Rally Round the G:TB Family: The Belated Rock Hall Noms

This one slipped past me in February, not sure why. I'm usually far more prompt about all things Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No matter . . . the induction announcement is in a couple of weeks, so there's still time. For me to tell you about it, for you to vote.

The following nominees were announced as the pool of candidates for Rock Hall inclusion this year:

• Beck
  
• Pat Benatar
• Kate Bush
• Devo
• Duran Duran
• Eminem
• Eurythmics
• Judas Priest
• Fela Kuti
• MC5
• New York Dolls
• Dolly Parton
• Rage Against the Machine
• Lionel Richie
• Carly Simon
• A Tribe Called Quest
• Dionne Warwick

Whom do you like?

I'll tell you whom the Hall doesn't like: The MC5. This is their sixth (6th) nomination. And I doubt they get in now, unless the RnRHoF opens a side door for them. Early influence or something.

Dolly Parton is the talk of the lot. She graciously bowed out of her nomination, saying she didn't feel she'd earned the right to be in this HoF and that she didn't want to split votes. And then the Hall said sorry, but we're still including you. Way to go, people.

If I were picking, here's my ballot.

• Beck
• Pat Benatar
• Devo
• Duran Duran
• Eminem
• Judas Priest
• Rage Against the Machine
• A Tribe Called Quest

But I don't get a vote . . . wait a minute, I do! So do you! Every day! Go here and cast a ballot once daily.

Below are my predictions. I had last year's class pegged for the most part, but I don't have as good a bead this go-around. Why's that, you ask?

• Dolly Parton may well get the nod, anyway. Stupid.
• This pool has very little ethnic diversity, so Dionne Warwick and Lionel Richie's chances improve. They're both solid picks, but (a) it seems like Diana Ross would get in first, even though she sucks and the Hall is still pissed she blew them off when the Supremes were inducted in '88 (though that wasn't the worst performance that night) and (b) Richie minus his killer Commodores work is slightly thin. But you never know.
• This pool has very little gender diversity, so Warwick's and Pat Benatar's chances improve. I love Pat Benatar, and she's hit for hit with Mellencamp, who got in 15 years ago. (Including what tune they both recorded for a hit? Answers below.) Anyway, women are finally starting to get their due in the Hall, and that helps her. But you never know.
• Rage has a super thin catalog, but they were a force to be reckoned with, once upon a time. Oh, and Tom Morello is on the nominating committee. Interesting.
• Eminem is a lock. Would the Hall dare usher in two hip-hop acts? They did last year . . . sort of. Jay-Z was inducted, as was LL . . . through the side door: The Award for Musical Excellence shall be given to artists, musicians, songwriters and producers whose originality and influence creating music have had a dramatic impact on music. G:TB readers know how I feel about that bullshit. So maybe Tribe gets in. Front door, please. We shall see, Z.
• My locks include the aforementioned Slim Shady plus Beck, and Duran Duran, surprisingly. They have the catalog, the staying power, the fan base, and the hair. Rob agrees with me.

Ultimately, I'm guessing, but here goes:

Go vote! 

The Commonwealth Conference

While mainstream sports media outlets discuss the return of major college football, Major League Baseball players debate the conditions under which they'll play, and Notre Dame changes its academic calendar to better facilitate a gridiron season, there are consequential decisions at the mid-major collegiate level that have more significant impact on athletes that may never play in front of tens of thousands.

A Zip no more

The Atlantic 10 announced changes to the competition schedule for seven sports in 2020-21, reducing travel and limiting the number of teams that qualify for postseason play. The Mid American Conference (MAC) changed basketball schedules and eliminated postseason tournaments entirely for eight sports. Of note, those changes are initially set for the next four years. That there is what we call a harbinger, kids. The University of Akron eliminated men's golf and cross-country as well as women's tennis (not to mention getting rid of half of the school's academic programs).

The COVID-19 pandemic will have lasting impacts on nearly all areas of our society. Since we only care about a few of those areas and we know things about even fewer, we're focusing our energy today on intercollegiate sports. So what follows are a few predictions based on logic and almost no research, as well as an idea that's so crazy it just might work.

First, the predictions. Every college will be impacted by revenue shortfalls and increased expenses related to lower enrollments and preparing campuses to deal with the new reality of bringing hundreds of young adults together in a world where no vaccine or treatment is likely to be ready for market in the next 12 months. A significant number of those colleges will choose to reduce or eliminate the costs associated with their athletic programs.

Minnesota Duluth has won the past two NCAA
Hockey titles. They compete in Division II
in every sport other than hockey.

And so, we'll see an exodus of mid- and low-major Division I athletic programs to the cozier and more cost-realistic confines of Divisions II and III. We'll also see a relaxing of NCAA rules to allow schools to compete in just one or two Division I sports, just like we see in Men's Volleyball, Hockey, and Lacrosse today, for example. If Hofstra wants to play Division I basketball but compete in Division III in everything else, that'll be an option. They'll still get beat by Daniel Dixon.

