Wrenball Preview

Year One of the Brian Earl Experiment at William and Mary showed promise, as the Tribe debuted a new coach, an entertaining, up-tempo style of play and a return to the top half of conference standings. 

Following a successful run at Cornell, Earl convinced a handful of key contributors on a roster that had scuffled along under previous coach Dane Fischer to stick around and to give him and his system a chance. The holdovers and a wave of transfers produced the program’s first winning record since 2020 and the Before Times, pre-Covid, when Tribe all-timer Nathan Knight roamed the landscape. William and Mary finished 17-15 overall and a spunky 11-7, good for fourth place, in the distended patchwork that is the Coastal Athletic Association. 

The Tribe’s calling card was pace and perimeter shooting. More than half of their shots were 3-point attempts. They were third in the nation in 3-point attempt rate (.517). They were fifth nationally in 3-point field goal shots per game and tied for 15th in 3-pointers made per game. Seven players attempted at least 80 shots from behind the arc. They were also 45th in “pace” – the number of possessions per 40 minutes – and second in the CAA in scoring (77.7 ppg) (Brief aside: I’m well aware that “Tribe” is a singular nickname and therefore an “it” and not a “they;” I adhered to that inconvenient propriety for 30 years in my previous life and I’m thankful that management here at the digital tree fort is more grammatically lenient). 

Encores and continuity are tricky in the new era of NIL and rampant player transfers, components that prematurely drove away championship coaches Jay Wright at Villanova and Tony Bennett at Virginia. By nature, transfers are upperclassmen and sometimes graduate students with one or two years of eligibility remaining. Coaches often aren’t simply filling a few roster spots with a transfer or a couple of freshmen recruits, but bringing in a vanload of fresh faces who see opportunity and are happy to wear the school laundry for a season or two. 

Such is the case in Williamsburg. The Tribe cycled out eight players from last season’s team, including five of the top seven scorers. They lost 80 percent of their scoring and almost 70 percent of their rebounding. Earl brought in eight new players – seven transfers and a freshman, nearly all of whom are guards and wings with perimeter chops and decent shooting eyes. Returning leaders are a trio of seniors, 6-4 Kyle Pulliam (9.9 ppg, .313 pct from 3-point range), 6-5 Chase Lowe (8.4 ppg, 5.2 rpg) and 6-2 Kyle Frazier (4.7 ppg, 33 pct 3-point shooter). Newcomers who figure to contribute include 6-7 junior wing Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi from LaSalle (5.9 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 34.8 pct 3-pt shooter), 6-6 graduate student Jo’El Emanuel from Fairleigh Dickinson (11 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 36 pct from 3), 6-6 graduate student Cade Haskins from Dartmouth (9.6 ppg, 3.5 rpg), 6-4 junior Reese Miller from Blinn CC (41.6 pct 3-point shooter) and 6-0 graduate student Jhei-R Jones from D2 Winona State (10.9 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 3.1 apg). 

Two additions who may have outsized importance are junior transfer Kilian Brockhoff, a 6-9, 235-pound German making his third stop after seasons at UC Santa Barbara and Saint Louis, and Kaleb Spencer, a 6-8, 225-pound freshman from, believe it or not, here on the sandbar and who did a year’s prep work at highly regarded Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. 

For all of Earl’s reliance on a quick pace and perimeter shooting, his system requires a solid post presence for offensive balance and rim protection. It’s not a coincidence that the Tribe limped home last season, losing its last four and six of its last nine, after a season-ending injury to productive 6-8 forward Noah Collier. Without a consistent backup, opponents took advantage at both ends, extending their defense to challenge W&M shooters and working inside on offense. 

Earl’s frequent all-court pressure is designed more to goose pace than to turn over opponents and generate easy offense; the Tribe committed almost as many turnovers as they forced last season, and though they scored a lot, they also allowed a lot (76.4 ppg) and their field goal defense was in the bottom half of the conference. Makes for interesting viewing. 

The Tribe opens at home Nov. 3 vs. Georgian Court University, which I believe houses the athletic department for Downton Abbey, and has non-conference dates against state rivals Richmond, Old Dominion, Radford and Norfolk State. There’s a trip to Queens, N.Y., to face Rick Pitino and St. John’s, as well as road games at George Washington (G:TB Northern Va. chapter alert!), Duquesne and Bowling Green, and a date versus Texas El Paso at a Jacksonville, Fla., tournament. 

