Sorry to see my Cardinals not advance, and for Jay Howard's last game to feature an injury and a tooth knocked out, but what an amazing career at Catholic.

He finishes as the all time Landmark Conference scoring leader, with 2,122 points.  That's also good for 3rd in Catholic history, and 14th in DC-Maryland-Virginia collegiate history.  It was a pleasure watching him play and get better every year, I hope he can continue to play at the next level.  The Cardinal's Bryson Fonville had a stint in the NBA G League and played in Asia.

Good luck to the remaining two teams.

REALLY well designed play that Catholic ran out of that final timeout to free up Jimmy G.  Ball goes into Howard who the defense starts to key in on and then Jimmy curls right around his screen.  Granted, it was a long 3 so extra props to him for hitting hit.

Catholic posted a minute long clip of the end here:

http://www.catholicathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2017-18/releases/20180217rv6xic

Feels wide open for the championship, should be some good games next week.   

If Jay Howard played for Scranton this Board will be lit up every game with updates and analysis...just sayin'.

I don't think there has been a more dominant offensive season by any player in Landmark history, and he's doing it while getting doubled all the time. 

Going to come down to the wire, should be an interesting week!

Quote from: Pat Coleman on January 21, 2018, 12:45:37 PM

Quote from: ronk on January 20, 2018, 08:22:32 PM
It looked pretty bad from wherever one was sitting. From the onset, Catholic used an effective zone which was a novel choice considering the Royals' normal long-range effectiveness. It did eliminate all the Royals' player movement and the distance shooting was usually contested, unlike what usually happens against a man-to-man defense. They had a number of bad passes in the middle of the zone, including the usually reliable Kevin Doolan with 5 TOs.
  Defensively, no one could stop Jay Howard or put a body on Riley Hayes who had 5 offensive rebounds in the 1st half, including at least 2 baskets. Hard to find any positives.

For Pat Coleman and the Cardinal fans - the renovated DuFour center was a hit with individual chair-backed seats on the main sidelines and a few rows of bleacher seating at the home end of the court. I didn't see the much-needed additional locker room facilities but President Garvey stopped by for a few words and was obviously pleased with the renovation. The only damper was the absence of students(semester break) to enhance the setting.

Face in the "crowd":  Mark Turgeon, HC-U of MD taking in a D3 contest

I've only seen the photos, but it looks really nice. Great-looking refurb on a 33-year-old building. And repurposing those old squash courts was a great idea. I don't know when the next time is I'll be in town during the winter, but I have a kid at GW, so it could happen.

They did a really nice job--I saw it for the first time 2 weeks ago.  The new lighting alone makes a big difference.   Enjoyed the expanded scoreboard and the seats.  It would be fun to see the place filled up--they lost some "capacity" with the conversion to seats but it isn't like they needed it. 

Nice road win tonight for the Cards---defense is finally clicking. 

Maybe it was where I was sitting, but I never noticed the flashes during the game.  The only thing I noticed was that the lights to the secondary gym behind the court were turned on a few times in the 2nd half, presumably by the little kids playing back there.  I thought it was kind of distraction, but Catholic was shooting in that direction.  Staff went over and turned them off each time.

The players are probably so focused that they don't notice any of it. 

I didn't realize that SUS still had to play Scranton again, my mistake. 

Back to the hard court...

What an entertaining game between Catholic and Scranton on senior night.  These teams were very evenly matched, and mirrored each other in the stat sheet.  The last 30 seconds featured a 86% free throw shooter missing the front end of a 1 and 1 for Catholic that could have put them up 3, followed by a 78% free throw shooter missing both shots for Scranton that could have tied it or sent it to OT.

Interestingly, for all the talk about defense, I thought Catholic played a very solid defensive game today.  They used Turner and Hayes on Vitkus and both were effective.  Hayes in particular had a really gritty game--started out his rotation rough but adjusted and made some huge plays. 

Neither team took a lot of 3's--I'm used to a lot more jump and long range shooting from Scranton.  Both struggled on offense, Howard was very effective getting to the line for Catholic, and Khouri was his usual reliable self.

So, at this point the only drama left is between Catholic and Moravian for the #3 seed. 

