It has been an excellent start for the CAA and the conference schedule starts Thursday. We are in a top 10 conference and it should be an exciting season. The Dukes are improved but so is the league.

My top 3 are Northeastern, Hofstra and the Tribe

I think we end up 4th or 5th in a battle with UNCW, Charleston and Towson

Drexel, Delaware and Elon will win some games but should end up at the bottom.

I predict 11-7 for the Dukes, hoping for better and a couple of tournament wins. Charleston will be a tough first game, I am hoping our improved toughness, rebounding and chemistry helps us get off to a good start.

I would put you ahead of Hofstra and NU. They both have a very shallow bench and will lose some games because of it. I think it is between you and W and M.

OOC play comes to a close. Posted this on our board, if anyone cares...


The conference wraps up OOC play still ranked 8th in D-I, ahead of the AAC and not all that far behind the Atlantic 10. It sets the stage for a great conference slate, with a lot of strong teams. As many as 7 could end up in the Top 100 of the RPI:

* W&M (# 46 RPI): 1-2 against RPI Top 100. Marquee win @ NC State (# 88)

* Charleston (# 60): 0-2 against RPI Top 100. Best win over LSU (# 182). Also beat Western Carolina (# 166) and ECU (# 177).

* Northeastern (# 95): 2-2 against RPI Top 100. Marquee win @ Miami (# 15). Also beat Stony Brook (# 86).

* James Madison (# 104): 1-2 against RPI Top 100. Marquee win @ Richmond (# 73).

* Hofstra (# 106): 2-2 against RPI Top 100. Marquee win vs. Florida St (# 75). Also won @ Saint Bonaventure (# 99).

* UNCW (# 110): 0-0 against RPI Top 100. Best wins vs. UMKC (# 138) and @ ETSU (# 173).

* Elon (# 120): 0-4 against RPI Top 100. Best win @ UNC Asheville (# 145). Also beat Alabama St. (# 152) and won @ Charlotte (# 226).

You'd be right to argue the conference needs more Top 100 wins. This is why it is imperative that the 7 teams above dominate the lower 3 teams in the league. That way, you might see a situation where most or all 7 teams end up in the Top 100, adding to the quality win totals for all 7 squads.

Losses to Delaware (# 210), Drexel (# 232) and/or Towson (# 263) most certainly will be RPI killers this year, and must be avoided at all costs.

I'll go with 12-6 same as last year. The team is better this year especially on the boards, but I felt like last year's team over achieved their talent and snuck in with the backdoor 4 way tie for 1st. This year will likely include some heartbreaking last minute losses even if the Dukes play well. 12-6 is probably good enough for 3rd place and the Dukes will have a legitimate shot to win 3 straight during March in Baltimore.

Brady likes this team alot, but I don't see enough talent to continuously win close conference games night after night. If the Dukes had one strong ball handler to complement Curry, then I would have expected a Regular Season title.

Hofstra has the most Jimmies and Joes, but they don't play much D. With better coaching they would be clear favorites.
W&M Has played well, but their guard play hasn't been exposed yet. It will be in the double round Robin league schedule.
Northeastern may be the best coached team, but they don't have much on the bench. The shot clock rules change has created more possessions and that hurts teams with little depth.
UNCW is an X-factor that will pull some shockers and lose some head scratches due to their style of play. Probably not sustainable for 3 straight days in March.
Towson and Charleston have enough to win 3x in Baltimore, but it would be an upset.

Regardless of the regular season outcome, there won't be a clear cut favorite in the conference tournament.
Lots o' parity with many good teams, but no great teams. Should be fun to root this year.

Thanks Seahawk. Nick Sunderland has a nice breakdown in the DNR today of the Dukes. He hits on Hart's point of ball handling support as a concern.

(12-29-2015 10:47 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  UNCW is an X-factor that will pull some shockers and lose some head scratches due to their style of play. Probably not sustainable for 3 straight days in March.

I actually think our style of play gives us an edge in March. We have a 12-man rotation where there isn't a huge dropoff in play whenever anyone comes off the court. We can play that "40 minutes of hell" style for 3 straight days. The roster is built for exactly that purpose.

