The 2024-25 regular season came and went in the blink of an eye.
Now it’s March, and in college basketball, March is synonymous with one thing: tournament season. Of course there’s the big one — March Madness – but there are dozens of conference tournaments to be played first, where each will populate an NCAA seed line with their eventual champions. Across the country, hundreds of schools will be vying, with everything they have, to reach that mountaintop, all against the backdrop of a sudden-death environment.
The CAA, of course, will be no different. All of the conference’s 14 teams will gather in Washington, D.C. for a five-day tournament in which the winner punches their ticket to the Big Dance… while the remaining 13, in all likelihood, will go home.
No matter how it plays out, it’ll be a spectacle; when you play every game with dreams on the line, it usually is. Even within the context of a CAA that displayed some impressive parity this season, there are still heavy favorites (Towson, UNCW), long-shot underdogs (Stony Brook, NC A&T) and dangerous loomers (pretty much everybody else). With that brief prelude out of the way, let’s dive in, team by team.
(Quick note: this is opinion based, and teams are in order of how I perceive them.. Numbers reflect seeds.)
The Favorite Tier
No. 2 UNC Wilmington Seahawks
The Seahawks have some weird losses on their resume, but the analytics love this bunch — and for good reason. With nine players playing at least 39% of the team’s minutes, it’s a deep team, and one with tons of experience. To boot, seven of those nine stand at least 6-foot-5, creating matchup problems all over the court. Senior guard Donovan Newby paces the offense, but there are eight players on this roster averaging at least seven a night. The one Achilles heel? They don’t shoot many threes, and their defense bleeds them. Whoever beats the Seahawks has to get — and stay — hot from beyond the arc, while keeping Newby quiet and junior forwards Khamari McGriff and Harlan Obioha from dominating them physically. The problem there, though? Even doing one of those things is a tall task — let alone all three. It isn’t difficult to envision them ripping off three wins in as many days.
The Inner Circle Tier
No. 1 Towson Tigers
Towson ripped through the CAA, cruising to a 16-2 record and a comfortable CAA regular season title. The star sophomore duo of Tyler Tejada and Dylan Williamson have led the way, but the supporting cast has been equally excellent. Senior guard Nendah Tarke and junior guard Christian May provide top-tier secondary scoring, and Toniwa Sulaiman adds a talented, physical presence down low. TU couples an elite-shooting, ball-secure offense with a cagey, restrictive defense, and they have the isolation chops to win close games. However, they aren’t teflon, and any team who can keep them off the offensive boards and limit one or both of their youthful, inexperienced duo has a real chance to upset Pat Skerry’s guys.
No. 3 Charleston Cougars
These are not yesterday’s Cougars, but nobody expected them to be. After dominating the CAA for two-straight years (and appearing in two straight NCAA tournaments) Charleston hit a bit of a blip under new coach Chris Mack. That isn’t to say this isn’t a good team, though. CofC still maintains a very efficient offense spearheaded by superstar forward Ante Brzovic, with ample support around him such as CJ Fulton, Deywilk Tavarez, and Derrin Boyd. Strangely, the offense has hit weird slumps at times, but the concern here lies on the defensive end, where the Cougars struggle to protect the paint or generate turnovers. If Charleston does make a run, it’ll be because of sophomore forward Lazar Djokovic, who’s flashed game-changing potential defensively, recording a whopping three blocks per game alongside a team-best 101.3 defensive rating in conference play. I don’t see it, though — if they shoot poorly, their sieve of a defense could give way to an early exit.
If, Then Tier
No. 9 Elon Phoenix
Elon has four players scoring at least fourteen points per game; twin guards TK and TJ Simpkins, Nick Dorn, and forward Sam Sherry. Those four are followed up by 7’4” center Matthew Van Komen, giving the Phoenix a dizzyingly talented starting five. However, the Phoenix are like a bad football team. They rank dead last in the CAA in both turnovers forced and turnovers committed, as opponents are gifted extra shot after extra shot. To make matters worse, they’re one of the poorer shooting teams in the league, connecting on just 32% of their threes, and opponents tend to have a field day on the glass when Van Komen sits. Even through all that, they’ve beaten Towson, UNCW, Monmouth, Campbell, Northeastern, and Drexel, and despite their three-game slide to end the season, there’s so much talent — and upset potential — here to ignore. If they can limit turnovers and keep Van Komen on the floor, then they’re worth keeping an eye on.
