Where it all stands

With the announcement that Vermont would postpone the beginning of their winter season until December 18th, we are once again left in limbo. It is hard right now as the very hobbies and interests that we use to bring joy or distract ourselves during times of stress are also drenched in a layer of uncertainty. However, right now, health and safety are far more important. I would love to have a little normalcy back into my week by having the opportunity to cheer on my favorite team. Our routines and rituals help shape our lives and give them meaning. But now we all have a larger and more important purpose. To protect those far and wide who we love. In order to do that we have to err on the side of caution every time. Everyone wants to be playing games or watching games or seeing loved ones. The sacrifices we make now will make the future brighter. I want to be a part of making things better and I hope everyone else does to.Whether we get basketball back next month, two months or next fall I will be ready. 

I would like to finish with a little humor and joy. By day I am a music teacher and I also have two young children so the movie soundtracks are in constant rotation. While listening tonight I was reminded of this little ditty and think it perfectly captures how everything feels right now. 

Enjoy! 

Everything's not awesome  

 

Bernie Andre leaves the Vermont Basketball Team

With the season only a few weeks away the Vermont team suffered their first loss. Bernie Andre, the grad transfer from Northern Arizona, left the team for personal reasons. Landing him from the transfer market was a big accomplishment for the Cats as he was a highly sought after grad transfer. I was very high on his role with the team and think he would have had a tremendous season for Vermont. The Vermont program was bound to be affected by these uncertain times at some point. This is going to put pressure on guys like Duncan Demuth and Isaiah Powell to make a leap from last season. I think Vermont is still the favorite in the league but the gap between them and UMBC has definitely shrunk. The season is going to have many moments of uncertainty still to come. Coronavirus cases are rising and the season is certainly going to be affected. Already one of Vermont's non-conference opponents, Seina, has paused their season due to positive tests within the staff and team. There are likely to be scheduling changes and postponements throughout the season. I have held off on writing a season preview because of the scheduling uncertainty and will probably continue to wait and see how many of the non-conference games actually come to fruition. I am still hopeful for some form of a season but it continues to be hard to go all in on the excitement of the season with so much up in the air. 

Some thoughts on the official first day of the season

Basketball is back. Today marks the official start of the 2020-2021 college basketball season. We still don't know what exactly that season looks like but pieces are starting to fall into place. As with everything in these uncertain times, it is hard to go all in without the fear of everything changing. However any sign of a return is something to be excited about. I have a few things rattling around in my brain that I thought I would post about as we move closer to the season. First off, another big piece of news today is that every winter sport athlete is going to receive an extra year of eligibility, similar to what has been done for spring and fall sport athletes. So this years team for Vermont could also be next years team. This is really going to throw a wrench into recruiting as the 2021-2022 recruiting class could potentially be zero if everyone decides to stay. It is an option that not all players across college basketball will take. It will certainly create a whole different vibe in recruiting as offers and commitments will all be conditional on who stays and who goes. This is also going to coincide with the new one time transfer rule that will potentially also go into effect for the 2021-2022 season. That will allow players to transfer one time during their careers without having to sit out for a year. As you might imagine this is all shaping up to be one of the most interesting off-seasons to follow one of the most interesting seasons in the history of college basketball. All of these rulings by the NCAA make sense and are the right decision but to have them happening in the same season is going to create quite a whirlwind. The next thing I have been thinking about is the schedule. After Vermont pulled out of the Gulf Coast Showcase I thought it was only a matter of time before it was announced that they would have a conference only schedule. Today I read that they have joined a Mohegan Sun pod that will include Iona and Buffalo (according to Jeff Goodman) from Nov. 30- Dec. 2. So it looks like they will have at least a few non-conference games.  As we have seen with other sports the tricky part is creating a schedule with enough room to shift games around should there be any positive tests causing postponements. The good thing for the AE is with the addition of NJIT they will be able to go with an 18 game conference schedule. The other thing that has been on my mind is the handling of the sexual assault case involving a Vermont men's basketball player. One of the themes in my blog is and has always been how much I believe in the integrity of the program and the values within which they operate. The athletic department is doing the program a disservice if they do not also operate within these values. The athletic department needs to provide transparency about the handling of this case. I hope they do so as we inch closer to the start of the season. That is all I have for now. I cant wait until I have actual basketball to write about!

Summer Updates

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. I had the privilege today of sitting in on a Zoom meeting with Coach Becker, AD Schulman, various other members of Vermont athletics, alumni, donors, former players, coachers, and others. I am so appreciative of receiving the invite because when I started writing this blog to keep a few of my friends up to date about Vermont basketball (and partially to protect those same friends from having to hear me talk about it non-stop), I never thought that 7 years later I would be in a meeting like that. Pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who keeps coming back and reading. It was great to hear that the team is back on campus and going through individual workouts. As expected there are many things about the season that are still up in the air. They are still trying to fill out the non conference schedule in hopes of a full season so I can't wait to see what that looks like. It was nice to hear that the program as a whole has continued to support each other throughout this difficult time. Whether we have basketball sooner or later the meeting was another reminder of what makes the Vermont program so unique and special. There is so much that Coach Becker and the athletic department do to support the student athletes in the program outside of basketball and help them become the best version of themselves. I am so thankful that in our little state we have the opportunity to watch high quality basketball with high quality people who want to build a community as much as they want to win. Stay safe everyone!

NJIT joins the America East

Conference realignment comes to the America East.