We'll also see the consolidation of the current power conferences into a single mega-league with regional divisions. As the Power 65 is no longer constrained by the smaller schools that sought an equal voice at the table, and television networks realize they have even more leverage than before, a semi-pro option becomes reality. The NCAA Tournament keeps its format, because even the Power 65 realize the value of the tradition, but it's even harder for non-Power 65 schools to get in.

All the other schools that still want to play some sort of Division I athletics scurry to join a regional league that allows them reasonable competition and significantly reduced costs. The Sun Belt, which today stretches from Conway, South Carolina to San Marcos, Texas, is toast. So, too Conference USA with its unwieldy Norfolk to El Paso configuration. Our own little Colonial Athletic Association? Well, Boston to Charleston ain't exactly compact.

Which leaves with a modest proposal. ODU has no home if Conference USA implodes. VCU, George Mason and Richmond can't be thrilled with the reduced competition in Olympic sports that's coming for the A-10. W&M and JMU don't have a home in a CAA that doesn't exist. All six of those schools, notably, once competed against each other in the old Colonial. Add a couple of others to get to a round ten (say, Radford, VMI, Towson, and George Washington) and we've got a league with eight Virginia teams and two schools from adjacent jurisdictions.

W&M's getting its first bid to the NCAA Tournament as the auto-qualifier from the Commonwealth Conference. Just might take a while.

This Year in Wrenball: The Greatest

In February 2017, we mentioned Nathan Knight for the first time in this cobwebby corner of the internet, describing his play in an otherwise desultory loss to Towson. As we wrote, "[F]reshman center Nathan Knight grabbed three boards (two offensive), scored a basket, made two free throws, and ran the floor to make an acrobatic block on Tigers veteran forward John Davis. Knight's efforts helped the Tribe extend their lead to 15, and though they ultimately blew that lead, it was a bit of a coming out party for the exuberant 6'10", 250-pound newcomer."

The title of that post was The Next One(?), posing the question whether Knight would some day have as much impact on the W&M program as the sainted Marcus Thornton. Now, three years later, as Knight capped college career by earning CAA Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year honors and making the list of the final five players on the 2020 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar National Center of the Year award, the question's changed.

Is it possible that Nathan Knight is the best player in W&M hoops history?

I toyed with the notion a few weeks ago in a Wrenball post, calling it blasphemous. And it's somewhat hard to compare ball-dominant, whippet-fast, edge-of-your-seat shooting guards with solid, active, all-court 6'10" post players. But if we take the eye test out of it, and try to remove the passion, the stats suggest it's not all that close.

Nathan Knight is the GOAT.

Knight's career numbers equal or surpass Thornton's in nearly every way. They both averaged 17.1 ppg over their illustrious careers, though Knight has yet played three fewer games (and needs 62 points to pass Thornton's school record of 2,178). Thornton has more assists and steals, though not as many more as you'd imagine. Knight, the second-leading rebounder in school history, has more boards this season than Thornton had in his whole career - again not a huge surprise given their size and positional differential.

Efficiency stats tell a more striking story. Knight is a far more efficient scorer than Thornton was, and his career Player Efficiency Rating (PER), which seeks to measure a player's overall contribution, adjusted for pace and competition, is a robust 30.9, which is good for 10th all-time...in the NCAA. His 34.9 this season is tops in the entire country. The excellent Thornton's PER was 18.5. His senior year, he posted a 21.8, good for 8th. In the CAA.

Knight wasn't the only member of this year's surprising Tribe squad to earn conference honors. Junior guard Luke Loewe joined Knight on the All-Defense first team, senior Andy Van Vliet earned third-team all-league honors, and head coach Dane Fischer was named the CAA Coach of the Year.

Bittersweet that last bit. Fischer's a great coach. We'll be lucky to keep him for five years, if his first year is anything to be believed. He's calm, smart, and obviously capable of maximizing talent. The circumstances of his hiring still gall, and that won't change. It's not his fault, so we'll celebrate his success, and root for the Tribe.

Root for the Tribe, indeed, as they take their 21-10, 13-5 record and second seed in the CAA Tournament in Washington, DC. They play the winner of this evening's JMU/Elon play-in game (which will be done by the time you read this, so insert the correct team name accordingly). Nothing's certain in a league with as much parity as the CAA (with lots of people picking the 6th seeded Northeastern to win the tournament), but W&M was 4-0 agains the Dukes and Phoenix this season and will be heavily favored to win their quarterfinal.

If they do, they'll face the winner of the quarter between the aforementioned Huskies and Towson. Knight beat Northeastern at the buzzer twice this season, while the Tribe split with the Tigers (each team won on the road by double-digits), who always give us trouble with their physicality. Crapshoot, thy name is CAA semifinal.