William and Mary was picked fourth in the CAA behind Towson, defending tournament champ UNC Wilmington and College of Charleston. Earl set a worthy standard in his first season, but again he must identify a cohesive rotation from among a slew of newcomers and returnees eager to make a significant impact. If the “bigs” develop, the Tribe has a chance to build on last year and not simply hoist and hope.

Change of Address

We’re pollen-coated ass-deep into Spring, which means the start of Major League Baseball and playoffs in the NBA and NHL. So of course we’re going to offer a few words about second-tier college football. Never say we can’t scratch a niche. 

William and Mary, at least the third-favorite college for many in the audience, recently announced that it would move its football program from its long-time home in the Coastal Athletic Association (formerly the Colonial) to the Patriot League, beginning in 2026. The move makes sense for both cultural and competitive reasons. 

The Tribe’s primary football rivals, Richmond, James Madison and Delaware, all departed for other locations; JMU and Delaware climbed upward to the Football Bowl Subdivision, Richmond moved laterally to W&M’s future home in the Patriot beginning this coming season. The CAA’s distended conglomeration that now includes the likes of Stony Brook, Hampton U., Monmouth, Albany, Campbell and North Carolina A&T doesn’t much move the needle for Team Tribe. 

The Patriot, meanwhile, is a collection of schools whose profiles more closely resemble W&M, in size and academic standing. It was also a relatively light lift, since W&M’s move is football only. The rest of the school’s athletic teams will continue to compete in the CAA. 

A segment of Team Tribe has pushed for years, with varying degrees of force, to join the Patriot. Again, like-minded schools, particularly as CAA expansion brought in colleges with little in common to replace the league’s better known programs. But that wasn’t and isn’t William and Mary’s call entirely. The Patriot is comprised of small, private schools – undergrad enrollments range from Lafayette’s 2,764 to Fordham’s 10,337 – that were and are justifiably concerned about getting Bigfooted by W&M’s broad-based athletic program. 

For many years, the Patriot also didn’t permit its schools to offer athletic scholarships, providing only what’s called need-based financial aid, a la the Ivy League. But more than a decade ago, conference Big Hats concluded that athletic grants weren’t a path to academic ruin and allowed their athletic programs to pony up. As a result, Patriot football is more competitive regionally and certainly with the CAA, which in its heyday was one of the nation’s best FCS conferences. 

William and Mary athletic director Brian Mann explained to a former colleague that the football move came about relatively quickly – in discussions over just a few weeks – and that football-only makes sense now and for the foreseeable future. CAA football is a separate entity from the rest of the conference. It has/had adjunct members Richmond, Villanova, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, schools whose entire programs compete in other conferences, and de-coupling was easier than a full move. He is quoted in the piece: “I don’t think anybody at this time is ready for a big decision like that. We’re happy with where we are in the CAA, and (the Patriot League is) happy with their full membership. And with all the changes coming to college athletics, any sort of a change like that right now feels premature.” 

“Premature” is an interesting word choice. College administrators – the more effective ones, anyway – are usually precise with language and can be as vague or specific as necessary. Given Mann’s entire thought, “premature” reads more like “not yet” rather than “not interested.” Indeed, former athletic director Terry Driscoll told my comrade in that same piece that W&M had discussions with the Patriot on three occasions during his tenure, without a move. 

Patriot League affiliation may be a single-sport endeavor for William and Mary, or it may be a wade into the shallow end of the pool for consideration of full membership down the line. In any case, it continues the Tribe’s historic rivalry with Richmond as a conference game. And rumblings that Villanova football will also move from the CAA to the Patriot would further enhance the league and give Coach Mike London’s program one more familiar foe. College power brokers sweat and fret over a shifting landscape with new seven- and eight-figure expenditures and legal taffy pulls. Meanwhile, schools down the food chain that simply want kids to be able to compete and to proudly represent the laundry can only hope to find their appropriate depth. Ain’t easy. Athletic officials all earn their keep these days.