Catholic played a highly entertaining game against a scrappy, rough and tumble Stockton team tonight. Stockton ran a very aggressive full court pressure/trap defense and gave CUA some fits getting the ball in and up the court (there were at least 2 10 second calls).  But in the end the Cardinals had better talent and pulled away rather easily, winning 81-70 (and it wasn't really that close).  Andre Mitchell really had an incredible 2 game span, scoring 49 points over the last 2 days.  He's really taken over the Fonville role as the 2 and floor general--the offense ran through him very effectively.  Stockton overplayed on defense and committed a ton of fouls--to the point where they probably got away with quite a bit because they couldn't blow the whistle on every possession.  That's how the NJAC rolls I guess. 

Compared to the last time I saw them, the Cardinals has made some defensive strides, particularly in the interior. 

Should be an interesting 3 or 4 team scrum in the Landmark this year as we transition to league play.  Sounds like Scranton's game against Neumann went about as well as Catholic's did, which if nothing else means they are probably going to be quite evenly matched again.  On the other hand, Scranton lost to Arcadia by 11, and Catholic beat Arcadia yesterday, controlling the game the entire 2nd half. 

Totally unrelated, but congratulations to former Catholic star Bryson Fonville who is holding down an NBA D-League Roster spot.  Bryson is with the Texas Legends, an affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks.  He's averaging about 13 minutes a game and playing against D1 and international competition. 

I can't think of another Landmark player that has gone on to play that level of basketball, so this is quite an accomplishment even if he doesn't ever see the big club's roster. 

http://dleague.nba.com/player/bryson-fonville/

Quote from: saratoga on July 21, 2016, 09:13:02 PM
Word coming out of DC today seems to indicate that former CUA Head Coach Mike Lonergan may be in some hot water for apparently being
"verbally & emotionally abusive" to current and past players at George Washington Univ.

Article goes on to say that he has lost 3 kids to transfer in each of the past 4 years and 1 after his first season.
Losing 13 kids in 5 years is stuff the other coaches love to discuss when recruiting.

Based upon what Charles has stated recently regarding the current CUA coach having a hard time keeping kids...perhaps the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.

What?  Come on, that's garbage.  You're better than that.

First of all, I have no idea what Lonergan did or didn't do, but the transfer rates tell you nothing--there's been a huge uptick in transfers across the board, and those GW numbers aren't unusual.  We'll see what transpires in this case, but Lonergan was at Catholic for a long time. He was intense and sometimes fiery, but he knew where the line was and I know a lot of former players who would bust a wall for him.

As far as "the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree"--if that is supposed to mean that maybe there is some kind of abuse of players going on at Catholic, that's complete BS and has no place on this board.  Coach Howes and Coach Lonergan have very different personalities--if you've watched them coach you know that. That's not even a whiff of that around Coach Howes and never has been. 

I think its hard to keep players at this level, especially if they aren't playing a lot.  Catholic brings a lot of talented guys in every year and some of them don't play.  Just in terms of sheer numbers, they have a big roster and a lot of recruits every year.  Eventually some of them work their way into the rotation--we saw that this past year--and some of them don't.  We're not in practice every day and we don't know exactly what's happening. 

We'll see what happens with Lonergan, he's been an incredible coach everywhere he's gone, and his programs have always had a family atmosphere around them.  Hopefully he will get the benefit of a fair and impartial investigation.  But don't go even go there and try to link any of that to Catholic or Coach Howes. 

Well, its been a really lousy tournament for the Mid-Atlantic, and Landmark went 1-3.  Disappointing all the way around.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, Catholic's loss was one of the most disappointing in the program's recent history.  I was actually quite surprised that Endicott nearly beat Wooster today, so maybe I didn't give them enough credit, but I came away thinking that CUA had a lot more talent, just didn't execute.

Yes, there was some defensive problems, but actually it was just one of those games where the ball wouldn't go in.  Their 3 point shooting had been consistently good this year, yesterday it wasn't.  It didn't help that their best 3 point shooter picked up 2 early fouls and never got into any kind of rhythm.   

It really, really pained me to see Bryson Fonville go out that way--what a great player, fantastic career and certainly not defined by one bad game.  But, truthfully, he had a really rough game--and CUA is just not deep enough to survive a 4-15 night from their best player. 

I was also really disappointed to see one of our seniors lose composure at the end of the game and get a well-deserved T when it was still a 5 point game.  That cannot happen and there's no excuses for it.  It put the game out of reach once and for all.

