Around the CAA Talk

[HU76]

I was at the Stony Brook/New Hampshire game Saturday. They have a solid team. Strong guards and decent bigs.

[EvanJ]

Our win against SBU was a home win Their victory vs Vermont was a road win

We're still better than they are....they've been feasting on the likes of Maine and New Hampshire, some of the weakest D1 teams in the country.

Here's a comparison:

NET: Us 159th, SBU 124th
RPI: Us 121st, SBU 86th (12th among teams outside the top ten conferences)
Sagarin Overall: Us 133rd, SBU 114th
Sagarin Predictor: Us 121st, SBU 122nd
Sagarin Golden_Mean: Us 125th, SBU 130th
Sagarin Recent: Us 153rd, SBU 94th
KenPom: Us 141st, SBU 120th
Seven Overtimes: Us 134th, SBU 176th

SBU is better in three of four that aren't Sagarins and two of four Sagarins including overall. I'm not saying they're better than us, but the Mid-Major Poll voters are not the only ones who think they're better than us. Furthermore, Joe Lunardi has SBU and W&M as 13s, and W&M is better than us in the CAA standings, head-to-head, and six of the eight rankings I compared us to SBU.

The NET, Sagarin, and KenPom say SBU has played a significantly harder SOS. We will pass them or at least get closer with conference games. I think everyone including SBU's fans would agree that in conference games our SOS will be harder.

[triplec2195]

I was at the Stony Brook/New Hampshire game Saturday. They have a solid team. Strong guards and decent bigs.

HU76 who are u referring to S.B. OR New Hampshire?? We all know what happened on 12/10 when the two teams faced each other and clearly we were the better team 71-63 so as far as I'm concerned that speaks volumes as of right now. We will see how the season progresses here on out.

[HUSID74]

I was at the Stony Brook/New Hampshire game Saturday. They have a solid team. Strong guards and decent bigs.

HU76 who are u referring to S.B. OR New Hampshire?? We all know what happened on 12/10 when the two teams faced each other and clearly we were the better team 71-63 so as far as I'm concerned that speaks volumes as of right now. We will see how the season progresses here on out.

You got that right triplec!

[HUSID74]

You would think that we would be big favorites in this game which when u look at our loss in the first game of the season to San Jose State that doesn't mean much. We are rested and should be motivated to win this game(easily) but hopefully we don't get caught up looking ahead to COC on Saturday. UNCW coming off a loss to Elon by 17 points. Interesting how Stony Brook would be ranked ahead of us at 23 I guess because they beat Vermont recently!

There has to be more than what meets the eye ...even with a poor record, you don't fire him in the middle of the season...something else must be at work here.

[HU76]

I was at the Stony Brook/New Hampshire game Saturday. They have a solid team. Strong guards and decent bigs.

HU76 who are u referring to S.B. OR New Hampshire?? We all know what happened on 12/10 when the two teams faced each other and clearly we were the better team 71-63 so as far as I'm concerned that speaks volumes as of right now. We will see how the season progresses here on out.

You got that right triplec!

Not saying we aren’t better but we didn’t exactly dominate them. I watched them destroy New Hampshire Saturday. They are 3-0 12-6 on a 5 game winning streak. The also lost to Providence by 4 and hung around with Virginia. That only makes the win over them look better.

[triplec2195]

You would think that we would be big favorites in this game which when u look at our loss in the first game of the season to San Jose State that doesn't mean much. We are rested and should be motivated to win this game(easily) but hopefully we don't get caught up looking ahead to COC on Saturday. UNCW coming off a loss to Elon by 17 points. Interesting how Stony Brook would be ranked ahead of us at 23 I guess because they beat Vermont recently!

There has to be more than what meets the eye ...even with a poor record, you don't fire him in the middle of the season...something else must be at work here.

Yes I was thinking the same thing here in the middle of the season something(s) had to precipitate this firing that you would have thought could have waited until the season ended.

