Around the CAA

[triplec2195]

But people are quick to say how bad our losses are since we're losing to weak teams when in reality SB gave UNCW a scare for over a half beat us now beats Charleston. Today we lose a close game to a very good ELON team. We need to quickly open our eyes and come to the realization there's a lot of parity in this league and a lot of games will be tough fought games!

[Jojogunne]

Odds & Ends:

Campbell leading UNCW at the half, 37-33. Game is at UNCW and on FloCollege.

Stony Brook has played three strong games in a row: a close loss to UNCW (after blowing a big halftime lead), a win over us, and arguably the biggest win in the CAA this season today (2OT over Charleston).

Drexel also on the rise.

In reviewing the tape, Plotnikov's injury appears to have been above the waste (no Tonny Skinn move). He did seem to be favoring his ribs. Let's hope it's not serious.

In his post-game comments, Speedy said he does not know when Biggie will return.

[Wags]

But people are quick to say how bad our losses are since we're losing to weak teams when in reality SB gave UNCW a scare for over a half beat us now beats Charleston. Today we lose a close game to a very good ELON team. We need to quickly open our eyes and come to the realization there's a lot of parity in this league and a lot of games will be tough fought games!

Yup, that's why I laugh at the game-to-game temperature taking without letting things play out.

18 games is a long stretch, and we're only one-third of the way through. Lots of ball left for everyone.

By the way, Campbell up 51-39 at UNCW. If they win, no more unbeatens and four teams tied for second-place, a game behind UNCW. Not sure why people are still so surprised by the ups and downs for Hofstra and the rest of the CAA when it's like that every year.

[Wags]

Stony Brook has played three strong games in a row: a close loss to UNCW (after blowing a big halftime lead), a win over us, and arguably the biggest win in the CAA this season today (2OT over Charleston).

They are usually very tough at home and get up for the better CAA teams there each year. It's often a tough place to play. But they are always very different on the road, this year no exception. Geno has talked about consistency but he has yet been able to get them to bottle on the road what they have at home.

[Wags]

UNCW rallies from 12 down in the second half to edge Campbell at home, 78-75.

If the Seahawks didn't rally in that one or at Stony Brook to win, they would've been part of a five-way tie atop the CAA right now. As it is, it's a three-way tie for second, two games behind 6-0 UNCW, which has established itself as the CAA standard (for now).

[Wags]

3 CAA games on CBS Sports Network today:

11:00 am - Northeastern @ Monmouth (Bill Coen trying for his 200th CAA win)
3:00 pm - Drexel @ Towson (a big one with Drexel a bit better than expected so far and Towson recovering from it's bad start)
9:00 pm - NC A&T @ Hampton (might want to tune in if Indiana is blowing Miami out early)

Happy MLK Day.

"Don't allow anybody to pull you so low as to make you hate them."
"We must not give ourselves to things which will not solve our problems."
"If you cannot fly, run. If you cannot run, walk. If you cannot walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving."

[Wags]

Towson edged Drexel at home, 59-58. The Tigers are suddenly 3-4 after that 0-4 start.

Spots 5-10 have teams that are all 3-3 or 3-4. If Hampton beats NC A&T tonight, that'll be spots 5-11.

[stuball888]

What hasn't been discussed here is that the CAA this year is more balanced

Other than you went, UNCW all the other teams are either good or fair
The bottom of the league is so much better than in years past that no game can be taken for granted other than NCA&T any of the teams can beat the second best if they are not taken seriously

[Wags]

What hasn't been discussed here is that the CAA this year is more balanced

Other than you went, UNCW all the other teams are either good or fair
The bottom of the league is so much better than in years past that no game can be taken for granted other than NCA&T any of the teams can beat the second best if they are not taken seriously

Yup, that's why I was noting spots 5-11 (now, with Hampton's win last night) all within a half-game of each other, and all at right around .500, and all not that far behind spots 2-4 now.

And UNCW's 6-0 is a shaky 6-0. Could easily be 4-2 and they lost to Howard at home, too. Lots of parity this year. It's still wide open for that one team that can progress the best through Game 18.

[dutchPride86]

So not sure if anyone has seen The Field Of 68 has been ranking the coaching jobs for every conference, based on anonymous poll of the coaches in each league. They dropped the CAA today....Hofstra came in 3rd. No surprise Charleston and UNCW 1 and 2 respectively.

The quote from a coach on why Hofstra is a top 3 job:

“No football is key and a big budget. Great tradition and have an outstanding backyard to recruit from. They have always had a supportive administration that invests in basketball.”

https://www.on3.com/sites/field-of-68/n ... -rankings/

[Wags]

Right after Charleston-Hofstra, UNCW at Towson on CBS Sports Network, at 9 pm tonight.

[dutchPride86]

With Monmouth winning on the buzzer beating 3 we missed, Hofstra hits the halfway point of CAA play in a 3-way tie for 8th.... exactly where we were picked to finish preseason

[Wags]

With Monmouth winning on the buzzer beating 3 we missed, Hofstra hits the halfway point of CAA play in a 3-way tie for 8th.... exactly where we were picked to finish preseason

It's a two-way tie now, after Towson just lost to UNCW.

UNCW (8-1) and Charleston (7-2) have separated themselves at the midpoint. Then there's a five-team logjam at 5-4 before Hofstra, Hampton, and Towson.

It's really hard to believe Hofstra is a game behind Stony Brook at the CAA midpoint after they started 4-0 and Stony Brook started 1-4.

Stony Brook has the longest active winning streak (four straight) while Hofstra has the longest active losing streak (five straight) in the CAA.

[triplec2195]

With Monmouth winning on the buzzer beating 3 we missed, Hofstra hits the halfway point of CAA play in a 3-way tie for 8th.... exactly where we were picked to finish preseason

It's a two-way tie now, after Towson just lost to UNCW.

UNCW (8-1) and Charleston (7-2) have separated themselves at the midpoint. Then there's a five-team logjam at 5-4 before Hofstra, Hampton, and Towson.

It's really hard to believe Hofstra is a game behind Stony Brook at the CAA midpoint after they started 4-0 and Stony Brook started 1-4.

Stony Brook has the longest active winning streak (four straight) while Hofstra has the longest active losing streak (five straight) in the CAA.

It's very disappointing considering what we all envisioned a few weeks ago when we were rolling and undefeated. It will be a tough mountain to climb now knowing we really have no room for error and there are no cream puff games as in years past with every game a dog fight. Every teams game plan is to shut Cruz down which has been successful of late clearly frustrating him putting a lot of pressure on the freshman which he has handled quite well. Now Patterson and German will have to step up and maybe like a lot of people are saying we'll have to get Roberts more minutes. DeCady being hurt just adds to the drama of this team as much as some here discount his worth. Lets hope we can turn the close games into the WIN column.

[Polito]

Thanks for that nugget DP86 - amazing, so I guess we are allowed to expect this program to win after all. Who’d a thunk it.


“The quote from a coach on why Hofstra is a top 3 job:

“No football is key and a big budget. Great tradition and have an outstanding backyard to recruit from. They have always had a supportive administration that invests in basketball.”

[Wags]

Credit to teams like Drexel and Stony Brook, who both continued their winning streaks today (5 straight for the Seawolves, three straight for the Dragons) and who are both exceeding expectations. I think even they didn't think they'd be 6-4 at this point, but they both are, and at the moment, are two surprise teams for top-four byes.

Also, credit to Campbell today which after losing five straight to go from 3-1 to 3-6, fired up the offense for a 57-40 halftime lead and a surprising 104-96 win at W&M.

That keeps things very tight after UNCW (8-1) and CofC (8-2), but it's probably also good for Hofstra right now. I think Hofstra needs those kinds of teams to stay relevant in seeding races to push Hofstra and keep Hofstra focused as much as possible. When they see other teams are not falling back, they know they'll have to really fight hard for a top-four spot or at least for as good a spot as they can get. Eight games left, so definitely no time to take the foot off the gas after today's win at Monmouth. Start a new streak now with two home games coming up, and put pressure on the teams they're competing with before it's the other way around.

Big week coming up. Hofstra is in a four-way tie at 5-5, but only a game out of 3rd and 4th, yet also only a half-game ahead of the team (Towson) in 9th that they'll play in a week, and only a game ahead of 10th and 11th.

[Pbdutch]

Thanks for that nugget DP86 - amazing, so I guess we are allowed to expect this program to win after all. Who’d a thunk it.


“The quote from a coach on why Hofstra is a top 3 job:

“No football is key and a big budget. Great tradition and have an outstanding backyard to recruit from. They have always had a supportive administration that invests in basketball.”

So I actually wrote a comment on another thread about this. I spoke to a former coach of a former opponent about two weeks ago and we discussed a lot of things. He’s currently an assistance at another D1 school not in our conference and when we spoke about funding he mentioned that Hofstra was right below UNCW and Charleston in terms of funding and budget, etc…so for all these fans saying we don’t Invest money and NIL money aren’t correct. I actually asked him what he thought we spent on our roster and he didn’t say he knew for sure, but if he had to guess he said anywhere from 1M to 1.5M. He has intel into the A10 and mentioned that VCU spends about 5M on their roster and St. Louis/Richmond are both around 3M. Hofstra needs to win and they need to win quickly. Time to get to the dance finally especially with money being invested into this program.

[EvanJ]

Saint Louis is elite. A10 teams have plenty of national TV games. Their average attendance is 6,097. If we spend at least a third as much as them, we spend more per average home attendance. In addition, Saint Louis gets more home games, and probably makes more per fan per game. If all of that money is given to players, that's more than the average G League salary of $40,000 for a five month season.

Teams have played an average of exactly 10 CAA games. Every team played 10 except for UNCW, who played 9, and Towson, who played 11. Towson has off on Thursday before going to us. They have a span of 1 game in 11 days, and a span of 1 game in 10 days. The standings are:

1. UNCW 8-1
2. Charleston 8-2
3. Drexel 6-4 (they won hosting Stony Brook, and they go to Stony Brook later)
4. Stony Brook 6-4
5. Elon 5-5 (2-0 vs. the rest of the tied teams including not playing Monmouth until the last week)
6. Hofstra 5-5 (2-2 vs. the rest of the tied teams)
7. Monmouth 5-5 (1-2 vs. the rest of the tied teams, and 1-0 vs. William & Mary)
8. William & Mary 5-5 (1-2 vs. the rest of the tied teams)
9. Towson 5-6
10. Campbell 4-6 (1-0 vs. Hampton, and they do not play again)
11. Hampton 4-6
12. Northeastern 2-8 (1-0 vs. North Carolina A&T, and they do not play again)
13. North Carolina A&T 2-8

[EvanJ]

I typed about yesterday's CAA games in the Monmouth game topic, and I have more to say. Stony Brook's Erik Pratt made his first field goal, and then missed 15. I wonder when the last time (if it ever happened) a player entered averaging over 20 points and missed at least 15 consecutive field goals in a win. One team had a game when did not make a free throw this season before yesterday when Drexel and DePaul did it. Drexel became the first team since 2018 to win with 61 or fewer points and no free throws.

CBS Sports Network will have four CAA games from Thursday through Monday February 9. Here is the schedule by team:

We host Northeastern on Thursday and host Towson on Saturday.
Campbell hosts Drexel on Thursday and goes to North Carolina A&T on Saturday.
Charleston hosts North Carolina A&T on Thursday and hosts UNCW on Monday February 9.
Drexel goes to Campbell on Thursday and goes to Elon on Saturday.
Elon goes to Hampton on Thursday and hosts Drexel on Saturday.
Hampton hosts Elon on Thursday and hosts William & Mary on Saturday.
Monmouth goes to Stony Brook on Thursday and then has off until the next Thursday.
North Carolina A&T goes to Charleston on Thursday and hosts Campbell on Saturday.
Northeastern goes to us on Thursday and goes to Stony Brook on Saturday.
Stony Brook hosts Monmouth on Thursday and hosts Northeastern on Saturday.
Towson has off on Thursday and goes to us on Saturday.
UNCW hosts William & Mary on Thursday and goes to Charleston on Monday February 9.
William & Mary goes to UNCW on Thursday and goes to Hampton on Saturday.

Thursday will be the last time that the CAA has six games starting at the same time.

Then the CAA has five games on Thursday February 12, followed by one or two games every day from Friday February 13 through Monday February 16. The last games before the CAA Tournament are on Tuesday March 3. Charleston has the last day off, so assuming they finish in the top four their Quarterfinal will be against a team that played twice since Charleston's last game, or three times since Charleston's last game in the unlikely event that Charleston gets the 4 and the winner of the 12 vs. 13 game defeats the 5.

I looked at if any teams could clinch not being first or not being last by next weekend. If UNCW wins both including at Charleston on Monday February 9, they will clinch at least a tie with North Carolina A&T and/or Northeastern if they lose both games. I did not look at UNCW's head-to-head against those two teams because if they tie at 10-8, other teams will probably be in the tie also.

[Polito]

So UNCW and CofC continue to be the class of this league while we are middling. Not very thrilling.

Although per their commitment from their point of view they should be at the top most years. It makes sense. But as I've said, HU should absolutely be dancing every handful of years - glad this is being supported by these reports so we can stop the lil sisters of the poor nonsense about this program as if they don't have enough to win. HU has PLENTY to win. And they should be expected to do so. Hope things change these last games.

So I agree completely PbDutch - it's enough already. Course I've said this for at least 3 of Speedy's years now, and for many of the last 2 decades +, and will likely need to keep saying it for X more years. 1 tourney qualification in 25 years for HU's position in the CAA is absolutely atrocious.

Evan, I personally wouldn't call SLU "elite". They are a strong well funded program in the A10. Duke is elite.