VMI

Daily Poll: Who Will Win the Big South?

Shawn Siegel — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:33:39 -0700

Big South Weekly Award Winners

Press Release — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0800

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – VMI forward Reggie Williams (Prince George, Va.) and Winthrop senior Craig Bradshaw (Wellington, New Zealand) have been selected as the Big South Conference Choice Hotels Men’s Basketball Co-Player of the Week for games played Jan. 22-28, it was announced today by the League office. UNC Asheville guard Donovan Jones (Wilson, N.C.) has received New Balance Freshman of the Week honors. Williams averaged 34.0 points and 8.3 rebounds in three games last week, helping the Keydets to a 2-1 record, including two consecutive Big South wins. He opened the week with 34 points and nine rebounds at UNC Asheville, where he was 14-of-20 from the field, including 4-of-6 three-pointers. Against Radford, Williams tallied 28 points in addition to six rebounds, six assists and five steals. Saturday at Liberty, he dropped in 40 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, while shooting 14-of-21 from the floor. On the week, Williams was 40-of-66 from the field ( =.606), 8-of-20 from three-point range ( =.400) and averaged 5.0 assists and 2.0 steals per game. Bradshaw helped lead Winthrop to two important Big South wins over High Point and Coastal Carolina to move the Eagles into sole possession of first place at the mid-point of the Conference season. In the two games, he performed well above his season averages entering the week in averaging 16.0 points and 9.0 rebounds, while connecting on 12-of-23 field goals ( =.522), including 3-of-6 from long range. At High Point, he scored 14 points and connected on three crucial three-pointers, a season high. In the Coastal Carolina game, Bradshaw scored 18 points and pulled down a career-high 14 rebounds, and made the go-ahead free throw with :47 seconds left. Jones averaged 13.5 points and 6.5 rebounds in two games for the Bulldogs. He posted his first career double-double in Asheville’s five-point loss to VMI with 13 points and 10 rebounds in just 17 minutes of action. He was 4-of-5 from the floor against the Keydets, including 2-of-2 from the arc. In Saturday’s win against Charleston Southern, Jones tied a career-high with 14 points, hitting 4-of-8 field goals, while adding five steals and three assists. On the week, Jones shot .615 percent from the floor (8-of-13) and averaged 3.0 assists and 2.5 steals. Other Player of the Week nominees for Week 11: Arizona Reid (High Point), Larry Blair (Liberty) and Chris Oliver (Radford). Other Freshman of the Week nominees for Week 11: Eugene Harris (High Point) and Amir Johnson (Radford). -BigSouthSports.com-

Big South Weekly Award Winners

Press Release — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:47:49 -0800

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – VMI forward Reggie Williams (Prince George, Va.) has been selected as the Big South Conference Choice Hotels Men’s Basketball Player of the Week for games played Dec. 18-Jan. 1, while Coastal Carolina guard Joshua Mack (Hopkinsville, Ky.) received New Balance Freshman of the Week honors, it was announced today by the League office.

Williams averaged 28.0 points and 6.5 rebounds in two games, helping the Keydets to a 1-1 record. He scored 28 points in VMI’s 93-84 win at Richmond, hitting 10-of-15 field goals in addition to five rebounds and two steals. Williams tossed in a team-high 28 points at Penn State on Dec. 30, with eight rebounds, four assists, two steals and 7-of-10 free throws against the Nittany Lions. In the two contests, Williams averaged 54.3 percent from the floor (19-of-35), 40.0 percent from three-point range (6-of-15) and 70.6 percent from the foul line (12-of-17), as well as 2.5 assists and 2.0 steals.

Mack averaged 12.0 points in three games for the Chanticleers, scoring in double figures each contest. He had 10 points, four rebounds and three steals vs. College of Charleston, Dec. 18, tallied 14 points, three assists and four three-pointers at Florida State, Dec. 21, and notched 12 points, four assists and hit 57.1 percent from long range (4-of-7) vs. St. Andrews, Dec. 29. Mack was 13-of-35 ( =37.1) from the field and 10-of-24 ( =41.7) from three-point range, in addition to 2.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game.

