Brian Voelkel – photo credit: Shane Bufano
My random thoughts of the day….I’m sure many players, coaches and fans who are looking around the America East scoreboard are thinking, “Man those Catamounts are going to be better than we thought.” The Vermont Men’s Basketball team was picked to finished 5th in the America East Coaches Poll. With the loss of Marqus Blakely, many, including myself thought that this would a rebuilding year. I don’t want to jinx the hoop Cats, but I think they are proving to all of us that we are wrong and they will be a good team that will compete for the America East title.
Surprising enough, UVM was #4 in the RPI (check out current RPI here) going into tonight’s game vs Loyola MD. With the help of UConn having the #1 RPI (after a win vs Michigan St, who is supposed to be a final four team), the Catamounts have a top 5 RPI ranking. This probably won’t last for long, but it helps that UVM beat a talented Loyola MD team tonight as they gritted out an ugly 51-48 win.
While the Catamounts were not expected to be 3-1 at this point in the season, it is impressive considering that they haven’t really taken care of the basketball adding 20 more turnovers tonight, after turning the ball over 59 times in their previous three games (Siena, UConn, Quinnipiac). If UVM wants to compete for the America East Championship in 2011, they’ll have to take care of the basketball. Luckily tonight, the Cats were able to play good defense holding Loyola to 32.3% from the floor which helped offset the turnovers. That, in combination with a +9 rebounding effort helped propel UVM to the victory. While this team has its flaws, it definitely can be dangerous heading into America East play if they can cure their turnover wows, and rebound like they did tonight.
The highlight of the game for me “under the rim” tonight was not watching the action on the floor, but was more watching the Loyola MD bench. Loyola MD coach Jimmy Patsos is very entertaining to watch. While I would be scared to play for him, he seems to get a lot out of his players and is very active. He was pretty animated on the sidelines and it was quite entertaining to watch for spectators. It also drew quite some anger from the “veteran” Catamount cheering section as well as some heckling from the student section. Below are some photos I took of Patsos’ “animation.”
Overall, good win for UVM who definitely will be happy to be 3-1 heading into the Thanksgiving break, and will have a good chance of going 4-1 with a game vs lowly NJIT. The Highlanders have seen some hard times the past few years, having a 51 game losing streak snapped in 2009. The Catamounts are 3-0 in this current 4 game series with NJIT (now in its fourth and final year) and will look for the sweep, Saturday at 1pm…
For more photos of the Loyola MD game (click here) – Shane Bufano Photography.