And if by the grace of God, Fischer's kids get to the tournament final on Tuesday night, they'll almost certainly see Hofstra, the league's best team for most of the season. W&M smoked the Pride by 27 on Long Island early in the season before Joe Mihalich's team returned the favor by 23 in Williamsburg in February. Have I mentioned crapshoots?

Nathan Knight just became the first player to win both POY and DPOY in the CAA since George Mason's George Evans did it in 2001. Evans' Patriots went on to win the CAA Tournament that season. May history repeat itself, and may the basketball gods finally have mercy on our tormented souls. Somewhere, Tony Shaver would smile.

House Money

I didn't think the Tribe was going to win last night. Towson had beaten us in five of our previous six meetings, both times this season, and did it by getting in our faces, pushing us around, and bullying us. For as talented as the Tribe obviously is on offense, I didn't see us taking a punch and responding.

I failed to reckon with David Cohn's stones, nor did I expect us to play rock-solid defense, or out-rebound the Tigers. And for all of that, I apologize.

This evening, W&M takes on the CAA's clear best team, regular season tie with Northeastern notwithstanding. Charleston has two first-team all-league players in Grant Riller and Joe Chealey, and a second-teamer in Jarelle Brantley. The Cougars finished 14-4 in league play, led the conference in defensive points/game, defensive shooting percentage, and turnover margin. They're the anti-Tribe.

And a week ago, the Tribe hung 114 on them in Williamsburg.

Earlier in the season, Riller dropped 37 on W&M in Charleston, as the Cougars beat the Tribe, 82-77.

My point, I guess, is that tonight's a crapshoot, and we're playing with house money. And we've got David Cohn. So, out in a blaze of glory it is.

This Week in Wrenball: 10 Years Later

There was a modest amount of Tweetnoise this week related to the notion that W&M coach Tony Shaver's run at W&M might be coming to an end. Something called @CoachingChanges (which, honestly, is probably a Russian bot) suggested that new W&M AD Samantha Huge's ambition might lead her to dismiss the only coach to ever get the Tribe within one game of the NCAA Tournament during the CAA era.

Things got a bit, if not heated, then maybe confusing, as Tribe fans, conference rivals, and impartial media types weighed in unanimously to suggest such a firing would be absurd, bordering on criminal.

Why yes, I am number one.

But as I thought about CoachingChanges' perspective, I could at least understand. Shaver's been at W&M for 15 years with zero NCAA Tournament appearances. In any other context, that'd be a death knell - would've been years ago, to be honest. But W&M is sui generis in terms of its hooping history.

From 1985 to 2007, W&M went 3-22 in CAA Tournament play. In the 18 seasons before Shaver took over in 2003, the Tribe finished .500 or better twice. Twice. In his 15 seasons, W&M has done it eight times, including the last five in a row (we're guaranteed to do so this year). He's won 20 games four times, a mark W&M reached five times in the 96 years before he arrived. After three mediocre campaigns to begin his W&M career, Shaver's squads have gone 11-10 in CAA Tournament play, making four league finals.

Those numbers only tell part of the story. Pre-Shaver, W&M was a whipped fanbase, devoid of hope, of belief, of anything but morbid fascination with a serious of no-chance rosters wearing our colors.

And then, like a bolt out of the blue, that happened. W&M rode a string of three buzzer-beating victories to the 2008 CAA Tournament final against George Mason. And while we lost that game, it changed everything. As G:TB wrote at the time:

"But as we noted in this space just yesterday, the loss does nothing to diminish the joy this unlikely group of kids brought to W&M’s generally subdued alumni. For the briefest of moments we were allowed to pretend we belonged, to plan trips to the Boise or Sacramento or Tacoma subregionals, to shout ourselves hoarse watching a game that actually mattered, and to dream. Generations of us had never even allowed ourselves to dream. When we talk about this team, that’s the thing we’ll remember – not that they finally fell short, but that they let us dream, hope, and care. And at some level, that’s the magic of college basketball, that an obscure school from a mid-major conference can make otherwise mature (it’s in the eye of the beholder, people) adults let loose the bonds of logic and rationality and really, deeply believe in the most unlikely outcomes."

This year's Tribe squad closes out the regular season with home games against UNCW and the College of Charleston. W&M is currently 16-11, 9-7 in CAA play. We're all but assured of playing Towson in the 4/5 game in the first round of the conference tournament, and we don't match up well with them. If we escape that gauntlet, top-seeded Charleston probably awaits. It's going to be a tough road.

But we've still got the nation's best shooting team, an offense that's capable of going plaid and beating anyone. And we've got a coach who knows how to win games when throats get tight and kids get nervous. In a league like the CAA, anything really can happen, even for William & Mary

And so we dream, hope, and care. That's what Tony Shaver has given us. And even though we've been so close and not yet crossed over the rainbow bridge, dreams and hopes and cares are enough. We didn't have that before.

