MBB: Landmark Conference

[saratoga]

Ronk: Yes, I saw the release about the two freshmen coming in back in May. However, I'm a bit surprised about the silence on other recruits...unless of course, there are no more. I realize Scranton is probably counting red-shirt freshmen Ivan Bogavich & Luke Hawk in this class...I just don't see where the primary needs have been met ie. post player who can score & rebound & point. I'm pretty sure a junior will have the inside track on the point...just not sold on his overall game. Tends to make unnecessary & careless passes, is not that quick... as in leading a fast break & has a tendency to pick up the dribble which leads to double teams and turnovers. I do know the Royals did not get either one of two outstanding players from Scranton Prep which has to hurt. One is headed to Ithaca & the other to Rochester.

[G-manWU]

Saratoga,

Who were the players from Prep? As a local whose senior basketball season was not too long ago, I try to keep an eye on talent in the area, but I don't remember seeing anything on any players from Prep going to the schools you mentioned. Thanks for the info though.

On a related note, having also worked for the Colonels football program, I can tell you that Rochester is one of the few D3 schools to have established a strong recruting base here in NEPA- they have several players from Prep and other local schools on their football roster, so I am not suprised if that carries over to the basketball program

[saratoga]

Chris Dende is headed to the UofR & Matt FitzPatrick is from what I've been told, going to Ithaca. I was told this back in the summer so I'm not sure if anyone changed their minds since then. In the case of the latter player, his cousin is a senior starter for the Royals so this comes as a bit of a surprise. Both players are very good & led Scranton Prep to a Pennsylvania AAA Final Four this past season.

[NEPAFAN]

Looking forward to the Royals roster which should coincide with the University's new athletics website.


In other news:

Former Juniata Basketball Standout To Play Professionally
HUNTINGDON, Pa. - Former Juniata College forward Brian Cannon '08 (Fallston, Md./Fallston) returns to the basketball court this week, but his chances of winning aren't great. He's playing for a team whose own website touts the fact it has won just one game, while losing... maybe thousands.

Cannon will be playing for the Washington Generals, touring opponent of the Harlem Globetrotters, when the Globetrotters open an international tour on this week in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The tour will take Cannon to Israel, Turkey, Bosnia, and Romania over the next month, before he returns home in early November.

"I know he's excited about it," said Generals general manager John Ferrari, who signed Cannon.

"Brian is exactly the type of player I'm looking for - he's fundamentally sound and he was well coached in college," said Ferrari. "I love D-III guys; they're doing something they've been doing since they have been five or six years old, and they want to keep doing it. This is a great fit for the young man."

Cannon completed his Juniata career with 1,391 points and 579 career rebounds, becoming just the fifth player in program history to finish with both 1,000 points and 500 boards. He tallied 521 points during his senior campaign, good enough to place third among Juniata's single season scoring leaders.

"It's nice to see someone rewarded for the efforts they put into our program," said Juniata head coach Greg Curley, who recruited and coached Cannon for all four years at Juniata.

"For all of us that do this, all of us who are basketball guys, you probably dream of the opportunity to play professionally at some level, and the opportunity to do this is unique in itself - the experience he's going to have touring throughout the country and around the world. He had other opportunities to pursue on a professional level, but I think this one, for him coming out of college and the experience it would give him, is without question the best," said Curley.

Cannon earned First team All-Landmark Conference honors, and was a Second team All-Region selection by d3hoops.com. He led the Eagles to back-to-back appearances in conference championship games - first in the Commonwealth Conference in 2006, then in the Landmark Conference in 2007 - and a pair of ECAC Division III South Region Championship appearances.

While Cannon was used almost exclusively a post player during his Juniata career due to his size, Ferrari sees him in a different role with the Generals.

"He's a big body, but I've got a lot of bigger bodies on the roster so I'm going to use him in a variety of positions," said Ferrari. "I told him I wanted him to shoot more, and his eyes lit up. So I'm going to use him as a swing man, probably a '3' (small forward) or a '4' (power forward)."

The Washington Generals, owned by Philadelphia native Louis "Red" Klotz, have been the tour opponent of the Globetrotters since 1953, although they have played under a variety of names at times in their history. During the 1971-72 season, the Generals played as the Boston Shamrocks, the New Jersey Reds, the Baltimore Rockets, and the Atlantic City Seagulls, before adopting the moniker "New York Nationals" from 1995 to 2007.

It was as the New Jersey Reds that the team had its last win over the Globetrotters, a 100-99 win in 1971 in Martin, Tenn., which ended the Globetrotters' 2,495-game winning streak.

The Generals and the Globetrotters touring teams will begin a U.S. tour in mid-December, which includes stops in Pittsburgh at Mellon Arena on December 26, 2008, and Lewisburg, Pa., on February 8, 2009.

"I'm just really excited and happy for Brian," said Curley. "He's a guy who had a terrific career and gave our program a lot, and the fact that maybe his experience here helps him get somewhere he wants to go, or adds to the rest of his life is fantastic."

[NEPAFAN]

2008-09 Small College Hoops Preseason Poll

1. Washington U. (MO)
2. Wisconsin-Whitewater
3. Capital
4. Ursinus
5. Randolph-Macon
6. Augustana
7. Widener
8. Wisconsin-Stevens Point
9. Wheaton (IL)
10. UMass. Dartmouth
11. Mary Hardin-Baylor
12. Buena Vista
13. Amherst
14. Gettysburg
15. Wooster
16. St. Thomas
17. Centre
18. Scranton
19. Lawrence
20. Puget Sound
21. Brandeis
22. Virginia Wesleyan
23. Salem St.
24. Cortland
25. Albion

[NEPAFAN]

So no one is scrimmaging this weekend??

