Open Practice and Coach Jones' First "Chalk Talk": A Musical* of Epic Proportions

*This is not actually a musical

Our Eagles tipped off this week with a veritable smorgasbord of new events, which helped to feed my insatiable hunger for AU basketball. First on the docket was the first open practice I've ever been to in my time as an Eagle, followed by Coach Jones' first official "Chalk Talk." As you can tell by the title, it was not actually a musical, but it was not your average song and dance either. See what I did there? I know you come here for the great puns. No, you come here for the basketball? Well fine, let's get to that right after the jump.

No Guts. No Glory, No Victory, No Niceties in the GOOD, the BAD, or the UGLY

I just. You know. As hard as it's been on the team I'm sure to lose all these games...10? 11? 12? How many is it? It's kind of hard to keep writing all of these recaps. I think this video adequately sums up how I feel about the season thus far....

The Great Battle of the Jones (aka Spank That Lion, Jeff!)

The Great Battles of the Jones? What? Have I finally lost it? Well...yes and no. Yes, because I am crazy enough to predict our first winning streak of the season. No, because this is actually a battle between two coaches named Jones. How will our Eagles down the Lions? How will the announcers tell the coaches apart? Will one actually spank the other? Find out the answer to these questions, and oh so many more, after the jump!

The Fact That I'm Writing This Based Off of the Liveblog, the Recap, and the Box Score Could Make It GOOD, BAD, and/or UGLY

Gooooooooooooooood evening AU Eagles fans! I hope you're all well-rested and ready to go for another fun time here with the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY. This game certainly had elements of all three. I have to come clean, I was working my way through a plate of kung pao chicken with my dad and sister while the game was going on, but I tried to do my homework and get a picture of exactly what happened against the Florida Gators. I'd like a little help with this one (though admittedly, I've already had some). If you feel I missed something or got something wrong, please let me have it in the comments. Sometimes I need a little help from my friends, or at least anonymous blog community members who post insightful things that I don't think of but then agree with. Anyway: box score, recap, and off we go!

When your team SHOCKS a Big East team (even a middling one) and your star transfer lives up to the hype, there's much GOOD, but not much BAD or UGLY

Goooooooooooood morning AU Eagles fans! What a marvelous day to be a fan, no? Sure, sure, you all want me to say that every day is a beautiful day to be an AU Eagles fan. Well, it's just not true. Some days are merely pretty, other days simply gorgeous. Today, my friends, is the latter. In case you couldn't tell from the previous post (which, if that's the case, reading comprehension primer, STAT), our AU Eagles beat the DePaul Blue Demons last night 62-57 in a game that included 17 lead changes and 8 tie scores. A back and forth battle, to be sure! Here's the coverage for the game, and then we'll get into the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY!

AUEagles recap, AU Eagles box score, WeAreDePaul.com's recap (please note the title!)

Marvelous. Alright, off we go for the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY!

Speculation Tuesday - Vlad the Impaler Edition

Speculation Tuesday this week centers around Vlad "the Impaler" Moldoveanu. All season we've been hedging our bets saying that "this team will be a lot better when Vlad comes on." I don't disagree with that, in fact, if you look at the number of close games we've had, AU might be 4-5 or 5-4 if Vlad had been in the lineup from the beginning of the season. (Is it possible that we would've been better than 5-4 or worse than 4-5? Sure, is it realistic? I don't think so.)

So the speculation centers around what kind of player Vlad will be for us. With the purported level of inside-outside game that Vlad has, he could be the complement to Mike Bersch that our Eagles need on the perimeter. He also is probably a more natural swing man than Riley Grafft on the perimeter, which will leave Riley to play closer to the elbow where his jumper will be most effective.

My sincere hope is that Vlad will be this year's Brian Gilmore. Everyone should know by now the respect that is blog has/had for Gilmore as a player. An outside threat with the ability to pound the ball inside. Makes smart decisions, plays solid defense, and, perhaps most importantly, the vocal leader of the team. I don't see a leader on the court right now to be honest; Hendra comes close, but he's been in a funk for a lot of the season. I hope Vlad will step on the court and be the vocal leader to fire up the rest of the team. Will he be? We'll find out next week against DePaul.

