UConn wins national title the old-fashioned way

Connecticut battles inside, shuts down Butler 53-41 for Jim Calhoun’s third NCAA championship.

Towson, VCU, JMU Refuse to Stand Pat. Well, Towson Sorta’ Does…

Three quick hitters as we get life back together: Towson has hired Pat Skerry as its new coach, replacing Pat Kennedy. Skerry was an assistant at Pitt this past year. Skerry has crossed paths with CAA teams frequently in his past. He was an assistant at three schools who are popular nonconference foes–Providence (2008-2010), Rhode Island (2005-2008), and College of Charleston (2003-2005). Skerry has also been on the bench at Nor’easter (1998-2000) and William & Mary (2000-2003). Skerry was the head coach at division 3 Curry College in Massachusetts from 1996-98. *** The JMU Board of Visitors approved a new arena to be constructed in 2014 as part of its six year capital outlay plan. Estimated cost: $87.5 million. According to Mark Selig at the DNR: “In July, 2010, JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said the school would spend $5 million to renovate the Convocation Center – including a new video scoreboard and new lighting. That plan appears to now be on hold.” I agree. *** Finally, in a news item slightly more shocking than the sun coming up tomorrow, Shaka Smart has reached a contract extension at VCU. The administration is holding off on contract terms, but my keen grasp of the situation allows me to say that Smart will earn “more money for a greater number of years.”

No fooling, our long national nightmare is over: The End of CBI Craziness

The CBI deserved to be decided on this wretched excuse for a basketball court. The CBI dragged it out as long as freaking humanly possible, but finally, blissfully, humanely, the worst postseason tournament in the history of sports is over after Oregon edged Creighton, 81-79, in the winner-take-all third game (really, CBI? A best-of-three?) last night in Oregon. And of course it ended on April Fools Day in appropriately disorganized and foolish fashion. According to the Twitters, Oregon scored the tie-breaking basket with two seconds left after Creighton was called for a backcourt violation. Apparently, it’s impossible to see the midcourt line at the new and of course hideous-looking Phil Knight-funded Matthew Knight Arena, as you can see—or not see—up above. On the bright side, Creighton, you were spared winning the CBI. So take solace in that. Alas, unfortunately for those of us who are looking at the CBI Craziness trends, the Oregon win allowed John Templon to edge out Hofstra graduate Jaymes Langrehr for the Son of CBI Craziness championship. Last year’s winner, VCU Pav, is off watching the Final Four this weekend, so therefore this year’s winner will get to watch HIS alma mater in the Final Four this time next year. Enjoy your alma mater’s Final Four trip next year, John, and enjoy the damn prize that I have to muster up now. John’s title and his prize are well-earned—or as well-earned as anything about the CBI can be—after he picked Oregon at the start of this wretched abomination and correctly guessed three of the CBI’s final four teams as well. Nobody picked Creighton initially—that’s what happens when a pool consists almost exclusively of fans of Hofstra, the CAA and the Atlantic 10—so Jaymes almost took advantage of our very CBI-like second chance semifinal picks to swoop in from fifth place and steal the “crown.” But it was not meant to be, and for that he should be relieved. Other than that whole Hofstra not going to the Final Four thing next year, that is. Here are the final standings of Son of CBI Craziness. Let us never speak of the CBI again, except to mock it incessantly. SON OF CBI CRAZINESS STANDINGS THE BLISSFUL END John Templon 43 Mike Brodsky 28 Nick Mazzarella 21 Craig Smith 18 Jaymes Langrehr 16 Gary Moore 15 Dominic Pody 14 Rick Vizzi 14 Raphielle Johnson 13 Chris Crowley 12 Elise Manicke-Russell 12 P.J. Harmer 10 Jerry Beach 7 Joe Suhoski 6 THE REAL WINNERS These awesome people didn’t take advantage of the semifinal second chance and re-pick the rest of the bracket, and for that they have my utmost admiration. Notice my wife is in there. Told you she was the smart one. Lee Warner 8 Michelle Beach 6 Mitch Merman 6 Lori Chase 5 Geoffrey Sorensen 5 Christian Heimall 4 Rob & Todd (JMU Sports Blog) 4 Victoria Rossi 3 Thank goodness that’s over. Let’s go VCU—though I can’t shake this feeling that Butler is the Rams’ biggest challenge yet, if only because the ultra-cool Bulldogs won’t fold like USC, Georgetown, Purdue and Kansas did at the first sign of trouble. Either way, no matter what happens, you know the media bore head coach of a certain Virginia-based school that also bears a three-letter acronym and made the Final Four as an 11 seed will be yakking about it. It’s almost enough to make me pine for the days of CBI Craziness. Almost. Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch .

Connecticut Huskies roster

Connecticut Huskies roster

DEFIANTLY DUTCH EXCLUSIVE: NCAA grants Charles Jenkins another season of eligibility!

Get that number 22 down from the rafters. Charles Jenkins isn’t done wearing it. NCAA president Mark Emmert told Defiantly Dutch in an exclusive interview last night that he has decided to grant Jenkins—who became Hofstra’s all-time leading scorer during what was believed to be his senior season—another year of eligibility. “Actually legislating the NCAA and punishing people is boring work—why do you think Yahoo! Sports and its five-man operation kicks our ass ?” Emmert said. “So I was procrastinating and I stumbled across those Charles Jenkins Facts on Facebook and they cracked me up. You Hofstra alums are some funny bastards. And I decided it would be a shame to see a page like that go mostly silent.” Emmert also said he felt he owed Hofstra something after the Brad Kelleher debacle. Kelleher was ruled ineligible for the first 40 games of his Hofstra career because he played with professionals in his native Australia. “We really screwed you guys with Kelleher—I mean, really, really screwed you guys,” Emmert said. “Enforcing piddling rules at smaller schools while letting the big boys get away with far worse stuff go on at the big boys is our Viagra. If Jay-Z even drove BY Hofstra Arena, we’d give you the death penalty so fast, it’d make Eric Dickerson’s head spin. But man, we really let you have it there with Kelleher. So this is our olive branch.” Emmert added, though, that the NCAA would not give back the year Kelleher lost and that it planned to vacate Hofstra’s entire 2010-11 season because Kelleher allowed his girlfriend to buy him lunch on the final day of the fall semester. Kelleher’s meal card had expired. “Kid should have known how expensive it is to eat at Hofstra,” Emmert said. “That compromises his amateur status. Plus I hate AC/DC. So damn loud. Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution —my ass it isn’t. Blow up your video —I wish. Three chords this, guttural scream about a sexual entendre that. A little variety never hurt anybody, dudes.” Emmert said the impending lockout in the NBA also played into his decision. “It would be a shame to have a kid like that sitting out next year,” Emmert said. “So why can’t we benefit one more time from his free labor?” Reached by phone, NBA commissioner David Stern cursed and said he no longer felt any urgency to negotiate with the players union. “Looks like I can’t fix the lottery for the Nets so they can get Jenkins,” he added. Asked if Jenkins could eventually get a sixth season of eligibility—or more—Emmert said he wouldn’t mind seeing the Hofstra star play long enough to take over some of the most hallowed records in NCAA history. At his current career rates, Jenkins would need another 59 games to break Pete Maravich’s all-time scoring record (3,667 points), 54 games to break Dickie Hemric’s mark for most free throws made in a career (905), 102 games to break the steals record held by John Linehan (385), 155 games to move past Bobby Hurley atop the assist charts (1,076) and 198 games to surpass J.J. Redick’s record for most 3-pointers (457). “Pistol Pete has been the all-time leading scorer long enough, don’t you think?” Emmert said. “Nobody’s ever heard of the free throws or assists guys and nobody likes Duke—except us—so we may in fact welcome Charles back for many years to come.” The answer may be found in a unique clause inserted into the contract Mo Cassara signed. Dubbed “The Jenkins Clause,” it doubles Cassara’s salary if Jenkins ever leaves. Reached for comment last night, Cassara could only utter a Homer Simpson-like series of deliriously happy giggles. Other CAA coaches and executives weren’t as thrilled. “Mass confusion right now for Hofstra about who’s going to inbound,” William & Mary coach Tony Shaver said. “David Imes can run the baseline. Imes hands to Jenkins. Down to three. Down to two. With one Jenkins fires GOT IT!! CHARLES JENKINS AT THE BUZZER! HOFSTRA WINS 81-78!” “Are you serious?” Old Dominion coach Blaine Taylor said. “Shoot, and after Wyoming hired its new coach too. That Jenkins is all horse and no hat.” “Way to ruin my week,” VCU coach Shaka Smart said. “Did Towson replace me yet?” Pat Kennedy asked. “Good luck getting that free throw record, the CAA Tournament is still held in Richmond and it’ll outlast you, Charles!” CAA commissioner Tom Yeager said. “It’ll outlast everything and everyone! RICHMOND!!!” “Does anyone want to talk to me about winning four games and getting to the Final Four as a mid-major 11 seed?” George Mason coach Jim Larranaga said. “Anyone? I’m Roger [bleeping] Bannister, Neil [bleeping] Armstrong and Roger [bleeping] Maris for crying out loud. But this isn’t about me, it’s about VCU and the CAA. Of which I’m the Jonas [bleeping] Salk.” As for Jenkins, he was unavailable for comment. He spent yesterday driving the baseball team to William & Mary, serving as bullpen catcher for the softball team during its practice, negotiating Cassara’s contract and getting his degree from Hofstra Law School. Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch .

Contract extension makes Mo the man for Hofstra

Charles Jenkins is gone, but Mo Cassara will remain a Lions’ Den favorite for years to come after signing a contract extension today. Three of the season’s lowest points convinced Jack Hayes that Mo Cassara was the school’s long-term answer at head coach. Two of the season’s most exciting moments convinced Cassara that Hofstra was the home an itinerant basketball coach had been seeking. The two men who reached the same conclusion via different methods needed little time to cement Cassara’s future at Hofstra. The school announced Thursday that it had signed Cassara to a five-year extension taking him through the 2015-16 season. The extension comes with a raise that will put Cassara into the top half of CAA coaches in annual compensation (that sound you just heard was George Mason drafting another press release announcing another extension and raise for Jim Larranaga). Cassara, whose original deal at Hofstra was for four years, signed his new contract a day before the anniversary of Tim Welsh’s hiring, a coincidental capper to a year that turned out nothing like expected and much better than expected, all at the same time. “I did not think of that,” Hayes said with a chuckle Thursday afternoon. “You try to handle these situations as best as you can, and in looking back now, I feel that the university made a good decision and I think everybody is happy with the decision to hire Mo as the head coach. As you look back now, over a 12-month period it’s been an excellent situation and one that we wanted to make sure lasts for a long time.” A year ago, Cassara headed to the Final Four in Indianapolis hopeful he’d join Welsh on Long Island but still nursing the wounds from the surprising dismissal of Al Skinner’s staff at Boston College and uncertain what he would do next. “I remember flying out here to the Final Four last year essentially thinking or hoping that I was going to go with Tim but really, essentially, without a job and not really knowing that much about Hofstra and not knowing about the opportunity and not knowing what I really wanted to do and, ultimately, still trying to figure out what happened at Boston College,” Cassara said tonight as he drove back from a dinner in Houston. “It’s amazing what happens in a year. You try to do the right thing and you work hard and you surround yourself with good people and I think a lot can be accomplished. Cassara, thrust from the third assistant’s role into the head coaching position when Welsh resigned following a DUI arrest last Apr. 30, finished second in the CAA Coach of the Year balloting (urge to curse rising) after leading the Flying Dutchmen to a 14-4 conference mark and a share of second place, the program’s best finish since moving to the CAA in 2001-02 and two games ahead of Final Four participant VCU. The Dutchmen finished 21-12 after falling to Old Dominion in the tournament semifinals and losing to Evansville in the first round of the CBI, but a season that ended shy of the ultimate goal left everyone associated with the program excited about what Cassara and his staff had begun to build. In addition to piecing together a 20-win season out of a thin and injury-depleted roster that featured just two players—Charles Jenkins and Greg Washington—who had started a game for Hofstra prior to this year, Cassara’s tireless efforts to reach out to fans via social media and other more traditional means helped the Dutchmen draw almost 700 more fans per game this year (3,073) than last year (2,410). The Dutchmen also played to their first two sellout crowds since the 2006-07 season. “Mo did a great job and showed that he can coach and that he can recruit and that he can certainly energize a college campus,” Hayes said. “At the end of the regular season, as we sat there tied at second at 14-4 in the conference, we knew we wanted to do something.” Hayes said he was particularly impressed by how Cassara got the Dutchmen to respond to and bounce back from disastrous trips to Puerto Rico, Iona and Wright State. The Dutchmen went 0-3 in the Puerto Rico Classic, where they opened and closed the trip by getting blown out by North Carolina and Nebraska and blew a 13-point lead against Western Kentucky in the final four minutes of the middle game, but won their next four games upon returning home. A 25-point loss to Iona in the final game of the calendar year led to a weekend’s worth of boot camp practices and resulted in the Dutchmen winning their first four games in January and seven of their first eight overall as they put themselves in position to earn a CAA Tournament bye. The Dutchmen lost by 26 in the BracketBuster at Wright State but mounted another four-game winning streak that ended with the loss to Old Dominion. “I think Mo did a great job of going through situations like that and getting everybody refocused and re-energized and working on the task at hand to put those things behind us, learn from them and move on,” Hayes said. “We came back from those stretches and we were very successful.” Cassara, who coached at six different colleges or high schools in the 13 years before he arrived at Hofstra, said he knew Long Island was the place for him after seeing the reaction to the Dutchmen’s home win over George Mason Jan. 5—a victory highlighted by Cassara racing over to Brad Kelleher and high-fiving him after Kelleher’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer at the end of the first half—and the anticipation prior to the sold-out season finale against Delaware Feb. 26. “There was a period of time early in the year I was like ‘Oh my God, are we going to win a game? How are we going to do this?’” Cassara said. “And I knew how good George Mason was, they really had been the class of the league and when we beat them at our place and really played well that second half, I could see the momentum start to turn and the fans start to get excited. “And then I think that kind of just steamrolled into more and more positive things. Walking out on that court that last day down to the student section and being so excited—not about just playing the game, but more excited about the turnout and the fan support in the community—I walked out that day and I said to myself ‘This is not just a job.’ “Those are the two times that I can think of that I said ‘Wow, this isn’t just a job. This is home to me.’” Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch .

CAA Full Court Press Special: Ron Hunter

The FCP’s Andy Towne caught up with Ron Hunter, the new head coach of the Georgia State University Panthers men’s basketball program. Coach Hunter discussed coming to the CAA, the city of Atlanta, and what he expects to bring to GSU. Download audio file (Ron-Hunter-interview.mp3)

Photos – Final Four Welcome Home at Siegel

Students and fans gathered Sunday evening at the Siegel Center to welcome the Rams back home after defeating Kansas and claiming the NCAA Southwestern Regional Championship. Big thanks to Jeff Horne for sharing these photos. Check him out on Flickr . [Show as slideshow]

Sights of San Antonio…

The national columnists are abuzz over VCU and the CAA. They are furiously churning out extremely high quality perspective and I’ve enjoyed most of them. And I mean that–there are some tremendous writers learning what we’ve known for awhile now. I’ve particularly enjoyed watching them discover the CAA and weave that discovery into words. But they didn’t see everything. Here’s a handful of things I saw. Some you know, some you don’t. All are great reminders of an unforgettable trip to San Antonio: VCU assistant Will Wade elbowed fellow assistant Mike Jones during a gripping sequence of the Kansas game, splitting Jones’s tooth in half. Jones arrived back on the team bus with a snaggly grin. Where’s the tooth? “Somewhere on the Alamodome floor.” Note: Wade will not be suspended by the CAA for flagrant action under the CAAs Sportsmanship Rule. Jamie Skeen climbed just two steps up on the ladder and reached up as far as he possibly could to take his snip of the net, complete with two teammates holding the ladder, because Skeen—the goofball of all goofballs—is deathly afraid of heights. Shaka Smart received a congratulatory text from LeBron James. Smart worked with Akron coach Keith Dambrot, who coached LeBron in high school. Heath Houston’s Knock ‘Em Out dance, but this time instead of breaking down the tomahawk chop, he catches and eats a jayhawk bird. Or Brandon Rozzell being coaxed from his locker to cook a little, or “make the pizza.” Shaka Smart, talking about his technical foul saying: “I kind of lost it a little bit, disagreeing with a couple of calls. I didn’t even say anything, but I guess I charged out there and ran a little bit faster than I should have….I’ve got to control my pace as I move toward the officials.” You saw this, but giving Kansas the first six points of the game, easy, and going on a 36-13 run…leading Kansas for 34 straight minutes, dominating the game. Skeen explained the main motto of VCUs three point prowess: “we say hand down, man down.” If you don’t close out a shooter with a hand in your face, they will shoot. Ed Nixon, in the fray of the postgame celebration, walking towards the stage saying “man I’m tired, I’ve got to sit down.” Shaka Smart telling his team: “We’re hard on you but you delivered. Every one of you delivered.” One of the Morris twins told Joey Rodriguez pregame that VCU has had a good run but it’s time to go home. How’d that work out? Brad Burgess to assistant coach Mike Rhoades’s son: “You ever been to Houston before? Me neither.” Retro nugget: #3Bids4CAA, mocked by many as not being rooted in reality, proved the power of believe and what can be. VCU had to postpone its men’s basketball banquet, originally scheduled for March 29, because it made the Final Four. VCU met every Kansas punch with a counter punch, and then Joey Rodriguez and Jamie Skeen delivered knockout blows. VCU controlled 35 minutes of that game. This was no fluke. Jamie Skeen, in a college basketball press conference first, used the word “buttholes.” Brandon Rozzell, thanked a reporter for wishing him happy birthday, using sir. He tipped his cap when the left the dais. The Mayor of Richmond indeed. *** I watched Bill Self watch Shaka Smart, championship net draped around Smart’s neck, walking down the ramp to get on the team bus. The blank look on Self’s face was somewhere between what could’ve been and how did I lose.

