Around the CAA Talk

[EvanJ]

That was our third and fourth games of 2002-2003 in the Hofstra/Wingate Holiday Tournament.

[Wags]

I think we hosted a tournament back in '03, with Lehigh, Quinnipiac and UT Pan American. I think our best odds to host a serious tournament would be to get it at Nassau Coliseum.

I tend to agree, but The Mack is a nice smaller arena and seats about the same as Charleston's TD Arena. If Charleston can do it at TD every year, why shouldn't Hofstra be able to do the same even without the Coliseum?

[EvanJ]

UNCW did not make a field goal in the last 7:48 to lose 47-46 to Cleveland State in D.C. where the CAA Tournament will be. Before today, Cleveland State was 0-4 with a -32 point differential per game, every loss by at least 20, and a 107-61 loss to Florida International in their previous game. It must be rare to lose a game by at least X and allow X or fewer in the next game against a Division I team. When I gave Cleveland State's record and point differential, I excluded their 79-54 win over non-Division I Edinboro. It was the first time since Georgia Southern's 40-36 win hosting Texas State on January 3, 2015 that both teams scored 47 or fewer points and made 3 or fewer three-pointers. Cleveland State trailed at halftime and won despite doing all of these in the second half:

0 three-pointers
13 fouls
11 rebounds
6 assists/8 turnovers

UNCW made 5 field goals in the second half, when they had a better field goal percentage than in the first half. I wish I could find out how rare some of these things are to do in a half. UNCW's Martin Linssen became the third player this season to have at least 3 blocked shots, at least 4 fouls, and 0 field goal attempts. He made it the 108th time from 2010-2011 to the present that a player did that, and he's the first CAA player to do that since Sabety on December 22, 2016.

[triplec2195]

I was watching Towson play Buffalo last night and the announcers kept talking about how Brian Fobbs in 5 plus games had not hit a three. At the time he was 0 for 19. He finally got off the snide and did hit one and his stats thru 6 games in terms of three's are 1 for 23 or 4.3%. How's that for a stat for a player who can score the ball. I would be curious how rare that number is in D-1.

[EvanJ]

When Halil Kanacevic shot threes 9-48 in 2009-2010, he had 3-34 stretch.

[Wags]

Wasn't sure where to put this one, but I figured since it's a conference award, this was a good thread for it.

Anyway... nice!

https://twitter.com/HofstraMBB/status/1 ... 5844709379

[Mikey77]

Congrats to DB. Well deserved.

[Cards]

Yes agree - very well deserved! He is this teams glue and floor general.

[garyg]

Some comeback for Buie from ACL injury...let's hope the same for Cramer

[Polito]

Buie is an absolute stud. As I've said over the years, best true point in decades, and one of the best ever for HU. If Govan had listened to me , he would've been the starting center this year with his boy, and this team would be nasty. Alas... still might be!

And HU best enjoy the down time at the W, I'll be surprised if that staff makes it another year, 2 max. Called that bad hire. Squandering the talent they have/do have to boot. That place is a true sleeping giant, and when they've got coaching they go dancing. This won't last, this is not the standard that program expects, need to take full advantage before they right that ship.

[EvanJ]

And HU best enjoy the down time at the W, I'll be surprised if that staff makes it another year, 2 max. Called that bad hire. Squandering the talent they have/do have to boot. That place is a true sleeping giant, and when they've got coaching they go dancing. This won't last, this is not the standard that program expects, need to take full advantage before they right that ship.

What are you talking about? I'm not trying to be rude. I just have no idea.

[HUSID74]

I'm with you Evan...

[Wags]

And HU best enjoy the down time at the W, I'll be surprised if that staff makes it another year, 2 max. Called that bad hire. Squandering the talent they have/do have to boot. That place is a true sleeping giant, and when they've got coaching they go dancing. This won't last, this is not the standard that program expects, need to take full advantage before they right that ship.

What are you talking about? I'm not trying to be rude. I just have no idea.

I'm guessing he's saying HU better take advantage of it now while UNCW is down before they're back on the rise again?

