We’ll get to The Tribe, Tony Shaver, and his mustache a little later. It was a huge weekend worthy of a Thanksgiving Feast and those guys deserve their own post. So we’re going to wrap everything up from the weekend, in the Non-William & Mary Division.

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Weekend Head Shaker

I’m a little surprised it came this early, but bridge-jumping has officially begun in Norfolk. Blaine Taylor, in one weekend, lost all his coaching ability. The same guy that Monarchs fans compared favorably to John Wooden is being compared to John Goodman. Hysterical, these fans (but I cannot blame them).

Old Dominion lost twice this weekend in Texas (Missouri and Mississippi State). It wasn’t the losses as much as it was the “how.” Against Missouri, ODU played a first half that ended with five field goals made and 17 turnovers. It is a testament to the ODU defense that they were only down 12.

There was one sequence that sums up the entire weekend. Despite playing poorly, ODU had whittled Missouri’s lead to four with about six minutes to play. (It may have been five, but the point is that ODU had a chance to make it a one-possession game. A Malbec Memory may twist a few details.)

So ODU runs a play and Darius James has Gerald Lee isolated on the block. Simple bounce pass gets the ball into the hands of the preseason CAA co-POY, four feet from the basket with a lone defender on his hip. Seriously, my 71-year old mother could get Lee the ball in that situation. James inexplicably chose not to pass, but drive right at Lee and his defender. James’s layup was a brick, and Missouri went the other way.

Stay off the ledge ODU fans. Taylor is still a good coach, you still have a talented team, and the errors were the same ones Taylor corrected last year.

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Weekend Eyebrow Raiser

How about this from Chase Allen? Northeastern held on to beat our friend Brad Brownell’s Wright State team over the weekend 70-67. Only I’m not sure “held on” is the right terminology. The Huskies fell behind by double digits in the first half, and gagged away a late eight-point lead. Wright State missed a free throw that led to Allen’s victorious heave. How would you term that, other than “great college basketball game.”

Here’s what I noticed, other than two big threes from our guy Baptiste Bataille. Alwayne Bigby played 29 minutes and Vinny Lima four. The difference was 33 to seven in the previous game. Plus, three freshman saw PT for Bill Coen. Put a marker on this game.

It also depicts the beauty of the Youtube. (My favorite part is Paws the mascot getting flattened in the celebration at the 21-second mark. You youngsters never had to wait for the morning boxscore and gamer. I’ve experienced both, and this web stuff is WAY BETTER.

The shot brings the CAA to 1-1 on halfcourt gamewinners on the season.

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Weekend Note Taker

Towson gave up an 18-point lead in losing to Dayton.

Drexel went 2-1 in the Legends Classic. The Dragons beat Vermont and Toledo before losing to Cornell. Drexel is starting to look like Drexel–very little inside game and a bunch of attacking guards.

Mason looked verrry sloppy in its loss to Tulane, but really this is the kind of thing that hindsight sees as expected. Young team, in a travel dead zone, holidays, etc. I wouldn’t sweat it if I’m part of Mason Nation. VCU has a similar game against Tulane near Christmas.

However Ryan Pearson, a guy we like in these parts, will sit a game. Apparently Pearson proved he is 20 years old and took a souvenir pillow from his hotel room. Jim Larranaga did what he needed to do and suspended the big man for one game.

The lesson: don’t be an idiot and you get to play basketball. It really isn’t that difficult of a concept to understand.

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Much more on the way, if you aren’t already CAAd out.