I'm Gonna Need Your Shoe Sizes

I've been making a conscious effort to spend less time on Facebook of late (certainly wish I could say the same about Twitter - I'm a work in progress), so forgive me if I've stumbled upon something this week that you've seen for a while. But I found it so important to the work that we do here that I needed to ensure that it was shared with the world.

Do feast your eyes on these beauties, Tribe fans.

They come in both black and white, and they're on sale for 50% off at the moment, so you can pick up a pair of each. 

And if the Tribe makes the NCAA Tournament this year, I'm afraid the G:TB bylaws require that each of you (at least the W&M grads in our number) acquire at least one pair. 

The good news is that I've checked with the IRS, and the purchase is tax deductible. 

#1bid4wmtribe

This Week in Wrenball: CAA Tournament Preview.

We're kinda exasperated, too, Tony.

The 2017 CAA Men's Basketball Tournament begins tomorrow in Charleston, SC with the annual Pillow Fight Friday play-in games. Your William & Mary Tribe (16-13, 10-8 CAA) nailed down the 4th seed with a nerve-wracking 83-79 win over Towson last weekend. The winningest senior class in school history (all 318 years of it) takes on 5th-seeded Elon at 2:30 Saturday afternoon.

Let's dispense with the obvious. I don't have the first clue what to expect from this W&M team. They beat every team in the conference at least once, and lost to everyone except Delaware. They ran then-unbeaten-in-league-play UNC Wilmington out of the gym in Williamsburg, winning by 18. They topped Elon at home, too. The Wrens also got ripped by 24 in Wilmington, and lost on the road against a dreadful JMU team and a lousy Drexel squad.

The Tribe can win this tournament. There's an equal chance that they lose to Elon.

I've been wandering through a thicket of statistics to see if I can figure out a key to W&M's success, and I'm struggling to come up with anything concrete, other than a fairly obvious correlation between shooting percentage and victories. When they shoot well, they win. When they don't they usually lose. The Tribe's not gonna create a bunch of extra possessions via turnovers and offensive rebounds, so they need to make their shots. Rocket surgery, it ain't.

While I was engrossed in hoops stats, I did find something that amazed me. Check out this comparison (click on the table to enlarge it):

Player A is Marcus Thornton during his senior season in 2014-15. The consensus CAA Player of the Year and unquestioned greatest to ever wear a W&M basketball uniform was incredibly productive, for sure.

We'd take another game like this one.

Player B is Daniel Dixon this year. Nearly across the board, his senior year numbers are better than Thornton's. He's been a more efficient shooter, better from deep and from inside the arc. He's rebounded effectively, passed well, and been a better defender.

Color me bumfuzzled.

You could argue that Thornton had greater responsibility, initiating the offense while being the unquestioned focus of opponents' defensive game plans. And you might note that Dixon has the luxury of a pass-first point guard in David Cohn to get him looks and carry the primary ball-handling load. You'd be right in both cases. But as good a season as I know Dixon's had (he's scored in double figures in 22 straight games, dropping 30 or more five times - the most for a Wren since Adam Hess did the same in 2003-2004), I had no idea he was scoring at such an elite level.

Dixon's numbers get even better in CAA play, where he's shooting 60% from two, 40.7% from three, and a league-best 86.7% from the line. He's averaged 29.5 points per game in his last four, getting stronger down the stretch. He pulls down nearly six boards a contest in league play, and drops almost three assists a game. He's a no-brainer first-team All-CAA selection who'll get some POY votes. Considering where he came from the first time we wrote about him (in a cameo performance in the greatest basketball story ever told), Dixon's step up has been the story of the season.

As good as he's been, he's going to need help in Charleston. Omar Prewitt's senior year has been as strange as Dixon's has been sublime. Prewitt's scoring and efficiency numbers have declined across the board, and his three-point and free throw percentages are the worst of his career. He looked lost at the line late in the Towson game, short-arming a pair of crunch time freebies. He's capable of dropping 30 or completely disappearing - he did each of those things in the season's final five games.

The Tribe's two-headed post has stepped up of late, with both junior Jack Whitman and freshman Nathan Knight recording big games in the season's final stages. Cohn's been a solid and reliable triggerman. Greg Malinowski's been less consistent than Wrenville would like, but he's capable of getting really hot from deep. All of those guys need to deliver to keep the impossible dream alive, but we need the Omar that showed up in the epic Hofstra semifinal in 2015 to have more than a slim chance.

It ain't Baltimore any longer, but it may be our last time to type it. Omar need to be comin', or the forces of good can't hold this corner.

