2020 CAA Men's Basketball Tournament

[EvanJ]

Delaware has completely rode Nate Darling to where they are now. They might be the biggest culprit of hinging their success on one player in the CAA. He's second in the league in minutes behind Buie, and he has to be averaging around 25 since February 1st.

He averaged 19.7 before February 1 (21 games) and 24.6 since then (9 games). In games 22 through 26, he averaged 29.6. In his last four games, he averaged 18.25, with 18 or fewer in the three games other than scoring 25 against us.

https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... _03_03.mp3 is Mihalich's teleconference. He thought 13-5 would be enough to the regular season title. When he was asked for CAA Tournament, he brought up Denton Koon's shot to beat W&M in 2016 that I went to. He got asked a question that cited Jerry Beach that we have the fewest bench minutes of 353 teams, and the reporter said we have the fewest bench minutes about 1,410 team seasons since we had fewer in 2015-2016. We average 30.0 bench minutes in 2015-2016, and we used the same starters in every game. This season we average 34.9 bench minutes, and players other than our usual starters average 34.4. When Silverio started, he played 21 minutes, and Ray played 7. When Klementowicz started, he played 5 minutes, and Coburn played 35. That accounts for the difference of 0.5 minutes per game. He guessed that Buie played 8 or 9 minutes per game as a freshman when it was 12.6. He said that the strategy is to win the game, and he will play for Buie for 38 minutes if necessary. My point is that the strategy to win on three consecutive days should not be the same strategy as to win on Thursday-Saturday-Thursday or Saturday-Thursday-Saturday.

https://caasports.com/news/2020/3/3/men ... rch-3.aspx links to teleconferences with the other coaches. For some reason, Bill Coen did not participate, and Associate Coach Chris Markwood did Northeastern's teleconference.

[Wags]

I will keep on saying although NE is a solid team for the most part they're not the team to beat and neither is COC. All these teams except for us and Delaware will ride their success on their star player N.E. Roland, COC Riller but we have 5 guys that can score as does Delaware. Last year we looked to Justin when the game was on the line now what player does the opposing team key on?? The fact that we played strong in front of big crowds on the road is a feather in our cap and should make us the favorite to win plus being there doesn't hurt us either.

I don't think anyone who's saying Northeastern or other teams who might be dangerous are the teams to beat. Hofstra is the team to beat and I expect them to cut the nets this year. But you can think that and still consider teams like Northeastern, W&M or Towson dangerous and legitimate threats to HU. Wouldn't shock me if Charleston or Delaware have good tournaments and go on runs, but I think Hofstra takes either one of them out in the semis without a huge amount of trouble. I just don't believe in CofC or UDel in a big spot this year. I think the bigger threat to HU comes in the finals, from one of the other three I mentioned.

[EvanJ]

Mihalich said that the teams are close enough that every coach is unhappy with who his team has to play.

I looked at the conference tournament TV schedule. With channels I get, FloSports, ESPN+, and free streaming, I get every game of 26 of the 32 tournaments.

Edit: https://www.midmajormadness.com/2020/3/ ... -the-dance is a preview that says:

"Hofstra (23-8, 14-4): The Pride have won nine of 10, and that’s not even the most impressive thing they’ve done the whole year. A week before Thanksgiving, Joe Mihalich’s squad went into Pauley Pavilion and dominated the now PAC-12 leader UCLA. In that game, senior guard Desure Buie scored 29 points. That was just the beginning of his amazing year. Heading into Wednesday, he ranked in the top 85 of percentage of minutes played, assist rate and three-point percentage. His fellow guard, Eli Pemberton, is 29th in the nation in percentage of minutes played, and 81st in free throw percentage. Not only that, they have a big man to round it out in Isaac Kante. He is ninth in the nation in eFG%, 11th in TS%, 27th in two-point percentage and 65th in free throw percentage. This stellar offense is ranked in the top 100 of eight KenPom categories. The defense on the other hand ranks in the bottom 53 of five categories."

Given that we're fifth in the CAA in fewest points per game allowed, I wouldn't expect our defense to rank poorly in that many categories, although it didn't say how many categories there are. Our points differential is +40 from field goals and +189 from free throws, so categories that only include field goal may not like us.

They didn't pick a team to win, but said W&M would be a great story. Buie, Pemberton, and Kante were among the 14 players to watch, and we were the only team with 3 players to watch. UNCW was the only team with no players to watch.

