They're messin' with the wrong Bird...

Well, Eagles fans, it happened. The Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets got the best of our young team. There’s nothing left to do than trudge on to the…next exhibition game! That’s right, the college basketball gods have graced us with a second glorified practice to get in shape before the regular season starts! We certainly need it, since the only thing uglier than the College of the Holy Cross is our ball handling last Tuesday. I can only imagine what Coach Jones might have been saying (read: shouting emphatically with lots of cussing) in the locker room to our guys post-game. It certainly couldn’t have been pretty.

Our opposition this Sunday will be the Catholic University of America Cardinals. Yes, that same school down on the other end of the Red Line. They are members of the Division 3 Landmark Conference, and indeed they will be flapping their little red wings across town to Bender Arena…and limping back out again after. We have a bone to pick with Division 3, and fortunately this time our competition is a little less nationally ranked. This isn’t to say CUA isn’t a decent D3 team, they did win the D3 national championship about eight years ago.

That was almost a decade ago, though, and this year’s Cardinal squad isn’t quite so deadly. Beyond sophomore Jason Banzhaf, who was named by D3hoops.com (apparently Division 3’s only real basketball authority) as a D3 All-American and All-Region player, there shouldn’t be too much to worry about come Sunday. See the lovely graphic above for reference. Unfortunately I have little data on how the Cardinals fared last season, as CUA hasn’t deigned to post last season’s schedule up on their website yet. 2007-08 was a decent year for them, but that just won’t be good enough. It takes a truly top-notch D3 team to take down our Eagles, and that’s what R-MC was (and I need not remind you the game was CLOSE). Catholic just doesn’t have that. Alright, on to the (pseudo-)analysis…

Here’s what we need to do:

• Tighten up the ball handling. Seriously, this cannot be emphasized enough. We can’t drop the ball, completely turn our backs to hoop while an opponent’s driving right under it, or take bonehead three-point attempts with thirty seconds left in the second half when it’s all tied up.

• Be confident. We can’t be afraid to take shots. We’re going to have a serious height advantage between Lumpkins and Grafft (who are looking to be a lovely frontcourt duo, I might add). I swear there was a guy on RM-C’s team that made Derrick Mercer look gigantic. D3 players just don’t have the height.

• DE-FENSE DE-FENSE DE-FENSE. This wasn’t really a problem last Tuesday. In fact, it might have been the only thing we really had going for us. We set up a good screen and generally made it difficult for them to shoot…while we were actually by the net. Let’s limit turnovers and play on our terms. If we can do this we can keep their scoring low.
  

• Be there. This one’s entirely on the fans – I know this is still the pre-season, but it’s really the team’s last chance to truly figure out what works before the real challenges begin. There’s some true promise in this team, and this is your opportunity to see it shine early on. Please come out, and please cheer LOUD. Catholic might actually be able to muster up a few folks to come down due to their proximity, and for the love of whatever deity you choose I do not want to see more red than BLUE in those stands. Of course if you’re reading this, you’re probably unscrewing the cap to your bottle of blue paint already, so I’m likely just preaching to the choir here (Catholic joke, get it?).

Finally, a correction from my last entry, a neat factoid, and some thanks:

• As one astute commenter pointed out, I failed to mention Frank Borden as I briefly waxed nostalgic about last year’s superhero squad. Frank was a consistent starter and an absolutely indispensible member of the team. His defense of the net was crucial to our success, and we’re going to have a great post about what he’s up to these days coming very soon. Hint: he’s still playing basketball, and his Spanish is probably a lot better than it was last year. Here’s a great screenshot of the love ESPN.com had for Frank for about 15 minutes right after last year’s tournament game against Villanova. Sadly, once ESPN realized 'Nova actually won they replaced this picture with a more prominent image of a Wildcat player. Lame, ESPN, really lame…

• I feel a bit bad for Vlad. When R-MC downed George Mason in an exhibition last year, he was on that team. He’s now seen them take down his Division 1 team two years in a row. Poor guy. He did look rather dapper during last week’s game, though. Can’t wait until he’s in a lovely BLUE uniform instead.

• Recently Bill took the opportunity to thank you, our readers, for helping us to reach a milestone of 92 unique visitors in one day. This past week, however, we’ve averaged 100 visitors a day and set a new record with ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY EIGHT unique readers this past Wednesday! AU Basketball Central was loaded over 300 times as well. We celebrated by purchasing our own domain name, so welcome to the constantly improving auhoops.com!