We showed we could do it last week on back-to-back days, blowing out Utah Valley and UMKC by 20+ points. The level of play in the CAA will of course be much stronger, but while other teams in the league may have depth concerns, we will not. Not to mention, at this point in the season we're 3rd in the nation in turnover margin for a reason. The system has worked for the first 1.5 years of the Keatts era.

I think JMU is better this year than last year. I am going to say 13-5 this season and a first place finish. Curry is a potential player of the year and very worthy of consideration. He is very confident late in games. JMU has a lot of depth and can score from 3 at every position. Defense and rebounding will determine our fate and I see us as improved there. We have won some games this year when we are not shooting well which is a positive change from years past.

My predictions:

1. William & Mary (14-4)
2. Northeastern (13-5)
3. Hofstra (12-6)
4. JMU* (12-6)
5. UNCW (11-7)
6. Charleston+ (11-7)
7. Elon (7-11)
8. Delaware (4-14)
9. Towson (4-14)
10. Drexel (2-16)

* Hofstra gets the tiebreaker due to better record against W&M/NU
+ UNCW gets tiebreaker on H2H (2-0 sweep)

I tend to think that JMU is the best team in the CAA at the moment. The mid major top 25 poll bears that out (18), as does this Warren Nolan power index with JMU at 66 nationally:

http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/npi

Team needs to stay healthy, but they're good enough to win the regular season title. The tourney is a different story, of course (a lot of variables come into play). NE, W&M and Wilmington all lost key guys from a year ago. Even Hofstra lost a couple of key guys.

As Nation pointed out, the defense and rebounding have been big pluses. Today's paper says that JMU has held opponents to 37% field goal percentage during the win streak.

Maybe this all unravels tomorrow, but that's my opinion at this point.

I think there is reason to believe that JMU will prove themselves to be the class of the conference- they appear to have all of the ingredients- depth, experience, multiple high efficiency offensive players, an inside presence, a go to guy in Curry at the end of the game and as many have stated their defense and rebounding are improved. I think JMU's biggest competition will come from Hofstra and W&M. Northeastern is still formidable with Walker and Ford. I'm not buying COC and UNCW as threats to win the league (regular season or conference tourney) as of yet. The others aren't really going to be a factor- too many holes.

With 3 freshmen getting a lot of minutes I would be happy with a 500 record in the conference. With virtually everyone coming back next year we will be much stronger. I think the 2 VA schools at this point have the best chance. You both have depth and a lot of experience.

(12-30-2015 05:19 PM)swampcougar1 Wrote:  With 3 freshmen getting a lot of minutes I would be happy with a 500 record in the conference. With virtually everyone coming back next year we will be much stronger. I think the 2 VA schools at this point have the best chance. You both have depth and a lot of experience.

Sorry I disagree.

In all fairness JMU hasn't beat anyone that jumps out at you (NU won at Richmond last year FWIW).
JMU has won the games they should have won (unlike NU) yet NU still has a higher RPI.

I have to see JMU beat NU, W&M. Plus UNCW and Hoffy.

But the Dukes are much better than they were last year. No doubt.

(12-30-2015 05:37 PM)geewizNU Wrote:  

(12-30-2015 05:19 PM)swampcougar1 Wrote:  With 3 freshmen getting a lot of minutes I would be happy with a 500 record in the conference. With virtually everyone coming back next year we will be much stronger. I think the 2 VA schools at this point have the best chance. You both have depth and a lot of experience.

Sorry I disagree.

In all fairness JMU hasn't beat anyone that jumps out at you (NU won at Richmond last year FWIW).
JMU has won the games they should have won (unlike NU) yet NU still has a higher RPI.

I have to see JMU beat NU, W&M. Plus UNCW and Hoffy.

But the Dukes are much better than they were last year. No doubt.

we lost at home to TN- martin, RPI 200 +, that is a game we should have won. Our RPi would be better w/o that loss.

no need to debate, CAA play starts tomorrow, so we will see just how good we are.

