Say hello to Old Dominion. The Monarchs might just be your next George Mason, well at least in a literal sense.
The Monarchs could be the team out of the CAA that gets an at-large berth and wins a few games in the NCAA Tournament.
Why are we introducing ODU? Well, ODU has won eight straight games, swept Drexel, beat first-place VCU and just knocked off Hofstra. The Monarchs, who are 20-7 overall, 13-3 in the CAA, have one win on their résumé that remains impressive -- beating Georgetown by 13 points on campus, not at the Verizon Center.
The final three games won't be a walk, but if the Monarchs can beat Toledo on the road, no small feat, in the BracketBuster game Saturday and then take care of Towson and William & Mary, the latter on the road, to conclude the CAA, then it would be a hard call to kick this squad to the junior tourney called the NIT.
"We're pretty good," ODU coach Blaine Taylor said Wednesday. "We can play with anybody. I strongly believe we could win games in the [NCAA] Tournament. I would like to think if you perform well in February that you'll have a chance to be thought of well in March."
The Monarchs have those stereotypical mid-major ingredients for an upset. They've got three seniors leading them atop their scoring with Valdas Vasylius (15.8), Drew Williamson (11.1 ppg) and Arnaud Dahi (10 ppg). Vasylius scored 31 in the win over Hofstra on Tuesday night.
Let's look at the losses, too. Losing at Clemson, at Marist, at Virginia Tech and to Winthrop in the nonconference is nothing to be ashamed about this season. Only one of the three in-league losses -- at James Madison -- is a wart but at least it was still on the road. The other two were at VCU and at Hofstra, two of the top four teams in the conference.
"We are worthy," Taylor said of a bid as long as ODU continues its winning ways.
And as we say hello to this squad, don't be surprised in the near future if Taylor is saying goodbye if the right offer is in play. Multiple sources confirmed that Taylor could be a strong candidate at Colorado, where athletic director Mike Bohn is searching for a replacement for Ricardo Patton. Bohn was at Idaho and once talked to then Stanford assistant Taylor about the opening. Taylor is from Montana, coached at Montana and has strong ties to the entire Rocky Mountain area. Getting his team to his fourth NCAA appearance (one previous at ODU in 2005 and two at Montana) would look good on any news conference press release.
Final Nuggets
Texas Tech's coaches took Charlie Burgess aside to watch tape of his inbound pass against Oklahoma State last week. They wanted to show how he handed the ball back to an official and lost valuable time in trying to get a last-second shot to beat the Cowboys. So, they made it clear to their team that if they were in a similar situation, they had to inbound the ball and go. They told them don't call timeout, just run and get a shot off.
Once again, the Red Raider players listen well to the Knight family. That's exactly what they did in beating Texas A&M on Tuesday night. Jarrius Jackson took an inbound pass from Burgess and ran up court, used a shot fake that the staff worked with him on, and buried the game-winning shot.
"Charlie told us he kept giving the ball back to the official [at OSU] because it was wet but we told him you've got to get it in to Jay and let him go," Texas Tech head coach designate Pat Knight said. "When [Acie Law IV] hit that 3, we didn't get down, we just reacted, got the ball and went. We said get the ball in quickly so they can't trap or steal."
Knight said the team also spent 30 minutes Monday working just on shot fakes to get shots off quickly. That too worked well as Jackson was able to free space to get off the game-winning shot.
So, what happens to Texas Tech now? The Red Raiders snapped a five-game losing streak with the win over Texas A&M, giving them a sweep of the Aggies. The win puts Texas Tech (16-10) at 5-6 in the league and if it beats Colorado on Saturday the Red Raiders will be 6-6. The last four games -- at Texas, Oklahoma State, Baylor and at Iowa State -- should determine whether or not Texas Tech can get a bid.
"The last two weeks have been miserable around here," Knight said of losing five straight. "Now, let's see what we can do."
• Virginia Tech (18-7, 8-3 ACC) has a sweep of North Carolina, a win at Duke, and plenty of momentum to get a bid. Once again, like Texas Tech, if the Hokies take care of business down the stretch at NC State, home against BC, home versus Miami, at Virginia and home against Clemson, then the Hokies should find themselves in the tournament. Virginia Tech is like a lot of teams out there that has a strong résumé point (two wins over UNC) that needs some backing by not fading in the final five games.
• Nebraska got a monster performance from Aleks Maric on Tuesday night. The center scored 41 points and grabbed eight boards in a win over Kansas State. Nebraska is 3-1 since getting blown out at home to Kansas. How has Doc Sadler done it? "He gets our guys to play so hard, practice hard right up before a game," first-year assistant Tony Benford said. "It's like Billy Gillispie (Sadler's former boss at UTEP) [in] that they practice hard during shootaround. If we hadn't lost that Texas game (by one point) we might have been there with the rest of the [Big 12 teams] on the bubble." Nebraska is 15-9, 4-6 in the Big 12).
• Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said he still doesn't understand why his team acted as if they hadn't seen a zone before when Louisville zoned the Panthers in beating them Monday night at the Petersen Center. Pitt played well against Syracuse's zone but was befuddled by Louisville. As expected, Dixon said when Derrick Caracter plays well for Louisville that changes their dynamic inside because of his ability to take away some attention from David Padgett.
Andy Katz