[D3Basketball]

All boards are dead at this time.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

Goucher scrimmaged its Alumni last night and it w as a pretty competitive game. Goucher has certainly improved over last year and has a bit more depth that can contribute off the bench than in years past.

There are a couple of freshmen on the team who will be contributing from game one this season. I haven't seen a Gopher squad as athletic or on the right page in a number of years. That being said, they look like a small team then they will face in the conference. However, that might not be a big problem.

At one point last night the Alumni had Pretz Durgovic and Garritt Smith on the floor at the same time - two of the bigger and talented players Goucher has ever had inside. I immediately thought, oh boy... the Gophers are in trouble with this lineup. Trevino immediately countered with a small lineup - taking out his tallest player on the court at the time (Ryan Comstock)... and it actually worked. Granted, the alumni aren't in the same shape - though Pretz looked like if he a few weeks of two-a-days he would be just as dangerous as he was in the late '90s. However, the adjustment worked to the benefit of the Gophers.

Now... the game was at least a 20 points spread at several times in the 2nd half, but the alumni kept chipping into it and with less than a minute they where within 6. The reason? The young Gophers started making mental erros and probably thought they had put the very talented alumni team away. They need to finish games this season. Goucher has the ability to win a lot of games this season, but they have to finish games, not make mental mistakes especially in the 2nd half, and stay aggressive. We shall see.

By the way for some of you who remember, here were some of the alumni playing in the game:
Pretz Durcovic
Garritt Smith
Pierre Jones
Clay Nunley
Jonathan Garritt
James Russo
Layfatte Melton
Logan Herring
Tim Merritt
Tony Posterero
Damian Pitts
... and many others. And Bernard Threat, Vince Williams, and Bakari Ward were in attendance, but not playing. Not a bad collection of talent who played very well - almost like they hadn't been off the court for years.

[Matt Letourneau]

So Catholic had an exhibition game against D1 Loyola, and Goucher scrimmaged their old guys?  HA!

Of course, I think Goucher is actually pretty well positioned in the league this year and should be a strong contender.    The Cardinals have just lost so much...

[saratoga]

Just wondering...does the Landmark have a pre-season luncheon where the coaches go out on a limb and pick the potential order of finish like so many other conferences? It just seems very dead from the perspective of news filtering out of HQ. just one week before tipoff.  Matt: what has Catholic "lost"? From what I remember, they were a pretty young team last season.

[ronk]

Saratoga,
  Yes, CUA was all underclassmen, but Matt may be referring to the 4 xfers mentioned by bballfan10 on 5 Aug; don't know how many materialized because none of Juniata,Salisbury or CUA have updated their rosters for this year, but Quinn doesn't show on Towson's roster.

[Matt Letourneau]

Yes, several Catholic players transfered--three promising freshman and Quinn.

I'm not going to get into details, but my understanding is that none of them were for basketball reasons, and I don't believe that all of them will continue to play basketball, though I know at least one will.

Its a shame because Catholic would have had a very talented nucleus of young players, and this does set them back once again.  They have another big class of freshmen, but like last year, there will be a learning curve I'm sure. 

ROY of the Jason Banzhof was not one of the players that transfered, though--he will be back.

[saratoga]

Thanks Ronk & Matt...losing good young kids you've already invested at least one year with has to get old. However, such is the beast called D-III athletics.

[MACfan08]

Well Scranton to be ranked in the top 25 preseason is a very bold call. I watched them scrimmage kings this weekend who lost 95% of their scoring graduated 8 srs and came into scranton with 8 freshman on the team which 2 of them start and the first guy off the bench was a freshman as well.  Kings who i was told got blown out of the gym by bloomsburg the week before only lost to scranton by 4 or 5.  Kings out played them and the only reason they lost was because they could not execute at the end of the game which is expected from a young team.  Scranton is going to have some questions marks that people may want to realize.  They looked very suspect at the point guard spot.  Two different kids were bringing the ball up and neither did a great job.  Starting their offense from about ten feet behind the three point line and not really getting out on the break.  I hope they turn it around because they have a very sr dominated team and have the talent to be good but they needed to take a young very raw team in kings and blow them out of the gym it should not have been a close scrimmage at all and in the end kings had a chance to win. 

[saratoga]

MACfan08...thanks for the update & it sounds just about as expected. If Scranton could not win even one NCAA game with last seasons team, it may be next to impossible with this one. Last year they had a true point & 4 year starter & one of the best, if not the best post players in the Landmark & they barely got in the Landmark playoffs to start with & even though they won it...there were times during the season the Royals looked like they never played the game before. Then, just like 2 seasons before that...they were blown out in a 1st. round game. This year, with no true point & no serious post presence, I question how far they can really go. I see a team of perimiter shooters firing up at will & nobody that will be effective at clearing the boards for 40 minutes for second chance shots. I also think they are subject to the press & double teams and there really isn't any team speed that will hurt teams running up & down on them. Naturally, when they are on they can shoot the lights out...but, just like their NCAA game vs. Elms...a quick & somewhat physical team just isn't going to give them anything. Too bad they never played a Princeton style offense as that is how this group of kids could drive more talented teams crazy. Back door cut after back door cut with kick outs to their 3 point shooters & giving the few you have that will hit the boards this year a chance to get in position for second chance shots & resets. One big differnce this year will be the addition of Canio back running the D...so that is a very big plus...just not sold on how far this team can go even with his help. Not having a true point or running the point by committee is a proven recipe for disaster in just about any league.