Revenge. Revenge for last year's narrow loss, revenge for our honor, even revenge for the Patriots. Most of all, however, this is Vlad's Revenge. For the first time in three years, Vlad will see victory over Randolph-Macon, and the legion of fans filling Sections 114 and 115, clad in blue, will celebrate this momentous occasion with him.

I warn everyone, it will not be easy. Sporting News has awarded the Yellow Jackets with a third place pre-season ranking in all of Division 3, while D3Hoops.com has them pegged at second. Clearly, we will be playing the cream of the D3 crop (or, in other words, beating up the biggest kid on the playground). Like us, they return all five starters, including senior Guard Eric Pugh, whose last-second layup from across the court doomed our inaugural effort last year. 6'8", 240 lb. senior Center Billy Campion will try to lock down our frontcourt in the post, while Danny Jones, Brandon Baxton, Jordan Brown, and Pugh all bring a scoring attack that averaged more than 10 ppg apiece last year. All these players enjoyed a trip to the Division 3 Final Four last year which capped off a 26-7 record. This won't be the Yellow Jackets' first outing this season either - last night they posted a commanding 101-25 victory over the Hawksbury Jets from Australia.

Of course, we're not the team we were a year ago either. Through a season that can only be described as brutal (if you can think of any other way to describe an 0-7 start capped off by a win over a Big East team, let me know), everyone who saw play time last year against the Yellow Jackets is much more comfortable on the hardwood now. Lumpkins put up 18 points over R-MC last year, without the help of Vlad to give him more space under the basket. Nick contributed another 12 from the wing, without the addition of versatile and athletic Troy Brewer to draw away defenders. Moreover, we'll have a number of options at the point that have had at least seven starts each in the past year. My prediction is that Jones gives the starting nod to Steve Luptak, as from what I've heard he's made great strides to improve for his senior year.

Therefore here's my predicted starting five: Steve Luptak, Nick Hendra, Troy Brewer, Vlad Moldoveanu, Stephen Lumpkins.

I'd like to see the "mighty" Yellow Jackets conquer that. I've been referring to this game for weeks as "Sweet, Sweet Revenge Day" for a reason. Sure, its an exhibition, and the final outcome doesn't matter one bit toward our final record this season. This is bigger than statistics, though. This is about honor. This is about pride. This is about IMPALEMENT!

I hope you will be able to join me in Bender Arena this Thursday at 7:30 PM. Cover yourself in Blue, never sit down, and help make sure that the Yellow Jackets don't three-peat against Division 1. If you can't make it to Bender, I'll be live-tweeting the game, so make sure to follow us at @AUHoops. In the days to come, we'll also have a smorgasboard of content here on the blog as we finish our Patriot League Preview series, recap everything that happened this summer, and gear up for American Madness, Coach Jones' Chalk Talk, the inaugural faculty-staff classic, and finally the regular season in only 10 days. Phew, that's what I call a heady start to our second season!

BE THERE, BE LOUD, BE BLUE...but most of all BEAT RANDOLPH-MACON!

PRO DEO ET PATRIA AND GO EAGLES!
Josh