Just the other day we made mention of the new ABA (which probably stands for American Bush League) and a team known as the Maryland Nighthawks that plays in old horse barn in Upper Marlboro, Md. the Patriot League used to use for its tournament.

Well wouldn't ya know, ole Kyle over at Mid-Majority.com stumbled across this link to a blogger who actually went to a Nighthawks home game.
Gotta admit, it was like deja vu all over again when I read:

Now, let me take the opportunity to apologize to those Upper Marlboro-ites that may find this by accident and are presently offended. It was dark, all we could discern from our surroundings was woods. Having seen the 'Blair Witch Project', what else was I supposed think?

The guy went on the add:

This is, in my opinion the perfect sized arena for the product they were trying to put on the floor last night. The arena website states that for basketball they hold about 5,100 people. Just big enough to make half that look like a good turn out. The problem was the location. It's a difficult task to market a team that plays in the middle of no where."

You know what they teach the first day of Realtors school?

Location, Location, Location.



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Enough of this cramming stuff. Time to hit the hardwoods, not the books.

Finals are wrapping up and league teams swing back into action tomorrow with a four game slate, including two key Patriot-Ivy matchups that are pretty much must-wins for the Patriot if it hopes to pull out the season series with the Ivies.

Lehigh at Harvard: Matt Stehle leads the Crimson in rebounds and steals.

Bucknell at Cornell: If you go to Cornell's site and scroll down, you'll find a link to the livestats Gametracker for the Battle of the 'Nells. We'll give you the ending of the Ithaca Journal's preview story:

Notes: This is the 40th meeting between Cornell and the Bison. The Big Red lead the all-time series, 21-18. Bucknell won last year's meeting, 63-55, in Lewisburg, Pa. ... Cornell is looking to improve to 3-0 at home for the first time since the 1999-2000 season. ... Bucknell is 1-2 this season against Ivy League opponents. The Bison beat Yale, but lost to Penn and Princeton.

The story that ran above those notesis worth the click if you want to know more about Cornell.

Also on tap, a pair of those ridiculous games with D-3 opponents. These things should be relegated to "exhibition" status, not counted in regular season records.

Hobart at Colgate

Gettysburg at Navy: Wouldn't you love to think this is a gimme? Guess again. The Bullets bit the Mids back in Don Devoe's first season (1992-93). They came close again last year.

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# posted by Hoop Time : 1:15 AM

Catching up on our reading after fiddling with the drapes and carpet all day. Ran across a good piece from Ralph Willard's site. Ralph explains: "why we have reluctantly decided to play some 'buy games' and why trying to schedule games in order to raise your RPI at a school in our league is not a wise or fruitful strategy for scheduling."

By the way, if we lured you into the Hoop Time store the other day, you might well have been dismayed at how lame the merchandise looked. Keep checking back. Already the inventory has a major upgrade, with the return of the classic gray shirt that sold in double figures 10 years ago. It has the same classic original logo front, with updated graphics with the shooters' creed on the back. You'll also find gear with our brand new logo.

About the new look. Nothing major, though it took a while to figure out how the code that blogger uses in its templates. We kept the same basic look, but messed with the colors a little, and of course, the new logo.

The old logo, with the arching balls, was developed with the idea that it created a natural "skybox," as newspaper designers call it, in the upper right corner of the printed front page. That was where we would promo special features.

A graphic artist at the Pottsville REPUBLICAN and Herald updated the original black and white version when Hoop Time became a part of that paper's online site.

The new version retains design elements from each version: the crisp horizontal lines of the original logo and the ball dropping through the hoop on the left. The arch of balls gives way to a flatter look that does not waste as much vertical space on a Web page.

We've also adopted the "A Patriotic Basketball Blog" tag. Nowadays, that seems to better describe what Hoop Time is. The focus used to be Central Pa. teams. But after trying the first week or two, we have found it is not possible for us to be comprehensive with the D-II and D-III stuff.

There will still be the occasion when we do something about D-II or D-III ball, women's hoops or any other stuff I am in the mood for. It's my site. I can do that.

The focus, though, will be Patriot League hoops.
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Just home from the kid's thriller. Final score 12-8. An Army intersquad scrimmage you ask? Nope, junior high girls. I could hear almost hear old Charlie Woollum screaming, "Make them be still on those picks" as my kid was called twice, and her teammates at least five other times for moving screens.

