MBB Game 18 - Monmouth, 1/11/23 (Wed), 7 PM

[Jojogunne]

Monmouth has won only one of 16 games, against Manhattan. Their average scoring margin is -22 points. In their last game vs. Drexel, the Hawks scored just 35 points. Another team that does not seem CAA-ready.

The game will be on FloHoops.

https://monmouthhawks.com/sports/mens-b ... ath=mbball

[HUSID80]

Really a shame with what has happened to this once proud program...didn't they have some increidble winning streak a few years back and the antics of the players on their bench made them the darlings of college basketball.

I need to check if thier coach King Rice is still there...he was being talked about for several big time jobs.

[The Shadow]

According to ESPN, HU is a 97.9% favorite over MU. I cannot remember a larger Division 1 percentage for HU. King Rice is head coach at MU.

[EvanJ]

Of 363 teams, Monmouth is 6th worst in the NET, 12th worst in the Sagarin, and 8th worst in KenPom. KenPom predicts 82-61 and gives us a 97 percent chance, which is tied for the highest by a CAA team for the rest of the season.

I wonder how big favorite we were at Kennesaw State on December 1, 2018. Kennesaw State entered 1-7 and finished 6-26.

Here are the predicted CAA Tournament seeds according to KenPom:

1. Charleston: 15-3
2. UNCW: 14-4
3. Hofstra: 13-5
4. Towson: 12-6 (1-1 vs. Drexel, Towson and Drexel winless vs. Charleston and UNCW, and Towson 1-1 vs. us to Drexel's 0-1)
5. Drexel: 12-6
6. North Carolina A&T: 9-9 (1-0 vs. Delaware)
7. Delaware: 9-9
8. Northeastern: 8-10
9. William & Mary: 7-11 (1-1 vs. Stony Brook, William & Mary and Stony Brook winless vs. the top five, 1-1 vs. North Carolina A&T and Delaware combined to Stony Brook's 1-2)
10. Stony Brook: 7-11
11. Elon: 4-14 (1-0 vs. Hampton)
12. Hampton: 4-14
13. Monmouth: 3-15

The first day has 12 vs. 13, and it continues with the format it had when there were 12 teams. Four teams enter in the Quarterfinals. If that happened, Drexel would miss out on a bye by record against us, and they do not host us. An unbalanced schedule can make unfair seeds. In 2006-2007, we were third, and Drexel was fourth. 1 seed Virginia Commonwealth (16-2) played us and Drexel once, and 2 seed Old Dominion (15-3) played us and Drexel twice.

[Cards]

My son was at Monmouth for his freshman year (playing baseball) about 10 years ago. While there, MU was finishing up a new arena that was attached to the old gym/fieldhouse. Its not that large, but it is a nice venue - kinda on the scale of the Stony Brook arena (relatively new, and nice for an average mid-major). It was right after the arena was completed that their MBB program was having a nice run (as HUSID noted). Don't know what happened since, but they sure have fallen fast.

[triplec2195]

If you look at Monmouth's stats they r dead last in most categories in the CAA including their OOC games. They score 57 a game and give up 80. They r the worst in FT% shooting .60 they are the worst at 3point % shooting a dismal 27%. The only category where they r strong is steals leading the league with 7.94 a game. It's no wonder that they have only won 1 game and that was probably a miracle.

[EvanJ]

It's no wonder that they have only won 1 game and that was probably a miracle.

They won 76-69 at Manhattan, who is 343rd (21st worst) in the NET. Their other games against teams with NETs in the 300s were a 80-76 loss at Lehigh and a 67-56 loss hosting Stony Brook. After going to us, going to Towson, and hosting Charleston, Monmouth could win hosting Hampton.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2023/1/9/men ... mouth.aspx is our preview. We were 1-6 against Monmouth, but improved that to 6-6.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game18.pdf is our Game Notes.

http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=425818 will have statistics.

Monmouth has not written a preview yet.

Myles Foster averages 11.9 points, and is their only double-digit scorer. They use 11 players, who all played in every game except for one guy who missed one game, and all of them average at least 11.4 minutes. It must be rare for a team's eleventh most minutes to be higher than their second most points. Other than Jack Collins and Jack Holmstrom, they attempt very few threes, and only 28.9 percent of their attempts are threes. Their opponents have 44.8 percent of their attempts be threes.
That must be among the highest, but I cannot find out without checking 363 teams manually. 41.2 percent of our attempts are threes. Foster shoots .469, which is bad for a guy who only attempted 2 threes. Their only player who shoots better is Jayden Doyle, who is 18-34 (.529). Foster (29.6) and Collins (28.6) are their only players who average at least 25 minutes.

