Week in Review 12.18.09

Every Friday I'll break down the week that was in Flyers basketball, as well as whatever is else is on my mind at the time. It'll be my chance to overreact to the UD's most recent game as well as renege on everything I said in the podcast earlier in the given week. Or, at the very least, it will give you something distracting to read when you should be working on a Friday.

Old Dominion
Anybody else feel like the Flyers played ODU about two months ago? This eight day layoff between games has been brutal. From what I remember, the win over the Monarchs was a pretty good one. UD played very solid D limiting its opponent to just 50 points.

After dropping the ol' "We're a man-to-man team" in our podcast, ODU coach and friend of the blog Blaine Taylor proceeded to play a 3-2 zone for about 75% of the game. Well played, Coach, well played. Any zone is going to give the Flyers a hard time but with Luke Fab sidelined, a team with a little length playing a zone can give UD absolute fits. 58 points does not impress me, but a five-game winning streak after coming home from Puerto Rico is nothing to sneeze at.

Hot Presbo Action

The Presbyterian College Blue Hose come to UD Arena tomorrow night sporting a 2-9 record on the season. How would you like to be a diehard Presby hoops fan? If that record and this guy as your head coach doesn't instill confidence in a fan base, I know nothing that will.

The Blue Hose's non-conference schedule consists of games at Clemson, at Illinois, at North Carolina, at Ohio State, at Dayton, at Marquette and at Florida ($$$). Are you serious? Do you think that's a big selling point for recruits? "Hey, come to Presbyterian College and get waxed by 30 points every night while members of the administration stuff their wallets with fat cash for your effort."

Anyway, I think UD cruises even easier than it did vs. Lehigh and wins by, let's go with, 24. I'm not going to waste 30 seconds of my valuable time looking up anything else about Presby, so let's also assume they are undersized. With that in mind, Kurtcy has a nice game for the Flyers going for 13 points and seven boards.

Throwback Night

Tomorrow will be "throwback night" as the Flyers will wear the replica 1969-'70 jerseys. I was going to make fun of this until I read that UD Arena is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and this year's team is wearing the throwbacks to honor the first team ever to play at the arena. That's actually kinda cool.

More Rob Low

If Rob Lowery is 100% or close to it, he needs to play more. The offense looks so much better with him in there. Plus, he's a threat to knock down an open jump shot from time to time. This is nothing you didn't already know, but hey it's been a slow week. Also, Mickey Perry learning to shoot a left handed lay-up might come in handy at some point this season.

Podcast

Ever since our newest contributor Rick Scaia mentioned rpiforecast.com on the most recent podcast, I've been checking that site like crazy. Aside from Ray's Georgia Tech preview, it's probably my favorite thing on the entire Internet right now. Here's the rub, though, it has UD going 21-9 on the season (10-6 in A10 play). I don't need to tell you this, but if it does shake out that way I'll be in UD Arena watching the Flyers host a first round NIT game.

The silver lining (sort of) is that it lists four games in which UD has between a 48-54% chance of winning. Those are basically toss-up games that could go either way. So win all four and you're 23-7 (12-4 in the league) and looking like a strong contender for an at-large bid; win three of four and you're 22-8 and and heading to Atlantic City with some work left to do; anything less and you need to win to the conference tourney to dance.

Coach Speak

New Mexico coach and former Indiana standout Steve Alford just happens to be a friend of the blog, so we'll probably be talking to him a few days after Christmas to get a preview of UD-New Mex. If you have any questions (or suggestions to make me sound like less of a bumbling idiot) for when I interview Alford, feel free to send them along.

Off Topic Stuff

Time for your favorite part of this post (and mine), the part that has nothing to do with Dayton basketball. According to reports, Fiesta Bowl employees were encouraged to donate money to specific political candidates and were then reimbursed by the bowl. This was allegedly done so that the Fiesta Bowl would remain in good standing with the BCS and not get bumped out of the rotation in favor of the Cotton Bowl. Corruption in the BCS? I'm shocked!!!

The new theory floating around the interwebs is that somebody got wind of this a while ago and, as a "punishment," the Fiesta was forced to take both TCU and Boise State this year. No word on what crime the Orange Bowl committed to get stuck with Ga Tech and Iowa (hey-oh!).

I had some more thoughts on the college football bowl season as well as on the death of Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry. But then I figured there are so few people who care what I have to say about the Flyers, so my best guess is that even fewer of you come to this site to read my opinions on that other crap. Maybe we'll do some bowl predictions before the ones that actually matter are played. Until then, enjoy Presby and App State.