Georgia State

CAA Basketball Preview: 08-09

Shawn Siegel — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:31:46 -0500

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Conference Rank: 12th

10 year average: 14th

All-CAA Team
Pos.	Player	Team	Yr.

G	Eric Maynor	VCU	Sr
G	Charles Jenkins	Hofstra	So
G	Abdulai Jalloh	James Madison	Sr
G/F	Matt Janning	Northeastern	Jr
F	Gerald Lee	Old Dominion	Jr
CHN Award Winners		Returning Leaders
High-Major All-Americans Matt Janning Charles Jenkins Eric Maynor* * High-Major POY		Points: Eric Maynor 17.8 Rebounds: Junior Hairston (Tow) 8.9 Assists: Eric Maynor 5.4

CAA Standings
Nat'l	Team	League	Tourney

48	VCU	Colonial	1	NCAA
69	Northeastern	Colonial	2	NIT
83	Old Dominion	Colonial	3	NIT
102	George Mason**	Colonial	4
148	Georgia State	Colonial	5
159	Hofstra	Colonial	6
177	Delaware	Colonial	7
193	UNC Wilmington	Colonial	8
218	William & Mary	Colonial	9
245	Drexel	Colonial	10
267	James Madison	Colonial	11
289	Towson	Colonial	12

*Click on links for full Top 144 team preview

** returning conference champion

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Top Six Non-BCS Players: Maynor

State of 08: Virginia

Rise & Fall: CAA

State of '08: Georgia

Shawn Siegel — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:52:12 -0400

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Duke or Carolina? BC or UMASS? Gonzaga or Washington.. or Washington State? What is the best program in each state? While there's not much competition in Hawaii.. there are great debates to be had in loaded regions like California, North Carolina, and Texas. The State of '08 is a ranking of every program in every state.. based mostly on recent success (the last five years) mixed in with subjective factors such as conference prestige, historical success, and overall program direction.

Up today: Georgia. For more info, check out the State of '08 introduction.

GEORGIA

GEORGIA TECH - After making the National title game in 2004, and being good again in 2005, Paul Hewitt was on the verge of entering the coaching stratosphere. But the past few seasons have been disappointing, and Tech should once again finish in the bottom half of the ACC. In Hewitt's eight seasons, the Jackets have never finished below 7-9 in ACC play.. and going 7-9 in the ACC is more impressive than winning most conference titles.

GEORGIA - The Bulldogs are coming off one of the more shocking seasons in NCAA history. After a completely sub-par season, which included a 4-12 SEC record, the team somehow managed to run through the SEC Tournament, knocking off 4 other postseason teams along the way. But don't be fooled by that March magic, Georgia still hasn't really recovered from the mess that Jim Harrick created, and 2008-09 should be similar to last year (at least in terms of the 4-12 SEC record..)

GEORGIA SOUTHERN - Although Georgia Southern hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 1992, the program has been consistently solid in Jeff Price's 9-year tenure. In 2006, he guided the Eagles to the NIT, where they lost to Charlotte in the opening round. Last year was another solid campaign, which included 13 wins in the Southern Conference, and upset victories over highly touted UAB and Cleveland State.

GEORGIA STATE - The Panthers haven't had much success since making the move from the Atlantic Sun to the CAA. In three years in the more competitive league, GSU has hovered around the bottom of the standings and rarely been competitive against the better teams. But there was serious improvement last year, a win over George Mason, and a ton of close losses (including a one-point loss in the CAA tourney). 2008-09 could be Georgia State's best season since Lefty Driesell's imprint was still on the program.

MERCER - After an impressive 2003 campaign in which the Bears went 14-2 in the A-Sun, the program's fortunes have steadily gone down hill. Since that time, Mercer hasn't even won a game in the A-Sun tournament. Even worse, Mercer has finished behind D1 newcomer Kennesaw State each year since the Owls joined the A-Sun in 2006.

6. KENNESAW STATE - Considering the Owls are only entering their 4th full season of D1 basketball, the results haven't been half bad. They've finished 7-9 in the Atlantic Sun the past two seasons, and knocked off conference leader Belmont (a Top 100 team) in January. The next step for the program is to find a way to win some games away from home.

7. SAVANNAH STATE - From 2003 to 2006, this was simply the worst program in the country. I'm sure many fans remember the embarrassing 0-28 season of 2005. But there's been major improvement in the last two years including 10 D1 wins in 2008. Last year's RPI of 254 trumped in-state rivals Georgia State, Kennesaw State, and Mercer. I give Kennesaw the nod though due to their conference alignment, and because the Savannah State's horrible run isn't far enough in the past.

Last: Florida - Next: Illinois

State of '08: The Introduction

Daily Dribble: 3/21

Shawn Siegel — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 12:46:27 -0400

- Amazingly, only one of the country's Top 50 scorers is left in the NCAA Tournament. Chris Lofton ranks 18th nationally in ppg at 20.6 per game. The next best scorers left are Tyler Hansbrough at 64th nationally (18.1 per game) and then Acie Law at 67th (17.9 per game).

