Mark Selig is the RTC correspondent for the Colonial Athletic Association. You can also find more of his written work at jamesmadison.rivals.com or on Twitter @MarkRSelig.

Looking Back

• Earning Their Stripes: The Towson Tigers are quickly becoming the darlings of the CAA. A year after finishing 1-31 and earning national attention for their losing ways, the Tigers have started 2-0 in the CAA, winning both games on the road. Before last week, Towson hadn’t registered a CAA road win since February 2010. Almost overnight, second-year coach Pat Skerry has infused the program with enough talent and attitude to be a legitimate contender in the league… if only the Tigers were eligible. Due to academic issues from before Skerry arrived, Towson cannot compete for a CAA championship or any type of postseason play. Still, this season can go a long way in turning around a historically moribund program.
• Drexel Misses Record: One of those Towson wins last week was over Drexel, which snapped the Dragons’ 17-game regular-season winning streak within CAA play. Drexel fell one game short of matching George Mason’s 18-game run from January 2011 to January 2012. Ironically, neither last year’s Drexel team (which is responsible for most of that streak) or the previous season’s George Mason team won the CAA tournament title.
• We Won’t Protect This House!: With so much parity in the CAA, common wisdom said that any game would be a toss-up, and maybe the difference from night to night would be who was at home. Well, Week One of league play certainly didn’t shape up that way. Home teams went 2-7. Or, for a glass half-full look, road teams went 7-2. Those seven road wins included two by Towson and one by Northeastern over George Mason, which had won 18 straight in the Patriot Center.  Delaware, meanwhile, won at Old Dominion for the first time since 2003.

With The CAA Likely To Be A One-Bid League, Jamelle Hagins Has The Conference In His Crosshairs.

Reader’s Take

Power Rankings

1. George Mason: It seems the Patriots are just looking to give away the top spot in the power poll, but no one is there to seize it. Mason lost its CAA opener at home to Northeastern, a team that had dropped six of its previous seven. The Patriots got back on track with a road victory over William & Mary. Sherrod Wright‘s streak of four straight games with 20-plus points snapped against Northeastern, when he tallied 19. He made up for it with a career-best 28 against W&M. Mason is likely still the favorite to win the CAA, but at this rate, the Patriots (or whoever wins the conference tournament) would probably be a No. 15 or 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The CAA has never sent a team that was slotted as a 16-seed, and none of its entrants have been worse than a 12-seed since 2004.
2. Northeastern: A true statement victory, Northeastern won its CAA opener at George Mason by outscoring the Patriots 54-37 in the second half. After winning at UNCW, the Huskies made another statement by beating Drexel in Philly. In the win against Mason, one of the league’s top defensive teams, the Huskies shot 53 percent from the field, 56 percent from 3-point range and 86 percent from the free throw line. Those are winning numbers against pretty much anybody. NU had been 4-0 in games in which it averaged more than 1.1 points per possession, but instead got it done on the defensive end against Drexel, limiting the Dragons to 36 percent shooting and 0.85 points per possession.
3. Delaware: Quietly, Delaware has run off three straight wins, and is finally starting to resemble the team that most prognosticators picked to finish near the top of the CAA. In victories against Penn and Rider, Delaware struggled shooting but averaged a crazy-high 23 offensive boards. Then, against Old Dominion, the Hens won their CAA opener with just five offensive rebounds and a much more accurate day from the field. Jamelle Hagins recorded a double-double in all three contests, and five of the last six. His 12.7 rebounding average leads the nation (meanwhile Towson’s Jerrelle Benimon ranks fourth with 11.7).
4. Towson: The Tigers at No. 4??? Why not? Towson is the hottest team in the league, and, like mentioned above, it’s not as if anyone else is worthy of the top spots. After its historic win over Oregon State last week, Towson notched two more road wins – both in CAA play. It’s the first time since 1993 that Towson is on a three-game road win streak. The Tigers’ most recent scalp is perhaps most impressive: they grew a large first half lead at Drexel, which had won 17 straight CAA games, and held onto that lead to break the Dragons’ streak. If Towson beats William & Mary at home on Wednesday, it will be the Tigers’ first four-game win streak since 2000-01.
   

   Pat Skerry Has Shaped Towson Into One Of The Most Competitive Teams In The CAA.

