THE GOOD NEWS Joe Mihalich is a quality coach. He brings in quality players and had been to the postseason three of the last four years before coming up just short in 2008. He does lose star Charron Fisher and key sidekick Stanley Hodge, but the Eagles have the rest of their cast back for 2008-09.
THE BAD NEWS Replacing a Charron Fisher is never easy. Hey, the guy scored 800 points and was the second-leading scorer in the country this season. Stanley Hodge was an important part of this team, too. That's 40.9 points per game combined in those two players.
KEY RETURNEES G Tyrone Lewis becomes a junior next year and is a quality player. PG Anthony Nelson had a strong freshman year. C Benson Egemonye came on as a presence inside.
ROSTER REPORT
--The 19 regular-season wins by Niagara ties the high for the Joe Mihalich era and included the title at the Cable Car Classic and a win at rival St. John's.
--F Charron Fisher, who lost the battle for MAAC Player of the Year to Rider's Jason Thompson, was second in the country in scoring. He had 23 points and 16 rebounds in the MAAC tournament loss to Marist.
--Fisher was named to the USBWA's Men's All-District Team as well as first-team All-MAAC.
--He led the conference in scoring, was second in minutes played, third in rebounding, 3-pointers and steals, and sixth in free-throw percentage.
--G Tyrone Lewis was second-team All-MAAC.
--G Anthony Newlson made the league's All-Rookie team and finished third in the conference in assists and fourth in assist/turnover ratio.
--C Benson Egemonye led the league in field-goal percentage, was second in offensive rebounds and fifth in blocked shots.
--G Stanley Hodge was 10th in the MAAC in scoring.
--The Purple Eagles led the league in rebounding but were last in rebounds allowed, were second in the conference in steals, turnover margin, free-throw percentage and 3-point defense percentage and third in offense and 3-pointers. However, Niagara was ninth in defense and field-goal percentage and 10th in 3-point percentage.
Copyright (C) 2008 The Sports Xchange. All Rights Reserved.
As the school year winds down, the recruiting news slowly starts to eke in.
It seems NU has scored a major coup with the signing of Austin Cooley from D.C.
He is reputed ot be a player who could have been recruited at the higher NCAA levels and can contribute as a freshman, although I'm hoping we don't need him to.
A quality Siena win over Vanderbilt, which was a true 20 point win over a good SEC foe says a lot for the quality of play in the MAAC. This was obviously not a shared view, however, as Rider was passed up for the NIT. Ridiculous that this league can not get an NIT bid for their runner-up when they let sub .500 teams into that tourney.
It seems more and more that the NCAA is about the bi
Finally Fisher is gone from this team. Hodge, Benson and Gordon played like crap.
Can't wait to see Lewis, Nelson, Big Benson, Garrison and the kid from Villanova
They have no Front Court - Fisher's a fat slob who won't play D and Hodge disappears in another big game. Gordon shouldnt even be on the team he stinks. Lack of depth and a
A disappointing season ender, but overall really a successful season when you consider 4 starters were replaced. That's a tough job. Now, we have an interesting off-season with Joe Mihalich needing a big recruiting year in more ways than one. We need some size!
6'8" Eric Williams from Montreal has given a verbal commitment and the question is what do we have in Kashief Edwa
Well, the Eagles land the #3 seed and get to play Marist in the Quarters late Saturday nite. Not a great draw, but they'd probably have to beat Siena and Rider no matter what seed they got. I think they got the toughest game in the quarters.
It was a stretch to think we would win this one, but a fairly close first half was followed by a whipping in the second half. Still, though, the old axiom that "it's tough to beat a team a third time; might come into play if we get them in the finals, although if we slide to fourth it could be the semi's when we see Siena again.
Got a long time to get ready for this one, as do they. Would be a huge huge win and put us in the driver seat so to speak but nothing is easy in this league. Would be a very huge win to win up there. Siena will be the favorite in the MAAC tourney in their backyard and Rider get's a lot of pub with Thompson. Hopefully Fisher stays under the radar and somebody else like Lewi
