So it’s the Mondays after the holidays and you can expect how that went. Here on the homefront, I was barely able to get dinner dishes washed and get in front of the teevee for six 7pm tips.

Two were on teevee, and Drexel/Hofstra was on DragonVision (I made that up). With VCU on the radio and live stats for the other two games, sensory overload was in full order.

Worth it, even if we haven’t yet figured out Recap Day. Conference season is here, and I’m so very happy for it.

Anyway, and I’ve said this about 100 times since 8:30pm last night (and I’ll say it one more time): if last night’s action proved anything, it’s that this season is going to be fun. That is, provided your definition of fun is 12 CAA teams beating the crap out of each other.

***

Northeastern, without Chase Allen, took JMU to the wire in Harrisonburg. The Dukes needed Julius Wells to channel his inner Man With No Name, hitting nine of 11 threes, to prevail.

With Allen and Vinny Lima out, the four empty minutes Ben Felix played were the only minutes played by any Northeastern player older than a sophomore.

What We Learned: Dinko Marchcantspellit needs to play. Dinko is offensively gifted but not exactly a lockdown defender. Generally speaking, if you play for Bill Coen, you play defense. But Dinko hit for 23 points last night before fouling out, and he scored in a variety of ways. That’s a dynamic the Pups need.

In Philly, Hofstra pulled out a taut thriller over Drexel in a game that saw 50 fouls called and 59 foul shots taken. Here’s what Beach had to say.

What We Learned: Play the kiddies. David Imes (sophomore) had 20 points and eight rebounds, while senior Greg Washington had five fouls and no rebounds in 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable to sit a senior in favor of a sophomore, but sometimes the evidence is overwhelming.

Brian Mull on the continuing solid play from UNCW, and outstanding play from Chad Tomko. The Hawks prevailed in Williamsburg behind 20 points and six assists from Tomko.

What We Learned: Tanner Milson is obviously a coaches son. He just does things. Milson is completely overmatched physically, but makes plays. I’m going to think about a CAA comparable player, but it’s obvious.

We also learned, based on postgame comments to Mull, that Tony Shaver is getting very frustrated with his young team. That’s odd, and keep an eye on it.

ODU was one or two possessions from being 0-2, if you can believe that. However the Monarchs were tough all night on defense, and Darius James hit a big three late (stop me if you’ve heard that before) to keep the MonarchNation from imploding.

What We Learned: ODU is not that much better, nor Towson worse, than everybody else. Towson is the RPI 240 team and ODU the RPI 23 team, and this one went to the final 10 seconds.

Speaking  of implosion, RamNation isn’t wine and roses today after Georgia State downed VCU in Atlanta. Eric Buckner scored 28 points to lead the way. Buckner has made 33 of his last 39 field goal attempts. That’s damned impressive.

What We Learned: Georgia State is 2-0, and VCU desperately needs somebody to take the rest of the team by the collar and shake it. Also of note: Bradford Burgess scored 13 points in the first half on 6-8 shooting, and took only one shot in the second half. That can’t happen.

Mason got past YouDee in a very well played game. Ryan Pearson showed why he’s a fave around these parts, and Mason displayed balance like I cannot remember. Side note: good to see that Malcolm Hawkins is okay. If you saw his spill you’d be concerned. It looked ugly, but reports say he has regained full use of his extremeties.

What We Learned: Mike Morrison’s next move is to drop-kick free throws. He’s trying everything his FT woes. Last night he had one foot so far behind him I thought he was in a yoga pose, not shooting a free throw.