Most were closer to pass blocking than picks. The game ain't pretty at this age. At least not for a team that, at last count sometime in the second half, was 0-for-15 at the foul line.

I do not envy her coach. I had three of them on a fifth grade rec team a few years back and helped coach their summer league team this year. There's much potential on that roster, but not much ready to play talent.

But enough of that. Let's switch gears to a little from the recruiting desk.

If you buy that "recruiting desk" stuff, we have a horsebarn in Maryland that would be just perfect for your league tournament.

We have no recuiting desk. Never will. Not into it. We are not recruitniks at Hoop Time.

Two recuiting stories tell you all you need know about the unpredictability of recuiting, especially at the Patriot League level.

Back in December of '93, in what was just the third issue ever published of the old print Hoop Time, we did a piece about a kid who was Bucknell's second-ever early commitment recruit.

The kid's name was Mike Anders. If you ever heard of him, you probably follow Patriot League baseball. From what I recall, Anders became a decent ballplayer, but not on the hardwoods.

Even though Anders was the 1998 Patriot League pitcher of the year, there is nothing worth linking to when you google his name. Good thing we have this old rag to remind us how we wrote:

Christmas came a few weeks early for the Breakin' Bison, as Maryland-state prep-hoops standout Mike Anders makes and early commitment.

That was just the subhead.

Suffice to say Anders had nice credentials. He was billed as a sniper from 3-point range. Played in a strong program on a team that went 21-3 and played in the state playoffs his junior year. It was the same high school that sent Phil "Big House" Williams to Penn State. People said this kid was better.

On the other hand Patrick King, the Patriot League's player of the year in 1992, was the ultimate in unrecruited kids; a walk on at a non-scholarship (at the time) school,

King's Bucknell career started as one of the kids Charlie Woollum used to pull together to throw the ball to the recruited freshmen who were not ready to see varsity minutes.

Handicapping recruiting is like betting on which garden will grow the most vegetables. Good seed do not always produce great plants. Even with scholarships, the kids who seem to shine in the Patriot are the ones who were overlooked out of high school. Late Bloomers R Us.

So don't expect us to satisfy any serious recruiting news jones. We are among those who judge recruiting classes when they graduate. But between the break in games and our desire to appear earnest, it seemed O.K. to just look for some info on kids committed to the Patriot for next year.

We offer no endorsements or critiques. Talk to us in four years.

Already mentioned the two kids from Archbishop Spalding headed to Bucknell (Justin Castleberry) and Holy Cross (Larry Dixon).

Here's some a few other early signees. Don't fire off angry e-mail is your boy is not listed. This is not a complete list, just a check on a few. We might look at other recruits in another post. No promises, though.

Gary Garris, 6-5 F, Hun School (N.J.), signed with American:

Garris recently made the all tournament team as his school won the Peddie School invitational.

Garris is rumored to be quite the dunk artist.

Josh Linthicum, 6-11 C, Virginia Episcopal School (Va.), signed with Bucknell:

Check out Linthicum's hoops resume.

Linthicum told the Farmington Daily Times he chose Bucknell over William and Mary and Penn.

John Gourlay, 7-0 C, Subiaco Academy (Ark.), signed with Lehigh:

Here's a story about him when he was the 6-11 junior savior of Subiaco hoops.

We also commented on Gourley the second day on the job.

By the way, we found Neil Fingleton, or at least we thought we had. Fingleton surfaced this fall with the Boston Frenzy of a some league calling itself the ABA. Fingleton is no longer listed on the Frenzy's roster. Scanning the team's box scores. Fingleton's last game appears to have been Dec. 5, when he finished with 1 point, 3 rebounds, 3 turnovers and 0 blocks in a 118-94 loss to the Maryland Nighthawks.

Neil, of course, was a McDonald's All-America before siging first with North Carolina before he transferred to Holy Cross. Funny how these things go sometimes.

Those Maryland Nighthawks, by the way, make their home in that beautiful horse barn filled with Patriot League championship tradition known as the Show Place Arena.

Small world, eh?

The search continues . . .