Wrenball: A Preview

They’ve endured mostly lean times at William and Mary World Basketball Headquarters since She Who Shall Not Be Named blew up the competitive structure at the end of the last decade and went the entry-level route, with predictably dismal results. A change in leadership and a group of returning players intrigued by the new guy created a different vibe and the notion that Tribe hoops may be more than an innocuous winter diversion. 

School brass finally pulled the plug on the Dane Fischer Experiment and landed Cornell Big Whistle Brian Earl, whose Kaplan Arena debut is Nov. 4 against Dickinson College. A coach with a sub-.500 career record probably doesn’t qualify as a home run hire, but for William and Mary it’s inarguably an extra-base hit. 

Earl built and ran a solid program at a school with a comparable footprint. His last three years at Cornell produced a 54-30 overall record, 25-17 in the Ivy League. Last season’s Big Red won 22 games and earned the program’s first NIT invite. He seemed to have hit upon a formula, or at least assembled a quality group, which makes his decision to jump to a struggling program with limited success over the years curious. 

I’m generally loath to speculate without actual reporting and informed conversations, but I suspect that he thought the Big Red had approached its ceiling, while William and Mary has ample room above. Resources at any Ivy program not named Princeton, Harvard or Yale are limited. The Ivy does not permit redshirting. The transfer portal throughout the league is more egress than ingress. Earl now has a honeymoon with a supportive administration and greater roster flexibility, coupled with an attractive style of play that doesn’t require supreme size or athleticism. 

His teams play quickly, attempt to force the pace with pressure defense, and shoot a lot of 3-pointers. Cornell last season was sixth nationally in 3-point attempts per game (29.7), 10th in 3-pointers made per game (10.3), sixth in assists (18.1) and 16th in scoring (82.1 ppg). The Big Red ranked in the top 25 in adjusted tempo the past three seasons, according to stats guru Ken Pomeroy, and last season had the sixth-shortest average possession time (15 seconds) in Division I; conversely, the Tribe was No. 299 in possession time. 

Earl, a Princeton grad and Ivy League Player of the Year in 1999, has said that he does not aim to duplicate what his Cornell teams did – different personnel and all that – but that the style of play at W&M will rhyme with what they did in Ithaca. Players have spoken positively in preseason about goosed tempo and playing faster. The Tribe has nine new players – five transfers, four freshmen – but it’s a core group of upperclass returnees that likely will dictate results. 

Five players with a combined 156 career starts and that accounted for 60 percent of last season’s scoring output give Earl more experience and built-in camaraderie than many new coaches inherit. Start with brothers Gabe and Caleb Dorsey and Chase Lowe. Gabe Dorsey (14 ppg) is a versatile 6-6 wing whose 113 3-pointers last season ranked fourth nationally and was named preseason first-team all-conference. Brother Caleb (7 ppg, 6 rpg) is a 6-8, 235-pound forward who started 27 games last season. Lowe, a 6-5 junior, averaged 12.5 points and team highs in both rebounding (7.3) and assists (3.2). Noah Collier, a 6-8 senior, is healthy again after his last season-and-a-half was scuttled by injuries. He averaged 9.0 ppg and 8.2 rpg two seasons ago. Senior 6-5 wing Matteus Case (6.8 ppg, 4 rpg) averaged 27 minutes per game last season. 

The transfer class is heavy on versatility and 3-point shooting. Keller Boothby, a 6-7 grad student who accompanied Earl from Cornell, averaged 5.5 ppg and shot 41 percent from 3-point range. Kyle Pulliam, a 6-5 junior, averaged 14.3 ppg and shot 44 percent from 3 at D2 St. Thomas Aquinas, while 6-3 junior Kyle Frazier (10.1 ppg) shot 39 percent from 3 at D2 Belmont Abbey. Malachi Ndur, a 6-8, 225-pound grad student from Brown, averaged 4 points and 3 rebounds per game and shot 35 percent from 3. Finn Lally, a 6-9 native of New Zealand, averaged 9 points and 5.3 rebounds per game at regional junior college power Trinidad State in Colorado. 