This is for the ones who stood their ground

Long before we ever got to the doorstep of #8Wins4CAA, there was the seemingly Quixotic hashtag that turned into reality and made all of this—VCU’s incredible, historic, orgasm-is-an-anagram-for-GORAMS run from the First Four to the Final Four—possible. And so, as we congratulate VCU and Rams fans on unprecedented achievement and direct you to those who can do this story justice— Mike Litos and Kyle Whelliston —we also pay homage to those who stood their ground and will enjoy this as much as anyone outside of RamNation, beginning with the ones who treaded what had to be the loneliest patch of grass in the yard. Our good friends and William & Mary alums @Gheorghetheblog and @batogato were the ones who started the #3Bids4CAA movement on Twitter back before Valentine’s Day and they, along with Litos, kept the faith even as the odds and hope seemed to dwindle. It was Litos who on Selection Sunday—15 days that feel as if they happened 15 years ago—channeled Tug McGraw (Google him, kids!) and implored us to believe in the two percent . We thought they were crazy. Turned out they were prescient geniuses. Enjoy this, gents, you believed before, and with more fervor than, anyone else. This VCU run is also for those of us who displayed a different fervor five years ago, for the Hofstra fans who pushed away the spoon and refused to swallow the feel-good Cinderella story being spewed by a nation that didn’t know the truth, didn’t know what we knew about THEIR run and HIS way. Most people—especially THEIR fans—wondered how we could derive nothing but sickness and heartache out of THAT run, how we could let our contempt and, yes, hatred consume us during the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to root for a school in the same conference as Hofstra—Hofstra, for crying out loud, a school just 12 years removed from winning the championship in a conference that didn’t have an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament—to reach the Final Four. Once-in-a-lifetime or not, how we felt and reacted in 2006 was the right thing—the only thing—to do. This—a seemingly twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity, emphasis on seemingly—is a reward for us, a second chance nobody ever expected to get. If they didn’t understand why we felt how we felt five years ago, then they’ll never understand the sense of peace that came over all of us yesterday afternoon, of seeing a team whose Final Four run wasn’t hatched via felonious acts of assault and underhanded backroom politics and whose coach delivers inspirational speeches that sound authentic, heartfelt and spontaneous and not hackneyed and scripted for television. 2006 is a footnote now—one that will always gnaw at us, to be sure, but one we no longer have to hear parroted every goddamn March by people who don’t know any better. We are free. Now and forever, the Cinderella standard is five wins over five BCS league opponents to get to the Final Four. Now and forever, we are searching for—and hoping to become—the next VCU. This VCU run is for those who cover entire leagues and an entire genre (for lack of a better word) of basketball in the type of comprehensive and outstanding fashion they deserve, and not as the niche the gatekeepers wish it was. Once again, this is for you, Mike Litos, a man I am proud to call my friend and someone who inspires me everyday to be a better writer and person, and for you, Kyle Whelliston, so accurately dubbed the bard of the mid-majors. Of all the Tweets generated by VCU’s stunning upset yesterday, my very favorite was from Northwestern State broadcaster Patrick Netherton : “Funny that this season, with all ESPN’s experts, the guy most knowledgeable about half the Final Four teams is @midmajority, who they fired.” Whelliston was fired for daring to suggest “The Sports Bubble” that was created by ESPN is unsustainable. The mainstream kicked him out, and not coincidentally, has deemed the CAA a conference unworthy of big-time coverage or a seat at the big boy table. So Litos and Whelliston ran an end-around and made their own breaks, and this weekend, they will be covering VCU in the Final Four. Most of all, this VCU run is for all those who stood our ground and refused to believe the notion that the mid-major basketball we love is somehow lesser than power conference ball. It’s for those whose world views are shaped not by what ESPN tells us is REALLY IMPORTANT but by heading out to smaller arenas and gymnasiums and seeking out those of our ilk on what must be the best community on the Internet. It is a place where a Hofstra fan and a Mason fan can tell each other to go fudge a kite, and then come to appreciate and respect the other’s passion for his alma mater, all in a single day. It is a place in which everyone went to bed last night (or this morning) dreaming of the day their team is the one tugging at uniform tops after knocking out Drago. The odds are long—very long. But three mid-majors have made the Final Four in the last five years. As Final Four-bound VCU coach Shaka Smart might say: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.” Yes there is. The last song I heard before I got out of the car last night was the Rocky IV anthem—and Hofstra Arena staple— “No Easy Way Out.” That’s a good enough sign for me. We can be the next VCU. The hashtag is #HUF4. Pass it on. Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch .

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