VCU beats Miami

 VCU is being led by JoeBam averaging 17 points and 5 boards 1.5 steals and 32 minutes a game

Last edited by The Dude (11/25/2024 2:00 am)

Rutgers agreed to a game at Kennesaw State in order to give Ace Bailey a game where his family and friends could easily attend.  Really bad loss for Steve P. and Rutgers.

I believe Miami played the weakest schedule in the country prior to their MTE. Sounds familiar...

Caught a bit of Drake's game against Vanderbilt. Fun, scrappy team under a really good coach in Ben McCollum. Might even be an upgrade from DeVries. I worry about their size against bigger opponents but they were so good at finding ways to get to the hoop and they swiped the ball from the Commodores cleanly on countless occasions. Definitely a team to watch.

Gwmayhem wrote:

Rutgers agreed to a game at Kennesaw State in order to give Ace Bailey a game where his family and friends could easily attend.  Really bad loss for Steve P. and Rutgers.

It somehow doesn't feel like a coincidence that Kennesaw upset Rutgers on the same day that South Florida won on a game winner against Wright State. I'm sure Amir Abdur-Rahim is smiling from above. 

I've only watched a few A10 teams so far, but so far I haven't seen a reason to believe GW cannot be competitive in conference play.

Against Milwaukee, Duquesne did some fun things defensively with trying to turn the Panthers over, but offensively they played a bit too much like it was a pick-up basketball contest. Seems like a good fit for Max on that front. Hope better shooting days are ahead for him. UWM did not look particularly good but still won.

George Mason is a talented team that still very much has a high floor, but I haven't seen enough offensively to believe that they can be a true contender. East Carolina is a gritty team, but GMU had several sizable scoring droughts against them.

Davidson ran some nice sets against ETSU, but they had a major size advantage against the Bucs. Still not sure that the Wildcats can shoot the ball well enough from 3 to ascend.

Fordham is still Fordham offensively. Not sure how a school can be so bad at scoring for so long. I don't know that the defense is as elite as previous years either. Even on the road, losing to Manhattan is not good.

I haven't had the chance to watch La Salle or Rhode Island yet, but they have both been pleasant surprises results-wise so far. The Explorers are getting really efficient scoring from Corey McKeithan, who transferred in from Rider and was a sub-par player there. Fran Dunphy is the goat. I guess Archie has finally figured out something this year - I expected URI to be bad again but they've been dominant in some of their games. Beating the crap out of Charleston in particular was very impressive.

St. Bona seems solid as always. Good to see Noel is doing well.

Hard to assess SLU with Avila not playing. He's so important to the offense. Dayton is Dayton.

Loyola looked pretty good when I watched them against Princeton but the close win against Chicago State was confusing. Not sure what Rubin's ceiling is as a player offensively - he hasn't really exploded like I expected.

VCU looks good for the most part, but really missed an opportunity against Nevada the other day. JoeBam is still as streaky as ever. UNR looks like a serious at-large candidate but it remains to be seen whether that can translate to the NCAA tournament. For VCU, losing to Seton Hall is bad, even though they are a Big East team and Sha is a good coach. They are offensively inept.

St. Joe's will always be a high variance team. When they make shots they can beat a Texas Tech. When they don't, they can lose to Central Connecticut. The lack of consistency will prevent them from winning the A10 but double bye is possible.

UMass seems to already be in MAC mode from a basketball perspective. I wasn't high on their talent but thought Martin would give them a sizable floor. They may still have that but the Minutemen haven't been that good so far.

Similarly for Richmond, surprised that they are doing so poorly. Scoring seems to be a challenge for the Spiders this year. If George Washington III is not going to play much, have him join us in Foggy Bottom.
 

Dayton is blowing out North Carolina at the half in Maui

By 2 to an outstanding North Carolina team that was a helluva game, Dayton looked very much capable of a deep run in March

Houston the #1 KenPom team just landed the #1 Center in the Nation Chris Cenac Jr for 2025

#2 is Gonzaga, a full decade for a tiny school in a tiny gym in Spokane WA at the very top of the KenPom, what a job by Kelvin Sampson and Mark Few

Gonzaga ends the night the #1 KenPom team in the land and Rutgers and Pikiell top Notre Dame behind 35 points 6 dimes and 6 boards from top 3 NBA pick Dylan Harper 
 

Last edited by The Dude (11/27/2024 1:42 am)

Down goes Gonzaga and America's Greatest Coach. West Virginia stuns the Bulldogs in OT 86-78.

Another good A-10 win as Davidson bounces back from the shellacking at the hands of Arizona to take down the overrated Friars of Providence College.

The Dude wrote:

Dayton beats the #2 team in the Nation 85-67

Massive win for Dayton and the A10

#3 Gonzaga vs #14 Indiana, for those who aren't excited about a Tommy Devito/Drew Lock vs Cooper Rush Giants Cowboys game ! 

Have a good Thanksgiving and go GW


No mention of UCONN's first two losses, including the one where Hurley single-handedly cost his team a game with an ill-timed technical foul, but what's more remarkable is that after their third consecutive loss in Maui, The Dude refers to them as the #2 team in the nation and could not bring himself to write UCONN?  The AP poll is not out yet but Andy Katz has them outside of his top 37 this week so it sounds like it's going to be challenging to reference them again until they can at least win a few games.
 

GWRising wrote:

GW0509 wrote:

Miami just lost to Charleston Southern. Was Caputo the brains behind the operation? Because they’ve sure been stinky ever since he left. 

In fairness, I think they went to Final Four his first year at GW (2023).

I’m a hurricanes season ticket holder and man this year has been a disaster. They went all in on Pack to run the offense (which he is not equipped to do) and didn’t bring in any veteran on-ball guards who can create their own offense. They also don’t play any defense. GW probably could beat Miami if they played this season.

8-0 Rhode Island beat Yale, another top 100 win for the A10 in the OOC

22 for JoeBam leading VCU to a win over Miami, averaging 17 pts 5 boards 3 dimes and 1.5 steals for VCU



 

Last edited by The Dude (12/02/2024 9:16 pm)