Gooooood evening AU Hoops fans! I hope you're all incredibly excited for our match-up with the Lehigh Hill Pigeons in Bender Arena tomorrow afternoon at 2pm! We'll be there liveblogging courtside for you in what could very well be a semi-final or PL championship match-up later in the season. Josh will be giving you the preview of this game later, so I wanted to examine the other PL teams and how they fared overall through non-conference play. I've also got some tidbits about AU that'll I'll throw in at the end!
Army Black Knights
Record to-date: 8-7
RPI: 251
Best Win: Brown (RPI 208)
Worst Loss: Dartmouth (RPI 238)
KenPom Rank: 251
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 7-7
Army had a pretty surprising nonconference season even with its cupcake scheduled (they played no one in the top 150 of the RPI). Still, this is a team that was supposed to be pretty abhorrent this year, and Julian Simmons (7th in the country in percentage of shots taken for his team) is leading a pretty balanced team. Army's signature the past few seasons has been a tremendous defense and a miserable offense. The offense is improved this year and has proven itself able to put together strings of 3-point baskets. This will be a tenacious team in PL play. Very athletic, and with enough talent to be very dangerous.
Bucknell Large Slow Land Mammals
Record to-date: 9-7
RPI: 89
Best Win: Toss-up between beating LaSalle and Richmond
Worst Loss: St. Francis (RPI 317)
KenPom Rank: 116
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 11-3
Going into PL play, I think Bucknell has to be the favorite. I know, I know, I blaspheme. The truth is that they play consistently, they play smart basketball, and they have a lot of talent. They don't have more talent than AU, but they come out with a fire in their bellies and ready to play more often than we do. Mike Muscala, G.W. Boon, Bryson Johnson, and Darryl Shazier are a fearsome foursome that has really bought into Dave Paulsen's calls for "relentless consistency." If AU doesn't have its head screwed on the right way when we play the Bison, we'll be in for a long, long day.
Colgate Insert-Ridiculing-Name-for-Raiders
Record to-date:1-12
RPI: 330
Best Win:Well, their only win is Longwood, RPI 324
Worst Loss: According to RPI it would be losing to St. Francis, but I'd say losing by 52 to Duke or 57 to Syracuse was more brutal.
KenPom Rank: 337
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 2-12
There's no real way around it. Colgate is one of the worst teams in Division I basketball. Emmett Davis's club is just not very good. Yaw Gyawu, Nick Pascale, and Mitch Rolls were supposed to be a three-headed monster this year, but the only thing monstrous is the calamity of this season.
College of the Holy Head Coach Revolving Door
Record to-date:1-13
RPI: 319
Best Win:Well, their only win is Marist, RPI 304
Worst Loss: According to RPI it would be losing to Wake Forest, but Wake is still an ACC team, so let's go with New Hampshire (RPI 248)
KenPom Rank: 248
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 7-7
You all know there's no love lost between AU and Holy Cross, but even I can't help but feel a little bad for them. At some point, even my tremendous capacity for schadenfreude becomes exhausted. This is a really talented HC squad that has had terrible back-to-back seasons. This is a club that should be competing but for whatever reason they are not. Andrew Keister is a tremendous big man, Mike Cavataio is extremely athletic. Devin Brown has really made a big stride this year and is the Crusaders' leading scorer at 13.7. He just went off for 33 against Yale in their last game (a 1 point loss to Yale). Many folks over at CROSSPORTS are agitating for Coach Milan Brown to be fired, along with the Athletic Director. You've got to give Milan Brown some time to get his own kids into the program and establish his system, but wow, it's ugly right now. Holy Cross really has issues finishing out close games. They've played a pretty tough non-conference schedule, so maybe when they get into PL play that will help them out, but right now this is a team with serious issues on multiple levels.
Lafayette LOLCats
Record to-date: 5-10
RPI: 258
Best Win: Sacred Heart (RPI 257)
Worst Loss: Long Island (RPI 217)
KenPom Rank: 262
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 6-8
Lafayette is going to be annoying in the Patriot League. They're not really very good, but they're not so terrible that you can be confident that you'll get a double-digit win. Either be good or be bad, LOLCats, knock it off with the mediocrity. Jared Mintz is very talented in the paint and he's complemented by Ryan Willen and Jim Mower. They return all the key pieces of a team that made the PL Championship last year, and while their nonconference play hasn't been inspired, they're still dangerous.