[EvanJ]

I was thinking about if us and UCLA make the NCAA Tournament, have we ever made the NCAA Tournament and beat a team that made the NCAA Tournament in the same season? I checked, and we didn't do that in 2000-2001. We did that in 1999-2000 when we beat Iona (90-69 on December 18, 1999), and both teams got 14 seeds. In 1976-1977, we beat Duquesne and Southern Illinois in consecutive games. That NCAA Tournament had 32 teams, and it was the last NCAA Tournament without seeds. In 1975-1976, we didn't beat any NCAA Tournament teams. In 1976-1977, Duquesne was in the A10 in the first season it existed, and Southern Illinois was in the Missouri Valley like they still are. If us and UCLA make the NCAA Tournament, it will be the first time we make an NCAA Tournament and beat a team from a top conference that made the NCAA Tournament.

Edit: https://www.covers.com/Editorial/Articl ... ting-picks says we went 22-8 (.733) against the spread, which was the second best record of 353 teams. That excludes non-Division I games. Here are the betting odds:

Us: 11/5 (2.2/1)
Northeastern: 3/1
Charleston: 5/1
Towson: 5/1
Delaware: 7/1
W&M: 8/1
Drexel: 30/1
Elon: 60/1
UNCW: 200/1
JMU: 300/1

To convert into probabilities, you take the reciprocal of each and divide by the sum of the reciprocals. Dividing by the sum of the reciprocals is necessary to make the probabilities add up to 1 (100 percent). Normally the sum of the reciprocals is a little over 1 so people collecting bets make a profit and people betting lose money. In this case, the sum is 1.514, which is unfair to bettors, albeit most bettors don't know this math about calculating how fair the odds are. If you multiplied each team's payout by 1.5, making us 3.3, Northeastern 4.5, etc., it would still be against bettors. The odds make these probabilities:

Us: 30.0%
Northeastern: 22.0%
Charleston: 13.2%
Towson: 13.2%
Delaware: 9.4%
W&M: 8.3%
Drexel: 2.2%
Elon: 1.1%
UNCW: 0.3%
JMU: 0.2%

It adds up to 99.9% due to rounding. The big deal is that it gives W&M only an 8.3% chance. Expressed another way, it's 1 in 12.1. I think everybody who follows the CAA or makes probabilities from computer formulas would give W&M a better chance than that. The odds think that randomly selecting a team would be more likely to be correct than picking W&M!

Fans at https://csnbbs.com/thread-895529.html don't believe in us. So far 11 people picked. 6 picked W&M, 3 picked us, 1 picked Towson, and 1 picked Northeastern. In the Semifinal in our half, 9 picked us, 2 picked Charleston, and nobody picked Delaware (or Drexel or UNCW). That means 6 (a majority) picked us to lose the Final again.

[EvanJ]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2020/3/5/men ... unday.aspx is our preview titled "MBB: Top-Seeded Hofstra Opens CAA Championship On Sunday."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game32.pdf is our Game Notes. It includes our statistics and opponents' statistics for every CAA Tournament game and our individual CAA Tournament records for one game, one tournament, and careers. It has our team and opponents' statistics for the two games combined against every CAA team, and it has every box score from this season. Here are our players who averages at least 20 points against a CAA team this season:

Buie: 31.0 vs. Elon
Pemberton: 30.0 vs. JMU
Buie: 23.0 vs. Delaware
Buie: 22.5 vs. Northeastern
Buie: 20.5 vs. Towson
Buie: 20.5 vs. JMU

Buie was our leading scorer against every seed from 2 through 8, and Pemberton was our leading scorer against UNCW and JMU.

Among our possible first opponents, we were +10.0 per game vs. Drexel (76.5-66.5), and +8.0 per game vs. UNCW (70.5-62.5). Buie led us with 19.0 vs. Drexel, and Pemberton led us with 18.5 vs. UNCW. Kante averaged 17.5 vs. UNCW, which was tied with Elon for his best average, and his third best average was 16.5 vs. Drexel. Drexel had a better head-to-head field goal percentage, .495 to .487, but we shot threes much better at .435 to .250 with 1 more make from 13 fewer attempts, and we made over double the free throws, 31 to 14. We're second to Northeastern in the CAA in free throw percentage, with Northeastern leading 353 teams and us in 11th, but four CAA teams including Northeastern had a higher head-to-head free throw percentage. W&M, Towson, and Northeastern are in the other half of the bracket. The only team in our half with a higher head-to-head free throw percentage is UNCW at .788 to .738.

[Wags]

On their way...

https://twitter.com/HofstraPride/status ... 6410167302

[Wags]

Not that I think they'll be overconfident, but in case any of that sets in before Sunday at noon, I hope Hofstra takes heed of what is happening to Northern Iowa right now.