Now look, I didn't like the way the game was officiated- and I was saying so when Catholic was up at halftime.  It ended up being wildly inconsistent--in the first half, everything was called, both teams were in the bonus really early and the game had no flow.  That does generally benefit the weaker team, and indeed there were a few occasions where Catholic seemed poised to open up a healthy lead only to get called for some uber ticky tack foul.  But okay, that's the way the game is going to be called, you have to adjust.  But my problem is down the stretch it wasn't how the game was called at all, and suddenly nothing was a foul inside which was the only place Catholic was having any success.  I'm not blaming the officiating for the loss, it wasn't their fault, but it was still a lousy job.  I don't get to as many games anymore but it has looked to me like things have improved in that department, I was expecting better in a tournament game.

And on Endicott's side, as was pointed out--they went 7-11 from 3 in the 2nd half, and a bunch of those were well contested and/or really deep.  They just got really hot and hit a lot of shots.

On the plus side, Jay Howard had another great game, a lot of toughness.  I'm excited about what he can do over the next two years--he will threaten scoring records at Catholic.  It will be a much different team next year, but there's still some good talent, so it should be pretty competitive. 

On to next season!

Great piece to get Cardinal fans in the mood, from WTOP, Washington's #1 radio station.

http://wtop.com/ncaa-basketball/2016/03/catholic-university-returns-to-ncaa-tournament-hosts-games-this-weekend/

WASHINGTON — Next week, American, Georgetown, George Washington, and Howard Universities will all take aim at their respective conference tournament championships and the accompanying spot in the NCAA Tournament. But one Washington team has already qualified for the NCAA Tournament, and will host a game on campus in D.C. this weekend or, if all goes well, two of them.

Catholic University ensured itself a place in the Division III Tournament by winning the Landmark Conference Championship last Sunday with a thrilling 83-80 victory over Susquehanna. The Cardinals (22-5) may have been in line for an at-large berth regardless, but head coach Steve Howes was happy it didn't come to that.

"It means that my stomach had a free Sunday to relax," said Howes in an interview in his office this week. "I was able to sleep Saturday night."

(continued)

Catholic hosting Endicott, Wooster vs Lancaster Bible is the other game. 

Pretty good draw for the Cardinals, it seems.  Would be nice to see a rematch with Marietta which was a fantastic game. 

But you never know. 

Quote from: CardsFan on February 28, 2016, 11:40:18 PM

Quote from: Hoops Fan on February 28, 2016, 11:28:09 PM

CNU
Catholic
Sus
Salisbury
F&M
Scranton

Seems about right. Thanks.

Yup, that's what it should be.

Quote from: CardsFan on February 28, 2016, 10:18:47 PM

Quote from: Matt Letourneau on February 28, 2016, 10:08:23 PM
The final projected Regional Rankings have Susquehanna ranked ahead of Catholic.  If that is what actually happens, it would be nuts.  Susquehanna has a 1 game lead on Catholic in overall wins, and their RPI is slightly better by a tiny amount (virtual tie), but Catholic's OWP is higher by an even smaller amount, and common opponent record is better. 

More to the point, obviously Catholic just beat Susquehanna when it mattered the most, and also on the road (by 21!).  They were 2-1 head to head.   And against the other (hopefully) tournament team in Landmark, Scranton, Catholic was 2-0 and SUS 1-1.  Those two things should matter the most.

Matt, if you're using the data from that website everyone is referencing I'm pretty sure the order there in each region has never changed even as SOS and RPI numbers were updated along the way. The order on the website isn't the same as the official NCAA regional rankings. I think we've probably moved slightly ahead of Susquehanna by this point.

Well, they actually did move Catholic up a spot.  But not past SUS.  That's why it was strange.

The final projected Regional Rankings have Susquehanna ranked ahead of Catholic.  If that is what actually happens, it would be nuts.  Susquehanna has a 1 game lead on Catholic in overall wins, and their RPI is slightly better by a tiny amount (virtual tie), but Catholic's OWP is higher by an even smaller amount, and common opponent record is better. 

More to the point, obviously Catholic just beat Susquehanna when it mattered the most, and also on the road (by 21!).  They were 2-1 head to head.   And against the other (hopefully) tournament team in Landmark, Scranton, Catholic was 2-0 and SUS 1-1.  Those two things should matter the most.