What are all of your thoughts re: Vlad?

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

EAGLES WIN! EAGLES WIN! Speculation Tuesday and GOOD, BAD, and UGLY All in One? WHY NOT!? WE WON!

Gooooooooooood evening AU Hoops fans! We won! We won! We got a win! We were victorious! Ah, savor it. Having something other than a zero in the win column. Marvelous. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TEAM!

Ah, effusive joy and happiness concluded, it's time to get back to reality-ville. We won, but it was against an 0-7 team. And it was a very close game, 59-53. There is a lot to talk about in the good column tonight, but there's also some in the bad and ugly. We've also got a piece of news that will come at the end of this entry, and I'll do a very, very quick Speculation Tuesday at the end that will leave you with some questions to think about.

Alright here we goooooo with what should be a pretty long entry!

When you lose to a team you flat-out should've beaten, I can search for GOOD but can find plenty of BAD and UGLY

Ugh. Good evening AUHoops.com fans! Thanks to all of you who came out and participated in our liveblog today. For those of you haven't heard. We lost. Again. For the seventh time in a row. Unlike the past couple of losses, this is a game we should've won, and, well, we didn't. Let me give a disclaimer here, I'm going to write up this Good, Bad, and Ugly based on the box score, the recaps I read, and the comments in the liveblog. If I don't get it entirely correct, I apologize in advance, but I think I'll probably do a pretty good job. (Good enough for government work, as they say). Here's the recap and box score.

Anyway, let's get on with it, painful as it may be.

When you come back from a 14-1 deficit to make a game of it but still lose, you could say there's elements of GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Goooooood evening AUHoops.com followers, fans, and general hangers-on. Hope you all had a good night and a safe day of traveling for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Me? Oh, no, my traveling is not completed. Josh and I were both in Bender Arena tonight. Why? Because we're slaves to the blogosphere, that's why. I hope you appreciate the personal sacrifices we make for you. Meh, actually, it's okay if you don't, I'm going to go to the games and report on them anyway.

So, tonight. I predicted 84-70. Per usual, I showed that I am not good at things. The final score was Manhattan (Jaspers, what in the Great Wall of Lumpkins is a jasper? Is it like Casper the friendly ghost's mid-major basketball team cousin?) 69, AU 62. I was actually pretty pleased with our performance overall. What's that you say? You mean if I'm so pleased then why don't I shut up and just write a "Good" column instead of a "Good, Bad, and Ugly" column? Because this isn't rec soccer, there are winners and losers (even though tonight we're all losers, losers of six straight actually). You don't just get a trophy that says, "Good job." You get (maybe, if you're lucky) a designation as Good, Bad, or Ugly from a blogger with less skill in his whole body than Lumpkins has in his left knee.

So join me on this magical trip to Good, Bad, and Ugly land. It'll be an extra-long edition because I'm feeling generous! Yippee!

When you play 10 really good minutes and 30 minutes full of putrescence, there's some GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Well goooooooood afternoon AUHoops fans. If you were at the game today, I imagine you're probably trying to forget what you saw. But, like a deranged psychiatrist, I'm going to dredge up all those painful memories, make you confront them, and give you no closure about it! How do you like them apples?

The long story short is that we lost this game 81-69. We were down 16 at half, down 23 at one point in the second half, and we managed to claw back to within four. Ultimately though, the wheels came off and we're now sitting at 0-4 for the season.

Let me be honest, if I had had to write this entry at halftime, it would have looked like this:
GOOD - Matt Wilson, BAD - Mike Jarvis's career trajectory, UGLY - everything else about AU. Luckily, I didn't have to write it at halftime. Unluckily, I had to watch the second half.