I will see you all this Sunday, November 8^th, at 4:30 PM in Bender Arena! Be LOUD, be BLUE, GO EAGLES!

Pro deo et patria,
Josh

Fruits of the Summer

Writing for a reputable blog is always a privilege, particularly here at American University Basketball Central (or AU Hoops Blog for short). For too long we have been without a reliable source of fan coverage for our beloved AU Eagles Basketball. My name is Josh, a proud member of the greatest, loudest, bluest, and bare-chestedest** fan group in the Patriot League, and I will be joining Bill in making sure that the Birds of Bender have a share of cyberspace equal to or even greater than that of the hardwood.

While in recent days we have been eagerly looking forward to November, taking a look back at some summer developments might also help us see where we’re headed this season. More than anything, and contrary to what the press releases on AUEagles.com would have us believe, the summer was marked by a series of departures, however tempered with formidable additions.

As we recently discovered, Mike Technow transferred to the Division II University of South Carolina – Aiken. While something can be said about the athletic department’s failure to inform us of his departure, we wish him the best, as he will surely be a standout player for the USC-A Pacers. The incoming freshman class notwithstanding (who will certainly be analyzed in great detail in the near future on this blog), the athletic department did find it prudent to point out a key addition to the team – Troy Brewer. Troy transferred from the Georgia Bulldogs of the SEC, (likely with similar intentions as Technow) and like fellow transfer Vlad Moldoveanu who will start this January, will certainly be a force when he becomes eligible to play in the 2010-2011 season. Until then, I’m sure he’ll add quite a bit of challenge to practice with two full seasons of experience at UGA under his belt.

This trickle of players down the college basketball hierarchy doesn’t even come close to the strangest swap of the summer, however. In another departure left unannounced by our athletic department (where transparency is like football), assistant coach Michael Brennan left to take an assistant coaching position with our cross-town nemesis, the Georgetown Hoyas. Who vacated the spot he took? None other than OUR new assistant coach Robert Burke. Yes, folks, we did just trade coaches with the Hoyas. I do believe we came out on top of this strange move, however, as Burke was the last original assistant to come in with Georgetown head coach John Thompson III. He’s been a recruiting force for Georgetown, bringing in some of their best players of the last five years. So why would a fellow of his caliber move from the Big East to the Patriot League? Despite academic success that puts even Georgetown to shame, truth be told the Patriot League won’t be dominating NCAA basketball any time soon in the manner of the Big East. This leaves one probable scenario: Burke is after Coach Jones’ job. After back-to-back tournament runs and a 24-8 season, as well as a history with UVA, it would be presumptuous to assume that Coach Jones hasn’t had his own fair share of offers from relatively big-time teams. Whether this is just premature rumor mongering or obvious foresight remains to be seen – more on this in a future investigative piece right here on American University Basketball Central.

Finally, I want to touch upon the newest, and likely most attractive new member of the Eagle’s squad this season. Alright, he’s not entirely new, but certainly looking a whole lot better than before. I am referring to none other than the redesigned Clawed Z. Eagle costume that debuted at the Bender Blue Out women’s volleyball game this past weekend. As Bill mentioned, the Associated Press took a stab two seasons ago at our proud eagle mascot, calling him “shopworn.” While that might have been a little much, it is clear that athletics decided to invest a little more in this iteration of our beloved mascot, and I think really hit the mark. Here’s a visual comparison of the new Clawed with his last two versions:



Frankly they hit the nail on the head. The leftmost Clawed looks very mascot-esque, but he looks very sad about something and for Pete’s sake they couldn’t even get the “AU” symbol right. The more recent version certainly looked more like an Eagle, but was rather scrawny and even a bit hairy – some might even say cuddly. Well this time they nailed both aspects quite well. Clawed looks buff and intimidating and not sad or like an awkward chicken. The marks and logos are spot on (take a look at his shoes when you get the chance), and he certainly had a real spring in his step as he was dancing among the crowd and on the court. During our next tournament run I hope the Associated Press takes notice. I know our unfortunate adversaries certainly will.

Go Eagles!

** “Bare-chestedest”: Superlative referring to the most bare-chested fan in attendance at an AU Eagles Basketball game. “Those guys from track team are the bare-chestedest Eagles here!”