Wednesday, March 03, 2010

A Very Special This Week in Wrenball

Friend of G:TB Wheelhouse Jerry coined the phrase 'futile superfans' several years ago to describe our generally quixotic semi-obsession with William & Mary hoops. For a great many years before and after the birth of that appellation, futile was perhaps too kind a word. W&M's hoops history is the stuff of G:TB legend: the 9-45 combined record from 1988 to 1990; the 100-38 loss to Duke in 1988; never winning more than a single conference tournament game from 1985 to 2008 (going 3-22 in tourney games during that span); the never...I think you get the point.

Then we woke up on January 2, 2010 to find William & Mary ranked #2 in the NCAA's Ratings Percentage Index. ESPN's Andy Katz praised the Tribe and touted them as an at-large candidate to make the NCAA Tournament. Dick Vitale mentioned W&M in a national broadcast. They started showing up in mock brackets. Dogs and cats, living in sin.

G:TB readers know the rest of the story - the Tribe faded a bit down the stretch, going from 14-3 (and winners of 14 of 15) to 20-9. In-conference opponents had a opportunity to scout Tony Shaver's revamped offense, senior leader David Schneider went into a prolonged shooting slump, and the emotional highs of the early season proved impossible to sustain over the long slog of an 18-game conference slate. It would be entirely natural in the cold reality of the present to focus on W&M's 6-6 finish and feel just a little disappointed.

Entirely natural and completely insane at the same time. William & Mary, picked to finish 11th in the 12-team CAA did the following in 2009-10:
  • Won 20 games for just the third time in the school's entire 317-year history. Thomas Jefferson's teams never won 20.
  • Beat a pair of ACC teams on the road, something that had never before been done in a single season by any CAA team. Maryland is clearly the second-best team in the ACC, and the Tribe legitimately whipped 'em in College Park. Wake Forest is in top 30 of the RPI, and W&M's win in Winston-Salem was just as solid.
  • Topped in-state archrival Richmond, now ranked in the top 25.
  • Finished the regular season with a better RPI (60) than UNC (86), Memphis (66), Virginia (114 - and boy, did W&M have a better athletic year than our friends in Charlottesville), and UCLA (134), among a great many other traditionally strong programs.
  • Finished third in a very competitive CAA.

The Tribe gets an entirely unexpected day of rest this weekend, sitting out their customary first-round CAA Tournament game. W&M gets the winner of Drexel/JMU at 8:30 on Saturday night. The team that lived a charmed life during a thoroughly enjoyable regular season gets one more break from the hardwood deities: the Wrens are 6-1 against the 5 other teams in their half of the tournament, 6-5 versus the top portion of the bracket. The Tribe swept Drexel, their likely quarterfinal opponent.

As I've written before, yes we can. Keep hope alive. Pleasegodletusmakeittothebigdanceonceinmylife.

34 comments:

  1. that day of rest could prove to be costly. i wish you no luck if playing the dogs of jmu.
    tournament in richmond i assume? you going?

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  2. Shaver resembles a poor man's Mike D'Antoni. Emphasis on poor. He probably makes about 3-4% of D'Antoni's $5MM/yr contract.

    I do like that the Tribe has the prime-time game this Saturday night. I wonder if it will air live on ESPN8.

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  3. And on the topic of D'Antoni, my bet with Mark has tightened up considerably in the last 6 weeks. The Knicks now have as many wins as teh Magic do losses (20). So we are now tied, although the Knicks have two games in hand. The team is a disgrace heading into the last 25% of the season. Anybody who shelled out money for tickets this year should be ashamed of themselves.

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  4. I plan to head down to Richmond with Tiny on Saturday...anyone else want to join our wolfpack?

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  5. I've been looking forward to this post. I'm really excited about the CAA tourney but don't want to fully commit because they seem to play poorly when I do.

    I attended that 100-38 loss in Cameron. It was my bday and I got to see my BF Danny Ferry destroy the Tribe. We're miles from that experience now, thankfully.

    Go Tribe!

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  6. i too was really looking forward to another tribe bball post...really...i was. i can't wait for another...
    as my friend who is still caught up in 90's catchphrases would say....
    "NOT!" or...."AS IF!" i am doing the electric slide as i say these things.

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  7. Why don't you step off, Dan?

    (who can name that 90's quote?)

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  8. Tony says you better step off George.

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  9. Also...Zoltan -- I finally got around to listening to a sizable amount of Mayer Hawthorne. Damn fine stuff. I really like it. I have downloaded some already and plan on downloading more. It shouldn't taken me this long to check it out but I'm notoriously picky and/or snobby when it comes to music and rarely take suggestions from people unless I know our tastes are very similar as my tastes are pretty specific.

    I have to place some of the blame for my procrastination on you though, Z. If you had told me he was on Stones Throw then I would've checked him out much, much sooner. Anything on Stones Throw is worth at least a listen.

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  10. Finally, if anybody likes downtempo/instrumental stuff I suggest you check out Emancipator. Soon it will be Cold Enough is very good and his new one (safe In the Steep Cliffs) is really growing on me.

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  11. Then go get the new strong arm steady. And try to see peanut butter wolf live. He somehow hhoks his turntable up to a video projector. Cool effect.

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  12. I saw PB Wolf live in San Francisco a few years back with Cut Chemist. DOPE show.

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  13. i made us some sandwiches!
    tony's so cool!

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  14. It ain't quite tournament time yet, but their are a couple high profile conference matchups worth all our attention tipping tonight in Duke-Maryland and Kansas-Kansas State.

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  15. The Teej is very fired up for tonight's college hoops options Mark. Heck, on of you lucky pals might get a drunk dial/papal election dial.

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  16. I'm playing basketball until 9 so you and Greg should plan accordingly.

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  17. the uconn/notre dame game as ugly as the score indicates?

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  18. maryland's only home loss this year? awww, yeah.

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  19. terps pissing away a hard-earned advantage in the last 2 minutes of the half

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  20. The blind governor of New York didn't pay the Yankees for his World Series tickets and may therefore lose his job. There's a lot to think about here, but my first impression was ... why the hell does a blind man go to a baseball game? Wouldn't it make more sense to listen on the radio?

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  21. You'd be hard pressed to find two premier college guards whose offensive game is less aesthetically pleasing to me than Grievis Vazquez and Jon Scheyer.

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  22. Maryland might want to score a basket.

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  23. Maryland's gold unis are awful but the students wearing all gold and essentially forming a bouncing gold ring around the court is pretty cool.

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  24. Yep, like I said...make several shots in a row, some of the insane variety.

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  25. Zombie Nation, on the other hand is fucking terrible. How did this become the in-arena/stadium pump up music for the new millenium?

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  26. Why can't anyone on Maryland guard Nolan Smith?

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  27. He's had a terrible game, and he's a horrendous douchbag...but he's got a sense of the moment, I'll give him that.

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  28. TJs thoughts on Grievis Vasquez were spot on. Definitely a douche, but a clutch douchecwhich earns him a few points.

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