Lehigh Hill Pigeons
Record to-date: 9-6
RPI: 165
Best Win: Wagner (RPI 86)
Worst Loss: Fordham (RPI 202)
KenPom Rank: 205
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 9-5
As expected, the Hill Pigeons are led by CJ McCollum, last year's PL PoY and RoY and certainly a candidate for the former again this year. CJ is sixth in the country in terms of percentage of shots taken on his team (he takes 36% of the team). He's supported by Gabe Knutson, Michael Ojo, and freshman Mackey McKnight. This is a team with a lot of talent but not a ton of size outside of Knutson, which is something AU will have to try to take advantage of.
Navy Midshipmen
Record to-date: 5-11
RPI: 324
Best Win: Towson (RPI 224)
Worst Loss: Seattle (RPI 306)
KenPom Rank: 292
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 5-9
Navy for a long time has been the opposite of Army. They score like crazy and are hideously bad on defense. Army has become a more balanced team, but Navy remains ugly on defense. Jordan Sugars has become the inevitable main threat at Navy this year, coming in a long line of guards like Kaleo Kino and Chris Harris, among others. They also feature RoY frontrunner Jordan Avila. Unless they learn to play better defense, the Midshipmen will have to hope they can shoot lights out against all of their PL foes. Seems unlikely.
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY EAGLES!
Record to-date: 10-5
RPI:100
Best Win: Florida Atlantic (RPI 95)
Worst Loss: Columbia (RPI 198)
KenPom Rank: 160
KenPom Projected Patriot League Record: 10-4
Did you know that Vlad, nationally, is ranked third in terms of percentage of shots taken for his team? Crazy. The PL has 3 of the top 10 players in that category. Should tell you something about how the PL teams are designed. The PL is AU's to win or lose as far as I'm concerned. We have far and away the most talent in the PL, but if we come out and play half-heartedly we won't be making a run in the tournament. This team has been prone to lapses of focus, concentration, and effort this season. I think they know how talented they are and just expect it to come to them in games. They need to find some of that competitive spirit where they bite, claw, and fight for every single opportunity to win. If they can get a fire lit underneath of them, we'll be cutting down the nets in Bender come March.
Thoughts on the other PL teams? Leave them in the comments!
Fair analysis of Bucknell, although I would add two points:
ReplyDelete1. Bryan Cohen is one of BU's three best and most important players - ahead of Boon and Johnson. He is the league's best defender - can effectively guard twos, threes, and fours - and is leading the league in 3-pt pct. Also second on the team in assists and third in rebounds.
2. BU has been very dependent on the three. They have shot an unsustainable 46% during their winning streak, and will have to improve in some other areas to win the league.
A few other comments:
ReplyDelete1. Colgate - their 3-headed monster was supposed to be Gyawu, 2G Mike Venezia - who led them in scoring two years ago - and 6'11" center John Brandenburg, the transfer from Virginia who was rated in the top 75 in the nation coming out of H.S. Brandenburg started ahead of Pascale the first seven games, but has not played well, to say the least. Venezia unfortunately has missed most of the season to date with a sprained knee, although he may be back soon and would make Colgate a lot tougher.
2. Holy Cross - you didn't mention that HC has been missing three starters: Keister (achilles tendonitis), RJ Evans (sports hernia), and Phil Beans. If they ever get healthy, they could be dangerous.
3. Lafayette does NOT return all the pieces from last year. They graduated two of their top five players, guards Jeff Kari and Michael Gruner, and they clearly miss them for their leadership, ballhandling, and ability to make threes.
4. Navy will have to play a lot better or the ROY may well be either Mackey McNight or BU's Cameron Ayers - who are both at least as good as Avila and play for better teams.
5. AU may have more talent than Bucknell, but it is definitely not "far and away". AU's biggest edge is not talent but the fact that they have a lot more experience - with Bucknell starting three sophs and a junior, with two of their four main subs including another soph and two frosh.
Damn Bison, picking me apart.
ReplyDeleteAll of your comments are well-taken though. Thanks for the addendums to my article!