This Week in Wrenball: Time to Find Out

In 1997-98, the William & Mary Tribe men's basketball team - almost out of nowhere - went 20-6 in the regular season, 13-3 in conference play. Hopes were raised in a place where hope was as rare as a rational Tea Party voter.

And as those hopes crested in Richmond at the CAA Tournament, an injury-hobbled Tribe team, with star players Jim Moran and Randy Bracy ailing, lost to seventh-seeded American University and their hot-shooting guard, Nathan Smith. Or, Nathan Fucking Smith, as he's known in W&M lore*.

* possibly only to me

Eighteen years later, a W&M team in somewhat different circumstances, having made consecutive CAA Tournament finals and four in the last eight years, finds itself among the elite teams in the league. Tony Shaver's boys are 17-6, 9-3 in the league, and winners of four straight. W&M is currently ranked 37th in the RPI, and have a non-conference resume that matches up with any mid-major and a lot of power conference teams. People are talking about this squad, and not just us. John Feinstein wrote perhaps the longest non-GTB piece I've ever seen about the Wrens.

Tonight, the Green and Gold begin perhaps their toughest stretch of the season.

Hofstra, boosted by likely CAA Player of the Year Juan'ya Green and double-double machine Rokas Gustys, travels to Williamsburg tonight in a battle for second place. The Flying DutchPride hammered the Tribe by nearly 30 points in Hempstead late last month on the strength of an otherworldly offensive performance in the game's second half. Hofstra trails W&M by one game in the league after blowing a big lead and losing at JMU in overtime.

Two days from now, W&M travels to Towson, hoping to avenge their only home loss of the season. Like Hofstra, the Tigers are only a game behind the Tribe in the CAA standings.

And a week from tonight, league leaders UNCW come to the Tribedome hoping to sweep W&M. The first matchup between these two was a classic, the Seahawks topping the Wrens, 97-94, in overtime.

Omar Prewitt was just named CAA co-Player of the Week after a pair of 20+ point games. The Tribe is balanced, with six players averaging at least 8.0 points per game, and a seventh, sophomore Connor Burchfield, averaging 6.0 and leading the nation in three-point shooting percentage (.614). Sophomore point guard David Cohn is averaging 7.0 assists/game over the last seven games, with an assist/turnover ratio of 4.1:1 over that span. Over the team's four-game winning streak, the Tribe has averaged 1.24 points/possession while shooting 50.6% from the floor. (The NCAA leaders in offensive efficiency, Saint Mary's, average 1.19 ppp on the season. W&M is 37th at 1.09.) There is reason to believe this team is better than last year's.

You can see where this is all going, can't you.

Three wins, and W&M is the odds-on favorite to win the regular season title. Three losses would suck, and burst the #1bid4wmtribe at-large bubble, but wouldn't really have a material impact on the Tribe's CAA tourney chances - W&M's probably already done enough to avoid having to compete in the tournament's play-in round. Neither of those outcomes is terribly likely, given the vicissitudes of this conference season.

At the end of the above-mentioned Feinstein piece, which chronicles the pain many of us have felt personally over the past several years, Shaver allows himself to dream just a little bit. Asked what he might do if W&M finally gets over the hump, he said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll hug my sons and [wife] Ann first. Long hugs. I know there will be tears.”

Dammit. The way this year is shaping up, there will be tears, alright. Just hard to tell which kind.

I Believe That We Will Win

I don't have the words to do that game justice. It was as good a college basketball contest as I've seen, two solid teams throwing haymakers. Our Tribe just wouldn't die. They're as tough mentally as any Tribe team, ever.

For the second year in a row, and the fourth in the past eight, William & Mary stands one game from the NCAA Tournament. The Wrens face preseason conference favorite Northeastern this evening for all the mid-major marbles. In general, we're a superstitious sort, but y'know what? That hasn't worked for us when it comes to the Tribe. So we say 'Fuck you, Jobu', we'll do this ourselves.

We're gonna win, dammit. Northeastern is good, but they're not great (just like us). We beat them handily in Williamsburg, while they returned the favor in Boston. The Huskies hammered us on the boards in both games, something that's not likely to change tonight. Vegas will likely install the 3rd-seeded Northeastern as favorites. But it's not about analysis at this point.

It's about fate. And it's our time to win, to fling this fucking monkey to the ground, to kick the damn ball out of Lucy's hands, to see our name announced next Sunday on CBS. (If the Selection Committee would see fit to put us in Columbus, Pittsburgh, or Jacksonville, we'd be much obliged.)

Tony Shaver's gonna play the part of Herb Brooks tomorrow.



Ignore the details, because they don't matter. Northeastern isn't the USSR (though the do wear red). We wouldn't lose nine of 10 to them - it'd likely be 5-5. And the game tonight is basketball, not hockey. Great moments, though, are made from great opportunity.