Third Time's The Charm

It's preview time again here at AU Basketball Central, as our Eagles fly onto the hardwood of Bender Arena yet again tomorrow (Saturday) at noon. For those of you who stopped by last time to check out Bill's Mt. St. Mary's preview, I apologize for the Sylvester Stallone joke. I clearly would not condone such a reference in one of my own previews, unless it involved some sort of incredible Rocky/Rambo hybrid meant to symbolize Stephen Lumpkins' intimidating game-face. But I digress...

So here we are, three games into a five game homestand. The first two didn't go quite as planned, but there's a spring of endless optimism here at AU Basketball Central, and we drink from it every night just to stay sane. So as they say, third time's the charm! Let's see what we're up against tomorrow after the jump.

The....Florida Atlantic University Owls! Owls, you say? Owls?! Unless our mascot suddenly becomes the field mouse, I don't see these owls having any sort of real advantage tomorrow. Plus, owls are pretty far down on the "badass bird" scale, so we win there too. Could this mean we'll record our first win of the season? Why, I believe it could!

When a freshman birthday boy plays his heart out but the team still loses, there's a little bit of GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Gooooood evening AU fans. Josh wanted me to title this entry, "Again." I really thought about titling it "Again!?" But ultimately, you got what you're seeing. Fresh from Bender Arena, another evening, another loss. This is one, quite frankly, that I thought we would drop. This is what I wrote on August 10:

"Nov. 18 (Wed) - 7:30p - Mt. St. Mary's (@AU) - As mentioned above, the Mount really kicked in our teeth last year in our only home loss. The Eagles will really have to dig in deep if they want to reverse their fortunes this year, especially since Mt. St. Mary's returns its top four scorers from a year ago. Not looking forward to this game, folks. I'll bring the peroxide because there's a good chance our guys are going to get beat up."

Woo, I'm not awful at predicting things. We lost the game 73-62, and my prediction before the game on Twitter was that if we could keep it to under 10 points in a loss it'd be a moral win. I'll take 11 points, though, because I'm not good at math. In any event, plenty to talk about tonight, so let's get to the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY...

Will Jeff Jones tone down the profanity? Should the Blue Crew be the Red Crew? Is it Speculation Tuesday? Only one question can be answered YES

Why do I speculate on Tuesdays? It could be because I first had the idea to do a weekly post full of speculations on a Tuesday, or it could be because our site traffic needs a boost on Tuesday. But why hasn't there been a Speculation Tuesday entry since the first one like three weeks ago? It could be because I'm forgetful or easily distracted by shiny objects. Or it could be because the blue paint I use on myself isn't quite as non-toxic as it says it is on the label.

In any event, I'll be trying to make this a more regular feature on the site. Have things you want me to speculate about? Send them to auhoopsblog@gmail.com! I'll do my best to provide you some kind of answer, but of course it would just be pure speculation. Just like the rest of these...

When I'm Particularly Annoyed About a Loss, It Is GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

No time for niceties tonight. Here's the long and the short of it: we blew the game in the second half again. For those of you who weren't there or haven't heard, we lost to the Albany Great Danes tonight 51-50. Just like at St. Francis, the wheels came off the whole operation in the second half, and we blew a halftime lead. At this point I've got to think that conditioning is playing a part in this; we're just gassed by about the 10 minute mark in the second half. Some of that is that we've got a young team with players whose bodies don't have the benefit of 2-3 years with collegiate trainers and training regimens.

Before I get into this, nice to see play out of Mike Bersch tonight. The good news is, he got his first collegiate bucket. The bad news is, he went 0-3 from behind the arc.

Ugh what a bitter loss. Still incredulous that we lost this game. Still, there were some highlights, which brings me to...

According to Yahoo/Rivals Everyone Can Win the Patriot League Except AU!

Yahoo/Rivals issued their first team reports for the Patriot League today. AU's can be found here, and it's got some interesting tidbits in it...

The report doesn't mince words, saying that "it’s extremely unlikely the Eagles will make a third consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament." Well isn't that cute.

