Anyone Can Play Spoiler As CAA Tourney Begins In Charleston

It may be a stretch to say any team in the Colonial Athletic Association could win the Colonial Athletic Association Tournament, but anybody in the field could certainly win a game or two to really disrupt things.

As the 10 teams head to North Charleston, S.C., with the league’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament on the line, Hofstra, which led the CAA race from wire to wire, is the top seed and the favorite. But second-seeded Northeastern made a late surge to challenge the Pride for the regular-season crown and No. 3 College of Charleston is the defending champion playing with something of a home-court advantage across town from its campus.

“Hofstra and Charleston are two great clubs with great balance on their teams,” Northeastern coach Bill Coen said. “Obviously Hofstra has, in my opinion, the player of the year in the conference [senior guard Justin Wright-Foreman] and whenever you have the best player you’re going to give yourself a chance each and every night.”

Then there’s Shaver’s William & Mary squad. The Tribe ride a five-game winning streak into the tournament as the No. 4 seed, and W&M’s veteran coach made it clear that he included his squad among those with a legitimate shot to cut down the nets on Tuesday.

“I definitely think we can win the tournament,” Shaver said. “I really do. We have to be good everyday, and that’s one of our bugaboos a little bit. We haven’t been as consistent as we want. But the last three weeks we’ve been pretty consistent.”

Of course, as James Madison fans are all too aware of, there’s business to be sorted out before the top four even take the court. The tournament opens today at 4 p.m. with the eighth-seeded Dukes taking on No. 9 Towson for the right to play Hofstra in the quarterfinals. That game is followed by No. 7 Elon against No. 10 UNC Wilmington.

So as teams look at facing familiar conference opponents for the third time, the coaches look for any new wrinkle or advantage they can come up with. But it’s not easy.

“It’s just kind of business as usual,” Charleston coach Earl Grant said. “I think the players know as much about the players and the teams as the coaches when you are playing somebody for a third time, so you really don’t do anything special. I think the most important thing is to make sure we improve.”