Other Player of the Week nominees for Week 7: Donnell Covington (Charleston Southern), Moses Sonko (Coastal Carolina), Mike Jefferson (High Point), Chris Oliver (Radford) and Torrell Martin (Winthrop).

Other Freshman of the Week nominees for Week 7: Eugene Harris (High Point).

-BigSouthSports.com-

Daily Dribble: 12/13

Shawn Siegel — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:34:42 -0800

Its nice to see college athletics programs limiting games played during finals period.. its the only time of the year there's even a fake veil of caring about academics. Not all teams had the day off though.. Hofstra barely escaped with a 67-64 win over lowly Saint Francis (NY). Hofstra's bounced back from a dismal 0-3 start.. but mainly because they've now played 6 bad teams in a row. Wins over Alsaka Anchorage and 0-11 SFNY don't necessarily point to a big Hofstra turnaround as much as a big drop in quality of opponent. Things pick up again for the Pride as they now go on the road to face Syracuse, Saint Joseph's, and UNCW in the next couple of weeks. I love keeping track of winless teams.. and SFNY is one of 4 left that hasn't beaten an opponent at any level. The other three are Southern, Iona, and Delaware. Usually, you figure the winless teams will come from the Independents, SWAC, or MEAC, but its odd that 3 of the 4 teams are from established Northeast leagues. Philly legend Maureece Rice scored 22 points in GW's easy win over UMBC. The Colonials were left for dead following mass off-season departures by Hall, Mensah-Bonsu, Pinnock, etc. But the backcourt of Carl Elliott and Rice has helped GW improve to 7-2. The big surprise for GW hasn't been their backcourt, but the play of sophomore Rob Diggs. Diggs was a last resort on the bench last year, but is now averaging 13 points and 6 boards per game. Texas A&M and Nevada were the lone ranked teams active on Monday night. #13 rolled to an easy 23 point win over Fordham. Nevada, coming off their first loss of the season, is up 7 at the half while I'm writing this. I'm not going to lie.. I like offense. Defense might win games.. blah, blah, blah.. but offense is fun. I'd like to salute the 4 teams that are averaging over 90 ppg so far. VMI has been lighting up the scoreboards to the whopping tune of 102 points per game. That's my type of team. Reggie Williams leads the Keydets with 26 points per game. This is about 25% of his teams points.. so if you figure the average college team scores 70 per game, his 26 is equivalent to 17.5 per game on a normal team. Morris Almond, leading the country in scoring at 30 per game for Rice, puts in 40% of his teams points. Perhaps on VMI then, we could infer that he'd score 40 per game.. Behind VMI, the other 90+ teams are Houston, Georgia, and North Carolina who average between 90 and 92 per game. Unlike other sports where you think of the top teams as being the best defensive teams, there's often a correlation in basketball between good offense and a good record. The top 20 scoring teams (out of 330+ in D1) feature some of the best teams. Besides UNC, other Top 25ish teams in this zone are Arizona, Washington, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, and Georgia Tech. The point is that if you want to be really good in college basketball.. its best not to follow the Princeton pattern, but to take some pointers from VMI. - The family that Dribbles together, stays together -