(Please report Neil Fingleton sitings to Hoop Time)

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The Mountain Hawks beat up on a D-3 last night. We're not going to waste much time on this one. Here's a link to a quick wrap in the Morning Call, along with a box score.
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Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn, Md., has a healthy tradition of turning out Division I players.

UConn's Rudy Gay was one of two of last year's seniors to sign with D-I programs. A third is expected to play D-I ball next season after a year at a prep school.

Two years ago, 7-footer Will Bowers signed with Maryland. A teammate is now at Mt. St. Mary's.

So it was no surprise when three Cavaliers signed letters of intent during November's early signing period.

In the process, two of those players set the stage for some interesting subplots over the next four seasons. With 6-1 combo guard Justin Castleberry headed to Bucknell, and 6-5 forward Lawrence Dixon committed to Holy Cross, imagine the possible storylines as when those two traditional Patriot League contenders meet over the next couple years. Ditto for the annual homecoming visits to American the two will make.

That, of course, will depend on both players developing into contributors at the college level. But the poteential is there.

So far this season, Castleberry is averaging 16.3 points per game with 33 assists and 11 turnovers for the 6-1 Calaliers, who lost their first game of the season Castleberry scored 23 pointsin that loss.

Dixon is averaging just under 10 points per game. No rebounding stats are available on the Spalding Web site.

You will find recaps of each Spalding game on that site, along with a team news page where somebody has dutifully posted an exhaustive library of articles about the team and its players all on one long scroll of a page. It is not the most user-friendly page you will encounter, but your reward for putting up with the scroll is a plethora of articles reposted from subscription based Marylandprephoops.com that would otherwise cost you money to read.

Included on the page are two installments of James Quinn's "Jim Time With ..." series featuring Castleberry and Dixon.

Both players are also listed by the Washington Post as players to watch this season in the D.C. area.

Here's what The Post had to say about Castleberry:

JUSTIN CASTLEBERRY, Spalding, G, Sr.: Speed is the main reason he'll play at Bucknell next year, and he can take over a game. With 10 seconds left in an overtime win over Calvert Hall last season, Castleberry dribbled the length of the court and scored the winning layup.

On Dixon, The Post said:

LAWRENCE DIXON, Spalding, F, Sr.: At 6 feet 4 inches, Dixon is a threat on the post. He prefers to play from the wing, though, where he can either drive to the basket or shoot (he had eight three-pointers last year).

Spalding's Marquis Sullivan, the Loyola (Md.) signee who leads Spalding in scoring (20.4 ppg), also made the Post's list.

By the way, Castleberry's birthday is Dec. 19. Bucknell fans can send birthday greetings to clutch44_2000@yahoo.com.
Holy Cross fans missed Dixon's b-day, Dec. 5. But belated greetings can reach Dixon at hoopzallstarz@aol.com

By the way, Holy Cross assisant coach Andrew Sachs was an assistant at Spalding the last three seasons.

The Cavaliers are off until Friday night, when the open play in the Bullis Holiday Classic.

We have some stuff on some other recruits, but we'll save that for another day during finals.

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With no games the next few days, here's what you ought to find here over the next couple days.

A fix for the recruitniks ... we're in the process of pulling together some info and links on some of the Patriot League recruits. Might be one piece, or a couple ... not sure yet, but we're finding some good stuff.

Where have you gone ... An update you won't want to miss on a former Patriot League hoopster

We're also going to work a little on fixing up this joint.

This site is very much the result of a spur-of-the-moment, flash-of-inspiration idea that came in between the final buzzer of the Bucknell-St. Francis game and the postgame press conference that followed.

My presence at the game was mostly social in nature. It was a combination of a convenient night on my schedule for a trip to Lewisburg, a desire to see some live hoops, a chance to visit some old friends and, as an excuse to justify a credential, an opportunity to get a look at a Bucknell team that I would likely see while covering Holy Cross games for the Worcester Telegram-Gazette in January.

In other words, I was a drifter.

I actually took some notes during the game. When I was a sportswriter full time, it always took me a few games to adjust to the new season as we moved from football to hoops to baseball. I figured it would not hurt to shake off the rust, but I wasn't figuring on actually writing anything.

After the game, though, I mentioned to Bucknell SID Jon Terry that I wished I had an outlet to write about the game. Why not a Web site, JT suggested.

