Great night for the conference top teams

fmrick

fmrick

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Well, looks like W&M and ODU picked it up tonight and got the conference two more solid wins.

ODU beat a pretty good Duquesne team, while W&M kept up the CAA dominance over Maryland.

Mason and Towson lost, but we only play each of them once this year, so if I have to chose, I chose the teams we play twice to keep winning.

NU is playing at 11:00 PM.

Right now I will cheer for VCU, W&M and ODU to win every game, except when we play them. I still think that W&M will lose steam as the season goes on, but they are looking pretty good. They have a decent at-large profile right now. It will depend on how well they do in the conference. ODU is a bit on the edge. They have 4 losses OOC, but a couple good wins. I think they would have to do very well in conference to have a shot. They have talent, so it could happen. A good Bracket buster game will go a long way for both.

That brings me to the best at-large candidate in the CAA. Call me a Homer if you want, but at 8-1 OOC with wins against RPI 17, 24, 64, 76, 102, 148, 221, and 240 is not looking bad. Our sole loss OOC is currently 76, and going into their conference play where they should win a lot of games.

This time last year we had four OOC losses, we sitting at RPI 60 against the 69 toughest schedule. Before today we were 13 against 40th toughest.

We are in great shape. Now we just need to get into the conference and start kicking some behind!
 
Wish we were playing Mason at our place this year. They always get up for us at their spot (and we haven't looked great on the road). It sounds a little odd, but a road loss to Mason is looking like a "bad loss" on a resume come March.
 
NU represented the conference well last night with a quality win over a top 25 team, the Kent State Flashes.

As conference play resumes this week clearly 3 teams in the conference have established themselves as the front runners. Not that teams from the middle won't have a say in the final outcome.

Top of the CAA
W&M
VCU
ODU

Middle of the Pack
Hofstra
GMU
NU
JMU
UNCW
Drexel

Bottom Feeders
Towson
Delaware
GSU
 
I watched the W&M game last night and right now I'd have to say they are the best team in the CAA. They are solid on both offense and defense and they don't make many mistakes. Not only did they hit the threes, they also looked very good going to the basket, particularly back door. They also look very mature on the floor and don't get rattled. They controlled the game from the start last night and never lead the lead shrink to less than 6 in th esecond half. That was only the 7th non-conference loss for Maryland in the Comcast Center.

Right now, I don't see W&M fading once they get into conference play. Wouldn't it be crazy if their first trip to the NCAA's was an at-large bid. They definitely have the resume at this point to be considered. With wins @ Wake, @ Maryland, Richmond and VCU I think they are in the best position for an at-large bid of any team in the CAA.

Regarding Mason losing to Radford, I did watch some of that game also. Mason could not stop the big guy from Radford. He was scoring at will down low. Based on last night's game, VCU needs to pound the ball down low to Sanders and Skeen when we play Mason and also put pressure on Mason's guards on defense. Mason's big guys looked horrible last night.
 
Wolfpack Ram said:
Regarding Mason losing to Radford, I did watch some of that game also. Mason could not stop the big guy from Radford. He was scoring at will down low. Based on last night's game, VCU needs to pound the ball down low to Sanders and Skeen when we play Mason and also put pressure on Mason's guards on defense. Mason's big guys looked horrible last night.
Click to expand...

That was pretty much the strategy last year in the CAA Tourney championship game.
 
Art Parakhouski is a really good big man. He'll likely get drafted in the second round this year. He's unlike anything Mason will see in conference. Sure Larry's a stud but he's not 6'11, 270 like Art. His sheer size allowed him to do whatever he wanted in there. He has pretty soft hands and can catch tough passes deep in the post. Mason's bigs had no choice but to foul. Larry is built a lot like Mason's bigs (meaning not as ridiculously massive) so he won't be quite as dominant.

That said, Larry should have his way with Mason's bigs...just not in the same way that Parakhouski did. Mason fans would like to believe that Morrison is their answer to Sanders, but it's not even close. Sanders was much better his sophomore year and with Sanders expanding his game this season, I doubt Morrison will be able to shoot from the outside and put it on the floor like Larry does in the future either. Sanders is a sure-fire first-round draft pick. Morrison will be a good CAA big man.
 
VCU4LIFE said:
Dude, DB.....did you WATCH the CAA Final last year?!?
Click to expand...

I did it was the single best game of his career. By a LONG-SHOT.

I said he should have his way with Mason, just not the way Art did. Art bulled his way on the inside and physically dominated Mason. Larry can't do that. Larry will use his length and athleticism to do that. Anything wrong with that?

Art put up 34 points, 12 boards and 4 blocks in a physically dominating game where Mason could do absolutely nothing to stop him.

Larry put up 19 points, 20 boards, and 7 blocks by running the floor and dunking off of penetration dishes and blocking shots with his length.

2 very different players, with a similar result.
 
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