11/23: Daily Dribble

Shawn Siegel — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:09:10 -0800

A lot of talk on CHN's message board this week about who would win the Josh Heytvelt-Tyler Hansbrough battle on Thanksgiving eve. In the end, it was Heytvelt's 19 and 8 boards which accounted for the difference in Gonzaga's big win over #2 ranked North Carolina. For Hansbrough, his 7 points was the 2nd lowest ouput of his career, and the first time he's scored under double digits since last December 3rd. By my count, this is 27 games in a row.. and in fact Hansbrough never had less than 13 in any of those 27. More important than Hansbrough's struggles (you know he'll start another impressive streak) is Gonzaga's statement to the basketball world that they still matter. All the talk of the young guns in Carolina, Duke, and other places.. but the Zags are basically a sophomore and freshman dominated team outside of Raivio. Perhaps Mark Few's team was inspired by Butler's upset of #23 Tennessee. The Bulldogs have now beaten Notre Dame, Indiana, and Tennesse. What's amazing is that the Bulldogs weren't supposed to even be a major contender in the Horizon League. We had Butler #2 in our preseason ranking, but most had them 3rd or 4th and others had them as low as 6th. Major props (do people still use that term?) to point guard Mike Green who is making the difference for Todd Lickliter. The Towson transfer is averaging 13 points and 5 assists per game and adding the spark Butler lacked last year. (By the way, Alaska Anchorage is up 40-38 over LMU in the Great Alaska Shootout right now. Would love to see them pull off the upset..) Good wins for UCLA and Memphis out in Maui. The Bruins were easily the class of this tournament, and are looking like a Final Four contender once again. More intriguing though is John Calipari's crew which needs all the wins they can get early on. When you think of Calipari, you think of big name recruits and athletes and guys that are NBA locks. But with this crew, you have a deep and talented team, yet no names that the general public knows. Douglas-Roberts, Dozier, Dorsey, Anderson, Hunt (not to be confused with UNLV guard Anderson Hunt) are all solid if not spectacular contributors. It is the play of freshman guard Willie Kemp though that can put the Tigers over the edge. VMI might not be good.. but at least they're making things fun. The Keydets lost 89-87 to James Madison last night, but are coming off games of 144, 156, and 104. Granted two of those games weren't against D1 teams, but their most impressive scoring total might actually be their lowest. VMI lost 73-68 against Princeton. Knowing the way Princeton (who beat Manhattan 57-43 last night) plays, the Tigers 73 points in that game might be their highest total of the season. The name Rob McKiver might not mean much outside of Houston or pockets of New England, but the 6-3 guard has been lighting it up for the Cougars. Tom Penders (like VMI above) loves to score points, and McKiver has been a perfect fit. He spent a lackluster year at Providence before transferring, but is now averaging 28 pppg after three games. Houston lost Lanny Smith to a toe injury in the off-season and this was thought to be a blow to their tournament chances. But the emergence of McKiver ensures the Cougars, now 3-0 after beating Grambling, will be in the thick of the who can finish 2nd to Memphis in the CUSA sweepstakes. (UAA is now down 49-44 with 10 minutes to go.. upset chances are dwindling.) McKiver's old team, Providence, got a nice win over formerly ranked Boston College. BC's loss is just one of many ACC losses this week that are making people question ESPN's favorite league. UNC fell to Gonzaga, BC to Providence (and Vermont earlier), and Georgia Tech to UCLA last night. The day before it was Duke losing against Marquette. These were supposed to be the league's top 4 teams. You can look at these losses as showing the ACC is overrated, or you can look at it as the ACC top teams are actually playing good competition unlike other leagues. Sure, Florida and LSU are 7-0, but they've played a bunch of joke cupcakes on their own floor. Alabama's beat Xavier and Iowa, but those unranked teams are no better (and probably less impressive) than Duke's win over Air Force. In the Big East, Syracuse and UCONN have played virtual nobodies on their home floors, and in the Big Ten Ohio State has yet to beat a half-decent team on their home court. All we've learned about the ACC's top teams, as we've learned about MSU, Texas, Kentucky, Memphis and others that have actually played good opponents as well is that if you play good teams.. you'll occassionaly lose. The only top BCS team that has played good teams away from home and remains unblemished is UCLA.. which is why they have to be considered the most impressive team in the country so far. (Anchorage is still down 5.. with 7 minutes to go. Unfortunately, my bed awaits to dream of Turkey..)