Obviously they've been getting their research skillz from this blog because they made sure to point out that the team is going to lean heavily on Hendra and Lumpkins. Well, obviously. What I do find a little curious is that they describe Lumpkins as "electric." I don't really know how I feel about that categorization. There isn't a whole lot of flash to his game. In fact, the reason he got so much play last year is probably because he's a pretty fundamentally sound player who hustles a lot and played maturely for a freshman. There's no, as Dick Vitale would say, razzle-dazzle, Shake n'Bake, or YEAAAAAAAAAAH BABY to his game. Whatever, it's one word, Bill, stop making such a huge flipping deal about it.

(I INTERRUPT THIS BLOG ENTRY FOR A RANDOM DOSE OF NAPOLEON DYNAMITE QUOTERY BROUGHT ON BY THE WORD "flipping")

Napoleon: Stay home and eat all the freakin' chips, Kip!

Kip: Napoleon, don't be jealous 'cause I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to become a cage fighter.

Napoleon: Since when, Kip? You have the worst reflexes of all time.

Kip: Try and hit me, Napoleon.

Napoleon: What?

Kip: I said come down here and see what happens if you try and hit me.

Napoleon: [comes down the stairs] Such an idiot...!

[After Napoleon tries and fails to hit Kip a few times, the doorbell rings]

Napoleon: I'll get it. [Slaps Kip in the face while he's not looking]

Kip: Geeeez!

(END NAPOLEON DYNAMITE CUT-IN)

Sorry about that. Anyway.

Conspicuously absent from Yahoo's team report are any mention of Steve Luptak, Matt Wilson, or any of the sophomores other than Lumpkins. I find that to be strange because the article notes that Coach Jones is "now turning to a batch of young players and those unfamiliar with the system," except that he has a bench full of people with a year or more of experience under his system. Strange.

Yahoo also managed to project the starting line-up:
G Nick Hendra, G Josh Snodrass, G Daniel Munoz, F Stephen Lumpkins, F Mike Bersch

All I can say about that is WTF, mate. I mean Hendra and Lumpkins were locks. It makes sense that either Bersch or Snodgrass would get to play at the 3 spot, but both of them, starting? Seriously, Yahoo? No Riley Grafft? I dunno, if I had to guess it would be:

G - Hendra
G - Munoz
F - Bersch/Snodgrass
F - Grafft (until Vlad the Impaler becomes eligible)
F - Lumpkins

The question I really have at this point is, what is Jeff Jones going to do with all of these guards? Are Simon McCormack and Joe Hill going to be career benchers? What is he going to do with Troy Brewer when he becomes eligible next season? I mean, I guess we'll be really deep and insured against injuries, but we're going to have to set some kind of PL record for substitutions with all the cycling through players that JJ is going to have to do.

I really encourage you to read the team report, as it has a lot of great information, even if I disagree with some of it.

For those of you interested in other PL teams, well, Holy Cross and Lehigh come out looking the best, mostly because they return a lot of players from last year.

Just got some breaking news, another entry coming momentarily.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

Let's Learn a Little Bit More About the Newest Eagles

Sorry it's been so long between entries, friends and fans. It's been a long week what with the real world and the weekend and all that good stuff.

I've got to be honest, my beloved (and often befuddled) Miami Dolphins are on Monday Night Football for the first time since 2006, so I'd like to watch them wreck Peyton Manning's evening. In the interest of letting me do that, we're going to do this entry quick and dirty like a Holy Cross education. Ohhhh. Yep.

Before I start on the main point of this entry, which is to take a look at our incoming freshmen, I want to send a shout-out of support to the team. I've been seeing (via Twitter and Facebook, yes I use social media, you might even say I am "hip" to it) that the team's practices have been featuring ladders. For those of you who don't do much in the way of physical activity except for double-clicking your mouses to come to this blog, ladders are hellacious. Just thinking about when I used to run them for cross-country makes me nauseous. Not sure what flavor of ladder the team is running, but you can be assured they aren't the least bit fun.

