We’ll get to the game tonight and the games upcoming later today. Random stats I didn’t create (but like) are below.

***

Mull took the challenge, and so will you. We’re going to have our very first contest at CAA: LAMM. We’ll launch it in the next few days, but announcing it now so you can think a little. (It also gives me a chance to build the whole thing.)

Here’s what I’m going to want: your first team All CAA picks, and the player of the year. I also need to create a random, subjective question for you. The CAA is providing some t-shirts as prizes, and I’m close to getting tickets to Friday’s games as the grand prize.

Because there are multiple prizes, I want something creative. Just need to figure it all out. Details will come in the next day or two, but get prepared.

***

In the effort to “extend the brand,” we’ve strongarmed convinced the good people over at College Chalk Talk to run a weekly column dedicated to the CAA. First entry is tomorrow, and you’d better believe we’ll provide the direct link.

For those that are unaware, College Chalk Talk is, duh, a website devoted to college basketball. However the folks that run it have enlisted the aid of coaches, a great new angle for all of us. An astonishing number of coaches submit diaries to the site so that you can get some first person news and notes on Your Team.

Memo to CAA assistants: UNCWs Brooks Lee agreed to begin providing a diary to the site, and three days later was named interim head coach. Coincidence? Absolutely, but it’s way more fun with my story.

***

As previously mentioned, we have great fans in this conference. When I say that, I’m not talking about bandwaggoners nor just the teams at the top. It’s everybody, and this hit me over the weekend as I read the comments of Mat Schleissel.

Schleissel is responsible for an incredible amount of information and analysis of Towson athletics. He is a straight shooter who won’t mince words when things are bad. He’s one of those guys whose word is good.

“It’s been a fun, but grueling nine seasons covering the top three sports at Towson: basketball, football and men’s lacrosse,” he says. “For whatever reason, the hiring of Rob Ambrose, a former classmate of mine, re-energized the interest in Towson football and that may have eclipsed basketball. The expectations were fairly high for the basketball team coming off a semi-finals appearance in the CAA Tournament, but the very poor start has diminished the hopes for most fans.”

Schleissel is a lifelong Marylander who graduated from “Towson State” in 1992. He was the sports editor for the school newspaper and the assistant sports director of the student radio station. He has worked in radio and print media since then, and continues to follow Towson sports on CAAzone and has freelanced for Press Box Weekly (not Monthly) and The Examiner.

Asked about the difficulty of covering a struggling basketball team, Schleissel is predictably forthright:

“The losing wears on you and the fans. There are times during games where I feel like I’m blogging to myself. Towson entered this year with 13 straight losing seasons and this will be number 14. I’ve covered three different coaches since Terry Truax lost his job in the mid-nineties and each one has been unsuccessful. It’s nearly impossible to retain a fan base when students have witnessed nothing but despair.”

Towson has also endured some tough breaks.

“In some respects they are snakebit,” says Schleissel. “Under Pat Kennedy, they’ve lost talented players under the most bizarre circumstances that I probably can’t get into too deeply. Most recently, 6-5 forward Ricardo Brown, a tremendous athlete from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, left the program after never even seeing one minute on the floor. He won the dunk contest at the Charm City Challenge in 2007. Tommy Breaux was another phenomenal athlete, who fell in love with football and played just one season of basketball.

“While Kennedy has been criticized for taking on too many transfers, he hasn’t had a lot of success with freshmen either. With a new “companion” arena about ready to be built (starting this summer), there are no more excuses. The Towson Center is one of the worst and outdated buildings in the CAA, but a new arena is not going to be a “quick fix”. Towson renovated Unitas Stadium and built a modern field house in 2001 and the team has struggled to compete.”

Schleissel posts most of his stuff at the Towson boards on the CAA Zone. It is definitely worth a look.

***

Before you read further, there were five men’s basketball players named to the CAAs 25 Silver Stars team. Name them.

As a culmination to the CAA’s 25th Anniversary celebration, a committee of administrators from each of the CAA’s 12 member institutions was given the daunting task of selecting the 25 student-athletes who have had the greatest impact on the conference over the past 25 years.

Statistical note: more than 50,000 student-athletes have competed in the CAA over the past 25 years.

OK, the answer: Daivd Robinson, Johnny Newman, George Evans, Brett Blizzard, and Eric Maynor.

***

Statistical nuggets for the break room:

• Matt Janning and Chris Fouch share the conference POW honors. Obviously this makes Fouch the rookie of the week.
• The top teams in the CAA standings are all playing well. Northeastern has captured 14 of its last 15, VCU has won four in a row and eight of its last nine, Drexel has won five of its last six, Old Dominion has won eight of its last 10 and George Mason has won nine of its last 12. The only two losses outside of “to each other” are Drexel losing at The Pugs, and Mason losing in Atlanta.
• Old Dominion has the fifth-longest home winning streak in the nation at 20 games.
• George Mason has captured a school-record tying 17 consecutive CAA home contests heading into its home game with VCU.
• The CAA has four teams ranked among the top 55 in the latest RPI released by Collegiate Basketball News through games of 2/7: ODU (#38), The Pugs (#52), VCU (#53), Northeastern (#54). Drexel moved into the top 100 at #95. It is the first time this season the CAA has had five teams in the top 100.
• Only five conferences (Big East – 8, Big 12 – 8, ACC – 6, Atlantic 10 – 6, SEC – 5) have more than four teams in the top 55 of the RPI. The Big Ten and Mountain West also have four.
• Matt Janning is four rebounds shy of joining Dave Caligaris as the only players in school history with at least 1,500 points, 500 rebounds and 300 assists in a career. Janning ranks fifth on NU’s career points list (1,691) and is sixth in assists (323).
• The CAA features five of the nation’s top 31 players in blocked shots. Towson’s Robert Nwankwo is 8th (3.4 bpg), VCU’s Larry Sanders is 23rd (2.6 bpg), Hofstra’s Greg Washington is 24th (2.6 bpg), UNCW’s John Fields is 25th (2.5 bpg) and Northeastern’s Nkem Ojougboh is 31st (2.4 bpg).