Overall, there is sufficient length to be at least a nuisance defensively. The Tribe was picked to finish seventh out of 14 teams in the distended conglomerate that’s now the Coastal Athletic Association, which seems equal parts acknowledgement of returning production and healthy skepticism due to recent lower-tier finishes and a new coach. The non-conference schedule is largely state and regional schools (Old Dominion, VCU, Richmond, Radford, Norfolk State, Appalachian State, Navy, a tournament at Winthrop) and a marquee step up versus 2024 Final Four party crasher N.C. State, followed by the 18-game CAA slate. 

No telling what to expect from the Tribe other than a fresh look and a slew of new faces, including a coach with a vision who appears to know what he’s doing. After four grim seasons, that’s a healthy start.

This Week in Wrenball: The Preview

We here at the digital tree fort are creatures of habit with a sporting bent that sometimes straddles the line between optimistic and quixotic. As the calendar flips to November, we cast an eye toward the annual exercise in ‘what if:’ William and Mary basketball. 

The Tribe kicks off Nov. 6 against Regent University, the late evangelist Pat Robertson’s tidy enclave in Virginia Beach. Unless the competition includes moot court versus Regent’s mostly well regarded law school, the Tribe should have little trouble. After that, however, the schedule mostly gets stickier. 

There are the usual non-conference matchups versus state and regional opponents and a couple of sweet road trips (hellooooo, Malibu!) before diving into the CAA schedule after the first of the year. That’s “Coastal” Athletic Association now, by the way, with the recent additions of schools such as Campbell and North Carolina A&T, located in the seaside towns of Buies Creek and Greensboro, N.C., respectively. 

William and Mary was picked to finish eighth in the league with a roster that’s overhauled from last season’s eighth-place finish. Odd result aside, the Tribe again appears well short of the top tier of Charleston and UNC Wilmington, and looking up at the second tier of Drexel, Hofstra, Delaware and Towson. 

W&M returns two starters in 6-8 Noah Collier, a solid inside presence whose season was cut short by injury last February, and 6-6 wing and 3-point marksman Gabe Dorsey, as well as seven other contributors, all of whom averaged less than five points per game. The Wrens return 46 percent of their scoring, 64 percent of their rebounding and 29 percent of their assists from a year ago. They added three transfers: 6-4 guard Sean Houpt, a 1,000-point scorer at D2 Florida Tech; Caleb Dorsey, a 6-8, 235-pound forward who bolted Penn State after former VCU coach Mike Rhoades arrived; and Trey Moss, a 6-3 sophomore from South Florida. 

W&M certainly could have used 6-8 forward and two-year starter Ben Wight and his 800 career points and 400 rebounds, as well as point guard Tyler Rice, who made the CAA’s All-Rookie Team two years ago but found himself buried on the bench and increasingly disenchanted last season in lieu of grad transfer Anders Nelson. Both elected to leave, Wight for the University of Toledo (he completed his undergrad degree at W&M and he’s an Ohio native) and Rice for East Tennessee State. 

Which brings us to the guy at the helm. Dane Fischer enters his fifth season with a 46-68 overall record (.404 winning percentage) and 28-36 in conference play (.437) – both marks enhanced by his first season when he inherited Tribe all-timer and future pro Nathan Knight. W&M is 18-47 overall (.276) and 11-25 (.305) in the CAA the past two seasons. Far be it from me to stump for a coach’s termination, but the suits and checkbooks who evaluate such things will have ample material to judge if the Tribe produces a third consecutive season of gruel. 

It wasn’t always this way (here’s where Rob’s left eye begins to twitch and his blood pressure spikes) [ET TU, DAVE?!?]. Fischer’s predecessor Tony Shaver made W&M hoops competitive and relevant. The Wrens finished in the top four of the CAA each of his last six seasons. His teams won 20 games four times, made four CAA Tournament title games, three semifinals and went to the NIT twice. But following a quarterfinal loss in the 2019 tournament, She Who Shall Not Be Named turfed him in a public display of ego over accomplishment. 

Which brings us to where we, and the program, are now. There’s no telling how Shaver would have navigated the transfer portal and NIL situations. Inarguable, though, is the fact that he had developed a system that attracted suitable talent and was heavy on development and continuity, essential components for a program without some of the advantages (cough cough, admissions, cough, cough, eligibility curricula) many competitors enjoy. 