(12-29-2015 10:47 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  I'll go with 12-6 same as last year. The team is better this year especially on the boards, but I felt like last year's team over achieved their talent and snuck in with the backdoor 4 way tie for 1st. This year will likely include some heartbreaking last minute losses even if the Dukes play well. 12-6 is probably good enough for 3rd place and the Dukes will have a legitimate shot to win 3 straight during March in Baltimore.

Brady likes this team alot, but I don't see enough talent to continuously win close conference games night after night. If the Dukes had one strong ball handler to complement Curry, then I would have expected a Regular Season title.

Hofstra has the most Jimmies and Joes, but they don't play much D. With better coaching they would be clear favorites.
W&M Has played well, but their guard play hasn't been exposed yet. It will be in the double round Robin league schedule.
Northeastern may be the best coached team, but they don't have much on the bench. The shot clock rules change has created more possessions and that hurts teams with little depth.
UNCW is an X-factor that will pull some shockers and lose some head scratches due to their style of play. Probably not sustainable for 3 straight days in March.
Towson and Charleston have enough to win 3x in Baltimore, but it would be an upset.

Regardless of the regular season outcome, there won't be a clear cut favorite in the conference tournament.
Lots o' parity with many good teams, but no great teams. Should be fun to root this year.

Northeastern has actually been using the bench more than ever these days. We have a lot of freshmen who hopefully will get better as the season goes on. Bench might not be great now, but as the season goes on and players like Miller, Green, and Gresham get more playing time, we should be in good shape.

Using RPI at this point in the season is worthless. That's like how CAA was like what, #1 after the first week.

13- 5 ........i think our depth will help us tremendously

(12-30-2015 11:56 AM)Dukes84 Wrote:  I tend to think that JMU is the best team in the CAA at the moment. The mid major top 25 poll bears that out (18), as does this Warren Nolan power index with JMU at 66 nationally:

http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/npi

Charleston is 62 in Warren Nolan power index and 22 in the mid major poll.

We'll see if it's deserved after this weekend since we start with you and W&M on the road.

(12-30-2015 11:02 PM)JMU08 Wrote:  Using RPI at this point in the season is worthless. That's like how CAA was like what, #1 after the first week.

Final rpi for an individual team is more important than the present. Overall conference rpi when conference play starts does mean a lot. If your conference does not have a collectively good rpi at this point it is very difficult to improve the rest of the season. Because the CAA does have a collectively good rpi at this point gives the individual teams a much better chance to improve their rpi throughout the conference part of the season.

(12-30-2015 05:37 PM)geewizNU Wrote:  

(12-30-2015 05:19 PM)swampcougar1 Wrote:  With 3 freshmen getting a lot of minutes I would be happy with a 500 record in the conference. With virtually everyone coming back next year we will be much stronger. I think the 2 VA schools at this point have the best chance. You both have depth and a lot of experience.

Sorry I disagree.

In all fairness JMU hasn't beat anyone that jumps out at you (NU won at Richmond last year FWIW).
JMU has won the games they should have won (unlike NU) yet NU still has a higher RPI.

I have to see JMU beat NU, W&M. Plus UNCW and Hoffy.

But the Dukes are much better than they were last year. No doubt.

You mad Bro? JMU sweeps NU this year.

(12-31-2015 07:19 AM)swampcougar1 Wrote:  

(12-30-2015 11:02 PM)JMU08 Wrote:  Using RPI at this point in the season is worthless. That's like how CAA was like what, #1 after the first week.

Final rpi for an individual team is more important than the present. Overall conference rpi when conference play starts does mean a lot. If your conference does not have a collectively good rpi at this point it is very difficult to improve the rest of the season. Because the CAA does have a collectively good rpi at this point gives the individual teams a much better chance to improve their rpi throughout the conference part of the season.

Lol, fine swamp. Let me rephrase, using individual team RPI for conference predictions right now is worthless, just like using RPI of a conference after one week of play in determining which conference is strongest.

Thought it was more clear based on the thread topic.