I attend the CAA tournament every year and every year I am amazed at how bad the shooting is in most of the games.The tournament is held every year in the Richmond Coliseum which is a venue that none of the teams visit during the regular season.The Coliseum is much more spacious than any of the on campus facilities and I think that teams have a real problem with depth perception for some reason.That could explain the terrible shooting % numbers that routinely occur during the CAA tournament and why very good shooters like Matt Janning and John Vaughan both took shots from the top of the key last year and missed everything and why most every team struggled from behind the arc.
The Under cashes at a very high rate in these games as it was 8-1-2 last year,7-4 in '08,and 7-4 in '07.In the last 3 years the Under is 10-2 in round 2.Here are some stats from last year's tournament;
Game #1- GSU 54 DEL.41 Total falls 33 points under as both teams combine to shoot 5/34 from 3pt.(14.7%).
Game #2- Hofstra 79 UNCW 66 Total pushes
Game #3- JMU 70 W&M 48 Total falls 11 points under as both teams combine to shoot 17/29 from the foul line and W&M shoots 1/18 from 3pt.(5.5%).
Game #4- Towson 73 Drexel 62 Total goes over by 12 in a foul fest as there are 72 free throws shot.It took Drexel 7 minutes to score their first points,they had 14 at the half,and shot just 3/18 from 3 pt.(16.6%).
Game #5- VCU 61 GSU 52 Total falls under by 9. VCU is the one team that always shoots well in the Coliseum but their strong defense keeps their game totals low.
Game #6- ODU 52 Hofstra 51 Total falls under by 20.5 as Gerald Lee was on fire but the rest of the Monarchs shot 8/37fg (21.6%),2/13 from 3pt.(15.3%),and 8/19 from the foul line(42%).
Game #7- GMU 61 JMU 53 Total falls under by 14.5 as teams combine to shoot 36/114fg (31.5%) and 6/34 from 3pt.(17.6%).
Game #8- Towson 58 N'Eastern 54 Total falls 17 points under.
Game #9- VCU 61 ODU 53 Total falls under by 9.5 as ODU shoots 16/50fg (32%) and 1/9 from 3pt. (11%).
Game #10- GMU 56 Towson 48 Total falls under by 22 as both teams combine to shoot 52% from the foul line.
Game 11- VCU 71 GMU 50 Total pushes.
2008 - 1st round Under 3-1, 2nd round 2-2, Semis 2-0,CG 0-1
2007- 1st round Under 1-3, 2nd round 4-0, Semis 1-1, CG 1-0
I'm hoping that this trend continues as I will be blindly backin' the under in all 11 games this weekend.
I hope that this information is useful for some of you guys,I will be adding some more CAA stats,facts,notes,etc. to follow.