Northeast Conference Notebook
“From Hamden, Connecticut, we present the Quinnipiac…..” In its third season of Division-I basketball (previously in D-II) Quinnipiac has gone the politically correct route and dropped the Braves team name. As of this moment they are just ‘Quinnipiac’, which is a mouthful in its own right. In the past ten years two other institutions of note (Miami of Ohio and St. John’s) rid themselves of a team name that would probably be considered offensive to Native Americans. Was the change from the Redskins to the RedHawks responsible for Wally Sczerbiak and Co. going to the Sweet 16 in 1999? Or did becoming the Red Storm (obviously some kind of mix of hail and molten lava) allow the team formerly known as the Redmen to win the Big East title in 2000?
Forget the ramifications of shedding the Braves nickname. What are they possibly going to replace it with? They could do something simple like the Quinnipiac Maniacs. Maybe something smart like the Quinnipiac Aristocrats. Or perhaps something baseball-related, such as the Quinnipiac Walt Hriniaks (ChiSox hitting coach). Perhaps they could go totally PC and become the Bulldogs or the Wildcats, because there definitely aren’t enough of those in college hoops.
Can’t wait til next year: From the file “It can only get better”, we bring you Farleigh Dickinson. As if starting off the year 0-9 wasn’t bad enough for Coach Tom Green’s Black Knights, the offcourt happenings made it worse. JuCo transfer Doug Whittler and Xavier transfer Lloyd Price (sitting out one year as a transfer) were arrested for the robbery of a local convience store.
What makes matters worse is that the store is frequented by FDU players, and Coach Green has a good friendship with the owner. This kind of criminal buffoonery conjures up images of Marques Johnson’s character in Ron Shelton’s “White Men Can’t Jump” when the store owner immediately recognizes Johnson in the middle of the hold-up. Johnson’s character quickly changes tactics and trys to sell his weapon to the store owner.
NEC Player of the Week:
Bronski Dockery, St. Francis (NY)
Junior guard, 6-2, 190, New York, NY/Rice HS
The junior college transfer from Tallahassee (Fla.) Community College has led the Terriers to a
5-1 start. In the Terriers’ 82-69 victory over Central Connecticut State last Monday, Dockery
was perfect from downtown (7-7 from three-point range)en route to 25 point night in the win. On the season, Dockery is leading the league in three-point shooting percentage (16 of 27 attempts, good for 59 percent), steals (3.2 per game), and is tied for second in scoring (20.6 points per game).