Like Hofstra, UNI (25-5) is a 1 seed that went 14-4 and won its conference (the Missouri Valley) by one game. After a first-round bye, they trail eighth-seeded Drake by 18 with under three minutes left.

[EvanJ]

UNI lost 77-56. Unlike us, they had a chance at an at-large bid, and still have a chance, but that was a horrible last game before Selection Sunday. They played consecutive games against each other, and UNI won 70-43 at Drake on Saturday. Drake is in Des Moines, so they're in-state rivals. With that loss, the best chance for an at-large bid outside the top ten conferences is East Tennessee State from the Southern. Outside the top ten conferences, UNI (the MVC is eleventh), and ETSU, the top NET is Yale in 66th. Stephen F. Austin has a win at Duke and only three losses, but their NET of 80th is horrible by at-large standards, and their SOS of 325th is horrible for any team.

[Polito]

I’ll tell you one thing, there is absolutely zero buzz about the CAA or any team in it this year on a national scale – even the mid major sites have barely covered any of the programs in this conference. There have been recent years even under the pitiful CAA leadership where there was at least some catchy buzz about a program or two, but this year it is dead zone about this league.

And hey, well-deserved, but I actually think this makes the CAA winner rape to shock the nation. Could be very very exciting if that team catches fire and makes a true Cinderella run.

[Hof_Judge99]

I know this is never gonna change but it still drives me nuts how the American East has a perfect Sat-Wed-Sat tournament at campus sites. And we have this garbage rushed together crap at an empty gym in the middle of nowhere.

[Mikey77]

You are so right Judge99. Most of these conference tournaments are played in largely empty arenas, for what purpose I don't know. This year with the coronavirus issue it will likely be worse.

[Flying Dutchmen]

I know this is never gonna change but it still drives me nuts how the American East has a perfect Sat-Wed-Sat tournament at campus sites. And we have this garbage rushed together crap at an empty gym in the middle of nowhere.

Looking at our student support this year, I think I rather have the final in an empty building in the middle of nowhere than an empty building in Hempstead. Student support was a complete embarrassment for a great team this year. We can point the finger at the CAA all we want for lack of national exposure, but our students won’t walk 5 minutes to the Mack for a first place team.

[Mikey77]

Fair enough FD, but there were some pretty decent crowds at the Mack this year.

[Hof_Judge99]

I know this is never gonna change but it still drives me nuts how the American East has a perfect Sat-Wed-Sat tournament at campus sites. And we have this garbage rushed together crap at an empty gym in the middle of nowhere.

Looking at our student support this year, I think I rather have the final in an empty building in the middle of nowhere than an empty building in Hempstead. Student support was a complete embarrassment for a great team this year. We can point the finger at the CAA all we want for lack of national exposure, but our students won’t walk 5 minutes to the Mack for a first place team.

Couldn’t disagree more. The regular season is totally different than the playoffs. Stony Brook has an empty arena half the time in the reg season and they pack the house in the playoffs. The Mack was like 90% full on senior day, and for a big playoff game it would be sold out. Not to mention how much more meaning it would give to the regular season. They do it because of money and sponsorships but it ruins the who point of a small school tournament.

[Wags]

Hello from D.C.!
https://twitter.com/JonathanJWagner/sta ... 3330122752

HU fans at the tourney, come say hello on Sunday - would be great to meet some of you guys! Let me know where you are in the arena. Maybe we can also meet up before or after games during the tourney. I'm staying at in MD, a few miles south of the arena, but I have my car and can meet up. I may check out some of the things Hofstra has planned at its hotel and the Bluejacket bar, but not sure yet. Will try.

I like this year's program:
https://twitter.com/JonathanJWagner/sta ... 7086329856

[Pride97]

Wish I could have made it down. Will be screaming loud enough at my TV that you may be able to hear me in DC.

Hope everyone has a great time that is going! Let’s win 3 in 3. Go pride!


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[ProudofPride]

Yet another year of the Little Napoleons not making the NCAA tournament!

[Jojogunne]

Elon defeated W&M, 68-63.

[Wags]

Crowd was probably tougher to face than playing at W&M during a regular season game. Elon also went 1/16 from the field during a crucial second-half stretch, and freshmen like Woods were heavily relied upon. Amazing the amount of adversity Elon overcame. Even more amazing, it was wire to wire. W&M never led.

Northeastern up 20-13 on Towson in the first half. Getting closer to the Hofstra-Northeastern finals I was thinking weeks ago.

[Wags]

Hofstra could be the only higher seed to win today and might not have to beat anyone higher than a 5 seed to win the title.

27-20, Huskies, under 4 left in the half.