Patriots face fierce battle in CAA

WASHINGTON—Over the past six seasons George Mason and Virginia Commonwealth have won either the Colonial Athletic Association regular season or tournament championship in men's basketball eight times.

In fact, the two have combined to reach the conference tournament finals in eight of the last 12 seasons, facing off three times.

The two clubs are expected to be at the top of the league again with returning talent as well as an infusion of youth.

And yet both the Patriots and Rams, who won both the regular season and tournament crowns last year, were passed over in favor of Old Dominion and Northeastern in the conference's preseason coaches' poll released at Tuesday's annual CAA Media Day held at ESPNZone in Washington, D.C.

"I think the conference is stronger this year than it was last year," said Jim Larranaga, entering his 13th season with GMU. "We may have three, four and possibly five [future] NBA players in the league right now."

Larranaga lists VCU's Larry Sanders, ODU's Gerald Lee, Matt Janning of Northeastern, Hofstra's Charles Jenkins and even his own Cam Long as likely future draft picks and wonders aloud if the conference has ever been this flush with prospective pro talent.

"I don't think the league has ever had this many [of those kinds of players], ever," Larranaga said. "You'd have to go back to the David Robinson-, Johnny Newman-era [in the mid-1980's]."

The preseason poll predicts the Monarchs—a team that includes 2008 Forest Park grad Chris Cooper—as the favorite to win the regular season with all five starters returning. ODU is the last team not named George Mason or Virginia Commonwealth to win a regular season title, doing so in 2005.

Despite the prognostication, this year could play out much like 2008-09 did, with teams battling for position all the way down to the final days. Five of the 12 teams in the conference won more than 20 games last year.

"I've been in the league just three short years," Northeastern's Bill Coen said, "but this is the deepest it's been in my tenure. So many good players, so many good coaches. It's going to make for a very exciting season.

"The level of play is getting better and better each year," Coen added. "Being the 25th anniversary [of the CAA], you look back at some of the players who played in the league and you really get an appreciation for the level of play. This year is more of the same."

Larranaga points to increased TV appearances by conference teams as the reason the trend continues.

"The way I look at it is that the league has improved in many facets of college basketball," he said. "We've gotten considerably more television exposure. We've had 483 TV appearances by CAA teams in the last three years."

With more exposure comes greater awareness among high school recruits and that leads to more talented athletes entering the league.

In addition to the rankings, the conference announced the preseason All-CAA first and second teams.

Jenkins and Lee were picked as Co-Players of the Year by the coaches. Jenkins was a first team all-conference player averaging 19.7 points and 4.8 rebounds per game while Lee scored 15.5 ppg and collected 5.7 rpg on his way to first team honors.

Long, a 6-foot-4 junior guard out of Freedom High School, was named to the first team after scoring 11.7 ppg last year. He started all 33 games last year and led the Patriots in scoring, assists (107), steals (37) and 3-point shooting percentage (40.4).

Long is also the returning rebounds leader for Mason after grabbing 158 as a sophomore when he was named to the all-conference third team and was an all-tournament first team honoree.

Staff writer Joe Conroy can be reached at 703-878-8047.