Saturday Morning Blurb

The news is bad for St Mary's. Leading scorer Patty Mills is out for a month with a broken hand, which was suffered in the loss to Gonzaga Thursday night. St Mary's will need Carlin Hughes and Mickey McConnell to step in and handle the point guard duties. Look for teams like Portland and Gonzaga to double team Diamon Sampson and Omar Samhan and force the Gaels to hit their threes. Its on the Gaels' guards to step up here and ride the tide to Mills gets back for the conference tournament.

The Iona Lady Gaels moved to 6-5 in the MAAC and 13-9 overall with a 58-55 win over Loyola Md. Thazina Cook had her fifth double double of the season with 23 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Lady Gaels. Anda Ivkovic had 10 points, seven rebounds and a career-high nine assists. Kristina Ford added 12 points, seven rebounds and career-best seven steals. It was an ugly win as Iona only shot 32.5 overall and only 5 of 12 from the free throw line. However, Iona forced 28 Loyola turnovers which led to 26 more field goal attempts for the Gaels than the Greyhounds (and six more field goals for the Gaels). Iona now goes home to play the now seemingly perennial first place team in the MAAC, Marist (10-1 MAAC, 19-2 overall).

The CAA has a full slate on its schedule with all twelve teams playing each other. Of the six games being played, two are the most important. VCU (8-2 CAA, 15-6 overall) travels to Hempstead to play Hofstra (6-4 CAA, 14-7 overall) and George Mason (8-2 CAA, 15-5 overall) travels to Norfolk to face Old Dominion (5-5 CAA, 12-8 overall). VCU and Mason are tied for second while Hofstra is fifth and ODU sixth in the CAA. VCU and Mason seem to be set in the two/three slot positions. However, Hofstra and ODU are desperately trying to get into fourth place, which is the last first round bye spot in the CAA tournament. If Drexel (7-3 CAA, 11-8 overall) plays to form and wins at Towson today, a loss by both Hofstra and ODU would make it extremely difficult for both teams to finish fourth. With a loss and a Drexel win, Hofstra would be two games behind the Dragons and the Dragons have the tiebreaker, winning both games vs. the Pride this season. A loss by ODU and a Drexel win, and the Monarchs would be three games out of the fourth spot with seven games left.