[Wags]

You would think that we would be big favorites in this game which when u look at our loss in the first game of the season to San Jose State that doesn't mean much. We are rested and should be motivated to win this game(easily) but hopefully we don't get caught up looking ahead to COC on Saturday. UNCW coming off a loss to Elon by 17 points. Interesting how Stony Brook would be ranked ahead of us at 23 I guess because they beat Vermont recently!

There has to be more than what meets the eye ...even with a poor record, you don't fire him in the middle of the season...something else must be at work here.

Yes I was thinking the same thing here in the middle of the season something(s) had to precipitate this firing that you would have thought could have waited until the season ended.

This doesn't necessarily have to be the case. They're a young team. They start three sophomores, a freshman and a junior. So, their core is all likely to return next year. Most of their bench should return too (only one senior, who hasn't played much this year). They're young and weren't winning or showing progress under McGrath. So, why wait? Fire McGrath now, start the coaching search early to get a jump start on that, and in the meantime, maybe a new voice helps the young guys grow a little. And, if that audition with the new interim coach (Rob Burke, who was their asst.) works well enough for rest of the year, then maybe they keep him as the head coach. That's a lot better strategy than delaying the inevitable with McGrath.

Really, it's not much different than the Knicks' situation. They were losing under Fizdale anyway, with a young team. They didn't see FIzdale as the answer to help the young guys, so they made the in-house switch to Miller on an interim basis. So far, they've played a little better under him, to the point where they may keep him after this season. If not, a new voice and new approach under Miller has already helped the Knicks' younger players relative to what FIzdale was doing for them, even as a better stopgap measure to bridge to a new coach, if they go that route later. So, it's pretty similar to what UNCW is doing now. Could there be more to it since mid-season changes are more common in the pros than in college? Sure, but I wouldn't assume that. Could be nothing more than what I said above. Guess we may find out either way at some point.

[triplec2195]

It's not the same in college as it is in the NBA. Players have contracts and they're making a substantial amount of money. If a player is unhappy when a coach leaves or gets fired then can asked to be traded. In college they can transfer to another school especially if they have a lot of eligibility left if they're unhappy with the coaching change considering that the coach who's leaving they have a relationship with and was recruited by him and his staff. This would happen whether the change is made in the middle of the year or at the end. I'm relatively sure that UNCW will lose some players here but we'll wait and see. William and Mary lost quite a few players after their coach was fired. It remains to be seen.

[Polito]

Annnnnnnnd called this from day 1. The W doesn’t play. Could there be something more here? Eh sure maybe. But I’m thinking prob not. See they expect to win. They expect to go dancing. Matter of fact, they demand it so to speak. That’s why they have, and will again. And that missing Yankee level mentality is one of the big reasons why HU is typically twiddling thumbs and licking wounds after the latest tourney choke job.

The W admin has balls. I’m not saying I agre with the mid yr move, but I do appreciate their low tolerance for lack. We could use a bit more.

JM you and your staff better tighten up and cut nets before the W rebuilds. Because they won’t make a hire mistake twice. They will be back, just a matter of a brief time.

[HUSID74]

Meanwhile with UNCWs desire to win comes with one of the lowest head coaching salaries in the CAA. They may have high aspirations but they don't spend what it takes. Thus you get high potential yet high risk coaches.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Well UNCW had two players leave the team this year, Skaggs and Toews. McGrath sucks and they were probably going to fire him at the end of the season, but it's a bad look to have a grad senior and starting PG leave. Now they were friends, but they also had options to leave and they took them immediately. Maybe there's something else going on behind the scenes that made UNCW expedite the firing, it could have meant that more transfers were imminent.

UNCW was complete trash under Moss and Peterson, now McGrath. They're like any other program in the CAA. Ultimately, their location might give them a recruiting advantage from time to time, but it hasn't exactly played like that. Only one year not under Keatts in the last 14 have they not sucked, and that was year two with Moss with all the Brownell holdovers, who would have won the conference with a better coach IMO.

