When practice is just starting and no games have been played yet, everyone is optimistic about the season. But that’s not the only reason optimism was running high in the nation’s capital at CAA Media Day.
The 2005-06 season was a breakthrough one for the CAA even before George Mason made its magical run to the Final Four. For the first time since 1986, the conference had multiple teams playing in the NCAA Tournament. They also had one team that could legitimately claim to have been snubbed, and two more who could have claimed as much with the NIT.
A year later, the conference once again saw two teams in the NCAA Tournament, but no magical run came. VCU knocked off Duke, which caught plenty of attention, but the Rams couldn’t repeat the magic against Pittsburgh in the second round despite a valiant effort.
The past two seasons have seen the conference send one team to the NCAA Tournament. While the CAA continues to be well-represented in other tournaments, with Old Dominion winning the inaugural CollegeInsider.com Tournament and James Madison reaching the semifinals of it, the ultimate metric used to evaluate conferences, right or wrong, is the number of teams in the NCAA Tournament. As such, it’s no secret the conference would love for its 25th anniversary season to be one where multiple teams reach the NCAA Tournament.
Over those last two seasons, there has been a good deal of personnel turnover, and youth has been seen. But this season, a lot of the best players return from last season and several teams return most of their starters. Included in that category are many of the top teams from last season, and that’s one reason the dean of CAA coaches has high hopes for this season.
“When you look at a season before it ever begins, you’ve got to look at the previous season and what teams did,” said George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga, whose team returns just two starters from last season. He ran off the number of wins in 2008-09 and returning starters of teams like Old Dominion, VCU, Northeastern, James Madison and Hofstra, and thinks it adds up to something. “If they perform like they’re hoping to perform, we could have a Missouri Valley-type season like the Valley had in 2005-06,” Larranaga added.
He was referring to a season where the Missouri Valley sent four teams to the NCAA Tournament, two of which reached the Sweet 16. One of them, Wichita State, fell victim to the Patriots during their run to the Final Four.
The potential could be seen for a couple of years leading up to this one in the young talent, as well as transfers. In 2007-08, seven of the 16 all-conference players were underclassmen. Last season, nine of 16 were underclassmen who now return this season. In addition, ties in voting for the all-rookie team last season meant that six players made the team instead of five and is indicative that there was some depth among the youngest players in the conference last year.
When the best players finish, it’s never a given that holdovers, be they complementary players or newcomers, are ready to keep things at quite the same level. It’s also well-documented how important experience is for mid-majors, especially as a counter to a talent gap against opponents with more talent but less experience. In light of that, a year or two on the down side isn’t necessarily surprising, nor is a good upswing after that.
“I always say in this league, you have your cycles,” said Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint, who looked to a year later to when his team had a legitimate claim to being snubbed from the NCAA Tournament. “The year we were really good, the teams all grew together. I think you’re in that type of cycle again, where you lost all those guys, and those guys get replaced, but they may not be ready to replace them at that point in time. I think we’re in one of those cycles where the teams grow together, with four and five starters coming back from almost every team.”
Old Dominion, picked as the favorite in the conference by coaches, sports information directors and media, has been a consistent contender in recent years. Head coach Blaine Taylor has recruited well, certainly, but also gradually developed players so they can be leaders as upperclassmen and used the redshirt option with players better than most coaches. He sees the potential for the conference this season and has a clear idea of how he will know if that is being reached.
“I think anytime the league has a lot of veterans back and teams return a lot of starters, it’s a chance for that league to maybe have one of those years,” said Taylor, whose team returns all five starters and many reserves who have started games in their careers. “Here’s where I’ll be looking: when we get to right before Christmas, I hope I look around and we have lots of schools with really good records. That means we’re helping each other in January and February.”
Part of why Taylor will look at that goes beyond the obvious point of non-conference performance. When the CAA saw two teams in the NCAA Tournament, the teams had their share of good non-conference wins along the way. Those big wins have largely been lacking the past two seasons, a major reason it has been a one-bid conference. But this time around, as Hofstra head coach Tom Pecora notes, “everyone is challenging themselves with non-conference scheduling,” which means that opportunities will be plentiful.
A look at schedules certainly backs up Pecora, whose team opens at Kansas and could face Connecticut in the NIT Season Tip-Off, and could face Ivy League favorite Cornell in the Aeropostale Holiday Festival. The three teams picked atop the conference all have plenty of challenges. Old Dominion goes to Richmond, Dayton and Georgetown and opens the South Padre Island Invitational with Missouri. Northeastern has no easy games in a non-conference schedule that opens at Siena and has trips to America East favorite Boston University and out west for two tournaments, the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic and Cable Car Classic. VCU hosts Oklahoma (bringing former head coach Jeff Capel back to Richmond), Nevada and Richmond. In addition:
- Delaware plays at Siena and Villanova and takes on Virginia Tech in Philadelphia.
- Drexel goes to Villanova and Kentucky.
- George Mason is in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic, opening against Villanova, and later hosts Dayton and Creighton while traveling to Big South favorite Radford.
- Georgia State travels to Florida State.
- James Madison opens at Ohio State in the 2K Sports Classic and later hosts Radford.
- Towson goes to Dayton.
- UNC Wilmington takes on Penn State in the Charleston Classic and later hosts Wake Forest and travels to Richmond.
- William & Mary has perhaps its toughest non-conference schedule ever, as the Tribe travels to Connecticut, Wake Forest, Radford and Maryland and hosts Richmond.
The long and short is, opportunities for quality wins will be there for the conference, whose teams will all play a BracketBusters game as well.
Optimism tends to fade a little in some places once the games start. But with the challenges in schedules and the talent returning this season, the optimism will likely last well past the beginning of the season in the CAA.