On Friday afternoon the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) was announced at the 10th member of the America East. They will officially join the conference on July 1st and will compete in the conference this season. It is rare to join a conference so quickly after the announcement but but nothing about the time we are currently living in is normal. This is one of the few situations in life that truly feels like a win for all parties involved. The America East gets back to 10 members for the first time in 15 years. That is a much better number for scheduling purposes and as the conference tries to raise its profile adding another institution is important. I thought the America East should have added NJIT when they added UMass Lowell but better late than never. For NJIT this is huge. They are the biggest beneficiaries of this move as they have been conference nomads since they made the transition to Division I athletics. The were in the Big West conference before it folded, then an independent, and have been in the Atlantic Sun conference since. Neither of the previous conferences made geographic sense at all and the travel costs for their athletic programs were enormous. One reason for this move being made so suddenly is that they needed to reduce travel distance and cost for the upcoming season due to the current global pandemic. They are a perfect fit geographically in the American East. Specifically for basketball it is also a very good move. For Vermont fans this recent stretch of dominance has been fun but it has covered for a conference that has struggled to be competitive top to bottom. In order to continue to push the program forward a competitive conference would be much better.  Many Vermont fans are clamoring for a conference switch but that may not be in the cards anytime soon (particularly with the current financial situation) so the next best thing is to improve their current conference. NJIT immediately does that. 

Here is the average KenPom finish for the America East men's basketball teams (including NJIT) over the last 5 years:

    1.     Vermont               88

    2.     Stony Brook       178

    3.     Albany               192

    4.     UMBC               237

    5.     Hartford              242

    6.     (NJIT)                 244

    7.     UNH                   258

    8.     UMass Lowell    286

    9.     Binghamton        320

    10.   Maine                 333

As you can see NJIT would immediately be in the middle of the pack. Their success is comparable to that of the teams that have been able to push the top teams and UMBC and Hartford have made the last three championships games. NJIT has been in the same bracket so to speak as those two teams over the last 5 years. The bottom of the league has been pretty abysmal over the last few seasons and that needs to improve. UMass Lowell has not provided the boost that the conference was hoping so now it is NJIT's turn. The Highlanders (yes that is their nickname and it is awesome) also have a new arena (which makes me very jealous, sour grapes about the Tarrant Center delay) and are only one year removed from a 22 win season. I am assuming this would push the conference schedule to 18 games which would also be fun, particularly with the uncertainty around the beginning of next season. This is very exciting and adds intrigue to what is already going to be a very different season.

We March Together

I have written and rewritten this post several times. How do you put into words what is going on in this country right now? How can we continue to pretend that race is no longer an issue and continue to make excuses? I am disgusted by what is happening and has been happening to the Black community. The time for action is now. I am white. This is not a privilege that I have earned. I was born with it. I have never had to truly consider what it means to be a white person in America. It means that I can go about my life without the fear that assumptions will be made. Assumptions that could change my life forever. Living that way should not be a privilege, it should be a right. The Black community in America does not have the privilege of living this way. That is wrong. A wrong that needs to be righted. Equality is equal. There are no caveats. There are no excuses. We can’t continue to explain away racial issues.  The time to take real action and make real change passed long ago and we missed it. America pretended it was fixed. Pretended that change had really happened. But instead racism was left to grow and fester throughout society. However it is not to late. It is time to admit we were wrong. That we are the problem. Racism exists. It is time to say out loud that systemic racism exists. We didn’t fix it. We made people forget that it was a problem in the first place. It is time to band together, hand in hand, and march towards the light. You may ask what can I do? Acknowledge that racism exists. Stop making excuses. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Learn and grow. Educate yourself and the community. Vote. Call out injustice when you see it. Have compassion for your fellow human beings. Have even more compassion for those around you who may not have the privileges you do. We all need to do what is right. We march together.

Bernie Andre commits to Vermont

Vermont made a huge splash on the transfer market yesterday getting a commitment from Bernie Andre a 6-6 G/F from North Miami Beach, FL who played his last two seasons at Northern Arizona University. Andre is a graduate transfer and will be immediately eligible this season. This is new territory for the Vermont program. Andre is the most accomplished transfer that Vermont has landed in my lifetime and maybe ever. Typically Vermont has landed transfers who were role players on their previous team looking for an opportunity to win and expand their game. Andre is much more than that. In the 2018-2019 season, his first with NAU, Andre led the Lumberjacks in both scoring (13.8) and rebounding (8.5), was named third team all conference, and Big Sky newcomer of the year. He followed that up last season by averaging 11.2 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. Vermont is getting a player who was viewed as one of the top players in his conference for two seasons. Andre scored 763 points in his two seasons at NAU and was a very highly sought after graduate transfer. He had offers from several major conference schools and chose the Catamounts. This addition immediately solidifies Vermont as the America East frontrunner and keeps them in the realm of best mid-majors in the country. Andre slots right into Everett Duncan's minutes and brings a major scoring and rebounding punch to the Cats. Andre uses his length and strength to get to the rim and finish in traffic. His rebounding numbers are really what jumps off the page. Andre is a tenacious rebounder on both the offensive and defensive glass. Over the last two seasons the Vermont coaching staff has dipped heavily into the transfer market which is an interesting shift. The Cats have always grabbed a transfer here and there to augment their homegrown players. Last season they filled an immediate need and now this season they are adding talent that will immediately step into the rotation. It signifies a shift into a very win now, maximize each season strategy. I would imagine that some of that shift this offseason is due to the recruiting season being shut down making it hard to get out and evaluate any unsigned young talent. Andre has had quite a circuitous journey during his basketball career. He played high school basketball in Florida, prepped in North Carolina, redshirted at DII Mercy College in NY, played one year of JUCO at Wallace State in Alabama, two seasons at NAU, and will suit up for Vermont next season. What a treat to have his final season be in Catamount Country!