Mihalich would have been shown the door if he had the stretch any of those fired UNCW coaches had. We rightfully had no tolerance for Welch's BS, and Mo got shown the door too, we're not afraid to move on.

[Flying Dutchmen]

Meanwhile with UNCWs desire to win comes with one of the lowest head coaching salaries in the CAA. They may have high aspirations but they don't spend what it takes. Thus you get high potential yet high risk coaches.

More true in the past,(it was originally going to be the basis of my post above), but I looked into it and McGrath's compensation seems around league average. the private schools don't disclose, but he had $300k base, $150 in perks, and a percentage of season ticket sales. That's better than JMU and W&M, and in Matheny's last year at Elon he had 289k base. Earl Grant is allegedly the highest paid coach in the CAA, and he's under $500k according to the article below, so it's not like the UNCW HC is grossly underpaid like Benny Moss and Brownell were.

I respect the risks they take, but it hasn't worked out particularly well. Sure it's nice to reach the pinnacle, but it also sucks being the doormat 10 of 14 seasons, that erodes the fanbase as much as our slightly above average play.

https://www.postandcourier.com/sports/c ... 6b3a2.html

[Wags]

It's not the same in college as it is in the NBA. Players have contracts and they're making a substantial amount of money. If a player is unhappy when a coach leaves or gets fired then can asked to be traded. In college they can transfer to another school especially if they have a lot of eligibility left if they're unhappy with the coaching change considering that the coach who's leaving they have a relationship with and was recruited by him and his staff. This would happen whether the change is made in the middle of the year or at the end. I'm relatively sure that UNCW will lose some players here but we'll wait and see. William and Mary lost quite a few players after their coach was fired. It remains to be seen.

In general, yes, it's different in the ways you mentioned (and in many others), but that's not what I said. It is similar in the specific parallel I mentioned, in that both teams are young and losing, and new voices were needed while interim coaches are auditioned and new coaching searches are started earlier rather than later should those auditions not work out. Perhaps we'll learn something different later, but with nothing else reported at this point, we shouldn't assume that there was something else at play that precipitated McGrath's firing now as opposed to the end of the season. UNCW may have simply realized that they had seen enough of McGrath and that they gained nothing by needlessly prolonging the inevitable with him.

[triplec2195]

Well UNCW had two players leave the team this year, Skaggs and Toews. McGrath sucks and they were probably going to fire him at the end of the season, but it's a bad look to have a grad senior and starting PG leave. Now they were friends, but they also had options to leave and they took them immediately. Maybe there's something else going on behind the scenes that made UNCW expedite the firing, it could have meant that more transfers were imminent.

UNCW was complete trash under Moss and Peterson, now McGrath. They're like any other program in the CAA. Ultimately, their location might give them a recruiting advantage from time to time, but it hasn't exactly played like that. Only one year not under Keatts in the last 14 have they not sucked, and that was year two with Moss with all the Brownell holdovers, who would have won the conference with a better coach IMO.

Mihalich would have been shown the door if he had the stretch any of those fired UNCW coaches had. We rightfully had no tolerance for Welch's BS, and Mo got shown the door too, we're not afraid to move on.

Good posts F.D. I momentarily had forgotten about Toews transferring and Skaggs I don't think I knew about. We all have to wonder how this is all going to translate in tomorrows game hopefully this doesn't turn into a perfect storm for them and they over exceed their normal game performance!! Beware HU and come prepared for a battle.

[EvanJ]

I'm relatively sure that UNCW will lose some players here but we'll wait and see. William and Mary lost quite a few players after their coach was fired. It remains to be seen.

I can't speak for the players, but W&M could have returned all five starters, and they could have felt like Shaver was a successful coach and disagreed with him being fired. Regardless of what UNCW's players think of McGrath, nobody can complain that they fired their coach while the team was good. As a player, would you rather like your coach more or win more? They could have players who like McGrath as a person but think they will play better without him. By firing a coach during the season, if players like the new coach and/or the team improves it could convince players to stay, which couldn't have happened if the team continued to stink and fired McGrath after the season. Since the year players must sit out after transferring goes by two complete semesters rather than 365 days, if a player wants to transfer and knows he can't play for another team until 2021-2022, what incentive does he have to leave the team during the season? I think it's safe to assume that even if Shaver is a much better coach than McGrath, W&M had better players last season than UNCW has now. Even if players transfer, you can't have great players leave if you don't have great players.

[Wags]

I'm relatively sure that UNCW will lose some players here but we'll wait and see. William and Mary lost quite a few players after their coach was fired. It remains to be seen.

I can't speak for the players, but W&M could have returned all five starters, and they could have felt like Shaver was a successful coach and disagreed with him being fired. Regardless of what UNCW's players think of McGrath, nobody can complain that they fired their coach while the team was good. As a player, would you rather like your coach more or win more? They could have players who like McGrath as a person but think they will play better without him. By firing a coach during the season, if players like the new coach and/or the team improves it could convince players to stay, which couldn't have happened if the team continued to stink and fired McGrath after the season. Since the year players must sit out after transferring goes by two complete semesters rather than 365 days, if a player wants to transfer and knows he can't play for another team until 2021-2022, what incentive does he have to leave the team during the season? I think it's safe to assume that even if Shaver is a much better coach than McGrath, W&M had better players last season than UNCW has now. Even if players transfer, you can't have great players leave if you don't have great players.

Well said throughout this post, Evan. It's also not like this was simply a down year off of prior better years for McGrath. During his time as UNCW's head coach (albeit, during a fairly brief tenure), the Seahawks were:

11-21 (7-11)
10-23 (5-13)
5-14 (0-6)

The trend was continuing, perhaps even getting worse in his third year. So, why wait to move on?

[triplec2195]

A lot of conjecture here and it certainly is possible that if the team starts to win maybe this could help in retaining some players and I'm not under any delusion that players will jump ship now but that certainly is a possibility once the season ends. Whether the players are great or not if you have a large scale departure of players it takes time to replace them and get the program back on track even if u have a good recruiting year. There are certainly prices to pay for kids transferring which has been setup to deter kids from jumping from one school to another at will but kids still transfer for a multitude of reasons regardless.

[EvanJ]

So UNCW did better with their new coach, but we won.

W&M won 77-68 at Delaware. Nathan Knight shot 6-18, but still scored 25 because he shot free throws 11-12. He had 14 rebounds for a double-double. Andy Van Vliet had 11 rebounds, but didn't have a double-double because he shot 2-9 and scored 8. I don't know why point guard Bryce Barnes didn't play. Thornton Scott shot 2-8 and scored 5, but stepped up with 7 assists. Kevin Anderson led Delaware with 25 points and 4 assists. Justyn Mutts, who was averaging 12.4 points and 8.9 rebounds, fouled out with no points and 3 rebounds. Collin Goss, who was averaging 7.7 points and 6.0 rebounds, had 3 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 fouls. Ryan Allen scored 17 and Nate Darling scored 13, but they combined to shoot 10-29. Dylan Painter shot 4-5 and had 8 points and led them with 9 rebounds.

Grant Riller made history in a loss. He had the second triple-double in the CAA this season after UNCW's Mike Okauru. Teams fell to 13-3 when getting triple-double this season because Northeastern came back from down 15 with 15 minutes left to win 79-76. Riller had 20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, 4 steals, and 7 turnovers. He became the first player from 2010-2011 to the present to have a triple-double with at least 4 steals and at least 7 turnovers. Doing that is very hard even in the NBA, where it has happened 20 times from 1983-1984 to the present. James Harden, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook are the only active NBA players who did that. Sam Miller shot 7-9 including 6-7 threes to tie Riller with 20, but Charleston's other two double-digit scorers decreased their averages. Brevin Galloway shot 4-13 and scored 9, and Jaylen McManus shot 1-3 and scored 4. Nobody on Charleston other than Miller had more than 4 rebounds or more than 2 assists. Jordan Roland scored 33 and shot threes 5-9, and Bolden Brace scored 17 and shot threes 4-9. Brace had a double-double with 11 rebounds and 4 assists. Tyson Walker only scored 7, but his 4 rebounds and 5 assists raised his averages. He entered averaging only 1.9 rebounds.

