By Tim Robertson
After a seven-month hiatus, it’s finally college basketball season once again, and one can only hope the Pride, both men and women, will provide the same excitement that they have in the past few years.
Two years ago the men handled 25th-ranked George Mason at home, drilled a buzzer beater to beat Drexel and went down to Philadelphia and disposed of St. Joseph’s in the first round of the NIT, followed by a win over Nebraska at home.
Last year, the Pride women ripped through their NIT, earning the first and second postseason wins in team history, including a five-point win over SEC foe South Carolina in Columbia.
Could this be the year? Can both teams overcome losing top stars – the women lost Lizanne Murphy and Vanessa Gidden, while Loren Stokes and Carlos “Puerto Rico” Rivera graduated from the men’s team – and win with very young talent?
Oh, there would be so much excitement around campus if the men could knock off ACC power Virginia Tech and the women could dispose of either Florida State or Georgia in December.
On the men’s side, the CAA has grown in respect, which translates into high expectations not just for the league, but for the top tier of teams. That means the Pride. Old Dominion, Mason and VCU all received votes in the ESPN/USA Today preseason poll, and Drexel joined the trio in ESPN’s Mid-Major Top 25 poll. The Pride came in 27th on that list.
What does this mean? On the downside, it won’t be a cakewalk of a season and the Pride will have some difficult road trips, but on the upside, there won’t be the expectations that the men’s team had heading into last season. There are four other teams above them, giving the Pride the ability to fly under the radar, as they did in 2006.
The women, of course, will have their hands full with reigning champion and CAA dominator, Old Dominion, who received votes in the ESPN/USA Today poll. The Monarchs eliminated the Pride from last year’s CAA tournament in the semifinals. Pay back is a…
For the crazy Pride fans that scheduled classes around home games – that’s me – and that huddle around the radio for road games, there is good news. A combination of four stations will televise six men’s road games. For those of you with too busy of schedules to get over to the Mack, another seven home games will appear on the television set. (Just be sure to throw it on mute, and put on WRHU for play-by-play.)
Fans also can watch three Pride women’s games on TV. FSN-NY will air home games against Stony Brook and Northeastern, while SNY will show the Pride on the road at VCU in January.
Although this certainly isn’t the last hope for either team to make it to the Big Dance, it is the last chance for star senior Antoine Agudio to make it, and anyone that’s been here through the thick and thin of Agudio’s playing days knows he deserves it.