[triplec2195]

Depending upon what you're looking at Yahoo has us at 20.5 pt. favorites ESPN 19 point favorites with a 98% chance to win. I wonder (EVAN) HAVE WE EVER BEEN 20 POINT FAVORITES OVER ANYONE?? I remember us recently as a 12 point favorite over a NCA&T team and we know how that played out. It's hard to believe that Monmouth with a respectable basketball history could be this BAD! O/U 140 translating to 80-60.

[ZMAN3]

19 a "Playable" number at this posting.
PS- Just thought I'd post something on W&M game -They are awful -and HU's interior defense pretty much the same. They have to be better if they want to beat the better teams in this conference.

[Wags]

Really a shame with what has happened to this once proud program...didn't they have some increidble winning streak a few years back and the antics of the players on their bench made them the darlings of college basketball.

Yup, that was six years ago, when they went 27-7 (18-2 in the MAAC), one year after going 28-8 (17-3 in the MAAC). That 27-7 team was talked about nationally as being one of the worst NCAA tourney at-large snubs that year.

They were still okay last year, at 21-13, 11-9 in the MAAC, but this is a tremendous dropoff this year. It happens though. You lose everyone and then retool. We know Towson was 1-31, then 18-13 the following year and 25-11 the year after that. And of course we all remember HU's disastrous 7-25 season, but winning 20 games two years later and generally being a perennial CAA contender most years since.

I need to check if thier coach King Rice is still there...he was being talked about for several big time jobs.

King Rice is indeed still Monmouth's head coach, in his 12th season there.

[Wags]

19 a "Playable" number at this posting.
PS- Just thought I'd post something on W&M game -They are awful -and HU's interior defense pretty much the same. They have to be better if they want to beat the better teams in this conference.

This is the problem for HU with adding some very weak teams to a conference which already has some previously decent or good teams that are now very much on the decline, like W&M.

I guess we should be grateful that HU is not among the latter, but as one of the (seeming) contenders in the conference, it's very hard to judge where they're at in terms or TRULY contending with SO many of these types of games on the CAA schedule when they win them easily (and, of course they also lost one of those). Not many opportunities down the stretch to show otherwise in February, heading into the CAA tourney. It' really only in the middle of the CAA slate (coming up soon) when they play Charleston, Towson, and UNCW. If nothing else, I guess it builds confidence and should give HU one of the higher CAA tourney seeds if they do what they're supposed to do, but it sure doesn't test them much (CAA games like NC A&T aside, which we hope was merely an aberration).

[EvanJ]

Depending upon what you're looking at Yahoo has us at 20.5 pt. favorites ESPN 19 point favorites with a 98% chance to win. I wonder (EVAN) HAVE WE EVER BEEN 20 POINT FAVORITES OVER ANYONE?? I remember us recently as a 12 point favorite over a NCA&T team and we know how that played out. It's hard to believe that Monmouth with a respectable basketball history could be this BAD! O/U 140 translating to 80-60.

I found https://www.covers.com/sport/basketball ... /2006-2007 which has lines going back to 2006-2007. We were never favored by that much in that time. I wish I could find lines for 2005-2006 because that was our best season by RPI. The regular season champion 2015-2016 team was never favored by more than 13.5, and the 2010-2011 team with Charles Jenkins sixth in Division I in points per game was never favored by more than 9. Now every Division I game has a line, but in past seasons there were nonconference games without lines.

https://monmouthhawks.com/news/2023/1/1 ... esday.aspx is Monmouth's preview. We outscored them 891-886, which is 74.25-73.83 per game.

[triplec2195]

Depending upon what you're looking at Yahoo has us at 20.5 pt. favorites ESPN 19 point favorites with a 98% chance to win. I wonder (EVAN) HAVE WE EVER BEEN 20 POINT FAVORITES OVER ANYONE?? I remember us recently as a 12 point favorite over a NCA&T team and we know how that played out. It's hard to believe that Monmouth with a respectable basketball history could be this BAD! O/U 140 translating to 80-60.

I found https://www.covers.com/sport/basketball ... /2006-2007 which has lines going back to 2006-2007. We were never favored by that much in that time. I wish I could find lines for 2005-2006 because that was our best season by RPI. The regular season champion 2015-2016 team was never favored by more than 13.5, and the 2010-2011 team with Charles Jenkins sixth in Division I in points per game was never favored by more than 9. Now every Division I game has a line, but in past seasons there were nonconference games without lines.

https://monmouthhawks.com/news/2023/1/1 ... esday.aspx is Monmouth's preview. We outscored them 891-886, which is 74.25-73.83 per game.