Some may think it’s time to shelve the past and move on. Focus on the future and paths to improvement. Moving on completely from the irrational firing of Shaver, however, is a big ask. Have Armenians forgiven and moved past the Turkish Ottoman Empire genocide of the early 20th century? Have Ukrainians forgotten Stalin and the Holomodor of the 1930s? Have St. Louis Cardinals fans forgiven and moved on from Don Denkinger in the 1985 World Series? They have not. The ability to function in polite society and simultaneously hold a low-flame grudge for years if not decades is what separates us from the primates. 

Regardless of whether the Wrens are on your wradar, college basketball season is upon us, itself a reason for good cheer. An abundance of players and teams and games and stories. Decide for yourself if modest expectations are preferable to unrestrained optimism, if anything short of contending for titles is failure or if honest competition is satisfactory. We know which is better for the digestive system. On the other hand, sports-induced gastric discomfort is often temporary. Plan accordingly.

Referee for the Referendum

The College of William and Mary is a smart person's kind of school. Some millennials and Gen Z people would say it's Nerd U, but it's a place where the super-serious student can comfortably excel in a milieu dedicated almost exclusively to erudition unencumbered by social distraction. Of my peeps, the William and Mary people fit neatly among the subcategory of "my smartest friends." My 2.0 GPA and I sit in the back of this class, slightly embarrassed to be here and hoping no one calls on us.

But I love the higher-minded discussions among these smarties. Gheorghe: The Blog is the perfect amalgam cake of keen cleverness and intellectual point-making iced with a heavy coating of whimsical merry-making.  

The W and M student body now informs me that via a referendum open to all students, a majority agreed that Thomas Jefferson (and buildings or awards named after him) contributes to a hostile environment on campus. 

The fine print was that the question was worded:

The following quote is by an alumnus who is prominently represented on campus: “A black after hard labor through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning…In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection… I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind…This unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people...When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.”
Do you think the person who wrote the above quote contributes to a hostile environment for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color on campus?

2,584 students responded, including me.  56% responded Yes, 15% Probably, 8% Undecided, 7% Probably Not, 14% No.

The Student Assembly President sent a letter to the Board of Visitors on the subject. It includes: 

The author of the anonymous quote was Thomas Jefferson. Though we hold respect for our Founders, the extremity of the quote highlights a clear disconnect between his glorification and his beliefs. Currently, many Founders are honored by being the names of the top awards that we give to our William and Mary community and distinguished guests. This indicates that they are the best students from William and Mary, which history demonstrates is untrue. While it is important that they are represented, it is also important to consider how BIPOC students may feel receiving an award named in honor of their oppressor.

Not sure how I feel about this methodology. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind responding "No" to this question in the context in which it was provided. Clearly that's the point; once you separate the quote from the man, you can look at it objectively. But separating a quote from a time period and laminating it in 21st century plastic carries some fallacy with it. 

I would never issue blind support for evil deeds with the blanket "They were different times." But acknowledging the limitations of eras gone by and the danger-fraught practice of scrutinizing the only tangible thing we are left with from a person of those times -- attributed quotes and written letters --  as something far more three-dimensional should warrant some serious asterisking.  They were indeed different times, ones in which women were 2nd class citizens in corsets, cockfighting and bull-baiting were de rigueur, electricity was a far-off invention, and philosophies were communicated via quill and ink on parchment delivered via horse-drawn carriage. Glad to be here now and not then.

These days we have the answer key to a lot of questions that have been posed through the ages. If the original Teej missed the mark (and of course he did) on this particular one -- one that, 225 years later now carries the gravity and the scars of innumerable acts of wretchedness that permanently stained our country's history -- but did so as a philosopher in search of answers and with a forestated caveat of "as a suspicion only" . . . well, it seems like something that the true intellectual would at least want to debate in an unemotional forum of bright-minded peers.

Using the results of a blind distaste test like this as evidence of the will of a student body . . . it feels like this College and the brilliant scholars who attend it should use a little more brainpower than that.  At least it does to me.  I'd invite you philosophers to weigh in. 

As for me, I'm still in the back of the class, cutting up and eagerly awaiting when we get back to your regularly scheduled dipshittery.