This Week in Wrenball: Primer

Basketball was invented in Springfield, MA in 1891 by a Canadian physical education teacher named James Naismith. The game is played by teams of five, who endeavor to throw or otherwise place a round ball into a hoop that's 10 feet off the ground.

The College of William & Mary started playing basketball in the 1905-06 season. Famously, the Tribe is one of only four schools to have been a part of the NCAA's Division I since its inception to have never qualified for the season-ending tournament, colloquially known as March Madness. Since 64 teams qualify each year for this tournament, it's a statistical anomaly that W&M hasn't been able to make the event, especially since the team has reached the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament final (the winner of which receives an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament) four times in the previous ten years.

Here at Gheorghe: The Blog, we've been writing about the Tribe (who we also call the Wrens, from time to time, in an homage to our friend Mike Litos, who coined the name after W&M's quixotic mascot hunt earlier this decade) for a decade or so. Our This Week in Wrenball is likely the most frequently recurring of all of our recurring bits, with the possible exception of Fashion is Dumb/Stupid. Yeah, we've probably done more Fashion is Dumb.



I offer all of this by way of background for Dave, who professed to be confused by our Wrenball posts. They're niche as hell, I'll grant. But they follow a familiar formula. W&M plays reasonably well, mixing in the occasional stinker, which confounds me as I try to figure out what to make of them. Then they do something late in the season that gives me/us hope that this just might be the year they shrug the monkey from their shoulders and make the NCAA Tournament, fulfilling the most earnest hopes of dozens. And finally, they fail to win the CAA Tournament, perhaps in crushing fashion, but usually not. The cycle repeats itself the following year.

Dave doesn't know from the Wrens? GTFOH.

This season, they had a predictably mediocre start, going 4-8 during a grueling out of conference schedule while trying to break in a new point guard and several freshman contributors. At one point, coach Tony Shaver started three freshman in a game. A year removed from being the best shooting team in America, they're only making 33% of their three-point shots and 64.1% of their free throws.

And yet, after a comprehensive 84-66 drubbing of Drexel in Philadelphia this afternoon, the Wrens/Tribe are now 7-9 on the season, their 3-1 CAA record good for second place behind the white-hot Hofstra Pride. They won today's game without junior wing Justin Pierce, who averages 15.5 points and a team-leading 9.2 rebounds per game while leading the team in assists. Leading scorer Nathan Knight dropped 24 on the Dragons, grabbing 12 rebounds for good measure. W&M outrebounded Drexel, 46-30, and held their opponent to 35.1% shooting.

Pay attention, Dave. This where the pattern repeats. I'll spell it out slowly. I. Have. No. Idea. What. To. Make. Of. This. Team.

We'll know a lot more in a week. Hofstra comes to Williamsburg on a ten-game winning streak, boasting the nation's leading mid-major scorer in Justin Wright-Foreman. Two days later, perennial CAA power Northeastern comes to town.

Ask me then, and I'll tell you how little I know.