No. 8 Drexel Dragons
There may not be a more confusing team in the CAA. Despite having three of the best (and most efficient) scorers in the conference in Kobe MaGee, Yame Butler, and Jason Drake, the Dragons have just the 11th most efficient attack in the league, mostly due to turnovers. They’re defensively solid, with a collection of rangy, switch-everything players, but tertiary pieces such as forwards Cole Hargrove and Victor Panov need to find another level to get to. In tournament time, though, when buckets often come at a premium, I trust the star trio to carry the offense — and protect the ball in the process. They’ll face a tough matchup waiting in round one, though, with Elon’s size and skill posing a real problem against the smaller Dragons. If they can get by Elon, Towson in round two isn’t a bad draw, and you don’t want to bet against MaGee and Butler.
No. 6 Monmouth Hawks
Dubbed at one point “the best 2-10 team in the country,” the Hawks turned around a dreadful non-conference curriculum vitae to finish 10-8 in-league. Monmouth is here for one reason — Abdi Bashir, who can take over games in the blink of an eye and finished the year leading the entire country in three-pointers made. The guard reached double-digit scoring in 28 games, and has the firepower to win ball games alone. His supporting cast is a mixed bag — sophomore big man Cornelius Robinson had his moments, as did junior guard Madison Durr — but there are concerns about depth and a defense that bled offensive rebounds. If Bashir can string together four straight star performances, the Hawks have a shot; if not, it’ll likely be a swift exit.
There’s Something Here, but I Don’t Know What It Is Tier
No. 7 Northeastern Huskies
Bill Coen’s group plays hard, plays together, and is almost never out of a game. Superstar guard Rashad King’s career year has him in CAA Player of the Year conversations, and his play can single-handedly keep Northeastern afloat for large chunks of games. It starts to get a bit fuzzy after that, though: inconsistency has plagued most of the rest of the roster, which blew out Hampton on the road only to have the Pirates blow them out in Boston eight days later. Guys like LA Pratt, Harold Woods, and William Kermoury will need to play their best ball if the Huskies are to make a run, and they’ll need to collectively guard the three-point arc — something they neglected to a CAA-worst 37.1% against in the regular season. Elsewhere, junior big man Collin Metcalf will have to stay out of foul trouble, and the health of star scoring guard Masai Troutman will be under the microscope if he can in fact return to action for the tournament. There’s enough here to make a run, but Northeastern will have to harness four games of their best basketball since November if anything’s to come to fruition.
No. 4 William & Mary Tribe
After leaping out to a 7-1 CAA start, the Tribe have lost six of their last 10 and enter the CAA tournament on a three-game slide. Brian Earl’s unique pressing, run-and-gun style has worked to an extent, but a high turnover rate and low offensive rebound rate coupled with an incredibly high reliance on the three-point shot makes W&M susceptible on any given day. Look for them to slow it down and play offense through senior Gabe Dorsey, while looking to press teams into oblivion. The issue? Their style of basketball is simply too volatile and too tiring to win three games in three days. Barring something dramatic, it’s hard to see a path to the NCAAs as currently constructed.
No. 5 Campbell Camels
Maybe I’m too low on Campbell, but the Camels have struggled to a 2-5 clip since star guard Jasin Sinani suffered a season-ending injury, including four straight losses — three of which were blowouts — to close out the regular season. The motor here is star sophomore Colby Duggan, who’s been superb, but it starts thinning out after that; Nolan Dorsey has flashed ability, but even he probably isn’t ready to serve as a primary creator when Duggan sits. Campbell does boast an excellent defense, leading the CAA in steals and efficiency, and opponents only shoot 29% from beyond the arc against the Camels. In their last three, though, that number is up above 45%, and both Northeastern and NC A&T managed to beat them without shooting well, a glaring sign of offensive weakness. Someone will have to step up in a big, big way offensively for the Camels to make a dent.