I don't know if he was serious, but it sounded good. I had been thinking of starting a blog of some sort, and when Jon made that suggestion, it hit me that this might be a good format for bringing back Hoop Time. By the way, you can e-mail John here to thank him.

That is a long story, if you stuck with it till now, you deserve a point.

This site was born later that night. Out of a desire to get the thing up immediately, design was not a priority. It still is not. I mean it is not going to morph into some fancy flash-enhanced creation with streaming media and hip graphics.

But we will take advantage of this lag time during finals to do a little tinkering. You might notice we found the old logo from Hoop Time version 2, for example.

We're also working on adding some little extras. You might notice the Santa links on the right side of the page. They go to Amazon.com, who will underwrite some travel expenses (and hopefully our bar bill) if you folks buy enough of their wonderful merchandise.

Also in the works is a Hoop Time store (Sneak Preview with pre-grand opening prices) on CafePress, where you will be able to buy all kinds of cool Hoop Time gear. We'll even have one of those cheesy trucker hats the kids like these days. There's some stuff there now, but it is all from the slap-on-the-old-logo school of design, stuck in the store to get it built. Eventually we might offer things like a remake of the classic Hoop Time shooter's creed T that reached double figures in sales back in the print days.

Of course we will continue to keep an eye out for Patriot League news.

In the meantime, number crunchers and stat freaks ought to click over the Patriot League Hoops Blog to find conclusive evidence that poor Matt has no life. Matt has been staying up late giving his calculator a workout and has put together some very interesting statistical comparisons.

In the words the immortal Todd Rundgren, "We gotta get you a woman."

Matt also noticed that Holy Cross and American both received votes in this week's AP poll. He has the links, no need to duplicate them here.

Kyle has his own version of finals on his Mid-Majority site. Ace you hoops exams and you could win cool prizes, including a brand-new copy of The Last Amateurs. Too lazy to take the exam? That is O.K., you can buy the book here. Matter of fact, it is on sale for $5.99. You can even qualify for free shipping.

Yoni is on vacation. Rumor has it he is in the Caribbean looking for the next Tim Duncan or Adonal Foyle. Meanwhile, he has guest-bloggers filling in on the No. 4 ranked College Basketball Blog.

You might also want to join the discussions over at the Patriot League message board.

We'll try to get the recruiting thing edited and up later today. Check back this evening.

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# posted by Hoop Time : 8:11 AM

We're not jumping up and down saying we told you so, but you must admit Lafayette's win over Cal St. Northridge last night does make us look a little bit like the pundit Yoni says we are.

One win does not mean Lafayette will live up to our spoiler prediction, but you have to admit it helps our credibility a little. This is a good win for a struggling team.

Corky Blake of the Express-Times, one of the better beat guys covering the league, seems to agree. Check out his story from last night and you will see what I mean.

Corky says:

Put Monday night's 95-89 overtime conquest of Cal State Northridge in the category of a potential season-maker for the young Lafayette Leopards.

Not sure what he means by "season-maker", but I agree this was a big win for the 'Pards.

After coming close and falling short the two previous times out, getting a W in a close game should do a lot for the confidence of the Leopards, who, as Corky pointed out, started two sophomores and two freshmen.

Critics will use Cal St. Northridge's 1-6 record to argue this was not a significant win for Lafayette. But look closer. As Corky points out:

The essentially same Matador team drilled last season's more experienced Leopards by 23 points.

Fran O'Hanlon also made a good point about the Matadors, telling Corky:

"Their record isn't good but take a look at their schedule. This is their seventh road game. They lost at Arizona State by one, at Montana, to Vanderbilt and by 10 to Oklahoma. They're a good team."

As coaches like to say, you are never as good as you look when you win or as bad as you look when you loss. We have made the "not as bad as they looked" argument already. Here's the flip side: Look at the box score and one thing jumps right out: 31 Lafayette turnovers.

Also troubling is the way the 'Pards squandered a lead that was as big as 16 points in the second half and was still in double figures (70-60) with 3:18 left in regulation.

None of that matters right now, though. All that matters when you have a young team that has lost six in a row is getting a W.

Meanwhile, cancel our subscription to the Morning Call.

Well, O.K, we don't actually have one. We just check them on the Web. But after seeing today that they sent a freelancer to cover a D-3 doubleheader involving the Moravian men and women and their counterparts from Drew, while picking up a measly couple of graphs from AP on the Lafayette-Cal St. Northridge game, we would cancel if we did subscribe.

