Dark clouds in AU's silver lining
American improved to 4-2 last night, topping Towson 75-64 for its first road win.
Compared with some of the league's recent out of conference results, this is certainly a positive. Then again, wins over teams like Towson are not going to do a whole lot to boost the Patriot's RPI.
About the game: Give Towson credit. The shut down Andre Ingram (box score). Give AU credit. Other guys stepped up. As Kevin Van Valkenburg points out in theBaltimore Sun:
When the league moved its tournament to that horse barn in Maryland a few years ago, one of the arguments they made was that it would be the only D-I tournament in the D.C. area so it would get a lot of attention.
In the real world, tournament coverage was usually buried on page 8 of the Post's Sunday sports section, behind obvious stuff like Maryland and Georgetown, and less obvious, like sailboat racing, ice skating, dog shows and skeeball.
Toss in the arena's remote location, which was nowhere near as close to D.C. or Baltimore as it looks on this map, and you had a recipe for failure, or at least for a lack of success. Locals didn't come out, save the few American fans still in town over spring break. The hotels were miles from the arena, with no nearby watering holes or restaurants. In short, there was zero, zip, nada tournament atmosphere.
Instead of finding a central location in a mid-major town where the thing might succeed (like the Farm Show Arena in Harrisburg, the Sovereign Center in Reading, Pa., the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre, to name a few), we have this new split setup, which reeks of Division 3 and will dilute the media coverage even more. And that is not even mentioning what it will do to the women's tournament.
But we digress, this is not supposed to be a "the Patriot League can be clueless" rant. There's plenty of time for that later. This is supposed to be a breakdown of the AU-Towson game.
Not at all sure you can properly analyze a game you don't see. No, strike that, actually I am absolutely sure that you can't. Not properly, anyhow. But this being the internet, where anything is supposed to be possible, we will take a whack at it anyhow.
I'm still trying to figure out just how good American is this season. The Vermont win was semi-impressive, but it came at home, as did three of AU's four wins thus far. Towson (2-6) is not exactly a significant notch on AU's belt. The Tigers have split a pair with 2-5 Morgan State and the only other win came over2-3 Norfolk State.
There are a couple of stats from the Eagles win that should be worrisome to AU fans, though. The AU bench was outscored 21-8 by Towson and the Tigers had a 14-4 edge in second chance points. The second chance points can be explained away. Towson missed a ton of shots, 21 in the first half alone. AU only missed 22 the whole game. In other words, Towson had a lot more chances for offensive boards and putbacks.
The bench points, though, are a sign of possible problems down the road. Thomas played all 40 minutes and the four guys who got off the bench for AU combined for only 33 minutes of playing time. Only Raimondas Petrauskas had a significant line in the box score, with 4 of the 8 bench points and all 3 of the bench's rebounds. And he pretty much negated his contribution with 3 turnovers.
That has been a trend. AU's bench has been outscored in five of its six games. Take away the Niagara game, where the reserves scored 33 points, and American's bench is averaging only 9 ppg.
Late in the season, when the starters begin to get worn down from all the minutes they are playing, this could be a problem for the Eagles.
Only time will tell.
Compared with some of the league's recent out of conference results, this is certainly a positive. Then again, wins over teams like Towson are not going to do a whole lot to boost the Patriot's RPI.
About the game: Give Towson credit. The shut down Andre Ingram (box score). Give AU credit. Other guys stepped up. As Kevin Van Valkenburg points out in theBaltimore Sun:
"Ingram had little success against the Tigers, shooting just 3-for-12 and scoring only nine points, but teammates Jason Thomas and Patrick Okpwae more than made up for it. Thomas scored a career-high 26 points (to go with 12 rebounds) and Okpwae added a career-high 16, and each player missed only one of the nine shots he took.We're not sure what it is going to take for the Washington papers to take notice of AU. Thought maybe the win over Vermont would open some eyes inside the Beltway. But the Washington Post seems to be doing its best to transform its sports section in the image of its national rival, the New York Times. The Post continues to cover the D.C. area's mid-majors by sending one writer to one local game, then tacking on a paragraph or two about the rest of the games on the end of its "local colleges" wrap.
'The guys we wanted to stop, we stopped,' Kennedy said. 'The other two guys ended up getting 42 points against us, which killed us.'"
When the league moved its tournament to that horse barn in Maryland a few years ago, one of the arguments they made was that it would be the only D-I tournament in the D.C. area so it would get a lot of attention.
In the real world, tournament coverage was usually buried on page 8 of the Post's Sunday sports section, behind obvious stuff like Maryland and Georgetown, and less obvious, like sailboat racing, ice skating, dog shows and skeeball.
Toss in the arena's remote location, which was nowhere near as close to D.C. or Baltimore as it looks on this map, and you had a recipe for failure, or at least for a lack of success. Locals didn't come out, save the few American fans still in town over spring break. The hotels were miles from the arena, with no nearby watering holes or restaurants. In short, there was zero, zip, nada tournament atmosphere.
Instead of finding a central location in a mid-major town where the thing might succeed (like the Farm Show Arena in Harrisburg, the Sovereign Center in Reading, Pa., the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre, to name a few), we have this new split setup, which reeks of Division 3 and will dilute the media coverage even more. And that is not even mentioning what it will do to the women's tournament.
But we digress, this is not supposed to be a "the Patriot League can be clueless" rant. There's plenty of time for that later. This is supposed to be a breakdown of the AU-Towson game.
Not at all sure you can properly analyze a game you don't see. No, strike that, actually I am absolutely sure that you can't. Not properly, anyhow. But this being the internet, where anything is supposed to be possible, we will take a whack at it anyhow.
I'm still trying to figure out just how good American is this season. The Vermont win was semi-impressive, but it came at home, as did three of AU's four wins thus far. Towson (2-6) is not exactly a significant notch on AU's belt. The Tigers have split a pair with 2-5 Morgan State and the only other win came over2-3 Norfolk State.
There are a couple of stats from the Eagles win that should be worrisome to AU fans, though. The AU bench was outscored 21-8 by Towson and the Tigers had a 14-4 edge in second chance points. The second chance points can be explained away. Towson missed a ton of shots, 21 in the first half alone. AU only missed 22 the whole game. In other words, Towson had a lot more chances for offensive boards and putbacks.
The bench points, though, are a sign of possible problems down the road. Thomas played all 40 minutes and the four guys who got off the bench for AU combined for only 33 minutes of playing time. Only Raimondas Petrauskas had a significant line in the box score, with 4 of the 8 bench points and all 3 of the bench's rebounds. And he pretty much negated his contribution with 3 turnovers.
That has been a trend. AU's bench has been outscored in five of its six games. Take away the Niagara game, where the reserves scored 33 points, and American's bench is averaging only 9 ppg.
Late in the season, when the starters begin to get worn down from all the minutes they are playing, this could be a problem for the Eagles.
Only time will tell.