With that said, I have two things to say to the team: THANK YOU and KEEP GOING. I know it's easy for me to say the second thing since I'm not the one out there busting my ass on the court. I get that. But you guys had better believe that the fans appreciate the work you do to get in shape for the season. We'll repay all that effort with Blue Crew frenzy come game time. It will all be worth it in the end when you're running all over your winded opponents in the last five minutes of games.

In any event, let's talk a little bit about the class of 2013. We'll start with the forwards.

Get to know...Jeff Holton
6'7" (though he's also been listed variously at 6'6" and 6'8"), 240lb, Germantown Academy, Ft. Washington, PA

Jeff Holton is going to have to step up this season and have the kind of season that Lumpkins had last season. Why? Because as documented in the last entry, our depth at the 4 and 5 spots is just not there this year, and if Lumpkins or Vlad the Impaler get into foul trouble, Holton is going to have to step in and play some quality, or at least not bad, minutes. Named the best senior basketball player in his high school league, Holton has also been highly praised by ESPN's Scouts, Inc. who called him a "very skilled pick and pop four man that can put on the floor and get to the rim or stretch the defense by knocking down the open three. He runs the floor and has an excellent basketball IQ. Holton is a constant threat on the offensive end of the floor." ESPN does note that, "One area that Holton must improve in is rebounding. If he can add the offensive glass to his game and help start the break on the defensive end it takes his game to another level. Overall tremendous skill and scoring ability." You can find that review here if you have an ESPN Insider account (free!). The inexplicable thing here is that although Scouts gives him a grade of 83, which amounts to "a solid contributor and two- or three-year starter at a mid-major program," wasn't enough to get him any stars from Rivals. Let's hope Rivals was wrong on him (but right on Jolivette and Munoz).

Get to know...Mike Bersch
6'6", 205lb, Rancocas Valley Regional High School, Mt. Holly, NJ

If nothing else, the talented Mr. Bersch fills what I personally feel is a critical role on the team: representing for the Garden State. Sure he's a completely different kind of player than the last guy to hold that position down (Derrick Mercer), but let's hope he's bringing the same level of talent. Bersch helped Rancocas Valley win Jersey's Group 4 championship (the most competitive of NJ's six groups) in his junior year, but they were unable to repeat his senior year because of a broken hand. Bersch seems to be right in the thick of things because he also suffered a shoulder injury and concussion in his senior year. Like a true gamer though, Bersch, who was supposed to miss 4-6 weeks from these injuries, came back in under three weeks and in his first game back scored 25 points. He went 2-3 from long range and 5-7 from the line. Like Holton, he's going to have to play solid minutes behind Vlad and Lumpkins. ESPN praises his passing ability and says that he can "make a living as a pick-and-pop guy or as a shooter that spots up and delivers 3-point daggers in transition." They do criticize his ball-handling a bit, which means he might not be able to penetrate into the paint too often. Hopefully the coaches will work with him on his handle, which will go quite nicely with what sounds like an absolutely lethal long-range jumper.

Get to know...Daniel Fisher
6'7", 220lb, Melbourne Grammar, Melbourne, Australia

I have to begin this part of this entry with an apology, I haven't been able to get much on our newest eagle from the southern hemisphere. This is the only article that I have been able to find about him, but I'm hoping that I will get some more information soon from our friends at AU athletics. Daniel, takes this as a lame I.O.U., I look forward to writing plenty about you in the blog over this upcoming season.

Well friends and fans, I wanted to give you details on all seven freshmen tonight, but we're already most of the way through the second quarter, and there's a lot to write about on the guards. So I'll have to offer you a raincheck for the night, and you can be sure to wait with bated breath for an article that will be packed with arbitrary Rivals star ratings and what is sure to be a very competitive battle for the team's 1 spot. In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed getting to know these forwards. Learn these names, because they'll be taking the place (on the court, not necessarily in our hearts) of Frane, Brian, Jordan, and Frank (when he was playing the 3). Anyway, cross your fingers that Joseph Addai continues to have a poor game, that'll make me much happier when I come back to tell you about the guards.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!