Thanks Evan for researching this. A point spread this big seems crazy but we'll see what the actual score is tonight.

[Wags]

Depending upon what you're looking at Yahoo has us at 20.5 pt. favorites ESPN 19 point favorites with a 98% chance to win. I wonder (EVAN) HAVE WE EVER BEEN 20 POINT FAVORITES OVER ANYONE?? I remember us recently as a 12 point favorite over a NCA&T team and we know how that played out. It's hard to believe that Monmouth with a respectable basketball history could be this BAD! O/U 140 translating to 80-60.

I found https://www.covers.com/sport/basketball ... /2006-2007 which has lines going back to 2006-2007. We were never favored by that much in that time. I wish I could find lines for 2005-2006 because that was our best season by RPI. The regular season champion 2015-2016 team was never favored by more than 13.5, and the 2010-2011 team with Charles Jenkins sixth in Division I in points per game was never favored by more than 9. Now every Division I game has a line, but in past seasons there were nonconference games without lines.

https://monmouthhawks.com/news/2023/1/1 ... esday.aspx is Monmouth's preview. We outscored them 891-886, which is 74.25-73.83 per game.

Thanks Evan for researching this. A point spread this big seems crazy but we'll see what the actual score is tonight.

After the last time on their home floor, they should come out angry and purposeful, and win this by 25+. Not only after the NC A&T loss, but also after Drexel beat Monmouth at home by 32. And no player for Monmouth should be going off tonight in any way. They only have one player scoring in double figures, that is only 11.9 ppg. They only average 57.6 ppg and only shoot 38.1% overall and just 27.1% from 3. If HU is serious tonight, there should be no problem holding Monmouth to a low point total and winning this one easily.

[EvanJ]

http://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/2023 ... mouth.html is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Monmouth." At William & Mary, we had our first 75-62 win since a season-opener hosting Fordham on November 23, 1985. Our 2 free throw attempts were our fewest since at least 1986-1987.

http://defiantlydutch.blogspot.com/2023 ... -rice.html is Jerry Beach's interview with Coach King Rice. He said CAA players are bigger and stronger than MAAC players. He praised UNCW Coach Takayo Siddle.

KenPom expects us to win 82-61.

Today's five CAA games are at the same time:

Us: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcas ... ?id=425818

Charleston at UNCW: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=426893

North Carolina A&T at Elon: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=425237

Towson at Delaware: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcas ... ?id=425086

Hampton at William & Mary: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/statmonitr/?id=429461 (on Cox in Virginia as the only televised game)

Drexel at Stony Brook is tomorrow at 7:00 P.M. on CBS Sports Network. Both of them have off on Monday when there are five games, so they do not have to play three games in five days.

[Wags]

Slow start, down 10-4. They seem to do fine when The mack has energy, but when it doesn't (like tonight), they struggle. Came out flat and Monmouth was playing harder defensively.

But they have picked it up since then. It's 31-8, Hofstra since Monmouth led, 18-12.

[Wags]

Slow start, down 10-4. They seem to do fine when The mack has energy, but when it doesn't (like tonight), they struggle. Came out flat and Monmouth was playing harder defensively.

But they have picked it up since then. It's 31-8, Hofstra since Monmouth led, 18-12.

Two more, making the run 33-8, pushed the lead to the pre-game spread of 19 for the first time, at 45-26.

It's now 49-36. Monmouth surpasses its total at Drexel with 11:29 left.

[HUSID80]

Slow start, down 10-4. They seem to do fine when The mack has energy, but when it doesn't (like tonight), they struggle. Came out flat and Monmouth was playing harder defensively.

But they have picked it up since then. It's 31-8, Hofstra since Monmouth led, 18-12.

Crowd terrible and quiet...everyone sitting on their hands.

[HUSID80]

Good solid win. We did what we needed to do. Williams was a beast. Even had an offensive rebound.

[stuball888]

Jon could not make the game tonight. Maybe reason crowd was not in it was the competition.
Look how many bad teams are now in the CAA. Every new addition to CAA on the mens side is horrible.
Are we really going to get excited playing Hampton, Monmouth, and NCA&T. Even SBU this year has lost its luster. Do you think adding Campbell will help next year. Sorry its just quantity not quality.. Of all the teams and all the sports can you name 2 sports that are now improving the CAA. Only one is SBU womens lacrosse.