5. Drexel: The Dragons had alternated losses and wins in their last seven games, before dropping Tuesday’s game against Northeastern, giving them their first two-game losing skid within CAA play since the opening two games of last season. Consistency is a word that is absent from the preseason favorite’s vocabulary this season. Bruiser Flint’s group pounded Georgia State in Atlanta, leading some to believe that maybe the Dragons would find their stride in CAA play, but they followed that game with a startling home loss against Towson, and then another loss at home against Northeastern. The Dragons were beaten on the boards 37-31 in that game, whereas last year their rebounding overwhelmed Towson. Frantz Massenat coughed up six turnovers against Towson and five against Northeastern – his seventh game this season with four or more.
6. William & Mary: Once owners of the nation’s softest schedule, W&M saw its road get a bit bumpier recently. The result was three straight losses to Purdue, Vanderbilt and George Mason. The Tribe failed to score more than 66 points in any of those games, and turned the ball over 13 times in each affair. The Tribe’s next three games are on the road (at Towson, Hofstra and Georgia State), so this upcoming stretch could be vital for it.
7. James Madison: The Dukes’ 69-65 loss at Hampton (the nation’s penultimate team in RPI heading into Monday’s game) continued to prove how important senior forward Andrey Semenov is to JMU. Madison is 1-7 in games in which Semenov plays less than two minutes. The Russian missed the early part of the season with a groin injury and is now out after a sprained left ankle. Without him, JMU’s offense runs less smoothly, its defense lacks an energetic man in the paint, and the overall continuity seems to vanish. JMU’s four-game win streak looks like a thing of the past after losses at Georgia State and Hampton, and the Dukes need to find a way to cope without their versatile veteran.
8. Georgia State: The Panthers came out blazing against James Madison last weekend, but Monday’s 52-50 loss at Hofstra shows that the hot shooting against the Dukes was just an outlier. Georgia State made just two of 20 3-pointers against Hofstra, two days after going 10-21 from long range. If James Vincent can be a more consistent inside force, it will help balance the perimeter-oriented Panthers. “Big Oak” registered ten points, eight blocks and five rebounds against JMU, but was a relative non-factor at Hofstra. The 6’10” 260-pounder will prove vital against the Rendlemans, Benimons and Haginses of the CAA.
9. UNC-Wilmington: The Seahawks have lost three in a row and five of six. It’s going to come down to defense for Buzz Peterson’s group. When UNCW won three of four in late November/early December, they allowed an average of 44 points. In the last half-dozen games, UNCW has allowed close to 74 on average. Offensively, the story remains the same: Pencil Keith Rendleman in for a double-double and hope the surrounding pieces do enough to bolster the output.
10. Old Dominion: Over the years, Old Dominion typically isn’t brimming with offensive stars, but they have one or two guys who can carry the load on that end, while the defense stifles opponents. This year, there’s nobody on the perimeter who can create, and the defense is below average. This has been a recipe for failure. The Monarchs are so stagnant on offense that they had three shot-clock violations in the first half of their home loss to James Madison last week. While DeShawn Painter has developed into a solid go-to option, reaching double-figures in seven straight battles, the team cannot capitalize when he’s double-teamed.
11. Hofstra: Hofstra hadn’t won since November 18 – Week 11 of the NFL season, for some perspective – before edging Georgia State 52-50 on Monday night. That was the Pride’s first CAA game, and as Mo Cassara mentioned on his conference call Tuesday morning, Hofstra can now toss aside its struggles and be proud to be 1-0. For the second straight game, Hofstra limited a team to 36 percent shooting from the field, so maybe a defensive identity is starting to form for a group that will certainly struggle on the offensive end after losing nearly half its roster to suspensions/injury. The Pride’s backcourt of Steve Mejia and Taran Buie is above average in the CAA, and it will have to perform well for the Pride to win games.

Looking Ahead

• William & Mary at Towson, 7 PM, Wednesday: The two surprises of the early season, W&M and Towson were picked to finish near the bottom of the CAA but both boast a winning record thus far. Are either of these teams for real? This match-up might help us answer that question.
• Old Dominion at George Mason, 7 PM, Thursday: This battle lacks the luster it usually carries due to ODU’s struggles. But these two schools – two of just four schools to win a CAA Tournament since 1999 – always have entertaining battles. Mason has won the last three against ODU and the last five in Fairfax.
• Northeastern at Towson, 12 PM, Saturday: This hardly seems like a marquee match-up based on name recognition, but the Huskies and Tigers might just be two of the better teams in the CAA this season. Northeastern is strong in the backcourt, while Towson is winning because of its frontcourt.
• Drexel at James Madison, 4 PM, Saturday: The last four times Drexel has traveled to Harrisonburg, the game against the Dukes has been close. Frantz Massenat and Devon Moore are two of the best pure point guards in the league.

Spotlight On…

Jamelle Hagins: The UD senior leads the nation in rebounds per game with 12.7, and is 14 boards away from breaking the career record at Delaware. He’s averaged 15 boards in the last three games, so it’s certainly possible he’ll reach 917 some time Wednesday night against Hofstra, if not Saturday at Georgia State. The 6’9”, 235-pounder from Roanoke, Virginia, wasn’t always a force, but has improved every season – something you hope for but can’t always expect with college athletes. His rebounding, scoring and field goal percentage numbers have risen each season, and now he must be considered a premier big man. UD coach Monte Ross on Hagins: “I wish I could sit here and tell you, ‘Absolutely; we thought he’d be a double-double guy and lead the country in rebounding, and get double-figures scoring, but at this level, you have to project guys, you have to take chances. Did we think he could be what he’s been? Not probably by our wildest imaginations.”

Brian Goodman (987 Posts)

Brian Goodman a Big 12 microsite writer. You can follow him on Twitter @BSGoodman.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2013 at 12:35 pm by Brian Goodman and is filed under checking in on, microsites, other 26. Tagged: delaware, drexel, frantz massenat, george mason, georgia state, hofstra, jamelle hagins, james madison, keith rendleman, Mo Cassara, northeastern, old dominion, pat skerry, sherrod wright, steve mejia, taran buie, towson, unc-wilmington, william & mary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.