So a bunch of kids is going to go out tonight and do something that nobody's ever done before, that generations of people might've considered impossible, or at least highly unlikely.

Do you believe in miracles?

This Is Not a CAA Tournament Prediction Post

William & Mary won the league!?!?!

The 2014-15 Colonial Athletic Association men's basketball season was a glorious clusterfuck. Beyond the obvious fact that four teams tied at 12-6 for the league's best record, the conference slate was a Salvador Dali/M.C. Escher conflation with a bit of Benny Hill thrown in to appeal to the masses. Consider the following:

William & Mary finished 5-1 against the other three co-champions (UNCW, Northeastern, and JMU), but lost twice to Delaware, and fell on the road to both the 8th and last-place teams (Elon and Charleston).

UNCW played the final game of the conference season, needing only to beat 5-12 Elon to clinch the outright league title. The Seahawks lost by 19.

Defending league champion Delaware (nope, not over it yet) went 1-10 in non-conference play, losing to Cal Poly, Army, and Delaware State. The Hens beat William & Mary twice and went 9-9 in conference.

JMU went 0-6 against the other co-champions, and 12-0 against the rest of the league.

First-year league member Elon finished 6-12 in the league. And carries a three-game winning streak into the conference tournament, the longest such current streak in the CAA. Which features wins over co-champs Northeastern and UNCW, and followed a seven-game losing streak.

You'll forgive us, but we won't be making any predictions about the CAA Tournament, which begins this evening in Baltimore, as the 7/10 (Drexel/Charleston) and 8/9 (Elon/Towson) matchups tip. (Though we did finish the season 10-8 ATS on W&M games, despite a two-game hiccup at the end of the year.)

We won't be prognosticating (though if you ask us for a darkhorse tourney winner, we'll give you Hofstra), but we will be offering a bit of a prescription for Tribe fans. We've said all year that W&M has to shoot the ball to win. We've been wrong. You'll hear people say that the Wrens need to rebound, to take care of the basketball. Those people are wrong, generally speaking.

The key to victory for our Wrens is simple. They have to defend.

Allow us to geek out for a minute. As Dragons Speak proprietor Dan Crain pointed out on Twitter yesterday, only once since 2007-8 has the CAA Tournament champion not ranked in the top two in the league in defensive efficiency. W&M is seventh in that stat. But their wins and losses tell a more complete story.

Advanced metrics on this point are crystal clear. W&M's Offensive Rating (ORtg, an estimate of points scored per 100 possession) in its 12 conference wins is a very good 115.65. In the Tribe's six losses, their ORtg only drops to 113.62, a figure that would rank in the top 20 in the nation.  W&M's effective field goal percentage (eFG) in wins is 61.1%. It drops only slightly to 55.1% in losses. The Wrens' total rebound percentage is better in victories, but again not a wide margin (50.8% in wins, 45.8% in losses). And counter-intuitively, the Wrens turn the ball over nearly twice as much in wins as they do in defeats (12.05 per game versus 6.5).

Yes, please

But when opponents make shots against W&M, the Tribe's exceptional offensive efficiency can't save them. In those 12 CAA wins, W&M's DRtg is a very good 93.6. And those six losses? Hide the children, because this is gruesome. The Wrens' DRtg in conference losses is 126.33. That would be the worst performance in the NCAA by more than 10 points/100 possessions over a whole season. Opponents increase their eFG from 45.8% in W&M wins to 61.5% in losses (again, that'd be the worst in the NCAA by some margin).

It's not rocket surgery this weekend in the Charm City. It's all but certain that the Tribe will run a very efficient offense. If Tony Shaver's team plays focused, even marginally effective defense, W&M has a very good chance to win any game they play.

Roll the balls out, and let's see what happens. Lotta ball left. Stay on target*.

* - We're appropriating some long-ago mojo for a new purpose. It worked once, so why the hell not try again?

Hey Tribe Fans: You Will Always Be a Loser (And That's Okay)

As many of you around these parts know, Tribe hoops has been an afterthought for me. The program has been consistently mediocre for the twenty-plus years I've been paying attention to it. While I enjoy the Tribe fandom exuded here, it's never been anything more than amusing. I enjoy my friends' ridiculous (some call it futile) hobby because it's not harmful and it makes them happy.

With that said, I found myself more emotionally invested in last night's game than I would've expected.  I couldn't start watching until 10: 15 PM because I had to attend a coaching seminar to be an assistant coach for my six year-old's little league team.  So I was able to chug through in a little over an hour. As the second half progressed, I felt despair as we fell behind by twelve, then pride as we retook the lead.  I was already envisioning the social equity I would have at the water cooler on Tuesday, talking up the program as the media spotlight fell on us for one shining moment...at least another 10-11 days.