No 10 Hampton Pirates
The Pirates will be licking their lips at the sight of Northeastern and UNCW in their path to the semifinal, having beaten both of them — soundly — during the month of February. That was part of a five-game win streak that saw Hampton move up the league table before back-to-back tight losses at Drexel and Towson dropped them back to the 10-line. This roster is rife with talent — Noah Farrakhan and George Beale serve as elite isolation guards, Kyrese Mullen’s huge frame patrols the paint, and guys such as Xzavier Long and Wayne Bristol provide quality depth scoring. The problems? Free throw shooting (dead last) and overall efficiency (12th) tend to bite them, and the streaky, inconsistent Pirates are no stranger to slow starts. They found a formula during that win streak, though, and will look to ride the hot hand of any number of talented scorers to win four in a row.
Don’t You Know There Are Two Sides Of The Court Tier
No. 12 Delaware Blue Hens
However bad Hofstra’s offense is (you’ll read all about that momentarily), Delaware’s defense is worse. The Hens’ final season in the conference has seen them rank at or near the bottom in defensive efficiency, eFG%, block%, and a myriad of other metrics. Offensively, stars like senior guard John Camden (maybe the best shooter in the conference) and Izaiah Pasha can win you games, and Cavan Reilly and Niels Lane do plenty of complementary work, but the Blue Hens will enter tournament play having lost 11-of-12, including an active six-game losing streak in which they gave up 75 or more points in each game. A play-in matchup with Stony Brook favors the Hens, but they’ll need to cover their basket in plastic wrap to go much further.
No. 11 Hofstra Pride
Hofstra is… offensively challenged. The Pride have two shifty sophomore scoring guards in Cruz Davis and Jean Aranguren, but the offense as a whole ranks among the bottom of the CAA in virtually every category. It showed; in their twelve conference losses, they only topped 67 points twice, and were held under 60 on seven occasions in CAA play. In better news for the Pride, their defense is excellent, with names such as Michael Graham and Silas Sunday imposing their will in the paint. Unfortunately for Hofstra, barring some offensive explosion, they’re just playing on too slanted of a court to be a threat.
Hit The Recruiting Trail Tier
No. 13 Stony Brook Seawolves
A year removed from falling just short in overtime of the championship game, a radically different Seawolves team completely collapsed, ranking near the bottom of the conference in almost every metric. Junior guard CJ Luster and his 42% three-point stroke provide some flashes of offense, but for the most part, Stony Brook loses — and they lose badly. Maybe a two-game win streak over Hofstra and Elon shoots some momentum into this team, but it’d be a shock if they even make it through round one.
No. 14 North Carolina A&T Aggies
Barring divine intervention, the CAA Tournament will spell the end of what’s been a catastrophic season for the Aggies, who lost three players (including their leading scorers) to mid-season suspension. Sophomore big Nikolaos Chitikoudis has been something of a revelation in recent weeks, helping drag A&T to three wins in their last six, but those three wins came by a combined five points, and the overall record (3-15) and league-worst offense speak for themselves.
Predictions
This is as interesting of a bracket as I’ve seen in some time.
There’s a remarkable amount of parity, and only one or two clear favorites, each of whom are quite beatable. The first round matchups are fascinating, and the stylistic differences should play a fun role as the tournament wears on.
I won’t bore you, though — here are my picks, game by game.
No. 12 Delaware over No. 13 Stony Brook
No. 11 Hofstra over No. 14 NC A&T
No. 9 Elon over No. 8 Drexel
No. 12 Delaware over No. 5 Campbell
No. 7 Northeastern over No. 10 Hampton
No. 6 Monmouth over No. 11 Hofstra
No. 9 Elon over No. 1 Towson
No. 4 William & Mary over No. 12 Delaware
No. 2 UNCW over No. 7 Northeastern
No. 6 Monmouth over No. 3 Charleston
No. 9 Elon over No. 4 William & Mary
No. 2 UNCW over No. 6 Monmouth
No. 2 UNCW over No. 9 Elon
It should be a fun five days.