Vermont Catamounts Update

The America East conference regular season starts tonight for the Catamounts and it could be their toughest game on the schedule.

The Cats went 9-4 during a challenging out of conference schedule highlighted by a 3rd place finish at the Rainbow Classic tournament held in Hawaii in late December. UVM was able to pick up two high quality wins in Hawaii in George Washington of the Atlantic 10 and Colorado of the Big 12.

The Cats start out tonight on the road against Binghamton who, after a rough start to the season, have started to gel and are playing as well as any team in the conference. Binghamton is lead by a barrage of transfers including D.J. Rivera who is currently leading the conference in scoring.

Vermont heads into conference play as the clear favorite to go dancing in March. A strong conference record could also improve their chances of getting a top notch bracketbuster opponent and with that another chance to show the post season committees what kind of team this is.

For the America East, the first place team gets home court advantage for the championship game and automatically gets invited to the NIT tournament.

Game time tonight will be 7:00pm and will be shown regionally on Time Warner Sports and can be watched online at www.bubearcats.tv for $5.

Vermont Catamounts Update

Marqus Blakely's dominance did not go unnoticed by the league coaches this year. On Friday it was announced that Blakely had won the league's Player of Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards. It marks the first time any player has won both awards in the same season. Oh yea, one more thing...he's a sophomore! Congrats Marqus!

Vermont earned the 4th seed in the America East tournament and played tourney host #5 Binghamton today. Vermont had a huge disadvantage going in considering Binghamton basically had a home game in the tournament (don't get me started...the tournament should ALWAYS be held in Boston. At least there are things to do when your team isn't playing in Boston...what the hell is there in Binghamton? A pawn shop?) Anyway...after playing like crap in the first half and digging themselves a 30-23 hole...the Cats roared back in the second half to win 65-57 to advance to the conference semi-finals against #1 seed UMBC. It will be a tough matchup for the Cats but certainly a game they can win if they are playing their best.

Interesting note...if Boston University beats Albany tonight and also wins their semi-final matchup tomorrow along with UVM winning, Vermont would host the tournament championship next Saturday.

Vermont has made it to their conference championship game 5 straight years, they are now one game away from making it 6.

GO CATS!

(Binghamton sucks...)

Vermont Catamounts Update

Timmy is back!

Thank god for Tim McCrory. The oft-injured center for the Catamounts has been battling turf toe all year but finally was able to put in a very productive 32 minutes for the Cats, finishing with 15 points and 8 rebounds in a 63-58 win over a good Harvard team. The win improved the Cats' record to 3-6 (yes, disapointing but its been an injury plagued season and they've only played one home game so far.)

Mike Trimboli has been stepping up his play with all the injuries, pushing his points per game average over 20 as well have shooting at significantly better percentages than his career numbers.

Marqus Blakely, arguably the best player in the team, has been out the last few games with a foot injury. He is expected to miss the next game against Deleware but could be ready for a return after that. Getting him and McCrory on the court at the same time would give the Cats a frontcourt with more athleticism than almost all mid-major schools out there. Hopefully we won't have to see much more of Ryan Shields lumbering up and down the court like a 5th grader with asthma.

The schedule gets much easier for the Cats as they have three straight home games before the conference season starts up. If they can win these next three, the out of conference record would have to be considered a success considering all the injuries this team has suffered so far.

In a good sign for the future of the program, Cats signee Jordan Clarke has now won two tournament MVP awards in the early going as he has led Our Lady of Good Council (Maryland) to 6-1 start against very good high school competition. He's looking like a recruiting steal for the Catamounts.

America East Scores

America East Scores

Nov.9 - Boston U. 64...St. Bonaventure 58
Nov.9 - George Mason 62...Vermont 74
Nov.9 - Villanova 89...Stony Brook 56
Nov.9 - Hartford 68...St.Francis (NY) 59
Nov.10 - BC 76...UNH 56
Nov.10 - Albany 63...Bucknell 70
Nov.10 - UMBC 74...St. Peter's 58
Nov.11 - Virginia 67...Vermont 68
Nov.11 - Hartford 71...Quinnipiac 64

Season Record: 0-0

Vermont Catamounts Update

So the greatest team in college men's basketball went 2-0 in the exhibition season. Beating up on Concordia (they may be Canadian but they beat Illinois) and St. Mikes (they just suck).

The Cats start the regular season Friday against George Mason in what promises to be an epic battle between mid-major powerhouses! The Cats follow up that game against Virginia on Sunday.

Here's a good VIDEO preview.

The coaches picked the Cats 3rd in the conference but what do they know?

Mike Trimboli (Pre-Season All-Conference selection) and Marqus Blakely will be two of the best players in the conference and should be able to lead this team to a successful season.