MBB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[mybleedinghands]

No midnight madness "festivities" over here on the Lynchburg homefront. Fall break is this weekend, so it would be kind of pointless to have any festivities.

Just some updates on the players. We have 9 recruits/walk-ons trying out this year, and we only have one person that has quit that was on the team last year. In past years we have had several players quit before tryouts started, a significant improvement from the previous seasons. We will have 26 players "trying out" so a few people will have to be cut this year [unless we have enough that quit on their own], and it's going to be kind of tough to determine who gets cut. Glad i'm not in the position to make them decisions!

Does anyone else have any updates on how many players will be "trying out" this season?
Do any other schools have any impact losses, not counting seniors who graduated [example: Guilford]?
Do any othe rshcools have any impact transfers like Birdgewater has with that Josh Fox kid?

[baselinejam]

W&L has 7 returning lettermen and 7 freshmen.

[ODACfamilyGUY]

Emory and Henry has 8 freshman and a transfer coming in this fall.  That mixed together with the top 4 scorers and Gary Kerns all back.

[algernon]

Hampden-Sydney has 4 of its starting 5 coming back .... as Guill, Prehmus, Edwards, and Lewek return.  As I understand it, Davis Bowne has transferred to an N.C. school.  The Tigers also have 5 of their "next 6" returning, with Cvijanovich, Kaase, Green, Murray, and Forrester returning ... A. J. Dowell has transferred to Roanoke.  So the Tigers will bring back essentially their entire team from last year, and last year's first-year Tigers (Prehmus, Cvijanovich, Kaase, Murray, and Green) will have a valuable year of ODAC experience under their belts when they begin the 2005-2006 season.  Remembering that they won 11 of their final 14 games last year, beating the Marlins in Virginia Beach and losing only to RMC (twice) and Roanoke, I'm betting that the Tigers will finish somewhere between #1 and #3 this year.

In addition to the 9 players named above, the Tigers return 2-4 other veterans and have brought in 3-5 freshmen, about whom I have heard some very good things.

[mybleedinghands]

Algernon,
I assume you saw Davis Bowne and AJ Dowell play a lot more than I have. To tell you the truth, I remember nothing about them. How big of a loss are each of them? Based on the stats, it looks to me as if Davis Bowne is somewhat of a significant loss, it's not often that you get a 6'8" kid than can shoot .500 from the field and he also averaged over 5 board a game, which ranked second on the team.

[jdubyadubya]

RE. VWC, check out Macedo's roster by linking through to athletics, winter sports, etc. Bunch of new guys. Of course, who knows who is going to stick and who will fall out.

[mybleedinghands]

What happened to Marcus Riley?

[algernon]

Algernon,
I assume you saw Davis Bowne and AJ Dowell play a lot more than I have. To tell you the truth, I remember nothing about them. How big of a loss are each of them? Based on the stats, it looks to me as if Davis Bowne is somewhat of a significant loss, it's not often that you get a 6'8" kid than can shoot .500 from the field and he also averaged over 5 board a game, which ranked second on the team.

Each of them is a loss, but the fact remains that the Tigers bring back 9 of their best 11 players.  They've got a freshman from Finland who may contribute a lot.  Given the extra experience they'll bring to the court this year, the Tigers should be improved over last year's team, which was 11-3 over the last half of the season.

[jdubyadubya]

STH - blew out his knee this summer 

[mybleedinghands]

JWW,
Are you crying?! theres no crying in basketball!

[jdubyadubya]

Yeah, I'm crying.....the Marlins have their fair share of pre season injuries.

[mybleedinghands]

Sorry to hear the news, JWW. But I do bring good news, i just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico!  But the real news, Guilford has their roster for this season available now http://www.guilford.edu/athletics/index.cfm?ID=a000149.

[jdubyadubya]

No Genaro. Ben Strong has to be the man! Wonder if he's grown any and if he's gotten stronger.

[mybleedinghands]

for the sake of guilford's season, they better hope he has because unless thay have some stud freshmen post player, strong will be the main focus for defenses down in the post.  He'll be taller than anyone he plays against, but if he can hold his own physically against the other team's best post defender, then the height won't help much. The 6'6" freshmen listed on the roster only weighs 185 lbs, not exactly a strong body there either to help him out. Looks like Guilford lost nearly their whole JV team too.

[jdubyadubya]

What's going on at Guilford?