But then the bottom fell out, and we once again became acquainted with the bitter taste of failure.  I share comments by our friend Sammy that we lost this game as much as Delaware won it.  But dissecting the loss much further doesn't do any of us any good.  It's important to remember that maybe the Tribe will always be a loser.  And that's okay. Because it defines who we are in a vague way.

I was in the car a lot today, driving an hour each way to Connecticut for meetings. I've been listening to a lot of Titus Andronicus these days, in my typical way of slowly getting into bands 3-5 years after most other people do.  There is an earnest, honest vibe to these guys, and their hardcore Jersey heritage make the music that much more anthemic to me.  My favorite TA tune came on today, and I listened to it. Loudly. More than once. And it strangely resonated to me as a Tribe fan, as I hope it will with you all.

This song (like many others) is best played LOUDLY while drunk. But perhaps many of you will enjoy it on your PC's speakers today while owning the Tribe's failure and acknowledging that the legacy of failure may be embedded in your DNA. And that you may be a better person for it.

Enjoy this anthem about holding your head up despite having thrown everything away. Lyrics are below, and video is below that. The story behind the video is an interesting one (read it here) that got some hipster media buzz a few years ago. The last two minutes of the tune are the best part. Bonus points for anybody (besides Zman) who connects the dots on the song and one of our labels.

Titus Andronicus: No Future Part III: Escape From No Future

Everything makes me nervous and nothing feels good for no reason
Waking up its really worth it the same dark dread every morning
Senior year, here in Mahwah a new world just around the corner
Leave me behind let me stagnate in a fortress of solitude
Smoking's been okay so far but I need something that works faster
So all I want for Christmas is no feelings no feelings now and never again
There is a face playing all round and red that stretches across my mouth
All for protection nobody gets in and nobody gets out
I used to look myself in the mirror at the end of everyday
But I took the one thing that made me beautiful and threw it away
I was a river I was a tall tree I was a volcano
And now I'm asleep on top of a mountain amidst the burning snow
As I surrendered what made me human and what I thought was true
And now there's a robot that lives in my brain he tells me what to do
I can't do nothing without his permission that wasn't part of the plan
So now at Rock Ridge Pharmacy I will be waiting for my man
But there is another down in the dungeon who never gave up the fight
And he'll be forever screaming sometimes I hear him say on a quiet night
He says
You will always be a loser now
You will always be a loser
You will always be a loser and that's okay


)

#1bid4wmtribe Perspective

Marcus Thornton elevated with the ball in his hands and a chance to send William & Mary to the NCAA Tournament.

If you give any one of us that scenario before the season starts, we take it without hesitation. In fact, we'd take it with giddy enthusiasm.

He rose from the right wing, taking a shot he makes with regularity, a shot he'd basically just drilled two minutes prior, not an easy shot, but one less difficult than the one he made to beat Drexel.

He said if felt good coming out of his hand. His coach said it looked good in the air.

It was thismuch too long, bounding off the back rim and away.

Sports, man, they'll gut you.

In the pain and disbelief of that last moment, it was easy to forget that this team fought back from a 12-point second-half deficit against the league's clear regular-season champion. That they earned a champions victory over Towson in one of the greatest semifinals in league history. That they came back from the brink in the quarterfinal against Charleston.



It was easy to forget Omar Prewitt driving for a layup that all of a sudden became a one-handed throwdown that sparked the second-half comeback. Easy to forget Tim Rusthoven's 8-for-10, 16-point performance, and Daniel Dixon's stellar defensive effort. Easy to forget the brilliant Thornton's efficient 22-point effort, and Terry Tarpey's gritty work on the boards.

Perspective, in the moment, was hard to come by.

Much will be made of the Tribe's 3-for-11 performance from the free throw line, and much probably should be made of that number. And W&M's inability to stop Delaware's mammoth Carl Baptiste inside was probably the single most important factor in the game. But the Tribe shot 52.5% from the field (to the Blue Hens' 43.5%), and they outrebounded Delaware, 36-34. The Hens' explosive guard trio of Davon Usher, Devon Saddler, and Jarvis Threat combined for 42 points, but they missed 21 of 36 shots, and the defense of Brandon Britt, Dixon, Thornton, and Tarpey held the three well below their overall scoring average.

It says something to me that we're so disappointed, and that the team seemed to feel the same way. None of us were just happy to be there like we were in 2008 and 2010. We thought we should win. The Tribe went toe to toe with the league's two best teams over the past two nights, and they found themselves equal to the task.

Or perhaps, a quarter of an inch less than equal.



There's another place in which a little perspective might be in order. We've placed so much emphasis on the bid, that we've forgotten how far this program has come. As we walked out of the Baltimore Arena last night, Delaware celebrating on the court, we passed John Leone, a member of the Tribe teams that went 9-45 my first two years in Williamsburg. I made eye contact, and shook my head. He looked stricken, just gutted by the moment.