Besides, who needs the MC when you have Corky Blake.
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Half empty or half full?

That seems to be the question about Lafayette's 1-6 record, or at least the subject of debate between our friend Matt over at the Patriot League Hoops Blog and us real experts (LMAO) here at Hoop Time.

Matt's take on the Leopards:"they're just lousy".

He might be right.

The 'Pards only win thus far is over a Duquesne team that is 2-7. And that came back in the season opener.

Since then Lafayette has lost six straight headed into tonight's home encounter with Cal. St. Northridge. Even a win tonight over the 1-5 Matadors would hardly be a sign of impending greatness.

But for a team that has suffered three of its six losses by a combined total of 9 points, including a 2-point loss to Princeton and a pair of near misses last week against Cornell and Marist, a win could do wonders for its mental state headed into final exams.

Nobody is about to make the argument that Lafayette is likely to turn into a Patriot League contender in the second half, regardless of what happens tonight.

Our contention is not that Lafayette will challenge for the league title, but rather that the Leopards could well have a say over who does actually claim the top spot. The key word in all of what we have written about Lafayette is "spoiler" (pay attention to def. No. 4 at that link).

We won't rehash the reasons we think Lafayette will prove more competitive in Patriot League play than its early record might lead you to believe.

Instead, a little league history to support the theory. Take a quick glance at Lafayette's roster. With two seniors and just one junior, it reminds us a lot of last season's Bucknell team that lost its first 5 and was 3-9 heading into conference play, with two of those wins coming over D-3 teams.

Lafayette has used five starting combinations thus far. Pat Flannery used six in the first 12 games last year. Then Flannery inserted Abe Badmus at the point and Bucknell went on to win 11 of its final 17 games, including a streak during the conference regular season when it won 10 of 11, establishing the reputation that made the Bison this year's preseason conference favorites. Included in that stretch was a win over American that arguably cost the Eagles the regular season title and a win over Lehigh that nearly did the same to the Mountain Hawks.

That start slow, come on strong in conference play formula is familiar to Bucknell fans. In 2001-02, the Bison lost 8 of their first 10, then went 8-6 in league play. In 1998-99, a 4-9 start that included a pair of wins over D-3 teams yielded to a 9-3 Patriot League mark. In Pat Flannery's first season as coach of the Bison, they got off to a 1-9 start (the lone win was a non-conference victory over Lafayette in a tournament consolation game), then went 11-3 and shared the regular season title with an Adonal Foyle-Tucker Neale Colgate team.

We didn't do exhaustive research into other teams, but we also recall a Don DeVoe Navy team that lost 7 of its first 8 in 1992-93, including a loss to D-3 Gettysburg, then bounced back to go 5-9 in league play.

You might notice a similarity between that Navy team, those Bucknell teams, and the current Lafayette club. All three had outstanding coaches. If someone other than Fran O'Hanlon were coaching Lafayette, I doubt we'd be as optimistic about their chances of becoming spoilers in conference play.

As we said the other day:

"Bottom line, we continue to believe that Lafayette will be a factor in Patriot League play. Despite their 1-6 record, they seem to be getting a little better each time out. Add in the Fran O'Hanlon factor, and one of the toughest homecourts in the league, and we smell trouble for the teams that expect to contend for the regular season title."

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It was another impressive win for American Saturday.

The Eagles pretty much handled Ohio U., a team that admittedly looked a lot better when it left Athens for a two-game road trip east than it did when it boarded the bus to go home last night.

O.U. was 3-0 at home, with wins over San Francisco, Butler and Navy. San Francisco is a pretty decent team, 5-3 with wins over the likes of Delaware (4-3 with a win over Drexel), St. Joes (OK, not the Hawks of last year), and U.C. Santa Barbara.

Butler has a win over the same Miami Oh. (5-1) team that has beaten Purdue and Xavier.

Navy . . . O.K., that one is not that impressive. Still, the Bobcats 104 RPI is pretty respectable for a Mid-Major.

Then Ohio went on the road, losing at St. Francis and now at American. That St. Francis loss is the one that makes me wonder about the Bobcats.

