I do agree that ODU will miss Lee more than they probably think. We fell into the same thing this past year thinking we wouldn't miss a beat without Eric Maynor. A lot of your points are valid about ODU not being especially proficient shooting the ball, but that has never really been a forte of Blaine Taylor-coached teams. They won without that last year. What sets ODU apart from the rest of the teams and makes them the preseason favorite over other teams is their toughness. I believe that's what won it for them last year. Their ability to rebound and get 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th chances at buckets won countless games for them. As much as we like to rag on their guards for being piss-poor shooters, Ben Finney and Kent Bazemore showed improvement down the stretch. Let's not forget Ben Finney's dagger 3 after Brad almost stole the ball that basically sealed the game going into overtime in the CAA semi's in what was basically a home game for VCU.
In my completely honest opinion, I believe we were a more talented team than ODU last year. They were far more tougher than we were though, and that is really what makes a winner. ODU (like this year) couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn when it came to perimeter shooting but they had (and still have) a lot of big bodies that are mature and have spent 4 years now in Blaine's system. Almost all their bigs have had a redshirt year to work on deficiencies which prevented them from being heavily recruited as high-schoolers. It works well for ODU and when those players get to be seniors their teams are generally formidable for a couple of years before having a couple years of rebuilding with younger players. College basketball at the mid-major level especially is one of cycles. Unless you can recruit studs that can contribute immediately, every team has down years and up years. These years are ODU's up years. After this season, they will drop back a bit. I believe we will also be due for a bit of a drop after this season as well. The CAA is so weak that it's rare that either of our programs ever drops out of the top 4, but we still have down years compared to our respective fan bases expectations of NCAA appearances every year.
ODU is not as strong of a team as they were last year, but they are still better than what everyone else brings back. Losing Larry probably cost us the unanimous preseason favorite spot, no matter how much we think we are better without him. We will also feel his absence more than we think as well. As much as we'd like to think that we are stacked as ever, our front court through unbiased eyes is woefully thin and inexperienced. We can talk all we want about newcomers and how awesome they are, but history shows that newcomers rarely make the kind of impact we expect. Outside of Jamie Skeen, we have no proven commodities returning in the front court. We also see that it usually takes JUCOs at least half a season to a full season to get used to playing D1 college basketball with speed and strength of D1 athletes. Freshmen take even longer.
We may just have the best backcourt in the CAA and they'll win a ton of games for us, but you need a frontcourt as well to keep you in the games where your guards are cold. You can't depend on your sharp-shooters to win every game for you. Jamie's going to need help and there is very little precedent for newcomers being able to fill the void we need to be filled in order to be considered a bona-fide preseason favorite.