- In rebounds its a little bit better, Greg Oden and Aaron Gray are tied at 16th nationally with 9.7 per game.

- Even though there's only 1 of the nation's Top 63 individual scorers left, a lot of best scoring teams are left. Year after year, the teams that score the ball best tend to fare best in college basketball. UNC is #2, Florida #4, Kansas #6, Memphis #7, UNLV #13, Tennessee #16, and Oregon #20.

- This year's NIT reaffirms what we already know about college basketball.. that home teams are more likely to win games than not. Home team have gone 22-4 so far. The lone road wins are NC St over Drexel, San Diego St over Missouri State, Marist over Oklahoma, and DePaul over Kansas State. Not too much of a trend we can pick out from those games.. except that as the Big Dance has proven, the Big 12 isnt much outside of its top two.

- Perhaps the RPI, which had the Big 12 7th, and just barely ahead of the MWC was on to something afterall.

- For the reason above, I wouldn't make too much about a team's advancing through the NIT. The team's that are left are mostly the high seeds with home-court advantage. And these are all teams that dominated at home all year.. Air Force (13-1 at home), West Virginia (13-1), Mississippi State (13-3), you get the point.

- West Virginia's Frank Young is on some kind of tear in recent weeks. In his three NIT games, Young is 26 of 35 from the floor (74.3%), and 14 of 20 from three (70%).

- I don't know what's more surprising, that Georgetown's Roy Hibbert's had 3 double-doubles in a row, or that the 7-2 junior only had 5 all season before March.

- Not very often a low-major coach gets fired right after making the Big Dance. But Long Beach State's firing of Larry Reynolds does make some sense. Basically this team had a 7-man rotation and all 7 were seniors. No non-senior played even 10 minutes a game and the feeling is that the program will go from glory to ugly next year.

- Nice signing by Georgia State picking up Rod Barnes. Barnes career record of 141-109 at Ole Miss is underrated.. though obviously the last year or so ther wasn't too pretty. Still, its not very often you can sign a former National Coach of the Year.

- Big Baby going pro makes sense.. though if you were his agent, you'd prefer he at least had some momentum going into the Draft (like he had last year). Davis had solid numbers this year (17 and 10 per game), but his team stunk.. and they won their biggest game (against Florida) without him. The fact that he had arguably the worst game of his career (1 of 8 shooting and just 6 points) in his final game (a 20 point loss to Ole Miss) doesn't help either.

- I'm sure the remaining rounds of the Tournament will be exciting.. but the weeks after the Dance might even be more interesting. This is when we'll see who will and who won't go pro.

- Equally interesting will be seeing which low-major school takes a chance at signing Tommy Amaker. Hey, some teams dream of the NIT..

Hofstra Barely Escapes Georgia State

Press Release — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 03:00:00 -0500

Hempstead, NY -- Senior guard Loren Stokes had 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists and the go-ahead basket with 18 seconds left as the Hofstra Men's Basketball team pulled out a 62-59 win over Georgia State on Saturday afternoon at the Mack Sports Complex in the Colonial Athletic Association opener for both teams.

The win was the Pride's fourth in a row and improved its record to 4-3 on the season, including 1-0 in the CAA. It was also Hofstra's 21st straight regular season home win, and its 17th straight home conference win. Georgia State, meanwhile, slips to 3-4 overall and 0-1 in conference play with the loss.

Junior guard Antoine Agudio tied the Hofstra career record for three-pointers with his 192nd late in the first half. He had three more chances to break the record, but ended up tied with Norman Richardson (1997-2001) for first in only his junior season.

Hofstra led 31-19 at the half, and led by as many as 15 in the second half, before a late Georgia State run nearly gave the Panthers a come-from-behind win. Senior forward Lance Perique tied the score with a three-pointer with 2:25 left at 57-57, then gave Georgia State its only lead of the second half on a jumper in the paint with 2:30 to play

Agudio made one of two foul shots with 1:02 left, and Hofstra forced a 35-second violation with smothering defense on the ensuing possession. Stokes then drove into the paint and hit a five-foot running bank shot from the right side of the lane to give the Pride back the lead at 60-59 with 18 seconds left.

Hofstra then forced junior guard Ron Larris into a tough running jumper on Georgia State's ensuing possession, and sophomore forward Mike Davis-Sabb came down with the rebound in traffic. Davis-Sabb then made two foul shots with eight seconds left, and Georgia State was unable to get off a tying three-point attempt, as Hofstra's defense trapped the Panthers in the corner and forced sophomore guard Leonard Mendez into a travel with seven-tenths of a second left.

Stokes shot 7-of-14 on the day for the Pride on his way to 18 points, while Davis-Sabb added 14 points (on 5-of-7 shooting) and eight rebounds. Agudio and senior guard Carlos Rivera each finished with 10 points. Perique led the way for Georgia State with 17 points, while Larris and Ryan McBride each had 12 and Deven Dickerson added 10 off the bench.