I saw the Red Flash in its win over Bucknell and I was not impressed. Right now St. Francis (4-3) has an impressive No. 41 RPI, but that has more to do with its losses (at American (RPI=64), Pittsburgh (RPI=37) and yesterday at George Washington (RPI=8)) than its wins. St. Francis has not beaten anyone with an RPI lower than Ohio's 104.

Nonetheless, a Patriot League win over a Mid-American Conference team? We will take that any day. Especially in these days when most of the rest of the Patriot teams are busy losing to the Harvards, Columbias and Cornells of the world.

I am still not ready to anoint American as league favorites in the Patriot, though. The concerns I pointed out after the win over Towson last week showed up again in the box score yesterday.

American got just 10 points from its bench, which got 28 combined minutes of PT. Andre Ingram didn't have to play 40 minutes like he did against Towson, but he did play 39. Jason Thomas added 38. Until the bench picks up its production, you have to be concerned about how well AU is going to hold up over the course of the whole season.

AU winning a game in which Ingram was held to 10 points is a good sign. Thomas is beginning to make folks wonder if they picked the right AU guard as the conference's preseason player of the year. Thomas poured in 26 points for the second game in a row, including an impressive 5-for-6 showing from the arc. That followed his 5-for-5 3-point night at Towson.

When you have a guy stroking the three like that, good things happen.

My worry, from an AU perspective, is about what happens to jump-shooting teams when they cool off. Right now, AU has three guys shooting over 50 percent from 3-point range. How realistic is it to expect that pace to continue.

I keep hearing from folks like Matt at the Patriot League Blog about AU's quartet of big men, but against Ohio, they combined for just 18 points. When someone is raining threes like Thomas was yesterday, it should open up the middle. And since I am including Matej Cresnik, who prefers to step outside to shoot the J, in that 18-point total, I am not sure how many of those 18 can be considered as inside. According to the final box, Ohio outscored AU 28-22 in the paint. AU had 12 fast break points, presumably mostly layups that would count as in the paint.

For now, I still think Holy Cross has been the most impressive Patriot team in the early going. But only a fool would say American is not right there with the Crusaders.

As we break for finals (just two league games over the next week, only one against a D-I foe), it is looking like a typical Patriot League season on tap when conference play begins in January. It seems like there is always a divide between the upper and lower division in the league, with four teams battling for the title and four battling to stay out of the cellar.

It might be slightly different this season. Right now, I am thinking we could see the emergence of a middle class. AU, HC and Bucknell appear locks for the contending class. Lehigh looked that way in the preseason, but their stock has fallen with losses at Stony Brook and, especially, at home to Columbia. And I still think Lafayette is going to have a spoilers say in who claims the crown.

Army appears to have a lock on last place, though Navy could challenge them for that dubious distinction. Or at least they did look that way before yesterday's overtime loss to Stony Brook (box score). Even given the clock controversy that allowed the Mids to send it to OT, Navy's effort against a team that has owned the Patriot League thus far could be a sign of improvement in Annapolis.

We'll save our criticism for the D.C. media's lack of coverage of the AU game for another day. Suffice to say neither the Post nor the Moonie is the Philly Inquirer or Daily News.

I make that comparison because, on paper, the two cities are similar in a hoops sense. D.C. has AU, Georgetown, George Washington, George Mason, Maryland and Navy. Six D-I programs. Phily has the Big 5 (Villanova, Temple, St. Joes, LaSalle and Penn) and Drexel.

Best I can tell though, the Post staffed only one game Saturday, Georgetown's win over San Jose State. G.W. is a top 25 team, yet the Post couldn't bother to send someone to Loretto for their game at St. Francis, Pa. AU and Navy were included in a wrap.

We checked Mapquest; it's about a three hour drive from D.C. to Loretto. Mostly interstate.

Is that too much to expect from one of the nation's leading papers?

Apparently so. Ditto for driving up four miles up Mass Ave. for the AU game.

Contrast that with the Inquirer (feel free to use our e-mail ... hoopt_time@hotmail.com and password ... hooptime3 to check the Inky's stories), which yesterday staffed Villanova-LaSalle and the Drexel-Quinnipiac game, had a correspondent at the Temple-Alabama game and only used the wire for St. Joe's at San Francisco.

So much for saving the critique for another day, eh?




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