Elon shot horribly in a 63-41 loss at Drexel. Elon led 21-20 at halftime, and Drexel won the second half 43-20. Camren Wynter scored 27 and shot 10-14, but like Buie he had only 2 assists. James Butler had 15 points and 15 rebounds. Zach Walton had 16 points and 11 rebounds. Hunter McIntosh had 12 points and 8 rebounds to lead Elon in both of those.

[Wags]

So UNCW did better with their new coach, but we won.

W&M won 77-68 at Delaware. Nathan Knight shot 6-18, but still scored 25 because he shot free throws 11-12. He had 14 rebounds for a double-double. Andy Van Vliet had 11 rebounds, but didn't have a double-double because he shot 2-9 and scored 8. I don't know why point guard Bryce Barnes didn't play. Thornton Scott shot 2-8 and scored 5, but stepped up with 7 assists. Kevin Anderson led Delaware with 25 points and 4 assists. Justyn Mutts, who was averaging 12.4 points and 8.9 rebounds, fouled out with no points and 3 rebounds. Collin Goss, who was averaging 7.7 points and 6.0 rebounds, had 3 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 fouls. Ryan Allen scored 17 and Nate Darling scored 13, but they combined to shoot 10-29. Dylan Painter shot 4-5 and had 8 points and led them with 9 rebounds.

Grant Riller made history in a loss. He had the second triple-double in the CAA this season after UNCW's Mike Okauru. Teams fell to 13-3 when getting triple-double this season because Northeastern came back from down 15 with 15 minutes left to win 79-76. Riller had 20 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, 4 steals, and 7 turnovers. He became the first player from 2010-2011 to the present to have a triple-double with at least 4 steals and at least 7 turnovers. Doing that is very hard even in the NBA, where it has happened 20 times from 1983-1984 to the present. James Harden, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook are the only active NBA players who did that. Sam Miller shot 7-9 including 6-7 threes to tie Riller with 20, but Charleston's other two double-digit scorers decreased their averages. Brevin Galloway shot 4-13 and scored 9, and Jaylen McManus shot 1-3 and scored 4. Nobody on Charleston other than Miller had more than 4 rebounds or more than 2 assists. Jordan Roland scored 33 and shot threes 5-9, and Bolden Brace scored 17 and shot threes 4-9. Brace had a double-double with 11 rebounds and 4 assists. Tyson Walker only scored 7, but his 4 rebounds and 5 assists raised his averages. He entered averaging only 1.9 rebounds.

Elon shot horribly in a 63-41 loss at Drexel. Elon led 21-20 at halftime, and Drexel won the second half 43-20. Camren Wynter scored 27 and shot 10-14, but like Buie he had only 2 assists. James Butler had 15 points and 15 rebounds. Zach Walton had 16 points and 11 rebounds. Hunter McIntosh had 12 points and 8 rebounds to lead Elon in both of those.

Although the were at home, I was surprised to see that Delaware was a 1-point favorite tonight considering how they and W&M had started CAA play.

So, tonight's results push Hofstra into sole possession of 2nd place, dropping Charleston a notch below, with Drexel and Northeastern right behind. Delaware continues to underperform in CAA play relative to its OOC play. They slipped down to 7th place now. I see it as four different tiers in the league at present (though, I think ultimately, Northeastern will join that top group, then it'll be a middle tier -- with Towson, Drexel and Delaware -- and then a third one at the bottom with the same three that are there now):

W&M 6-0
Hofstra 5-1
Charleston 5-2

Drexel 4-2
Northeastern 4-2

Towson 3-3
Delaware 2-4

Elon 1-5
JMU 1-5
UNCW 0-7