Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Quinnipiac

I'm willing to bet that tomorrow's first round opponent in the NIT is the only division I basketball school in the NCAA ranks that starts with a 'Q'. I welcome you to prove me wrong... there's a reason you only get 1 Q in Scrabble. Likewise, your chances of landing a 'Q' are about the same as the Bobcats' chances of beating the Hokies. A tour of Wikipedia revealed the following information about The Q:
  • The university is located in Hamden, CT... not too far from New Haven, and right at the foot of Sleeping Giant State Park (in other words, this is not the NYC suburbs... this school is somewhat rural).
  • Their colors are blue and gold and their mascot is Boomer the Bobcat.
  • With 7,758 students, The Q gets dominated in size by Virginia Tech, although admittedly it's not as small as I thought it would be.
  • The school closed from 1943-1945 because nearly all of its students got drafted into the War to End All Wars (which didn't end all wars).
  • Quinnipiac is named after the Native American tribe that once inhabited the area, which I think all of you already guessed because of the absurdity of the name.
  • The Q's best athletic team would be its ice hockey team, which is ranked in the top 10 right now.
  • Men's basketball coach Tom Moore is a former assistant of UConn's Jim Calhoun.
As you can see, Quinnipiac is an exciting university, always leading the front page of nationally circulated newspapers. No, but there really was some buzz about 2 years ago regarding the editor of the school paper being threatened about losing his job if he didn't stop bad-mouthing school policy. However, I found this too boring to go into great detail.

Some delicious nuggets about the school's basketball team:
  • QU fell to Robert Morris in the championship game of the NEC (NorthEast Conference). They went 21-8 in the regular season and finished 23-9.
  • They didn't play anybody this season. I can't stress this enough... I am not even sure which game can be considered their best win. I guess their best loss would be against Rhode Island, who only beat them by 9 on their home court... the Q didn't play anyone from the big conferences.
  • From what I can tell, they have 3 serviceable players: James Feldeine, James Johnson, and Justin Rutty.
  • Feldeine, a 6'4" senior guard, leads the team in scoring at 17.1 points per game. He shoots a decent 43% from the field and 35.2% from the 3-point line. He easily leads the team in shot attempts and is a good free throw shooter at close to 80%. The Q plays a 3-guard lineup at the start of the game, so expect to see our best defender, Terrell Bell, guarding Feldeine.
  • Johnson, the other starting guard is a 6'0" sophomore. He is also a good shooter at 40% from the field and 39% from the 3-point line. He is the team's top threat from deep, and the team as a whole isn't very good out there. Johnson is the team's second best free throw shooter at 82.4%. He leads the team in assists, so you would assume by his height and his assist totals that he is the point guard. The other starting guard is 6'2" senior Jeremy Baker.
  • The Q's low post presence is Rutty, a 6'7", 240 lb junior. He leads the team in rebounding, pulling down 11 per game. He is particular dangerous on the offensive glass, averaging close to 5 per game. The Hokies really need to box him out. Rutty is also the team's second leading scorer at 15.1 points per game, and he shoots a very high percentage of 53.4 from the field. He will not take a 3-pointer so Allen, Thompson, et all will not need to guard him out there.
  • The Q, like most teams from low-major conferences, doesn't have any height. Their tallest player is 6'9", and he plays the least of anyone on the team. Their tallest players who see playing time are 6'7", and all three of them will see good minutes on the floor tomorrow.
  • My key to the game: Go hard at Justin Rutty. The Bobcats' low post presence is negligent with Rutty out of the game in foul trouble.
  • What to watch: Feldeine v. Bell. Offensive firepower versus defensive dominance. I'll also be looking for Malcolm Delaney to make up for his atrocious effort against Miami. If Delaney scores less than twenty, I will be disappointed. I will also be interested in seeing if Greenberg matches up Allen on Rutty, instead of Davila. Allen is obviously the better defender, but he's more likely to get in foul trouble if he guards Rutty.
  • With all that said, we should win this game handily... like I said before, The Q hasn't played a decent team this whole season, so anything less than a 10 point win would be considered a big disappointment. Let's hope the Hokies can shake off their grief from missing the NCAA tournament and come out on fire.
  • Just another reminder, the game is tomorrow at 7pm. I don't see anything on the Hokiesports.com website about the game being televised, so let me know if you hear anything. I might have to listen to this one on the old ear box (no one calls a radio an ear box, do they).

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