Does the CAA Tournament win vindicate Joe's bench strategy?

[Wags]

Yep Nichols impact wasn't scoring, it was his aggressive defensive and rebounding energy. He was a bit of an enforcer on a largely 'soft' team. That team had so much talent, but I absolutely hated how weak and whiny they came across all year. Malik was literally the only dog in the house.

Yes, well said. He was powerfully built, strong and physical.

In that case, having a player like him off the bench in the tourney would've been big because he provided key ingredients (the ones you noted) that were lacking among the starters despite their strengths in other areas.

With this year's team, the bench wasn't needed because there wasn't on this year's bench who could similarly provide some lacking ingredients that were needed, so the starters had enough to get it done on their own.

[The Shadow]

Let's try to remember what Coach Joe said that the tougher team wins the CAAT. Losing Nichols was probably the main cause of being a soft team. What I liked about the 2019-20 team was how they could out tough many teams.

[EvanJ]

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despite some of you who refuse to believe or acknowledge this fact

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lol, c'mon tc

Look it's easy to confuse parity with quality. Two VERY diff things. Just because HU has had a hard time, doesn't mean the league is strong. The CAA is a shell of it's former self. And this was one of the weakest seasons since HU joined due to the talent exit.

Using the Conference RPI for most seasons and the Conference NET for the last two; the CAA was worse in 2012-2013 with 11 teams after VCU left including GMU, GSU, and ODU; 2014-2015; and 2018-2019 than this season, so 2019-2020 ranks fifth of eight in CAA quality. The CAA was good in 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018, so it has been good with the current teams. The Conference RPI rank of ninth in 2015-2016 (when we lost the Final in overtime to UNCW) was better than in 2005-2006 when GMU went to the Final Four. I didn't look it up, but I remember the CAA being tenth then, although it's possible the CAA was tenth on Selection Sunday and better after the NCAA Tournament. Last season was a big decline, and this season was an improvement from 18th to 17th. I'm not saying it was hard to win the CAA this season, but I don't think it was easier than expected after last season. Last season us, Northeastern, and Charleston were the only teams in the top half of Division I. Seeds 4 through 6 and even 7 seed Elon late in the season were much better than last season. Losing the Semifinal to Delaware would have been disappointing but not shocking. Losing the Semifinal last season would have been shocking because we were so much better than every seed 4 and worse.

I'm not going to look for Conference RPIs before 2012-2013, especially considering we were never better than the 3 seed and had one CAA Final appearance before 2012-2013. If you go farther back, not only was the CAA different, but Creighton and Wichita State were in the Missouri Valley, Davidson was in the Southern, Butler was in the Horizon, Utah and TCU were in the Mountain West, Conference USA and the Western Athletic were very different, etc.

And, you said likely 3 times? What would be the third time? I don't think you can count 2007, especially after Stokes got punched, and I don't think you can count 2015, which was extremely close, but they were also a 5 seed, trying to beat a 1.

Big difference between COULD have won and SHOULD have won. Absolutely COULD have won a few times, including 2007 and 2015. I'm on board there. SHOULD, or CHOKED, is when you're a heavy favorite and don't show up. They'd never been in that position in the CAA tourney, even this year, at a 1 seed facing a 6 in the finals (hence the 1-pt favorite they were in that one).

When you said 2007, you meant 2006. Stokes got punched in 2006. We were picked first in 2006-2007, but guys who were freshmen in 2005-2006 were not good enough forwards in 2006-2007 to replace Kieza and Uter. We were 14-4 and the 3 seed both times, but we were clearly worse in 2006-2007, and our disappointing season ended with a CAA Quarterfinal loss to 6 seed GMU who played the previous day (and graduated three starters from the Final Four team) and an NIT loss at DePaul.

TP blew it with his best team as well in '06. ALL 3 had POY.

Jose Juan Barea was POY in 2006. Stokes was POY in 2007, although I thought Gary Neal deserved POY (and he had NBA success). I thought Stokes was more deserving of POY as a sophomore in 2004-2005 when ODU's Alex Loughton won it than as a senior in 2006-2007.