[EvanJ]

That sounds right. They have had great teams, but also bad ones. In the last five seasons, they have a CAA record of 53-37 (.589). In the five seasons before that, they went 7-11 or worse, and had a CAA record of 25-65 (.278). There were 18 CAA games per season except for 16 when the CAA had 9 teams in 2013-2014. Here is each team's CAA record in the last five seasons:

Hofstra: 58-32 (.644)
Northeastern: 57-33 (.633)
William & Mary: 54-36 (.600)
UNCW: 53-37 (.589)
Charleston: 51-39 (.567)
James Madison: 42-48 (.467)
Towson: 41-49 (.456)
Elon: 36-54 (.400)
Delaware: 30-60 (.333)
Drexel: 28-62 (.311)

[EvanJ]

Delaware got 1 point in the AP Poll.

[Wags]

W&M had an easy win (63-46) over former CAA rival ODU last night.

Tribe shot only 37.7%, including 28% from 3, but the Monarchs were even worse (just 28.6%, including 2/20 from 3).

ODU's taking a trip down memory lane this season... a few games before last night's loss, they had a three-game stretch when they beat Northeastern by 10, lost to JMU by 2 and lost to George Mason by 7.
Their next game is at VCU. Two games later, they host Richmond, another former CAA foe (before HU and other former AE teams joined the CAA).

[Wags]

Was looking at some stats around the league and found a couple of interesting ones which could work to Hofstra's advantage this season if these early non-conference trends hold up over CAA play:

Turnover Margin: Only 3 of the CAA's 10 teams have a positive TO margin and HU is the leader by a good amount. Delaware is at +1.11, Towson +1.12 and Hofstra +2.00. The worst is Drexel at -4.78. A credit to the team, but especially to Buie.

Offensive Rebounds: As much as defensive rebounding has been, and figures to be, an issue for the team this year, HU is second in offensive rebounds (with 11.0), behind only Towson (11.9). William & Mary is last (5.7), even with their two god bigs, Knight and Van Vliet. Big credit there to Pemberton (team-leading 18 ORs) and Coburn (tied with Kante for 2nd, at 17 ORs). Honorable mention to Schutte, who has 11 ORs in 96 min (Kante's 17 are in 233 min).

[EvanJ]

Our .798 free throw percentage from 2018-2019 through now leads Division I.

Buie is the only player in Division I averaging more than 2 steals per game and more than 3 steals per foul.

Rather than using offensive rebounds per game, you can use offensive rebounding percentage, where we're third in the CAA at .305. That's our offensive rebounds divided by the sum of our offensive rebounds and our opponents' defensive rebounds. Furthermore, you can add offensive rebounding percentage and defensive rebounding percentage and compare it to 1. 1 - your offensive rebounding percentage is your opponents' defensive rebounding percentage, and 1 - your defensive rebounding percentage is your opponents' offensive rebounding percentage. We are eighth in the CAA with a .723 defensive rebounding percentage, and we have a sum of 1.028. That means our offensive rebounding percentage which is 1 - our opponents' defensive rebounding percentage is .028 higher than our opponents' offensive rebounding percentage which is 1 - our defensive rebounding percentage. Adding the two rebounding percentages for each CAA team and subtracting 1 so that 0 will be average gives:

Drexel: .050
Towson: .038
Hofstra: .028
UNCW: .010
Delaware: .002
Northeastern: -.024
Elon: -.028
James Madison: -.033
William & Mary: -.041
Charleston: -.052

.050 and -.052 are .102 apart, and it may sound like a tiny difference, but I make an analogy to MLB batting average. The offensive rebounding percentage for the CAA is .265, which is close to the 2019 MLB batting average of .252. A .102 difference in batting average between two players is giant, and the difference between Drexel and Charleston should be thought of the same way.

[triplec2195]

Just an FYI previously undefeated Delaware lost to George Washington last night by 10 points. GW is now 5-5 and had lost to Towson, American and Morgan State just to put things into perspective. Gaudy won lost records are indicative of the competition you have played a lot of the time.

[Wags]

Just an FYI previously undefeated Delaware lost to George Washington last night by 10 points. GW is now 5-5 and had lost to Towson, American and Morgan State just to put things into perspective. Gaudy won lost records are indicative of the competition you have played a lot of the time.

True, and I agree, I wasn't worried too much about Delaware's good start because it was built on a weak schedule. But GW has also been playing much better of late and has flipped its season around... 4-1 since the 1-4 start, including a win over Evansville a few games after Evansville won at Kentucky. So, that may not be such a bad loss for Delaware.