But W&M has made three finals in seven years after a recent history devoid even of hope. We're brutally disappointed today, but there will be a tomorrow. As Tony Shaver said last night, "The thing I get angry about is people trying to define whether or not you made the NCAA Tournament as whether you had a good year. If our goal is to make the NCAA Tournament, we can move into a conference that has the same academic restrictions we have. We choose to play at a higher level. I think that's admirable to be honest. We're not going to let the NCAA Tournament define our team." (We're grateful to Defiantly Dutch for finding us that quote.)

In 2003, the New York Yankees came from behind to beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on an Aaron Boone walkoff homerun. That's the worst I ever felt after a sporting event. Second worst, I guess. But one year later, that pain was long forgotten.

Shaver closed his press conference with something I hope I'll being to feel better about soon, saying, "We had a great year, and the future is very bright."

It's a simple game.

So why does it hurt so much?

#1bid4wmtribe, Day 3: Movin' Right Along

For the third time in seven years, our Wrens stand one step away from W&M's first-ever NCAA Tourney bid. And once again, the step is a big one.

The Tribe takes on CAA regular season champion Delaware in tonight's conference final. The Hens are explosive, athletic, and very talented. Tony Shaver called them the best offensive team he's seen in his tenure at William and Mary. They've got a pair of first-team All-CAA guards in Devon Saddler and Davon Usher, and three other players who average more than 10 points per game. Delaware beat the Tribe in both of the teams' meetings this season, including an emphatic 89-72 decision in Williamsburg at the end of January.

To paraphrase Shaver's comments regarding Towson, Delaware is a very good team. But so are we. I look forward to the opportunity.

Today, the Tribe did what we said they needed to do. They made shots. W&M connected on 55.1% of its shots, 50% from the three-point line. After allowing Towson to creep out to a 6-point lead towards the end of the first half, first Julian Boatner and then Marcus Thornton hit three-pointers. W&M was on the precipice, and those two jumpers were a big part of the reason the Tribe went into the break dead even with the Tigers. And they never trailed in a seriously entertaining second half. Thornton was superb, as was Brandon Britt, but Kyle Gaillard and Terry Tarpey were terrific in defending two-time CAA Player of the Year Jerelle Benimon, and after getting smoked on the boards in the first half, the Tribe held their own in the second.



We've said the same thing all tournament about the most important factor for W&M, and no less of an expert than Shaver  agrees. In the postgame presser (video above), he offered his take on the key to tonight's matchup. "We have to make shots", said the Tribe head man. Delaware is so good offensively, that Shaver doesn't expect his team to slow the Hens down. Instead, they'll have to outscore the top seed.

But Shaver likes his team. After the win, he was visibly moved by the Tribe's performance, and spoke about their toughness and effort. He also said this, in response to a question about W&M's NCAA Tournament drought, "(Never going to the tournament) isn't this team's burden. They haven't been playing for 200 years". We're going to be nervous as all hell tonight, but something tells me that the kids in green and gold won't be.

It's a simple game. God willing and the shots are falling, we'll be movin' right along tomorrow night to a destination we've never visited.

#1bid4wmtribe

#1bid4wmtribe, Day 2

Quick and dirty preview of this afternoon's CAA semifinal between our guys and Towson. The Tigers swept the Tribe during the regular season, blowing open a close game late to win, 85-70, in Williamsburg and hitting a buzzer-beater to drop W&M, 70-68, in the season finale last weekend in Baltimore. Stop me if you've heard this before, but Towson is bigger, stronger, and a bit more athletic, while the Tribe has more offensive talent and depth.

Brandon Britt was excited.

Tough matchup for W&M, as we've discussed before, but if they make shots (alert: this is not news), they've got a chance.

I was really impressed the Tribe's resolve last night. After Tony Shaver called for The Greatest Time Out in Coaching History 51 seconds into the second half, the Wrens boatraced Charleston, 42-17. They were inexorable, shooting (there it is again) 56% from the floor and actually outrebounding the Cougars after the break. Omar Prewitt only made one shot, but it was huge, as he banked in a three-pointer late in the shot clock to give W&M a 61-57 and stop a 4-0 Charleston mini-run. Terry Tarpey was huge on the glass, finishing with 8 boards. Brandon Britt and Marcus Thornton each scored 16 points to pace the winners, as part of a total team effort.

Prewitt's fellow frosh, Daniel Dixon, played 21 critical minutes, making a pair of tough triples and providing significant defensive energy as the Tribe held Charleston to 25.8% shooting (and 0-10 from deep) in the second half. Dixon's athleticism on both ends may well play a big role. He played a total of 21 minutes in W&M's two losses to Towson. I bet we see more of him today.

Simple game, friends. Make some shots.

#1bid4wmtribe

Also, Muppets, as 'Movin' Right Along' seems a good theme for a basketball team in a tournament: