Barea Ready for the NBA

I am completely serious in that title. I have seen very players come into Trask that seem just as ready for the NBA as Barea. Sure you can look at the box score from the Seahawks 46-44 victory over Northeastern and be confused by this. Sure he shot 2-12 FG and 0-8 from 3 point land. But every player, including any star in the NBA has a bad shooting night, you have to look at potential and the style at which he plays his game. Shooting aside, you could have thought you were watching an NBA game. I saw numerous occasions where he miraculously went from the 3 point line to the basket without dribbling in supposedly 2 steps. Because of course the refs would have called travelling if it occured especially since they called it on his defender, John Goldsberry under the basket. Or maybe they knew that he was a future NBA player and that is the mentality that an NBA player has. And you can't penalize someone for that can you? And he had more turnovers than he did assists. Surely point guards in the NBA take good care of the ball and don't try too hard to make a fast pass or give the ball to someone who isn't looking. Or maybe I'm wrong, becuase NBA players usually have good control of their emotions and don't do something stupid during the game. I mean an NBA player wouldn't get tired of having his wristband on or get tired of the students that are heckling him and take said wristband and chuck it into the crowd. Oh wait did someone say Ron Artest who is an NBA star? Ok I guess he is ready.

But back to the game which was one of the ugliest and sweetest games I have witnessed in person. Both teams played hard nosed defense and hard horrendous shooting nights. The only thing that saved UNCW was the 16-4 adavantage we held in the offensive rebounding category and our 7 TO's compared to 19 for Northeastern. That along with some clutch FT's down the stretch from Daniel Fountain off the bench and of course the buzzer beating jumper by TJ Carter who is trying his best to go down in UNCW lore as one of the best clutch performers. After a memorable 28 points against GMU a week before hand he only put up 11, but we didn't need to many points when your opponent only scores 44. Not to mention that he logged a double-double by grabbing 12 rebounds to go along with his 11 points. Todd Hendley followed with 10 points, and Goldsberry dished out 7 assists with only 1 TO.

If you want to check out video of this last second shot click here and then click the link that says Northeastern @ UNCW.

In other CAA news a tiny bit of space has cleared up at the top of the standings with now just a 2 way tie between UNCW and GMU with a 9-2 league mark. There is a 2 way tie for 3rd between ODU and VCU who are now 8-3 in the conference. Hofstra stands alone in 5th at 7-3. Here are the complete CAA standings.

In the latest Mid Major Top 25 poll on collegeinsider.com several CAA teams remain on top of the Mid Major world:

8 GMU
11 UNCW
12 ODU
18 Hofstra
23 VCU
37 Drexel
40 Northeastern

In the latest associated press national poll GMU is ranked 45th receiving 1 vote to be ranked. They are tied with Stanford and Iona.

In the latest RPI rankings 5 teams remain in the top 100:

35 GMU
40 ODU
43 UNCW
58 VCU
69 Hofstra

Also in other UNCW news the Sehawks are mentioned in the latest bracketology on espn.com. Joe Lunardi has the Hawks as the 13th seed in Oakland region where he has Illinois as the #1. Lunardi has West Virginia facing off against us in the first round. This is very inconsequential information at this point but it is nice to see us listed on an NCAA bracket prediction hopefully we can make it come true. Also it is of interest that he has GMU and ODU on being just barely on the outside looking in. Did someone say 3 bids?

The next contest for UNCW is Drexel on Thursday at 7:00. The Seahawks have won the last 4 meetings and have only lost 2 games to the Dragons in the history of the series. Both of those came by 3 points or less in Philadelphia. There have been 4 overtime games in the 11 game series and UNCW has taken all of those matchups except 1. The last 3 games have been decided in the last minutes and this should be another good one. Everyone saw the headaches they gave Duke in Madison Square Garden and how they nearly beat UCLA. Not to mention their utter domination over ODU in the 1st matchup this year between those 2 teams. Last years game in Trask was won on a last second tip in by Halston Lane to give the Hawks a 1 point victory. The game will be broadcast on 980 AM. Here is a link to the live stats.

The other marquee matchups Thursday night are ODU vs. Hofstra from NYC and Towson vs. VCU in Richmond. Hofstra won the 1st matchup between the 2 teams in Norfolk but I don't see ODU dropping multiple games to anybody this year. Expect a big game from Alex Loughton some tight defense on Loren Stokes by Drew Williamson. ODU takes this one close.

VCU has been playing very well lately and Towson has not. Especially on the road (RE: their 32 point drubbing in Wilmington) I don't see Nick George getting outgunned by Gary Neal. And even if he does VCU has the supporting cast to pull out the win whereas Towson needs Neal to be a stud every night. VCU takes this one relatively easy.

As for our game, it will not be easy. Drexel is a tough team that tends to not go down easy. They are not doing as well as UNCW this year and UNCW has dominated this series. Don't expect things to change now. More than likely the Seahawks will build a nice lead and Drexel we pull back in and hang around just enough to make the crowd in Trask nervous. Hopefully we will leave happy with more than likely a single digit victory.

See you Thursday...